by Al Zuckerman
David looked to his father. “Is that true, Dad?”
“Maybe, but you shouldn’t ever jump to the conclusion that just because a man is hostile, or hates you like a cancer even, that means he’s going to try and kill you.”
“Then who else, Iz?” Silverberg demanded.
Mr. H. grinned wryly. “If I knew, we wouldn’t all be sitting here.”
“Remember last spring what I told you, that the son-of-a-bitch was all over Florida nosing around,” Okun whiningly admonished.
“What do you think, Louie?” Mr. H. answered right back. “You think that was The Hook?”
Okun began smoothing down his short-clipped, next-to-nothing mustache, deliberating. His eye twitched, then he said, “Nah, I guess not.”
“Why?”
“Too fucked up.”
Hargett nodded. “Good, Louie.” For an instant he smiled. “Guess you still can beat the boss one or two ways before breakfast. Yeah, gentlemen, that is the goods. If Scapellatti had gone for me, he would have got me and not poor Harry. The dock-wallopers who do his jobs don’t make boo-boos or they got bad trouble.”
Part of Leroy felt as if he were at a performance, being dazzled by a wizard.
“Yeah, we got a stinker on our hands,” Mr. H. resumed, nodding now, “a Grade A headache. Cause this bird looks like Johnny Raw, some kind of amateur. Which makes it extra tough to figure him, and get the jump, cause he himself’s in the dark probably about what he’s gonna try next. So I don’t know,” he shook his head glumly, “I just don’t know.”
“Boss, don’t give us the jitters,” Blinkie gestured with his pudgy hand. “We know you. You got ideas, plans quicker than we’ve got spit. So we’ll stop this creep, no matter who he is.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Nathanson’s ruddy round face blanched.
“Who do you think it might be, Iz?” Silverberg demanded.
“Someone rich.” The speed with which he’d answered surprised everyone. “So loaded you’d bust your head imagining how rich.”
“Who?”
“Why?”
“How do we find him?”
“We’ll find him, we’ll find him.” Nathanson exuded confidence. Mr. H. at least had some kind of theory, a clue, some hope.
Leroy felt far away, numb. His dream of taking over some day, succeeding Mr. H., was it dumb, a kidstuff fantasy? And then, even if he ever could, would it be worth this—being afraid?
CHAPTER 9
The old waiter in Maffetore’s velvet-walled restaurant nodded and shuffled off. Izzie turned his attention to the two young men across the table: David who lived for ball games, so different in interests, concerns, looks too, from how Iz remembered himself at that age; and Scott Kremish, grander than the Hargetts, taller, fairer, brought up with ballroom dancing lessons, Swiss mountain climbing lessons, invitations to Kings Point estates, and yet who reminded Iz more of himself as a youth than his own boy did.
On the way in the cab, Iz’s thoughts about the bomb tosser, about himself, had shunted off somehow into thoughts about the two boys.
As far back as when David was stinking in diapers, and more intensely when at seven or eight the boy first could throw a ball and manage to catch it too, Iz had felt tugs, longings that this willful kid he had begotten, would grow into the man who’d take the pressure off, who’d grow into his confidant, true partner, and with the fresh strength of youth would then transform Iz’s secret empire into a domain of public corporations, as accepted as that of, say, the Rockefellers. Hadn’t John D. been known as a robber baron? And did that matter now?
But as powerful, and on bad days more powerful, was Iz’s wish to let David go, keep him a million miles away from casinos, from having forever to dodge and side-step tax collectors, to pit and balance egomaniacal mobsters one against the other. David could keep occupied leasing the real estate, even study medicine if he got the urge; or if he had to have more action, trading stocks could provide plenty ups and downs.
But that’d mean eventually it’d be a stranger who’d be taking over. That thought had made his flesh crawl. Lately, though, less and less.
“Hit a man hard,” the Swede auto mechanic Iz had labored for as a kid had said, “and then you know vot he’s made of.” This mess, before it was over, might measure David’s real size, show what he couldn’t handle and what he could. And maybe Scott Kremish too. Iz thought of two Miami families where sons-in-law, not the sons, were running the factories.
