52

Charley invited S. L. Penrose to New York for a 7:30 A.M. meeting at Barker’s Hill offices the day after the surgical procedures on Rado. Pen-rose never seemed to sleep, yet he always looked watchful and rested. He entered Charley’s private office the way he always did, directly from the express elevator that ascended from the garage in the basement. No one could have proved he had been there. Charley locked the doors to his office with an electronic switch. Miss Blue heard the click and wished she could have been a fly on the wall.

“Heller says he wants to show his gratitude,” Charley said. “What’s open?”

“Justice, the CIA, and Defense.”

“What’s best?”

“If you can put your own man in Justice, then I think the CIA. You can control the whole cocaine business from the CIA. And if you can set a friend in Defense, the CIA’s big freight carriers can land all kinds of shit at army and air force bases all over the country. No problems with the DEA. They couldn’t get near you. Besides, the DEA comes under the attorney general in Justice.”

“What else?”

S. L. Penrose grinned. “Hey, that’s like a trillion a year, fahcrissake. The fratellanza will petition the Pope to get you canonized.”

“Forget it. Nobody can get all of it.”

“Then there’s the secret funds the White House and the CIA control for the Freedom Fighters and their little wars all over the world. At least sixty percent of that is skim. I’m not saying it’s skimmed in Washington, but from maker to wearer it’s skimmed. After we get through milking the defense contracts, there are a hundred rackets in the CIA. What is the operative word in secret police? Secret.”

“Would you take the job?”

“Why not?”

“Could you get confirmed?”

S. L. thought of the National Landscape Association files on the Congress “under the mountain” in West Virginia and of his own almost sacred position amid the power bases. He grinned again. “Why not? But lemme say this, Charley, everything will work better if we have our own man at Justice. Like for one thing, the DEA comes under Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs at Justice. Federal indictments, the Prisons Bureau, the courts, the FBI, organized crime, the Pardon Attorney—they all start there. Justice and the CIA and Defense, with that outtasight budget at Defense—it’s like a license to turn the country into a gold mine.”

“Eduardo is the natural for a g.”

“Nobody better. But he’s such a Republican.”

“To get a man of Eduardo’s caliber, I’ll bet Heller would take a larger view.”

“What are you gonna take, Charley?”

“Even if I don’t take anything, I can try to set you and Eduardo and Defense.”

“Who for Defense?”

“Arthur Shuland.”

S. L. grinned from ear to ear.

Charley permitted himself a very small smile. “And the families and the Blacks, the Hispanics, and the Orientals will all show their gratitude.”

“Don’t leave out the Israelis,” S. L. said. “They are coming up very strong.” He put on a topcoat and a hat. “Do you want to have another meeting tomorrow, or do we have everything wrapped up?”

“Everything is covered,” Charley said. “And, besides, Eduardo and I have to go to a very important wedding tomorrow.”

After Penrose left, Charley stared out of the window, up Sixth Avenue and across Central Park. He had the feeling that Pop would have been pleased. It had almost all worked out. The don and Mae had got their respectability at the cost of one little kid never being able to be like other little kids. He had been able to take over Barker’s Hill, and soon he would be taking over the government of the American people to give them what they absolutely insisted they had to have.

The fratellanza hadn’t known what they were talking about when they had called Corrado Prizzi the Boss of Bosses. That was one thing you had to say about respectability, Charley thought, it was great for business.

Tomorrow, he promised himself with deep pleasure, I will put the lock on Eduardo.