Union Bust Read online

  And their tool box contained a 35-millimeter camera with a telephoto lens. The day’s work went well enough, considering that Jimmy McQuade was two men shy. At twelve hours Jimmy McQuade split the group into two shifts, asking one to be back in eight hours and the other to continue to work. The two men who did a lot of strolling and talking to other workers, were with the first group.

  The last he saw of them, they were getting on the elevator.

  Just before he was about to knock off for his eight hours in the early morning, the builder dropped by his floor.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  They took the closed elevator, the one the workers were not allowed to use. The builder pushed a combination of floors and Jimmy McQuade wondered who else would be getting on the elevator at the floors for which the buttons called. But the elevator did not stop. It continued down past the basement a good three floors. And Jimmy McQuade was afraid.

  “Hey. Look. I’ll get the job done. You don’t have to worry about the job getting done.”

  “Good, McQuade. I know you will.”

  “Cause I’m a good worker. The best crew chief in the whole telephone system.”

  “I know that, McQuade. That’s why you were chosen.”

  Jimmy McQuade smiled, relieved. The elevator door opened to a large room two stories high with maps of America stretched end to end across the wall, a football-field-size America with the Rockies jutting perpendicularly from the wall like a hunchbacked alligator.

  “Wow,” said Jimmy.

  “Pretty nice,” said the builder.

  “Yeah,” said Jimmy. “But something puzzles me.”

  “Ask away,” said the builder.

  Jimmy pointed to the bottom of the map, and the auto-length sign with brass letters as high as desks.

  “I never heard of the International Transportation Association.”

  “It’s a union.”

  “I never heard of that union.”

  “It’s not going to exist until April 17. It’s going to be the biggest union in the world.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  “Well, that will be a little problem. You see, McQuade, in about ten minutes, you’re going to be a puddle.”

  · · ·

  The Secretary of Labor and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation finished their reports to the President. The three were alone in the Oval room.

  The Secretary of Labor, a pudgy, balding man with professional bearing, spoke first.

  “I think a union combining the major transportation unions, a supertransportation union, is impossible in the United States,” said the Secretary of Labor.

  The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shuffled his papers and leaned a bit closer to the edge of his seat.

  The Secretary of Labor talked on. “The reason I think so is very simple. The drivers, the pilots, the stevedores, and the trainmen don’t have that much central self-interest. In other words, they work for different employers. Moreover, the union leadership of each of these unions has vital concerns with its own sphere of influence. I cannot see four major union presidents willing to give up their own freedom of action. Just impossible. The wage scales of the workers are so different. A pilot makes just about three times what the others make. The membership will never go along. I know the drivers for instance. They’re independent. They even dropped out of the AFL-CIO.”

  “They were kicked out, weren’t they?” said the director of the FBI.

  The President raised a hand.

  “Let the secretary finish.”

  “Legally they were kicked out. Actually they dropped out. They were told to do certain things or face expulsion. They refused, and the rest was formality. They’re an independent breed. Nobody is going to get the International Brotherhood of Drivers into another union. Nobody.”

  The President looked down at his desk, then back at his Secretary of Labor. The room was cool, its temperature controlled by an elaborate thermostat that maintained the exact temperature the President wanted. The thermostat was reset every four years. Sometimes every eight years.

  “What if the drivers are the union behind this?” asked the President.

  “Impossible. I know the current president of that union personally, and no one is getting him, not even us, into an agreement whereby he loses freedom of action.”

  “What if he’s not reelected at this convention coming up?”

  “Oh, he’s going to win. He’s got, excuse the pun, all the horses.”

  “If he has all the horses, why was the convention suddenly shifted to Chicago? April 17 is not exactly Chicago weather. Permit me a little pun, April in Chicago. I’ve never heard a song about it.”

  “These things happen,” said the Secretary of Labor.

  “Well, we all know for a fact, that the current president of the drivers wanted Miami. He didn’t get Miami. Las Vegas was mentioned, and then in a joint council meeting of their state and area leaders, the convention was moved to Chicago. Now, what if a supertransportation union just happens? Tell me the effects.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” said the Secretary of Labor. “Off the top of my head I would say it would be horrible. A disaster. Given some time to study it, I would probably say that it would be worse than a disaster. The country would just about close down. There would be a food crisis. There would be an energy crisis. There would be a run on the banking reserves to offset stagnated business like there has never been before. We would have a depression because of layoffs from inoperative factories combined with an inflation because of the scarcities of goods. I would say it would be like closing the arteries on a human being. Killing the flow of blood, if all the transportation unions struck jointly as one, this country would be a disaster area.”

  “Do you think if you controlled such a union you could get all its members what they wanted?”

  “Of course. It’s like holding a gun to the head of everyone in the nation. But if this ever happened, there would be legislation from Congress.”

  “The kind of legislation that would kill unionism and collective bargaining, correct, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So either way this situation is highly undesirable.”

  “It is as undesirable as it is improbable,” said the Secretary of Labor.

