“What a saint. And I suppose if things got ugly—uglier—you were going to turn into the Incredible Hulk, punch a hole in the wall with your pinky and haul me out of there on your big green back.”
He smiled humorlessly. “Hey, I didn’t expect you to buy into it right off,” he said offhandedly. “But think on this: How do you figure someone in the shape Copel was in got out of that place with four guys—three of them with guns—sitting on him?”
I remembered thinking it had been a miracle Copel even managed to climb over the patio railing. “You.”
“Hey, you’re in the money, mister. Yeah, it was me. And he’d’ve made it, too, except Charlie—that pimply kid always sucking up to Manzetti—popped off a lucky shot.” He shook his head with something very much like regret, though I found it hard to believe it was for Copel.
“And what accounts for your admirable humanitarianism?”
“Huh?”
“How come you let Copel get away?”
“I told you, ’cause Gunnelli wanted to meet with him. See, he wanted me to arrange this meeting with Bell, but Manzetti queered that all right.”
“He killed Bell.”
Tom gave me a look that would’ve melted a bulkhead. “Pal, ‘killed’ ain’t the word for what Manzetti did to that poor sucker. You saw how he lit into those oil drums tonight? Well, that’s what he did to the kid, Bell. Jesus, what a mess. Before me and Sebby could even move, that kid was a pile of bloody meat.” He grimaced at the memory.
My stomach pitched. “What brought it on?”
“Jeez, I don’t think I oughta be tel—”
Again I moved the gun in tight little circles. “Come on, Tom, let’s not go through this every two minutes. It’s getting redundant. Just pick up the narrative pace, will you; the readers are getting edgy.”
He frowned at me. “I thought you were just double-talking Manzetti, trying to confuse him, but that’s the way you always talk, ain’t it? Okay—well—how much do you really know about what was going on back there tonight? I mean, were you just blowing sunshine up Al’s skirts, or did you know what you were talking about?”
“There was plenty of each going on,” I admitted. “Look, if what we’re talking about here is the pictures, I know about them. At least, I know enough about them to make things uncomfortable for people if they make things uncomfortable for me.” That was tossed in as insurance; things were foggy enough that I couldn’t really be sure to whom my words would ultimately be reported.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Tom around a slow, sly, appreciative smile. “I about convinced myself that you were just bullshitting. Okay. Well, a few weeks ago—just before Gunnelli has me start keeping an eye on Manzetti for him—this joker Bell gets in touch with Manzetti, or Manzetti hears about him, or something. I don’t exactly know how it works, but they’re talking deal pretty soon.”
“For the pictures.”
“Yeah. So they come up with a figure—and not much of one, neither, ’cause this Bell’s about as green as a dollar bill. That’s how he wound up dead. See, about a couple weeks ago him and Manzetti are supposed to close the deal. We all meet at the garage—kid didn’t even object to that, meeting on Manzetti’s turf—him and Manzetti and me and Sebby. And Charlie, of course. We’ve got a suitcase full of cash, he’s got a box of negatives—and pictures, on account of part of the deal’s that Manzetti gets everything with this governor’s daughter or whoever in them. Only there are more pictures than there are negatives.” My belly did another loop-de-loop and the effects must’ve shown on my face, for Tom seemed to notice it. He made a noise with his lips that was something like an unfunny laugh. “Yeah, incredible, ain’t it? Sebby goes through the box and comes up with pictures there’re no negatives for.
“And, of course, Manzetti blows a gasket ’cause the kid’s trying to rip him off. And, like I said, before anyone knows anything he’s beaten the kid’s brains out with his fists.” Which was exactly the wrong thing to do, naturally, because it didn’t give Manzetti the missing negatives and it closed off his only access to them—and however many others Bell might have withheld but hadn’t been stupid enough to leave prints of in the box.
