To Free a Spy Page 6

  In the center of the cluster was a portrait of the Gallardi estate, the mansion framed by brick pillars in the foreground that guarded the entrance to the property, from which the driveway curved to the right and ran beside verdant gardens anchored by towering oaks before reaching the grand mansion in the distance. This photo was as close as Lenny had ever been to Frank’s home.

  Molly never missed a chance to hold Gallardi up to him with stories of her brother’s rise from kid dishwasher in the restaurant of the old Staffordshire Hotel on the Boardwalk, long before the casinos were even thought of. Gallardi had attended law school at night while supporting himself selling real estate, and years later bought the Staffordshire. “If you did something besides eat and watch television all the time, you could go out there like Frankie did and make yourself rich,” Molly would say. Lenny thought she had always placed her brother above him, her very son, but that might be about to change. Once he uncovered all the facts of that mysterious night of a few years back, perhaps his mother would see her brother in a different light. Her son, too. Perhaps there would be a new patriarch.

  As Lenny continued to explore Gallardi’s office now, he ventured into a closet that turned out to not be a closet at all. A fierce-eyed eagle logo peered down from above the door of a bank-like vault that had an ancient combination knob in the center of its door. The cold steel door wouldn’t budge and Lenny went through the retro Rolodex on Frank’s credenza (he wondered why the investigators had not taken the Rolodex) and any drawer he could open hoping to find something resembling a combination. After twenty minutes searching he found a tiny sliver of paper bearing a set of numbers taped to the top edge of a door and was trying to make the combination work when he heard the back elevator start up. He closed the closet door, looked around to be sure nothing was out of place, turned out the lights and went back down on the executive elevator.

  Next day at work, Lenny thought about nothing but the vault and the opportunities that might arise from a Gallardi and Matty Figueriano connection. After work, he went home and settled on the sofa in front of the television and watched The Simpsons. He set an alarm clock to go off at ten p.m. in case he fell asleep.

  * * *

  Lenny Magliacci was sure no one noticed when he got on the executive elevator at ten-thirty that night. The red exit directionals on the executive level afforded enough visibility for him to get through the familiar reception area and around the corner to Gallardi’s office, where the Boardwalk lighting reflected off the office ceiling and cast a soft glow on the walls and furniture. The Ferris wheel out on Steel Pier stood out against the black ocean like a giant roulette.

  This time he succeeded with the vault combination on the first try and pulled open the heavy door and stood at the threshold for a minute or so taking it in. The vault was tall enough for Magliacci to stand up in, about eight feet deep and just wide enough for his 350-pound frame to squeeze between the boxes lining the shelves on the side walls. A single fluorescent light overhead lit the top shelf but left those below in shadows. He rummaged through the contents of the boxes for close to an hour before conceding they contained nothing more important than yellowed bank statements, political correspondence and real estate files dating back to the beginnings of the Golden Touch. The vault was nothing more than dead storage. Magliacci’s hopes took a dive.

  Standing at the vault door taking a final doleful look, he spotted a small black bag he hadn’t noticed before, stuffed behind a box on the bottom shelf in the front corner of the vault. His heart raced as he emptied the contents out on the carpet. In it were a pair of earrings, a gold chain, a colored gemstone ring, a small serrated kitchen knife, a ring with a large stone that looked like a diamond, a tiny black dress he thought was silk, and a phone number someone had penned on a Golden Touch memo pad. All of the items were crusted over or at least spattered with a dark substance Lenny thought was blood. He sat looking at all of this, considering the possibilities. After a few minutes he put everything back into the nylon bag, closed the vault and left with the bag in hand.

  By the time he reached his car, he had held his excitement as long as he could. He kicked the rusted rear bumper of the Lincoln. “You are one smart dude, Lenny Magliacci. One smart dude!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Magliacci’s usual routine was to show up at the office around nine. After moving papers around his desk all day he would go to Harry’s High Hat Lounge, whose clientele and worn furnishings betrayed its name, four blocks from the Golden Touch where Eve the bartender had a pitcher of beer and frosted mug waiting. Several beers and a M*A*S*H rerun later he’d wander over to his apartment, find something in the refrigerator and turn on the TV. Some nights Eve would come over after work and they would nuke some frozen pizzas. It was always around two when he rolled into bed, and waking up to go to work was hard. His supervisor over at the Golden Touch warned him several times about his appearance and work habits, which led to snipes back and forth about Lenny’s attitude.

