The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “Don’t worry, Peter.”

  “Don’t worry?”

  “They’ll all be dead in twenty-four hours. I got it all set up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s what this meeting we’re going to is about. To give them the git-go. Only they want to talk to you face to face first. Make sure they’ve got an understanding before they make it happen.”

  “I don’t want to go to any goddamn meeting, especially with those guys.”

  “Too late to do anything else. And we’ve got to move quick.”

  “Move quick? What are they thinking of doing, flying over Atlantic City and dropping a nuke?”

  “It’s all arranged. Everything’s in place. All they’re waiting on is the word from you.”

  “How is it everything’s in place? What are you talking about?”

  “I set it all up. I called them as soon as I got spooked by Bobby Mann. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “It’s your neck. But I’m not going to hang around and wait for them to come at you again. You say no and I’m going to walk out that door and get as far away from you as I can.”

  He swiveled back to face his desk. There was nothing there of any use to him in this.

  “You want to build that building, Peter? You want to be Mr. Chicago? Be king of the heap? You gotta fight for it. Do or die. Come on. Let’s go. They won’t like it if we’re late.”

  “Hold on, damn it. I’ve got to get a plane up to Wisconsin to pick up Diandra. She says Curland won’t come with her. That girl he had on the boat is in the hospital. Burns.”

  “Make the call and then let’s go. You’ve got bigger worries.”

  “What about Bobby?”

  “We leave him alone for now.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want anything to happen that’ll draw any more attention to you now. Especially when people start turning up dead in Atlantic City. What we’ve got to do now is give Bobby worries.”

  She was in charge. She had already made all the big decisions, running them by him almost as a formality. That would have to stop. But his own mind wouldn’t work. Nothing, like it had a dead battery. Was this fear? He had never been like this in his life.

  The restaurant chosen for the meeting was on the West Side of Chicago, near the University of Illinois campus, a cheap Italian joint with Formica-top tables. Poe’s prospective business associates were waiting in a corner booth. Most of the restaurant’s tables had people at them, but all of those around the booth were empty, no doubt according to instructions.

  There were three of them, all middle aged, two in suits and one in a lumpy sport coat and purple polo shirt. They exchanged greetings and handshakes with exaggerated affability, but when everyone was seated it was the one in the polo shirt who spoke.

  “Miss Bellini here’s told you of our discussions? Facts and figures, all that shit?”

  Poe nodded. He hoped desperately that his nervousness didn’t show. He knew these men only by reputation. Looking at them face to face didn’t contradict anything he had heard. “Yes,” Poe said.

  “Well?” said the polo shirt.

  “What it comes down to is you want a third.”

  “Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “It’s a lot.”

  “Your friends were getting half the skim.”

  “They put up money.”

  “We’re putting up your life.”

  What the hell was wrong with him, haggling with them as if this were just another real estate deal? Like he was talking with bankers. He had even thought of bringing Bill Yeats with him. He could see now what a fucking colossal mistake that would be. Lawyering on top of dickering. These were up or down guys. Bet or get out.

  Mango was looking at him impatiently. He was becoming impatient himself. Get this over with. Get it behind him. Get on with his plans. These guys couldn’t possibly be any worse than the other bunch. And they were local. He wouldn’t be the first major player in Chicago to do business with them. And that’s all this would be. Just some business. They’d protect him. They’d have a stake.

  “Okay,” he said. “A third. But …”

  “There’s a ‘but’?”

  “This agreement can’t go into force for a year. Did Mango make that clear? Everything’s got to be on the up and up for a year. I need that time. The casino’s a big part of the collateral I need for the loan on my new building. It’s a very big deal I’ve got in the works. City Hall is part of it. No way to pull out. The bank’ll have lawyers and auditors looking at the books. Everything’s got to be squeaky clean.”

  “Miss Bellini explained that. It’s jake with us. Absolutely. Give the place a clean bill of health. All the better for the future.”

