“We used to go for drives in the country every Sunday,” she went on, “when the weather was nice. Pack a picnic lunch, spread a tablecloth or a blanket and eat outdoors. Or my old man would build a campfire and we would bake potatoes in the coals and grill steaks over it. None of the charcoal briquette stuff. Just a plain wood fire. My brother and I went around picking up dead wood and my old man would build a fire. Now they have anti-fire laws and everybody has a brick barbecue in the backyard and there isn’t any country anymore. Just a chain of suburbs running from Buffalo to New York. Let’s find some place that cooks rare steaks and makes big drinks. I want to get high, Nat.”
So we found a place just outside of Buffalo whose decor was colonial American, with hardwood Windsor chairs and ladderback barstools and plenty of wooden timbers holding up the ceiling. Anne got going with a double gin and tonic and had two more before they brought the food around. We passed up steak and settled on roast beef, which seemed to be the special. They brought us each a big slice an inch thick with roasted potatoes and creamed spinach on the side. Afterward I had brandy and she had more of the gin and tonic. She shot high as a kite.
“There’s no country anymore,” she said. “Isn’t that rotten?”
“You still playing that song?”
She had eyes like an owl. “It’s not a song. It’s the sad truth. Nothing is the way it used to be. It never is. I don’t belong here, Nat.”
“Where do you belong?”
More gin. “In a bus called Limbo on a one-way street. Going the wrong way. You remember those houses we passed today? The split-levels?”
I remembered ugly houses set row on row, like crosses in Flanders Field. They all looked different, with different paint jobs and different landscaping—but they also all looked the same.
“In a suburb,” she said. “In a fifteen-thousand-dollar split-level trap with a husband in my pocket and a baby in my uterus. Picture this. The husband works for a big company. His salary isn’t too great but they have a dandy pension plan. I have charge accounts and heavy furniture and a washing machine. And my bridge game is lousy but it’s something to do while you trade platitudes.”
It sounded familiar, I thought. It was Donald Barshter’s life.
“Where I belong,” she was saying. “By the book, by all the rules. The rules fell flat. You know why? Because I started liking jazz. All right, that’s easy—you find the husband and you make him build a stereo rig in the basement recreation area. But I liked jazz the wrong way. I went to clubs. I met men and I talked to them. I’m a good listener. I learn things.”
She was smoking a cigarette. It fell from her fingers and started to scorch the linen tablecloth. She didn’t notice it. I picked it up and put it out.
“So I learned a subculture. Isn’t that handy? I learned a subculture. I learned there were things happening that didn’t happen in split-levels. I learned that some people get along without a pension plan. And I found out something. Annie Bishop just couldn’t make it in a split-level. She couldn’t swing with the bridge-and-canasta set. She’d be living in a world without colors.”
She started to drink more gin and tonic. I took the glass away from her and told her to go easy. She pouted at me, then forgot about the drink.
“That split-level,” she said. “That imaginary split-level. I took it and I put a sign on it. Know what the sign said?”
“What?”
“That’s easy,” she said. “It said, ‘Annie doesn’t live here anymore.’ Like the song. Buy me another drink, Nat.”
She had one more drink and went over the edge. She made the john just in time and came out a few minutes later with a green look. I paid the bill and steered her outside to the car. I drove her to her apartment, carried her upstairs and undressed her for bed. By then she was out cold. I wedged her under the covers, tucked her in and turned off the lights.
When I got outside again it had started to rain. I put the Lincoln’s top up and drove back to the Stennett. I turned the car over to the doorman and went inside. There was a message for me at the desk, a number to call. I didn’t recognize the number and called from the pay phone in the lobby instead of from the phone in my room. I didn’t want to go through the switchboard.
I didn’t recognize the voice that answered. I told it who I was. Then there was silence for a minute, and then there was Baron’s voice. “Nat,” he said. “Glad you called. Get over here, will you?”
I told him I would. I went back outside and got my car back. The doorman was puzzled but he decided to humor me. Then I drove over to Baron’s house.
* * *
I parked in front, got out of the car and nodded at the sad old elm tree. I rang Baron’s bell and the beady-eyed servant opened the door. He led me to the living room. Johnny was sitting on the couch and Baron was in his chair. I sat in the chair I’d used before and Baron offered me a cigar from the cedarwood box. I passed it up. He unwrapped one for himself and used his little gold knife on it. Then he lit it and smoked.
“Everything okay, Nat?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“I called five-thirty, maybe six. You were out.”
“I was with a girl.”
Baron laughed. “That’s good enough. How’s everything at Round Seven, Nat? Somebody drop a package there?”
“There’s one in the safe now.”
“That’s good. A guy’ll be by Thursday or Friday to pick it up. Meanwhile it sits. You know what’s in the package?”
I shook my head.
“You want to know?” he asked.
“It’s none of my business.”
He laughed again. “You got a good attitude, Nat. Straight and simple. How’s that watch work?”
I looked at my watch. “It works fine.”
“Keep good time?”
I nodded. “I like it,” I said. “Thanks.”
“What the hell,” he said. “You did a good job. Smooth and proper. I like your style, Nat.”
