by Peter Rabe
“Bascot got less.”
“I know. That’s because you’re special.”
“And I don’t buy in ten thousand lots.”
“I’m breaking it down standard-like, Walter, and will you now shut up?”
“Okay. The record cost me fifty-five cents now.”
“And the owner of the master got his four cents. I, Loujack, Inc., paying the manufacturer his cut, can also press and sell you for the same price you used to pay Bascot.”
This was the point for him to be impressed. He was, because he didn’t talk right away. He was thinking about running the works like before, minus jobber troubles, with Benotti out.
Then he said, “And I pay you that price, Jack, you make dough off the pressing, and you make dough off the stake you got in the jukebox business. Is that how the coin falls, right-hand man?”
We had to talk that back and forth for a while. I had to show him again that I wouldn’t make a cent, that I would have to pay the owner as if he were pressing his own discs, or else I would never be able to swing this kind of deal.
“And who pays you? I just want to be sure, trusted friend, that nobody pays you.”
“I’m going to pay the cost of pressing out of my cut from the jukes, damn your little pointed head, Lippit! I’m doing it for the love of you, for the jukebox coin, and to give ourselves time till Bascot comes around!”
“And when you go broke?” He had to be nasty about it.
“Then you go broke.”
That was clear and simple. He saw it and nodded, and the fact put us on the same side again. Maybe two weeks before Benotti got back on his feet, which was two weeks for me to arrange use of the masters. Then some months, more or less, while I ran Loujack at a loss, and while Lippit and I had to knock out Benotti for good. By then we had to have a jobber. Or by then we’d go broke.
He looked up from the table and grinned.
“Too bad. Would be nice, if I could arrange it for you to go broke and not me. Shake?”
We shook.
Then he hustled me out as if we had two minutes instead of two weeks, which was more like the old teamwork relationship between him and me. I set it up to fly to Chicago and he went to keep the local pot from developing steam. And he paid for my ticket, just to show no hard feelings.
He didn’t give me what a hood might call ice. I was a businessman and called it grease. I took what I would need and did, as a matter of fact, smear my way into a number of places. There was the lunch where you didn’t taste the food and only the right-hand margin of the menu was of any importance. There were drinks where the number of rounds counted most of all, and there was even the elderly VIP who liked special services which not just any professional woman could render. All kinds of business is still business.
Anyway, I got the masters.
I got some on a press-number basis, and some on a time-rental basis, and I paid a jobber’s price every time. It was slippery going, what with all that grease, but when I left I was clean.
On the plane I looked at the big, blue nothing outside, and on the way down the ramp I said thank you to the stewardess and that it had been truly a wonderful trip. Back in town I didn’t go straight to Lippit. I went home, took a shower, changed clothes. I sat on the bed a minute and looked at the phone, and for a minute had a notion to call somebody whom I didn’t know.
Then I went to Lippit’s.
Chapter 17
He wasn’t home. I called the club and the desk voice said there was nobody in the room upstairs. And, further, that Mister Lippit was not in the building.
There had been changes while I was gone. Including Davy not holding down the phone.
I called the shop and the foreman answered. “Fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
But he always said that.
“Is there anything that could be finer?” I asked him.
“Well, Jimmy didn’t come in today. Claims he’s got a cold.”
“And Mister Lippit. Has he come in today?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because everything’s fine, I guess.”
I had enough of that and hung up.
I went to the building on Duncan and what with the shift in importance that had taken place recently I didn’t go upstairs but stayed on the ground floor.
That pressing plant was humming. The first half-dozen masters had gotten there a few days before and there was a full crew tending all the machines and a double crew at the tables in back. They weren’t even putting labels on both sides of the discs. Just on one side, and not always the same one. Mostly, they were packing. And that with more speed than care, seeing the stuff didn’t go very far.
“Keeping full time?” I asked the old man.
“Overtime.”
“Oh.”
“Never been like this, far as I recollect.”
“Miracles don’t come that often. You still on the Ted Curdy series?”
“We squeeze that in, nighttimes.”
“Overtime.”
“Double time.”
“Oh.”
“And the Shayne Combo, same thing,” said the old man.
“You finished the run of Mitch Pockard?”
“We didn’t have room. We let him go for a while.”
Those last three were Blue Beat business. The place had never worked so hard or lost so much money.
I went into the office and checked that end of it Busy, busy, busy.
“Been keeping up?” I asked the bookkeeper there.
“Reorganized it a little, the way Mister Lippit suggested.”
“Of course.”
He had a big pile of stuff on his desk.
“You need help, looks like.”
“I got help, but he’s out to lunch.”
“Oh.”
“But a good worker,” said my bookkeeper man. “A real flash with the Payables.”
“All your stuff here, that’s Receivables?”
“Payables, same as his.”
I didn’t say ‘oh’ again and I didn’t ask any more, because it would all come out the same. The place had never worked so hard catching up with the Payables.
For old times’ sake I took the elevator to the fourth floor and there was one familiar sight, anyway. Herbie at the desk, and what he said was familiar, too.
