The room he entered was large, with the usual hotel furniture and a grand piano that was enameled in green and pointed in gold. He gave a wipe at this as he went by, so the keys made a startled clatter, and went on to an office that adjoined the big room. Seated at a desk here was the owner of the hotel, Mr. Sol Caspar, who had no share of masculine good looks or any other kind of good looks. He was a short, squatty man in his middle thirties, and although it was a warm day in May, and the people in the lobby had been wearing straw hats, he was dressed in a heavy brown suit, with handkerchief to match and custom-made shoes. There was a six-pointed star on his ring and a mazuza on the door-casing, but these were caprices, or possibly affectations for business reasons. Actually he had no Hebraic connections, for his real name was Salvatore Gasparro, and no doubt it was his origin that prompted him to name his hotel for Columbus, a popular hero with Italo-Americans. He was playing solitaire with his hat on the back of his head, and didn’t look up when the other man came in and sat down. Nor did he look up a few minutes later, when a bellboy appeared, set a package on the desk, opened it, and tiptoed out. Soon, however, he put the cards away and gave his attention to the package. It was an album of records, and he put them on a phonograph that stood against the wall behind him. Then he snapped a button, sat at his desk, lit a cigar, and took off his hat. They were of the opera Il Trovatore, and evidently met with his approval. When the tenor sang an aria full of high notes he played it over, then played it over again. But when a minor tenor started a slow recitative he became bored, and stopped the machine.
Only then did he greet his visitor, who had sat staring straight in front of him, obviously not entertained by the music. In a rough, high voice, though without any trace of accent, he said:
“H’y, Benny.”
“Hello, Sol.”
“How they treating you?”
“O.K. so far.”
“They got you in the draft yet?”
“No, I still got my football hernia.”
“Oh that’s right. What you got on tonight?”
“I guess you forgot. This is my day off.”
“I said what you got on?”
“… Nothing I can think of now. Why?”
“Little job.”
“What kind of a job?”
“Don’t take it like that, Benny. You ought to know by now I don’t call on you for any rough stuff. This is nothing to be worried about. Political meeting.”
“And what’s that?”
“Where the voters get together and pick out who’s not going to be elected. Or so I hear. I never been to one.”
“And where do I come in?”
“You look it over.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“They got a Swede that’s running for mayor. A lug that says he’s out to get me. It’s about time I found out what he’s up to.”
“You mean this milkman, Jansen?”
“That’s him.”
“How would I know what he’s up to?”
“Maybe you don’t get all the fine points, but you can see who’s there. That’s the main idea.”
“I don’t know any of these birds.”
Mr. Caspar’s eyes were the most arresting part of his face. In color they were dark brown, but each of them was ever so slightly out of line, so that when they focused on an object they looked like a pair of glass eyes. They focused now on Ben Grace, and presently shifted with a decidedly maniacal flicker. When Mr. Caspar spoke he shouted, his voice trembling with rage: “Listen, Ben, quit cracking dumb. You go to that meeting, and see you get there on time. If it’s just voters, nuts. But if this guy’s got friends, I got to know it. I got tipped today there’s wise money back of him, that’s figuring to knock me off. You know who they are, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“And you can see if they’re there, can’t you? If you want to you can find out what’s going on, can’t you?”
“O.K., Sol, but make it plain.”
“And let me know.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where’s the meeting?”
“Dewey High.”
“All right, I’ll be there.”
“And take the bookies today.”
“How do you get that way? Isn’t it enough that I work tonight? Have I got to work all day too? This is supposed to be my day off.”
Caspar’s eyes fastened on Grace again, and he opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment Mrs. Caspar came in. She was a small, fat, bright-eyed Italian woman, leading a four-year-old boy, Franklin, by the hand. Grace jumped up when he saw her, and she nodded at him pleasantly, then began a report to Caspar, of the dentist’s examination of Frankie’s tooth. Ben, after giving Frankie a penny, started out. Caspar, however, hadn’t forgotten him. “What do you say, Benny?”
“I say O.K.”
In the big room, as Grace crossed it again, two men were sitting. One called himself Bugs Lenhardt, and sat reading a paper, near the door, where he could cover the slot with a minimum of effort. He was young, small, and vacant-eyed. The other, Lefty Gauss, had let Grace in, and now got up and walked out with him. He was of medium size and bandy-legged, with gray streaks in his hair and a frank, friendly air that suggested farms and other wholesome things. Actually he was a killer who had done considerable penal servitude, and the gray streaks in his hair came from operations in prisons, performed by doctors told off to get lead out of him, and not too particular how they did it. He and Grace stood silently in front of the elevators, then went down to the lobby, out to the street, and into a cocktail bar not far away with but a few glum words. It was only when they were settled in a dark corner that Ben began to talk and Gauss to listen.