  The President nodded to his director of the FBI.

  “It’s not all that improbable, Mr. Secretary. There have been strong financial links between the leaders of the pilots, stevedores, and trainmen with a dissident element of the drivers’ union. These links began emerging roughly two months ago. It is this dissident element of the drivers which pushed for, and got, the convention to move to Chicago. Moreover, it is this dissident element that has constructed a large ten-story building just outside Chicago at incredible expense because of the rush aspects of contraction. Incredible expense. We don’t know for sure where they got the money. We don’t know for sure how they get things done so smoothly, but get things done they do. We have investigated the building and are continuing to attempt to do so. We cannot prove it yet, but we believe two of our agents who are missing were murdered in that building. We have not found their bodies. We have suspicions as to how the bodies are disposed of, but no confirming evidence, as yet.”

  “Well, that settles it,” said the Secretary of Labor. “No superunion about to be born can survive the murder of two FBI agents. You put all the leaders on trial. There’s your superunion right there, doing life in Leavenworth.”

  “We need evidence, which we hope to get. There is the jury system, Mr. Secretary.”

  “There is that,” said the Secretary of Labor. “There is that. As you gentlemen know, I am scheduled to address Friday’s closing meeting of the convention. I don’t know if I should go ahead with it. I did know there would be representatives there from other unions, but I never imagined it was anything like this.”

  “Go ahead with your speech,” said the President. “Go ahead as if n
othing has happened, as if you know nothing of what we talked about. Mention this meeting to no one.” And to the director, “I want you to withdraw all your men from this investigation.”

  “What?” exclaimed the director, shocked.

  “That’s what I said. Withdraw your men and forget about this case and discuss it with no one.”

  “But we’ve lost two agents.”

  “I know. But you must do what I ask now. You must trust me, that it will work out well.”

  “In my report to the attorney general, how will I explain that we are not investigating our agents’ disappearance?”

  “There will be no report. I would like to tell you what I am going to do, but I cannot. All I can say is that I have said too much. Trust me.”

  “I have my men to worry about, too, Mr. President. Abandoning an investigation after we have lost two agents will not go down too well.”

  “Trust me. For a while, trust me.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the director of the FBI.

  When the two men were gone, the President left the Oval room and went to his bedroom. He waited a few seconds to make sure no maid or butler was around, then unlocked the top bureau drawer. He reached his hand into the drawer and closed it around a small red phone. The phone had no dial, just a button. He glanced at his watch. This was one of the hours he could reach the contact.

  The phone buzzed at the other end and a voice came on.

  “Just a minute. That will be all, gentlemen. You’re dismissed.”

  The President heard other men, further from the receiver, objecting—something about in-patient treatment. But the man with the receiver was firm. He wished to be alone.

  “You can be incredibly rude, Dr. Smith,” said one of the men in the distance.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Smith.

  The President heard mumbling, then a door shutting.

  “All right,” said Dr. Smith.

  “You are probably more aware of this than I am, but I fear that we face some trouble on the labor front that will cripple the entire nation to an incredible extent.”

  “Yes. The International Transportation Association.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “You never will if, as we hope, everything works right.”

  “This is a joining of unions into one superunion?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, you are on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to use that special person? Him?”

  “We have him on alert.”

  “This is certainly drastic enough to use him.”

  “Sir, there’s no point in keeping this conversation going, even over a line as secure as this. Goodbye.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HIS NAME WAS REMO, and he felt mildly sorry for the man who had erected the poorly hidden detection devices outside this elegant Tucson estate. It was such a good try, such a sincere effort to construct a deadly trap, yet it had one obvious flaw. And because the builder did not appreciate this flaw, he would die that day, hopefully before 12:05 p.m.—because Remo had to get back to Tucson early for important business.

  The electric beams, functioning very similarly to radar, were rather well concealed and appeared to cover the required 360-degree ring which is supposed to be perfect for a single plane. The land was cleaned of just the kind of clump shrubbery that afforded concealment to attackers. The X layout of the ranch house, seemingly an architectural eccentricity, was actually a very good design for cross fire. The estate, though small and pretty, was a disguised fortress that could most certainly stop a mob executioner or could, if it came to it, delay a deputy sheriff—or two or ten.

  If it ever came to it—because there was no chance that a sheriff or a state trooper would ever besiege this estate outside of Tucson. The man called Remo was now very simply penetrating the one flaw in the entire defense: the builder had not prepared for the eventuality of one man walking up to the front door by himself in broad daylight, ringing the doorbell, then executing the builder along with anyone else who got in the way. The estate was designed to prevent a concealed attack. Remo would not even be stopped as he walked past the beams in the open Arizona sun, whistling softly to himself. After all, what danger could one man be?

  If Mr. James Thurgood had not been so successful in his business, he would probably live to see 1:00 p.m. Of course, if he were not so successful, he would be seeing 1:00 p.m. every day from the inside of a federal prison.

