The Blind Pig (4 page)

Vanni blushed. “That was just a joke, Sergeant. I'm sorry about that. I go out with girls, sure, and maybe one of them might have a husband, but I don't have anything serious going and I've never had any problems like that at all.”

“How about an angry competitor in your business?” Mulheisen asked.

“We put in a sealed bid, like anybody else,” Vanni said. “On a state job, or a federal job like the air base, the bids are opened secretly and the low bidder gets the contract. Not much room for bitterness there, is there? Anyway, all this
talk about hired killers is awfully melodramatic, don't you think? It's kind of like TV, right?”

“It's no joke, Vanni,” Mulheisen said. “I've met several hired guns. Some of them are in the penitentiary now, because of me. The guy in your garage was packing a gun that was so antiseptic he should have been wearing rubber gloves. He was real.”

Vanni smiled. “If you say so, Sergeant.”

“What's your deal with the mob, Vanni?” Mulheisen asked bluntly.

“What?” Vanni seemed outraged. “What are you talking about? I have no connection with the mob!”

Mulheisen shrugged, unconcernedly. “All right, then, who do you know in the mob?”

“I don't know anybody in the mob!” Vanni retorted.

“C'mon, Vanni, everybody knows somebody in the mob or, at least, someone who says he has mob connections. Who do you know?”

Vanni looked relieved. “Oh, well . . . you meet guys like that everywhere in this town. I stop by the local tavern for a quick one now and then—the Town Pump. There's guys in there who'll take a bet, who claim to be in the numbers racket, or they say they can get you a TV or even a car, cheap, meaning that it's hot. But nobody pays any attention to those bums. They're a dime a dozen.”

“Name one,” Mulheisen said.

“No. I mean, I don't really know them, right? Just a loudmouth here and there, trying to make himself important. Maybe some of the old-timers who sit around the tavern all day are amused. I'm not. Sergeant, if there's something else, let's have it. I've got a business to run.”

“Where's this poker game?” Mulheisen asked.

“What poker game?”

“The poker game where you won your jukebox,” Mulheisen said. “Is this a regular game?”

“Well, what the hell. I mean, everybody likes to play a
little poker now and then.” Vanni tried to laugh it off.

“So where's the game?”

“Oh, it's no big thing. Sometimes some of the guys come over, or someone calls and says there's a game. Sometimes I play with the drivers, after work. Just a little penny ante in the office. And sometimes, like we go to a blind pig or something, and there's always a game there.”

“Which blind pig?” Mulheisen asked.

“Any blind pig! What difference does it make?”

Mulheisen sighed. “All right, Vanni. Go back to work. If anything comes up, though, like with DeCrosta, give me a ring, eh?” He gave his card to Vanni. “Ask Miss Cecil to step out here for a minute, will you? I won't keep her long.”

Vanni seemed relieved. He stuffed Mulheisen's card in his pocket and went inside. A moment later Mandy Cecil came out. The autumn sun made her hair blaze, and Mulheisen realized for the first time what poets meant when they rhapsodized about green eyes. Cecil said hello and leaned against Vanni's car, waiting for the questions.

“I guess you've known Vanni for quite a while,” Mulheisen began. “I understand that you've been out of touch for several years. What brought you back together?”

“I just happened to be driving through Detroit and I hadn't been here in a long time, so I thought I'd look Jerry and Lenny up. I was kind of surprised to find that they were both living in the same houses where they'd grown up.”

“Why is that?” Mulheisen wanted to know. He lived in the same house he'd been born in.

“It seems like everybody moves around these days,” she said. “That's all. My folks, for instance, they moved back to Kentucky years ago. Myself, I've lived in a dozen different cities.” She folded her arms and waited for the next question.

“You were in Vietnam,” Mulheisen said. “When did you get out of the Army?”

“About three years ago.”

“What have you been doing since?”

“I went back to school, took some graduate courses at
Berkeley on the GI Bill, and I lived with a guy who I thought was a genius—only, he turned out to be just a dope dealer, so I took off. I worked for a consumer-research outfit in San Francisco, I tried to manage a rock group called the Multiple Function, I even danced topless. All this was on the Coast. Finally, I thought I'd go to New York for a change, so I started driving. When I got to Detroit, I called Jerry and here I am. I don't know for how long.”

Mulheisen had a wistful vision of Mandy Cecil dancing topless, but he suppressed it. He took a long drag on his cigar and released it slowly into the cool October air. “Vanni says he's made you an officer of the vending business. That sounds fairly permanent.”

“It's not much of a business yet,” she said.

“How do you get along with Jerry these days?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said.

“Just friends, eh?” Mulheisen said.

“You mean, am I sleeping with him?” she retorted. “The answer is, when I feel like it, Sergeant.”

Mulheisen didn't rise to that bait. “How about Lenny?” he asked. “Just another old pal?”

“Exactly,” she snapped back.

“How does Lenny like that?”