Ben was full of grievances, some of them, such as his resentment that Caspar called him Benny, trivial, some of them, such as his dislike of gunfire, vital. This last he tried to place in an admirable light, as though it were a matter of citizenship, not fear. He insisted that he had never wanted his job in the first place, except temporarily when a serious injury ended his football career, and cited his refusal to wear a uniform as proof of his high-toned attitude. Yet a captious eavesdropper might have reflected that upright citizens do not as a rule become chauffeurs to notorious racketeers, whether they wear a uniform or not. Lefty listened sympathetically, shaking his beer to bring up the foam, nodding, and putting in understanding comment. Then presently he said, “Well, you got it tough, you sure have. But any time it gets too tough, just take a look at me.”
“Anyway, he gives you a day off.”
“Sometimes.”
“And he don’t stick you behind the wheel of a car that’s armored behind but wide open in front, and every street named Goon Street as soon as he climbs aboard.”
“Oh, no?”
“You too, hey?”
“Like today.”
“Say, Lefty, what’s going on today?”
“I got to split a heist, that’s all.”
“I didn’t hear about it.”
“They haven’t got it yet. They’re pulling it this afternoon-bank over in Castleton, right after closing time, the late depositor gag. If they pull it. If that depositor ever gets in, which isn’t any more than a one to five bet.”
“You’ll know soon. It’s three-thirty.”
“Castleton’s on mountain time.”
“That’s right. I forgot.”
“You ever sat in on a divvy, Ben?”
“I don’t know any yeggs.”
“Four wild kids, anywhere from eighteen to twenty, scared so bad the slobber is running out of their mouths, couple of them coked to the ears, their suspenders stretched double from the gats they got in their pants. And Sol takes half, see? For protection, for giving them a place to lay up, he cuts off that much. O.K., he says part goes to the cops, but that don’t help me any. There’s the dough, all over the bed, in a room at the Globe Hotel. And there’s the kids, kissing it and tasting it and
smelling it. And there’s me, that never seen one of them before, that hasn’t got a pal in the bunch. I got to take half and get out. And maybe Sol crossed me. Maybe he didn’t take care of the cops, and they come in on me, and it’s ten years till the next beer. And for all that—now here’s where it gets good—Solly, he slips me a hundred bucks.”
“Why do we take it, what he dishes out?”
“Well, for one thing, bucking Sol is not healthy. And me, I got to take it. I’m not what I was. I don’t get calls anymore. To help on a job, I mean. I got to play along. You, of course you’re different.”
“In what way?”
“I figure you for a chiseler.”
“What do you mean by that, Lefty?”
“That’s all.”
“Sounds like there might be more.”
“Not unless you ask for it.”
“… O.K.—shoot.”
“A chiseler, he’s not crooked and he’s not straight. He’s just in between.”
“Maybe he’s just smart.”
“I don’t say he’s not. I should say I don’t. He takes it where he can get it, he’s willing to live and let live, he don’t want any trouble. If he can only hold it, what he’s got, he’ll die rich, and of a regular disease, with a doctor’s certificate, ‘stead of a coroner’s. Still, he’ll never be a big operator.”
“Why not?”
“A big operator, he runs it, or he don’t operate.”
Lefty then gave a disquisition on the use of force: so long as Sol didn’t mind trouble and Ben did, Sol would run it. It was diplomatically phrased, but Ben looked sulky, and Lefty added: “Listen, no hard feelings about it. Because maybe you’re the one that is smart. You’re putting it by all the time, or I hope you got that little savings account tucked away somewhere. You’re young, and when Sol gets it you can always get a job.”
“What do you mean, when Sol gets it?”
“Oh, he’ll get it.”
“You mean this Swede Jansen that’s running for Mayor.”
“He hasn’t got a chance.”
“He’s got Sol worried.”
“You mean Mayor Maddux has.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, Sol’s the main beneficiary of this, our present administration, isn’t he? The boys had to figure some way to make him kick in. So Maddux told him who’s back of the Swede.”
“You mean Delany?”
“I mean our polo-playing, whiskey-drinking, white-tie-wearing, evil young man named Bill Delany, that gets by for a gentleman jockey but he’s really a hoodlum bookie, and Sol has to cut him in whether he wants to or not, because he’s got the Chicago connections. And for that reason, Solly hates him so hard that all Maddux has to do is wink him in and he’s there, even if he’s not. Delany, he’s got no more to do with the Swede than you have, but he could have. It could be the Swede that’s going to knock Solly off. It could be anybody. For big enough dough, plenty guys don’t mind trouble. One of them sees his disconnect button and leans on it, that’s all.”
“And then?”
“You’re sitting pretty and I’m not.”
“But till then, I’m his English setter.”
“His—what did you say, Ben?”
“It’s a dog, Lefty, and you ought to get next to them. They’re white, with gray spots. They don’t bark, they don’t chase, and they don’t fight. And when they point a bird, you can be sure it’s a bird and not a skunk. In other words—me. Up at that meeting tonight.”
“I didn’t say so, Ben.”
“A fine pair, we are.”
“Well, when you come right down to it, nobody isn’t so hot. Not really they’re not. But if they’re buddies, they can generally figure an angle. Me, I got one right away. Say what you will, we’re prettier than Solly is.”
“That’s not saying much.”
