by Barry, Mike
Well, the real power was so contemptuous of him that the only purpose Wulff served was one of potential use. Cicchini could use him. He had taken him to his home, given him orders like one of his soldati and discharged him with the assurance that Wulff would discharge those orders faithfully or perish in the attempt.
The fact was that where the real power lay, Wulff was merely another employee.
Freelance, of course.
XI
Sands was frantic. His wife had left him but that hardly seemed to matter, not in the context of this new and larger disaster. The bitch should have left him years ago, that was his only thought on that matter. No, he was in trouble now. He was in a quarter of a million dollars worth of trouble and the trap was springing. But he could not let go of the valise. Damn it, he would not do it. The valise was his way out.
His normal channels wouldn’t touch it. Not that he could blame them; this was no nickel-and-dime stuff, it would make a disastrous dent in any market into which it was poured, and the whole business of the fringe operators was working on the margins, making sure that they had no effect upon the overall picture. If they did it was no longer a hobby for them but sheer murder. But up at the higher levels he was completely blocked. “Are you crazy?” the man who he called in desperation said when Sands had finally got through. “Do you really think I want it?”
“I have your name and number as someone who might be interested in this kind of goods,” Sands had said. He had tried to be calm, tried to play it cool, even though he knew he was way beyond his depth now. “I’m willing to meet at an agreeable neutral zone and discuss this.”
“I wouldn’t meet you at the circus,” the man had said. “I wouldn’t meet you at a strip joint, I wouldn’t have a cup of coffee with you on the turnpike. Do you think that I’d get near stuff like that?”
“The price is right.”
“The price is wrong, the price is always wrong. This is no candystore I’m running here, I’m in business and I know what my business is. I won’t touch it.”
“You’re not being reasonable.”
“Reasonable! How reasonable do you want me to be? I’d be very reasonable with a bullet in my head. You take that fucking shipment of yours whatever it is and you drop it in the river, that’s my advice. I don’t know where you got it from or exactly what you think is going on here, but you’re in deep water man and you are sinking. The best thing you can do is to get off the phone.”
“Now listen,” Sands had said with a series of gestures which were of course invisible and thus of no help at all, his free arm wildly flailing through the air, “listen, you’re not giving me a chance—”
“Get the fuck out of my life,” the man had said and had hung up on him leaving Sands sitting, sweating in his living room, the valise still between his legs. He could not get rid of it. He could not move it. Achilles heel, albatross, the son of a bitch stood there like a quarter of a million dollars worth of jewels under glass in a vacant museum and he could not do a thing with it. Not to say that the man he had called had not probably protected himself by putting information around immediately as to exactly what proposition and propositioner he had just heard from. On every level, the pressure was increasing.
Give up. Give up and let it go. But it was probably too late already, Sands thought. The two men would be back in a few hours and they would want to know exactly what arrangements he had made for the valise. They would not believe him if he said that he had not been able to do anything, they might in fact become extremely ugly. What would he do then? He did not think that anyone was going to gun him down for possession of that valise—he had a pretty good idea of working arrangements in Boston and a Harvard professor was just too risky to take on in a gangland-type slaying, it would bring all kinds of pressures into what had been a pretty smooth, tight operation—but that did not mean that he was home free by any means. The two who had dropped off that valise were ugly types. And then too he could not let it go. That at least had been long since settled.
So Sands was in Harvard Square now, four in the afternoon, pacing uneasily, waiting for a man to show. Harvard Square was sinking pretty low, waiting around for a man who was already four minutes late was even lower, but he was committed. The valise at least was locked and bolted into his closet; he did not think that anyone would be getting to that, and the apartment was completely secure. Chalk up another for Karen’s walking out this morning; if she had not he might have had to tell her many things, none of which would have done her any good at all. Sands walked back and forth, too restless to sit even in the September temperature, looking at without really seeing the Square. It was pretty bad. Like Tompkins Square Park in New York it was the kind of place where almost everything went on, but unlike Tompkins Square it did not have that sense of near-confidentiality, but instead was open on all sides to the world. Not that the cops gave a shit, of course. Nothing bothered the cops around here as long as it didn’t move too fast.
At ten minutes past four, a thin young man with a drooping moustache, wearing sandals, came into the park and, seeing Sands, walked toward him. They had met very casually a couple of times although never intersecting and Sands had not imagined much difficulty in making a rendezvous. As the young man walked toward him it occurred to Sands that the valise had already driven him low indeed; he was not only appealing to but consorting with types who just a day ago he would have felt utterly below him. Still, there was nothing to do. The decision had been made.
The young man came within a few feet of Sands, put his hands on his elbows and waited for Sands to close the distance. “All right,” he said when they were face to face, “now what’s the deal with this, no shit.”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me nothing. I want to know now and you come straight across with it.”
“You’re fucking insolent,” Sands said.
“Listen, man, you’re in no position to talk personality types. You got something on your mind, you talk to me now; otherwise no deal.”
Sands sighed, tried to hold himself in check. “I’ve got a valise,” he said.
