make my play.’” He thumped the fist softly on the table. “If only I knew which of them it was, if only I had that much satisfaction.”
Parker said, “One of them at the meeting?”
“No.” Lozini opened the fist and pressed his palm on the table top, splaying the fingers out. Squinting through his sunglasses at the pool, thinking about his people, he said, “Some of them are in it, probably, but not running it. They don’t have the strength you need.”
“Shevelly? He’s your second-in-command, isn’t he?”
“Ted’s years from being ready to take over. If he ever could at all, and I don’t think so. Nobody’d follow Ted, that’s the point. It’s got to be somebody that the others would follow.”
“You know your people,” Parker said. “Who’s got the strength?”
Lozini had already been thinking about that, despite himself. “There’s only three men,” he said, “that could organize it, could get enough people to go into it, and could get acceptance from people like your friend Karns.”
“Who are they?”
“Ernie Dulare. Dutch Buenadella. Frank—”
Green broke in, saying, “Oh. Is that how you pronounce it? Dew-lah-ree. I thought it was Dew-lair.”
Lozini frowned at him. “You met Ernie?”
“No, I just read about him in the paper.” To Parker, he said, “Dulare operates the local horserooms. And Louis ‘Dutch’ Buenadella is our pornography king. The movie houses, the bookstores, and at least one mail-order business.”
Startled out of his funk, Lozini said, “You know my operation pretty good.”
With a modest smile, Green said, “I’m the research girl.”
Parker said, “Who’s this Frank? Not Frank Faran.”
Lozini nodded to Green. “You know that part, too?”
”I suppose that’s Frank Schroder,” Green said. “The narcotics man.”
“Jesus Christ,” Lozini said softly. “You want to tell me which one it is?”
“Well, I’ve never met them,” Green said, “but I doubt it’s Schroder.”
“Why?”
“He’s a little old to take over, to begin with.”
“He’s five years younger than me.”
Green spread his hands, and offered an apologetic smile. “Not old to be running things,” he said, “but maybe too old to
“That isn’t true.”
“Of course it’s true. Even I’ve heard it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Oh.” Green made an erasing gesture with the palm of his hand. “I don’t care if the rumor itself is true or not,” he said. “My point is, it’s true that there is such a rumor, and a rumor like that will keep support away from a man.”
Lozini nodded, accepting it. “All right,” he said. “Frank’s the least likely.”
Parker said, “Leaving the other two. Dulare and Buenadella.”
“Right.” Lozini looked at Green. “Any ideas?”
“Sorry. They’re both the right age, they’re both strong, they’ve both got good power bases inside your structure already, they’ve both got the right sort of connections outside town. You know them; which of them is the most greedy?”
“Both of them,” Lozini said.
Parker said, “Give us their addresses.”
“You’re going to go fight my battle for me?”
“No. Whether you make it or not is up to you. But two years ago, whoever O’Hara talked to about the money in the amusement park was somebody already plugged in with this revolution you’ve got going on.”
“It was set up that long ago?” Bewildered, Lozini tried to remember indications that far back, hints that he should have picked up but had somehow missed.
”They’ve been waiting for this election,” Parker said. “That’s what’s going to finish you off.”
“It is, too,” Lozini said.
Green said, “Everybody else in this country has their elections in November. What’s with you people, that you have to be different?”
“We made that change on purpose, years ago,” Lozini said. “People do things by habit. Run the election in an off-year, or in an off-time, you get a lower turnout, you can control the result easier. Only this time it’s working against me.”
