The Peddler (19 page)

“Tony, don’t be angry,” she said.

“Don’t be angry,” he mimicked. “What you want me to do? Handsprings? I ask you to marry me, but I’m not good enough for you, no, I’m a slimy bastard. I’ve probably contaminated the hell out of Napa just by sitting here. You make me sick.”

“Tony! Please, you don’t know what—”

“I know I wasted a lot of time messing around with you. Good God, you got no idea there’s anything in the world besides this stinking dead town. You belong in a convent where you could play with yourself and think beautiful thoughts. Or a museum.”

“Tony. Stop it! I won’t have you talk like that.”

“You won’t? Well, what the hell are you going to do about it? You want me to say, come with me and I’ll join the Salvation Army and save happy sinners? I’ll study the Bible every night and we can sleep in separate beds—separate rooms. Hell, separate houses. Well, baby, I’m gonna beat it, and this time you don’t have to worry about me coming back.”

She got up and walked to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “Tony, can’t you understand? Can’t you even try to see what I mean, see my point of view? I couldn’t possibly live the rest of my life with a man who—”

“Drop it,” he said harshly. “Don’t give me no sermon. Listen, honey, you’re all mixed up. You’re such a cold-looking piece I figured you’d be terrific once you melted a little. I was right; you’re sensational. You’d have made me a mint in one of my houses.”

She dropped her hands and stepped away from him, her face getting white. He saw the sudden pain in her eyes, the tightening of the lines around her mouth, and because she had hurt and angered him he went on, perversely wanting to hurt her more. And, too, he knew somehow that he had to separate himself from her cleanly and irrevocably, once and for all, or else continue moving through his life as he had for these last confused and unbearable days.

He stared into her face and said slowly, “That shock you, baby? It shouldn’t. I never made no bones about what I am. I’m a king-size pimp, sweetheart, an honest-to-God flesh peddler, and I thought I might be able to do something with you.

I already sent a couple of your little friends to my whorehouses—Ruthie and June. You must have missed them. But you’re hopeless. I’m slow, but I finally figured it out. So this is the end of the campaign.” He stopped, raked his eyes down her body and up it again. “But I could sure have done things for you, baby. Twenty more like you and I could retire.”

Her lips were pressed together in a scarlet line across the dead white of her face. She drew back her hand and swung it toward his cheek with all her strength, but he caught her wrist and held it. She stared at him with her eyes wide and her breath racing through her partly open mouth.

He looked down at her for long seconds, not speaking, knowing he was looking at her for the last time, then he let go of her wrist, turned and left the house.

Tony turned the key in the lock, and went inside his apartment, hardly knowing why he had come back to it. He felt as if part of him were dead; he had the crazy thought in his mind that something inside him had died and was rotting and soon the stench would rise to his throat and nostrils and sicken him. He saw Maria walking toward him. There was somebody sitting on the cream-colored couch beyond her: Angelo.

Tony shook his head. There were too many thoughts swirling in his brain. Maria said something to him, but he ignored her words, looking past her to Angelo.

“What are you doing here?” he asked coldly.

Angelo stood up, “Where the hell have you been, Romero? It’s after midnight.”

“So it’s after midnight. So what? I asked you what you’re doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Romero? I’ve been trying to find you. And watch the way you talk to me.”

Tony looked from Angelo to Maria, back at Angelo’s face. They both appeared a bit disheveled. Tony grinned tightly. “Sure,” he said. “And it’s obvious enough. Don’t know why I asked. Am I talking all right now?”

Angelo’s face hardened. “I want to see you later, Romero. Get over to my office in half an hour.”

“Sure. And you can beat it, Angelo.”

Angelo frowned, staring at Tony. “What? What did you say?”

“Blow. Get lost.” Tony laughed. “You know, beat it.”

Angelo seemed not to comprehend for a moment, then the corners of his mouth pulled down. He stared at Tony for a moment longer before he walked to the door, jerked it open and went out slamming the door behind him.

Tony turned to Maria. “I told you I didn’t want that bastard here.”

“Haven’t you got any sense, Tony? Talking to him like that? He wanted to see you.”

“Sure. Your face is messed up, honey. Your makeup’s smeared. How do you keep from throwing up around that guy?”

“Will you listen to me? He came here looking for you. I told you a while back there was talk about the Eastern bunch coming in here. Well, Angelo’s got something on the fire. That’s why he was so anxious to see you.”

