Vinnie moved behind the bar.
'What'll it be?' he said.
'Scotch and soda,' I said. 'Tall glass. Lot of ice.'
Vinnie began to assemble the drinks.
'You know the kind of work we do,' Vinnie said. 'It requires some give and take with the law, you know?'
I said I knew.
'We make some gifts to people in Vice, to people on the OCU, maybe a captain in Command Staff, maybe an intelligence guy out at Ten Ten.'
Vinnie had a Campari and soda mixed and brought it around the bar to Broz.
Joe took it without turning from the window. He took a swallow and continued to stare at the rain while he held the glass.
'Some of these are standup guys, still do the job, bust the freaks, take out the street punks, but they give us a little edge. They treat us right, we treat them right. Some mutual respect. We got some good cops we do business with.'
Vinnie was back behind the bar. He started putting my scotch and soda together while he talked. His voice was quiet in the big formal room.
'Well, Joe has this, whaddya call it, this network in place for a while. He builds it slow, careful, for a long time. Does business with guys we can trust, our kind of people, steady guys, you know? Not flighty, you might say.'
He put the glass up on the bar and I stood and walked across the room and took it and went and sat back down. Vinnie started making himself a drink.
Joe's back was perfectly still as he stared out the window. If he heard
Vinnie talking he didn't show it. He stared at the rain as if he'd never see it again.
'Well, Joe's interested in Gerry learning all of the business, so he puts
Gerry in charge of overseeing that part of things, paying out; and Gerry decides it should be changed a little.'
Vinnie had a thick lowball glass of bourbon overice. He took a taste as he walked around the bar, and leaned on it. He nodded his head slightly, approving of the bourbon. He glanced over at Joe's silent motionless back.
'Gerry started buying up cops like they were made in Hong Kong. He's paying off people at school crossings, you know. And he's got this guy Rich
Beaumont as his bagman. Pretty soon Gerry's got a payroll, looks like the welfare list, makes us like the third- biggest employer in the state. And he's not choosy. Anybody he can bribe, he bribes. Joe hears about it first because one of our guys hears one of Gerry's guys bragging about it. About how he's got Gerry shoving money up his nose, and the guy's laughing. The guy can't do him any good. He's like in Community Relations and Gerry thinks he's still in Vice, and the guy's laughing at us.'
'And talking,' I said.
Vinnie looked at the bourbon in his glass for a long moment. He stuck one finger in and moved the ice around a little and took the finger out and sucked off the bourbon, and ran the back of his hand across his lips.
'And talking,' Vinnie said. He took another swallow of bourbon. I drank some scotch.
From the window Joe said, 'Vinnie,' and held his hand out with the empty glass in it. Vinnie walked over and took it and brought it back and made another one.
'So I talked with Joe about it,' Vinnie said. 'And we decided we'd have to talk with Gerry about it, only by the time we did get to talk with him.. .'
Vinnie walked across the room with the fresh Campari and soda and put it in
Joe's hand. Then he returned to the bar and gazed for a moment at Joe's back. He took in some bourbon. Then he looked straight at me.
'… Beaumont had taken off with a bagful of our money.
'How much?' I said.
Vinnie shook his head. 'You don't need to know.'
'No,' I said, 'I don't. But I need to know if it was enough.'
'It was enough,' Vinnie said. 'He was skimming what he paid out and then, lately, he wasn't paying anybody- and mostly it was okay because the people he was supposed to be paying couldn't do us anything anyway.'
'More than a million?' I said.
'Don't matter,' Vinnie said.
'Matters when I look for him,' I said. 'Where I look depends on what he can afford.'
'Okay, more than a million. He can afford pretty much anything he wants.
But that ain't the point. The point is you can't stay in business and let a chipmunk like Richie Beaumont take your money and give you the finger. He can't be allowed to get away with it.'
'I understand that,' I said. 'I got no problem with that.'
We were all quiet then, the three of us, sipping our drinks at 11:30 in the morning, while it rained outside.
From the window Joe said, 'You gotta stay out of Gerry's way, Spenser. He's got to find Beaumont himself.
