The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “I’m what?”

  “Needed here. You’ve always done a good job of running this casino. Mango and I are going to be in Chicago most of the time now. At least for the rest of the summer. Got a lot going on. I’m going to depend on you to keep this place going—on the up and up. Every penny accounted for. Just like I ordered. I’d have been real pissed off if you had gone bye-bye.”

  Poe was trying to sound chummy. It didn’t help that Mango was sitting on the other side of the office, staring at Mann like he really was a corpse.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on, Mr. Poe.”

  “Sure you do. You’re a sharp guy. I’m sure you get the picture. I think that, as things stand now, I can count on you to be my most loyal employee.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Of course it’s what I want. Look, Bobby, I don’t hold anything against you. Honest. I know you were stuck in the middle of this thing. You came to me and warned me that those guys were going to get rough. I should have listened to you better. Live and learn, right?”

  Mann said nothing. He looked like he wanted a cigarette, but was afraid to ask permission.

  “Go ahead, Bobby. Light up. Mango over there’s smoking like the Gary steel works.”

  Mann pulled a pack of Camels from his pocket, fumbling as he took one out.

  A button on the phone console was flashing. Poe looked to Mango, who answered on the extension on her side of the room.

  “It’s Matthias Curland,” she said. “He says he wants to meet with you.”

  Things were clicking. Poe’s train was back on the track, gathering speed. He looked at his watch. He didn’t want Bobby to budge from the chair, but he didn’t want to talk to Curland in front of him.

  “Tell him I’ll meet him at two o’clock. I’ll take a chopper back. Tell him I’ll pick him up at his place.”

  Mango put the receiver back to her ear. Poe waited until she had hung up.

  “Hell of a guy, that Curland,” Poe said. “Got everybody off that boat alive. It really would have pissed me off if anyone had gotten killed. Innocent people like that—nothing to do with my business. And my wife, Bobby. If she had been at the other end of the boat … if that had happened, I’d spend every cent I’ve got making sure that everybody involved left this life in the most miserable fucking way possible. I’ve got a lot of money, Bobby. It would happen, believe me.”

  Mann simply stared. He looked like he knew he should say something, but didn’t know what. “Yes, sir.”

  Just the right words. “If anything should ever happen to her again—if anything happens to Curland, to any of the people I’m associated with. If they’re harmed in any way … Well, Bobby, if you went to Tibet for your vacation it wouldn’t do you any fucking good. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Like I say, I want you here. But you’ve got a lot of friends around the country. A few of them left, anyway. If you should be talking to them any time soon, you might pass that on. I’ve already made that clear to my friends.”

  “I understand.”

  “Of course you do. You’re a sharp guy.”

  “Am I to understand you have new partners?”

  Poe colored. This nice-guy crap was getting hard. “I’ve got two answers for you, Bobby. Number one is, none of your goddamn business. Number two is, absolutely not. Poe Enterprises is a one-man operation. I may have a lot of creditors. I’ve got a lot of assets. But I’ve got no partners. I didn’t consider your friends my partners. Now I’ve got none.”

  Mann glanced over at Mango. She stared at him hard.

  “So, Bobby, you got the picture? Everything crystal clear?”

  “Yes, Mr. Poe.”

  “Okay. Get back to work. I want you to do something about the cocktail waitresses. They’re not hustling enough drinks. Tell them to pick up the action or I’m going to start taking a cut of their tips.”

  Mann stood up. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “And check out the rest rooms. I’m getting complaints that they’re kinda untidy.”

  “You’re fucking lucky we don’t send you into the stalls with a toothbrush, Bobby,” said Mango.

  “Yes, sir,” said Mann.

  Curland was waiting on the curb outside his house when Poe pulled up in one of his red stretch limos. As Krasowski opened the door, Poe shifted to one of the rearward facing seats up by the glass divider, so he and Curland could look at each other while they talked.

  “I thought we could go to my club,” Matthias said, taking his place in the rear seat. “It’ll be quiet at this time of day.”

  “I’ve had lunch,” Poe said. “Let’s just go for a drive.”

  They headed north along the lake. Curland looked quite haggard. He sat silently, waiting for Poe to speak.

  “So, what’s on your mind, Matt?”

  “You know damn well what’s on my mind. A burning sailboat.”

  “You’re upset, aren’t you? I don’t blame you. Did Diandra tell you what it was all about? I know she went to see you.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t break any confidences, but I’m not a stupid man, Mr. Poe. I have a fair idea of some of your troubles. What I want to know is whether there are going to be more of them.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I took what happened to Cindy very hard.”

  “So did I. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Matt. I’m pretty sure it was a mob hit. Thank God it wasn’t a very well-executed one.”

  “I don’t want to be associated with anyone who has to worry about mob hits, Mr. Poe. Cindy’s going to be scarred for life.”

  “I’ll do everything I can about that, but I want you to understand this, Matt. I have no dealings with organized crime. Absolutely none. People say a lot of things about me—think a lot of things—most of them wrong. They find it hard to believe that I could make so much money, be this successful, without cutting corners, without doing shady deals. It’s a lot of crap. I wouldn’t think of doing business with such people. If nothing else, it would get in the way of the things I want to accomplish, including our building. There isn’t a penny going into that project that’s in any way involved with criminals.”

