361 - Donald E. Westlake [38]
“That’s right near Binghamton,” I said. “Appalachin is. I was eighteen then. Some of us rode out in a guy’s car to look at Barbara’s house. Where the meeting took place.”
That made him laugh again. “You see what I mean? Sightseers, for Christ’s sake. People don’t believe it any more. There was a time, in the thirties say, when all the people around a place like that would have stayed miles away, you never know when the shooting’s going to start. Now, things’ve been so nice and quiet for so long, a bunch of kids go out in a car and look at the house.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Why, there was a time, if word got around that somebody like the Genna boys, say, were in town, all the innocent citizens would have gone inside and locked the doors and crawled under the beds. The same as when Anastasia got it in ’57. Nobody believed it. There he was on the floor in the barber shop with five bullets in him, and pictures in the Daily News, and if you say the word mobster, everybody thinks of the thirties.”
“Not me,” I said. “One of them shot my fa—my father.”
“Just a hired gun. You’ll never find him.”
“Wrong. I found him today. He was the guy in the Chrysler.”
“The one you hit, or the driver?”
“The one I hit.”
He grinned and nodded. “Good boy. You’ve got a lot of Eddie Kapp in you, I swear to God.”
“Yeah. We were up to ’57.”
“Wait.” He ordered another round, took a first sip, and said, “The last few years, some of the older guys have been coming back. Back from overseas, with the heat off at last, or out of jail, or one thing and another. And these smooth new types say, ‘Yeah, Pop, but we don’t use shotguns any more. We use inter-office memos. Why don’t you go write your memoirs for the comic books?’ And what can they do? Here’s organizations they set up themselves, and now they get the cold shoulder. They try something, and the lawyers and the tame cops come around. Nobody throws a bomb in the living room any more, they just nag and niggle and slip around. Typical businessmen, see what I mean? Every once in a while, there’s an Albert Anastasia, he just won’t get reconstructed, and the guns come out. Or like with you. But not so much any more. A good press, isn’t that the phrase? Good public relations. Everything nice and quiet.”
“We still haven’t got to me.”
“You’re the ace in the hole, boy. Family, didn’t I tell you? We’ve got all these old boys, hanging around now, waiting to move in again. But they can’t move. There’s nobody to set himself up for boss, that’s all it takes. They’ve met, they’ve written to each other, they’ve talked it over. And they’ve decided on somebody they’ll all accept to run things. Me.”
He gulped down all of the drink. “I’m getting the taste back.” His grin was lopsided. “I wasn’t going to do it. I was going to Florida with Dot. Or without her, the hell with her. Because of you. The symbol. In 1940, I was ready to make my move. Not just New York City. Half the Atlantic Seaboard. Everything from Boston to Baltimore, the whole thing. It should have been mine years before, but I’d moved too slow. Only now I had it. I had the support. Hell, I was part of the new look myself! And then these goddamn Federal people came along with this goddamn income tax thing. And I said to some of the boys, ‘When I come out, this pie is mine.’ And they said, ‘Eddie, you’ll be sixty-four years of age. Twenty-five years is a long time.’ And I said, ‘They’ll remember Eddie Kapp. You people will remember Eddie Kapp.’ They said, ‘Sure, but you’re going to be an old man, Eddie. Who’s going to follow you?’ And I told them, ‘Edith Kelly has a kid of mine. When I come out, he’ll be grown. And he’ll be with me.’ That’s what I told them.” He nodded loosely, eying his empty glass. I motioned the waiter. He came and took the glass away.
Kapp watched him go. Softly, he said, “Don’t you think that meant something to them? Family. A goddamned symbol, boy, that’s what you are. A symbol. Eddie Kapp is bringing new blood. Eddie Kapp and his boy. That’s why they want me. They