So I had virtually fallen into the hands of my ticket to Franzini's pipeline. My convivial, jesting companion, who gave a first impression of being a comic-opera Mafioso, must be pretty damned sharp under that talkative, wine-drinking mien. Either that, or Uncle Joseph had managed to shield his nephew from the ugly realities of organized crime, shuttling him safely into a legitimate end of the family operation.
Toward the middle of the afternoon on our third day of carousing, I made my move to determine the extent of Louie Lazaro's involvement in Uncle Joe's extra-legal affairs.
We were in the Red Fez, each table tucked into its own little walled niche, rather like stalls in a cow barn. Louie was sprawled loosely in his chair, one lock of black hair beginning to droop over his forehead. I sat erect but relaxed, my forearms on the little wooden table, drawing on what felt like my fortieth Galoise of the day.
"Hey, fella!" Louie burbled. "You're okay." He paused, examining his watch as people do when they're conscious of time, even when they're thinking in terms of days, weeks, or months instead of hours, minutes, or seconds. "We oughta get together back in the States. When you goin' back?"
I shrugged. "Know where I can get a good passport?" I asked casually.
He raised his eyebrows, but there was no surprise in his eyes. People with passport troubles were a way of life with Louie Lazaro. "Don't you have one?"
I sipped at my wine, frowning. "Sure. But…" Let him draw his own conclusions.
He smiled knowingly, waving his hand in dismissal. "But you do come from Palermo, right?"
"Right."
"And you grew up in New Orleans?"
"Right."
"Four years in the French Foreign Legion?"
"Right. What have you been doing, Louie? Taking notes?"
He grinned disarmingly. "Ah, you know. Just makin' sure T got things right."
"Right," I said. I knew where his questions were heading — at least I hoped I did — even if he didn't want to get to the point right away.
He picked up the cross-examination like any good prosecutor. "And the last couple years, you've been… uh… hanging round Beirut?"
"Right." I poured some more wine into each of our glasses.
"Well." He dragged it out, looking thoughtful. "I could probably arrange it if you really want to get back to the States."
I glanced over my shoulder just for effect "I sure as hell have to get out of here."
He nodded. "Maybe I can help you, but…"
"But what?"
"Well," he grinned that disarming grin again. "I don't really know much about you except you got a lot of guts."
I weighed the situation carefully. I didn't want to play my trump card too quickly. On the other hand, this could be my cracking point and I could always — if events warranted it — eliminate Louie.
I pulled the metal cigar tube out of my shirt pocket and dropped it carelessly on the table. It rolled over once and stopped. I stood up, and pushed my chair in. "I've got to go to the John, Louie." I patted him on the shoulder. "I'll be back."
I walked off, leaving the little tube worth, eventually, about $65,000 on the table.
I took my time, but when I got back Louie Lazaro was still there. So was the heroin.
I knew from the look on his face that I'd made the right move.
Chapter 5
At five o'clock that afternoon I met Louie in the lobby of my hotel. The silk suit was blue this time, almost an electric blue. The shirt and tie were fresh, but still white on white. His anxious-to-please smile was unchanged.
Outside on the street we hailed a cab. "The St. Georges," Louie told the driver, then settled back smugly in the seat.
It was only six blocks and we could have walked, but that wasn't what bothered me. What did was the fact that the St. Georges was the one place in Beirut where I was known as Nick Carter. The possibility that a room clerk or floor manager might greet me by name, however, was miniscule. Overfamiliarity is not a way of life in Beirut if you're obviously an American.
I needn't have worried. Even in my down-at-the-heels clothes, no one paid me the slightest bit of attention as Louie first made a quick call on the house phone in the lobby, then ushered me into the elevator, chattering nervously.
"This is a real good-looking lady, man! She's — she's really something else. But she's smart, too. Ooh mama! Is she smart!" He snapped his thumbnail on his front teeth. "But all you have to do is just answer her questions, you know? Just play it easy. You'll see."
"Sure, Louie," I reassured him. He'd been through the same routine a half-dozen times already.
A very tall, spare man with blue expressionless eyes opened the door of the eleventh-floor suite and gestured us in. He stood aside as Louie passed in, but when I followed he suddenly gripped the inside of my right elbow with viselike fingers and spun me around backward. A leg across the back of my knees threw me to the floor as he twisted, so that I hit the thick carpet on my face, my arm wrenched up high behind my shoulders and a bony knee pressed against the small of my back.
He was good. Not that good, however. I could have broken his kneecap with my heel when he made the first move, but that wasn't what I was there for. I lay there and let him remove Wilhelmina from her holster.
A hand made a cursory search of my body. Then the pressure on the small of my back eased. "AD he had was this," he announced.
He was careless. Hugo still rested in the chamois sheath strapped to my forearm.
He nudged me with his toe and I got to my feet slowly. He'd pay for that later.
I brushed my hair back with one hand and took stock of the situation.
I was in the living room of a large suite and there were several doors leading off it. It was extravagantly decorated — to the point of opulence. The heavy, dark blue rug was complemented by gossamer-like draperies in robin's-egg blue. Two Klees and a Modigliani were in perfect keeping with the clean-lined Danish Modern furniture.
Two couches were flanked by small onyx lamps and chrome-trimmed ashtrays. In front of each couch were heavy, low-slung coffee tables, large rectangles of gray marble sitting like pale islands in a dark blue sea.
Standing in front of the picture windows was an exquisite Chinese doll, one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life. Her hair hung straight and black, almost waist length, framing delicate high-boned features. Almond eyes in an alabaster face regarded me somberly, a hint of skepticism tensing the full-lipped mouth.
I ruled my face expressionless while my mind clicked through its memory file. The ten days I had spent at AXE headquarters last year doing what we bitterly referred to as «homework» hadn't been wasted. Her picture on the dossier in File Room B had made me gasp the first time I had seen it. In the flesh, the impact was a hundredfold.
The woman in the high-necked gray silk evening gown before me was Su Lao Lin, next to Chu Ch'en the highest ranking intelligence agent the Red Chinese maintained in the Middle East. Chu Ch'en I had run up against before, both in Macao and Hong Kong; Su Lao Lin, I had only heard of.
What I'd heard was enough — ruthless, brilliant, cruel, fiery tempered but meticulous in her planning. She had been handling the pipeline funneling heroin into Saigon during the Vietnam war. Countless American G.I.s could lay the responsibility for their addiction at the exquisite feet of Su Lao Lin.