He liked my style—and Tony Quince liked my style. I didn’t even know I had one. I watched Baron set the cigar in the ashtray and open the gold knife again. He ignored me for the moment and concentrated on cleaning and trimming his fingernails. He still had that tremendous aura of power. It wasn’t the sort of thing you got used to. It grew, the more you knew him.
He was going to die and Tony was going to take his place. I wasn’t sure I believed that.
“Ever been to Philly, Nat?”
“I’ve been there.”
“You know the town?”
“A little.”
That satisfied him. He nodded thoughtfully and went on trimming his nails. Then he folded the knife and put it away again. He picked up the cigar. It had gone out and he scratched another match to relight it.
“There’s this plane,” Baron said. “Leaves two, two-thirty in the morning, gets into Philly around three-thirty, quarter to four. Johnny’s holding a ticket for you. It’s a round-trip ticket. The return is open—you make your own reservations. Depending on how much time you need.”
He said that much and stopped. It was my turn to ask a question. I decided to wait him out.
“Guy meets you at the airport,” Baron went on. “He knows what you look like, a general description. You wear a black bow tie and make things a little easier for him. He’ll pick you up, finger the contract for you. How you do it is up to you.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
He looked surprised or pretended to. It was hard to tell which. “There’s this other guy,” he said. “You hit him. Johnny’s got a nice clean gun, can’t be traced, you can pitch it down a sewer when you’re done. You look funny—something the matter?”
“I don’t want it, Lou.”
“You want a drink? You nervous?”
“I don’t want the job.”
“Porky,” he called. “Make Nat a drink, huh? He likes rye and soda, not too much soda.” We sat there not saying anything and Porky mixed me a drink and broug
ht it silently to me. His dark face was absolutely expressionless. I sipped the drink.
“Drink okay, Nat?” Baron asked.
“It’s fine.”
“Not too much soda?”
“Fine.”
“You want the job,” he went on, in the same tone of voice. “It’s a pretty deal. Philadelphia called up, said there’s a job to do and please send a man. I owe Philly a favor. And it’s nice, it’s pretty. Not an important hit, just a punk with large ideas, a wise punk who’s getting in the way. The price is five grand. That’s a very good price for such an easy hit.”
“I still don’t want it.”
“You still don’t want it. You hot in Philly or something?”
“No.”
“You’re too rich to have a use for five grand?”
“That’s not it. I’m not a killer. And I don’t want it.”
His eyes narrowed and we looked at each other. He smoked his cigar and I drank my drink. There was tension in the air, static electricity hovering in the room. We went on looking at each other.
“You’re not a killer, Nat?”
“No.”
“You never killed anybody? I don’t mean in a war, that doesn’t count, it’s not the same. I mean killing that’s not legal.”
I didn’t say anything. I thought about Ellen and had trouble looking into his lazy eyes. They weren’t so lazy anymore.
“I can see it,” he said. “The way you move, the way you talk, the way you act. You killed people, Nat. You sure you didn’t?”
No answer.
“I told you I’d throw good things at you,” Baron said. “This is a good thing. You aren’t going to turn it down and throw it back in my face, are you?”
I had taken the soft touch at Round Seven, the watch with its inscription, the car at a price. I had taken the good clothes and the good apartment and the good money. This was part of the package.
I said, “Who’s the contract?”
“Nobody,” he said. “A nobody named Fell, Dante Fell. A collector who started holding out. Who did this too often. Who never learned.”
I stood up. “Where’s the ticket and the gun?”
Now he was smiling. “Johnny,” he said, “give Nat the ticket and the gun. The gun is an automatic, Nat. You familiar with an automatic?”
I nodded. Johnny gave me a gun and a round-trip airline ticket to Philadelphia. I put the ticket in my wallet and the gun in my pocket.
“The reservation’s in the name of Albert Miller. You’ll be back here in plenty of time for opening up at the saloon tomorrow night. There won’t be any follow-up from Philly. If there is, you were with a dozen guys who were with you every minute of the time. So there’s no trouble.”
I nodded. I picked up my glass, finished the drink. I put it down on a table and Porky took it away to the kitchen.
“You aren’t angry, Nat. Are you?”
“Why should I be angry?”
“About the job. You still don’t want it?”
I managed to shrug. “It’s a job,” I said. “And the price is nice.”
* * *
I could have gone back to the Stennett. I could have stopped at a bar and had another drink to take some of the high-wire tension out of my system. I could have picked up a convenient whore for the same purpose.
I did something else.
I drove to the nearest drugstore and shut myself up in the phone booth. Then I put in a call to Tony Quince.
10
He answered on the second ring. I heard his hello, then music and a girl giggling in the background. I said, “No names. Is your phone okay?”
“I don’t think so,” Tony Quince said. The girl giggled again and he told her to shut up. Then he said, “How about yours?”
“I’m in a booth.”
“Give me the number,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
I gave him the number and he rang off. I lit a cigarette and sat in the booth waiting for something to happen. The phone rang again before I had finished the cigarette.
“Fine,” he said. “Now we’re both in phone booths. I hated to leave that broad there. She’ll turn my place upside down. You sound nervous.”
