18

January 1971

J.D. Palladino boarded the 9:15 Staten Island ferry and sat on the open rear deck so that he could look at the receding skyline when the boat got underway. Dom was carrying the suitcase that would record whatever the transmitter in the feather in the band of Mr. Palladino’s hat broadcast while he and this CIA man had their meeting.

Dom and J.D. had not boarded the ferry together. They were too smart for that. But they had arrived in the same car. Bart watched them go into the ferry building separately. He followed them in with his stiff-legged walk, taking his time. When the ferry was well out into the harbor and Mr. Palladino was swiveling his head, becoming offended by the possibility that he had been stood up, Bart came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Mr. Palladino wheeled in place.

“I am Hobart Simms,” Bart said. “Senator Karp spoke to you about me.”

“All right,” Mr. Palladino said. He led the way to the aft bench that encircled the bulkhead facing Dom’s back thirty feet away at the boat’s rail. Mr. Palladino played the heavy hood to the hilt. “What can I do for you?”

“You can begin by telling your man to bring over that tape recorder so I can dismantle it or you can’t do anything for me.”

“What tape recorder?”

Bart didn’t answer. He stared with his cold blue eyes, as expressionless as a leopard.

“Dom! Bring the suitcase.”

Dom was bewildered, but he did as he was told. Bart opened the case and removed the cassette.

“What the hell is this?” Dom demanded in his tough, occupational way.

“Go look at the buildings,” Mr. Palladino told him. Dom moved away.

“All right!” Mr. Palladino snarled at Bart.

“I am not saying that Turkish opium isn’t going to make a big comeback,” Bart said, “but it is going to be very expensive. What you are buying from Pierre Weill in Marseilles now is heroin made from the Turkish reserve, but the delivery is unreliable. The Bureau really have the French cased and the French hate to pay. So—in our mutual interest—I am here to offer you either a thousand kilos of raw opium or a hundred kilos of the purest but if you take the heroin you are crazy.”

“What the fuck can I do wit’ raw opium?”

“Take the opium and I will offer you a thousand-percent safe place to convert it to heroin so that, instead of paying twenty-seven thousand a keye to import it, you’ll be converting to heroin at a cost of six thousand a keye for the highest quality heroin—with guaranteed, one-hundred-percent safe delivery.”

Mr. Palladino blinked.

What Bart had said went into Mr. Palladino’s hat feather transmitter, then into a receiver-recorder in a cardboard carton which Dino had beside him on the continuous bench around the corner along the bulkhead, out of sight. Dino could see the receding skyline as well, but otherwise he was placed pretty good. Not like Dom.

“If anybody can do that, why ain’t you doing it?” Mr. Palladino asked. “What is this—giving away heroin for six thousand a kilo?”

Bart didn’t answer. He puffed on a foul pipe. Gulls cawked. Tugs tooted. Dino watched the Statue of Liberty.

“Where do you get the opium?”

“Asia.”

“Where is this hundred-percent safe place to convert?”

“Haiti.”

“Who guarantees it?”

“The President of Haiti.”

“What would I need you for after I had a deal like that?”

“You would take the best kind of care of me, Mr. Palladino, because I know you turned in the Sesteros. And I know you gave them Abramo Viseggi for the Comanti killing.”

Mr. Palladino got to his feet immediately and rushed unsteadily to the ferry rail and vomited over the side. He leaned against the rail for a few minutes, then he went directly to the cardboard box on the bench at Dino’s side, picked it up and flung it into the Upper Bay. Weakly, he went back to the seat on the bench beside Bart.

“You doubled up on tape machines?” Bart asked with admiration.

Mr. Palladino nodded. “Let’s talk about your deal,” he said hoarsely. “How you gonna move it?”

“The vice-president will call President Duvalier for an appointment for you. You will go to Haiti to set the deal with him and he will grab it. When you have it set I’ll go to Asia and set the opium shipments from Taiwan to Port au Prince.”

“What is your end?”

“In a minute. To sweeten Duvalier for you, Senator Karp is going to arrange for Education and Potable Water Loans for Haiti from the Inter-American Bank which will apply when he agrees to our plan.”

“How do you know he’ll take the deal?”

“Because he’s been cut off from foreign aid for seven years and we’re going to get it back for him.”

“I can’t say anything until I know what your end is.”

“I don’t want any split if that’s what you’re worrying about. I want to be elected United States Senator from Maryland. That takes a lot of money but still not the kind of money that would even dent the kind of deal I am handing you.”

“How much?”

“Out of this deal—and I have only told you part of it, I have other, bigger angles—I want seven million five hundred thousand dollars to be paid directly into my campaign in a way I’ll lay out when the time comes. Then, every year for the next four years you pay seven million five directly into another campaign fund in the same way.”

“What other campaign fund?”

“From the day I make it into the Senate, I’ll be running for President. When I run, I’ll need more money because a lot of money has to be spread around. But you’ll never miss it. And you’ll have a friend in the White House.”

Mr. Palladino felt an enormous surge of pride. If his father had ever thought that his own son would be in a position like this he would have kissed his feet. His father! A man who thought a big political contact was like Frank Costello, fahcrissake! He couldn’t believe what was happening. He would be J.D. Palladino: kingmaker! A kingmaker! He took a pale lavender silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and laid it over his face. He leaned back on the bench and tried to think.

Bart puffed on the foul pipe. Dino watched the seagulls and New Jersey. Bart turned down a shoeshine man’s offer silently, shaking his head. Mr. Palladino whipped the handkerchief off his face and sat up straight.

“Fill me in about this president in Haiti,” he said huskily.

“Do you know Haiti?”

“Well—”

“You know where Cuba is?”

“Well, yeah. I been there. It’s near Havana, right?”

“Cuba is ninety miles away from Florida. Haiti is about six hundred miles east of Havana, sixty miles off the far end of Cuba. The fake reason you will be going to Haiti is to lease the casino. I have a gimmick to bring in tourists. A lot of tourists means a country is stable. When it’s stable, that means we can restore foreign aid because then Haiti will be a bulwark against Communism.”

“I think I am getting you,” Mr. Palladino said. “A little bit. Maybe.”

“When you get home, pick up a pencil and figure out how much money there is in the manufacture of uppers, downers and acid, then figure out how much the legitimate pharmaceutical houses are ripping you off when they leave you just the wholesale end. When you get the heroin plants operating smoothly, then you’ll set up your own plants in Haiti to make uppers, downers, speed and acid. And mandrax and STP and mescaline and Phencycladine.”

“What’s that? We never handled that.”

“It’s going to be very big. It causes frightening hallucinations in humans. It makes them feel extremely tiny, as if they could hide in keyholes or matchboxes. It gives them a sense of already being dead.”

“Jesus, that will be a real seller,” Mr. Palladino exclaimed.