“So a week, ten days go by,” Tom resumed, “and Manzetti gets word from this two-bit named Copel that he has to meet with him about some real important things, lets him know it’s about the pictures, I guess, else Manzetti would’ve told him to get stuffed. They meet at the garage. And they dance around, kind of like you and him did tonight. Copel says he knows about Manzetti and Bell—big deal; that was on the streets the next day—and he can supply the rest of the negatives and stuff. For a hundred grand. Well, Manzetti goes completely apeshit again, starts pounding the hell out of this guy. Only me and Sebby are ready for it and we pull them apart before Manzetti does it again.” Tom pulled a face. “Talk about never learning, huh?”
“Well, you know what Santayana said about those who cannot remember the past being condemned to repeat it.”
“No, what’d he say?”
Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother. “I’ll tell you some other time. So you managed to peel Manzetti off of Copel …”
“Yeah, yeah. And when he cools down, of course, he knows that he can’t afford to kill Copel, too. Shit, we’ve got his first mistake stinking up the other room—’cause the river’s too low to sink it—and he’s about to do the same thing over again. Asshole.” According to Tom, it was Sebby’s grand idea to put Copel in one of the mechanics’ pits and use a high-pressure needle-jet hose to blast the location of the missing negatives out of him. I decided Tom wouldn’t appreciate the irony of Copel having those negatives stuck down his pants the whole time, so I didn’t share that nugget of information with him. When the hose didn’t work, Manzetti ordered them to drag Copel, soaking wet and half conscious, from the pit and bring him to the workbench. There, one by one, each of his fingers would be put to the vise until he begged to tell them where he had the negatives.
Before Copel had to endure that, Tom created the distraction that allowed him to escape.
“When Manzetti and him were wrestling, I threw my cigar into those drums. I figured there was enough oil and grease and crap in there to make a little smoke, at least. I guess it must’ve smoldered a while, then it flared up real good. Yeah, it’s too bad Copel didn’t make it.” Tom was silent a half-minute or so. I was touched by his sensitive contemplation of Morris Copel’s untimely passing, until he said, “Hey, is it okay if I smoke?”
“Hey, only if you catch fire.” His mouth turned downward sourly but he accepted it like a stoic otherwise. I took advantage of his somewhat sullen silence to do some thinking. For one brief, shining moment it appeared that everything was making sense, fitting together beautifully. But, on closer inspection, it was apparent the pieces had gaps between them.
For instance: I knew what Manzetti wanted the photos for. His object could be nothing other than blackmail, and for nothing so mundane as money. No, the photos of Adrian were meant to put Daniel G. Mallory in Manzetti’s hip pocket, for which Chicago would kiss him. It would also tend to discredit Gunnelli, who was already having to contend with factions, here and in Chicago, that believed Sal the Gun was getting too old for the job. That, plus Manzetti’s friends back in Chicago—the ones who, according to Oberon, fixed it so Manzetti was merely demoted, not ousted—would ensure Crazy Al virtual carte blanche. And it didn’t take more imagination than I possessed to guess what Manzetti would demand: Omaha. He’d still be stuck in the sticks, but at least he’d be in charge of the sticks.
I liked it. It tended to explain a lot, up to and including why Gunnelli might want to see me—or Copel, or Bell, or anyone with access to the remaining pictures. What it didn’t explain was why Manzetti had his underwear in such a wad over getting ahold of the missing negatives. After all, a blackmail victim doesn’t care whether he’s being bled with twenty
, forty or two hundred photos. Surely what Manzetti already had in hand from his fatal dealing with Bell was plenty of leverage over Mallory, if he chose to use it. That he had waited—and had worked himself into a lather over collecting a complete set—didn’t make sense. At least, not to me; I was certain Manzetti had his reasons. They called him Crazy Al, but he was also crazy like a fox. That’s how he’d lived so long, how he’d survived the debacle in Chicago. He had a reason, all right.
And then there was Gunnelli. He wanted to get ahold of some of the same sort of pictures Manzetti had, but what did he hope to gain? Manzetti was already ahead of him there. Why didn’t Gunnelli move to shut Manzetti down while Crazy Al hesitated, waiting for the rest of the pictures? As head of the Omaha territory, Gunnelli certainly must have had the power. Or were Manzetti’s Chicago friends powerful enough to frighten even Sal the Gun? So powerful they prevented Gunnelli from taking steps to ward off the power struggle taking place, or about to take place, in Omaha?
