The Sweeney 02 Page 4

  Regan lay on his back for a total of three weeks, chewing over her proposition, and then gave in. They would go to the States, ostensibly for a holiday and recuperation, but also to check out the job angle. January 21, 1969, Kate and he arrived in the damp drapes of wind and rain in New York.

  Three waterlogged weeks later—the rain had never really stopped—they took their saddened spirits back out to the airport and got on a return plane. He had distinct conclusions about his first trip to New York. He did not like the place, the people, the job prospects, and particularly the Parry Jenkins ménage, husband, wife, and three lecherous thirteen-to sixteen-year-old daughters. He also felt physically poor—he hadn’t recuperated despite Kate’s and the Jenkins’s confident assertions that he was “definitely looking terrific.” On the homeward plane he felt exhausted, sick, and guilty. She had bet the marriage on this trip, and when he turned her down he knew she would take it only at the personal level. She did.

  So it was with mixed feelings now, five years later, that Regan looked down from the lumbering, creaking Boeing 747 at the grim gray waters of Jamaica Bay, as the great plane tipped its wings and headed down into the low clouds over Kennedy Airport.

  He’d almost forgotten the astounding aggression with which U.S. officialdom greets the visitors to its shores. Immigration was quick to remind him. “How long are you staying, Mr. Regan?” the man said sharply, studying Regan’s passport and police ID.

  “I’m here for talks with the FBI,” Regan answered.

  “I didn’t ask you who you were here to talk to, I asked you how long you’re staying, Mr. Regan.”

  “Not longer than I can help,” Regan said gently. “Let’s say a month.”

  “That’s the answer, Mr. Regan. I’ll stamp your passport one month.”

  He headed into Customs with his three suitcases—one containing his clothes, the other two all the papers he’d confiscated from Galliano and company a week ago at the Aerial Hotel.

  “Open these,” the Customs man said. “May I see your passport?”

  Regan pulled out his passport. He had two passports in his inside pocket. The other one belonged to Ricky Rossi.

  “Visiting?” the man asked, and then started rooting in the cases to see if he could discover a collapsible munitions manufacturing plant.

  “Yes,” said Regan.

  “If you’re a visitor, sir, are these private papers or business papers?” The Customs man thumbed at one of the suitcases.

  “They’re evidence,” Regan explained. “I’m an English police officer from Scotland Yard. I’m here to deliver this evidence to the FBI for the trial of certain persons under arrest.”

  “Then you’re not just visiting here, sir? You’re to take part in a trial?”

  “Not necessarily. I have to hand over this evidence, personally hand it over to the FBI. I may have to make some affidavits...”

  “Could you give me the name of some personnel in the FBI who could vouch for your story?”

  Christ, thought Regan, where do they get these bread-heads? Isn’t it fucking obvious I’m a flatfoot conforming to Pattern A, Mark One cop, British Standards Institute, and why doesn’t this asshole understand intuitively that I am neither directly nor indirectly an importer of raw opium?

  Regan started to explain again that he was a visitor and that he was not carrying out a profession—earning money— by giving evidence, and that he felt that these distinctions were not relevant to anything under God’s sun. He tried not to lose his temper or get fancy. He had only himself to blame. Haskins’s penultimate words were, “Contact the FBI. Get them to meet you at the airport.” Regan had said, “No, I won’t. I get tired on airplanes. I don’t want to arrive in New York, get whisked off my feet, get landed with a long hard boozy night, and start my first day’s work with a jackhammer hangover. I’ll see myself through the airport and get a full night’s sleep. Then I’ll phone the Federal Bureau of Alcoholics.”

  Haskins’s last words were, “I’ll telex the FBI your arrival time.”

  Regan’s last words were, “Don’t. I mean it.”

  Regan walked out of Customs pushing an alloy cart with his suitcases on it. Haskins had telexed. A large black man in a leather jacket stood sourly scrutinizing the disembarking passengers. He held up a piece of cardboard. Scrawled on it in thick pencil: J. REGAN.

  “I’m Inspector Regan.”

  The black guy looked him over, then took the suitcases into his huge hands. “This way.” He headed off across the Pirelli floor. Regan followed him.

  It was cold, maybe four degrees lower than London. Regan trailed the huge Negro out of the building through the crush of cars and the high noise of revving buses and Tannoy announcements to a gray Chrysler. The black man lifted the trunk and was about to dump the suitcases inside when Regan stopped him. “I’d like those two in the car with me.”

  The driver nodded, left one suitcase in the trunk, and put the other two in the back of the car. Regan got into the front passenger seat. The driver climbed in, started the engine, and hit the horn a couple of times to move a car double-parked alongside. The chauffeur-driven car moved. The black man pulled the car out into the stream of filtering traffic. “Now, Mr. Regan, we have a problem,” he announced in a flat growl. “Van Wyck is backed up from here to Queensboro. I say we take Conduit and go over the Williamsburg.”

  “I’ll leave the route to you.”