“I am.”
“Let’s have it.”
I dropped my cigarette and stepped on it. “I just saw Baron,” I said. “He’s sending me to Philly on a two-thirty plane.”
“What for?”
“For a hit.”
He whistled. It sounded funny over the phone. “Who?” he asked.
“Somebody named Dante Fell. Baron said Philadelphia wanted him to send somebody and he owes them a favor. I get five grand for it.”
“That’s a fair price,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what’s happening.”
“Makes sense. Dante Fell—it rings sort of a bell, come to think. Can you stay right where you are? In the booth, I mean.”
I looked around. Nobody seemed interested in my phone booth. The drugstore was almost empty. “I don’t know,” I said. “The guy might close for the night. Either that or he’ll try renting me the booth by the month.”
“I’ll make it fast, Nat.”
He rang off again. I felt like some kind of a nut sitting and waiting for the phone to ring so I held the receiver to my ear and kept the hook down with the other hand. I mouthed a long imaginary conversation and waited.
He called back five, maybe ten minutes later. His voice was urgent.
“I got to talk to you, Nat. Not on the phone. In person.”
“We’re both in booths.”
“This has to be in person. I know a bar on the other side of town, nobody ever went there who can count past three, there’s no hassle. Meet me in a back booth as fast as you can. This is big.”
He gave me the name and address. I left the booth and headed the Lincoln toward the place he had mentioned. I parked around the corner on a street no one ever drove on. I didn’t want anyone recognizing the car.
Tony was waiting in the booth. The bar was almost empty and the few men and women around weren’t speaking English. I joined him in the booth and he pushed a beer at me. He was drinking beer himself instead of sour red wine.
“I won’t drink the wine they sell here,” he explained. “And you don’t want to try the rye they sell here. But it’s safe and it’s quiet. Baron is working funny angles, Nat. I’m glad you called me.”
“What’s up?”
“What do you think?”
I shrugged. “I’m a stranger in town,” I said. “I don’t know a thing.”
“I called Philly, Nat.”
“And?”
“They didn’t order a hit.” My mouth must have dropped open because he was grinning at me. “Not the boys I know in Philly. Not the boys who run the town. The hit was ordered, sure. By Baron’s friends. The ones on the outside looking in.”
I didn’t say anything. It was starting to get cute and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It was interesting, anyway. I sipped beer and waited to find out more.
“Dante Fell is a bookie. He doesn’t get along with some of Baron’s friends in Philly—he doesn’t like them and they don’t like him. If he’s getting hit there’s a reason. It’s a power play, Nat. These Philadelphia people, these friends of Lou’s, are starting to push. Lou is backing their play. He’s giving them a man for a hit. This means they’ve got his support.”
“What’s his angle?”
“They’re his friends. If his friends run Philly, this makes Baron a bigger man. It also makes him a more secure man. So he’s backing them, sending you down to pull a trigger, betting his dough on them. He loses.”
“Why?”
He drank beer, made a face. “I hate this stuff. If a man is going to drink he should drink wine.”
“Why does Baron lose?” I wanted to know.
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Baron loses because his side has kings instead of aces. He’s got second-best hand, and that doesn’t eve
n get its ante back. A lot happens in Philly this week. A lot of Baron’s friends are going to die. Not a war, not a bloodbath—there aren’t that many of them. Four, five hard boys. They die.”
“Was this set all along?”
He shook his head. “But it’s set now. Because you called me. I told Philly and things move fast.”
I didn’t say anything. Maybe it had been stupid, calling Tony Quince. Or maybe it was smart.
“That’s part of it,” he went on. “That’s the part that doesn’t matter too much because what happens in Buffalo and what happens in Philadelphia are different things. I figure this is a good time for things to happen in Buffalo. I figure Baron dealt the hand, Baron gave the order sending you to Philly, Baron ought to be ready to play. You see what I mean?”
I saw what he meant.
“He’s been big a long time, Nat. And now that throne is wobbling all over the place. It could get pushed.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
We waited each other out. This time I talked first. “This is interesting,” I said. “All of it. One question.”
“Where do you fit in?”
“That’s the question.”
He sipped beer again and made a face again. “Well, hell, Nat,” he said. “That’s all up to you. You can join either side because right now you sit in the middle. You can play for either team. You can bet on the winners or the losers. It’s all up to you.”
“Keep talking.”
“What you got to do is simple. You got to decide where you want to stand. You can decide you’re better off with Baron. So you get up and tell me, well, it’s been fun. Then you run like hell to Baron’s place and tell him what happened. You say Tony Quince is a fink, he’s no good, he’s looking to push you out and make trouble. You tell him you happened to spill to me and I told the boys in Philly what happened. Then he pushes me out of the picture, gets the word to his friends in Philly to lie low—and you’re his fair-haired boy. He likes you.”
“And when he asks why I talked to you?”
“You were being smart. You were finding things out. You had an idea I was ready to buck him and you wanted to check it out.”
I thought it over. “Okay,” I said. “And suppose I pick the other side. Then what happens?”
Sinner Man Page 8
