"Three a.m. from Kennedy Airport."
"You'll be all done by then," McGurk said with a grin, again opening the center drawer of his desk and pulling out a manila envelope.
In the top right-hand corner was a name, but even though Police Inspector Brace Ransom of the Savannah Police Department strained his eyes; he could not read the small, precise writing of McGurk.
McGurk pulled a sheaf of paper from the envelope, to the top of which was clipped an eight-by-ten glossy photo. "Here's your man," he said, pushing the photo across the desk.
Inspector Ransom picked up the picture and looked at it. It was the face of a short swarthy man who might have been Italian or Greek. The man had a slight scar running alongside his left eye toward the corner of his mouth.
As Ransom scanned the photo, McGurk's gravelly voice began to read from information on one of the sheets of paper.
"Emiliano Cornolli. Forty-seven. A lawyer. Known as Mr. Fix. Mob connections through retainers with a number of union locals. Generally represents Mafia leaders in criminal cases and it is an open, but unproved secret, that he buys acquittals by bribing jurors. Lives in an estate in Sussex County, New Jersey, near the Playboy Club. I've got a map here. He's single and technically lives alone, although there's almost always a broad or two around the place. Grounds guarded by two vicious Dobermans. You'll have to take care of them first. If there are girls there, you'll have to take care of them too."
He looked up. "You can be there in about eighty minutes by car. When you get close, muddy up the license plates so nobody can pin down the car rental."
"We sure he's home?"
"Yeah. He's got the flu. Doctor's orders." McGurk slid the map across the desk to the other policeman who picked it up, looked at it carefully, then folded it and put it in his pocket. He pushed the photo back to McGurk. "I'll remember the face," he said.
"Then we're all set," McGurk said.
The Southern police inspector did not move and McGurk looked at him with a trace of a question on his face.
"Bill?" the Southerner said.
"Yeah?"
"I had a chance to read the paper on the plane. That politician in Newark? Was he one of ours?"
"You know you're not supposed to ask," McGurk said. "That's why we've got everything working so well. Teams from all over. In and out. Nobody knowing what anyone else is doing."
"I know all that, Bill. But that money that was missing? I thought there might be a change in plans. Should we take anything tonight? Search the place? That's the only reason I'm asking."
McGurk walked around the desk, leaning in front of it near Ransom.
"No. Take nothing. Leave nothing. Just in and out." Reading the dissatisfied look on Ransom's face, he said softly, "Look, Brace. Next week, we're going to hold our national kickoff for Men of the Shield. I know you've got questions, but keep them to yourself. You'll get the answers then. Until then, just trust me and don't mention anything to anybody."
"That's good enough for me," Ransom said, standing up. He was bigger than McGurk but lacked the impression of power the New York policeman gave off. "How's Number One holding up?"
McGurk winked. "So far, so good," he said. "But you know how liberals are. They start a lot of things and never follow through. You'll see him next week at the big kickoff."
"Okay," Ransom said.
"Listen," McGurk said, still trying to ease Ransom's feelings. "If you get done in time, stop back and we'll have a drink. How are the men you've got, by the way?"
"Look pretty good. One's a lieutenant from San Antonio. The other one's a sergeant from Miami. They both look solid."
"All our men are solid," McGurk said. "The best in the business. That's what it takes to save a country."
Ransom puffed his chest a little. "I think so too."
And then he was out the door, heading down the stairs to where his rented Plymouth was parked in front. He would pick up his two partners in front of their hotel and then make the drive to the foothills of New Jersey. There, a half-hour stop. Then back to New York. A few drinks with McGurk. The airport, and then home. Sweet and simple. McGurk was some kind of planner, keeping all those things straight in his mind, schedules, rooms, tickets, days off so that men were always available. He really knew what he was doing. A helluva cop, Ransom thought.
How much of the whole thing was McGurk and how much O'Toole? O'Toole was technically the leader of the operation, but Ransom knew that most of the work must be coming from McGurk. O'Toole was a piece of cheese. He had met him once at a police convention, and all he talked about was minority recruitment. Hah. More niggers on the force. A guy with that kind of idea couldn't do anything right. He was glad it was McGurk's show.
Inspector Brace Ransom of Savannah was so deep in thought driving back to his hotel that he did not notice he was being followed by a hard-faced man in a large beige Fleetwood.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Remo was disgusted, his professional pride injured.
He had followed McGurk from police headquarters to the old police range on Twentieth Street. He had gone as far as the door under the M.O.T.S. sign and then had hidden when the big Southerner, obviously an upper-rank police officer, had arrived. On a hunch, he had decided to follow the Southerner when he left. And now he had been following the rented car with the three policemen for almost an hour and they had not spotted him. He wondered if they would have if he had been driving a circus wagon, and he wondered if he would ever have been so careless back in the days when he was alive. He doubted it.
He had been changing speeds mechanically, without thinking, occasionally driving without lights, sometimes with high beams, sometimes with low, trying to avoid being spotted, and finally he had decided it was not worth it, not for these amateurs, and now for the last fifteen minutes he had been tailing them along Route 80, planted on their tail like a dungaree patch, secure in the knowledge that they were too confident, too much at ease to spot him. They just kept plowing straight ahead, like farmers down a furrow, and it annoyed him because policemen should always be alert.
He tried not to be annoyed. Chiun had warned him about it. "One who permits annoyance begins to pay attention to that annoyance and not to his business. One who does not mind his business soon finds his shelves empty." Right on, Confucius, but they're still annoying.
Ten minutes later, Remo saw the tail lights of the car swerve to the right onto an exit ramp from the highway. Remo quickly tapped his brake to slow down. There was nothing behind him and he slowed enough to let the policemen's car get out of his line of sight, then turned off his lights and sped onto the ramp. Below he saw the car make a left turn and, still with lights off, he rolled down to the corner to see what direction they took. A hundred yards ahead, the road forked and they took the right tine. Remo flipped on his lights and tramped on the accelerator, following them.
He followed them for five minutes through winding twisting roads that curved uphill and sidehill, near the edges of lakes. Then they pulled off into a small driveway that led to a heavy iron gate, set into a high stone wall. Remo drove by, stopped a hundred yards down the road, and parked against the brush at roadside. As he walked back toward the men, he heard the growling and snapping of dogs.
He stood in the dark under an overhanging tree, only ten feet from the men, and listened as the dogs growled and snarled and barked, just on the other side of the giant iron fence. Then, like a record on an old phonograph whose spring was winding down, the dogs' sounds became softer and less frequent. The growls changed to whines; then the whines to whimpers, and then finally silence.
A Southern voice hissed. "Never did see a dog could resist sirloin steak."
"How long'll they be out?"