down into the swimming pool. Or you could just sit at the big table in the middle of the room and listen to the hollow racket come out of those windows.
There was a lot of smoke hanging over the table. There were eight or ten men but Lippit wasn’t there. They all stopped talking when I came in and waited till I came up to the table. Then Lippit’s lawyer said:
“You lost a button, Jack.”
“Which is why I’m late. I hunted and hunted…”
But they weren’t really listening. They were all in a lousy mood.
“Where’s Lippit?” I asked.
“He wants you to join him,” said the lawyer. “Seeing you weren’t here when expected and no telling when you’d show up, he took off while he was still in a fairly clean mood and said you should join him. If that would be all right with you.” And he handed me a slip of paper with an address written on it.
I held it in my hand and looked at everybody at the table. “That’s why everybody sits here in a stinking mood? To tell me Lippit left?”
There was the lawyer, Lippit’s accountant, and a manager from Lippit’s shop where they fixed jukeboxes. Those three wore tuxedos same as I, because they were the only ones Lippit had invited for the little party at his place. The rest were in daytime clothes. I didn’t know all of them, but the ones I recognized were from Lippit’s own union. Which is only a manner of speaking, because Lippit did not own a union. He ran a local, however-electrical services-and the men in it handled Lippit’s equipment There was also a union which he did own, in much more than a manner of speaking, which covered the drivers who did his deliveries. The man who ran things for Lippit inside these two unions was a thin person named Folsom. He liked black leather jackets, as if he were a punk or a motorcycle cop.
“I called this meeting,” Folsom said.
“Is that why Lippit’s not here?”
I didn’t like Folsom. I thought he was more like a strike breaker than a union man. He did mostly what Lippit told him to do, which amounted to keeping the wages steady and keeping free-lance labor away from Lippit’s territorial interest, but I got the feeling that Folsom might like more. Such as not being a salary man. Such as getting cuts out of union dues or a slice out of juke machine operators. In a way Folsom might well be what Lippit had been, let’s say ten, fifteen years ago, though there was a point where Lippit had stopped. I did not think Folsom would stop.
He said, “I don’t know about you, Mister St. Louis, but Mister Lippit thought that what I have to say was important. Important enough for him to show up and take action. I knew, of course, that he was having this little party of his, some private party, as I understood, however I felt…”
“All right, all right,” I said, since he had made his point; that he was on the ball twenty-four hours, no matter how much anyone else might be goofing-including the boss. And that he knew he had not been invited, though this did not impair his high feelings of duty and loyalty. Correct, nice, and spiteful, that Folsom.
“What is your bad news, Folsom, that you should get such a charge out of it?” I asked him.
“Well, Mister St. Louis, I don’t know how you look upon it, but my boys, they don’t like it one bit. Not one bit, Mister St. Louis. And Mister Lippit agreed with me. He doesn’t like it one bit.”
“What?”
“Look at Kramer, please.”
I looked at the one he called Kramer and the man had a black eye. He was big and hefty but he had a black eye.
“And Balowski here, they broke the windows in his truck. And Epsen, they threw his tools all over the street and kicked him right there. Show him, Epsen.” But Epsen didn’t want to get up.
I said, “When did all this happen?”
“Today. And my boys and me, we don’t like it.”
I didn’t like it either. I looked at the lawyer and he nodded. “Benotti started this all at once, looks like. First I heard of it, anyway.”
I had thought that Benotti had just been scaring the jukebox operators, an easy mark like Morry perhaps, and a little guy like Louie.
“In other words,” said the lawyer, “there’s more organization behind this than we thought till now.”
“Or maybe Benotti is stupid,” I said.
“No. More like, he’s bigger than we thought.”
“And Mister Lippit,” said Folsom, “is of that same opinion, once I talked to him.”
I just nodded. The picture was getting worrisome.
“And I just hope,” said Folsom, “Mister Lippit is doing the right thing. I know he’s going to take care of this thing but I hope he’s doing it right.”
“What he means,” said the lawyer, “we had this argument here. Folsom…”
“Fight fire with fire,” said Folsom, as if he had a big audience.
“Yeah,” said the lawyer. “Anyway, Lippit wants to first try it nice. Talk things over.”
“Where is he?”
“I just gave you the address. You should join him.”
I looked at the slip and saw that Lippit had gone to Benotti’s. To try it nice and talk things over.
“Christawmighty,” I said, and then I left right away.
There weren’t so many children out on Benotti’s street any more and the lawn sprinkling was over, but there were people sitting on most of the porches. They sat and smoked or they talked in the dark. There was nobody on Benotti’s porch.
I didn’t see Lippit’s car and had the quick, useless thought that maybe he hadn’t come after all. Then I parked a little ways down, walked back, and went up Benotti’s drive. Maybe they would all be sitting in the kitchen again.
The kitchen was lit but empty. Then I heard the heavy thunks in the back of the house, which had to be Lippit walking. He had a very hard footfall when in a certain mood. He came down the hall, then into the kitchen, and when he walked through there he knocked into the table. He kept right on walking and left the table standing at an off-angle. Lippit was that big and that mad. He kicked the screen door open and so he would know I was out there before the door came flying shut with a racket I said, “Hello, Walter.”
He stopped, caught the door and closed it very gently.
I said, “You-uh, spoke to Benotti?”
Lippit didn’t answer. He just took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Walter.”
“ Late? ”
“Yes. I was…”
“You got here before me, didn’t you?”
Then he opened the screen door again and then slammed it shut.
Lippit, when his mood demanded, would bellow his words for a while and then would be done with his rage. That, and slamming that door, did it for him and he felt visibly better.
“Yessir,” he said. “I came for a calm, friendly talk. Yessir.”
“Didn’t work, huh?”
He looked me up and down, but didn’t bother to answer.
“I talked to Folsom,” I said. “The way he acted, I am glad to see that you aren’t taking all this with the same…”
He bent to the floor and picked something up.
“You’re missing a button,” he said. “This the one?” And he gave it to me.
The gesture raised hell with the argument for a cool, peaceful procedure I was going to offer. Not that I was the reasonable one and Lippit the oaf needing special guidance. Except, the case was special for me. I just wished Lippit wouldn’t start going too fast.
“How’s Benotti?” I said. “Is he in bed?”
Lippit went down the porch steps and said, “Yeah. He’s in bed.”
“That’s a help, isn’t it? Now he’ll be out of touch for a while and…”
“Yeah,” said Lippit, and then he turned and went back into the house. The screen door slammed shut, his
