Union Bust Page 3

  “Mr. Thurgood. Mr. Thurgood. We’re being attacked,” came a voice. Remo peered down the left hallway. A cowboy hat disappeared into a door. Well, so much for surprise.

  “How many?” came another voice. It was deep and resonant with just a faint hint of a wide Boston “A” floating in the clear western tones. Remo had heard the voice on identity tapes he had gotten from Upstairs. It was Thurgood.

  “One, sir. That’s why we let him through.”

  “Dammit. Why didn’t the help stop him?”

  “Dead, sir.” Thurgood and the man in the cowboy hat were obviously talking across the hallway.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sang Remo.

  “Who is he?” asked Thurgood.

  “Your friendly neighborhood assassin,” Remo called out.

  “The man is mad.”

  Remo eased down the hallway and spotted a door that moved ever so slightly, like a tremble. The cowboy hadn’t entered that door. Thurgood was behind it. Nice. The door was slightly ajar, just a sliver open. Remo, silent, moved against the wall, out of the line of vision afforded by the crack between door and jamb. When he neared the door, he reached a hand far from his body and knocked quickly. Twice.

  Two slugs tore through the door and thudded into the wall across the hall, clipping a grapefruit-sized hole in the plaster. Nice pattern.

  “Argh,” called out Remo, collapsing to the floor with a thud. He stuck out his tongue crazily and rolled his eyeballs back into his head so that only the whites would show. He heard the door near him open.

  “I got him,” said Thurgood. Steps, perhaps twenty yards away and coming close. Something hard, metallic, against his temple. Pushing. Rifle barrel. Too much weight for a pistol. Smell of shoe leather. One has remnant of cow dung. Floor cold on back. One standing over the right shoulder. Other standing near hip. Hand on chest. One kneeling. Pressure.

  “Still breathing, but faintly. Nice shot, sir.”

  “Where did I get him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t see the bullet hole. What’ll we tell the sheriff, Mr. Thurgood?”

  “That I shot an intruder, of course. What did you expect me to say?”

  “He’s got something in his hand.” Remo felt his fingers unfolded and the two plastic packages of heroin being removed. “It’s horse. Yeah. Looks like the powder. It is.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Maybe we could say he brought it, Mr. Thurgood. That’s the truth.”

  “No. Flush it down the toilet.”

  “It’s thirty grand worth, at least.”

  “Flush it. I’m an investment banker, you ninny.”

  “Yessir.”

  Remo felt the gun barrel tremble slightly. He could wait no longer. Up came his right thumb, deflecting the barrel as a shot chipped into the stone floor. Following through on the hand motion, his body rose in a single smooth flow. His left hand, whipping like an unsprung car aerial, caught the fine face of Tucson’s leading businessman flat. Like a shot. Splat.

  “Ugh,” said Thurgood in shock.

  Spinning through the blow, Remo brought an elbow up and around to where the cowboy should have been. He was. The elbow caught the armpit, separating the shoulder and driving into the collarbone. The collarbone cracked. The cowboy, ten-gallon hat and cow-manure shoes, went forlornly into the wall and collapsed in pain.

  Remo checked the hallway. Clean. He turned to Thurgood.

  “Regards from the turned-on generation, sweetheart,” said Remo, as two fingers of his right hand drove the testicles of James Thurgood, leading Tucson citizen and heroin financier, into the lungs. On their way, they took a good portion of the intestinal tract, some of which now gushed in a bloody flood from the mouth of the man the courts could not touch. Thurgood lurched forward to spend the last twenty seconds of his life in awesome agony.

  The cowboy would live.

  “Ooooh,” he groaned.

  Remo looked around the hall. Where were the bags of heroin? He lifted up the cowboy who emitted a shriek. There they were. Remo knocked the cowboy into them. He waited for the cowboy to regain some clarity of mind. Then he pushed the bags of heroin under the cowboy’s nose.

  “I think you’ll want to get this cleaned up before you phone the sheriff,” said Remo. One bag had been torn open. Remo opened the second also. In full view of the cowboy, he sprinkled the white powder along the Thurgood hallway until now unsullied by its touch.

