Savage Lover [= Sinner Man]

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 even 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?”

“You go to Philly, right on schedule. You pick up your fingerman in the airport and take a ride with him.”

“And shoot Fell?”

He frowned. “Don’t be silly. You couldn’t do that even if you wanted to. Fell knows what’s happening now. No — you go on a ride with your fingerman. Then you kill him. Just put a bullet in him and leave him somewhere. Baron gave you a nice clean gun and you use it.”

“What happens when Baron hears about it?”

“He never hears a thing. He’s not expecting you to make the hit until sometime in the morning or afternoon. You make it right away, get the first plane back. He’s off balance. We move very fast. We get together and the wheels start to roll. We’ve got surprise on our side and Baron’s up the nearest creek. You follow me?”

“I follow you.”

He finished his beer. Mine was still half full. I let it sit on the table in front of me and turn flat. I took out my pack of cigarettes and offered him one. He took one and I took one for myself. We smoked.

“If you pick my team,” he said, “and if we win, you could have it made.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The local organization would go along. It’s like South America. The whole system stays the same. The only change is who’s on top.”

“A palace revolution.”

“You got it. The organization stays in line. Baron goes, Scarpino goes, that pair of hoods he’s got working for him goes. That Johnny and that Leon. You know them?”

He meant Johnny and Mustache. I told him we’d met.

“They go, one or two more go. Then things change and at the same time they stay the way they are. You get out of the Stennett and buy yourself a big house. You trade that Lincoln for a Caddy or a Rolls.”

“I like the Lincoln.”

“So keep the Lincoln. Don’t play word games, Nat. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I know.”

“You side with me and we win, you’re right up there on top next to me. That’s a hell of a lot of bread and a hell of a lot of power. It’s the town by the short hairs. You could do worse.”

“Probably.”

“Or you could bet on Baron. And wind up tending bar at a higher salary, getting a bonus here and there. Or he could lose and you could get killed.”

“I take that chance either way.”

“Sure,” he said. “I could lose and you could get killed. Getting killed is something that could happen either way. It’s a risk. You can’t look at the risks in this business. They’re always around. You got to look at the rewards. You want to tend bar forever?”

“It’s a good job.”

“But not a very big one. There are bigger.”

I put out my cigarette. The smoke was scorching my lungs and my throat. “I could have gone straight to Philly,” I said. “I could have shot Fell dead as a lox and flown back and the hell with it. No sides to take, no wars to start.”

“You could have.”

“But that’s over now. Now I have to pick a side. Now there are two sides and I have to pick one of them.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” I said. I stood up and stepped away from the booth. “Take it easy, Tony. I’ll see you.”