At the table nothing much happened until they were finishing up their main courses, when Scott put his napkin down and said, “I’ve been thinking about why you invited me along this afternoon. I guess it’s because you thought I might become,” his broad shoulders hunched in a hint of a shrug, a gesture much like Izzie’s own, “I don’t know, part of what’s happening to you—part of what you might be doing.”
Iz felt a tremor of pleasure. This boy didn’t futz around. Zeroed right in, then spat it out. That afternoon every man at Silverberg’s had been shocked, Iz knew, at his bringing in a stranger, an uptown rich brat kid at that. Even he couldn’t recall ever doing such a thing. A hunch, it felt right; he was a gambler after all, so he’d played it. Maybe a winner.
He answered, “Right, Scott, exactly, a real part, or no part at all.”
“That’s exciting.”
“And maybe dangerous.”
“Yes, I can see.”
“You make a decision about this, it should be intelligent. To do that, you gotta have some background, a little know-why. Now you got some. I wish there’d been more.”
“And was that everything you wanted from me?”
Iz felt surprised. The boy absorbed, and then came back so fast. “What else?”
“I don’t know. My ideas, reactions, suggestions.”
“I’m a greedy little guy, Scott. I always want all I can get. Everything. So go ahead, yeah, I’m very interested.”
“This Mr. Scapellatti, I realize you don’t think he’s the one; but if you were to change your mind, about him, or about anyone; would you consider, well, doing something illegal?”
“A man in my situation, boychik, he considers doing everything and anything.”
“So then would it be possible to . . . abduct such a man—kidnap I guess would be the honest word for it—and then force the real truth out of him, so you’d be sure?”
Iz’s heart leapt up. He himself had had that thought, and no one else had, except this stranger’s son. The hunch might be paying off. The boy’s notion of course made no sense, not under these circumstances, which Scott didn’t and couldn’t know. The real suspicion, Iz had kept all to himself. The meeting had been to discover if there were other, maybe better, ideas. There hadn’t been. Not that he yet had a name to pin this dirty work on, or anything else very definite, just a growing gnawing misgiving that the anonymous via-Switzerland offer some months back to buy out all his hotel, racetrack and casino interests was connected to yesterday’s explosion. The would-be buyer obviously knew next to nothing about how these businesses had to be operated, assuming as he seemed to that such a sale could be consummated with money alone. Now Iz’s guess was, the same man was assuming that killing him could put across the deal. Which was naive, boobishly stupid, mad. Yet this is what he’d have to deal with.
CHAPTER 10
Iz sat on a towel. Sweat dripped from his pores. The driblets drooling down his chest and back made him feel as if his body were draining out its poisons, and, curiously, as if his mind were too. The thick heat and clouds of steam at times seemed more than his lungs could bear; but then the stifling would pass and he’d feel himself untensing, even relaxing some, for the first time since Princeton. Wiping sweat away from his eyes, waiting for new drops to pop out and run coolly down his skin, he had the sense that these steamy sensations were lulling his mind into repose—for a minute or two anyway. Then he’d have to move down to the lower, cooler bench where Psyllos sat hunched, and get back to work
.
Odd how he and the Greek had taken to having their meetings here, of all places, in a public health club, run-down like the old hotel in which it was located, with a clientele of mostly furriers and wholesale shoe dealers. And yet despite the odd environment, or maybe because of it, over the last six years they’d concluded a number of arrangements, about half of which had turned into gold, into magical machines for spewing out money. Mildewed, war-surplus Liberty ships, sand and gravel, plastic houseplants, farm-grown minks: who’d have dreamt the fortunes there could be in such things?
Odd too for Iz to have become acquainted with an on-the-straight big-timer like Psyllos, a bird who plunged big dough into queer oil paintings, into rugs, crumbling ancient carvings; a genuine, for-real ants-in-the-pants who hopped into transatlantic planes like taxicabs, and who was as likely to be off in Persia as in New York. The other principals Iz dealt with, with a handful of exceptions—such as the Cubans, Iz’s Swiss banker, and the lawyers with Reuben—all were men with whom he’d grown up on the Lower East Side or he’d come to know in the bootleg business, or at the least were brothers, sons, nephews of old-time pals. Hargett was chary of new relationships.