“Oo-man!” he said.
“Not again.”
“No. This one’s different. But oo-man!”
“Can she sing?”
“Ask Conrad.”
I went through to the messy room with the racks and the cables and one of the agents was there, talking to Conrad. They both looked at me and Conrad said, “You did it this time, Jack!” And the agent said, “But too bad you didn’t have her signed.”
On the other side of the window, doing phrasing with an arranger, was Hough and Daly’s own Doris, who could also sing.
“She come looking for you,” said Conrad. “First few times.”
“But you didn’t show,” said the agent.
“So you showed her.”
“But you didn’t have her signed, Jack.”
“That’s right. Just personal.”
“That’s what she said.”
I looked at her through the window but I couldn’t hear a thing.
“Is she good?” I asked Conrad.
“Would I take her?” said the agent.
“For three-dozen reasons.”
“No,” said Conrad. “She’s good.”
I looked at her through the window but she didn’t see me. She was singing, and why shouldn’t she be good. Then I left.
I passed the restaurant downstairs and felt a little bit hungry, but that was just a reflex and it didn’t last. I got the car out of the lot and drove back to Lippit’s. I remember lighting a cigarette when I got into the car, same with another one when I stopped for a light, and then again in the apartment-house lobby. I went up six flights, rang the right bell, and heard somebody
coming. Pat opened the door.
“Jack,” she said.
“Hi. Jack what?”
“Your cigarette’s out,” she said. Then she went ahead of me.
When I came into the living room Lippit came in from the other end. He looked across and nodded. “Jack,” he said.
“Hi. Jack what?”
“Jack-of-all-trades, maybe,” and he came toward me. Then he said, “Your cigarette’s out.”
“So give me a light.”
“I will give you better,” he said, “you son of a bitch,” and he hauled it up from somewhere, fast and hard. I jackknifed to the floor before it started to hurt.
It hurt plenty then, all the way from the chin to the top of the head, whether I held still where I was or whether I moved, just ever so slightly.
His feet were still close to me but then they walked away.
“You can get up,” he said. “Get up if you want.”
I didn’t want to get up and I didn’t want to stay down and what if I had stopped in the restaurant, wouldn’t that have made a difference? Crazy, I thought, and when I looked up I saw Lippit standing there and-he’s crazy, not me. One crazy bastard…
He must have seen my face as I thought that one over because just when I was ready to jump he was ahead of me, and his foot hit me in the ribs.
That was a much more sudden pain. It crashed open. It didn’t stay where it started but was worst in that spot. I fell over and stayed that way for a while.
Lippit stood there just like before with his face the same as when he had said, “Jack,” and the rest, afterwards.
Pat was by a wall and had her lip in her teeth. She had one fist in front of her face and I saw mostly her eyes.
Pat didn’t move, nor Lippit, but there was the sound.
The door to the back opened and when he came through he left it open. And he had on a new leather jacket. Otherwise Folsom hadn’t changed.
“Don’t you think, Mister Lippit,” he said, “that we should ask the lady…”
“All right, beat it,” said Lippit. “Don’t you have any sense?”
Pat left, walking quickly, and she still had her fist near her face. I could see that and her short hair dipping up and down when she walked. When she went into the room in back she squeezed to one side in the door. The other one came out, the big one, the one Lippit had beaten up the other time.
But this was a new time. This was very different I even learned the big one’s name. It was Franklin.
“Franklin,” said Lippit, “you can stay over there. No. By the chair. Sit.”
“But if he gets up…”
“He doesn’t want to get up,” said Lippit.
“I think he’s ashamed,” said Folsom.
I almost threw up.
“Stop talking crap,” said Lippit, and then, “you hear me, St. Louis?”
“I hear you.”
“So why don’t you look up?”
“I think he’s…”
“Folsom,” said Lippit. “Just shut up.”
They had a fine slave-and-master relationship. Which was normal. Nothing else was, though.
“So why don’t you look up?” Lippit said again.
“I’m waiting for you to put your foot in my neck and then stand there like that to make a proclamation.”
“You want me to make…”
Something crashed against the wall next to Franklin where Lippit had missed with the cocktail glass. I straightened up with some effort-what was keeping me down was some muscle midway down which I had not even known existed before this-and I gave the scene a look. It was painful, all around. There was big Franklin, smart Folsom, and Walter Lippit. The new working relationship. It worked in a disgusting way.
“I need a drink,” I said.
Nobody moved. Franklin looked at the broken glass next to his chair and Folsom looked up at the ceiling. Folsom was lighting himself a cigarette.
“If nobody will take offense,” I said, “I’ll try and get it myself.”
It was unpleasant going but then I had to get it myself. Nobody moved and nobody answered. I got up, got to the liquor chest, got a bottle. I was now more mad than puzzled.
“Mud in your faces,” I said. “And with glass in it.” Then I had a pull at the bottle.
“Take it away from him,” said Lippit.