  “Don’t do it. It’s twenty after two. You got an appointment at three-thirty. It’s your head. FBI don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “Where are the FBI offices?”

  “Two locations, Sixty-ninth and Third Avenue. And downtown, Thirty-ninth Street and Third Avenue. You’re going to Thirty-ninth and Third. That’s why I say the Williamsburg Bridge.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  The route settled, Regan sat back in his seat. The car headed through the maze of interchanges for the Southern State Parkway.

  The sky was fouling up with low cold clouds. Just a few steps in the open to get to the car had reminded him how freezing New York and vicinity could get. For no solid accountable reasons his spirits were low. He was annoyed that Haskins had telexed the FBI. It might be nine o’clock tonight before he got to his hotel and got a chance to refresh himself and take stock.

  The traffic was heavy but it never hesitated. At a steady thirty, in forty-five minutes they were on the Williamsburg Bridge heading on to the island, backdropped by the giant piano keys of Wall Street skyscrapers. The driver started to discuss the route again. There were apparently various ways to get to Thirty-ninth and Third; what did Regan want?

  Regan explained carefully that he was unfamiliar with New York and could not advise him. This didn’t seem to satisfy him.

  “Tell me something,” Regan thought he’d better placate the guy with some kind of chat, “what’s the Alex Hotel, West Fifty-fourth, like?”

  “You staying there?”

  “Yes.”

  “The worst hotel in the world. Don’t check in. Sleep on the streets.”

  Regan sighed. The travel department had done it again.

  The FBI downtown office Thirty-ninth Street and Third Avenue did not exactly announce its existence with a musical clock and flashing neon. There was a plain door on the side of a block of modern insurance offices. The driver parked the car next to a fire hydrant. He took Regan up a flight of stairs and around to a glass office door. On the glass door were gold letters: federal bureau of investigation. The guy opened the door and deposited Regan’s suitcases in front of a receptionist’s desk. Regan entered carrying the third case. The driver walked out before Regan had worked out if he should tip him.

  The middle-aged lady receptionist looked up. “Detective Inspector Regan from London?”

  “Yes,” Regan said.

  “Would you follow me, Inspector?”

  “May I leave this suitcase here and bring these other two?”

  The woman nodded and held the
door to a passage open for him.

  The office was at the end of the corridor. Obviously the four men inside had been waiting for him. One man sat behind a wide desk. Another stood by the window, two more on a low couch.

  The middle-aged guy, distinguished, gray hair, weather-beaten face, rose from behind the desk and walked to him with his right hand extended. “My name is Edgar Broughton. These are colleagues. George Green, Tom Halliday, Tony Haspera. All involved in this case.”

  Regan shook the hand and followed its next gesture to him, to sit down.

  “Sorry to take you straight off the plane to a meeting. We’ll be keeping you just a couple of minutes, Mr. Regan. Then you’ll be driven to your hotel. Maybe we could meet later when you’ve freshened up. Obviously we’re very anxious to get our hands on your paper work so we can start work immediately.”

  “Of course,” said Regan. He placed the two suitcases on the top of Broughton’s desk and opened them. The papers— there must have been about six hundred sheets of them—had been collected into two hundred exhibits, each stapled together with a Scotland Yard exhibit’s tag with a penciled number—so that, for instance, three statements from the same German bank in one of Galliano’s cases had been stapled together and given a number.

  Broughton helped Regan take the documents out of the cases. Then he took a typed sheet from his desk and handed it to Regan. “This is a receipt for your papers, Inspector. It’s also an affidavit and court exhibit stating that these papers were taken by yourself from the three men’s luggage at the Aerial Hotel in London Airport. We would like you to sign this receipt.”

  Regan quickly read the statements on the paper and signed.

  Five minutes later Regan was shaking hands again; and Broughton was leading him to the door. “Welcome to New York, Mr. Regan. I know we’re going to have the chance to get together and chew the fat, swap a lot of stories, and talk mutual acquaintances. There’s a driver waiting for you downstairs. He’ll take you to your hotel. We’ll call you in about an hour to sort out a morning meeting. Incidentally, if you want to use our telex or telephone facilities just walk right in.”

  Another driver was sitting in a scarred Ford sedan also parked by the fire hydrant. He drove Regan to the Alex Hotel. That took ten minutes.

  On the drive to the Alex Regan suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to hand over to Broughton Ricky Rossi’s passport. But he’d be seeing Broughton. He could hand in the passport then.

  At seventeen minutes to four Regan stepped into his room. The first driver had been right. A little brown mottled room with toilet and battered bathroom off—it was hard to imagine a worse-looking hotel room.

  On the journey to the hotel Regan realized that he should have taken Broughton up on his telex offer. He should log with the Flying Squad offices back in London a telex that he had arrived in New York and handed over the papers to the FBI.

  He picked up the phone in his bedroom. The hotel switchboard took an Ice Age to answer. He didn’t have the Thirty-ninth Street and Third Avenue number, so he called the uptown office.

