Jake maintained the steady pressure, at the same time making sure the gun stayed wedged tight into his ribs. He said: “A little more of this, and you wind up with a broken wrist. Is that what you’re trying for?”
“No, no, for chrissake. Just leggo, that’s all.”
“First you let go of the gun.”
It fell to the seat between them. Jake released the man, gave him a stunning backhanded slap across the face that banged his head against the window, and moved clear of him. He picked up the gun. It was a 9-mm. Luger, but from the imprint on the blue steel barrel, a Smith and Wesson. It was fully loaded.
The man watched this dazedly. He was breathing hard, and a trickle of blood oozed from one nostril. He sat in numb acquiescence as Jake pulled a wallet from the inside breast pocket of the sports jacket and flipped through it. “So you’re Anthony Aiello,” he said. “Tenderfoot enforcer.”
Aiello said with repressed fury: “You’re a cop, ain’t ya? The son of a bitch that stuck me on this job never told me you—”
“No, I’m not a cop.” Jake tossed the wallet into the glove compartment. “What son of a bitch stuck you on this job? Frank Milan?”
The fury instantly evaporated. In its place was an intense wariness. “Me? What would I have to do with Frank Milan?”
“That’s true. It would be somebody under him. But it’s all the same to me, Anthony. Whoever it is, you’re going to get me together with Frank Milan right away. See that phone booth down the block? We’re going over there, and I’ll give you all the change you need, and before you get out of that booth I’ll have a date set up with Mr. Milan sometime today.”
“Oh sure.” Not even Magnes could have said it with more scorn. “That’s me. Frank Milan’s private secretary.”
“That’s what you were just promoted to. Now pull this heap around to that booth. Shoe leather costs a lot nowadays. We’ll save what we can of it.”
“You pull it around to that booth, mister. Because what I think—”
“I don’t want you to think, Anthony. I don’t want you to strain a muscle in your head. All you do is what you’re told. Meaning, somebody up there can get me together with Frank Milan right away. And you’re going to convince him he has to do it.”
“Suppose I can’t?”
“You’ll laugh when I tell you. We drive down that side street where nobody’ll see the action, and I cold-cock you with this gun butt, and take all your clothes off right down to the last stitch. Then I walk back to this phone booth with them and your car keys and call the cops and tell them there’s a pervert exposing himself in his car, and where to find you. If you want to tell them how it happened when they come rolling up, go right ahead. If you don’t, the possibilities are even funnier. Especially when it gets back to the Mob what happened when the guy you were tailing got tired of it.” Aiello was leaning back against the door, fumbling for its handle, and Jake took him by the necktie and yanked him away from it. “Don’t do that, Anthony. You should know better than that by now.”
Aiello snuffled, trying to staunch the trickle of blood from his nose. “What I know is if you’re not a cop, you crazy bastard, you should be.”
Jake backhanded him again. “I have a name, Anthony. What is it?”
“Dekker, for chrissake. Dekker.”
“That’s right. And I’m an investigator with Guaranty Life Insurance in New York, and my boss is a guy named John Maniscalco. And I want to meet with Frank Milan right away. Got all that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Good. Now do we make a phone call, or do we play it for laughs?”
It took Aiello a long and apparently harried time to complete the call, with Jake standing half wedged into the booth with him as overseer. A withered little crone leaned on a cane behind Jake for a while, waiting her turn at the phone, then snapped, “Vehr geharget, grobbers!” whacked the booth with her cane, and wrathfully hobbled away.
Aiello finally hung up the phone. “They said make it four o’clock over in Nappy’s Lounge. On the Strip. Maybe he’ll be there.”
“Four o’clock?” Jake said. “That’s almost two hours.”
“Ah, man, you heard me talkin’ my head off, didn’t you? What more do you want?”
Jake said soothingly: “That’s the truth, Anthony. It shows the kind of ingratitude you meet up with sometimes. Now I’ll borrow your car, so I can drive up the street there to where mine is parked. You can pick it up there. The gun I’ll keep.”
