The Erection Set (27 page)

Lee finally pushed his plate away and tried to swallow some coffee. It was a bad try. His hand was shaking and coffee spilled down on his shirt. I said, “Relax, buddy.”

“Sure, relax. Easy to say, isn't it?”

“No trouble at all.”

He stopped dabbing at his clothes and looked up at me “lf I were you I'd be scared shitless. How the hell can you sit there like that?”

“Look at the bright side. Two of those punks are ooled. The odds are going down.”

“Why, Dog? Hell, if they were after you ...”

“Object lessons. You screw up an assignment and you're in line for a tapout yourself. The lesson goes a little higher than to the hit men themselves.”

“Dog ...”

I knew what he wanted and shook my head. “Don't ask me, kid. From now on I'm not going to be close to anybody so there's not much chance of anybody trying the bathtub routine again. That little bit didn't work either, so the next time out it will be the direct approach. There's a cover on you and Sharon just to make sure, but my bet is they'll go straight after me.”

His clenched knuckles rapped against the edge of the table with impatience. “Damn it, Dog ... why?”

“Because sombody thinks I had something to do with a situation I wasn't involved in at all.”

Lee pursued his mouth, then nodded with his eyes tight. “Okay. Just one other thing Did you ever have anything to do with something like it?”

I picked up my coffee cup and watched him because he was looking to see if my hand was shaking too. It wasn't. “All the time,” I told him.

“You know, Dog. I knew it when I opened that damn suitcase. I could almost taste it. And I wasn't the only one. Everybody else could feel it too, except they didn't know it for what it was. Remember how we always seemed to know when there were krauts hanging around in the sun overhead or on the other side of a cloudbank? That's the way it is with you now. You're
there
and you're trouble. It was better with the krauts when you had some sky to maneuver in, but with you it's like being on a strafing mission when you lose one of those beautiful dimensions to run in and the krauts could pick you off like flies because they had the altitude and the speed and you were all wrapped up in trying to keep your K-14 sights on a fat-bellied locomotive.

“It was all so nice and easy when you weren't here. Life was one big ball with a lot of laughs and just the normal tangles that make it interesting. Everybody was getting laid and nobody was getting killed, then you decide to pick up a lousy ten-grand bonus to add to that suitcase and it was like
Titanic
time. The fucking ship is sinking only nobody knows it. They keep eating and singing and when it comes time for the big bailout there aren't enough lifeboats and the only ones having a ball are the sharks.”

“You think too much,” I said.

“What happens to your little doll, buddy? Suddenly you got her all turned upside down too.” I went to talk but he stopped me short. “Shit, man, don't put me on. Everybody knows
everything
in this town. That kid's turned colors like a chameleon since you gave her that tingly look of yours. You melted the ice, now you're going to let her drip all over the place. What happens if they try giving her the bath too?”

“She's got a cover on her.”

“Great. Fine. Beautiful games you play, kiddo. For what? Just what the hell are you
after,
Dog?”

I snubbed out my cigarette in the coffee cup and looked at the wet filter floating in the dregs. “I keep saying it, but nobody wants to believe me. I don't want anything. Just my ten grand.”

“Suppose they keep on not believing you?”

“Then they're going to have to find it out the hard way.”

 

The late editions of the papers carried a bigger story on Markham and Bridey-the-Greek. A reporter with an inside track to classified information blew the whistle on their being contract men and the six o'clock TV news report confirmed it with an overseas source tying them in with The Turk's operation in Europe. One of the wire services had managed to contact The Turk, but he claimed he was a legitimate businessman and denied the connection. The analysis mentioned the suspected killing of a narcotics courier in Marseilles and the furor in certain circles because a multimillion-dollar shipment of heroin was supposedly sidetracked and hinted at a connection between all the events.

Al DeVecchio gave the new color TV a disgusted slam with the flat of his hand and switched the set off. “Now we know,” he said.

“Now you know nothing.”

“I made some calls today,” Al told me. He eased out of the sofa and poured himself another beer, watching me in the mirror in the back of his bar. “I finally got to a police chief in the south of Spain who was willing to talk upon recommendation of a certain friend.”

“So?”

“There was a shadowy figure they referred to as
El Lobo
who raised all kinds of hell over there. Nobody ever identified him and very few knew him. One that did claimed he died in the hills just outside that city in the south of Spain.”

“So?” I sipped my beer and waited.

“El Lobo
seemed to take particular pleasure in muscling in on the activities of another shadow figure they call Le Fleur. In fact, he was so damn good at it that he was inching his way up to being top man in the narcotics racket.”

“If he's dead, why worry about it?”

“Because nobody has ever seen the body and his handiwork is still being felt.”

“That's a police problem,” I said.

Al turned around, walked over and stood in front of me and dug his eyes into mine. “It goes a little bit further. The police are on one side and those pretty deadly organizations are on the other. The cops are restricted. The others aren't. They got the money, the men and the expertise to enforce their own rules and they couldn't care less who gets in the way. They don't think
El Lobo
is dead at all.”

“Get to the point, Al.”

“It's not the first time I've picked up the similarity between
El Lobo... the wolf...
and your name. Tell me, pal, did anybody ever refer to you as
The
Dog?”

“I've been called worse.”

He shook his head and waited. I nodded. “Come on,” I said, “it's a natural for anybody with my name.”

“All right, Dog ... just don't lie to me this time. It's something I can do very few other people can do. I can tell when
you're
lying without any doubt at all. Are you... were
you El Lobo?”

This time I let my own eyes do the digging. “Nope. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Across the room the clock ticked on the wall. It was a long time before Al gave me a tight little smile and took another pull of his beer. “Okay, Dog, I believe.”