  “Inspector Regan, Scotland Yard. Mr. Broughton offered me telex facilities and I’d like to take him up on the offer. Could I dictate to you a couple of lines to go to Scotland Yard?”

  “I’ll put you through to Mr. Broughton, Inspector.”

  Regan began to say, “That won’t be necessary.” But he heard a click and then the low burr of a southern voice. “Good afternoon, Inspector. This is Edgar Broughton. Welcome to New York. Did you have a good flight?”

  Regan’s heart missed a beat, recovered—then started beating faster. “Mr. Broughton, why welcome me again? We met twenty minutes ago in your downtown office.”

  It was Broughton’s turn to pause and put a statement together. “I have not yet had the privilege of meeting you, Inspector Regan. What do you mean, our downtown office?”

  Regan could see it, but just couldn’t believe it. “The FBI, does it have an office on Third Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street?”

  Another pause, then Broughton’s soft-spoken statement. “The FBI has only one office in New York, at Sixty-ninth and Third Avenue. I’m speaking from that office.”

  “Did you send a car to pick me up at the airport?”

  “We were not informed of your arrival time,” Broughton answered. “What is all this, Inspector?”

  “I’m afraid this is extremely urgent, Mr. Broughton. I’d like you to bring a couple of men and meet me on the corner of Third Avenue and Thirty-ninth Street, in front of the insurance building.”

  Broughton caught the urgency in the voice, but still couldn’t understand. “What are you asking? What is this about?”

  They were the hardest dozen sentences that Regan had ever voiced in his life. He offered no excuses. There were none. Broughton said absolutely nothing. Regan said, “Mr. Broughton, just in case there’s anyone still there, let’s get to those offices right now.” He repeated the address. Broughton still said nothing. Regan put the phone down and headed for the door. He might easily have headed for the window. He’d never felt so suicidal.

  The real Edgar Broughton turned out to be a giant, at least six feet five, with a disconcerting habit of looking over the shoulder of the person he was talking to. He was already outside the insurance building on Thirty-ninth Street with two large colleagues when Regan’s cab pulled in alongside the fire hydrant. Introductions were made on the move as Regan strode in through the door and up the stairs to the now-deserted fake FBI office. The introductions lacked a certain degree of warmth.

  “We’ll take two shots at this, Inspector Regan. First briefly you tell us what happened, starting at the airport. Then we go back, fill out all the detail.”

  “I’ve told you briefly.”

  “Tell me again.” There was no mistaking the controlled anger in the FBI man’s voice.

  “I walked out of Customs. A black guy. He’s got a piece of cardboard. On it my name, J. Regan. He says he’s been sent to take me to the downtown FBI offices. We come here.” They were now inside the office where he’d met the four guys. “Outside there, a girl on switchboard and she’s the receptionist. Here, these guys.”

  “You ever see ‘em before? The Aerial Hotel, London?”

  “No.” Regan was positive.

  “Descriptions?”

  He started the description of the four. One of Broughton’s silent colleagues took a notebook out, shorthanding Regan’s words, eyes flickering up suspiciously every time Regan’s voice hesitated.

  Meanwhile the third man was on the phone, calling the local Bureau for a prints team and photographers.

  Broughton had moved to the door. He had a handkerchief out and was rubbing at the f on the gold-lettered federal bureau of investigation. Specks of gold came off on the handkerchief. “Any speech defects, physical defects, these guys?”

  Regan concentrated, racked the tiring cells of memory, slowed and confused by shock and fury and jet fatigue. “The guy who said he was Broughton had thick fingers, heavy gold ring with large ruby, left index finger.” He paused. There were no other physical peculiarities, nothing other than the straight descriptions of the men that he had already given them.

  Broughton looked around and shrugged a small hopeless shrug. “Go back to your hotel, Inspector Regan. And think. See if you can come up with anything else. In an hour I’ll send someone to take you to police records HQ. They’ll dig out photos to fit your descriptions—and then after that—”

  “Just a minute,” Regan cut across. “There’s an obvious element that must be sorted out immediately.” Regan was still shattered but was not going to have anybody, even someone with superior rank, tell him to run back and wait at a hotel.

  “What element, Mr. Regan?” Broughton’s eyes were still smoldering.

  “The only people who knew I was coming to New York were three people in the Flying Squad office, London, and your FBI office in New York.”

  “So?”

  “So someb
ody’s talked.”

  “Or some agent of these guys has been following you around London, followed you to an airport and saw you get on a New York plane, then called his pals in New York.”

  “That sounds highly improbable. I think the logical starting point is an immediate investigation of the possibility of a leak from your office...”

  Broughton had held on to his temper. But now it went. “That is shitting irrelevant, Inspector. The papers that were to form the entire prosecution case against Galliano, Cohen, and company, papers that we know were the basis of a major fraud, are gone. So whether the leak came from FBI New York, Buckingham Palace, or Jesus of Nazareth, that’s something we can look into in the next ten years. We’ve lost the papers. Galliano and company have got them; be sure of one thing, we’re not going to get them back. So our whole case is down the fucking toilet...”