  “I should tell you I’ve heard that might not be the case, from someone I trust.”

  “Well, your source is misinformed. I’m leveling with you, Matt. Everything about my project is on the up and up. The financing’s going to come from the Japanese, some of the biggest and most respectable players in the world. I wouldn’t go near anyone tainted in any way with something like this. Matt, if I was playing footsie with any of those mob guys, there wouldn’t have been any bomb. It’s the other way around. The outfit has been trying to muscle in on me since I opened that casino in Michigan City. I’ve told them to go to hell, that I planned to run a legitimate business. They threatened me with violence if I didn’t give them a piece of the action. I guess I didn’t take them seriously enough. They weren’t Chicago people. They—”

  “They’re East Coast.”

  Poe studied the architect’s gray eyes. They looked positively arctic. “Who told you that? This source of yours?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Yes. Atlantic City guys, with Las Vegas connections.”

  “They’re the one who put a bomb on your boat?”

  “It’s a hell of a good bet. I can’t think of who else would do it. I doubt it was our friend the commodore.”

  “Diandra said you’d gone to the authorities.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it—to anyone. There’s a big investigation going on. The guys I think did it? They’re dead. Someone got to them, those Atlantic City people. They were killed in gangland slayings out there.”

  “And who do you suppose did that?”

  Poe shrugged. “Those are things we never find out. My theory is that it was probably the Chicago outfit. They got wind of what was going o
n and put a stop to it. I guess they didn’t want any out-of-town thugs trying to move in here. If they couldn’t get a piece of my Indiana action, they sure as hell weren’t going to let out-of-town thugs try to muscle their way in.”

  Matthias looked out the window. They were passing Belmont Harbor, filled with small boats. “You know, Mr. Poe, until this summer, murder was something I only read about in the newspapers.”

  “Same here, Matt. Scares the hell out of me.”

  “Why don’t you get out of the casino business?”

  “I’m going to. Consider me properly spooked. But I can’t yet. The casino’s collateral. No casino, no building. But I think this ‘unpleasantness’ is all behind us now.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “That’s what I’m told—by ‘the authorities.’”

  “Cindy’s unpleasantness isn’t behind her.”

  “She’s going to be fine, Matt. She’ll be sailing with us next summer. I’m going to get a new boat, maybe enter the Mackinac.”

  Curland looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  They were approaching Montrose Harbor. Poe lowered the divider. “Turn off here, Lenny.”

  “Where are we going?” Curland asked.

  “Out to the breakwater. I come out here a lot. Great view of the city.”

  Krasowski drove out to the end of the point, then parked and hurried out to open the door.

  “We’ll just take a little walk,” Poe said. “Look at that view.”

  There was no finer prospect of the city skyline. The buildings marched down the coast to the grand assemblage of towers that marked downtown, the three highest rising like spires, Lake Point Tower standing alone, as if seated in the water—as no doubt its builders intended. Matthias’s green pyramid was lost in all this, a shaded geometric shape, dwarfed by its neighbors, seeming to blend with the greenery of the park.

  Poe leading, they went out onto the breakwater, walking past fishermen and grappling young lovers in bathing suits, none of them paying the two well-dressed strollers any mind. Did it bother Poe that he was not recognized? Perhaps no more, or no less, than it bothered Matthias that his own small creation was so unnoticeable.

  They reached the end, blue-green water all around them. Poe leaned on the railing that ran along the center of the breakwater.

  “Can you picture our building there?” Poe asked.

  “Our building.”

  “Yes, ‘our.’ I want to do it, Matt. I want your design. The big one. The tower would be higher than any of the others, than any in the world, but Diandra’s right. It would be just another needle. Like those in Seattle and Toronto. With the sail part, it would be unique—unmistakable. And big. You’d see it from O’Hare, from my casino in Indiana. From here. From the moon. It’ll be fucking magnificent. And it’ll be red. A beautiful, flaming red.”

  “The sunrise and sunset would do that for you. You wouldn’t need to color it.”

  “It’s what I want, Matt. Red’s my color. It’s my building. Hell, you made your building green. What’s the difference? It doesn’t have to be a bright red. Just a tint, like your Halsman Tower.”

  “There are people who still might object.”

  “Fuck ’em. The City Council isn’t going to object. The Zoning Board won’t. The Planning Commission won’t. The Park District won’t. The F.A.A. won’t.”

  “What does the Park District have to do with it?”

  “I told you, I want there to be a little park.” He turned to look at Matthias directly. “There are going to be museums in this building—in the sail part. The entire main floor. Not just the Holocaust. I want a complex of museums that’ll be devoted to all the city’s ethnic groups. Irish, Polish, German, Hispanics, the whole garbanzo. Their histories, their cultures, their contributions. There’ll be nothing like it in the country, not even the Smithsonian.”

  “Museums need staff, curators, directors, endowments, exhibits. Are you going to see to all that?”

