Swimming to Catalina

then got down to business.
    “So, what do you want from us?” Cable asked.

    “It’s more what I’m going to give you,” Stone replied.
    “How much is it going to cost me?”
    “It’s a freebie; I don’t want any glory, just to see justice done.”
    Cable hooted with laughter.
    Grant stepped in. “Hank, I think it might react to your benefit if you listened.”
    “Okay, okay, shoot, Stone.”
    Stone turned to Grant. “Rick, did you get anything on Barone Financial Services?”
    “It’s registered with all the right state and federal agencies, but it’s some kind of bucket shop. Headquarters is a rundown office building on La Cienega; they’ve got the top floor, the sixth, about two thousand square feet of space.”
    “Not a big outfit, then? Are there any other offices?”
    “Just one, in Tijuana, Mexico.”
    “Fairly weird.”
    “What’s really weird is that this little outfit has forty telephone lines, including several special lines for fast modem transmissions.”
    “Sounds like a bookie joint,” Cable said.
    “You ever hear of a bookie operation that was registered with the state and federal governments as a broadbase financial services organization?” Grant asked.
    “Now that you mention it, no,” the FBI agent replied.
    “Neither have I,” Stone said. “What it sounds like to me is money laundering, especially with the Mexico connection.”
    “Now you’re talking,” Cable said. “Ilove money laundries.”

    “Barone’s girl told me he was in Mexico a lot,” Stone said. “What about Barone himself? Does he have a sheet?”
    “Two arrests as a teenager, in New York, for running numbers.”
    “He’s connected, then,” Cable said. “Why don’t I see what I can do about some wiretaps?”
    “Good idea,” Stone said, “but I think there’s a lot more to this than Barone and his company.”
    “Like what?” Cable asked.
    “Ever hear of Abalone Fisheries?”
    “Yeah. Holding company, isn’t it?”
    “Right, but it’s who’s doing the holding.”
    “Who?”
    “Two guys named David Sturmack and Onofrio Ippolito.”
    “Ippolito, the chairman of Safe Harbor Bank?”
    “The same. Abalone owns twenty-odd percent of Safe Harbor and nearly all of Barone Financial.”
    “Now you’re getting really interesting,” Cable said.
    “You ever hear of Sturmack?”
    “Can’t say as I have.”
    “He’s a lawyer who doesn’t practice law, son of a guy who worked closely with Meyer Lansky. He’s clean on paper, but he had major connections with the unions, especially the Teamsters.”
    “And Ippolito is in business with him? I mean, Ippolito has a reputation as upstanding.”
    “This upstanding citizen,” Stone said, “ordered a hit on me last night.” He told Cable the story.
    “Had you ever met Ippolito before?”
    “Once; I had dinner with him.”
    “And you’re sure it was him on the phone?”
    “I am.”

    “Holy shit.”
    “You look worried, Hank,” Grant said.
    “It’s like this,” Cable said. “I can look into Barone Financial on my own—check out the directors and the employees. If enough of them have records, I can probably get a wiretap order. But I can’t go straight at Safe Harbor or Abalone without support from a lot higher up, and that’s going to take a lot of evidence.”
    “If Barone Financial is dirty, won’t that give you what you need to go after Abalone?”
    “Maybe, depends how dirty, but you can be sure that if Ippolito and Sturmack are mob, they’re going to ave some distance between them and Barone. It’ll be hard to nail them for one dirty operation; they could lay it off on Barone himself. I’ll bet he doesn’t report to either of the two big guys; there’s got to be a layer in between.”
    “What about the raid on Vinnie’s Deli?” Stone asked Grant.
    “It’s set for twoP.M. tomorrow. We thought it best to go in when the tracks are open.”
    “Good. Did you get a personal warrant on Vinnie?”
    “Yeah; it’s too much to hope we’ll catch him on the premises.”
    “If I were you, I’d have a tail on him before the raid. If he gets a call, he could run.”
    “I agree.”
    “Hang on,” Cable said, “what’s this about a raid on a bookie joint? How does that tie in?”
    “Vincent Mancuso, the owner of the deli where the bookie joint is running, works for Ippolito,” Grant said.
    “Directly?”
    “Yeah.”

    “Well, if you get a good bust on the bookmaking charge, maybe you can use it to turn