The Bachman Books

He was turning to the window again when the intercom buzzed. Vinnie was back from the German restaurant.

'Send him in.'

Vinnie came right in. He was a tall young man of twenty-five with an olive complexion. His dark hair was combed into its usual elaborately careless tumble. He was wearing a dark red sport coat and dark brown pants. A bow tie. Very rakish, don't you think, Fred? I do, George, I do.

'How are you, Bart?' Vinnie asked.

'Fine,' he said. 'What's the story on that German restaurant?'

Vinnie laughed. 'You should have been there. That old kraut just about fell on his knees he was so happy to see us. We're really going to murder Universal when we get settled into the new plant, Bart. They hadn't even sent a circular, let alone their rep. That kraut, I think he thought he was going to get stuck washing those tablecloths out in the kitchen. But he's got a place there you wouldn't believe. Real beer hall stuff. He's going to murder the competition. The aroma . . . God!' He flapped his hands to indicate the aroma and took a box of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his sport coat. 'I'm going to take Sharon there when he gets rolling. Ten percent discount.'

In a weird kind of overlay he heard Harry the gun shop proprietor saying: We give a ten percent discount on orders over three hundred.

My God, he thought. Did I buy those guns yesterday? Did I really?

That room in his mind went dark.

Hey, Georgie, what are you-

'What's the size of the order?' he asked. His voice was a little thick and he cleared his throat.

'Four to six hundred tablecloths a week once he gets rolling. Plus napkins. All genuine linen. He wants them done in Ivory Snow. I said that was no problem. '

He was taking a cigarette out of the box now, doing it slowly, so he could read the label. There was something he could really come to dislike about Vinnie Mason: his dipshit cigarettes. The label on the box said:

PLAYER'S NAVY CUT

CIGARETTES

MEDIUM

Now who in God's world except Vinnie would smoke Player's Navy Cut? Or King Sano? Or English Ovals? Or Marvels or Murads or Twists? If someone put out a brand called Shit-on-a-Stick or Black Lung, Vinnie would smoke them.

'I did tell him we might have to give him two-day service until we get switched over,' Vinnie said, giving him a last loving flash of the box as he put it away. 'When we go up to Waterford.'

'That's what I wanted to talk to you about,' he said. Shall I blast him, Fred? Sure. Blow him out of the water, George.

'Really?' He snapped a light to his cigarette with a slim gold Zippo and raised his eyebrows through the smoke like a British character actor.

'I had a note from Steve Ordner yesterday. He wants me to drop over Friday evening for a little talk about the Waterford plant.'

'Oh?'

'This morning I had a phone call from Steve Ordner while I was down talking to Peter Wasserman. Mr. Ordner wants me to call him back. That sounds like he's awfully anxious to know something, doesn't it?'

'I guess it does,' Vinnie said, flashing his number 2 smile-Track wet, proceed with caution.

'What I want to know is who made Steve Ordner so all-at-once fucking anxious. That's what I want to know.'

'Well-'

'Come on, Vinnie. Let's not play coy chambermaid. It's ten o'clock and I've got to talk to Ordner, I've got to talk to Ron Stone, I've got to talk to Ethel Gibbs about burnt shirt collars. Have you been picking my nose while I wasn't looking?'

'Well, Sharon and I were over to St-to Mr. Ordner's house Sunday night for dinner-'

'And you just happened to mention that Bart Dawes has been laying back on Waterford while the 784 extension gets closer and closer, is that it?'

'Bart!' Vinnie protested. 'It was all perfectly friendly. It was very-'

'I'm sure it was. So was his little note inviting me to court. I imagine our little phone call will be perfectly friendly, too. That's not the point. The point is that he invited you and your wife to dinner in hopes that you'd run off at the mouth and he had no cause to be disappointed. '

'Bart-'

He leveled his finger at Vinnie. 'You listen to me, Vinnie. If you drop any more shit like this for me to walk in, you'll be looking for a new job. Count on it.'

Vinnie was shocked. The cigarette was all but forgotten between his fingers.

'Vinnie, let me tell you something,' he said, dropping his voice back to normal. 'I know that a young guy like you has listened to six thousand lectures on how old guys like me tore up the world when they were your age. But you earned this one.'

Vinnie opened his mouth to protest.