  That was before Frank Gallardi’s death. Tonight he went straight to his apartment and dumped the bag out on the kitchen counter. He scrutinized each item one at a time and kept going back to the diamond ring.

  Next morning, he woke up before the alarm clock went off—first time he could remember that happening—and got to the office at seven-thirty. He closed the door and pulled the Golden Touch memo sheet from the bag. It was the kind of pad the hotel placed by the phone in guest rooms. Brownish-black stain dotted the page but the scribbled word Post and a phone number were legible. Lenny dialed the number and got a recorded message that said the area code had been changed. When he redialed using the area code the recording gave him, a voice said he had reached The Washington Post. He hung up.

  As he lined through the newspaper’s old area code on the memo sheet and wrote in the new one, he noticed that the Golden Touch’s area code beneath the logo also was no longer current. Both the Washington and the Atlantic City area codes had changed since the blood stained pad was printed.

  At lunch Lenny walked over to Pacific Avenue a block off the Boardwalk where unlucky gamblers traded their remaining possessions for a last, desperate chance to reverse their losses. He stopped at a door that said Barella’s. A red neon sign in the window read Cash for Gold. Halogen light beamed down on the gold jewelry and diamonds that sparkled on black velvet. The elderly shopkeeper kept one hand in his pocket as Lenny walked in.

  “Tony Barella?” Lenny said.

  “That’d be me.” The man was expressionless.

  “Leonard Magliacci. Junior.”

  A smile began to develop on the man’s wrinkled face. “I’ll be damned.” He removed his hand from his pocket and shook Lenny’s. “You were knee-high last time I saw you. How’s your mother, son?”

  “Fine, good. I, uh, need—”

  Barella reached across the display case and grasped Lenny’s big shoulder. “Your dad and me, pretty good buddies. Yeah, soon’s we got back from Germany after the war, I made that wedding ring of your mother’s for him. I bet you didn’t know that!”

  Magliacci nodded and started to speak, but Barella continued.

  “Say, too bad about your uncle Frank. Your mother’s younger brother, right? Couldn’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, bad day for us,” Lenny said, looking at his watch. “Look, I need a—”

  “So did I hear you’re a lawyer?”

  Lenny nodded and forced a faint smile. “Need a favor.” He pulled the diamond ring he’d found in Gallardi’s safe out of his pocket and placed it on the glass top of the case. “Bought this off a guy who needed some cash. Wanna be sure I didn’t get stuck.”

  Barella considered Lenny for a long moment as his enthusiasm disappeared. “I see.” He louped the stone and measured it. “Well, some of these shops along here, they’d give you maybe three or four grand for it. Worth more but you know how it works. Guess you know, it’s a Tiffany.”

  Lenny was surprised.

  “Yeah, they
’d get thirty for it today. Find the right buyer, you might get eight, ten grand.” Barella looked at the inside of the ring under the loupe. “Got some initials in it. Here. Take a look.” He handed the ring and magnifying glass to Lenny. Magliacci moved the loupe around until he could see the tiny inscription: “KA & JAG.”

  His mind raced as he headed back to the casino. He could forget about this whole affair right now, sell the ring on the spot, and put a small fortune in his pocket. God knows he could use it. But he had a feeling the names associated with those initials were worth more to him than that. A lot more. He was going to gamble on it.

  * * *

  Lenny stayed at Harry’s High Hat until midnight that evening before returning to Gallardi’s private office suite. It looked the same as always. Magliacci knew the family had pleaded with the authorities to leave it intact for the time being: Frank was still there with them as long as his office looked the same. Lenny himself didn’t go for that kind of bullshit thinking. Some of that bunch were still crying and people like them made Lenny sick, but it had worked in his favor. The outmoded Rolodex Gallardi had maintained his phone contacts in was still sitting there on his credenza.

  Lenny sat in Gallardi’s chair and turned the directory to K. Frank had entered first names and very few last names but within minutes Lenny narrowed the possibilities for KA down to someone named Kent or a Karly. He copied both numbers. The Rolodex yielded no clues to JAG’s identity.

