361 - Donald E. Westlake [50]
“Mine do, now,” said Little Irving. He glared at Kenny.
Kapp said, “We know who these punks are, this bunch that Irving called the incumbents. We know them from the old days, right? They shined our shoes in the old days, am I right?”
Somebody said, “Office boys.”
“That’s the word,” said Kapp. “Office boys. Soft easy-living punks. They ain’t in the rackets, they’re a bunch of businessmen. You know what I mean? They live quiet, they send each other inter-office memos. They’re a bunch of accountants. Am I right?”
Most of them nodded or said, “You’re right.”
“Accountants,” repeated Kapp. “Office boys. They’re afraid of muscle, they’re afraid of the noisy hit. A quiet hit is what they like, an old lady’s hit. Arsenic in the five o’clock tea, you know what I mean?”
They laughed.
“Sure,” said Kapp. He was laughing with them. “An old lady’s hit. They’re a bunch of old ladies. They’re soft. They hear a loud noise, they think it’s a backfire. On the payroll they don’t have even one good demo man. Huh? Am I right?”
“The only bombs thrown around New York,” said somebody, “are by amateurs.”
“We ought to hire them, that’s what I say,” said Kapp. He got a laugh on that one, too. A bunch of old friends, getting set up together, getting along.
Kapp motioned to the chauffeur in the kitchen doorway. “Time for a round,” he said.
Glasses came around and everybody was noisy for a minute, and then Kapp said, “As I was saying.” Silence. He smiled into it. “As I was saying, these pretty people are soft. They’re soft. Do they know we’re coming? Sure they do. Are they scared? So scared, boys, they’ve been using the noisy hit. I swear to God. They’ve been trying for Ray here, for my boy. They gunned his foster father, Will Kelly. You boys remember Will Kelly.”
They all agreed, they remembered Will Kelly.
Kapp said, “They tried to gun me, too, on my way out of D. Ever hear of anybody try to gun somebody? They missed! They don’t even know how!”
Nick Rovito said, “We’ve got the point, Eddie.”
“I want to be sure of that,” Kapp told him. “We aren’t up against people like the Gennas or Lepke or any of Albert A’s boys or anybody like that. We’re up against a bunch of bush leaguers. We’re up against a goddamn P.T.A. Okay.” He became suddenly brisker, more businesslike. “Okay,” he said. “They’re in, and we’re out. And we’re not gonna get in their way. We’re gonna get in our way, or not at all.”
Baumheiler said, “Remember Dewey, Ed. You do not want to stir things up too much.”
“How much does it take, Irving? We want them out. We want us in. How much do we have to stir to get what we want? I promise you, I won’t stir any more than that.”
Baumheiler chewed slowly on his cigar. “I don’t like the idea of too much noise, Eddie,” he said. “Bombs going off, lots of bullets, lots and lots of hits. I don’t like such an idea. And I am not an old lady.”
Nick Rovito said, “What worries you, Irving?”
“Noise, Mr. Rovito. I do not—”
“You can call me Nick, Irving.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rovito. I do not like—”
Kapp said, “Irving, are we going to get along here or aren’t we?”
“We can discuss the situation, Eddie, surely.”
“On a first-name basis, Irving. When we’re back in, you and Nick can hate each other some more. But right now we got to work together.”
“We’ve always been able to work together in the past,” said Baumheiler, with a side glance at Nick, “despite our differences.”
“Stick with first names, Irving. We’re all old friends.”
Baumheiler shrugged heavy shoulders. “If you think best, Eddie, then of course. To answer your question—Nick—I do not like noise. I do not like the idea of the State Crime Commission handing me a subpoena. I do not like the idea of being hauled, like Frank Costello, before a televised Congressional investigation. I do not like the idea of Federal accountants interesting themselves overmuch in my affairs. This is a different time, a different world. Our former associates are not used to noise, I agree. However, the citizenry is equally unused to noise. We would find them perhaps less tolerant than was once