Maestro: 4 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  “What’s it to you, buddy?” They had obviously taken Carlo for just another patron.

  “I am the manager. So, can I help you?”

  The tall fellow smiled, shaking his head. “No, Mr. Manager. But I think we can help you.”

  “How would ya do that?”

  “We’re in the liquor supply business,” the stranger said smoothly. “We figured on supplying you with good quality liquor.”

  It was Carlo’s turn to smile. “Who sent y’guys here?”

  “We’re in this on our own. We gotta good supply source in New York. We figured there’d be a ready market for booze here in Chicago.”

  “It’s what we heard,” said one of the other men.

  “We already got suppliers.” Carlo remained impeccably polite.

  “Fuck ’em,” the tall man said pleasantly.

  “Yeah, fuck ’em,” the talkative hood parroted.

  “The guys we deal with ain’t fuckable.” Carlo’s smile did not change.

  “Then you’ll have to find a way, buddy.” The taller man leaned forward, very close to Carlo. “I’m tellin’ you we’re takin’ over in a big way, friend. In future you’ll be buying from us.”

  “Ya got samples?” Carlo’s eyes flicked towards Louis, who had moved from behind him to the left.

  “We certainly didn’t come with empty hands.”

  Carlo shrugged. “I’ll see these gentlemen in my office, I think.” Then, loudly with an eye on Louis, “They seem to hold the aces, and I’ve only got four deuces.”

  Louis decided it was safer to use the telephone in the kitchen area. There was another in the cathouse waiting room, but Carlo would have to take the men through there to get to his office. He had walked three paces when the tall one asked where the hell did he think he was going?

  “I only play piano around here.” Louis kept on walking, changing direction and moving towards the dais where the band sat motionless. “I’m going to work.”

  As he reached the band he turned and saw the three men being ushered through the door to the right of the bar. He did not wait any longer, hurrying straight to the kitchen area.

  Frank Diamond, as he liked to call himself, answered the phone at The Four Deuces, and Louis gabbled out the story of what seemed to be going on. Diamond asked two fast questions—How many were there? What did they look like? When Louis told him, Diamond said there would be someone over within the half hour. Then he hung up.

  The third Torrio man on duty that night was in the cathouse waiting room. He was known as Mike the Mush, because his false teeth did not fit, so he never wore them, which meant he mushed his food with his gums. “Something wrong, Lou?” he asked, nodding towards the stairs, up which Carlo had taken the three men, followed by the other two guards.

  “Could be, Mush. You carrying?”

  “Sure, Pianist. I always carry. You want for me to deal with the guys upstairs? The other boys are outside Carlo’s office.”

  “I think Carlo’s got trouble. Give me that gat of yours.”

  The Mush shook his head. “No, I’ll come with you, Pianist. I never let this outta my sight,” tapping the weapon under his jacket.

  Louis surprised himself by his own tone of authority. “Give it to me, Mush. Your job is here, right? You can handle the girls without a pistol. There’s a problem and I’m involved. They’re sending people over from The Four Deuces. Now, gimme that pistol.”

  It worked. With a token show of reluctance, the Mush handed over his small, snub-nosed revolver. “Mind you bring it back in good condition,” he said, lamely. In his head he must have told himself that, if Louis the Pianist could give orders like that, then the command could only have come from Capone himself.

  Louis stuffed the weapon into the waistband of his pants and went up the stairs two at a time. Mario and Luigi were both outside the office door, guns in their hands. The mutter of voices could be heard coming from the other side of the door.

  Mario shook his head, indicating to Louis that he should not go in. So, he put his ear to the door. The voices were raised slightly, and he got the impression that Carlo was talking about some kind of deal with the three men. There was the clink of glasses, then the sound of Carlo’s voice, carrying on a long monologue. Obviously spinning them along. But, as the voices on the other side of the door became more and more relaxed and friendly, so Louis was aware of more tension within him.

  Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. Then there were noises from below and Capone, followed by Frank Diamond and Frank Nitti, came up the stairs.

  Capone spoke softly—

  “Carlo keepin’ them happy?”

