Edge of the Law

by Deming, Richard

  “I see,” Sands said.

  It was a refined form of extortion, he realized. Amatti’s organization ordered bars and restaurants to buy needed supplies from certain picked companies. No doubt unfortunate things happened to bar owners and restaurateurs who tried to deal with other suppliers. For this service the chosen suppliers kicked back “commissions.” It was an example of the tie-in between legitimate business and organized racketeering which was becoming more and more common in big cities. In order to survive, the suppliers had to deal with the racketeers, for those who refused kickbacks would find customers deserting them in droves. And the insidious thing was that on the surface it was probably all quite legal. Amatti’s books would scrupulously show every cent received, and in the event of investigation he no doubt could explain the “good-will services” rendered the supply houses for the fees they paid.

  They moved on down the hall to other rooms. Sands met the “executive” in charge of coordinating the various suppliers who furnished bars and restaurants with foodstuffs, the one who coördinated liquor and beer distribution, and one who handled juke boxes, cigarette machines and other coin-operated devices. Someone was in charge of every possible need that a bar or restaurant could have.

  Obviously Renzo Amatti had a stranglehold on the entire industry.

  There were other hard-eyed “executives” who directed the operations of less legal rackets. One supervised the organization’s cut from wide-open gambling games such as the blackjack game Sands had sat in, and also managed slot machines and treasury tickets. Another supervised bookie shops.

  One or two men Amatti introduced only by name, without describing their duties. Sands guessed that these probably directed activities not even mentioned within the organization, such as narcotics distribution and brothels.

  He was impressed with the efficient organization Amatti had set up.

  When they completed the tour, they returned to Amatti’s office.

  “Which of those guys do I work for?” Sands asked.

  “None of them,” Amatti told him. “The one thing that works directly under me is muscle.” He grinned. “Tends to keep any of my junior executives from getting ideas about moving into my shoes. You don’t take orders from anybody at all but me.”

  “All right,” Sands agreed. “What’s my pay?”

  “You start at two fifty a week.” Amatti drew out a thick wallet. “Need an advance?”

  Sands shook his head. “I built a stake in that blackjack game,” he said dryly. “What am I supposed to do to earn my salary?”

  Amatti returned the wallet to his breast pocket. “As a sendoff I’m going to have you lean on a reluctant bar owner who’s been giving us a little trouble. Fellow over on the west side.”

  “Somebody who doesn’t patronize the right suppliers?” Sands asked.

  “Worse than that,” Amatti said sourly. “He’s trying to organize all the west side bar owners to fight us. He needs pulling into line before he stirs up a lot of trouble.”

  “I see. Who is he?”

  “Guy named Harry Thompson. Runs a bar and grill at West Fourth and Gaylord.”

  “Uh-huh. How hard you want him leaned on?”

  “Hard enough to get the point. I’ll give you a list of suppliers to leave with him. How you do it I don’t care, but you convince him that he doesn’t even talk to salesmen from other supply houses.”

  “Sure,” Sands said casually. “Make up your list.”

  While the assignment didn’t particularly appeal to him, it didn’t bother his conscience. Long ago Jud Sands had come to the cynical conclusion that rackets were here to stay. In his experience most large cities bred prototypes of Renzo Amatti, racketeers whose behind-the-scenes political powers were so great that they could virtually ignore the law.

  Once, in his youth, he had been able to generate righteous indignation at the spectacle of some swaggering hood pushing around average, law-abiding citizens. Once he had taken seriously the frequent newspaper campaigns against organized crime, and had voted for office seekers pledged to stamp it out. But after watching the top racketeers of a dozen cities weather reform movement after reform movement and come back as firmly entrenched as before, he gradually came to the conclusion that honest men could never destroy the system. Once in a long while the federal government felled some single hood on a contempt or income tax rap, but the organizations themselves remained intact. Quite often the same racketeer continued to give orders from jail, or from some foreign country to which he had been deported, as a matter of fact. And while a percentage of top racketeers died untimely and violent deaths, it had been Sands’ observation that the majority eventually retired as millionaires.