  “There are already some ethnic museums in the city—stuck away, here and there. A Lithuanian one, a Polish one. We’ll start with those, and the Holocaust Museum. We’ll have bond money and a new city tax on hotels. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s set. What I want to know now is, are you?” He gripped Curland’s arm hard. “Are you with me on this? Will you do it? It’s now or never, Matt. Bet or get out. What’s your answer?”

  Matthias’s eyes lifted to the horizon again. He imagined the great, curving structure rising from the western reaches of the Near North Side—low end toward the Loop, the tower placed boldly to the north. He almost could see it, though he had difficulty envisioning it in even the palest red.

  His gaze shifted, to the east, past the sailboats and cabin cruisers to the empty line where the deeper blue of the lake joined the pale sky. New York lay in that direction, as did the south of France. The emptiness was symbolic. His future—if he said no.

  “All right.”

  “All right? A dinky answer like that to a question like this, to a project like this?”

  “I’m not a demonstrative person.”

  “Okay. I’ll take care of the demonstrative. From you I want pictures, not just drawings—paintings. A big architectural rendering. An aerial view. Exciting stuff. And I want floor plans. Use your imagination on the museums. On everything. But make it look good. I’ve got a press conference set up for Thursday. I was going to announce giving my hundred-grand victory prize to the Holocaust Museum fund, and maybe take care of questions about the commodore’s challenge and what happened to the boat. But I’ll do the whole thing. Unveil the works. Everything except how big it’s going to be. Can you get me something by then?”

  “Not easily.”

  “I’ll give you until a week from Sunday. I’ll switch the press conference to then. The Monday morning papers’ll be wide open. Hell, it’s summer. There’s no news. All the TV will cover. They cover anything I do. Can you do it? A week from Sunday?”

  “All right.”

  “One more thing, Matt. When you finish the stuff on the building, I want you to get started on that picture of Diandra. A full-length nude. I’ll pay you for it, whatever you think is fair.”

  Matthias took a deep breath. “I told you before, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I don’t think she’d be very comfortable doing that.”

  “She’ll do it. Don’t worry. I want it. I want you to get started soon.”

  Matthias was deceiving himself with his reluctance. He wanted to do that painting, almost as much as he did the new tower. It would resolve whatever there was between them, one way or the other. But he wanted to give Poe every opportunity to change his mind, to say no to putting his wife in such a circumstance. He was going to be a gentleman in this, if nothing else.

  “I’d really rather not.”

  “You want to do this building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do Diandra. No painting, no building.”

  “Peter. If I paint your wife’s portrait, it has nothing to do with the project. I’m not going to be bribed or threatened, about anything. Is that understood?”

  Poe hesitated. The guy was insisting on standing on his own two feet. No Larrys, Curlys, or Moes in Lake Forest. So be it. Let him think what he wanted. “Okay. The building’s a deal, painting or no painting.”

  “Very well.” Why was Poe so bent on this picture?

  “Will you do it? The painting?”

  “That’s entirely up to her.”

  “Okay.”

  Curland paused. “Are you going to keep Sally on, as your special events director, or whatever it is?”

  So there was some wheelie-dealie in this guy after all. There was in absolutely everyone, wasn’t there? Poe had built his entire career on that principle.

  “Sure. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “What if I should back out?”

  “You won’t, but in any case, the job’s hers for as long as she wants it. Shit, I need her.�
� Poe extended his hand. Slowly Matthias reached out to take it. They shook hands firmly. Poe held on, keeping his grip.

  “When they do a deal in City Hall,” Poe said, “they have a way of saying it. ‘I’m with you.’ Only they say, ‘I’m witcha.’ Say it.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “No. Say it the other way.”

  Matthias wanted this colloquy to end. “All right. I’m witcha.”

  Poe shook his hand one more time, then let go. He started to walk back down the breakwater, more quickly now than when they come out here to the end. “Shall I drop you at your house?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to the Art Institute.”

  “You going to look at some pictures?”

  “A few.”

  “Just don’t forget the ones you’ve got to do for me.”

  His friend in the Art Institute’s restoration and repair department had his four paintings set against the wall, side by side. Kirchner’s Red Tower made him sad, made him think of the picture the Michigan policeman had showed him of Jill Langley’s dead face. There was death in the faces of the people hurrying along the street in the painting. Perhaps that was what it was all about. His grandfather had been a very old man when he made his decision to lock these works up in the vault.

  “I’d be happy to go into detail, Matt, but I think all you need to know is that the experts’ judgment is that they’re all original. It’s my conclusion, too.”

  “Including the Kirchner?”

  “Definitely. You see these flecks in the gray of this building wall? Those aren’t highlights that he added. He laid down a crimson base and then painted the buildings over it. They X-rayed it. There are at least three layers of paint there. A copyist wouldn’t have done that.”

  “They’re absolutely sure?”

  “They were extremely thorough. The bill’s in that envelope. I’m afraid you’ll find it a bit dear.”

  “The museum can afford it, though I certainly can’t.”

  “You don’t seem particularly happy with the result.”

  “On the contrary. I’m quite delighted. I appreciate your taking the time.”