Tony remembered Willie Fife saying something about the Syndicate coming in; there’d been some noise about that for quite a while now, and maybe things were coming to a head.

He said, “What about the Syndicate bunch?”

“I don’t know. He’ll tell you. But there’s something supposed to be settled tonight. If you’d been here there’d of beeu no trouble. But Angelo’s going to talk to them tonight.”

“He couldn’t send one of his boys here, could he? He had to come himself? You have fun, baby?”

“You’re a fine one, Tony. Don’t you think I can figure out where you went? The way you been acting lately, it’s easy to figure. You went to see that girl, whoever she is.”

“Betty, honey. Not ‘that girl.’” He laughed again. “We’re a great pair. I’m out talking to a girl half in the cradle, and you’re in bed with Angelo.”

“I wasn’t in bed with him.”

He shrugged. “So you missed tonight.”

“You wouldn’t care if I went to bed with a horse. Tony, I don’t know, I just don’t know. You’re not Tony Romero any more. You’re not you. And I don’t like the way you are.”

“I like it. Now shut your face.” He went to the bar and began mixing a drink. Maria walked up to him. “Tony, listen. I told you a long time ago you were getting in too deep, and if you kept on you wouldn’t be able to get out. Now the Syndicate’s coming in. Maybe that’ll be bad for you, I don’t know. But you’ve got to slow down. And the way you talked to Angelo—you can’t do that, Tony. You got to take it easy, especially if the big guys come in.”

“I told you to shut up. I’m doing O.K.—and I’ll do better. Angelo doesn’t bother me a bit.”

“He’ll probably talk to the Syndicate men tonight. Doesn’t that bother you? You can’t get funny with them.”

“So maybe I’ll talk to them, too. Angelo’s not the only guy can talk to them, is he? Maybe I’ll talk to them instead.”

She frowned at him. “What do you mean? Don’t talk crazy, Tony. What’s the matter with you? You going crazy or something? You talk like you’re out of your mind. You’ve already gone too far with Angelo.”

Tony swallowed at his drink, ignoring Maria. She griped him, always worrying, yakking at him about something. It was like having a nagging wife.

She said, “Tony, you could still get out. We could go somewhere away from here and—”

He turned to her angrily, “Stop this get-out noise. I told you before. I’m in and I’m staying in.”

She put a hand on his arm, kept talking, pleading with him to get out of the racket while he was still all right, still alive. Rage built in him as he glared at her, watched her mouth working. This was the same kind of thing Betty had given him, the same, stupid woman argument, trying to change him, make him something that he wasn’t. He stared at Maria’s mouth opening and closing, only half hearing her words, rage growing and burning, flaring hotter.

“I tried to tell you,” she was saying. “But you act like you’re crazy, like you’re—”

He swung the back of his closed fist against her mouth. She staggered, and fell to the floor, blood starting to spill from her lips. He walked to her and stood over her. “I told you to shut up!” he said loudly. “I told you to quit yapping at me. Now will you stay shut up?”

She put a hand to her mouth and rubbed it over her lips, never taking her staring eyes from him. Slowly she got to her feet. “That ends it,” she said. “That ends it, Tony. I’m getting out.”

“Good. Beat it. Maybe you can catch Angelo. The sonofabitch. I ought to fix him a little, too. Maybe I will.”

She turned away from him and went to the closet, started taking clothes from hangers. Tony walked up beside her. “If you’re getting out, get out now,” he said. “Just the way you are, baby. Go on, beat it.”

She dropped the clothes to the carpet, walked stiffly to the door and outside. Tony went to the bar and tossed down his drink. Then he threw the glass across the room, shattering it against the wall, and put his head in his hands, squeezed it. He swore violently, then raised his head and looked around him like a man dazed.

Everything was going to hell, everything. And he was still supposed to see Angelo, some goddamn thing about the goddamn Syndicate. He went to the bedroom and got his gun harness and Magnum, strapped them on. He mixed a short one at the bar, drank it, and went out.

Angelo clipped the end off a cigar and stuck it into his puckered mouth. He looked up at Tony, then struck a match and held it to the cigar’s end. Between puffs he said, “We can’t afford to bicker with each other, Tony. I realize a man’s nerves get on edge sometimes, but that’s to be expected.” He took the cigar from his mouth, looked at it.

Tony glanced across the room. Frame and Rock sat in two chairs against the wall. Frame with one leg looped over the chair arm, heavy Rock slumped down with his legs stretched out in front of him. There were only those two others in the room.