  “And the casino is all that’s involved. The Mississippi riverboats are a different setup. The hayheads out there are nervous enough about them as it is. And anyway, they don’t bring in that much revenue. One of them lost money last year.”

  The man in the polo shirt looked at one of his colleagues, who nodded, then looked back. “Okay. But maybe we can talk about them later.”

  “Maybe.”

  The third member of the trio leaned forward. He had a narrow face and an oversized nose that made his dark eyes seem too close together.

  “How’s your wife?” he asked, surprising Poe.

  “She’s okay.”

  “You’re not going to talk to the cops about that accident, right? It’s all a big mystery to you. You don’t know nothin’. Big men make enemies. Could be anyone tried to blow up your boat. But not nobody from Atlantic City, right? You don’t know from Atlantic City.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Poe said.

  “Absolutely,” said the man in the polo shirt. “So, everybody happy?” His colleagues nodded. “Let’s drink on it.”

  He poured wine. They clinked glasses. It tasted sour to Poe, but that was probably his nerves. His mouth was dust dry.

  “About what’s going down tonight,” Mango said. “Nothing happens to Bobby Mann.”

  The three looked startled. “What are you talkin’? He’s the prick who tried to set you up.”

  “Nothing’s to happen around Chicago,” Mango said. “No connections. No coincidences. Nothing that could possibly involve Mr. Poe in any way. He doesn’t need anything more in the papers.”

  “Okay, but how about like maybe Mann gets a friendly phone call, right after we—we make our down payment?

  She thought on this a moment. “Okay. Yeah. He’ll shit in his pants. I’d like that.”

  “He still worries me,” Poe said. “You got somebody who can keep an eye on him? He knows all my people.”

  “Sure. I’ll send a couple guys over in the morning. Some new waiters for you.”

  “Okay,” said Poe. He itched to get out of there. “Miss Bellini and I are going out of town. Down to Springfield. Legislative business. We’ll be back in a few days.”

  “Absolutely. You want a phone call when it’s done?”

  “No, thanks. You guys look like you know your business. I assume your street crew does. I’ll find out about it when everybody else does.”

  There were more handshakes. Poe stood up.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” said the man in the polo shirt.

  J. P. Morgan. You can do business with anyone.

  They took side streets back to downtown. Mango was sitting very close beside him in his limo. It was one he seldom used. The driver had forgotten to stock it with booze.

  “Yeats is going to meet us in Springfield,” she said. “We should leave pretty soon.”

  “I want to wait for Diandra.”

  “You said she wasn’t hurt.”

  “She’s probably shook up.”

  “She’ll ask you questions you don’t want to answer right now. Better you get scarce.”

  “I suppose you’ve already packed. You seem to have everything plan
ned.”

  “Right down to where we’re going to eat tonight. But I want to take care of something first. Larry Train called. He said some newspaper reporter’s been asking around about a stolen painting.”

  “I thought the coppers were going to forget about that.”

  “The Chicago coppers. But not that bearded son of a bitch in Michigan.”

  “I told you to lay off of him. He’s got that little beach town looking like a police convention. And anyway he’s a nobody. No one’s paying any attention to him.”

  “He doesn’t give up. Don’t worry. Just one more hit. Put him out of business for good.”

  The plane Poe had chartered to bring Diandra back from Door County was a small propellor craft that was cramped and uncomfortable and took hours to make the flight. Its course, due south, carried it over a wide swath of the open waters of Lake Michigan. It had only one engine and the pilot was very young. None of the crew members from the Lady P had accepted her offer of a ride back, preferring to stay with the injured girl, so she was all alone. Sitting in the rear seat, she couldn’t talk much with the pilot. She was tired, sad, lonely, and very nervous. By the time Meigs Field hove into view in the fading light of evening, she was ready to scream. When he lowered the flaps and landing gear with a sudden jolt, she actually did. He turned to look at her, though the runway was rapidly approaching.

