Chapter Seven

Ulster Stewart Scarlett got out of the taxi at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street and walked the short distance to his brownstone house. He ran up the steps to the heavy front door and let himself in. He slammed the door shut and stood for a moment in the huge foyer, stamping his feet against the February cold. He threw his coat into a hallway chair, then walked through a pair of French doors into a spacious living room and turned on a table lamp… It was only four in the afternoon but already growing dark.

He crossed from the table to the fireplace and noted with satisfaction that the servants had piled the logs and the kindling properly. He lit the fire and watched the flames leap to all corners of the fireplace. He gripped the mantel and leaned toward the warmth of the blaze. His eyes were on the level of his Silver Star citation, framed in gold in the center of the wall. He made a mental note to complete the display above the fireplace. The time would soon be here when that display should be in evidence.

A reminder to everyone who entered this house.

It was a momentary diversion. His thoughts returned to the source of his anger. His fury.

Stupid, God damn thick-headed scum!

Bilge! Garbage!

Four crewmen from the Genoa-Stella killed. The captain’s body found in an abandoned waterfront barge.

They could have lived with that. They could have lived with the crew’s rebellion. The docks were violent.

But not with the corpse of La Tona hooked to a cross post on the surface of the water fifty yards from the ship. The freighter bringing in the contraband.

La Tona!

Who had killed him? Not the slow-speaking, cloddish customs guard… Christ, no!… La Tona would have eaten his balls off and spat them out laughing! La Tona was a sneak killer. The worst kind of homicidal brute.

There’d be a smell. A bad smell. No graft could stop it. Five murders on pier thirty-seven during a single night shift.

And with La Tona it would be traced to Vitone. Little Don Vitone Genovese. Dirty little guinea bastard, thought Scarlett.

Well, it was time for him to get out.

He had what he wanted. More than he needed. Strasser would be amazed. They’d all be amazed.

Ulster Scarlett lit a cigarette and walked to a small, thin door to the left of the fireplace. He took out a key, unlocked the door, and walked in.

The room, like the door to it, was small. It had once been a walk-in wine pantry; now it was a miniature office with a desk, a chair, and two heavy steel file cabinets. On each file drawer was a wide circular combination lock.

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 worthwhile 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.