“I'm glad somebody does.”

He eased back down on the sofa again and crossed his legs. “I cross-checked on Roland Holland today too. Our old buddy is sitting pretty.”

“Smart boy, that one.”

“You guys were pretty close at one time.”

“Hell, we flew together,” I said. “You knew him as well as I did.”

Al nodded, finished his beer and got up for another one. “Funny, him taking his discharge overseas the way you did.”

“He didn't have anything to come home to either.”

The beer can popped open in Al's hand and he sipped the foam off before it could spill. When he wiped his mouth he said. “Rollie was a Phi Beta Kappa man. Masters degree and all that stuff. Pretty brilliant guy with a hell of a lot of potential.”

I knew what he was getting at. “That's why he stayed in Europe. That's where all the big opportunities were. If you checked on him you damn well know he didn't make any mistakes. Right now he heads up some mighty big industries. Hell, even government leaders consult him before they make any moves.”

“Does he ever consult you, Dog?”

I let out a laugh. “Sure. Who do you think is the brains behind all that Phi Beta Kappa business?'

Al grunted and tried his drink again. “Not you,” he said “You never could even count.”

“Then why the interest in Holland?”

“Because, Doggie boy, friend Roland Holland comes across as thinking you're the greatest and praise from somebody in that quarter is praise indeed, especially when you balance it against the fact that you have an unexplained source of wealth, your name seems to draw a clamlike silence in certain quarters, you're a target of attack by a couple of killer and you're damn inquisitive about the machinery of narcotics traffic.”

“I'm an enigma,” I said.

“You're a pain in the ass and you scare me.”

“Did you get what I asked for?”

He put the beer down on the table beside him and made circles on the polished mahogany with the wet bottom of the can. “I got some information by not asking anything. Two important parties were conspicuously absent from our meeting and from what I overheard during a phone conversation, and extrapolated from the tone of voice, those two parties are not in good standing with key figures because of a bungled operation, and unless they come up with the answer... and a missing product, the situation is likely to turn into one of those concrete overcoat affairs.”

“You extrapolate pretty well.”

“That's my business.”

“Who's holding the dirty end of the stick?”

“Familiar with the Guido brothers?”

“Didn't they work the waterfront and the airport rackets?”

“They moved up,” Al said. Then he paused and gave me another hard look again

“For a guy who's been away. you're pretty knowledgeable ”

“We have newspapers in Europe. They go in heavy for sensational crime in America.”

“The Guido brothers handle narcotics. The state and the U.S. Senate ran two investigations on them and couldn't get past their cover. Neither one ever took a fall. They lie behind a legitimate front and play it from there.”

“If they're that good, then why the sudden heat from their friends?”

“Good question,” Al told me. “I'd say their track record. It was rumored that they used to hold out on the organization. They weren't as big then and it wasn't all that uncommon a deal at certain levels and for the sake of keeping peace in the outlying areas the organization let it pass. Now it doesn't smell so good. The in boys think the whole thing could be a fast play to gain leverage or to buck the syndicate. It's been done before in the days of the beer barons. They don't want it to happen again. Narcotics comes in a small package with millions in profits, easy to ship, easy to dispose of, and with enough laid by, a smart operator could buy his own organization.”

“Brothers Guido couldn't be that stupid,” I said.

“Maybe not. Right now they're trying to prove it. I wouldn't want to get caught in the crossfire.”

“Not you, Al.”

He grinned at me and stopped swabbing the tabletop with his beer can. “Dog ... I don't give a damn, but my curiosity is killing me.”

“What?”

“Guys can get themselves in trouble all kinds of ways. Sometimes it's not just the direct action ... it's more like the links that tie one thing to another.”

“You're not making sense, kid.”

“Somebody's tagging you on this narcotics deal.”

I shrugged, not answering him.

“All my phone calls got me some other information too.”

I waited.

“You got wrapped up in black marketeering right after the war, didn't you?”

“Asking or extrapolating again?”

“That was something you could handle. You still had all that war craziness inside you. You liked the action as long as it spiced up the day and Europe was just the place to find it. You were big and tough and could handle trouble with even bigger trouble and enjoy every minute of it. Killing was nothing new to you and by that time it was simply a natural function of things.”

“That's what you think?” I asked him.

“That's what I'm going to find out in a minute,” Al told me.

“I hope you enjoy the answers.”

His eyes had that quizzical expression in them again, deep and heavy, partially closed. “Were you in the black market?”

“Yes.”

“That whole operation was tied in with narcotic traffic, wasn't it?”

I nodded.

“You ever kill anybody since the war?

“Quite a few,” I said.

When he finished studying my face he said, “I'm sorry I asked.”

I got up and put on my coat and hat, picked the last butt out of the pack and lit it.

“What are you planning to do, Dog?”

“Take a little trip to my old hometown. Just simple business like the way I hoped everything would be.”

“Watch it. You're leaving pretty deep tracks.”

I walked to the door and opened it. Al was sitting there watching me and tossed me a sad salute. I said, “There's a question you didn't ask, buddy. You would have liked that answer.”

I changed rental cars twice before I reached Linton, threading my way over a prearranged route I had picked out on the map, driving at night so it would be easier to spot a tail and easier to lose if I had one. Before the first switch I thought somebody had picked me up, but I got off the main road and the other car went by, its headlights out of focus and didn't show again.

Now the early glow of dawn was winking off the buildings up ahead and I pulled into a diner just outside of town, found a booth in the back and ordered breakfast. Traffic hadn't gotten started yet and outside of a lone trucker at the counter I had the place to myself.