  Mario nodded. Capone gave a little twist of his rubbery lips. “Okay, stand back. I try a little gentle persuasion.” He opened the door, his large frame almost filling the space between the jambs. “I’m told ya guys wanted to see me,” his voice was level, calm and controlled. “Carlo here is my manager. I am the owner of this joint, and some people know me as Al Brown. Mean anything to ya people?”

  Louis just managed to get a glimpse of the taller man. He had been sitting near Carlo’s desk. Now his face showed a mixture of surprise and fear. Capone went on talking, as though nothing was out of the ordinary. “Guess ya fellas’re new in town, huh? Don’t know the ropes. Fact I heard about ya already, I think.”

  The taller man regained a little composure. “We came from New York. Got good contacts. We figured on making some supply arrangements here in Chicago.” He was obviously not going to be intimidated.

  “Look, I give ya some good advice, eh?” Capone was almost soothing. “Ya get on a train, and ya go straight back to New York. That’d be best, I think.”

  “Well, I don’t think! My people wouldn’t like that very much. Next time they’d send real heavy guys down.”

  “Okay,” Capone’s big head nodded. “Okay, ya give us names and addresses of yer people, then we’ll ship ya back to them. In a refrigerated van, we ship ya back, huh?”

  “In a meat van.” Frank Nitti drew his pistol and went in behind Capone. The scuffle that followed lasted only a few seconds. Frankie Diamond had followed, and Luigi and Mario were behind him.

  By the time Louis got into Carlo’s office, the three strangers were backed, in a line, against the wall. There were some guns on Carlo’s desk, so Louis reckoned they had been disarmed. All three men looked nervous. Louis himself felt frightened.

  “Ya came to the wrong city.” Capone was not smiling anymore. “Just tell us who sent ya, and we’ll call it quits. I’ll put ya on the road back to them with a personal message.”

  The tall one, who had done most of the talking, seemed to wilt. Now his voice shook, “Look, we didn’t mean no harm. I’ll tell ya the truth. We just got into the business for ourselves. We heisted a load of liquor off the docks in New York. It was too hot to pass on there, so we reckoned we could supply other places. We heard Chicago was good. We was trying to do ya a favor.”

  “We don’ need no favors,” Capone said pleasantly. “Ya bring the stuff wit ya?”

  “Sure. We got the whole truck load just round the corner.”

  “Okay, no hard feelings. We’ll take the booze off ya hands. Then we’ll get ya outta town, nice and quiet.” Capone motioned to Frank Nitti and Diamond. “Get some of the boys downstairs to unload the hooch. Then see these guys off as far as the city limits. No hard feelings. Life’s too short for bad feelings, okay?”

  The three strangers left with Nitti and Diamond. They looked white, shaken and concerned. Louis saw Frank Nitti take up the pistols from Carlo’s desk.

  When the group had gone, Capone turned to Carlo, “Fix me up to be driven back to The Four Deuces,” he snapped. “We’ve had enough of these free-lance bastards trying to muscle in on us. Ya did good, Carlo. I’ll see that Johnny hears about it. It’s getting like any two-bit hood thinks he can come here and force their lousy liquor onto us. Johnny’s worked hard to keep the peace here. We got it all nicely set up, running smooth,
so we gotta keep it that way. Any more bums come in here, Carlo, don’t even ask my permission. Get rid of them. Get rid of them fast.” His eye caught Louis, standing in the doorway with Mush’s revolver sticking in his waistband.

  Capone rubbed his blue jawline. “Look, ya even got the Jew-kid pianist here packin’ a piece.” He gave an unpleasant little laugh. “Ya play on that thing as well as you play piano, Jew-kid?”

  “Never tried, Mr. Capone.”

  “Let me give ya a tip, Pianist. Never just stick a piece in yer waistband like that. Ya could shoot yer pecker off.” As the laughter subsided, he said, “Get some practice in. Ya might have to learn how to use one o’ them things before we’re through.”

  It was not until he saw the front page of the Chicago Daily News, as they waited at the train station the next morning, that Louis realized how serious the previous night’s events had been.

  The headlines blared from the front page—

  NEW YORK MOBSTERS FOUND GUNNED DOWN OUTSIDE CITY LIMITS.