“Yeah? You walk in on Frank Milan with that on you—”
“Me?” Jake said. “I told you I never carry firearms, Anthony. I just collect them.”
49
He restlessly marked time in the house until three-thirty, then phoned Maniscalco. “Did anyone check me out, Manny?”
“About twenty minutes ago. Guy from Southeast Credit Bureau. In person.”
“Did you back me up?”
“I backed you up, God help me. I told him you’re with Guaranty for fifteen thousand a year plus ten percent of any claims you prove fraudulent. Jake, for chrissake, Southeast is one of the biggest credit-rating outfits in the country. A week from now every IBM card around with your name on it will have Guaranty coded on it too. Hold on a second.” Maniscalco’s voice suddenly went diminuendo. “Honey, forget those forms. Just go outside in the hall, close the door after you, and wait there. That’s right. Until I call you.” The voice picked up volume again. “Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Now if you get caught pulling something raw, Guaranty is dragged right into it. You know what happens to me then?”
“If I pull something raw. And get caught at it.”
Maniscalco snarled: “Ah, who do you think you’re talking to. You probably got bugs in every phone around Miami by now, and taps to go along with them. You told me yourself you had your girl bug the Thorens’ phone. Suppose she gets in a mood to hold you up for it? I can just see the brass on the top floor here when the law walks in on them.”
“No sweat, Manny. This is a special kind of girl. And as soon as the job is done, you can tell Southeast I resigned from your lousy company. That’ll straighten out those IBM cards.”
Maniscalco tried to talk through a coughing fit, finally surrendered to it, and came out of it wheezing. “You said a week, maybe less than a week. Does that still go?”
“Yes. Did Southeast ask if I was married?”
“No, but I threw it in for free. Less than a week, huh? Let’s hear about it. I’ve got some time on my hands right now.”
Jake laughed. “That’s not even a good try, Manny.”
He put down the phone and stood considering Anthony Aiello’s gun which lay on the desk before him. After due reflection, he removed its clip, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and locked both clip and gun in the closet.
Then he put on the Pucci shirt Elinor had provided and his best jacket, and headed uptown in the car to 79th Street.
50
Nappy’s Lounge was keyhole-shaped. A long, narrow room, bar on one side, cocktail tables ranged along the other, led to a spacious circular dining room. The dining room seemed to be completely empty, but the bar was doing a good business. Most of the stools at it were occupied, and the occupants gave the impression of being uniformly middle-aged, well-fixed, and low-voiced. There were no women at the bar, but a pair of exotic-looking brunettes sat at one of the cocktail tables sleepily nursing tall drinks. One of them, caught in the middle of a huge yawn when Jake turned her way, snapped her jaws shut and gave him a professional smile. When he showed no response she luxuriously went ahead with the yawn.
The man seated on the stool nearest the entrance must have been keeping tabs on the place by way of the mirror behind the bar. He swung around on the stool and walked over to Jake. Despite the dim lighting of the room, he wore dark glasses. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Anything I can do for you?”
Jake said: “I don’t know. I’m supposed to meet someone named Frank Milan here. Is he
around?”
“You Mr. Dekker?” the man said, and when Jake said he was, the man said: “Then he’s around.”
He led the way to the dining room. At its entrance, a maître d’hôtel in dinner jacket, looking as sleepy as the two girls at the cocktail table, was standing before a lectern, checking through the reservations book on it like a conductor going through a score before a concert. “Dekker,” the man said to him, and the maître d’ signaled into the dining room. A couple of thirty-year-old all-American types, almost too clean-cut, emerged from it, and one of them said apologetically to Jake: “Hope you don’t mind, Mr. Dekker, but we have to make sure you’re clean. No weapons, no taps, no tapes. Just a formality, of course. In the manager’s office, please.”
It was a formality executed with painstaking care. In the manager’s office they had him strip down to his shorts. Then they went through his clothing and everything in its pockets, not missing an item. He observed that they paid special attention to his watch, ballpoint, key holder, and belt buckle. When he was again fully clothed he was led into the dining room.