I studied my visitor. He was shifting uncomfortably in the tub and casting furtive sparks my direction. Maybe I could have plied him with my artful questions, but I doubted it would yield much. He was pretty small potatoes, when you came down to it. Gunnelli had probably elected to make Tom his undercover agent because Tom was so thick and unimaginative, too much so to harbor any ambitions of his own—which made him immune to Manzetti, because the realization of people’s ambitions is the first incentive an empire-builder offers; at least, one who knows how to build. Tom possessed a certain innate shrewdness, a certain cleverness, that would make him a good observer and a perfect spy, but it didn’t run deep enough to make him any kind of a judge of what transpired below the surface of what he observed.
Besides, start at the top is my motto.
“Okay, Tommy, let’s go see the man.”
“Huh? Gunnelli? Are you kidding? The sun ain’t even up yet. Besides, I haven’t told him you’re coming.”
“Just when I had my heart all set on it. All right, then, you go make the appointment or whatever it takes; I’ll wait here until I get your call. What’s the matter, Thomas, you look all troubled.”
“I think I better stay with you. You made Manzetti look like a real jackass tonight. This time I’m gonna make sure Gunnelli gets to see his man before Crazy Al knocks him off.”
“Your concern for my well-being is truly heartwarming, but forget it. In the first place, even Manzetti has enough brains to realize he has to keep his hands off me, because he doesn’t know where his precious pictures might end up if anything happens to me.” One of my little signals went off in the back of my noggin, but I didn’t have time to answer it now. I ignored it and hoped without much hope that I’d be able to pick up the thread later. “And in the second place,” I added distractedly, “my Murphy bed’s at the cleaner’s, and you’re certainly not sleeping in my bed. And so, though I know it’ll blow my Michelin rating, I’m going to ask you to—how can I put this delicately?—blow.”
Another mouthful of protests began. I hefted the gun and put a stem look on my face. “Okay, then, I’ll give you a choice. You can sleep at home or sleep here—permanently.” He must’ve known I was bluffing but he acquiesced anyway. Slowly, cautiously, we marched to the door, me with two guns pointed at the small of his back, him with two hands raised half-assedly toward the ceiling.
I had the door three-quarters shut behind him before the light went on and he turned back. “Hey, what about my gun?”
“Oh, sorry, the management isn’t responsible for lost articles. Only prepositions and pronouns.”
“Huh?” he said, but I shut and locked the door on it.
CHAPTER NINE
At 8:30 the alarm bleated at me. I stabbed it with my finger and lay motionless for five minutes, proving to myself that no amount or force of wishing would turn back the hands of time, or the liquid crystal displays of time, before dragging myself upright.
I felt like hell, and I don’t think I can add anything to those four words. A return to Nodland was definitely an attractive proposition, but my friend Tom had already called to tell me I had a 10:00 appointment with Sal Gunnelli. Duty called. Unenthusiastically I began the ritual: started water boiling, showered, shaved, made coffee, drank same, dressed and was on the road by 9:05. Not too noteworthy, unless you take into account that I managed it all without waking up.
Burt Street on a weekday at that hour is deserted. I took it toward the river to Sixteenth, then down to South O, a tattered but comfortable neighborhood built by immigrants, mainly Poles and Italians, and peopled by their second-and third-and fourth-generation descendants. Off of Sixteenth and Vinton is a drugstore, a corner drugstore, that doesn’t think it’s a supermarket or a sporting-goods store or a department store. It’s a hole-in-the-crumbling-wall, smaller than some caskets, almost totally given over to an old soda fountain complete with round stools with cracked vinyl seats. There’s a comic book rack in the back—purposely near the prescription counter—and a resident horde of kids who have it confused with the public library, surrounding it like Indians surrounding settlers in a B western.
“Hey! You gonna read ’em or buy ’em?” The sound from behind the prescription desk could be duplicated by dragging a file over iron.
“Read ’em,” admitted a twelve-year-old voice.