“What kind of valise? Leather, gold inlay, what?”
“I’ve got a valise with a large quantity of heroin,” Sands said.
“Horse? Junk? Shit?”
“If you want to call it that.”
“I call it anything I want,” the young man said. “How much a quantity you say you got?”
“Large. I don’t know exactly.”
“Kilos? Pounds? What?”
“Maybe twenty pounds,” Sands said.
“Ridiculous. That’s crazy. You’re talking about a million dollars street value, maybe half that whole sale.”
“I know.”
The man raised his palms and shaking his head went back a step. “I don’t think so,” he said. “No, I don’t think I want it.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re crazy if you think you got that kind of stuff. Where’d you get it?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Get rid of it,” Sands said flatly, “put it into the pipeline.”
“That’s not my kind of thing at all.”
“It isn’t?”
“No,” the man said. Up close he really did not look the college student that he did from a distance; he was at least thirty and his outfit was contrived rather than worn. His eyes were extremely clear and cold under his high forehead, an enormous quantity of hair. “It sure as hell is not my kind of thing. I may do a little skag now and then but primarily I’m in soft goods. I wouldn’t touch this kind of stuff.”
“Yes you would if the price were right.”
“You misunderstand me man,” the man said softly, intensely. “You been teaching metaphysics in the Harvard Yard so long you don’t know what the fuck is going on in the so-called outside world. You think that this is a piece of candy, a lollipop maybe; you stick it in the cit
y’s mouth and it starts to suck away. It doesn’t work like that.”
“You said you’d meet me,” Sands said. Instinctively, he drew his tweed jacket around him, the faint breeze chilling him. “Surely you didn’t say you’d meet me just to give me a lecture.”
“As a general rule,” the man said, “I try to meet up with anyone who tries to see me. I am very definitely into soft goods, just like you are, and I got nothing to hide. I’ve got to meet people, move around, circulate, because I don’t have a ready made group of customers dumped into me three times a week for ten o’clocks.”
Sands felt himself reddening. He was not a violent man but his instinct was to launch himself against the man, and what would it get him? What would happen then? “Shut up,” he said.
“Don’t like that, professor?” The man shrugged. “That’s your business. I don’t mean to offend. It’s your life; you can do anything you pretty much want with it. I don’t look at you as any kind of competitor. The primary reason I arranged to meet you was I simply did not believe it. I did not believe that you were actually serious and I thought it might be worth my while to come out and check this thing personally. But you are all wrong, professor.”
The man nodded, backed away. “I mean you are all wrong,” he said. “You are missing out on everything. There’s nothing that you can do with that valise of yours except to throw it in the river or shove it up your ass or maybe shoot it yourself, although you’re probably the kind of guy who doesn’t use yourself. All you do is sell. But maybe you could start off by watering it down a little and heating it, you sniff, dig? Or you can even try a taste, that isn’t the best way of getting it into the bloodstream but it’s fast and easy and you’ll get something out of it. But you are definitely not going to sell those contents and you are not going to give them to me to sell because the truth is that one crazy man in Harvard Square at a time is more than enough and you’ve got the market cornered on craziness right now I think. You’re done, man. You are done.”
He turned from Sands and began to walk briskly out of the square. Unbelieving, his fists knotting, Sands watched him go. In a way, watching him go was like watching a quarter of a million dollars walk out of there, but there was simply nothing he could do. What could he do? He could run after the youth and begin to appeal, he could leap upon him and try to beat him up, but that was the stupidest thought of all, because he had not been near physical violence of any sort for twenty years now and he had had a horror of it even back in the schoolyard.
Sands let him go. He stood there, the breeze ruffling his hair, twisting at his hair, poking it, twirling it, turning it, oblivious to the fact that everyone in Harvard Square probably knew exactly what he had been up and to and was amused. A missed deal, that’s what it would look like. And he was out a wife, too.
He was in over his head now. He had been from the moment he had accepted that valise. The only thing to do now when the two of them came back was to turn it back, apologize and try to get out of it gracefully, but he didn’t think that that would work either. Types like that did not understand or appreciate grace.
Sands, in full view of the various junkies, traders, mothers and drifters of Harvard Square began to shake with sobs that were half rage and a third despair, but the thing that really got him, that really tore him open, was that that left about seventeen percent of those tears for amusement. He could not stand the fact that he could back off from himself and look at himself objectively and see that there was no way around it: Phillip Sands had made one sadass mess out of his life.
XII
Cicchini taketh away but Cicchini also giveth. Louis Cicchini had giveth unto Wulff a black, 1965 Plymouth, which under the hood had three-eighty-three and accelerated like nothing that Wulff had driven since the patrol car days. Cicchini giveth unto Wulff back his pistol, unloaded. Cicchini, as he walked Wulff out the door of his house even gave him some advice and instructions. “The car is unmarked,” he said, “the plates are good, the identification is cool, everything’s in good shape but it would be best not to be nailed with it if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
“When you’re done with it ditch it. I don’t want you to use that car anywhere except in and around Boston. You get back on the road, you’re on your own. This is a loaner car.”