  “Fly the goddamn plane!” she said.

  She must have rattled him. He made a bad landing, bouncing twice before the wheels finally settled.

  One of Poe’s red stretch limousines was waiting for her, the driver a man she didn’t know. Peter wasn’t there.

  “Where’s my husband?”

  “Told me to tell you he had to go to Springfield, Mrs. Poe. Something about a vote on a bill. He’ll be back tomorrow. He said you’re not to go out tonight.”

  “That’s an order?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m just telling you what he told me.”

  There were two armed security guards in the lobby of the Poe Place building on Michigan Avenue and another seated in one of the chairs in the elevator vestibule of the penthouse. There was a door she could close and lock on him, which she did.

  The housekeeper was waiting, looking weary. “You want some dinner, Mrs. Poe?”

  “No, thank you. I won’t need you tonight.”

  Diandra knew where Poe usually stayed when in the state capital and thought of calling him, finally deciding against it. When she confronted him about what had happened, she wanted it to be face to face, and alone, in a situation where he couldn’t get away from her.

  She needed now to talk to someone, though—anyone, just to hear a friendly human voice. But who? She had no real friends in Chicago. She hadn’t spoken with any of her old model friends in more than a year. Her mother wouldn’t understand, would likely only become upset.

  Pouring herself a glass of vodka over ice, she went into the huge living room and sat forlornly on one of the couches, staring out a window that looked over the buildings of the avenue and the lake—once again, the city going about its life without her.

  Diandra wanted most to talk to Matthias, but feared he wouldn’t come to the phone. She didn’t even know the name of the hospital up there, or what town it was in. She should have stayed with him. She’d badly wanted to, but her husband had insisted on her coming back at once, and hanging around the hospital might only have made Matthias angry.

  Come back at once. Then off he goes to Springfield.

  She drank, the vodka cold and soothing, but not enough. She finished it hurriedly, then took a long, hot shower, thinking that would help, but it didn’t. Putting on only a silk summer robe, she made herself another drink and went out onto one of the terraces. There were little lights visible on the darkening deep blue of the lake—boats. She looked over the railing, straight down, imagining herself spinning through the air to the concrete so far below. She’d been as close to death on that boat as she was now to such a fall.

  Death. She’d found herself contemplating that implacable prospect more frequently after she’d turned thirty, but only at odd moments and only abstractly. Now it seemed an unseen but tangible presence, hovering near. She had no idea how badly injured the burned girl was. Could she die during this night?

  She’d felt scornful of the professional beauties she’d known in New York who had married for money, thinking them essentially no better than whores, trading their looks and bodies for a grand, expensive life and the dubious privilege of having their names and pictures appear in the party coverage of Women’s Wear Daily and W magazine. Somehow she thought she was different when she’d agreed to marry Peter. She’d told herself that it wasn’t only his much-touted immense fortune that had attracted her, that had made her give in. She’d convinced herself she was genuinely fascinated by him—by his ego and drive and intelligence and what she took to be extraordinary courage, a man willing to take on the world, to kick it in the shins—as she’d told Matthias, fascinated by what life would be like married to such a man. A Polish man, just like her father.

  She’d never for a moment felt anything like love for him. She liked Peter and enjoyed being with him when he was in one of his charming moods. But there was never any ardor, no depth or real warmth in their relationship. She’d come to dislike sleeping with him. The only pleasure came when it was over, because it was over.

  That was the only price she’d expected to pay for marrying Chicago’s richest man, if that he was—living with and being bound to someone she didn’t love. His insensitivity and inconsideration and bullying aggressiveness were added, unexpected costs, but she’d learned to tolerate them.

  Now the price seemed immensely great, more than she’d ever imagined. Marriage to Poe had proved dangerous—deadly dangerous—and she was scared.

