The casino at Rosarito Beach resembled a Spanish baronial hall. At daylight, gambling action continued as it had at midnight. Padgett was left to wander around the swank tourist trap while Gortoff conducted private business with the manager. Garcia, tall, dark-haired, suave and Castillian, had acknowledged the introduction with impeccable front desk smoothness. “It’s a real pleasure, Senor Padgett. I’ll look forward to working with you.” The casino manager walked away with Gortoff, “The house is your own. Just sign for anything you desire.”
“Even chips,” Gortoff laughed as he placed a friendly arm on the N Man’s shoulder.
Padgett wandered from the gambling rooms to the bar, searching for a familiar face or some indication that the Bureau’s communications system had moved at its usual speed and placed Interpol or Mexican official support at the casino. He saw nothing. He strolled casually out to the casino parking lot and saw nothing more than forty or fifty cars, most with California plates. He smiled at a soliciting senorita and rejected her suggestion of love for a price. He moved back to the bar. He saw no one who might be from a cooperating law enforcement agency. In the dining room he ordered black coffee. Gortoff and Garcia joined him.
“You confine your pleasures to our dining room, senor?” Garcia smiled.
“For this trip,” Padgett laughed. “I may have more time and a greater inclination to play the next time I get down. Right now, I’ve business in mind.”
“We can expedite that, Chris. Garcia has already made arrangements for you to complete your business transaction. The shipment is aboard the plane up at Tia Juana. You’ll accompany it back. I’ll be back up by a commercial flight this afternoon. One package is for your use, Chris. The other two are for me. Bring them to the inn over at Sausalito tonight. I’ll be there at midnight. Walk from your car, through the parking lot and down to the dock. You can use the dinghy to bring the stuff out to the Stardust. I’ll be aboard. Right?”
“Right, Karl. I’ll be there. And I see what you mean by exercising care.” Garcia and Gortoff joined in Padgett’s laughter. “But,” Padgett thought, “if you are aboard the Stardust when I make this delivery, you’ll be careless; not careful.”
The Mexican taxi driver who picked Padgett up at the Rosarito Beach casino seemed like every other driver at the stand, shabby, in need of a shave, and looking as if he hadn’t slept. When Padgett said, “Tia Juana — the airport — plesae,” the driver grinned and roared off. But he slowed down when he left the outskirts of Rosarito Beach and handed an I.D. card back to Padgett who read it and looked closely at the driver’s face.
“Nice to see you boys are on hand, lieutenant.” He handed the card back to the driver.
“Can we help, Senor Padgett?”
“I don’t think so,” the N Man answered the Mexican FBI officer who camouflaged himself as a cab driver. “But you might keep Garcia and Gortoff under surveillance. The American plans to leave on a commercial flight for the States this afternoon. See that he does. Garcia’s your problem.”
“We can get Senor Garcia any time we want,” the Mexican official explained. “We have his supply route from Guatemala checked all the way and we also have his stock of heroin at the casino under observation. We’ve permitted him to continue at the request of your own people, while you try to tie in Senor Gortoff with the traffic.”
“We hope to do that tonight, lieutenant. If we do, you can get your local trafficker. Again, it’s good to learn you’re on the job. I had felt I was alone down here.”
“Your people in San Francisco got a signal to us after you and Gortoff took off from San Francisco. It didn’t leave us much time but we already had the casino staked out. And we had our man at the airport immigration office. So you were never out of sight for long, senor.” At the Tia Juana airport entrance, the disguised Mexican FBI officer accepted Padgett’s payment and tip with thanks, “Come back again soon, senor.” If there were any of Gortoff’s agents hovering near the entrance, the report to the casino would be reassuring.
Apparently the Beechcraft’s pilot had been advised of Padgett’s return trip alone. He was uncommunicative but polite. “All set, if you are, Padgett.”
“Let’s go,” the N Man replied. The Beechcraft had already been warmed up and the Tia Juana tower cleared the ship without delay. Again Padgett slept as the plane flew north. He woke as it lost altitude in its approach from the ocean to the San Francisco airport. And he loosened his 38 in its shoulder holster when the plane taxied to a stop in front of its hangar.
“These are your three parcels, Padgett,” the pilot stated when he opened the plane’s door.
Padgett pulled the revolver. “It isn’t going to be that way, George. You flew them in. You carry them out. And just keep walking with them. Don’t go into the hangar. Come on, get moving!” The N Man reinforced his order with a jab of the gun barrel in the pilot’s back. He made no effort to conceal the revolver and the pilot had not walked more than thirty feet from the plane when a sedan pulled out from a neighboring hangar and stopped beside Padgett and the pilot. It was a Bureau car and Padgett recognized his fellow members of the N Man team.
“We’ll put this one on ice,” Padgett said. He re-holstered his gun while other officers snapped handcuffs on the pilot. “I’ll take those three parcels.”
The pilot was locked in a federal cell on a holding charge from the Bureau officers, with instructions that he be held incommunicado. Padgett left with the other N Men to the Portola Drive house. “That, I think,” Padgett sighed, “will wrap it up. Have the lab boys analyze that stuff. Re-wrap two of the parcels and I’ll take them to Gortoff tonight aboard the Stardust. If it is heroin and if he is on board, we’ll have him. And the Mexican authorities will be anxious to know when they can move in on Garcia at Rosarito Beach. Let them know after we have Gortoff. And,” he reminded his fellow N Man team officers, “don’t let anyone get to a telephone from that private hangar over at the airport. They may be no more than maintenance employes but they could be Gortoff employes too. Keep a tail on him from when he lands here ’til he gets to Sausalito.”
“We’ll do some skin diving tonight, Chris,” one of the N Men laughed. “You won’t be alone on the Stardust.”
Padgett again returned to the Turk Street bar, resuming his pusher role for the afternoon and evening as if nothing had interrupted normal operations of the Gortoff narcotics traffic. He left downtown San Francisco at eleven and drove normally across the bridge. The yellow, sodium-vapor lights broke through the fog as he drove off the exit and curved around the turn to Sausalito. He took the two parcels of heroin from his car trunk and walked across the cliffside road. As he crossed the inn parking lot he recognized a Bureau car. He made no sign of recognizing the occupants of its front seat. He moved through the fog and shadows down to the dock. The electric motor of the dinghy purred into operation with a press of its starter button. He cast off from the dock and the dinghy disappered into the fog. The Stardust loomed up in front of him and he switched off the tiny outboard. Padgett caught at the port side of the dinghy and gasped audibly as a black rubber sleeve of a skin diver’s suit helped propel the dinghy against the Stardust’s stern. He called into the night.