“Where should I ditch it?”
“Anywere you want,” Cicchini said. “You’re on your own for that too. Put it somewhere in the downtown area, lock it up, throw the keys in a sewer and we’ll find it.”
“You really think I’ll get out of town when I’m finished with the job?”
Cicchini looked at him tightly, then put a hand on his shoulder, gripped him. Two housemen standing down the walk looked them over with interest. Wulff knew that if he made a single move in resistance now he was as dead as he could have been all afternoon, but the urge to smash the man was irresistible. Resist it. Resist it then. Later. “I know you will,” he said, “because if you don’t get fucking out of town we’ll hunt you down and torture you to death.”
“That’s a nice prospect.”
“Don’t fuck around,” Cicchini said, “just don’t think that you’re ahead of the game because you got out of here in one piece. That has nothing to do with the future. You’re getting a shot, Wulff, because I think we can do business together. You stop doing business though, you screw around with me and you’re finished.” Cicchini let his arms fall away, looked at Wulff levelly then, locked into position. “I own this territory,” he said. “This is mine altogether and no one is going to screw it up.”
Wulff opened the door of the Plymouth which was idling softly and said, “You’ve got to let me handle this my way. I don’t want your men trailing me.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Cicchini said, “we’re going to give you plenty of rope. I just want it done quickly and I want you the hell out of town.”
“My pleasure,” Wulff said, “that would be my pleasure,” and stepped into the car, closed the door, tested the pedal. At gentle idle the doors began to rattle, the car was simply overpowered. Stick-shift. He put the thing into gear and slowly rolled it down the path.
All the way onto the road he still expected it to be a single vast hoax. The housemen who parted in front of him, stepping to sides of the road, would give him a little bit of a lead and then they would begin to drill the car with bullets. Bullets would ricochet in and around his body and then he would be dead; they would leave him in the car, tow it to downtown Boston to put it on exhibit, and he would lie there on Beacon Street, embalmed for everyone to see, a lesson for the restless in Cicchini’s happy domain. But they did not shoot him. Nothing happened. The Plymouth moved obediently onto the road and Wulff cut it right and headed toward Boston as fast as he could, struggling with the gearshift. Something wrong in the transmission: the car did not want to come out of second, but considering that it handled fifty-five miles an hour in second without strain he guessed he didn’t have to worry about that too much.
In and out of the Hall of the Mountain King. He had gone into Cicchini’s lair and somehow he had gotten out. The circumstances were not to his credit but then, in another way, he supposed they were: Cicchini respected him enough to use him. He seemed to trust Wulff as well. The reason might be obvious—whatever Wulff wanted to do he didn’t want to replace Cicchini, just topple the regime into vacuum—but that did not, whatever it was, minimize the accomplishment.
He doubted if the man and his troops would want to let him live. For reasons which he had to accept they did not want to go after Sands themselves, they needed an intermediary to do it, someone to take that valise and get it out of Sands’s possession. But once that was done Wulff’s use was over, and someone, in or out of Cicchini’s organization, would have to figure just as Sands had figured that the valise was worth the risk after all. His prospects were not good.
Unless he made a frontal attack.
Wulff thought about that, driving back
to Boston he thought about many things, but he did not allow thought to interfere with the sense of purpose shaping itself below. He was beginning to see now that things were quite complicated, more intensely complicated than he might have thought when he got into this mission. New York had been ugly and sloppy but no real challenge, San Francisco had been a knockover pure and simple. But Boston was turning out to be the burial ground of what he guessed was his simplest view of the matter: that the enemy was aligned against him, that it was just a question of knocking the enemy down one by one until no more remained.
It wouldn’t work. Not if Cicchini and he were actually aligned in purposes, not if in effect he was now doing Cicchini’s work. He would have to think this matter through.
His impulse was to go straight to Sands’s house and get the job over. But there was no way of telling what he might be walking into. It might even be a setup from Cicchini. The house might be covered, Wulff could be killed in ambush in such a way that all the suspicion would turn on Sands. No, it was best to swaddle his impulses and try for the first time now to get this thing logically ordered. He went back to the hotel.
No one there. Empty, the street burned free of people. He parked the Plymouth right outside, suddenly not caring whether he was being observed or not, went inside, past the perpetually-drunken desk clerk and up to his room, a curiously aseptic little box, only the unmade bed breaking up the geometry of angles and lines. In the room he went to the closet, angrily seized the machine gun and full clip. He would go in to this son of a bitch if necessary with full armament; he was going to leave nothing to chance. If Cicchini was setting him up a couple of men were going to be the cost. The room phone rang while he was inserting a round into the chambers.
He hadn’t even been aware that a fleabag like this would have a telephone in the room, and who the hell would need it anyway? But there it was, underneath the bed, a fine web of dust over the receiver. The occupants of this room had obviously not had much of a social life. “Yeah,” Wulff said.