  For final measure, Remo sprinkled the last of the heroin over the Thurgood living room, grinding it into the deep pile rug with his heels. He flipped the empty plastic bags to a sofa and strolled to the door.

  “So long, shitkicker,” he called out to the cowboy and left the X-shaped fortress which had, after all, only one serious flaw in its defense.

  It was a pleasant, dry, invigorating day, on which a man could whistle to his heart’s content, and the stroll back to Tucson was enjoyable. By the time he reached the city limits, Remo had worked up a thirst. He dropped into a hamburger stand for a cola and “two with everything, to go. Thanks.”

  While waiting for the burgers, he briefly reviewed his morning’s reading on collective bargaining. Something big was going to come off in Chicago. And somehow it had to do with the union movement. That was all Upstairs had said.

  Remo added an extra dose of ketchup to his hamburgers and consumed them almost in four bites, washing them down with large draughts of the dark, sweet cola.

  As he wiped his mouth a strange thing happened. Numbness crept up his arms into his neck, immobilizing his face. He heard a woman shriek, and as the hamburger stand whirled crazily above him, everything became very black.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “WELCOME, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF DRIVERS.”

  The banner floated over the quiet convention hall, catching vagrant indoor breezes. Two men stood by the speaker’s podium, one watching the banner, the other nervously watching him.

  In three hours, the rows upon rows of silent, darkened seats would be filled with cheering, clapping men, big men, strong men, men who could handle the monster tractor trailers and men who could handle those men. It would be a big convention. It always was, and this year Chicago had won over Miami or Las Vegas.

  They were big spenders, these union delegates, and it was not the least of surprises that just two months before the convention, it had been switched from the big spending towns to a midwest city. Many of the delegates were angry about that. They knew who was behind it.

  Neither their anger nor the nervousness of his number-two man bothered the president of Local 873, Nashville, Tennessee, that morning. He was absorbed in air currents.

  “I wonder where those breezes come from,” said Eugene Jethro. “I wonder if some internal force we know nothing about is blowing that banner.” He was a young man, in his mid-twenties, and his long golden locks flowed to the shoulders of his green velvet suit. He was too young to be president of a driver local, they said. Too mod to be president of a driver local, they said. Too fresh to be president of a driver local, they said. But here he was, and his name would be entered for the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Drivers.

  “What do you care about banners, Gene? In three hours this convention opens and we’re gonna get eaten alive,” said the vice-president of Local 873, Nashville. He was Sigmund Negronski, a burly, squat man with forearms like bowling pins. “We gotta win the election, or we’re gonna do time.”

  Gene Jethro put a hand to his chin. His face screwed into deep thought.

  “I wonder if just thinking about it can make that banner blow one way or another? The discipline of the mind over the essence of matter.”

  “Gene. Will you get off it? We gotta work some more strategy.”

  “It’s been worked.”

  “I’m scared. Will you listen to me. I’m scared. We spent money we didn’t have. We made deals we can’t keep. We’ve made commitments with some very rough people. If you don’t win the presidency, we’
ll do time. If we’re lucky.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it, Siggy,” said Jethro. He smiled the now famous Gene Jethro smile, a boyish open grin the media had quickly taken a liking to and other driver officers had resented. It was too Kennedyish. It was too political. They were tough men, these drivers, and worked hard for their money. They distrusted flamboyance as much as eloquence. And Gene Jethro had both. In just three months he had risen dramatically to become a national power in the brotherhood. He had this mysterious ability to get done whatever had to be done.

  An indictment against a driver official in Burbank, California? Phone Jethro in Tennessee. He could get it quashed in hours.

  A dispute over loansharking at a terminal? Somehow this young kid from Appalachia could settle it. Passport trouble of a friend? Get Gene Jethro.

  “I don’t know what the kid’s got, but he’s got it.” was the common refrain among driver officials. “Of course he’s still too young for anything big.”

