“Fancy that.”
“I knew he’d be suspicious,” Ralph said. “I just knew-”
“We are,” said George. “And we’re buying.”
“Right now you’re just talking.”
“We’re buying. You got the key from Snell and we’re buying.”
“Who told you, Kator?”
“I knew-”
“Will you keep your cotton-pickin’ mouth clamped shut on your cotton-pickin’ pipe, if you please?” George sighed and turned back to Jesso. “He’s a pain.”
“Not to me.”
George stuck his long legs across the aisle and put his hands in his pockets. “Look, Jesso, we can’t prove a thing, so we won’t even try. It would take a lot of time, and time we don’t got. We got money, though.”
“So buy yourself something.”
“I’m trying to, Jesso. I’m trying to.”
“What George means,” said Ralph, “is we want the key. Snell’s dying words, if you know what I mean. Now you wonder how do we know so much? Simple. Kator wasn’t the only one after that info. To wit, Snell was going to jump off Kator’s wagon and sell elsewhere.”
“That’s us. Elsewhere,” said George. “But you know what happened. We missed the boat. So right now we’re trying to catch up is all.” George got up. “Wanna come and look at some money, Jesso?”
Jesso kept sitting. “You haven’t said a thing yet.”
“Money talks, Jesso.”
“What good’s it to you? Kator’s got the figures.”
“We don’t need ‘em. We got later ones.”
“Look, Jesso.” Ralph sounded serious now. “Let me tell you the whole thing. We got figures, Kator’s got figures. Together they’d give a much more reliable score for estimating bomb production than either of the lists alone. With your information in our hands, we can argue with Kator. We can get together, make a combine.”
“You’re giving me ideas,” Jesso said.
George made an exasperated swing with one arm, sighed. “Jesso, you talk like an ass. There are some deals too big for one man to handle. You’d be twisted out of shape.”
“I’ve been doing all right.”
“Have you got your dough?”
“No.”
“So don’t talk.”
Jesso thought about that.
“Jesso, there are details to this deal that you as one man, or me, or Ralph over there, couldn’t handle alone. You didn’t know, for instance, that your info isn’t any good after a couple of months, did you? You didn’t know the plants change models, that they produce in periods instead of at a steady rate-all things that you never heard of, that I only know by name, and that I mention just to impress you. Then there’s the problem of getting bids for the merchandise. You don’t know under what phony company transactions these deals are handled, how the money is moved without attracting attention.”
“I’m impressed. Come to the point.”
“The point is simple. Sell to our combine and your troubles are over.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
“I can’t even hear you.”
“Cash, Jesso. Cash in small bills, right here on the train, and we can make it seventy-five. Whaddaya say?”
“I say crap.”
“I told you,” Ralph said.
George leaned over to Jesso and sounded tired. “Look, Jesso, you know how it is. We’re supposed to argue. We’re just hired to do a job. But we’re authorized to go to one hundred grand. That’s all we got, Jesso, honest.”
“Go back where you came from. Kator pays me more.”
“Have you got it?”
Jesso thought about that.
“You don’t know Kator very well, do you, Jesso?”
They waited while Jesso just sat and they gave him all the time he wanted.
“You got it here?”
“Right on this train.”
“Show me.”
Ralph sighed around his pipe and George looked relieved.
“Honest, Jesso, you won’t regret this. Grab your swag and get out of a field you know nothing about.” They walked down the corridor. “We know your rep and everything in New York and so forth, but this is different. Christ, you don’t even know any languages, I bet, except Brooklynese.”
“He don’t sound Brooklynese,” said Ralph.
“Ralph, your mouth. You’re gonna hiccup one day, and fall in. Look, Jesso, I’m just making a figure of speech. I’m trying to show you-“
“You know what you can show me, so stop bending my ear.”
They kept still, both of them, and Jesso followed George down the corridor. Ralph was behind him.
They had a compartment too. It was just like the one where he and Renette were staying, and it made things nice and familiar. Jesso watched George unlock the door and waved Ralph to step through. He himself went in last.
“I’ll lock this door,” he said, and made a noise with the slide. His other hand pressed one of the buttons that kept the bolt from locking.
“I told you he’d be suspicious,” Ralph said, but he was grinning this time. He pulled a suitcase out from under the seat. “Come here and count it.”
“Put it on the seat. I’ll count it from here.”
George spoke up and his voice was apologetic as hell. “Jesso, look. I know how you feel, and you got every right. But let’s play it even. We got all this dough and you got a gun. Your hand’s in your pocket again. So let me get my cannon, see, right here in my coat, and I keep it in my pocket and you keep yours there. You know how it is, Jesso, so don’t misunderstand. If we knew each-“
“I get it.” He made a noise in his pocket.
“So I’ll just get my-”
“Never mind. This is crazy enough as it is. Here, take mine, and keep it till I leave.” He tossed his gun over to George, who caught it, grinned, and dropped it into his pocket.
“No hard feelings, Jesso. You know how it is.”
“So open the suitcase.”
Ralph hefted the two-suiter onto the seat and clicked the locks open. He threw back the cover, lifted the underwear off, and there were the bundles.
They were tens, twenties, and a row of fifties, some dog-eared and held by a rubber band, some stiff and clean, still with the bank wrappers around them. It was a sight.
“Count them out on the seat,” Jesso said.
“In bills?”
“In bundles is good enough.”
Ralph did, and there was one hundred thousand. Jesso grinned and shook his head. “I never saw such a bunch,” he said. “Believe me, fellers, I never saw such a bunch.”
They grinned and nodded too. Ralph put the bills back in the suitcase.
“So whaddaya say, Jesso?” George folded his arms over his chest.
“My, my,” said Jesso. “Myomy”
