Diamond. He’s over at the Plaza having a coffee. I told you this was Just you and me. I’m not a welcher.”
“I’ve heard that too.”
“Good. We’ll get along.”
“What’s to get along about, Mis. . . A. R. ?“
“It comes to me you had this thing with Albert A, up in the country.”
“It was in Providence.”
“Anything past 125th Street is country to me, son. So anyway, it comes to me you insulted him. Something about a car.”
“What it was, Anastasia proposed a merger. I’m supposed to give up my little specialty business and pitch in with Charley Lucky, Costello, Capone, that whole Sicilian bunch, right? And they send Albert A to talk the deal. That‘s what it was. Anyway, he got a look at my car and got all hot and bothered to have it.”
“And you told him it was too big for him.”
“Something like that.”
“That’s rich, that is. I admire your moxie, pal The little bastard really blew his cork, y ‘know. You’re lucky he didn’t start World War Two right there on the spot. I’m sure you know Albert’s specialty is the big knockover.”
“The conditions weren’t right.”
Rothstein laughed again. “Knowing Albert, I gotta agree with you,” he said. “He ‘s not one to go face-to-face with anybody.
“Well, he was a very pushy guy, you see, and I figure he came to me wanting something, so pushy was not the right attitude.”
“You’re large on attitude, are you?”
“No, I’m large on if you want something you say ‘please’ and ‘how about it, ‘ not ‘gimme. ‘
“I’d say that’s reasonable. Unfortunately, Albert A is not a reasonable fellow. He is definitely a ‘gimme’ guy.”
“He s a back-shooting son of a bitch. He kills for wages. He smells like death. And he has hyena breath.”
“Hyena breath.” Rothstein laughed. “That s great. You’re full of em.
“Anyway, he is definitely not the kind of a man you send to talk business. Not f you’re serious anyway. You send a negotiator, somebody who talks give and take. Somebody with a greased tongue and the long schmooze. So what we did, we moved him around some before we sat down to talk. Spooked his tails. Anastasia’s a planner. He couldn’t take me on because he was out of his element, he didn’t have a plan. And his back- shooters were lost.”
“Very clever. So you think he came to kill you?”
Keegan looked at Rothstein and raised an eyebrow.
“No, I think he came to borrow a smoke.
“I must admit, sending him to negotiate anything was poor judgment. Not mine, incidentally. I’m simply here to mediate some differences.”
“That’s why I don’t believe it, A. R. That’s why I think it was not a proposal made in good faith. It was a setup that went sour. They thought they were dealing with one of the Katzenjammer Kids.”
“What exactly do you want, Francis?”
“What do I want? Nothing. Not a single, solitary thing. Zip. Just leave me alone. I’ve got a little specialty business. Hell, it’s a nothing to you guys. Somebody got a wire up his ass on this thing. I do a thousand cases a month, your people do twenty thou. If they wanted to do twenty-one thou, no big thing. See what I mean, what s the diff? A couple of times they tried to knock me over and for what? A thousand cases a month?”
“Three times they almost pulled it off” Rothstein said with a note of fatherly caution in his tone.
“But they didn’t,” Keegan answered. “So why are we here, Mr. Rothstein? Have you got a beef with me?”
“You wanna know the truth?”
“That would be nice.”
“I wanted to meet the man told Albert Anastasia he was too small a guy to fit in a goddamn Rolls-Royce.”
“That’s the whole of it?”
