I watched her. “What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Go home,” she answered. Her shoulders sagged. Lines of weariness etched themselves around her mouth. “I was chasing a dream, I guess. There’s nothing here for me.”
I was angry now. “Nothing here for you?” I asked sarcastically. “If I played ball your way, what would be in it for me?”
Her head went up, her shoulders back, sparks shot from her eyes. “I’ll tell you what’s in it for you, if you don’t know.
“It’s a chance for you to come home, to become a human being. A chance for you to join society and live with people. A chance for you to hold up your head and belong to, instead of fighting against. A chance for you to come out of the jungle and stop snarling and scratching and torturing yourself into a frenzy of hate against the really important things around you. A chance for you to love and be loved, to share and be shared with, to give and be given.
“A chance to spend days without fear, without schemes, without mean little doubts to disturb your sleep. A chance for you to stop being lonely. A chance for you to live and be human and to have children—” Her eyes flooded over with tears, and her sobs struck in her throat. She couldn’t speak. She just stood there looking at me, her heart in her eyes.
I didn’t dare step near her. If I did, I would be lost. There was a tight, constricted feeling in my chest. I couldn’t look into her eyes. I turned my head away. I had fought too long and too hard to relinquish what I had earned for anyone. I looked at the carpet. My voice was low and hard. “I’d rather have this,” I said. “I know what this is.”
She didn’t answer. The tears stopped falling. She took a step toward me. Then her mouth set in a thin line, as if she were biting on her lips to keep from speaking, she turned and walked toward the door and went out silently.
My back was toward the door, and I heard the latch click gently. I sat down on the couch heavily. The perfume of her clung to my nostrils. I shut my eyes and could see her framed against my eyelids. Ruth! The name of the scent she had used suddenly popped into my mind. “Poor Fool!” They certainly named it right!
I certainly was!
64
The phone woke me up. I had had a bad night. For the first time in years I hadn’t slept well. I turned and tossed, and, at last, in the early hours of the morning, I finally fell into a fitful sort of slumber. Cursing the phone, I reached for it, picked it up, and said: “What the hell do you want?”
“Frank,” I recognized the voice. Alex Carson.
“Yeah, Alex, what’s on your mind?”
“I’ve been trying to get you at the office all morning and you hadn’t come in yet.” I looked over at the clock—eleven thirty. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and sat up. “They threw Luigerro in the can this morning,” he continued.
“Well, get him out,” I said. “You know what the hell to do; that’s what you’re gettin’ paid for!”
“But, Frank,” he protested, “he’s in on a morals charge—Mann Act. He took a couple of high-school girls up to his place in Connecticut. The Feds have him, and the papers are raising hell. The kids’ parents are making a stink all over town and the FBI picked him up this morning and won’t let me get to him until their investigation is complete.”
That was a kick in the teeth! Yesterday I told Allison out. Today they went to work—those babies didn’t waste any time.
“Get to the kids’ parents and buy them off.” I didn’t want Luigerro to open his yap.
“But that won’t stop them,” Carson said. “This is a Federal charge. The government presses it, not the kids’ folks.”
“Look,” I said, “for Jesus’ sake, use your head! Buy the folks off. Get a release from them saying they let the kids go with Louie. He was taking them up to visit a relative. I don’t know how, but you get him out.” I slammed the receiver savagely back on the hook and got out of bed and began to dress.
The goddamn tail-crazy bastards. There wasn’t enough legitimate tail around for them—they had to go and rob the cradle. I finished dressing and called downstairs to have my car brought out.
I got to the office about twelve and rang for Carson. He came quickly enough. He was sweating a little. “Well?” I asked.
“Give me a little time, Frank,” he said, holding up his hands. “You can’t do things like that in a minute.”
“All right,” I said, “but have him brought over here as soon as you spring him.”
He hurried out.
I picked up the phone and told Miss Walsh to get me Allison at home.
A voice answered—his. “Hello.”
“Allison,” I said, without waiting for him to answer. “Kane. Can you get down here right away?” I was going to try to pump him for a line on Luigerro. He must know something about it.
“No, Mr. Kane, I can’t,” he replied. “I was through as of last night.”
I didn’t answer. I just hung up the phone. I spun my chair around and looked out the window and sat there for a moment, thinking. Then I turned back to my desk and called Joe Price and told him to get up here right away.
Price came in. He was a thin, sandy-haired man, with an ineffectual blood slip of a mustache struggling for existence under a fairly prominent nose. I waved him to a chair.
“What do you think of setting up a new outfit to handle the legitimate end of the business?” I threw at him.
He was no dope. He looked across the desk at me shrewdly. He could see what was in my mind, and hear the whistles blowing. But he was my man and he knew that too. “It’s an idea,” he said, a flicker of a smile crossing his face.
“Isn’t it?” I smiled back.
“Yes,” he said, “but what are you going to do with the rest of the setup?”
“Time will decide that for me.” I shrugged. “In this business you never know what’s going to happen next.” If the government gets too close to me, I wanted to be ready to get out quick—but I wasn’t going to do that unless I had to.