Two men sat on a banquette at one side of it, out of view of the bar area. One was small and slight, well-tanned, silvery-haired, and sad-faced. The other was large and grossly fat, pale, bald, and even more sad-faced. There was no one else in the room.
The large, pale man gestured at Jake’s escorts, and they moved away and sat down at a table near the entrance. No one suggested that Jake sit down. The man said curtly: “I’m Aaron Katzman. This is Mr. Milan. I am his legal representative, also his personal representative, so whatever you have to say, please say it to me. Also, please say it fast.”
Jake took his time pulling out a chair and seating himself directly opposite Milan. He said: “I expected to have a private talk with you, Milan.”
Milan looked like a lizard basking in the sunlight. He gave the impression of being either deaf or totally uninterested.
Katzman said: “Some of those people out in the bar are waiting for important appointments with Mr. Milan. If you do not want to do things the way he prefers, please grant those people the courtesy of not delaying their appointments further.”
“That’s quite a mouthful,” Jake said. “Do I gather from it that this is Mr. Milan’s office and that he doesn’t go in for privacy? That might seriously inhibit me.”
Katzman said: “Anything discussed here will be kept absolutely confidential. And I trust Mr. Milan does not need some kind of fancy-shmancy office to impress you. Now will you kindly speak your piece?”
Jake kept his eyes on Milan. “My piece is that Mr. Milan is at least partly responsible for having my wife almost drowned, in having shots fired into my home, and in having me tailed twenty-four hours a day by would-be tough guys who carry large guns. Confidentially, I don’t find any of it very funny. Especially where it involves my wife.”
Milan studied his fingernails with mild interest. Katzman looked as stern as his blubbery face permitted. “Dekker, I must warn you—”
“Counselor, I am here on a mission of peace. By the time you get done meddling in it, there will be only desolation and sorrow. Now keep your mouth shut for a minute and listen. I was sent to these parts by Guaranty Life Insurance of New York to investigate a fraudulent claim entered against them by the widow of someone named Walter Thoren. I am sure none of this comes as a surprise to either of you. Or that a relative of Mr. Milan called Pooch Gela—”
“Who?” Milan’s voice was a deep, rasping growl. “Who’d he say?” and Katzman said, “Angelo. He means Angelo.”
“Oh, Angelo.” Milan nodded. He smiled a faraway smile, the old uncle smiling at the escapades of a harum-scarum nephew.
Jake said to him: “Let’s quit playing games, Milan. This morning I sent a complete report on the case so far to my boss at Guaranty, John Maniscalco. It tells everything there is to tell about Angelo’s involvement with Thoren. So if anything unpleasant happens to me now, my company will turn that information over to the authorities here and demand a full investigation of how and why. They will really kick over Angelo’s can of worms. And you’re down on the record too, as more or less covering for him.”
The faraway smile remained fixed on Milan’s lips. Katzman showed open horror. “Dekker, these statement are not only insulting, they are absolutely slanderous.” He slapped a hand on the table. “Absolutely. I don’t understand Mr. Milan’s forbearance at this moment. A respected member of the community to patiently sit and let himself be slandered so vilely?” The orotund voice became almost tender. “This man cannot be made of flesh and blood to take it the way he does. He must be made of iron.”
Jake said to Milan: “For chrissake, how can you stand having this clown around?” and Milan said slyly: “What’s the matter? You think you’re smarter than he is?”
“I’ll let you decide that. Listen to me, Milan. Get it straight that I’m not trying to threaten you, because I know damn well you’re too big for that. And I’m also willing to believe you’re too big to be personally cutting in on Angelo’s blackmail racket. So you’re not my concern. He is. When I get a release from Thoren’s widow my company hands me a ten percent bonus for it. I want that money quick, and Angelo is holding up the works.”
“Threats are threats,” Katzman cut in ominously, “no matter who they’re directed against.”
