Six

Joe Service said, “I'm not interested, Fat. I made up my mind last time—I'll never go back to Detroit.”

The Fat Man just chuckled. “Whata thing to say, Joe. Sounds like some kinda pop song.”

“I mean it, Fat,” Joe said. They were standing in the Cannon Terminal, in Reno. Joe was feeding nickels into the slot machines, and to his annoyance he kept winning. He didn't hit the jackpot, but there would be a little shower of nickels, and he just couldn't get rid of them. “Nothing but bad news in Detroit,” he said, punching in nickels. His refusal had to do with a series of bad experiences in Detroit, many of which were concerned with a policeman named Mulheisen. But Joe didn't mention Mulheisen. He preferred to chide the Fat Man about his organization's incompetence and inability to deal with their own people. The situation the Fat Man had just mentioned sounded like the same old tune. Joe Service was no fan of the Motown sound. “Guess I'll sit this dance out,” Joe said.

“Too bad,” the Fat Man said nonchalantly. “Lotta money involved.”

“Well, I knew there would be a lot of money,” Joe said, “otherwise you wouldn't have flown all the way out here. Damn!” Three grapes showed in the slot machine window, and another disgusting pile of nickels slithered into the tray just as Joe had stuffed in the last of the previous nickels. He moved to another machine and quickly began to load it up.

“Don't you wanta know how much, Joe?” The Fat Man was disappointed at Joe's lack of enthusiasm.

“Sure. Why not?” Joe continued to punch nickels and crank the handle. “No, . . . let me guess. Five big ones. Maybe seven. That about right?”

“Five big what?” the Fat Man asked.

Joe stopped what he was doing and looked at his massive companion. “There was something in the way you said that,” Joe said. The Fat Man's face was smooth and shiny, revealing nothing. Joe pulled the handle.

Clang-clang-clang . . . three bells rolled up, and the jackpot bell clamored. Nickels were shooting out of the machine and onto the floor. Joe stared at the machine in horror. He threw up his hands, then grabbed the Fat Man by the arm and led him away.

“You ain't gonna leave all them—”

“Forget it, Fat!” They walked off down the concourse, leaving a circle of astounded travelers glancing from the puddle of nickels to the departing men, one of them obese and the other small and jaunty. A child laughed and fell to his knees, picking up the coins and letting them run through his fingers. Other travelers squatted to seize handfuls.

Joe and Fat stopped at a newsstand and stared at piles of magazines and newspapers. “Who is this Hal, anyway?” Joe asked.

“Just a mechanic. We use him off and on the last coupla years.”

“What does he look like?” Joe picked up a copy of Time and flipped through it, not even seeing it.

“About five ten, brown hair,” the Fat Man said. “He looks real ordinary, Joe. A little older than you, thirty maybe. Not a snappy dresser like you, but neat, . . . ordinary. He don't have your build—he's kinda skinny.” The Fat Man was well aware that Service valued his athletic conditioning.

Joe frowned. “He doesn't have a mustache or anything? Glasses? Nanh? Teeth. He have kind of little, separate teeth?”

“Separate teeth? What does that mean, Joe?” The Fat Man snorted.

Joe tossed the magazine back on the pile and held his hands up before his mouth, moving the fingers against the thumbs to simulate a munching action. “You know, little teeth . . . little square teeth that have tiny spaces . . . like those little ears of corn, little white kernels . . . no, hunh?” Joe shrugged. “For a moment there I was thinking of a guy I knew in high school. Well, of course, Hal isn't him, but for some reason I got this flash . . . Where did this Hal come from, anyway?”

They walked on. “Oscar sent him to us. We needed somebody fresh. This was two, three years ago. Oscar said he was OK. Now Oscar says he never even saw the guy; he was just passing on something he heard from Mitch, in New York. Mitch says he thought the guy's name was Julius and he was from Florida. Mitch says he never heard of no Hal.” The Fat Man shrugged and muttered something that sounded to Joe like fuzzuguvuh maybe. Joe had no idea what that was supposed to mean—his Italian was weak; he'd been born Surface, but his father had changed the name to Service.

They had come to a saloon, or a casino, a kind of drinking-and-slot-machine place. The Fat Man waved Joe in. They sat at a table amid the pinging of electronic gambling devices and the jangling of slots. The Fat Man had a glass of red wine. Joe wouldn't have anything.

The Fat Man had set a leather briefcase on a chair next to him. Now he opened it and fished out a manila envelope, which he passed to Joe. “Carmine said to give you this. It seems we still owed you fifty from the last time.” He looked away and sipped his wine.

Joe Service didn't touch the envelope. He hooded his lids and said evenly, “It wasn't fifty, Fat. It was more like a full Benjy.”

“You still talking about them bearer bonds, Joe?” The Fat Man shook his head in disbelief. “I told you about them. With the discount and the commissions it didn't come to anymore'n I paid. You agreed on this, Joe.”

Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are giving me a huge headache, Fat.” His voice was tense and it began to rise. “We always have to go through this . . . this utter fucking crap!” He leapt to his feet and rapidly walked away. The Fat Man remained seated. He stared at his wine; then reached out and picked it up. He sipped it, rolling it around his palate and smacking his lips as if it were some incredible vintage instead of California jug wine. He didn't touch the envelope.

Five minutes later Joe Service returned. He walked in his usual bouncy way and seemed to have completely forgotten his rage. He picked up the envelope, opened it, and peeked inside. He stuck his hand in and ticked through the bills. He tossed the envelope on the table.

“They look all right,” Joe said as if to himself. “You don't ever want to give me bad money,” he said to the Fat Man.

“Stop it, Joe, yer bustin’ my kazakis.”

