Scarlett turned on the desk lamp and went to the first cabinet. He crouched down to the bottom file, manipulated the combination numbers, and pulled out the drawer, He reached in and withdrew an extremely thick leather-bound notebook and placed it on the desk. He sat down and opened it.
It was his master work, the product of five years of meticulous scholarship.
He scanned the pages—delicately, precisely inserted into the rings with cloth circlets around each hole. Each entry was lettered clearly. After every name was a brief description, where available, and a briefer biography—position, finances, family, future—when the candidate warranted it.
The pages were titled and separated by cities and states. Index tabs of different colors descended from the top of the notebook to the bottom.
A masterpiece!
The record of every individual—important and unimportant—who had benefited in any way from the operations of the Scarlatti organization. From congressmen taking outright bribes from his subordinates to corporation heads “investing” in wildcat, highly illegal speculations proffered—again never by Ulster Stewart Scarlett—through his hired hands. All he had supplied was the capital. The honey. And the bees had flocked to it!
Politicians, bankers, lawyers, doctors, architects, writers, gangsters, office clerks, police, customs inspectors, firemen, bookmakers … the list of professions and occupations was endless.
The Volstead Act was the spine of the corruption, but there were other enterprises—all profitable.
Prostitution, abortion, oil, gold, political campaigns and patronage, the stock market, speakeasies, loan-sharking … this list, too, was endless.
The money-hungry little people could never walk away from their greed. It was the ultimate proof of his theories!
The money-grasping scum!
Everything documented. Everyone identified.
Nothing left to speculation.
The leather-bound notebook contained 4,263 names. In eighty-one cities and twenty-four states.… Twelve senators, ninety-eight congressmen, and three men in Coolidge’s cabinet.
A directory of malfeasance.
Ulster Stewart picked up the desk phone and dialed a number.
“Put Vitone on.… Never mind who’s calling! I wouldn’t have this number if he didn’t want me to have it!”
Scarlett crushed out his cigarette. He drew unconnected lines on a scratch pad while waiting for Genovese. He smiled when he saw that the lines converged—like knives—into a center spot … No, not like knives. Like bolts of lightning.
“Vitone? It’s me.… I’m aware of that … There’s not very much we can do, is there?… If you’re questioned, you’ve got a story. You were in Westchester. You don’t know where the hell La Tona was.… Just keep me out! Understand? Don’t be a smart-ass.… I’ve got a proposition for you. You’re going to like it. It makes everything worth while for you.… It’s all yours. Everything! Make whatever deals you like. I’m out.”
There was silence from the other end of the line. Ulster Scarlett drew the figure of a Christmas tree on the scratch pad.
“No hitches, no catches. It’s yours! I don’t want a thing. The organization’s all yours.… No, I don’t know anything! I just want out. If you’re not interested, I can go elsewhere—say the Bronx or even out to Detroit. I’m not asking for a nickel.… Only this. Only one thing. You never saw me. You never met me. You don’t know I exist! That’s the price.”
Don Vitone Genovese began chattering in Italian while Scarlett held the receiver several inches from his ear. The only word Scarlett really understood was the repeated, “Grazie, grazie, grazie.”
He hung up the receiver and closed the leather-bound notebook. He sat for a moment and then opened the top drawer in the center of the desk. He took out the last letter he had received from Gregor Strasser. He reread it for the twentieth time. Or was it the hundred and twentieth?
“A fantastic plan … a bold plan … the Marquis Jacques Louis Bertholde … London … by mid-April …”
Was the time really here? At last!
If it was, Heinrich Kroeger had to have his own plan for Ulster Scarlett.
It wasn’t so much bold as it was respectable. Immensely, thoroughly respectable. So proper, in fact, that Ulster Stewart Scarlett burst out laughing.
The scion of Scarlatti—the charming, handsome graduate of the cotillions, the hero of the Meuse-Argonne, New York society’s most eligible bachelor—was going to be married.
CHAPTER 8
“You presume, Mr. Reynolds!” Elizabeth Scarlatti was seething. Her vehemence was directed at the old man who stood calmly in front of her, peering over his glasses. “I do not countenance presumptuous people and I will not abide liars!”