  Unless. If it was a bomb that had set fire to that boat—and she knew she was fooling herself if she tried to believe anything else—was it necessarily meant for Peter Poe? Nothing at all like that had ever intruded upon their life together before. The one thing she had always felt with Peter was safe.

  But Matthias was another matter. A woman had been murdered on his boat, one of his loves. And now he’d almost been killed on the Lady P. She’d sensed early on that he was someone living on the edge of life, that for all his manners and calm demeanor and tradition-bound background, he probably lived a quite terrifying life. His brother was disturbingly strange.

  Was the edge he walked that sharp? Was she wise to be anywhere near him?

  “You’ve got it made,” one of her model friends had told her the day of her wedding. “You’re set forever.”

  God.

  She forced herself to watch the late news. The TV station had a story about the “accident,” though no footage from Wisconsin. They ran a videotape clip of Poe and Matthias crossing the start line of the Menominee race as the anchorwoman related sketchy details about the fire and the injured woman, noting how “fortunate” it was that Poe had returned to Chicago by plane. Nothing was said about any bomb. Her name was mentioned once, among the survivors.

  Diandra turned off the set with the remote control, then sat for several minutes staring at the lake. Perhaps it would all seem better by morning. She went to the bar to pour herself one more drink, hesitating as she picked up the bottle, thinking how much she resented and hated Peter’s not being at Meigs to welcome and comfort her. Then she took both glass and bottle, and went upstairs to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER 13

  There were four hits to be made in Atlantic City and a fifth in Philadelphia. The target list had been debated, with some arguing for a smaller operation, some for larger, but it was finally agreed that this plan would take out all of Poe’s principal problems, plus a couple of potential troublemakers for insurance. Consultations had to be made with certain important individuals in New York, Miami, and Las Vegas, but the situation was understood, and no one raised a beef. It was considered Chicago business, this job of wor
k—and, besides, it would create new opportunities in Atlantic City.

  This was a hurry-up job, but nothing they hadn’t pulled off before. They had people in Atlantic City, in many useful places, and brought in some outside hires known for their ability at quick strikes. The ruse was a meeting call in Philly, ostensibly an inquiry into why a clumsy hit had been made on someone as big a deal and public a person as Peter Poe, as well as into why it had failed. The presumption was that all four of the Atlantic City marks would make the trip together, but one stayed behind complaining he was sick.

  All he was was horny. After his colleagues left, he had a broad sent up to his suite—for an overnight, not just short time. He promised her a bonus, but, being in his bed when she could have been elsewhere, what she got was whacked along with him. Couldn’t be helped.

  The main hit was set up on the Atlantic City Expressway causeway that led from the gambling resort across the Intracoastal Waterway to the New Jersey mainland. It was an interstate highway, but not much traveled at night. The bomb was placed in a discarded tire left against the causeway railing. A hundred yards ahead, one of the hires posed as a motorist with a broken-down car—hood up, hazard lights flashing, stopped right in the middle of the fast lane. When the big white stretch with the three marks in it drove by the tire, veering into the right-hand lane to avoid the stalled car, the “stranded motorist” hit a button. The stretch turned into a junkyard. Hood down, hazard lights off, the hire was gone in a minute.

  The man in Philadelphia, who in the ruse had supposedly called the meeting, was of course not informed of it. He elected to spend the night with a broad, too, which was a mistake. She was the hitter.

  It was an expensive operation—counting the limousine driver and the unlucky hooker, seven bodies. But the payoff in the long run would be enormous. Like most businessmen in the Midwest, Poe’s new associates in Chicago were fairly conservative. They played for the long run.

  They were amazed that the five marks hadn’t taken more precautions—indeed, that they hadn’t made themselves real scarce as soon as they’d heard that their hit on Poe had gone awry. They probably took Poe for a chump civilian who could do them no harm and were counting on him being scared shitless, ready to come begging for forgiveness. They were probably putting their minds to when next to take a whack at him. The chumps.