Joe laughed. “OK. Tell me, Fat, . . . is Detroit still there? I mean, you didn't lose it or something? Are you still in the business? How do you manage? I can't figure it out.”

The Fat Man didn't rise to this. “Every business has its hitches, Joe. Up, down.” He waggled his hand. “This is one of ours. This is why we got you. If these jerks didn't screw up from time to time, you wouldn't have no work. You look like you're doing all right, Joe. You allus made a good living off us. Course I know the other outfits help pay your rent.”

“Understood, cap'n,” Joe said cheerily. “So, what was Sid's sin? How come you sicced this Hal on him?”

“He was stealing.”

Joe nodded. “Right. That's what Sid does. Did. That's what you all do. So?”

“He was stealing from Carmine. He set up some kinda rake-off with the distributors . . . We don't know how it worked—that's where you come in—and we don't know what happened to the money.”

“So you had him hit,” Joe said, shaking his head. “Why would you have him hit? Couldn't you at least wait until you got hold of the money?”

“We hada hit ‘im,” the Fat Man said. “This was the second time around for Sid.”

“Oh, well, that figures,” Joe said. “Gosh, yes, then you definitely had to knock him. But shouldn't you have gotten the money first?”

“Well, Joe, . . . the money's around. It's gotta be around. I mean, it was a lotta money.”

“Five big ones,” Joe said. “Five very big ones.”

“More,” the Fat Man said. “Maybe two, three m—” He stopped as Joe held up a cautioning hand.

“Don't say it,” Joe said. He closed his eyes, thumb and forefinger on his brow, like a mind reader on stage. “It's an M word, . . . am I right? Yes, I see it . . . it's m-m-m-m-mooooola!”

The Fat Man laughed, his belly chugging against the table. “You are a card, Joe.”

Joe popped his eyes open. “And my part, Fat? How much o’ the moola is Joe's?”

“One a the M's, Joe. Carmine says you get one whole M to yourself.”

“That's nice. Real good of ol’ Coach Carmine. That's just about what they pay a second-string shortstop these days. But who's complaining? You paid me today for last time; I guess you'll pay me next time for this time.”

“You find the money, Joe, your part comes off the top.”

Joe Service nodded. “That's right, Fat. Off the top. Now, about this Hal—”

“He's gotta be in on it, Joe. Some of the fellas went over to Sid's and talked to Roman—he was Sid's heat. Roman is a very solid gentleman, Joe. He took a little fist on this—no hard feelin's—and he's clean. He said Hal had been around, talkin’ to Sid. Roman didn't know what it was all about, they didn't cut him in. Sid wouldn't. Sid had a ginch, name is Germaine Kouras, s'posed to be a singer. Calvin went to talk to her. She said Sid and her was gonna beat it, headed for the Cayman Islands first stop. Sid told her he was retiring. He was sick of the old lady, so him and Germaine would just buzz off. She believed it. She didn't know about the rake-off.”

“Who else, Fat?”

“Could be a bunch, Joe. There's a lotta shakin’ goin’ on in Detroit. If we get something, I'll let you know. But I figured you can start on Hal.”

Joe nodded. “How did you contact Hal?”

The Fat Man explained how he would call the service in Los Angeles and Hal would call back, usually within a few hours. It was a system much like Joe's and employed for the same reason: to maintain a safe distance between one's clients and one's locus of being.

“What did he say when you told him it was Sid?” Joe asked.

“Nothin’. Cool as a breeze. He just said it might take a day. I told him it hada be before Monday night. Sid was on ice within an hour.”

“So he was already in Detroit. You think he was there to see Sid? So why did he pop Sid? When you gave him the contract, he knew you were on to something.”

“Well, I wasn't on to him,” the Fat Man said. “The way I see it now, Hal and Sid must've already made their arrangements for shifting the money. Maybe Hal had it. Then he gits the word from me. He goes around and pops Sid and takes off with the money. I don't know how he did it, but I know he ain't called back.”

“You saw this Hal a lot,” Joe said. “Did you ever get any idea where he was from, where he lived?”

“Nanh, I just figgered he was from oudda town. Chicago?”

“Why Chicago?”

“I don't know. Maybe the way he talked, kinda Midwest. He didn't sound like New York or California. Now you, I'd say you're California.”

“Really? Why?” Joe was interested. “The way I talk?”

“Nanh. You allus got a nice tan. You talk about the West a lot.”

“I do?” Joe hadn't realized that. He'd have to watch that, he thought. “A tan, hunh? Maybe I live in Hawaii, Fat. Or Puerto Rico. It's none of your business. Anyway, I'm glad I don't have to live in Detroit. A very bad environment.”

“I didn't realize you was a enviramenalis, Joe. You oughta see Detroit these days. They cleaned up the air and the river a lot. You wouldn't recanize it. They say there's even fish in the Rouge.”

A different sense of environment had prompted Joe's remark. He said, “Don't eat any fish out of the Rouge River, Fat.”

“Speakin’ of which,” the Fat Man said, “don't Charlie Dee have some kinda rest'rant out here? He's a old Detroit boy. Lemme buy you some ribs at Charlie's.”

Walking out to the cab, Joe said, “I need to remind you, and Carmine, Fat, . . . I'm just going to look for this Hal.”

“And the money,” the Fat Man said.

“And the money,” Joe nodded. “But no hit. I'm not a hitter.”

“Well, you let us know when you find him,” the Fat Man said blandly. “Carmine knows you don't do that kinda stuff. You find the boy, you find the—whadjou call it?—moola. We'll take care of the rest. Hey, slow down, don't walk so fast,” he wheezed, “I'm gittin’ to be an old man.”

In the cab Joe said, “Let me guess who's investigating this for the cops.”

“Mulheisen,” the Fat Man said.

Joe sighed.