Franklin came over, all muscled eagerness. I held the bottle out to him and let it drop on his foot.
“Never mind,” yelled Lippit. “Get back to your chair.” Franklin limped back and I reached down for a fresh bottle.
“Leave it,” said Lippit. “Leave it sit, St. Louis.”
I kept it in my hand but didn’t open the bottle. “I won’t throw it,” I said. “I just need a drink.”
“You’ve thrown all you’re going to throw, you bastard.”
“I wish I were saying that, Lippit. So help me, I wish that very much.”
“Mister Lippit,” Folsom started, but Lippit didn’t want to hear from him. I kept going.
“I don’t get very much of this, Lippit, but I get the part that stinks the most. I turn my back, and in slides that crapper over there.” Folsom got red, but nothing else. “I turn my back,” I went on, “and the only straight-running business I’ve ever been in runs into the red so fast, it’s going to drown you just as fast as me. I come back here, to this idiot’s haven, and…”
“I’ve had it,” said Lippit. He was hoarse. “I’ve had it from you, brother, and the only reason you’re still standing up on two feet is because I was hoping to see how you’d slime your way out of this.”
We were really hating each other straight across that room. He held still and I held still but there was a big swatch of hate across which you could have walked as if it was a road.
“I’m a little older than you,” he said, with that scratch in his voice, “so I’ve known more double-crossers than you, come to think of it.”
“Which accounts for the way you’ve made your way up?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re my crowning achievement. You’re so high up there, St. Louis, I’m too dizzy to look.”
“That you are, Lippit. Much too dizzy.”
“In a little while from now, we’ll see who’s off balance.” He threw his cigarette into a tray and then he practically spat.
“I used to think this one here, I mean Folsom, was the rat of the pack. He switched over to Benotti, you recall that?”
“Stands to reason,” I said.
“He switched to Benotti because you ran him off.”
“The way it really was,” said Folsom, talking edgy like glass, “the way I explained it to you, Mister Lippit…”
“Well, he’s back,” said Lippit. He didn’t look at Folsom, which cut the man off worse than anything. “He’s back, doing a job both ways while being at it.”
“He would. True to type.”
“He left Benotti because the crap there was worse than here, when you used to be in the picture.”
“Or because he came to think that Benotti might not be the winning side?”
Folsom was dying to say something then, but Lippit was still going.
“Well, he came back with the goods that really opened the door. He came up and he showed that he’s no rat, compared to you.”
“Mister Lippit I don’t…”
“What? You don’t like me to call you a rat? There’s nothing but rats, Folsom, nothing but! You think there’s such a thing like doing business with angels? There’s no such thing!”
“They play harps,” I said. “Not jukeboxes.”
“Idiots play jukeboxes,” he said, which showed what he thought of his customers. “But you really got to be the worst kind of idiot to start playing around with me! Tell him, Folsom.”
His chance, and he was too stirred up by the emotion of it He let out a sound like a crow, smiled at Lippit, then got cut off again.
“First thing he learns at Benotti’s,” said Lippit, “was that queer thing a
bout the day when we all thought there was going to be a rumble.”
“The day he made his own, including enemies?”
“You got your last little laughs now, St. Louis, so I won’t interfere. I’m talking of the time when Benotti held still. When he pulled all his brain busters off the street.”
“Maybe he was afraid of Folsom.”
“When I tell you to run down and get me some cigarettes, do you run down because you’re afraid?”
“Because I love you, Lippit.”
“Because I pay you! Because I’m the head man!”
“That compares to Benotti?”
“He pulled his hoods back because he was told! The head man says pull, and he does it.”
“I’m mystified.”
“I just bet! Because you tipped him to lay low!”
“I’m mystified,” I said again, to cover the blank astonishment. “Your stupidity mystifies me.”
“That’s what I found out,” said Folsom. “That you tipped it that day, and Benotti should lay low.”
“That’s right. Benotti and me have been ever so close, to the tune of a gash here, an X-ray there, and I pay his hospital bills.”
“Then how come,” Lippit asked me, “you had such a sweet, easy time breaking down Benotti’s supply place?”
“On your orders.”
“I’m laughing. Now you laugh this off, St. Louis. Who carted your high-priced recording machine back to that record place where you make funny records?”
I didn’t need to answer. Those had been Benotti men, and Lippit seemed to know that, too.
“Would you say they’d just up and say yessir to a Lippit man when he asks them to lay down on their job and instead do him a personal favor of cartage?”
It looked bad. I took the cap off the bottle I was holding in my hand and took a long swallow. Then I said, “So help me, they were stupid and it just worked out that way.”
“A dumb answer doesn’t make you look any more honest, St. Louis.”
“I didn’t say I was honest. I say I didn’t double-cross you.”
“Is that why I didn’t know until now how you tied up all kinds of helpful little businesses?”
I wanted to say that it had never hurt him, that it had nothing to do with him, and that it was now going to pot so we could handle Benotti. But he had it down, ironclad, his way. I took another drink.