Jake disregarded this. He said to Milan: “I’ll lay it on the line for you. You know as well as I do that Thoren’s insurance was for two hundred grand, so my ten percent comes to twenty grand. If you advise Angelo to take a vacation trip far away for the rest of this month, I’m willing to hand you a healthy slice of my percentage. Five thousand dollars cash. Five thousand just for being Angelo’s friendly family advisor. How does that sound?”
He waited. Milan sat smiling at him, then inclined his head toward Katzman, who, miraculously, no longer showed any signs of temperament. Katzman planted his elbows on the table, knitted his fingers together, and regarded Jake over them. “Five thousand dollars to give advice to a nephew is too much. A dollar would be too much. Family advice should come free. I don’t know about your family, but in Mr. Milan’s family, good will prevails. Blood is thicker than water.”
Jake said gravely: “Then maybe Mr. Milan has some worthwhile enterprise I could invest in. Like a fresh-air fund for delinquent nephews.”
“Mr. Milan is connected with many enterprises. But as an investment in any one of them, five thousand dollars would be too little. A drop in the bucket. The very smallest investment, the very least that would be worth his consideration”—Katzman pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling as if the answer might be written there—“would be, let us say, exactly nineteen thousand eight hundred dollars.”
“Practically my whole bonus? You have to be kidding.”
“Dekker, you are the one who offered a deal. If you want to withdraw the offer for the time being, good-bye and good luck. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
“Not so quick, Katzman. Call it curiosity, but I’d like to know how you hit on that particular figure. Why nineteen eight and not the whole twenty? Out of charity?”
“Out of necessity. Hand a man a nice piece of cash nowadays, and too many people worry about it. Especially income-tax people. So as not to worry them, you will sign a demand note which states that Mr. Milan has loaned you eighteen thousand dollars at ten percent. Then, when you give the money to him, it goes on the books as the repayment of a loan. Do a little arithmetic in your head, and you will see that the principal and interest of this loan add up to nineteen eight. Not twenty. Certainly not the five you offered.”
Jake worked his hand back and forth over his mouth. He saw Katzman glance at his watch. He said: “Ten thousand is my limit. And no phony demand notes.”
“The price is nineteen eight, Dekker. And if you’re ready to meet it, I happen to have the note all made out and ready to be signed.” Katzman drew a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and tossed it on the table.
“Go ahead and read it. Nineteen eight, payable on demand. Never sign anything without reading it.”
“All I’m buying, Katzman, is good will, and without any guarantee it can even be delivered. If Angelo doesn’t want to listen to uncle, uncle is still holding my note for almost twenty thousand dollars. I’d have to be out of my mind to go for that kind of deal.” Jake turned to Milan. “Ten thousand, the day I lock up the case. It’s as simple as that.”
Milan, still faintly smiling, looked at Katzman. Katzman’s shake of the head set his series of chins wobbling. He said flatly: “Nineteen eight. And a note to make the cheese binding. But why does it have to come out of your pocket? Put it to your company. They should be glad to settle a two-hundred-grand case so cheap.”
Jake said: “Can I also put to them that I saw Angelo board a plane for a vacation in Palermo, starting tomorrow morning?”
Katzman’s mouth drew down. “As you said, you are buying good will. What form it takes is up to Mr. Milan.”
“Then it’s no deal, Katzman.”
Katzman said blandly: “That’s how you feel right now. Tomorrow or the day after, who knows? Sometimes things happen that can make a man change his mind overnight.”
Jake stood up. He braced his fists on the table and leaned forward toward Katzman. “What’s that supposed to mean, Counselor?”
“It means that if you change your mind, don’t stand on ceremony. Just knock on the door. Mr. Milan is always interested in a sound proposition.”
Jake said: “For your sake, you fat bastard, let’s hope that’s all it means.” He turned to go, but Milan said, “Hey, you,” and he turned back again. Milan’s smile was now broad enough to reveal the uneven edges of yellowed teeth. He jerked his head in Katzman’s direction.
“You still think you’re smarter than him?” he asked.
51
Adjoining Nappy’s Lounge was a big seafood place. Jake phoned Magnes from there. “How quick can you fix me up with a room for the girl?”
The Bind Page 27