“You mean, is Lenny jealous? Yes, I suppose he is. But would he hire a killer to bump off his best friend, who is also his rival? I doubt it, but you ought to ask him.”

“I will,” Mulheisen said. He tasted his cigar again and liked it very much. It was really a beautiful day. He said as much to Mandy Cecil and she agreed. It was nice just standing here, he thought, especially with Mandy. But he didn't tell her that. He just said good-bye and walked away.

Four

“You know the phrase ‘dead as a doornail'?” Joe Service asked.

Fatman nodded without looking up from the veal scallops. The two men sat at a table in the Seven Continents Restaurant at O'Hare International Airport, in Chicago.

Joe Service looked down at his own veal. He tried to remember what the menu called this dish and why it required melted cheese. He pushed the plate away untouched. “It's a very ancient saying,” he said. “It dates from
Piers Plowman,
at least.”

“Plowman? What is he, a farmer?” Fatman said, chewing slowly.

“Well, yeah. Actually, it's a book about a farmer. A very old book. From Chaucer's time.”

“Chaucer? I heard of Chaucer. Don't look so surprised, Joe,” Fatman said affably. “Just ‘cause I got a lot of business, don't mean I never read a book.”

Joe beamed. He was a short, muscular man. He wore cowboy boots and a denim leisure suit. He was deeply tanned and his blue eyes were startling. He had heavy black hair and thick eyebrows. He was not a handsome man. His features
were too strong—an aggressive nose, solid jaw and wide mouth—but he wasn't ugly. He smiled a lot and that helped. Also, he looked intelligent, and people will forgive homeliness in a brainy man. In his trade Joe found that his homeliness encouraged other people's confidence in him, as baldness will do sometimes.

“So, this Piers is a farmer, right?” Fatman said.

“That's right. Anyway, it seems that in those days a doornail was probably the strike plate for the door knocker. So people are always knocking on this plate, or nail. The idea is, if you hit something on the head as often as a doornail gets hit on the head, why then, that thing gets to be dead.”

Fatman had finished his veal. He looked at Joe's untouched plate. “You're not gonna eat?” he asked. “C'mon, I'm buying.”

“I ate on the plane,” Joe said. This was a lie. Joe had in fact arrived in Chicago on an Amtrak train from Montana and then cabbed out to O'Hare. He didn't mind that Fatman believed that he had flown in. “You eat it,” he offered.

Fatman traded plates. “So what are you telling me with this little parable, Joe?”

“I went over to Detroit once before for you guys,” Joe said. “I went through that door once and that was almost too often.”

“You made out,” Fatman said. “Sometimes, when there is a knock at the door, it's Opportunity.”

“Sometimes it's the sheriff. But you're right, Fat. I did make out. Now I don't have to work.”

“But you love to work,” Fatman pointed out. He snapped his fingers at the waiter and ordered cognac for himself and Joe. “I don't understand this, Joe. You seemed interested. I come all the way over here to Chicago and you talk about doorknobs and farmers. What are you, scared or something?”

Joe watched a TWA 747 taxi ponderously toward the huge windows of the restaurant. “I'm just a fool,” he said. “I like to travel. And it's always nice to see you, Fatman. Even if
you always have harebrained schemes and impossible jobs. The last time I almost got shot. And then, there's a smart cop in your town by the name of Mulheisen, who nearly nabbed me with my hand in the cookie jar. And all this mindless stunting was because your outfit can't keep score in your own ball park. Hell, Fatman, you're the home team. You're supposed to win the home games. But me, I never get my last at bats.”

Fatman laughed, his voice thick and moist. “I love talking to you, Joe. You got your own language.”

The drinks came and Fatman said, “Waiter, how about some of that strawberry shortcake now? Lots of whipped cream. Joe?”

Joe shook his head and inhaled cognac fumes.

“Money, Joe,” Fatman said. “Lots of it.”

Joe smiled. His teeth were brilliant. “At last. How much?”

“Don't know yet. Carmine don't even know.”

“Ah. Well, thanks for dinner, Fat, even if you did eat it all yourself.” Joe pushed his chair back as if to leave.

“Siddown,” Fatman said. “It's plenty.”

“Plenty,” Joe said. “I like that word. I think it's from the Latin
plenus
, meaning ‘full,’ a sense of bounteousness.”

Fatman beamed. “See? You got a language all your own, Joe. It's a treat to listen to you.” The waiter brought the shortcake, a spongy little cake about the size and shape of a hockey puck, with racquets-ball-size strawberries on it and a mound of artificial cream that had been sprayed from a pressurized can. Fatman devoured the cake in three gulps. He wiped his lips and continued.

“Merchandise, Joe. Carmine has a deal with this guy. Young guy, shipping merchandise. Now this kid has come up with a Big Deal. At first Carmine doesn't take him seriously, so the kid says, ‘Okay, I'll go it alone. But if it works out, can I count on you?’ So Carmine says, ‘Okay, keep in touch.’ So, a little later it begins to look like maybe the kid can pull it off, after all. In the meantime there's some complications.”