  Jethro beckoned his vice-president to the podium.

  “Here it is,” he said. “Imagine the hall with 3,000 delegates. Screaming. Applauding. And I’m here, and I’ve got them in the palm of my hand. And with them, the next step.”

  “There’s another step, Gene?”

  “There’s always another step.”

  “How about the one at hand? How about the presidency? If we don’t get it, we’re going to jail. We built that building with funds from the international. Now we don’t have that kind of money.”

  “You think I don’t know that you dear, sweet, dumb Polack.”

  “Hey, lay off that. You know, Gene, you used to be a nice kid. You used to be a comer. I could see you making it in twenty years, making it big. People liked you. But in the last three months, I don’t know what’s happened to you? You gave up a sweet girl for that broad who hardly wears clothes. You moved out of your apartment into a split level job with a swimming pool. You talk funny now, you think funny now, and I’m beginning not to know you.”

  “You never knew me, dumbo,” said Jethro.

  “Well, then, you’re going to jail alone.”

  “We, Siggy. We.”

  “We nothing, Gene. You. All I did was step down as president of the local so you could take over.”

  “Is that all, Siggy?”

  “Well, my daughter got that kidney machine and don’t think I’m not grateful.”

  “Is that all, Siggy?”

  “Well, we got the porch and the new car and I have bread for my girlfriend’s place.”

  “Is that all, Siggy?”

  “Well, uh, yeah. That’s all. It’s enough. Don’t get me wrong. But it ain’t enough to go to jail for.”

  Jethro stuffed his hands into the pockets of his green bell-bottoms. He spun to the dead microphone and boomed to a nonexistent audience.

  “Fellow drivers and delegates to the 85th Annual Convention of the International Brotherhood of Drivers, I give you my local vice-president. He is a loyal man. He is a man who will stand with you through thick and thin, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And I will tell you why he will stand with you.”

  “Aw, come off it, will you Gene?”

  “I will tell you why he will stand with you. He has the best of all reasons to stand with you.”

  “C’mon, Gene.”

  “Because he doesn’t want to be a puddle.”

  Blood drained from the face of Sigmund Negronski. His lips became dry. He looked nervously around the empty auditorium.

  “You really like to hurt,” said Negronski.

  “I love it.”

  “You never used to be like this. What happened?”

  “I got a swimming pool, a Jaguar, a mistress, a manservant, and enough power to make this union jump. And some day, in the not too distant future, I’m gonna make the country jump. Jump like you jump, you dumb, pathetic, fat Polack.”

  Sigmund Negronski stood in sullen silence. He had brought this kid along from driver to shop steward to business agent. And then just three months ago the kid had started to change. Nothing you would notice right away, just more relaxed, then smooth, then vicious. What bothered Negronski was that when this kid smiled, Negronski still liked him, although he knew he should hate him for the indignities he inflicted on the older man. He should flatten this arrogant kid like a tomato under a U-Haul. But he still liked him. And that rasped to the very marrow of his bones.

  Negronski looked at the dead microphone and then at Jethro.

  “We just better win this thing tomorrow,” said Negronski.

  The sounds of striding men echoed through the convention hall—heavy men with heavy footsteps, marching almost in unison. Negronski peered out into the darkness over the rows of empty seats, into the large, dark, disinfectant-smelling auditorium.

  “Jethro, you sonuvabitch, I’m here, you little twerp, and today is the day you get yours.” The voice was deep and harsh and echoed the wide Boston “A.” It was Anthony McCulloch, president of Local 73, Boston. And it looked as if he had brought his delegates with him. Big men, burly men, they advanced like the Green Bay Packers line going out to lunch.

  McCulloch himself stood six-feet-five, and Negronski knew that he weighed 320 pounds because at last year’s convention they had all weighed themselves on a freight scale after a round of drinking and a round of betting. McCulloch had claimed he could guess anyone’s weight within five pounds. And he had.

  McCulloch, despite his friendliness when he drank, was a power in Eastern union politics, and a man Jethro would need if he ever hoped to get close enough to sell the presidency of the international.

