The Erection Set (32 page)

“Buddy ...” I looked at him with a wry expression. “You've been civilized too long.”

“Cold, Dog. You're cold. I remember you when you were a nice guy.”

“So do I.”

“What happens with Sharon?”

“Nothing happens.”

“That can be the worst part. She's all fired up over this movie shit. All she talks about is how Linton is going to start over. You're going to bust that girl wide open.”

“She's a tough little cookie, Lee.”

“Not that tough.” He paused, leaning against the door frame. “The cops were back again.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“There was another one with the big guy this time. A federal agent. Treasury.”

I didn't answer him.

“They didn't get anymore this time in case you're wondering.”

“I'm not wondering.”

“Dog ... there's somebody tailing me.”

“That's right.”

“Your side?” He sounded surprised.

“An old friend.”

He nodded, thought a second, his mouth twisted, gnawing on a idea. “Sharon too?”

“A precaution.”

“I see. You get that note the guy left?”

“Yeah.”

“He left another one. Same thing. Ferris and some numbers. It's on the table outside.”

I picked up the bags and Lee stood aside to let me through the door. “Mind telling me where you're going?”

“Tonight I'm going to a hotel, get a damn good sleep, make a lot of phone calls, then pick up a car and go back to a crazy old building on the waterfront at Mondo Beach, do some thinking and begin to enjoy myself.”

His face seemed to change and suddenly we weren't here any longer but looking across a few feet of high sky through the bubble canopies of P-51s, props synced and in tight formation, waiting to pounce the krauts moving in on the bombers below.

“You're looking for some running room,” Lee said.

He didn't know how right he was.

Dick Lagen hadn't closed in yet, but his last paragraph hinted at a pending story that was going to be shattering in certain circles. Mona Merriman was doing the big thing in her gossip column, telling all about the workings of S.C. Cable and Walter Gentry in locating their new picture at an old picturesque factory site northeast of New York. Several prominent motion picture stars had already been suggested for leads in
Fruits of Labor
with the female slot being pretty well tied up by a current English beauty. My name was right up there with the rest of the Barrin clan as having been instrumental in bringing the picture to an eastern location rather than going onto California sets which were beginning to lose their appeal to total realism.

On the inside pages there was a one-column item about the two “mystery murders” as yet unsolved, but identification had been made and the usual solution was in the immediate future. I said, “Balls!” to myself and tossed the paper down just as the phone rang to tell me Al DeVecchio was on his way up.

Without his rocker, coffee and salami he was uncomfortable. He sat in a straight-back chair fiddling with the papers on his lap, shaking his head at the stupidity of it all and when he found what he was looking for, held it up as though he really needed it and said, “You won't make it, Dog.”

“Why not?”

“McMillan figures to edge you out by at least five percentage points. That's enough for control.”

“All proxies?”

“Who needs anything more? He's got Farnsworth Aviation interested and with those contracts he gets the stockholders interested. There's no more nostalgia, buddy. Anybody holding Barrin stock wants dividends, not fond memories. Most of what's out has been inherited. It's in new hands that couldn't give a damn about anything except money.”

“He's going to raid Barrin, Al.”

“Sure, I know it. He can take the contracts to his own factories and do the job better, but he isn't holding that out in front of the people holding odd pieces of Barrin paper. He'll make a shambles out of Barrin and couldn't care less.”

“How come Farnsworth is interested at all?”

“Barrin reputation for excellence. They still use some of the old extrusion processes and that's what Farnsworth wants. They don't know it, but McMillan will probably screw them too. Prices aren't about to go down no matter how you do it. He's sold them a bill of goods somehow. Now he's making it all look good to the little people.”

“What do I need?”

“Nothing you can get. McMillan has his shares and the proxies. You can get a seat on the board but it'll be stacked against you. It's his ball game.”

“How about the SEC?”

“Old Cross has got that licked too. He can always produce for a little while. Come on, Dog, you know what he's really after.”

“I think I'm the only one who does,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just mumbling.”

“You wasted a lot of dough, pal.”

“Not yet.”

“Remember, I told you that you never even could count.”

“I hire people who can count, Al.”

He let the paper slide back into the pile and relaxed back into the chair, his face all funny. “What have you got going?”

“Just a lot of odd ideas. Barrin isn't all that much to fight over.”

“So?”

“There's something else.”

“Care to tell me?”

“I will when I can.” I lit a cigarette and held one out to him. “What happened to the Guido brothers?”

He took the light I offered and blew a stream of smoke across the space between us. “You like to put a chill on the party, don't you?”

I waited.

“Everything's come to a screaming halt until the Guido boys come up with the goods. I'm not in anybody's confidence.”

“Then extrapolate. You're pretty good at extrapolating.”

“I extrapolate a hell of a lot of money wandering around someplace where nobody can find it. The button boys are back on the streets again and small talk has it that contracts are ready to be handed out. The older Guido laddie got his family into South America just in case, but the other one didn't think fast enough and his place in Jersey is staked out by a team over there. They're scared shitless is what I know and they have heavy dough out to dig up that missing shipment.”

“Good for them.”

Al folded the papers into their envelope and tossed them at me. “And now, my old buddy, I want out of your life. I'm paid to date and I don't want any more complications. You have all I'm about to give you and if you throw any of that old wartime camaraderie jazz at me I'll tell you where to put it.”

“I'll call you.”

