“Four hundred and fifty.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s more than two bills apiece.”
Macey shrugged. “Ammo’s included, don’t forget.”
“Christ, you can pick ’em up in the gun shop for less than half that.”
“Four hundred and fifty of them? M2s?”
“There’s that,” I said. “But a hundred grand for four hundred and fifty pieces. I don’t think my people will like that.”
“You came to us, Spence. You asked us. Remember.”
I loved being called Spence. “And remember there’s thirty thousand out for your share.”
“Which you’re keeping.”
“Hey, Spence, it’s owed us. We wouldn’t be long in business if we didn’t demand financial responsibility from our clients. We didn’t go to Harvey either. He came to us. Just like you. You don’t like the deal, you’re free to make another one someplace else. Just see to it that Harvey comes up with the thirty thousand dollars he owes us. Which, incidentally, will increase as of Monday.”
“Oh yeah, you private-service firms seem to work on an escalated interest scale, don’t you.”
Macey smiled and shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I tell you, Spence? We have our methods and we attract clients. We must be doing something right.” He folded his arms. “You want the guns or don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good, then we have a deal. When do you wish to take delivery? I can guarantee day after tomorrow.” He checked his calendar watch. “The twenty-seventh. Sooner is iffy.”
“The twenty-seventh is fine.”
“And where do you wish to take delivery?”
“Doesn’t matter. You got a spot?”
“Yes. Do you know the market terminal in Chelsea?”
“Yeah.”
“There, day after tomorrow at six A.M. There are a lot of trucks loading and unloading at that time. No one will pay us any mind. Your principals have a truck?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. We’ve got a deal. You going to be there with your people?”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t be. But you should have ready for the man in charge one hundred thousand dollars in cash. Go to the restaurant there in the market center. You know where it is.” I nodded. “Have a cup of coffee or whatever. You’ll be contacted.”
“No good,” I said.
“Why not?”
“King’s got to deliver them himself.”
“Why?”
“My people want to do business with the principals. They don’t like working through me. They might want to do more business and they want to deal direct.”
“Perhaps I can go.”
“No. It’s gotta be King. They want to be sure they don’t get burned. They figure doing business with the boss is like earnest money. If he does it himself they figure it’ll go right, there won’t be anything sour, like selling us ten crates of lead pipe. Or shooting us and taking the money and going away. They figure King wouldn’t want to be involved in that kind of goings-on himself. Too much risk. So, King delivers personally or it’s no deal.”
“Mr. Powers doesn’t like being told what to do,” Macey said.
“Me either, but we been reasonable, and you’re getting your price. He can bend on this one.”
“I can assure you there will be no contrivances or double dealing on this. This is an on-the-table, straight-ahead business deal.”
“That’s good to know, Macey. And I believe you ‘cause I’m here looking into your sincere brown eyes but my clients, they’re not here. They don’t know how sincere you are and they don’t trust you. Even after I mentioned how you been to college and everything.”
“How about we just cancel the whole thing and foreclose on Harvey.”
“We go to the cops.”
“And Harvey explains why he needed all that money we advanced him?”
“Better than explaining to you people why he can’t pay.”
“That would be a bad mistake.”
“Yeah, maybe, but it would be a bad one for you too. Even if you wasted Harvey you’d have the fuzzy-wuzzies following you around and you’d have me mad at you and trying to get you busted and for what? All because King