Angelo glanced up at Tony. “Sit down,” he said.

Tony sat in his usual chair and waited for the other man to go on. Angelo seemed pleasant enough, didn’t appear to be carrying a grudge because of the way Tony had talked to him at the apartment. Tony felt a little relief ooze through him at the thought; he’d been so keyed up and angry and confused that he’d spoken recklessly to Angelo, but maybe no harm was done.

Angelo said, “You’re the number-one man under me, Tony. We simply can’t afford to bicker or have any difficulties between us. Don’t you agree?”

“Sure. I been having a couple little troubles, Angelo. But that’s all taken care of now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I know you’ve been under a strain, Tony. There’s very little that escapes my attention.” Tony thought the guy’s voice was actually syrupy. Almost too soothing and silken. Angelo had done a complete about-face from the way he’d acted at the apartment.

Angelo went on, “There’ll be two men here shortly from Chicago, Tony. They’re coming into the operation. It will mean changes, but quite a bit of the load will go off our shoulders.”

“How do you mean?”

“The operation will be expanded even further—they have houses stretching clear across the country, so there can be a constant supply of new faces. They’ll handle that end. There should be enough more money so that we all do better.”

“Including me?”

“Of course, Tony.”

“Where do I fit into the new picture?”

“The same as now. Btit …” Angelo paused briefly, then went on, “… as I said, Tony, you seem to have been under a strain. I think you should take a little rest.”

Tony didn’t like the way the conversation was going. Something was screwy. He said, “I just had a long vacation —too long. I’m O.K. now.”

“Let me be the judge of that, Tony.” Angelo’s voice was the merest bit harder. “What I had in mind was a different line of activity for you. Do you remember that night club you mentioned to me a while back? The one not now in use?”

Tony thought a minute. When he’d been casing locations for the queer house, he’d looked over that night club, thinking it could be fixed up into a nice spot with tables below and beds above. It was quite a distance out of the city. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember the place.”

“I’d like to start it up. Put you in charge of the spot, Tony—not for more than three or four months, you understand. Just till you could get it going. Then, of course, you’d return to running the houses for me. By that time, too, all the details of the collaboration with the others—the Chicago men—will be smoothed out. How does that sound?”

Tony said casually, “It might be all right.”

“I’m sure it wiU be. Frame and Rock here—” Angelo nodded his head—“will work with you, directly under you. I’ve already spoken to them about it. You three can go out there tonight and look the place over, see what has to be done. I’d like to get it started as soon as possible. Perhaps you could get the painters and carpenters in there tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Tony said. His lips felt a Uttle numb. Christ, what a sap he was; he’d been long enough figuring out what was up. His heart started beating faster.

Angelo said, “Well, that’s about all, Tony. I wanted this started yesterday—but I couldn’t find you. Look the place over tonight and report to me in the morning. You’ll be in complete charge.”

“Swell,” Tony said. His brain was like ice. It was obvious now: They were going to kill him. This was a nice, civilized ride, the bump-off of Tony Romero.

He managed to smile pleasantly. “Sounds all right, Angelo. Change’ll probably do me good.”

Frame and Rock got out of their chairs. Angelo said, “That’s all, then. Call me tomorrow.”

Tony got up. “Sure, Angelo. I always wanted to sharp up in a tux and watch the tables. Come on, boys, get the lead out.”

Rock drove his own car; his shoulder seemed to be O.K. now. Frame sat in the back with Tony. They were halfway to the night club. Tony remembered the spot well: a big place, boarded up, no other houses or buildings for blocks, a lot of trees and shrubs around and a driveway veering in from the road and curving in front of the club. It was a good place for what was supposed to happen.

Tony’s palms were sweating. Frame had been joking with him, cracking wise and laughing all the way. The atmosphere was one of jovial good-fellowship, a lot of laughter, and some smutty stories. Tony had guessed, in Angelo’s office, what this two-o’clock ride was for, but now the forced hilarity and continual conversation made him positive that he had guessed right. That sonofabitch, Angelo, had finally made up his mind because of the way Tony had talked back at the apartment. Or maybe it was his taking off in the afternoon, dropping everything. Could be, too, that Angelo was simply fed up with Tony, perhaps a little afraid of him, or maybe Tony wasn’t needed now that the national Syndicate was coming in. Getting too big for Angelo’s taste, maybe.