all right and then he remembered it was just a face. 'What tap? Whose phone?' He kept caving in.
'Rozitsky's.' He nodded toward the smoking building where firemen were still at work putting the last of the blaze out.
'You tapped Jake Rozitsky? When was this? How come you didn't talk to me?' A basset is all Eichord kept thinking as sad eyes looked at him.
'Just a few days ago. I didn't have a chance, Lieutenant. Always somebody around or I wasn't near a telephone I could trust. Taps go two ways. I got a bad feeling about this Russo case.'
'Yeah.' Springer sat quietly for a second. 'You're saying somebody in the unit is dirty.'
'No. Not at all. Just saying — well, you have to consider all the options. The bottom line is. I had his private line tapped when he was killed.'
'Umm. And?'
'I think I've got the killer's voice on tape.'
Back at Twelfth and dark everybody in Chief Adler's Special Division gathered on the fourth floor as if for a wake or a quiet riot. It took a long, l-o-n-n-n-g forty-five minutes for the agent to show up with the dupe of the original.
'Go ahead,' Springer told him, and the special agent threaded the tape into a playback unit.
'Okay. Uh' — he cleared his throat — 'this is not going to be real great quality so we'll have to concentrate and make as little noise as possible, please, so everybody can hear this clearly. This is a dupe of the original and we lost a lot of the sound quality dubbing it but we knew you wanted to hear the content as soon as possible. We should have the real thing for you all remastered and quite audible by tomorrow afternoon. Meanwhile this is all we can give you.'
'All right. What it is — this is a tap made from an office bug in the law office of the decedent, but this was patched into a mobile phone which transmits through high-frequency radio waves. It's a cellular unit, like your two-ways, or paging services, things like that, but this is not off the open tap that addresses the device by harmonics, this —'
'Uh, excuse me,' Eichord interrupted. 'Sorry but we need to hear this, so if you will hold off on the technical stuff for later.' Somebody said showtime as the agent nodded and hit Play. For five minutes all they heard was a lot of crap about the Dolphins game, and the line on the game, and the point spread. Then there was a new conversation.
Eichord listened to the somewhat poor-quality tape as the lawyer's secretary spoke with someone else's secretary, and there was a pause while the other party came on the line. One of the cops in the room said, 'This is James Measure he's talkin' to.'
'Yeah,' a gruff voice barked.
'Mr. Measure, please stay on the line for Mr. Rozitsky.'
'Yeah, awright.'
'Jim-baby,' a rich voice enthused.
'Jake. What's up?'
'How are ya, booby?'
'I'm awright. Not too bad.'
'Listen, Jim ... I gotta talk to ya about a couple of things later, ya know?'
'Yeah.'
'I had that meeting with our friend over there, and it's just what I told you. He's holding us up, but he's gonna' swing with it, so that's all there is to it we just gotta push his buttons.'
'He's holding us up awright, the cocksuck.'
'Yeah. That's going to have to be taken care of. We gonna get banged for some sweetener, ya' know?'
'Oh, I figured that out awready.'
'He's gonna have to have some sweetener but he'll pop for us I promise ya, no problem at all. We gotta waltz him around a little first, and then he's gonna waltz us around a little, and then we're all gonna dance a little more, and finally we gonna get a bottom line, and that's the way it'll work. I mean, we'll get there it's just gonna take a dance or two.'
'I don't give a fuck he gotta go with me on this thing, that's all there is to it.'
'I talked to him. Look, Jim, he knows that's your country here and he's gotta go through you to do this thing, and some dues get paid both ways, he's aware of this.'
'Fuckin' right it's our country here, the mother-fucker.'
'So it's just getting banged for a little sweetener and dance a couple dances with the sonofabitch and that's that, emmis, but it's like a bullshit thing with him, ya know? He's gotta put you through the numbers, see, so it looks like it's all kosher, and Mr. Big Businessman, but at the end he's got his hand out. He just don't ask for the sweetener like a man, he gotta waltz us around all over the place first. But that's what you got me for. I'll dance with the cock-suck for a while and then we'll do something.'
'So what's he gonna nail us on it?'
'I figure another ten dollars on it.'
'Je-sus
'So we'll get banged for a little sweetener and that's the name of that tune. But you know, what pisses me off he can't be a man and just come out wit' it he's gotta' waltz around all over the place first and act like Honest John, see, and the slimy sonofabitch is puttin' his hand down in your pocket and telling you this and that and the other thing like he can't do this and he can't do that.'
'This is bullshit. Ten large. Christ, the fuck, gonna bang me for another ten large I better see something happen pretty fuckin' fast is all I can tell ya. I ain't payin' ten dollars more for a hand job.'
'I'll let you know what finally gets decided on that. But meanwhile on the other thing you had me reach out for —?'
'Yeah?'
'No problem. He's very understanding to our situation. I can absolutely fuckin' guarantee you we reach him when we want him. The only thing is it has to be handled with kid gloves. I don't want to do it myself.'
'Just take care of it whatever ya' think.'
'Yeah. I'll have somebody here in the office drop around and give him the envelope. That's no problem. And he's quite understanding and sympathetic. The thing is you know he says there has to be something for show. My feeling is we can expect a very smooth thing there, though.'
'When we come up? What is it — three weeks?'
'Yeah, right. Jim, another thing good for us there is that he's got his friend wants that political thing. That appointment is like a fucking lifetime annuity, ya know?'
'Ya better fucking believe it. Those cocksucks don't do shit and the fucking thing pays seventy large while they sit on their asses, and they don't gotta run every couple years like them other assholes. Shit. They gotta fuckin' bird's nest on the ground.'
'Abso-fuckin'-lutely. Shit, I'd take a fuckin' judgeship over there. And of course he knows you got the fix in with the Committee too, so we got no problem there whatsoever. So his friend has done all that work for the ticket, see, and we just ease him into that, we got two out of three bases covered over there.'
'Goddamn right.'
'Well, I'm sorry about the other but I wanted to let you know about our friend over there. I think he'll bang us for ten dollars and that'll be that, so hang tough, and I'll get back to ya when I have something concrete.'
'I got something concrete for the cocksuck.'
(They laugh.)
'Take care — talk to ya later.'
'Awright, Jake, lemme know.'
'Will do, my friend. Talk to ya soon.'
'Okay. Now listen,' as the voice-activated Norelco kicked back on again and Eichord heard a soft, extremely precise voice ask the secretary if Mr. Rozitsky was in.
'Who shall I say is calling, please?'
'Tell him it's Roy Cohn,' the man said.
