Love's lovely counterfeit - James M. Cain [42]
"You really want to know?"
"I do, indeed. We're pals, aren't we?"
"I got to make him come here."
"Why?"
"Well, in the first place I tried being nice to Joe. I tried being reasonable and doing business the way I like to do it. And what happened? He began telling me where to get off. He began measuring it up, what he'd take and what he wouldn't take. And right there was when I remembered something I'd been trying to forget—something you said that day when we were fanning along waiting for the bank to be held up. You said: A big operator, he runs it or he don't operate. And what I was trying to be was a big operator. It was just a piece of luck that gave me the chance, but there it was, if I wanted it. You think I was letting Cantrell stand in my way? You think I was caring about his feelings? I let him have it. I got to make him come here. If I don't I got no team. Call him up now. Tell him to come over."
"Look, you call him. I—"
"Didn't you hear me? I said call him."
Mr. Cantrell, who always looked as though he had just emerged from a barber shop, arrived in a surprisingly short time. He said that by a singular coincidence he was on his way to this very hotel, on another matter, when Lefty caught him. He asked how do you explain that? He said his wife was a great believer in thought transference, but that he himself didn't pay much attention to it, except that when something like this happens it sure does look funny. He said Ben was gaining weight, the least little bit. He said: "What's bothering you, Ben?"
"Heard you wanted to see me."
"Yeah, there's a couple of things."
"Uncouple them, then."
"Like, for instance, the bookies."
"They giving trouble?"
"Well, have we got bookies, or not?"
"Well, they're there, aren't they?"
"Yeah, but are they supposed to be there?"
"Go on, Joe. What's the rest of it?"
"Well, look, this Jansen has tasted glory and he likes it, see? After I cleaned up pinball and he got all those editorials in the newspapers patting him on the back, why, he wants more, only a lot. Well, there they are, those bookies, and there's Jansen, coming in to my office every day, talking about them."
"Does Jansen really buy it, what we did on pinball?"
"He's fooled, right down the line."
"He thinks pinball is cleaned up?"
"Listen, on stuff like that, Jansen's not any too bright. You remember, even in the campaign he wasn't getting anywhere till that girl got in it—this Lyons that he's put in charge of the Social Service department. Maybe she could tell him about pinball, but she don't seem to be doing it, for some reason. Maybe the police department could tell him, but I don't regard that as advisable just now. Maybe the District Attorney could tell him, but his law firm is working for you, the last I heard of it. So nobody's telling him. So he thinks he's done a big job. Well, is he so dumb? Didn't every paper in town eat it up, us grabbing those machines, and destroying them? Has any one of them taken the trouble to investigate these new machines, and find out who owns them, or how they work?"
"And Jansen's hot after the bookies now?"
"I don't talk about the neighborhood places. He don't know so much about them. But these big dumps downtown, if he keeps on, I'll have to close them down. Well, what about it? You're supposed to know, and you're not telling me."
"You seen Delany?"
"...Haven't you seen him?"
"I've been letting those bookies alone."
"Ben, you don't mean you haven't collected off them?"
"What else you got?"
"The houses."
"What houses?"
"The ones with red lights in front."
"And what about them?"
"The same, only worse. In addition to Jansen, I got the men on the beat to worry about. I mean, they've begun taking it off those places direct, and that's bad. It