  It was a cold, damp morning, but the weather was not the only cause of the shiver that passed through Louis Packer. The story—which was on the front pages of all the major eastern papers—told of how a night worker, returning home in the early hours of the morning, had come across the bodies and called the police. All three had been shot at close range through the back of the neck. Clutched in the hand of one victim was a playing card—the ace of spades. Scrawled on the card were the words “New York liquor traders not welcome here.”

  The bodies had been quickly identified as those of three small-time racketeers, well known in New York for their interest in club and restaurant protection. Louis had no doubt who the three men had been.

  Carlo nodded agreement when Louis drew his attention to the story.

  “I guess Al’s just trying to teach some people a simple, lesson,” Carlo said, with no emotion in his voice.

  Louis Packer was still shivering as the train from New York drew into the platform.

  “No wonder I was shaking, Herbie. No wonder. That train,” Passau said, his voice cracked and suddenly old. “That train brought me, one way and another, the greatest happiness of my life. It also carried the grief of ages, and I didn’t even know it then. Not for years did I know it.” He looked up at Kruger. “I can do no more today, Herb. Tomorrow, I go on. But not anymore today.”

  This time, Herbie thought, the old Maestro really meant it. This was no excuse. Passau’s hands trembled and he looked paper white. He muttered something else, but Herbie could not hear him properly and had to ask him to repeat what he had said.

  “Domani, Herb. Domani.”

  Why in heaven did the old Jewish musician suddenly tell him tomorrow in Italian?

  “Okay, tomorrow, Lou. Tomorrow.” Herbie left him, alone with a Delius CD playing. Brigg Fair.

  Pucky Curtiss was up, dressed, a shade provocatively, Herbie thought, and clattering around in his kitchen.

  (20)

  THEY BICKERED. THERE WAS no other word for it, except those you would find in any thesaurus. Pucky Curtiss got in Big Herbie Kruger’s way, within the confines of the kitchen, and he got in her way. In the morning, Herb had taken a chicken out of the freezer and set it to defrost. He had planned on doing his renowned chicken casserole, but Pucky wanted to make a chicken curry and was doing a square search of every cupboard in the place. Eventually she discovered rice and a jar of biryani paste.

  “I don’t even know if the Maestro is able to eat curry,” Herbie spluttered. “Anyway, there’s no chutney. Curry is no good without chutney. Is like kissing your sister.”

  “We’re an expert, are we, Herb?” Her tongue, he thought, was a shade caustic.

  “I am pretty good cook.”

  “Well, it’ll make a change.” Pucky had her heart set on cooking. “Go and ask that evil old man if he likes Indian.”

  Herbie slunk away, to find Passau lying back in his chair listening to the Rostropovich recording of Prokofiev’s War and Peace.

  “Delius get you down, Lou?”

  “Poor old Fred,” Passau grinned, showing the perfect teeth which must have cost a fortune and a half. “What a way to go.”

  “Well, I have news for you. The delectable Ms. Curtiss plans to cook curry for us.”

  “Then I shall die happy.”

  “You like curry?”

  “Thrive on it.”

  “Jesus.” Herbie stumped back to the kitchen. “He likes bloody curry.”

  “Good, then he’s in for a treat.”

  Two hours, and a good deal of cursing, later, the three of them sat around the table eating what Herbie grudgingly admitted was a biryani of class. “Even though it’s better with lamb,” he added.

  “Poor old Fred,” Passau muttered again.

  “You what?” Pucky asked.

  “Delius he was listening to, before the Prokofiev,” Herbie supplied.

  “But why ‘poor old Fred’?” She looked out of her depth.

  “Fred Delius. Died of syphilis.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that, but then I know precious little about composers.”

  There was a long pause, after which Louis Passau said he had often thought of writing a little monograph on the deaths of composers. “So many of them died in bizarre ways,” he expanded. “Delius, with all that voluptuous, rhapsodic music. I think he was one of the truly unique composers of our time. And to die of syphilis, which he caught as a young man—well, there’s hope for all of us.”

  “What about these bizarre deaths of composers?” Pucky sounded genuinely interested.