  “Hello, Siggy,” said McCulloch. “Who’s your faggy friend?”

  “Hi, Tony,” said Negronski.

  “Well, well. Anthony McCulloch. Thank you for coming,” said Jethro.

  “I didn’t come here to promise you my support. I came here to tell you that a group of us here found out about that building outside the city.”

  Jethro smiled. “Ah, Anthony, Anthony,” he sighed. “Why must you do everything I figure you will do? Why aren’t you some real competition for me?”

  McCulloch looked up to the speaker’s platform, then back at the men following him. Negronski recognized three presidents, two joint council presidents and five business agents with the rep as good muscle. They all thought this remark by Jethro was rather puzzling. If it had been a threat, they would have laughed in his face, Negronski knew. But his arrogance was only confusing. They obviously did not think of him as a threat.

  “Kid,” said McCulloch. “You may claim some kind of mental disorder before some judge, but we don’t buy that plea. You stole union money, promised union money, our money, to put up some kind of a building outside this city. Without the okay of the council. Without even the written okay of the treasurer of the international, you committed us to millions. Millions, we still don’t know how much. Our accountants are checking it out.”

  “You spoke to the treasurer?” asked Jethro sweetly.

  “Yeah. We spoke,” said McCulloch.

  “And how is he?”

  “He’ll be walking again by maybe fall. Which is more than we can say for you. You’re looking at some people you can’t buy, kid. You’re looking at people you can’t deal for. We’ve had you, boy. We’re gonna run your ass the hell out of the brotherhood.”

  Little sounds of “tell ’em,” “you said it,” “sock it to him,” could be heard from the group. The convention hall was chilly, waiting for the multitude of warming bodies, but Negronski felt perspiration form on his forehead. He wiped it off. His lips were dry again, and he did not know what to do with his hands.

  “You part of this, Siggy?” asked McCulloch.

  Negronski looked down at his shoes, back up to McCulloch, and then to Jethro, who lounged against the microphone like a rock singer. Negronski looked back down at his shoes.

  “You part of this thing, Siggy?” McCulloch asked again.

 
; Negronski mumbled an answer.

  “I didn’t hear you,” McCulloch said, “You can still get off the hook, Siggy. We know you’re okay.”

  “I’m part of this thing,” said Negronski softly.

  “What?”asked McCulloch.

  “I’m part of it. I’m part of it,” yelled Negronski.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Siggy,” said McCulloch. “Sorry for you.”

  Jethro laughed and fondled the microphone head.

  “You want to see where your money went?” he asked tauntingly.

  “This pineapple is not to be believed,” said McCulloch to his men. “And he wants to be president of the international.” The McCulloch people laughed.

  They stopped laughing forty minutes later when their Cadillacs drove up Nuihc Street, and they saw the building, glistening aluminum spires reaching into a cloudless blue sky. Green sun-windows a story and a half each. Shiny bronze arches over the windows reflecting the sun like daylight torches. They gasped at its beauty.

  Even Rocco ‘the Pig’ Pigarello, business agent for Local 1287, Union City, New Jersey, one of the roughest locals in the country where no local president ever left office on his feet, could not contain himself.

  “It’s byoootiful,” he said. “Real byootiful.”

  “You guys ought to like it. You paid for it. Triple what it would have cost if it had been put up in a reasonable time.”

  “Byootiful,” said the Pig.

  “We need it like we need leukemia. What do we need it for? It’s our money and we don’t need it.” McCulloch said.

  “Yeah, we don’t need it,” said the Pig. “It’s byootiful.”

  “That’s just the outside. Wait until you see the inside,” said Jethro. And the New England representatives became the first union delegates to view the inside of the building on Nuihc Street.

  Rocco ‘the Pig’ Pigarello emitted 147 more ‘byootifuls.” This was known because Timmy Ryan, Joe Wolcyz and Prat Connor kept count.

  “You say ‘byootiful’ once more, Pig, and you’re going to be saying it without teeth,” said Connor.