“But what about the dough the others have tied up in that end of the business?” he asked.
“Look,” I said, crossing my feet, “they don’t know about it now; why should they ever?” I lit a cigarette. “Screw ’em!”
He didn’t say anything. I watched him think it over. I knew what he would do—what I told him to. He knew who put the gravy on his potatoes. I spoke. “Can you do it?”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it will mean writing off almost a half a million for them.”
“A mere detail!” I grinned broadly. “This is the time to start having some losses. They’re blowing the racket apart in New York. What better excuse do we need?”
He thought a little while longer. Then he got up and held his hand out to me. “I’ll do it.”
I took his hand and shook it. “I knew you would,” I said. “I’ll write you in for a good deal.”
He went out.
My share of grief wasn’t used up for that day. Late in the afternoon, I got word that “Big Black” and “Slips” Madigan were tossed in the can by the D.A.’s office on a policy charge. Policy slips were one thing I didn’t screw around with. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for a nickel-and-dime operation, but keeping track of it was too damn difficult. It was the one thing they ran on their own.
The pattern was shaping up fast. Lop off the fingers and you can’t use the hand. And that’s just what they were doing—one at a time so it would hurt. Meanwhile, the mayor told the cops to go out and run the corner bookies off the street. The phone was busy all day with gees hollering for help.
Carson was busier than a one-armed bookie with two telephones. By the time the day came to a close, he was almost a total wreck. About six o’clock I called him. He came into my office, sweating bullets in spite of the cold weather.
I waved him to a chair, took out a bottle, and gave him a drink. If ever a guy needed one, he did. I grinned. “I hear you’ve been pretty busy today.”
He took a quick
swallow of his drink and looked at me, his mouth still open. Finally he managed to speak. “What in hell’s the matter with you! You crazy? All hell is ready to bust open under you and you’re grinning!”
I smiled at him again. “Take it easy, Alex,” I said placating. “It’s not too bad yet.”
“Bad!” He got to his feet and yelled: “If I have another day like this I’ll go nuts!”
I gave him another drink. When he had finished it and had calmed down a little, I asked him how he was making out with Luigerro. He told me he hadn’t heard from the people he had sent over to see the girls’ parents, but that he expected some word momentarily.
“What about Carvell and Madigan?” I asked.
He told me they would be admitted to bail tomorrow morning.
“That’s good,” I said. “And if we can get Luigerro out, we’ll be O.K.”
He got to his feet and started to leave. I called him back. “Take it easy, Alex,” I told him, “and don’t worry. This will blow over soon enough, and I can’t afford to lose you.”
He nodded and went out. I looked after him thoughtfully. He’d be a hard man to replace. I called Joe Price and asked him to come up. He came into my office with a sheaf of papers under his arm.
“Well,” I asked, “have you given that matter we spoke about earlier in the day some thought?”
“Yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I was just going to see you on it when you called. I put it down on paper to see how it looks.” He held some sheets of paper toward me.
I took them and scanned them quickly. They were a survey of my interests in various businesses. They added up to an investment of about five hundred grand. “What kind of return can we expect from this?” I asked.
“I’ve got their last year’s earnings on the second sheet,” he told me.
I put the top sheet on the desk and looked at the earning sheet. After all salaries and expenses, they showed a net of about ninety-five thousand. Not bad! A guy could live on that! I looked up at Price. “Looks good to me.” I smiled.
“I think so too,” he said.
I lit a cigarette. “How did the pool go today?” I asked him.
“Bad,” he said. “We had too much trouble covering bets with all the excitement today. I think some of the boys are loading it into us while they have the chance. They’re calling in late, and we dropped quite a bit.”
“How much?”
“About twenty-one thousand,” he said.
“That’s good,” I said. “Let them load it in and take advantage of the situation. At least they’ll expect some losses that way.” The bastards could try to screw me all they wanted. I was even going to help them do it. “Make that drop seventy-one thousand.” I smiled. “And take fifty grand from the pool every day for the next ten days.” That ought to cover the investment.
He opened his eyes a little. “If we break even during that time, it means the pool will go down to about a million.”
“So what!” I laughed shortly. “What do you think they’re trying to do? It’s a question of who gets to the bank first, that’s all.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
I continued. “Tomorrow, straighten out the legal end of it. Incorporate it in Delaware under the name of”—I thought a moment; I wanted a respectable-sounding name for it—“Standard Enterprises, Inc.”
“O.K.,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He stood up and went to the door. “I’ll see Carson about it in the morning.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, keeping him from leaving the room. I didn’t want Carson in on this; he was too close to the New York crowd. “You’d better see some legit lawyers on this—a respectable firm. I don’t want any smell of this racket around it. Let me think a moment.”