  The strong must be meant to prey on the weak, he had decided. And if you chose to side with the strong, you couldn’t afford the luxury of sympathy for the innocent people you sometimes had to step on.

  Renso Amatti drew a typed list of supply companies from a desk drawer and handed it over. After glancing at it, Sands stuck it into a pocket.

  “When do you want me to lean on this guy?” he asked.

  “No time like the present,” Amatti said. “I’ll get one of the boys to drive you over.”

  CHAPTER VI

  THE DRIVER Sands was furnished was a plump, monosyllabic man with a low forehead named Benny. Renzo Amatti didn’t seem to feel it necessary to give his last name, and Benny didn’t volunteer the information.

  Benny chauffeured Sands to Fourth and Gaylord in a new Buick sedan. He remained in the car while Sands went into the tavern.

  The west side of Ridgeford was predominantly a residential section of neat bungalows interspersed with a few duplex houses and four-family flats. Harry’s Bar and Grill was a typical neighborhood tavern, the sort of place workingmen stopped in on pay nights to cash their checks, and dropped in with their wives or girl friends after a show. There were no B-girls and no card games. The only form of entertainment offered, aside from television, was a coin-operated shuffle-board.

  At ten thirty in the morning the place was deserted. A tall, blond, rather good-looking bartender was dusting the back bar when Sands walked in. Laying down his dust cloth, he said politely, “Yes, sir?”

  “You Harry Thompson?” Sands asked.

  “No, sir. You want to see the boss?”

  “Uh-huh,” Sands answered.

  “Harry!” the barkeep called toward the kitchen doorway.

  A thick-shouldered man of about thirty-five came from the kitchen. He had a round, heavy-jawed face and thinning hair. He was in shirt sleeves with the sleeves rolled to above his elbows and the neck open. Thickly muscled forearms were matted with hair, and more hair showed at the open V of his collar.

  Giving Sands an inquiring look, he said, “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got a message for you, Thompson,” Sands said. He handed the man the typewritten list of suppliers. “You know these outfits?”

  After studying the list, Thompson looked up with a frown. “I’ve heard of most of them. What about it?”

  “You haven’t been doing business with them, though, have you?”

  Thompson glanced at the list again, and his expression grew faintly belligerent. “I get it. You’re one of Amatti’s stooges.”

  “I’m a good will emissary for the companies on that list,” Sands said equably. “Starting tomorrow their salesmen will be dropping in. It would save a lot of trouble if they all got orders.”

  Thompson’s face reddened. He snapped, “Get out, punk!”

  Sands studied the man. Mere threats weren’t going to work on him, he decided. He was going to have to lean heavily.

  In a reasoning tone he said, “You could save yourself a lot of headaches by coöperating, Thompson. You’ll come around eventually anyway.”

  “You’ll grow the headache if you don’t get out of here,” Thompson growled, bunching his fists and taking a step forward.

  Sands held up a pacifying palm. “Think over what’s going to happen
before you go off half cocked.” He let his tone become apologetic. “As an object lesson I’m going to have to mess up your place a little. We don’t like the brand of beer you have on tap, so I’m going to have to open your spigots and let it run out on the floor. You buy from the wrong liquor distributors too, so a lot of whisky is going to get smashed. Naturally you’ll object, which means I’ll have to kick you around a little.” He glanced sidewise at the blond bartender, who had quietly drawn a sawed-off pool cue from beneath the bar. “Blondie here, too, if he decides to be a hero.”

  Thompson said, “Why you—” and swung a roundhouse right.

  With a fluid movement Sands shifted sidewise, grasped the man’s wrist as the doubled fist went by, and jerked. Simultaneously he stuck out one foot. Thompson’s own momentum carried him halfway across the room on his face. He sat up and looked at Sands dazedly.

  “Judo,” Sands explained brightly.

