“She also got overdrawn,” said Giselle.
“Would have if she hadn’t made her regular deposit from the dance-studio receipts. As it was, the check cleared. No further large deposits, but last week she used five one-hundred-dollar bills to pay off the auto delinquency. Reactions?”
“Blackmail,” said Giselle and Heslip together. Heslip went on, “Five thou initial bite, when things got tight another nip for five hundred more.”
Kearny nodded. “What we need is somebody — Pete Gilmartin, maybe — who knows what she has on him. Whoever him is.”
Heslip winked at Giselle. “Not Gilmartin. He’s clean.”
“You’re sure?” Kearny demanded.
“Hell, Dan, the guy lives in a tract house. Two mortgages, first to the seller and second to Golden Gate Trust. One car—”
“No other real property?”
“Not in any Bay Area county. One car, he owes on it. Standard homeowner’s and life insurance through one of the big Montgomery Street brokerage firms — Levinson Brothers in the Russ Building. Giselle ran a credit check on him. Paying on a color TV, washer-dryer. Good pay. Master-charge with a $500 limit, owed $275 at the time checked. Wife, two kids, Little League...”
“Okay, I buy it,” said Kearny, then made a liar of himself by asking, “Long-distance calls?”
“One a month to his folks back in Toledo. Two calls to an aunt in Cleveland — the wife’s folks are local. I called the aunt myself — old-buddy-from-the-service routine. I could smell the apple pie.”
“Why are you so thorough on Pete?” demanded Giselle.
“We need his help in getting a make on Nucci. How about some coffee, Giselle?”
They relaxed and chatted for ten minutes, then got back to it. Ballard ran through what he had already told Kearny about Padilla Trucking, and Kearny explained the significance of it and the fact that it smelled of Mafia. Then Ballard started on Nucci.
“Some of this I got; most of it Giselle got. He moved into the house on San Buenaventura in St. Francis Woods three years ago last month. But he doesn’t own it.”
Kearny sat up with a jerk. “Who the hell does?”
“An outfit calling itself Fraisa, Inc., are owner of record.”
“Remember that name,” said Giselle. “It’s important.”
“But Nucci pays the taxes,” Ballard went on. “Purchase price was $175,000. First mortgage held by—”
“Golden Gate Trust?” asked Heslip.
“That’s it,” said Giselle. “I kept away from Golden Gate, Dan, so we don’t know if the loan is legitimate—”
Kearny said, “It’ll be legitimate. That isn’t Nucci’s division.”
“We had a title company in South Lake Tahoe make a title search of the property in the Skyland development,” said Ballard. “Fraisa, Inc., is also owner of record up there — little $65,000 ‘summer cottage.’ They pay the taxes.”
“I put that kid out of Truckee on it,” Giselle put in, her clear blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “The place is used by a number of different groups, mainly businessmen with women the caretaker doubts are wives. Caretaker’s year-round, retired Army, his wife does the cooking. They’ve got a detached bungalow.”
“Is there a mortgage?” asked Kearny.
“Yeah,” said Ballard. “Held by Padilla Trucking.”
“Now we’re getting someplace.” Kearny went out to the postage-stamp kitchen for more coffee, came back making a face over it. “It’s shaping up. Giselle, what have we got on Padilla Trucking?”
“You just think it’s shaping up.” She began consulting her typed notes. “California State Division of Corporations referred me to the San Francisco Regional Office, which came up with the stockholders of record. Fraisa, Inc., and Marcello Supply Company of New York.”
“Ring-around-the-rosy,” muttered Kearny. “Of course, Marcello Supply will be the eastern money that funded the original deal.”
“I wonder what they supply?” asked Ballard.
“Hoods out of New York,” said Heslip.
“And the officers of Padilla?”
“The original board of directors was Frank Padilla, his wife Louisa, Nicolas DeSimone — the general manager of the trucking company — and... Jerry Garofolo.”
The man who had hit Ed Dorsey. It reflected in all their faces. Kearny spoke first.
“DeSimone was probably the one who got away, then. And we can be pretty sure that they weren’t moonlighting for anybody. It was organization business.” He frowned, thinking deeply. “What’s the stock split between Marcello Supply and Fraisa, Inc.?”
“Fifty-five/forty-five.”
“Who owns the Fraisa stock?” asked Heslip.
“Up until three years ago, Frank and Louisa Padilla. That’s where the name comes from: F-r-a from Frank, i-s-a from Louisa.”
“Three years,” said Kearny quickly. “It was three years ago that Art Nucci—”
“Closed the deal on his house. Right. And on the same day, Art Nucci got ten percent of Fraisa’s stock.”
“Jackpot!” exclaimed Ballard.
“What we have to find out is what Nucci did to get it,” said Kearny. “That’s why we need Gilmartin’s cooperation.” He grinned. “Anyway, we have our connection. It’s obvious that Frank Padilla is the one who ordered—”
“No,” said Giselle. “N-o, no.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“On the fifth of this month Frank Padilla’s stock was transferred to a Mr. Philip Fazzino.” She savored her moment of triumph. “Frank Padilla was killed in a car wreck on July twenty-second. Which was a week before Chandra got the five thousand dollars.”
Ten
Pete Gilmartin reached across the narrow table to take Giselle’s hand. He conveyed it reverently to his lips. “I wish you’d told me we were coming to a Japanese restaurant,” he murmured. “I’ve got a hole in my sock.”
Giselle rescued her hand. “Nobody’s liable to get down under the table and peek.”
“Not under this table.”
They were sitting in their stocking feet on the floor on opposite sides of the low hardwood rectangle, waiting for the Japanese waitress to arrive with the sukiyaki and sashimi.
Gilmartin looked regretfully into Giselle’s very clear, very direct blue eyes. “I’ve never met a girl with so many No trespassing signs posted.”
Giselle laughed with genuine amusement. It was a laugh to turn male heads. “The hell of it is, Pete, I like your wife and adore your kids. So there we are.”
“You could at least pretend we’ve got an assignation in a plush upstairs room when our leisurely lunch is finished...”
“We might start to believe it,” said Giselle lightly.
Gilmartin grinned his wide white grin. With his deep tan and greenish eyes, he looked like an adventurer rather than a banker. Before he could answer, the pixie-like waitress came in with a boardful of fresh vegetables for the wok. With proper ceremony, they ate, regretting the hot saké they’d decided to forgo in favor of headwork later that afternoon.
“Now,” said Gilmartin firmly, when they’d reached the tea, “we shall get down to the real reason for this royal treatment. I know you’re here because you’re secretly, madly in love with me. But why is old hard-nose Kearny picking up the tab?”
“He wants you to abuse your position of trust at the bank to get into certain confidential financial records for us.”