Yet with Pete there was a bond. Iz would listen to Psyllos tell of the village near Smyrna in Turkey where he’d been born and where Greeks had had to grovel to stay alive, and even then would get their fingers and sometimes also their heads sliced off, and Iz, remembering his own boyhood, would be touched.
Lowering his head down to his knees for some cooler air, Iz tensed up, remembering something else, the calls that he’d had to make to set up today’s bath. Psyllos was out of town, the Greek’s office had kept reporting, Paris, Alexandria, then Johannesburg, which was nothing new. But return messages from the bullion dealer, which had come always before like lightning were now slower than death, as if the long distance phone didn’t exist yet. Iz felt a pang in his heart. This thing smelled a little. And right now out in the waiting room on the health club’s leatherette couches, there sat three of Pete’s Harvard Business School flunkies. That was queer too.
Like an ammonia fume, the question again pierced painfully up Iz’s nostrils: could it have been Psyllos who’d arranged for that bomb? This naked man, shriveled prick hanging limply, all bones, blind without his eyeglasses, sitting an inch or so away: Could he be the one?
Since that ghastly Saturday, Iz had mentally done a workover and then a repeat on every lug who might stand to gain anything at all by his becoming cold meat. He’d reviewed as if with a microscope, and then double- and triple- checked his own recollections against those of the people closest to him, none of whom were themselves spared his exacting shakedown, not his own kids, brother, Leroy, and not Evangelidos Psyllos.
The Greek, Iz early on had concluded, had he been the dirty one, could well have loused it up in just the way the job had been, greenhorn in such matters that he seemed to be. And that kind of dirty play could fit with the man’s character. Psyllos on the make was a stick of dynamite, a human buzz saw. And the money trader did, more than most, have knowledge of certain of Iz’s interests, enough to stir greed in a soul whose acquisitiveness was already second to none.
But Pete on the other hand had time and again shown he knew how to hire help. If it was ball tossers he was after (or firebugs or deadeyes or slicers), he’d more than likely have gone first class, with mechanics that’d never foul up, and with backups ready on the off-chance that they did. But why would Psyllos ever go after any such muscle in the first place? Where really was the point? The Greek was nothing if not smart, too smart, Iz was positive, to try and fireworks the hand that was ladling so much good out to him. The cut of the Havana gambling skim alone flowing to Pete, which overnight would vanish if Izzie did, came to a healthy four figures every Tuesday. And the heavy green Pete had anted up so Dubrowsky’s Vegas hotel could have sculpted bathroom fixtures—that dough too, unless Iz stayed around to divvy up the take (if there ever was any) would go bye-bye.
And besides, Pete had done pretty good all his life without the heavy stuff. In middle age, it didn’t figure for him to change that way.
So no, there had to be somebody else. And also other explanations for Pete’s recent queernesses.
The two men sat for a while silently before Psyllos, eyes closed, mumbled, “So, how’s tricks?”
“It looks finally,” Iz sighed, “like the Las Vegas is going to open.”
The Greek’s perpetual frown diminished into what could almost be perceived as a smile.
“But,” Iz cautioned, “don’t count on seeing anything back right away.”
“I can be patient, if I have confidence, and for as long as you have confidence.”
Iz felt a flush of annoyance, wished he were out of this steam and under a cool shower. All of the participants bankrolling the Paradise, including Izzie himself, were sizzling mad with Dubrowsky’s incredible overruns for chandeliers, Italian tiles for the swimming pool terrace, triple strength air-conditioners, all of which had sent costs soaring to more than three times Julie’s original estimates. So Psyllos, who squeezed a nickel hard as the next guy, or harder, who the hell was he kidding? And why?
Iz’s comeback though was a quiet jibe. “Good. Cause considering how much we’ve sunk in, we don’t have much choice, do we?” and he smiled just a little.