“God, I've heard that one before,” Joe said.

Fatman shrugged. “So Carmine agrees to help the kid out, a little, with the complications.”

“Only the complications don't get straightened out, they just get more complicated, right?” Joe said.

Fatman nodded.

“Is this dope?” Joe asked. “I don't do dope, Fat. Count me out. The people are too freaky.”

Fatman waved the notion away. “No, no, it's not dope, Joe. This is hard goods. Carmine'll fill you in on it, if you come in. The deal is either a flat fee, or a percentage of the take.”

“Last time I went for the percentage,” Joe said, “I thought ten percent of twenty million would be two million. Only it turned out to be two hundred thousand.”

“Joe, those were securities,” Fatman pointed out. “We had to discount them. We sell them to a guy who sells them to a guy. So who makes out? The guy on the end? I don't know. Carmine tells me, ‘Don't get us into no more securities.’ This isn't securities, Joe. This is hardware.”

Joe Service was pensive. “Hardware,” he said at last. “I like the sound of that. It has a solid, sturdy, no-nonsense ring to it, like bullion. What kind of hardware, though? Cars? TVs? Guns? Diapers? There's all kinds of hardware, Fat. I heard about some guys out West who stole ten miles of pure copper wire, just stripped it off the power pylons.”

“Where was this?” Fatman asked.

“Nowhere you know,” Joe answered shortly. “Well, what's the deal?”

“Carmine says, you come to Detroit. He'll fill you in on the whole deal.”

“Tell you the truth, Fatman, it sounds terrible. Sounds like you all have shit in your pants and you're all standing around grinning, waiting for the man to arrive with the toilet paper. What did this kid do, for Christ's sake?”

Fatman sipped his cognac. He got out a cigar and examined it closely, then looked all around him, turning his head
with some difficulty on the short fat neck. There were two couples seated directly behind them, very solid middle-class people. Fatman sighed and tucked the cigar back in his coat.

“The kid hasn't done it yet,” he said. “It's kind of complicated.”

Joe groaned softly.

“There was a hit involved, but it got screwed up.”

“A hit!” Joe leaned forward, very serious now. “Forget it,” he said, almost hissing. “I am not a hit man, Fat. You know better than to tell me this crap.”

Fatman held up chubby placating hands. “I know, I know. Nobody's asking you to hit anybody, Joe. It's just that a hit was scheduled, but it got botched. Carmine thought you ought to know.”

“Why?” Joe Service was suspicious.

“It was somebody you maybe knew. A good man, one of the best, but he went down. Amazing deal. Some cops blasted him.”

“Cops?” Joe said. “Working cops? You mean street cops took down the man? Who was it?”

“Sid,” Fatman said.

Joe couldn't believe it. “Street cops took Sidney? Bullshit. Somebody must have turned him.”

Fatman spread his hands. “I don't know, Joe. It looks straight. Sid was setting up and a neighbor lady spotted him, calls the cops. The cops come, Sid tries to walk, and the cops cut him in half with a shotgun.”

Fatman had never seen Service look so strange. First he looked bleak, then he looked mean. Finally, he seemed to get hold of himself. “Sidney,” he said under his breath, “I never would have believed it. Who are these cops?”

“Nobody,” Fatman said. “Like you say, just working stiffs. They didn't know him from Adam, still don't. Just one of those deals. I guess Sid took a shot at one of the cops and didn't know the other one was behind him.”

Joe sat back. “I don't believe that. Sidney wouldn't go
down for street cops. It's not in the book. Somebody must have set him.”

“Who could set him?” Fatman said.

“How about this guy, this kid?”

“No reason for it,” Fatman said.

“Well, this is bad,” Joe said. “Somebody could get Dun-loped over this.”

“Dunlop-ed?” Fatman said.

“Uniroyal-ed. B.F. Goodrich-ed,” Joe said.

“You mean, like ‘run over,’ “ Fatman said.

“I left out Michelin-ed,” Joe said.

“Well, if you feel that way, forget it,” Fatman said. “Carmine doesn't want you around if you're looking for blood.”

“Don't tell me what to do, Fatman,” Joe said mildly. “You did this on purpose, anyway, just to get me interested.”

“Are you implying that we set Sid up?” Fatman was aghast.

“No, I don't mean that. Never mind. What kind of deal did Carmine have in mind?”

“About a hundred, Joe,” Fatman said. “Maybe more if you work it right.”

Joe smiled and doffed an imaginary cap. “Joe Service, at yo’ service,” he said.

“So you'll come? Fine.”

“I'll come, if only to see what happened to Sid.”

“What's Sid to you?” Fatman asked.

“None of your business,” Joe said. “We were friends, that's all. We went to school together, you might say.”

“And what school was that?” Fatman asked.

“Smith and Wesson,” Joe said.

Fatman laughed. “I love it.” He hauled out the cigar again, and with a defiant look at the ladies at the next table, he bit off the end and lit up. Billows of rich blue smoke went up. There was some discreet coughing from the other table.