  The next morning he dialed the number for Kent. The woman who answered said Kent wouldn’t be home until after high-school baseball practice, around six. There was no other Kent there and never had been. She’d had the number for seventeen years. Lenny hung up. He guessed Kent was a player on one of the little league teams Gallardi sponsored.

  The Rolodex number for Karly now belonged to someone who’d moved to Atlantic City a year ago and didn’t know anyone named Karly, and the phone company told Magliacci it never revealed information about the prior owners of a phone number for any reason short of a court order.

  That night at home, Magliacci decided to leave for New York the next morning. He got up early and left a message on his supervisor’s phone that he was sick today and would try to make it in tomorrow. He threw his best sport coat in the back seat of the Lincoln and headed north on the Garden State Parkway. Lenny knew Tiffany’s had a store in Atlantic City but that was not an option. Too many people in Atlantic City knew him, and any notice of his activities with this ring, unique because of its inscription, had the potential to cause him trouble.

  He parked off Fifth Avenue near Tiffany’s and smoothed his hair in the car mirror. The beard needed a trim but it was too late for that. When he tried to button his jacket he realized how long he’d had it, and thought of the promises he’d made to Molly to lose some weight. He took another look at the diamond ring, holding it in the sun to get the full spectrum of colors, and stuck it back into his pants. He patted his pocket several times for reassurance the ring was still there as he walked the two blocks to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 37th. He knew it was a tell to pickpockets but he couldn’t help himself. He looked at the Tiffany’s sign, shined the tops of his shoes on the back of his trouser legs and walked into the store. He looked around at the lights and displays and thought of the contrast between there and old man Barella’s shop.

  A floor manager met him at the door. “How may I help you, sir?”

  Magliacci fished the ring from his pocket. “Uh, I inherited this ring. I think it came from here.”

  “Oh, wonderful!” said the manager with a congratulatory smile. “How can we help?”

  “Well, I want information about it. You know, details.”

  The man led him to a small paneled room. Lenny sank into a leather chair and moments later a woman came in and introduced herself as Laura Lerner and asked how she could help.

  He gave her the diamond ring and addressed her as he might a subordinate. “Laura, I represent the estate of the deceased who left this ring. We’d like to know something about it.”

  She left with the ring, returned with it two minutes later and punched something into her computer. She confirmed that it had been bought at Tiffany’s, gave him technical details about the stone and confirmed Barella’s thirty-thousand-dollar estimate for a new similar stone.

  Lenny suppressed his excitement as he pressed on. “And can you determine who you sold the ring to from the initials on the inside?”

  She looked at him apologetically. “That would require a great deal of documentation from you.”

  Lenny thanked Lerner and left. The trip wasn’t a waste. She had confirmed what old man Barella said about value but, more important, Magliacci gleaned from a peek at the computer monitor the exact date the ring was purchased.

  Driving back to Atlantic City, Magliacci racked his brain for a way to identify KA and JAG. The purchase date of the ring was a little more than seven years ago. Someone at the GT besides Gallardi must have known KA or JAG, probably both of them. Lenny thought of a handful who had worked there for a long time and scribbled their names on a legal pad as he drove. Of the seven he came up with, five were top Golden Touch executives, close allies of Gallardi’s who wouldn’t throw a bucket of water on Lenny if he were on fire, and the sixth was dead. He might have a chance with the seventh, a woman whose office was not located on the executive level with the others.

  * * *

  Before she became the Golden Touch’s first executive housekeeper, Maria Sanchez held the same position at a small four-star hotel in New York. She had bided her time for years waiting for the right opportunity to get out of the city. Maybe this new hotel and casino in Atlantic City was it, she told her husband when the headhunter contacted her. In prior years, they had driven down on vacation twice and loved the Boardwalk, the ocean air and the less frenetic pace. After clearing three preliminary interviews with some of the hotel executive staff, Maria met with Frank Gallardi himself for final approval. She knew within minutes he was a man she could work for all out. Everything about him—the people he surrounded himself with, the fact that he made eye contact when he talked to her, his straightforward manner—felt right. She figured Gallardi was impressed as well because he hired her on the spot. That same day, she and her husband found a house they liked within walking distance to both the Golden Touch complex and a Catholic church.