“You worried?” Psyllos queried.
What’d he mean, Iz tensely asked himself. Vegas or the other business? “You bet your life I am.”
“Izzie, what do you think happened at Princeton?”
Iz felt icy cold. But it wasn’t only inside him. A chilly draft, someone leaving, the steam room door was open.
“It’s a problem,” Iz answered calmly, trying to figure this abrupt twist in the conversation, now racing ahead of how he’d planned it, “one I’ve been working on pretty hard. You got any ideas?”
Psyllos exhaled noisily, startled, and shook his head. “I’d like to help if there’s a way you think I can, but it’s all a little far away from my line.”
In an instant of watching the Greek’s elongated toes tensely turn inward, Iz’s mind made a connection. Psyllos’s strangenesses suddenly were altogether natural. Of course! Fear for his own skin: that was why Pete’d been hard to get. Scared that being near Iz could be dangerous. Which clearly it could be. So the two extra Harvards outside were to guarantee protection, or try to, which was sensible. The bastard.
But there was no time now for indulging himself and being angry. “There might be a way you can help me,” Iz said.
Pete raised an eyebrow slightly. After a long moment, he finally did say, “How?”
“Your lady friend in France.”
“Mireille?”
Of course, Mireille. Pete knew full well what Iz meant. He had crowed often enough about his dazzling little Mata Hari who could insinuate herself into any man’s bed and confidence and thereby provide Pete with information about metals discoveries which had allowed him to make trades in futures which had earned him millions.
“My problem, I’m starting to think,”—Iz decided he’d better lay it all out on the table—“might be over in Europe.”
“But who over there could be your enemy?”
He sounded genuinely concerned. Sympathetic. Or was Psyllos fishing? “True, the ones I know about are all here. But here they also know better. Getting rid of me would only mean trouble. They’d tear each other to pieces. The losses would be terrible, until the dust settled, and it might go on that way for years.”
“So then who—in Europe?” Psyllos sounded mystified.
“If I had a good handle on someone, Pete, would I have dragged you here today?”
Psyllos began nodding his bony chin. It was plain to both of them, Iz knew, that Hargett’s European assets, because they were so craftily concealed from tax collectors and from everyone else, could be knocked off without much sweat by anyone who knew about them and who dared to make the strong moves.
“So where
and when can I talk with her?”
Psyllos hunched his fleshless shoulders in sort of a shrug.
“What does that mean?”
“No, my friend,” the Greek whispered.
Iz stunned, furious, saw that Psyllos had closed his eyes again. The fink was afraid to look at him.
“The things she’s doing now,” Psyllos muttered, “already there’s too much danger.”
Iz speedily damped the flush of rage, and in seconds was weighing the implications of this unexpected answer.
Hargett asked favors rarely, and never lightly, which Psyllos knew.
Well, if Pete wanted to kiss off, let him, the hell with him. He’d be the loser. The bastard.
But now should Iz insist, force Psyllos to give over the woman, or cold-shoulder the Greek, contact this Mireille directly and make a separate deal? But if her cooperating turned out to be iffy, less than a full thousand percent, working with her could develop into tsuris.
“All right, Pete,” Izzie spat, “If that’s how you think you want to play. How much?”
“No, no, no,” Psyllos quietly protested. “I don’t want to. No playing, really.”
“Come on. You’d sell the toes off your feet for the right money. So let’s hear that number. Cause I need that woman.”
“Izzie, you’re saying a cruel thing, and it’s not nice, not like you.”
“How would you feel about, say, a million? Cash?”
The Greek’s cavernous eyes now were wide open. “That’s crazy.”
“Would that get rid of some of the danger, do you think?”
“You’re serious?”
“What good’s a million to me with a garden on my stomach?”
“Well”—and the Greek wiped sweat from his eyes—“for that, she could, it is possible, accommodate herself.”
Iz smiled bitterly. “Good. Glad to see you still can be so reasonable. But I think I’m changing my mind. I don’t want her after all.”
Psyllos stiffened, froze, his mouth half open.