What then?'
Every night I go to bed I wonder if any of us are going to be here in the morning,' she said. With all the bombs and missiles, the world is dangerous enough as it is. I mean, what would the Russians do if Castro was killed?'
We just have to try and live our lives as if none of that matters' said Tom.
I suppose so.'
Tom put his arms around Mary and hugged her tight, enjoying the scent of her silky hair and her cool body.
I love you,' he said. But you're going to give yourself an ulcer if you start worrying if we're going to be here in the morning and stuff like that. Don't worry about it. Life's complicated enough. Just accept that I'll be here and leave it at that.'
Okay,' said Mary. She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. She sensed he wanted more but held herself back a little. They were both silent for a minute.
Then Tom said: I guess I'd better go and see Alex.'
Mary grimaced. She didn't much care for Alex, nor the interest he took in their lives. He was always turning up, uninvited, unannounced, as if he was checking up on them or something. She supposed it came with the territory - who Alex was and what he did -but that didn't make it any better. About the only thing she appreciated was that he had never tried to make a pass at her. Like most of the other guys she met. Quite a few of whom she even slept with.
You know? I think I remembered,' she said. I think there's a Rosselli who is in the mob.'
Tom thought for a moment about what Rosselli had actually said: that he worked for the government. For the CIA. Absently, he said, I wonder if it's the same guy.'
In your line of work, honey, I doubt that it's any Rosselli selling vacuum cleaners.'
Tom smiled at that. But there were times when he thought Mary's mouth, beautiful though it was, might be a little too smart for her own good.
Alex Goldman was an old friend of Tom's from way back, who now worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the Miami headquarters on Biscayne Boulevard, in northwest Miami. Like most of the agents working there, Alex was concerned with the fight against communism. But he and Tom shared information on a regular basis, about a whole host of subjects that was not necessarily anything to do with commies. So when Tom had eaten his turkey dinner he went out again. Usually, Alex was not a difficult man to find at eleven o'clock at night. Just about every evening when he was in town he could be found in Zissen's Bowery on North Miami Avenue, only a few blocks away from the FBI building.
Zissen's Bowery was the oldest club in Miami, but the Carioca or the Boom Boom Room, it was not. Big hotels, like the Americana or the Fontainebleu, might have succeeded in stealing most of Miami's well-heeled night-club trade, but there were still a few joints that appealed to those who had to get by on a special agent's salary. Places like Zissen's, with sawdust on the floor, pretzels on the bar, and the kind of barman who had no more idea of how to mix a Manhattan than he had of making a Betty Crocker cake. The people who went to Zissen's drank beer and hard liquor, and if they happened to be people like Alex Goldman, they drank them side by side.
Goldman was bigger than Tom with fists the size of bowling balls. His grey hair was crew-cut and he wore a dark cotton suit that was too tight for him and smelled strongly of sweat and pipe-tobacco. The money clip on the bartop in front of him, made out of a silver bullet, was the neatest thing about Goldman and seemed to indicate that he was making an evening of it. Originally from New Orleans, he had the up-tempo drawl of a well-educated if easy-going southerner.
Well, well, well,' he said, eyeing Tom through a thick cumulus cloud of pipe smoke. If it isn't Paladin.'
Tom didn't watch much TV but he knew Goldman was referring to a show on CBS called Have Gun, Will Travel that starred Richard Boone, an actor to whom Alex bore a certain resemblance. Tom wasn't in the least bit concerned that a federal agent knew what he did for a living. Federal agents turned a blind eye to all kinds of things in Miami. Especially agents like Alex Goldman, whose own activities as a member of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division were in the main illegal.
How's my favourite spy?' asked Tom, clapping the big man on his Dakota-sized shoulder.
That fucking movie,' sneered Goldman. I hate Bob Hope. The Road to the Gas Chamber. Now that's one movie I'd like to see him in.'
They ordered some beers and took them to a quiet table in the back.
