The colonel takes the opportunity to lean forward, his body language favoring Rainy. “There may be a mission. A mission you may be able to carry out better than anyone else.”
Rainy is intrigued and ready to feel relieved, but she keeps her face guarded and neutral. Rainy Schulterman is of medium height and medium weight with frizzled, black hair that has been pinned down to stop its tendency to spring up and out. Her eyes are brown and distinctly skeptical, even judgmental. She gives the impression of being closed up tight, self-contained; not quite hostile, but not one to suffer fools gladly either. For a person of the female sex, neither large nor powerful, possessing neither rank nor title, and young besides, she is unsettlingly intimidating.
“Yes, sir,” Rainy says.
“Your old man’s a crook,” Agent Bayswater says.
Rainy shoots to her feet. “Colonel, do I have permission to return to my duties?”
The colonel smothers a grin and waves her down. “Sit, sit. You don’t have any duties, Sergeant, you’re on leave.” He pulls a slim manila folder from atop a pile of folders, opens it, and reads. “In fact, you are on thirty days’ leave in recognition of your actions in Tunisia, where you parachuted—and with only the most minimal training—into the middle of a retreat, joined a lost platoon, and managed by the end of it to come away with a Waffen SS colonel in your custody. I understand you’ve been recommended for a Silver Star.”
“I have that honor, sir, though it was the GIs in that platoon who did the real work.”
“Well, it was a hell of a thing,” Colonel Corelli says, shaking his head in admiration. “I’ve read the reports from your colonel and from a Sergeant Garaman who was in command of the patrol after both the officers were killed.”
Bayswater isn’t having it. “Which doesn’t change the fact that your father, Shmuel Schulterman, is a numbers runner for Abe Vidor, who works in turn for the Genovese crime family. And that could mean hard time in Dannemora prison for your old man.”
Rainy turns a cold glare on the FBI man. “Agent Bayswater, you want something from me. Threatening me is not the way to get it.” There are times, she reflects, when her own chutzpah amazes her.
“On the contrary, honey, I don’t want a damn thing. It’s your people, Army Intelligence, who want something from us. I’m just making sure you understand who’s in charge, and it ain’t you.”
The colonel sighs and raises pacifying hands. He has no patience for this posturing, but neither does he have the force to end it. “Maybe we should get to the point. Schulterman, the US Army is planning an action—I won’t say where or when—but there is a person in the . . . let’s say, target area . . . who may be of some use to Army Intelligence. Agent Bayswater, perhaps you’d like to explain your end of it.”
Bayswater stares at Rainy. It is a hard, aggressive stare, an intimidating stare, no doubt a stare he has used to cow many a criminal suspect. Rainy is worried, but she is not intimidated by Agent Bayswater, and she lets him know it by returning his gaze with a blank, emotionless expression.
Finally, the FBI man sighs, shrugs his shoulders, and mutters, “Broads in the army. You can keep ’em. It’ll never happen in the FBI; I can promise you that.”
“A woman might have gotten to the point by now, rather than playing games,” Rainy snaps.
Bayswater snorts a derisive laugh. “A real woman would still be gossiping; I don’t know what you are, honey. But okay, I’ve got things to do, and maybe you do too. So here it is. We’ve tried working out deals to get help from the crime bosses. A lot of ’em have connections overseas, and in addition to that they could help with labor troubles on the docks. But all any of them wants is for Lucky to be let out of jail, and that ain’t gonna happen.”
“He means Lucky Luciano,” Corelli explains unnecessarily. Charles “Lucky” Luciano is the boss of all bosses in New York crime. He is in prison for “pandering,” which is a polite way of saying he ran a prostitution ring, along with gambling, protection rackets, union rackets, and assorted other profitable enterprises.
“Luciano is in a hole in Dannemora and he ain’t getting out, but that’s all the mob wants, all it says it wants anyway. Give us Luciano and we’ll be good, patriotic Americans and help out the war effort. That’s their demand, and they won’t budge.”
Corelli picks up the narrative. “The target area is a place where certain members of New York criminal gangs have useful contacts. Contacts who may provide us with intelligence on German positions.”
“I see,” Rainy says, and she does. Obviously the target is Italy or perhaps one of its islands, Sicily or Sardinia. It was not hard to look at a map and see that the next move for US and Allied forces in Tunisia might be some portion of Italy. Knocking Italy out of the war would be very helpful.
“I doubt very much that you do see, honey,” Bayswater says.
Rainy’s pride flares and she very nearly becomes indiscreet, but she reins it in. Barely. “You believe my father has connections to organized crime. You believe he can introduce me to someone in the organization who wants something other than freedom for Lucky Luciano. You believe this person has connections in Sicily or Sardinia or wherever in Italy that would be helpful. You want my father to make a connection and for me to approach this person with a suggestion or at least pave the way for someone more senior to have that conversation.”
This leaves the FBI man openmouthed and temporarily flummoxed. His mouth closes with an audible click. But he recovers quickly. “We don’t want a damned thing, the army wants it, and we are just making sure you don’t say or do something you shouldn’t. And we want a full report on whatever goes on.”
“I don’t take orders from the FBI.”
“You damn well will take orders from me, sister.”
He’s moved from honey to sister. Progress, of a sort. “No. And I will not be threatened either.”
“How about if I arrange to put your old man in the clink?”
“Then you’ll report back to your superiors that you jailed a small-time numbers runner and blew the assignment, which I would guess was to render support to Colonel Corelli.”
“Jesus!” the FBI agent explodes in disgust. He can no longer remain seated but jumps up, nearly knocking his chair over. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Rainy is about to tell him when Corelli intervenes. “She’s a soldier and under military law, not civilian law, so how about we all calm down? What do you say?” He shakes his head in irritation mixed with amusement. “Sergeant, I am not going to order you to take this on. But as I understand it, there’s a lesser boss, there’s a term for it—”