361 - Donald E. Westlake [51]
“No citizens, Irving,” said Kapp. “But hits. Bombs, and you know it. We got no choice.”
“Quiet hits, maybe,” said Nick. “But not poison in the tea. Lead in the head, huh? Not too quiet, huh, Irving? We want them to know maybe we’re there, huh?”
“I simply want it made clear that I would not personally appreciate the type of over-enthusiasm which put our lamented friend Lepke in the electric chair.”
The porch door opened. A chauffeur stuck his head in and said, “There’s a car pulled up. A dinge in the back, he says he wants to talk.”
In the silence, I moved out from the wall, saying, “I’ll go see what he wants.”
They watched me go. Nobody talked.
Twenty-One
It was a black Chrysler Imperial. Amid the Cadillacs, it looked belligerent. There was a white chauffeur and a black rider. He was no more than thirty, dressed out of Brooks Brothers on an expense account. A gold Speidel band was on his watch, a gold wedding band on the third finger of his left hand. He had a chicken mustache and a small satisfied smile and two watchful eyes.
When I got there, he pressed a button and the window slid down. The side and back windows had black Venetian blinds. The others were down, the one on this side was up. He looked out at me and said, “I’m from Ed Ganolese. With a proposition for Anthony Kapp.”
I said, “All right, messenger. Come on down and say your piece.”
He got gracefully out of the Chrysler. I led the way. Behind me, he said, “Don’t you want to frisk me? What if I were armed?”
“What if you were?”
We went down the steps. At the door I turned and said, “What name? I’ll introduce you.”
“William Cheever.”
“Princeton?”
He smiled. “Sorry. Tuskegee.”
I didn’t smile back. We went in, through the empty room, with chauffeurs showing guns in the kitchen on our right, and on to where the piemen waited. I stopped in the archway and said, “Mister William Cheever. Of Tuskegee. With a message from Ed Ganolese.” Then I went over and stood beside Kapp.
Cheever’s smile was faint and phony. He nodded at the room, took note of the five standing men, and then looked at the one beside me. “Anthony Kapp?”
“I’m called Eddie. Not by you.”
“Mr. Kapp, then. I have been sent, as of course you assume, to discuss terms. My principals—”
“You mean Ed Ganolese, that two-bit bum.”
“Ed Ganolese, yes. He sent me with a proposition concer—”
Kapp said, “No.”
Nick Rovito said, “Wait a second, Eddie. Let’s hear what he’s got to say.”
“I don’t care what he’s got to say,” said Kapp. “Ganolese and his sidekicks are in my territory. That’s all I have to know.”
“You can’t listen to him?”
“No. I can’t. Look, Nick, they got the pie, am I right? There’s only the one pie, and they got it. If we had it, and this bum came in and said his principals wanted some of it, what would we do?”
“We don’t have it,” Nick said. “That’s the point.”
“And they won’t give us any more than we’d give them.”
Nick spread his hands. “We can talk, can’t we?”
“We can go to the movies, too, Nick. We can scratch our asses. There’s lots of ways to waste time.”
“You don’t want to ride me, Eddie.”
Little Irving Stein piped up, “Ganolese couldn’t of asked for better. Throw one spade on the table and watch everybody fold.”
Nick said, “Oh, the hell with it. All right, Eddie, you’re right.”
“Okay, fine.” Kapp looked at Cheever. “What the hell you still doing here? You got your answer. No deal.”
Little Irving said, “Why don’t we send this buck back with pennies on his eyes? So they’ll know we mean it.”
Baumheiler said, “No. They already know it.”
Little Irving said, “Come on. We got ourselves here a little Fort Sumter.”
Baumheiler said, “It’s just such noisiness as this that I have in mind. I consider it dangerous.”
Nick said to Cheever, “Go on, little man, you better go home.”
Cheever opened his mouth. Kapp said, “Move!” He shrugged and nodded and went out, gathering the sheepskin folds of his dignity about him as he went. He closed the door and somebody said, disgustedly, “A deuce.”
“Like I said,” Kapp told them, “they’re all