He came back into the room and sat down in a chair and watched me for a while. I turned my chair around and looked over at New York. The lights were flickering, and I could see the ferries moving back and forth across the river. I was trying to remember. When Jerry’s old man retired, he joined some legal firm who wanted him for his connections. For a while his name was still on the door, he was completely inactive. What in hell was their name? I was trying to remember. It would be a good gag if I could put it over. I didn’t think that they would connect me with this. I laughed to myself—Jerry trying to put me in the clink, and his old man’s firm, my legal business representatives! It wouldn’t be a bad weapon to use if I had to. Suddenly the name came to me.
I turned back to Price. “I know an outfit. They’re on Pine Street. Driscoll, Cowan, Shaunnesy, and Cohen.” I looked at him to see if the name registered.
It didn’t. He wrote it down and put it in his pocket. He got to his feet. “I’ll see them tomorrow.”
“Good!” I said. “You know what to do. Use my name—Francis, not Frank—and set me down for eighty percent of the stock and president. And yourself as vice-president and treasurer and twenty percent of the stock.”
His eyes were wide open now. They should be. I just gave him a hundred grand. But it was worth it; he’d pay that back a hundred times now that he was in on it. Owning something always gets more out of a man than just a job. “Frank,” he gulped, “you’re not kidding?”
“I never was more serious in my life.” I smiled. “We’re in business.” I held out my hand.
65
The next morning Carson sprang Madigan and Carvell. Later in the afternoon the Federal court allowed Luigerro to post bail, and I sent word out for all the boys to be in my office at eight o’clock that night. Carson couldn’t get to the kids’ parents with my deal. That is, he couldn’t get to one set of them. The other pair were willing to listen to reason and ten grand, but one wouldn’t be any good without the other; so I told him to forget it.
It wasn’t a bad day. The pool went up about thirty grand in spite of all the handicaps to keep it from operating, which resulted in a reported net loss of only twenty. Runners were still being picked up on the street and the mayor was trying to get the telephone company to cut their service to the bookies’ joints; but the way business operates, the company promised the mayor co-operation, but the order was kicked around the place and finally lost somewhere.
Carson come in to see me toward evening and gave me a full report on the day’s activities at his end. Luigerro would have to face trial and there didn’t seem to be a chance for him to beat the rap. Carvell and Madigan also would have to face trial but stood a fifty-fifty chance of beating it, and if they did lose they might cop a short stretch.
The papers were having a field day. They played up every move that Cowan made. His picture was splashed all over the front pages, and his political future began to look brighter than a new penny. They showed him entering the court, his hat raised to the camera, his trim mustache, Ronald Colman style, over his smiling parted lips. The kid certainly looked smooth—a lot like his old man too. I didn’t notice it until just now, but he had baby-kissing lips just like his old man.
I saw Price, and he told me things were progressing nicely with the law firm I had sent him to, and that they had taken the matter under advisement and would let him know if they would handle it in a day or two. Things seemed to be going along a little better today.
I went out to dinner about seven and returned to the office a few minutes after eight. Most of the boys were there waiting for me. I shook hands with a few of them and invited them to sit down. I passed around some cigars and they helped themselves and lit up.
When they had settled themselves in their chairs and were puffing away comfortably at their cigars, I got to my feet and began to speak.
“You guys have been reading the papers,” I said, “so there’s no need for me to tell you what’s goin’ on. You know that.
“I called you over here for something else. We got a business to protect and war has been declared on us. If we want to beat it, we got to work closer together—closer together now than ever before.
“We got to be ready to take a
few losses. What happened the last few days seems to indicate we’re in some difficulties in that direction. Joe Price tells me you guys are calling in your stuff late and sometimes even after the race is run. I know you fellas are working under a terrific handicap, but without adequate provision and knowledge before the race is run, we can’t do anything about controlling prices. Under normal conditions you know we don’t take layoffs like that, but these ain’t normal conditions.
“I want to turn down late bets and calls, but in view of the situation, I decided to put the question up to you guys. The pool has had a couple of bad days operating this way, and if you want to run it that way, it’s your dough and I’ll do what you say.”
I stopped and looked around at them.
Moscowits lumbered to his feet. “I think Frank is right, boys. We must not take bets that way or soon we’ll be broke.”
Fennelli spoke from his chair. As usual he spoke quietly, carefully. “I know it’s tough, but what else can we do? If we disappoint our customers now, soon we won’t have any business at all. I think the sensible thing to do would be to take our losses for a while—we’ll make it up soon enough.”
Most of the others seemed to agree with Fennelli. I was right. The bastards were so busy grabbing they didn’t care what happened to the pot as long as they thought they were getting theirs. I smiled to myself. “O.K., gents,” I said, “have it your way. If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.” I had figured them correctly. I knew if I put it up to them they’d do what they did, and at the same time it made it easier for me to do what I wanted.
“Now that that’s over, I’m going to put some things on the line. You know Louie, ‘Black’ and ‘Slips’ were nailed. I don’t know what they’re going to get away with, but the rest had better not be caught.” I looked at the three I had named. They were as embarrassed as a couple of kids caught in the cookie jar. I spoke to Luigerro first.
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 39