A lifetime ago I would’ve been the wiseass kid, and Carmine Costello the raspy voice of authority. Now the voice was Costello’s son, Pat, and I was whatever I was.
“Maybe you should just rent them out, Pat,” I suggested.
A dark eye, looking something like the last ripe olive in the jar, rolled in my direction. “You! You’re a fine one to talk. For three years when I was a kid my only job was to shoo you out of this store. Now you’re back tellin’ me how to run it.” He looked back over at the kids, who hadn’t budged, and shrugged philosophically. “Aw, maybe you’re right.” He grinned big ivory teeth. “Be right with you.”
Pat went back to filling his prescription and I went over to the fountain. One of Pat’s innumerable kids brought me a cherry cola. Two high-school-age girls, one fat, one skinny, were my only company when Pat’s kid went to tend something else in the shop. The girls ignored me. The skinny one ate a banana split. At nine in the morning, a banana split. The fat one watched her as if she were watching someone make love.
Pat came over. He looked the same as always: thick black hair brushed up and back like Elvis’s; olive skin; long, narrow face; pharmacist’s white smock. He placed his wiry, six-foot self on a stool next to me and eyed me affectionately.
“Where you been hiding out?”
“Business has been good. The writing biz. It keeps you busy if you’re trying to make a living at it.”
Pat nodded, his face solemn, his shiny eyes laughing. They were deep-set and surrounded by a network of crow’s feet that provided him a permanent squint. “But it’s not the writing biz that brings you back to the old neighborhood.”
“Do you imply that I’m obvious?” I gave him the film I took from Eddie Bell’s camera. “Give this a bath for me, will you? I don’t need prints. The end of it’ll be blank; that’s okay.”
Pat made a noise. For someone like him—a fairly well accomplished amateur photographer of the school that holds that the photographer’s job only begins when he snaps the photo—the simple task of developing a 35mm roll was next to nothing. He dropped the cylinder in a side pocket of his smock. “You need it now? I can have Freddie watch the store—”
I waved a hand. “No huge rush. Besides, I gotta split quick. Important business meeting, you know. Anyhow, I have a feeling I already know what’s on that roll, and it probably doesn’t matter much. I just like to run everything down.”
“I thought you said it was the writing business that’s been good.”
“Well—not that good. And you gotta eat.”
“Speaking of which,
when’re you coming over for dinner? Angela, every day: ‘When you gonna ask him over, when you gonna ask him over?’ But I never see you. I tell you, you’re wrecking my marriage.”
“Good, then it’s working. I always said Angela was too good for you.”
“And I always agreed. But it’s only fair to warn you, you steal her away and you have to take all seven kids, too.”
“And I thought I’d been busy.”
We had a good laugh over our wonderful wittiness, then I slipped Pat another package, a large gray envelope, the type I mail out manuscripts in. “And hang onto this for me, too, huh?”
He took it, saw it was sealed tight, and said, “Sure. What’s in it?”
“My memoirs,” I said. It wasn’t too far off: It contained a stream-of-consciousness report of what had been going on since Copel dropped in on me, my knowledge and my speculations, names, locations, everything. I sat up for an hour after throwing Tom out of my place, typing it out. I’d been bluffing, after all, with pictures that would end up “in the wrong hands” if anything befell me; if someone decided to call that bluff, I thought it’d be some small consolation that this opus would reach Oberon. “If,” I said slowly, “I’m not back for it in—oh—a couple days or so, why don’t you open it. Inside there’s an address I’d like you to get it to.”
Pat nodded solemnly. “Uh-huh. I’ll put it in the safe.” His face was screwed up in a look of extreme concern. “It’s something big, isn’t it? I mean, just look at you. Your eyes are red, your face looks like an eggplant. You look like death warmed over.”
I stroked the bruise along the left side of my face. Gingerly. “There’s been some improvement then.” I drained the cola glass. “Yeah, it’s something big, I guess. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten a good look at it yet. At least, not all of it.” I stood. “Gotta run, Pat. I’m due in Regency in about half an hour. If you can run the pictures tonight, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure, sure.”
The Nebraska Quotient (A Nebraska Mystery Book 1) Page 11