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By Root 6035 0

out, the old bills were picked up at the Havana banks and trucked away to be destroyed. But this currency was never burned. No sir, it was shipped out of the country and deposited to the old general’s account. With this he bought US property. Now the descendants are sitting on it. They’re no damn good, a bunch of playboys. The daughters and daughters-in-law are after these playboy heirs to act like men. All they do is sail and drink and sleep and whore and play polo. Drugs, fast cars, planes—you know the scene. The women want a developer to size this property up. Bid on it. It’ll take millions, Charlie, it’s a whole damn peninsula. I’ve got some Cubans of my own, exiles who knew these heirs in the old country. I believe we have the inside track. By the way, I got a letter about you from Denise’s lawyer. You owned one point in my Peony Condominiums and they wanted to know what it was worth. Did you have to tell them everything? Who is this fellow Pinsker?”

“I had no choice. They subpoenaed my tax returns.”

“Ah, you poor nut, you overeduca.ted boob. You come from good stock, and you weren’t born dumb, you thrust it on yourself. And if you had to be an intellectual, why couldn’t you be the tough type, a Herman Kahn or a Milton Friedman, one of those aggressive guys you read in The Wall Street Journal! You with your Woodrow Wilson and other dead numbers. I can’t read the crap you write. Two sentences and I’m yawning. Pa should have slapped you around the way he did me. It would have woken you up. Being his favorite did you no good. Then you up and marry this fierce broad. She’d fit in with the Sym-bionese or the Palestine Liberation terrorists. When I saw her sharp teeth and the way her hair grew twisty at the temples I knew you were bound for outer space. You were born trying to prove that life on this earth was not feasible. Okay, your case is practically complete. Christ I wish I had your physical condition. You still play ball with Langobardi? Christ they say he’s a gentleman now. Tell me, how is your lawsuit?”

“Pretty bad. The court ordered me to post a bond. Two hundred thousand.”

The figure made him pale. “They tied up your money? You’ll never see it again. Who’s your lawyer, still your boyhood chum, that fat-ass Szathmar?”

“No, it’s Forrest Tomchek.”

“I knew Tomchek at law school. The legal-statesman type of crook. He’s smoother than a suppository, only his suppositories contain dynamite. And the judge is who?”

“A man named Urbanovich.”

“Him I don’t know. But he’s been ruling against you and it’s all clear to me. They’ve gotten to him. Dirty work at the crossroads. He’s using you to make some payoff. He owes somebody something and he’s settling the score with your dough. I’ll check it out for you right now. You know a guy named Flanko, in Chicago?”

“Solomon Flanko? He’s a Syndicate lawyer.”

“He’ll know.” Ulick rapidly punched out the numbers on the telephone. “Flanko,” he said when he got through, “this is Julius Citrine down in Texas. There’s a guy in domestic-relations court named Urbanovich. Is he on the take?” He listened keenly. He said, “Thanks, Flanko, I’ll get back to you later.” After hanging up, he chose a sport shirt. He said, “No, Urbanovich doesn’t seem to be on the take. He wants to make a record on the bench. He’s very slick. He’s callous. If he is after you, you and that money are going to be separated like yolks and whites. Okay, write it off. We’ll make you some more. Did you put anything aside?”

“No.”

“Nothing in a box? No numbered account anywhere? No bagman?”

“No.”

He stared at me sternly. And then his face, grooved with age with worry and with indurated attitudes, relented somewhat and he smiled under the Acheson mustache. “To think that we should be brothers,” he said. “It’s positively a subject for a poem. You ought to suggest it to your pal Von Humboldt Fleisher. What ever happened, by the way, to your sidekick the poet? I came in a cab and took you night-clubbing in New York once in the Fifties. We had fun at the Copacabana, you remember?”

“That night on the town was great. Humboldt