  Maria had spoken to Gallardi’s widow soon after he died and offered her services in any way that might make things easier. Rose Gallardi thanked Maria and told her how much her husband thought of her, but of course there was nothing she or anyone else could do. She would not hesitate to call.

  Since joining the Golden Touch Maria had been approached by headhunters representing almost every hotel in Atlantic City. Although her housekeeping department and its army of workers was not a profit center for the hotel, it contributed to the Golden Touch’s success. Every day, thousands of sheets and towels had to be laundered and hundreds of rooms cleaned and restocked—and all before three p.m. How efficiently it was done made an impression on the guests, and how economically it was carried out affected the hotel’s operating cost. Frank had told her more than once that the Golden Touch outperformed the other Boardwalk hotels in those areas and always gave Maria the credit. Which of course made her work all the harder for this man she loved like a brother and respected so much. Frank’s murder would not change that for Maria.

  It was nine-fifteen when Maria’s phone rang for the hundredth time that morning. She picked it up without taking her eyes off of her computer monitor that listed checkouts.

  “Leonard Magliacci. Need a few minutes.”

  Maria took a deep breath. The hotel had been packed for a week and she didn’t have time to talk to anyone. The last person she wanted to see was Big Lenny, as those in her department referred to him. Although she had few direct dealings with him, she’d heard the occasional idle chatter among other managers that Frank had hired him as a favor to his sister and that he was not
hing but a drain on Gallardi. To some, Big Lenny was laughing stock but Maria disliked his reputation too much to waste her own time even thinking about him.

  “Very busy.” She spoke with a slight accent.

  “Since it’s about my uncle’s estate I’d say it’s more important than whatever you’re doing.”

  Maria restrained herself. “Go ahead then.”

  “Not on the phone. Be there in a minute.”

  Maria went to the ladies’ room to check her starched white blouse and green blazer. She was fifty-seven now, and even though she didn’t care what Leonard Magliacci thought about anything, she took as much pride in her personal appearance as in her work. When she returned to her office Magliacci was seated behind her desk in her chair, which was too small for him. She wasn’t pleased about that, and she wondered if he would be able to get out of it.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Magliacci?” She stood in front of her own desk, arms crossed behind her back.

  Lenny looked at some papers he’d brought, and Maria wondered if they were her employment records. “You been here since the hotel opened, right?”

  “Since day one. Yes.”

  He nodded toward another chair beside her desk. “You can sit down.”

  “I’ll stand. I’m sure you can see how busy we are,” she said, forcing a smile that was polite at best.

  He nodded. “Came across the name Karly in some of my uncle’s things. She was probably around the hotel several years ago. I think her last name was spelled with an A. Know her?”

  Maria looked away. Know her? Oh my God! I was all but a mother to the girl. Honey, when you gonna get outta this business?…Just a little longer, Maria, don’t worry…But I do worry. So many things can happen…. And those nights when Karly would call her late. Maria, I hurt so much. Could you come up here for a few minutes?…Oh, Dear God, it’s happened again. What’ve they done to you this time? I’ll be right there, Honey…. And that apartment deal with Frank! Karly, don’t be afraid to ask. Frank’s a businessman. He may give it to you. But, oh God, listen to me now. Here I am helping you do something I don’t even approve of… Oh, Maria, God knows where your heart is. He’s not going to punish you, too…. And those times when Karly wanted to talk. Maria, listen to what happened with this dude last night… Oh, Honey, I shouldn’t! But I guess it’s okay to listen to part of it…. And there was that Washington Big Shot she was seeing. Honey, that man’s trouble and you’re seeing too much of him… Oh, Maria, Jag’s the best thing I got going… Yeah, but he’s too powerful. Something tells me you should leave him alone… You sound like my grandmother, sometimes, Maria. Stop worrying so much…. And then there was Karly’s retirement plan, that 401-Karly, or something like that. It’s not right, Honey, and besides that you’re playing with fire. You know how I worry about you with that man, anyway…. All that had been—what was it now?—six or seven years ago.