  “Well,” Passau seemed lost in his own thoughts. “Well, poor young Schubert also. Another syphilitic, though he died of typhoid fever; Chausson fell off his bicycle and fractured his skull; Scriabin went by a carbuncle on his lip; we’ll never know if Tchaikovsky drank that glass of unboiled water on purpose, or if his cholera was accidental. …”

  “And Mozart, murdered by Salieri.” Pucky’s eyes widened. “I saw the movie, Amadeus.”

  “Is rubbish,” Herbie snapped.

  “True, true. As Herbie says, ‘is rubbish.’”

  “No? That was a great story.”

  “A good story but a pack of garbage. Very well written, great drama, but Wolfgang’s death was a shade more prosaic. Almost certainly a form of rheumatic fever; though Salieri, who died a crazy man, became so obsessed that he might have believed he murdered his bête noire.”

  “I want Mozart to have been murdered by Salieri.” Pucky sounded disillusioned.

  “Nobody’s stopping you believing it, if it makes you happy. It certainly made Peter Shaffer rich.” Passau yawned. “Take your pick, Ms. Pucky. Poison, rheumatic fever, a streptococcal infection, bronchopneumonia.” He stretched and pulled himself up from his chair. “I must go to my bed. Oh, and Mozart didn’t go to a pauper’s grave either. He simply had a third-class funeral, and the grave was unmarked. St. Marx’s cemetery. Cost three gulden. Good night to you both.”

  As he reached the door, Herbie said, “Capone died of syphilis, Maestro.”

  “Not if I’d had my way,” one hand on the door. “I still have much to tell about that bastard.”

  “I’d stick my pension on it,” Herbie said once Louis was out of earshot.

  “And I’d better make a huge shopping list and get over to the market.” Pucky stood. “I’ll need this wig you’ve ferreted out.”

  Herbie shook his head. “Not at this time of night, Pucky.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t go to this Giant place at night.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about it. If they have surveillance out, you’ll be easier to spot—with or without a wig—when there’re few people around. You go tomorrow, and you go late afternoon, when lots of people’re standing in line and bumping shopping trolleys into each other, and the kids are playing merry hell with their mothers ’cause they’re bored stiff. But I show you the wig, okay? Also there are other clothe
s you should wear. You enjoy my talks with Maestro Passau?”

  “Evil old bastard. I just hope they bring in the goods.”

  “They will.”

  She looked hard at Herbie. He had suddenly become very confident. “I tell you, Pucky, and I know. This guy today gave me a signal. He is telling the truth. He’ll tell it all—almost all, anyway—because he has to get many sins from his chest. I have a betting with you. When we get down to the real gritty-nitty, he’ll give me everything. Everything but the one important piece of information.”

  “Everything but …”

  “Ja, listen. They all do it. This old guy has seen all things. Christ, he’s been all things. He is great musician. Nobody deny that. I am also thinking he has been very good agent. Possibly excellent agent. Maybe better for KGB than Blake or Philby. Now, all good agents give up stuff a piece at a time, until it’s all out in the open. Yet they all do the same thing. Hold one piece back; keep it for the insurance. When we get to it, I shall have to extract the last piece. Mark me well.”

  On the following morning, Louis Passau took up the story where he had left off, at La Salle Street train station, with Carlo, waiting for Sophie’s arrival.

  “As I told you, Herb, I was expecting a real dog. I had this picture in my head: Sophia Giarre, a plump little dumpling of a girl. An unsophisticated Italian woman with bad teeth.”

  “Before you start on that, think about last night, Lou.” Herbie looked him straight in the eyes. “Last night you spoke Italian. ‘Domani,’ you said. ‘Tomorrow.’ Why the Italian? You were wrought up, stretched out like a rubber band.”

  Passau gave a deep sigh. “I remember. I sometimes speak Italian when I recall the whole stretch of things. Sophie taught me Italian; or at least she taught me some Italian. Then … well, there’s another thing. It’s connected, and it’s real desolation. We’ll get to that, but it’s quite a way down the road.” He seemed to be pushing something from him, his hands making a strange movement, palms outwards and the wrists moving in small circles. “Let me get back to Sophie, and her arrival in Chicago.”