Read Online Operation Bamboozle by Derek Robinson - Free Book Online Page A

hurry. Wherever he went in El Paso, it was never Pittsburgh.
    Frankie Blanco watched the soldier leave the bridge and he edged alongside him. “Saw you talkin’ to my pal,” he said.
    â€œChrist Almighty,” the soldier sighed. “Two old faggots in two minutes. Go fuck yourself, Jack.”
    â€œHey! I was in the military. Show some respeck.” Frankie hung onto the shreds of his temper. Where did this skinny kid get off calling him
old?
“I’m worried about my pal. He ain’t right in the head. What did he say?” That was a wrong question, he knew it at once, but he hadn’t had time to think ahead, he was playing everything off the cuff. “I’m his pal, see. We … we wasparatroops. In France. We hit the silk together, you know?” This was getting worse. The soldier lengthened his stride. Frankie was having to hurry. “He took a bad hit, see, on the head, and now …”
    The soldier suddenly stopped. “Go fuck a duck, you fat old creep,” he shouted. Frankie turned away, shamefaced. People were staring. When he looked up the soldier had gone.
    â€œYou sad piece of piss,” he whispered. “Anyone said that in Chicago was Swiss cheese.” But he knew he’d failed. He hadn’t found what that rendezvous on the bridge was about. It might mean nothing, the kid could even be Cabrillo’s son. Or he might be the designated hitman. Soldiers often wore sidearms, so the uniform made for good cover. Now the guy knew exactly what his victim looked like. So now Cabrillo and the soldier had to be whacked, both. Shit and double shit. Frankie felt tired and lonely. He fumbled a Pall Mall from a pack and a man called out: “Hey! Frankie Blanco!” He was so shocked, he dropped the cigarette and turned a half-circle, searching. Ten yards away a man was holding the door of a taxi, giving him a long hard look. The face was familiar. Then he was in the taxi, and gone.
    Half an hour later, Frankie was on his third rye and beer chaser when he remembered the face. Eugene Lutz, chief bookkeeper with the Mob. From that moment on, he couldn’t drink the rye or the chaser, couldn’t think, had difficulty breathing. The barman gave him a glass of water. He couldn’t drink that either. “You don’t look too good, pal,” the barman said. He was thinking:
Go die in the street, not in my bar, I got enough to do.
Frankie was thinking:
That’s three guys I got to whack.

    Lutz wouldn’t speak to anybody but Sam Giancana. Sam ran his end of the Mob like it was General Motors, and Lutz knew he’d handle this surprise like a product recall.
    â€œTell me you’re homesick, Gene,” Sam said. “Your job here’s waiting for you.”
    â€œGot a pencil, Sam?” Lutz gave him the number of the pay phone in a nearby drugstore. The FBI couldn’t bug every phone in El Paso.
    Ten minutes later Giancana called him from a pay phone in Chicago. “I’m listening,” he said.
    â€œFrankie Blanco’s alive. I saw him half an hour ago, here, in the street. One hundred percent certain. I called his name and he froze. It’s 85 degrees here, Sam, but he froze.”
    â€œGot an address for him?”
    â€œNo. But it’s a small town.”
    â€œWe have contacts at your end can do the legwork. Tony Feet will fly down. I can’t leave here right now. You keeping well?”
    â€œNever better.”
3
    All the ladies who sat in Daniel’s chairs loved the paintings. Some simply adored them. Everyone thought it must be wonderful to have such talent. Nobody bought anything.
    Mrs. Susan Chandler took home the one of the fly fisherman up to his thighs in a broad, bubbling trout stream. He was seen from the opposite bank, which allowed Princess to make the most of the swirling water, partly shaded by overhanging trees. A rock created eddies. Leaves floated by. It was a nice place