What do you know about John Rosselli?' asked Tom.
Johnny Rosselli,' sneered Goldman. Don Giovanni to his guinea friends. He's the mob's number one faggot.'
He is?' Tom sounded surprised. Then he was surprised that he was surprised. Now that he thought some more about Rosselli - the cologne, the fastidious lips, the manicured fingernails, the Eldorado Brougham with the built-in vanity case, maybe even the fag at the Key Biscayne Hotel - it seemed a little more obvious than before. But he still was not wholly convinced. Sometimes Goldman just said things to provoke people, which was, after all, his main job function. Within the Intelligence Division he ran the FBI's local COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence programme devised by J. Edgar Hoover to flush out or screw up communists.
Goldman puffed his pipe furiously. He was married for a while. To some movie actress broad. June Lang, I think her name was. But it didn't take. Anyway, that's why he likes it here in Miami. I'm told it can get quite hot in Vegas and LA, so it isn't the fucking sunshine that brings his guinea ass down here, you can be sure of that. Just don't go to the can with the guy, that's my advice.' Goldman chuckled his way into a short fit of coughing.
Mob guy, huh? He told me he's working for the government. For the Company.'
Now and then, mob and Company interests coincide and they share resources. Like in Guatemala. The Don's been in and out of Guatemala since fifty-six, fixing things for Carlos Marcello. He runs most of the things down in G City. Anyway, fixing things for Marcello also fixed things for the Company. But it's interesting that he actually said that. Give it to me again. Like his exact words, Paladin.'
He said he was working for the government,' shrugged Tom. Later on, when I referred to him working for the Company, he didn't contradict me.'
Goldman nodded thoughtfully. I guess it would figure. Rosselli's one well-connected queer, I'll say that much for him. He's always been a kind of liaison man in Hollywood and Vegas. Between the big bosses: Meyer Lansky, Sam Giancana, Santos Trafficante and Marcello. Back in the thirties and forties he was Capone's man. Then Ben Siegel's sidekick.'
According to Rosselli, he was a Hollywood producer for a while.'
That's one word for it. But he was always Chicago's man out there. Him and Joe Kennedy. The Don and some other muscle took over the labour unions in Hollywood and started to put the squeeze on the big studios. Columbia. Warner Brothers. MGM. They paid up or there was a fucking strike. As simple as that. The amazing thing was that the Bureau managed to make a case against him. Rosselli and some of the other guineas involved. It doesn't happen very often. Sometimes I think Hoover must be on the take himself. That or they've got something on him. Like he's the same kind of fruit as Rosselli, for instance. Take the Bureau here in Miami. We've got two hundred agents handling the investigation of so-called communists in the city. And just three who are concerned with organised crime.
Anyway, back to the Don, fifteen, twenty years ago. There was this guy named Willie Bioff.' Having pronounced the name Buy-off, Goldman grinned. 'Is that a good name for a chiselling rat who is helping to put the squeeze on you, or what? The mob had made him president of the biggest motion picture union out in Hollywood, and it was him the feds managed to put the squeeze on right back. Willie Bioff ratted on the Don and some other colourful friends of his, and then lived long enough to change his name, move to Phoenix, and get blown to pieces by a car bomb. Don Giovanni and those other movie fans, they went to jail. Not that the Don did much fucking time, you understand. Couple of years at most. Someone fixed it for him to have an early release. LAPD most likely. When Siegel got himself murdered it kind of left a vacuum for all the cops on the take. So Rosselli came out and cut himself a deal. Parker, the LA police chief, virtually fingered the Don's only rival for the territory. A Jew named Mickey Cohen. See, Parker disliked Jews about as much as he disliked niggers, and felt more comfortable dealing with the guineas.
Goldman re-lit his pipe and blew out a long cloud of smoke.
The Don was quite a talent-spotter, too, let me tell you. Still is. He's helped a lot of careers in Hollywood and