“It’s practically not saying nothing at all. Still and all, I get a satisfaction out of it that I don’t look like Solly looks.”
“If it helps, then O.K.”
“Two beers, Ben, and they’re on you.”
The bookmaking establishments to which Ben was assigned ran wide open in downtown office buildings, but with a two-hour time differential on account of Western tracks, there was nothing he could do about them until seven o’clock. Leaving Lefty, he went to the Lake City RKO to kill time. The theatre was named for the city, which had 220,000 inhabitants, a Chamber of Commerce, an airport, a war boom, and a Middle Western accent. The feature was a pleasant little item with Ginger Rogers in it, but the picture at which Ben laughed loudest and applauded most included Abbott and Costello. When he came out it was nearly six, and he walked around to his hotel. It was called the Lucas, and had $l-$1.50-$2 on the marquee. His room, for which he paid $8 a week, was on the second floor, but he didn’t bother with the elevator. He bounded up the stairs with absentminded ease, first stopping at the desk to see if there had been any calls. His room was small, and had a single bed in it, a night table, a reading lamp, two straight chairs, a small armchair, and two water colors of nasturtiums. He paid not the least attention to it. He pitched his hat on the bed, stripped off his coat and shirt, and entered the shower. There, at the hand basin, he washed his face, ears, and neck, great muscles leaping out of his arms as he did so. Then he dried himself with a face towel, putting it back on the rack in its original creases. Then he combed his hair, tucking his forelock into place lovingly, with little brush strokes of the comb, and taking more time about it than the rite seemed to warrant.
Then he stepped into the room and had a look at his shirt. He frowned when he saw the collar, and dropped it into a laundry basket that stood in a closet. Then he selected another one from a shelf at the top of the closet. He put it on, chose a necktie to go with it, and when both had been patted into place, shoved the tail of his shirt into his trousers, and tightened his belt. His motions were precise, his person clean. And yet there was something of small dimension about everything he did. In this tiny room, with his boyish face, his neat little piles of rather well-bought possessions, it was hard to realize that he weighed at least 200 pounds.
The freshening completed, he went outside, walked down the street to the Savoy Grill, went inside and had dinner. He then walked to the Columbus, got a small satchel from the cashier, and visited the first of the bookmaking establishments. It was on the first floor of the Coolidge Building, past the elevators, and was full of men. They were in jovial mood, for two favorites had won, and they were there to cash tickets. With the big blackboard on one side of the room, the permanent column captions lettered thereon, and the businesslike atmosphere, the place suggested a stockbroker’s office in Wall Street. Ben didn’t attempt a thorough audit. He accepted an adding machine tote, crammed money and stub-books into his satchel, and went on to the next place. By a quarter to eight he had completed his rounds and left the satchel at the Columbus, first pasting a sticker over the clasp to seal it. Then he walked back to his hotel, passed through the lobby to an areaway behind, and entered a shed where cars were stored. His was a small coupe, maroon in color, with white tires and a high polish. He got in, checked the gas against an entry in a little red book that he took from his pocket, and drove off.
Municipal campaigns, as a rule, are held in the spring, with the election falling in May and the winner taking office July 1. So it happened that at John Dewey High School Auditorium it was a warmish night, with the crowd attending in spring dresses and straw hats. It was not, however, a very big crowd. Possibly five hundred people were there, half filling the auditorium; Lefty, apparently, had judged correctly the strength of the Jansen following. They were quiet, folksy people, and although Ben looked a little out of place among them, they smiled at him in friendly fashion as he came up the steps to the hall, and made way to let him in. He took a seat near the door, and began a systematic scrutiny of every face he could see. When the candidates arrived he joined the applause, and when the speaking began he frowned hard, concentrating
on what was being said.
What was being said, alas, was a little slack. The offenses of Mr. Caspar, abetted by the Maddux machine, were the general topic, but nobody seemed to know quite what they were, and everybody left the indictment to somebody else. When Mr. Jansen spoke he was a grievous disappointment. He was a stocky, pink-faced, good-looking man with a little red moustache, but he had a thick accent, and did little but tell how Caspar had moved in on his milk truck drivers, “und den I make oop my mindt I move in on Caspar.” The meeting was a flop until the chairman introduced a girl, quite as an afterthought, while people were crowding to the doors, and she started to talk.
She was a very good-looking girl, in spite of the school-teacherish way she spoke. She was perhaps twenty-five, with a trim little figure and solemn black eyes. She wore a dress of dark blue silk, which combined pleasantly with her wavy black hair, and she punctuated her remarks by tapping with a pencil on the table. Her point was that elections are not won with indignation, or talk, or registrations in the voters’ books. They are won by ballots in the ballot box, and therefore she wanted everybody to stop at the table in the hallway, and fill out a slip with name, address, and phone number, and check what they would contribute on election day: time, car, or money, or all three. It was the first thing all night that had a resolute, professional sound to it, and once or twice it drew crackling applause. Ben got out his little red book, found the date, May 7, and wrote her name: June Lyons.
Three by Cain: Serenade/Love's Lovely Counterfeit/The Butterfly Page 21