  James Thurgood was president of the Tucson Rotary, the Tucson Civic League, a member of the President’s Panel on Physical Fitness and executive vice-president of the Tucson Civil Rights Commission. Thurgood was also one of the leading investment bankers in the state. His profits were too big. After several layers of insulation, his money fueled the heroin traffic at a rate of $300 million a year. It returned a greater yield than land development or petrochemicals, and for James Thurgood—until this bright, hot day—had been just about as safe.

  Between Thurgood and the neighborhood fix was the First Dallas Savings and Development Corporation, which lent large sums to the Denver Consolidated Affiliates, which made personal loans to people who needed them very quickly and in large amounts, one of them being recently Rocco Scallafazo.

  Scallafazo offered no collateral, and as for his credit rating, it wasn’t good enough to be bad. It was non-existent, since no one had ever given him a loan before. Denver Consolidated transcended the narrow regulations of banking and dared risk capital where other institutions would not. It gave Scallafazo $850,000 on his personal signature.

  Denver Consolidated never got back the money. Scallafazo was picked up later with a suitcase full of Denver Consolidated’s funds as he attempted to purchase raw heroin in Mexico. Undaunted, Denver Consolidated made another unsecured loan of an equal amount to Jeremy Wills, who was arrested without the money but with a trunkful of heroin. The Scallafazos and Willses were always being picked up, but no one could tie the evidence legally to the First Dallas Savings and Development Corporation, James Thurgood, President. There was no way to get Tucson’s leading citizen into court.

  So this day the man who financed heroin in the southwest would be gotten out of court. Remo casually strolled up the sunbaked driveway, examining his nails. His appearance certainly gave no hint of danger.

  He was just under six feet tall, with soft, friendly brown eyes and high cheekbones, a bit thin except for his thick wrists. His gait was smooth and his arms flowed freely. He glanced at the far kitchen window and the far living room window—he was directly in between. He was being watched. Good. He didn’t want to have to wait at the door.

  He checked his watch. It was 11:45 a.m. now. He figured it would take him a good fifteen minutes to walk back to town, a half an hour for lunch, maybe a short nap, and he could get back to important work by early afternoon. He still did not know all the duties of a union delegate or the essential aspects of the Landrum-Griffin Bill, and “Upstairs” had said he should be ready very shortly for something big. Upstairs had even told him to ignore the hit on Thurgood if it would take too much time away from studies of the union movement.

  “I might as well do the hit,” Remo had said. “It’ll be a good break.”

  So there he was, standing at the doorway of the X-shaped ranch-style home, with two men peering at him from windows right and windows left. He reached into one of the bulging pockets of his trousers and withdrew two plastic envelopes the size of flattened baseballs. They were the heroin packages he had ordered from Upstairs. They were, his little escape tools. Worked correctly, he could stroll away from this house without anyone phoning the police. And, more important, he could do it in the daylight and not miss any sleep. One didn’t have to make a little project like this unpleasant.

  Remo rang the doorbell. He could feel the eyes on him.

  The door opened and a large man in white houseboy coat stood in the doorway, like a surprise wall. A small pistol, probably a .24 caliber Beret
ta, was rather expertly strapped beneath his armpit, showing only the barest outlines.

  “Yes,”said the man.

  “Good morning,” said Remo sweetly. “I’ve come to kill Mr. Thurgood. Is he in?”

  The butler blinked.

  “What?”

  “I’ve come to kill Mr. Thurgood. Will you let me in please.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Look. I don’t really have all day.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Be that as it may, I can’t do my work from out here, so let me in, please.”

  “You want a glass of water or something, sir?”

  Remo transferred both shiny packages to his left hand, and seeing the butler’s eyes follow the movement, went for the large man’s throat with a free right hand. The flat, knife-like hand was out and back like the flicker of a frog’s tongue scoring on a fly. The butler stood, stunned, his eyes wide. He reached for his throat. His mouth opened. It filled with blood. The butler emitted gurgling sounds, then collapsed, struggling for air.

  “The quality of help nowadays,” said Remo disdainfully and stepped over the butler into the house. It was a beautiful home with sunken living room and polished stone floors and large paintings hung in museum-like profusion. Lovely.

  A maid saw the fallen body of the butler and dropped her tray, shrieking. The man who had been at the window on the right came clipetting down a stone hallway, gun in hand. It was a heavy gun, probably a .357 Magnum. Foolish. He should have utilized the distance and gotten off a shot. Not that it would have saved him, but at least he would have died making proper use of his weapon.

  The man possibly still did not know that the butler, his throat crushed, had strangled on his own blood. Remo disposed of the gun by snapping the man’s wrist with a downchop. Continuing the motion, Remo’s elbow cracked into the man’s nose, jolting him back. Returning his arm from the blow, Remo jammed the heel of his hand into the broken nose, sending bone splinters into the brain. Zip, zip, it was over like that, and the man tumbled forward like a sack of wet asparagus. Plop.