  He glanced at the bartender, who was starting to round the bar, and let his pleasant expression evaporate. The blond man paused when he saw the suddenly dangerous glitter in Sands’ eyes. Stopping at the far end of the bar, he fingered his sawed-off pool cue uncertainly.

  Reverting to the same reasoning tone he had used previously, Sands said to the man seated on the floor, “Now when I finish here and leave, of course you’ll call the police. They’ll pretend to make an investigation, but it’ll never come to anything. Because the fix is in, you see.”

  Thompson slowly climbed to his feet. Flexing his muscles, he eyed Sands with cold intensity.

  “In a few days I’ll come back and mess the place up again,” Sands went on. “And work you over a little harder. Probably next time I’ll put you in the hospital. You’ll yell cop again, but it still won’t come to anything, because Mr. Amatti runs City Hall and City Hall runs the police department. I’ll keep making visits until you finally come around or go bankrupt replacing damaged stock and paying hospital bills. So why not save all that trouble by coming around now?”

  Thompson made a sudden rush.

  This time Sands didn’t move aside. Expertly he fended a thrown right with his left forearm and drove his own right solidly into Thompson’s stomach. When the man grunted and lowered his arms, Sands smashed a left and a right to his jaw with such sizzling speed that his fists were mere blurs.

  Thompson sat on the floor again. This time he stayed there, his mouth drooping open and his eyes staring with the vacant look of semiconsciousness.

  Sands walked around the end of the bar farthest from the bartender. He kept his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the blond man and his eyes glinted with anticipation. The bartender watched him nervously, tapping the pool cue against his left palm, but making no move. Sands stopped at the center of the bar and waited for a moment, his gaze still fixed on the blond man. When the bartender merely continued his compulsive tapping of the sawed-off cue against his palm, Sands dismissed him with a contemptuous smile and opened both beer taps wide.

  He stepped back to avoid the splash and was reaching both hands for bottles on the backbar when the front door opened. He paused at sight of the woman who entered.

  She was somewhere in her late twenties, with a slim, almost boyish figure except for her upper torso, where she had been abundantly endowed with unmistakably feminine characteristics. Dark hair framed a pale face of striking beauty. Liquid brown eyes and full lips gave it a hint of sensuousness, yet at the same time there was an air of cool remoteness about her. Perhaps it was her paleness, or her total lack of expression, or a combination of both, but she gave the instant impression of latent passion that had as yet never been aroused.

  She stopped stock-still when she saw Sands behind the bar, and her eyes widened with a mixture of shock and pleasure. For a moment Sands stood immobile too. Then his lips widened in a delighted grin and he quickly moved around from behind the bar.

  “Ginny!” he said, rushing forward to take both her hands.

  “Jud!” she breathed.

  The bartender unobtrusively moved to the beer taps and shut them off.

  Sands and the woman stared at each other with wide smiles, for the moment too occupied with drinking each other in to ask any questions. Then Thompson distracted her attention by shakily rising to his feet and grasping a table edge for support.

  Withdrawing her fingers from Sands’ grip, the woman said in alarm, “Harry, what’s the matter?”

  Thompson merely shook his head to clear it and glared at Sands.

  “This guy a friend of yours?” Sands asked with a frown.

  She glanced at him with raised brows. “A friend? He’s my husband.”

  Sands’ face blanked of all expression. For a long moment he stood without moving. Then he turned to the bartender.

  “I think I need a shot,” he said quietly. “Better make it a double. Bar whisky will do. Water behind it.”

  With alacrity the blond man set a glass on the bar, poured a double shot and set a glass of water next to it. He looked with surprise at the dollar bill Sands laid down, then rang up eighty cents and diffidently placed the two dimes change next to the whisky glass.

  Meantime the woman had placed a hand on Thompson’s shoulder and was examining him with concern. “Are you ill, Harry?” she inquired.

  Shaking off her hand, Thompson moved to the end of the bar, wobbling slightly, and gripped it with both hands. He glared at Sands as the latter tossed off his double shot and chased it with a bare sip of water.

