They went down the stairs to the basement-level entrance and walked into Development Associates of Boston. The pretty young man behind the reception desk looked up at them.
“Well, Tarzan,” he said with his
infuriating smile. “And who’s this,
Cheetah?” ‘
Jo Jo had a momentary image of himself yanking the little faggot from behind the desk and smashing his head against the white biSck wall. But he didn’t. This was business, and he Was always aware of Vinnie Morals and his odd unnerving stillness, and how quick everyone said he was when he had reason to be.
“Gino’s expecting us,”
Jo Jo said.
“Me check,” the young man said.
“You wait.” lie stood and went back through the door behind the desk and into the back room. In a moment he came out and made a sweeping gesture of invitation like a maitre d‘ at a pretentious restaurant. Jo Jo could almost feel liasty’s disapproval.
But Gino was Gino and he had to meet the client.
liasty looked around the inner office. It too was white brick, with a vase full of flowers on the desk. A tall spare man sat behind the desk, and a compact efficient-looking man sat to Gino’s left, tilting his straight chair back against the wall.
“I’m Gino Fish,” the
spare man said. “This is my associate Vinnie Morris.”
Morris didn’t make any sign that he even heard Gino.
He simply looked at them without expression. Vinnie Morris made liasty uncomfortable, lie made him think of his new police chief, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Something about potential unexpressed, maybe. The motionless implication that there would be more than what you saw, if you pushed beyond the stillness.
“How do you do,” Hasty said.
Why was he so uncomfortable? He was meeting a couple of small-time crooks. He was the president of his own bank.
He commanded a force of men that would liquefy these two thugs at his order. If one were to guess from the nance at the
.reception desk, Fish might even be a homosexual.
“You want some guns,” Fish said.
“As many as you can get, small arms, heavy weapons.
I’m sure Jo Jo has spelled all this out for you.“
“Jo Jo couldn’t spell
cat,” Fish said, “if you gave him the C and the A.
What do you want the weapons for?”
“There’s no need for you to
know.”
“I like to know,” Fish said.
“You want to do business x/lU$q?
‘57 with me, you do it on my terms. What are you going to do with the weapons?“
“We are a group of free men,”
Hasty said. “Patriots.”
Fish smiled.
“I don’t expect you to
understand,” Hasty said.
He could feel his face getting hot.
“Go on,” Fish said.
“We know that the government is intent on destroying us. We are ready for it. But we need weapons. Not only for the moment but for the long struggle. We need to stockpile so that when they think they’ve confiscated our arms, we can unearth a new supply and rise when they least expect it.”
Fish nodded sl.owly. He glanced once at Vinnie Morris, and then back at Hasty.
“So, you’re going to bury the
guns?” Fish said.
“Yes.”
Fish smiled.
“This got to do with an international