“Anytime. For lunch, dinner, a squadron reunion, but stay out of my working life.”

He started to the door, stopped and turned around. “It's been fun, Dog. Just enough to keep the old pecker up as the British used to say.”

“You'll be missing the best part,” I said.

“I hope so.” He grinned at me and tossed his cigarette butt into an ashtray. “Incidentally, I had a long talk with Roland Holland.”

“Oh?”

“Let's say I extrapolated again.” He paused and let his grin get wider. “You're a sneaky slob,” he said.

When he closed the door I looked at the doodles I had scribbled on the pad. Circles were drawn around the name
Ferris
and sixes and fives were intertwined around the edges of the paper. Straight lines from the name went out to each of the numerals and the seed grew a tiny stalk but still went unidentified. Out of habit I got up, flushed all the paper on the pad down the toilet, burned Al's sheets in the sink and went out to meet my contact.

 

His French faltered and burst into rapid Spanish punctuated with little taps of his forefinger on the tabletop. “No, I am sorry, Mr. Kelly, there is no more. Everything is completely out of hand now.”

“Tell me what O'Keefe said.”

Sweat dotted his forehead and ran in a rivulet down his temple. “Please.”

I could see my face in the mirror behind him and it wasn't something I could enjoy either. He had been too long in the easy end of the trade and now he was knowing what it was like on the other hand. He swallowed hard, trying to cover his shakiness by sipping his drink, but it didn't work and I waited him out.

“For you,” he said, “it will be as a favor.”

“As a favor,” I repeated.

“It has left the country. The courier who was killed ... he entrusted it to somebody. The one called LeFleur ... he suspected it went to that bookstore in Soho ...”

“Simon Corner?”

“That is the one. Simon Comer is now dead. He did not have it either. However, it has given the English police a chance to locate the mysterious Le Fleur. As the Americans put it, all hell is breaking loose over there. They may now have the opportunity to break the entire structure of the apparatus. The monetary loss of the shipment was too much for any organization to stand. They cannot recoup unless it is found.”

“What did O'Keefe say?”

He took another taste of his drink and nodded slowly. When he put the glass down he patted his mouth, then licked his lips nervously. “For some reason they have decided to concentrate totally on you. People are ... being alerted. O'Keefe says ... for you to ... take off.”

“It's screaming halt time, isn't it?”

“Pardon?”

“I'm like
persona non grata
now.”

“Precisely, Mr. Kelly. All indications point to you as not being able to live more than a few days unless ...”

“Unless?”

“Yes. Unless ... you surrender the shipment.”

“The real big guns are coming out now, aren't they?”

“I'm ... afraid so.”

“You were authorized to make this meet then?”

“Yes.”

“Tell them to go fuck themselves,” I said.

 

 

When you can't run and you can't hide, you do a little bit of both and bring them out into the open. In the weeds you make yourself a weed while they're rocks and in the rocks you're a rock while they're weeds. But you keep them visible and not you, always keeping the back door open and a few birds around to caw and scream when the intruder shows up. You find your own backyard where you know all the crevices and trip wires and you're safe until they break the defenses and if you're lucky, by then you're in another backyard you know equally as well and start all over again. But you had to remember, it wasn't the hound tracking you who had the worst bite. It was the strange dog in the other yard who got you from behind.

I turned the television on, caught fifteen minutes of worthless news and switched it off again.

Sharon Cass was out to lunch and couldn't be reached. I left a message that I'd see her at her apartment that night and stretched out on the couch. The seed in the back of my mind grew another inch, but it was just a tiny thing and I said the hell with it and went to sleep.

 

It was a nice party. Only a small ten-piece orchestra and a few hundred important people in a tidy twenty-room penthouse belonging to S. C. Cable.

The noise of the crowd rose above the soft music, drowning it out completely, bass laughter and the tinkle of glasses making it seem as if it weren't there at all. Flesh was rampant in see-through blouses and plunging necklines or backs designed for a maximum of exposure. Skin-for-sale time. Feel for texture, pluck for resiliency, poke for resistance. Body fragrances were mixed into a cesspool of heady smells that had no individual identity. Uniform of the day, nearly exposed, jutting tits. No underwear. Crotches thrust forward, eyes seductively lowered. Lips wet. Face the tuxedos and black business suits, for here is the enemy who might drop a piece of priceless information for a closer look at those bulging orbs, or, for the comforting rub of protruding genitals against a girdled thigh, the little fat lady with the diamond rings might just hint what agency contact to see about a part.

Sharon said, “I knew you'd hate it, Dog.”

“It's not all that bad.”

“Not if you like the sex routines.”

“Right now that's all you can smell.”

“That's movie business.”

“Any business, kitten. How long do we have to stay?” Her laugh was gentle and low. “I thought anyone who spent time in Europe would be used to the sophistication.”

“They're a little more subtle about it over there,” I told her.

She handed me a glass from the tray that was offered her by a pert little waitress. “What's wrong, Dog?”

“Nothing.”

“Those girls are giving you that look again.”

“Screw them.”

“You aren't very sociable tonight.” She touched my arm and smiled at me. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you come along.”

“Nobody makes me do anything.” I laughed and gave her hair a little tug. “I'll ease off. Too many things have been happening.”

Sharon nodded toward the door. “There's Lee. He's the one who talked the English actress into signing with S.C.”

“Cable have him on the payroll too?”