  “You are ill, Harry,” the woman said. “You can hardly stand.”

  Sands said gently, “He’s not sick, Ginny. He’s just groggy. I hit him a couple of times.”

  Her eyes grew round. “Hit him? Why, Jud?”

  “I work for Renzo Amatti.”

  She stared at him in silence for a long time. Finally Sands said on a note of apology, “How’d I know he was your husband? I didn’t even know you were married. I thought you were still in Chicago.”

  Her face expressionless, she said, “You know he’s my husband now.”

  “So I’ll stop leaning. He can forget everything I said.”

  In a thick voice Thompson said, “How do you know this punk, Ginny?”

  “We grew up together,” Ginny said. “He’s one of my oldest friends. You’ve heard me mention Jud Sands.”

  Thompson stared at her, then looked at Sands and emitted a contemptuous snort. “Your high-school hero, huh? Your first puppy love. This is the creep you keep comparing me to when I do something you don’t like?” He rasped at the bartender, “Hand me that pacifier, Jack.”

  The blond Jack drew the cut-down pool cue from beneath the bar where he had discreetly hidden it.

  Ginny said sharply, “Leave that where it is, Jack! Whatever happened was a mistake. It’s over now.”

  “Hand it to me!” Thompson nearly shouted.

  Ginny said, “Don’t you dare!”

  The bartender looked indecisively from one to the other. Sands saved him a decision by reaching across the bar and plucking the bat from his unresisting grasp. He laid it on the bar.

  “Simmer down, Thompson,” he said wearily. “I don’t blame you for being sore, but things are changed. Suppose I apologize?”

  Thompson said indignantly, “You think you can come in here and push me around, then get out of it with an apology?”

  “Oh, stop it, Harry,” Ginny said. “He didn’t know you were my husband. He’s on our side now. Maybe he can help us against Amatti.”

  “Help us? He works for the rat.”

  “Not against Ginny, I don’t,” Sands told him. “Like your wife said, we’re old friends. You want to forget it and accept my apology?”

  “I want to forget you,” Thompson snapped. “Are you going to get the hell out of my tavern?”

  Sands shrugged. “Suit yourself. I might be able to save you a lot of trouble, though. I won’t be back, but someone will. And next time Amatti won’t send a friend of your wife’s.”

  He headed for the doo
r and Ginny ran after him. “Wait, Jud.”

  “It’s no use, Ginny,” Sands said over his shoulder. “He doesn’t want to make up.”

  He pushed on through the door and she followed him outside. “Let me work on him,” she urged. “His pride’s hurt now, but he’ll come around. How about coming back in a couple of hours?”

  He gave her a crooked grin. “I don’t think he’s ever going to learn to love me, Ginny. I hardly blame him. Particularly after the advance build up you seem to have given me.”

  “What build up?” she asked.

  “I gathered from what he said that you’ve been holding me up as an example whenever he goofed. I didn’t know you thought I was so wonderful.”

  She said quietly, “I think you did. I used to show it enough.”

  He made a rueful face. “What happened to us, Ginny? I always thought you were wonderful too.”

  “You went away,” she said gently. “Don’t you remember?”

  “I kept coming back.”

  “Sure,” she said dryly. “Every year or so. And never wrote in between. A girl gets tired of waiting for a man to ask her to marry him, Jud. I was twenty-eight when Harry came along last year. You’re willing to settle for second best when you start to push toward thirty.”

  He said uncomfortably, “I guess I didn’t offer much future.”

  “The understatement of the year,” she said with a smile. Then, wistfully, “Remember the first time you went away? You told me that if I was ever in trouble to send for you, no matter where you were, and you’d come running.”

  “That still holds, Ginny.”

  “Then come back in two hours. I’ll have Harry quieted down.”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll give it a whirl.”

  CHAPTER VII

  IT WAS past eleven A.M. when Sands rejoined Benny in the Buick.