“The spot is clearly visible from above; however, there are no fixed flight routes over this area.”
“So I got four hours.”
“Precisely. After that time you have two days before the container sinks. The attachment between rope and float disintegrates after that length of time. The average drift of the container would have carried it to this area by that time. Beyond here-another day’s drift-a coastal current would deliver the whole assembly to these shores, a risk that must be avoided.”
“Nice. Very nice.” Alverato was sucking on his lower lip. “Very neat. I got four hours, huh? How do I know when the guy on the ship makes his drop?”
“Presumed time of making port for all ships is posted with the harbormaster. Ships on this lane bound for here send periodic short-wave messages of location and progress after they pass this point on the chart That’s well beyond the drop point, you notice.”
“Who makes the pickup?” Benny asked.
“There is a man-”
“Never mind.” Alverato waved his hand. “I do my own picking up. All we do is keep tuned in, huh? Nice, very nice. What do you think, Benny?”
“Sounds O.K. to me. I’ll still be checking with Pendleton, anyway.”
There hadn’t been any “Mister” before the name, but Pendleton couldn’t do a thing about it.
“I believe that’s all,” he said, and got up from his chair. Two of his bruisers came back to stand next to him, but nobody else moved.
“Sit down, Pendy. There’s one more thing.”
Pendleton’s narrow eyes started to glitter but he couldn’t get his mouth open before Alverato went on. “You’re showing my boy Benny the pickup details and taking him around to those guys you mentioned. And it’s going to be gratis. No fifty per cent, Pendleton.”
Pendleton’s hands pressed on the desk. “I could have you thrown out, Alverato. I could have you thrown out, mess up your deal, and-”
“Why don’t you dry up? Why don’t you get wise and remember there’s only one top dog when I’m around, Pendleton, one top dog who don’t like double-crossers, and who’s got your daughter into the bargain?”
“You’re overreaching.” Pendleton’s voice rose. “You think your intimidations are going to work forever? Just how long do you think you’ll keep my daughter? Just how long do you think I will permit it?” He was controlling his rage now so the voice came out a dry rattle. “You’re not going to keep her, you’re not going to harm her, and you’re not-”
“Why not, Pendy?” Alverato looked lazy.
“Why not? You seem to forget that I want her back, that I’m learning fast how to deal with your kind, that my methods are far more versatile than yours. Or are you threatening to take her life, you fat moron? How, then, do you suppose, can you keep your hold over me?”
Alverato’s face seemed to swell and his beefy hands balled into fists. “I’m going to sit here and take your gaff, Wrinkle-ass? I’m going to let you tell me how to run this thing?” He took a deep breath, ready now for the next bellow when Benny said:
“I’ll take it from here, Al.”
His voice had been even and the room was suddenly like the hushed hall in an empty house.
“Pendleton is coming around all right,” he went on. “I’m going to tell him why he’ll toe the line. Why he’ll do it fast.” There was a pause as if Benny didn’t care one way or the other. “His daughter isn’t dead. And she isn’t alive. She’s right in between, and the more Pendleton stalls, the worse it’ll be for her. Pendleton, you’re selling the stuff that’s got her away from you. Your baby is hooked.” He was playing with an unlit cigarette. “And you’re hooked, Pendleton. That hook has magic. The longer it stays in, the bigger it grows. And the hook is in.”
He stopped and put a match to the cigarette. There was an ash tray on a table nearby and he took the match there, dropped it in, and came back to the desk before anybody had made a sound. Even when Pendleton opened his mouth, it was only a thin, cracked breath that came out.
Alverato managed it first. “By God,” he said, and “By God” again.
Pendleton had sunk in his chair, and the fight for control showed on his face. His mouth grew stiff and then lax again and after a while there was no expression.
“By God, Benny, I wouldn’t have thought it.” Alverato sat with mouth open, the surprise showing frank and simple. When he slapped his hand on the desk, his sudden laugh made a noise like that of stones in a bucket “I wouldn’t have thought it Christ, Benny, you’re a genius!”
Benny let him think it and watched Pendleton, but there was no argument from him. He had seen it on Alverato’s face, the stupid surprise that hung there, and Pendleton never doubted that all of it was true.
They left him there, making a procession of it First Alverato, next to him Benny, and Birdie closing the door.
For a long while it looked as if Pendleton were just sitting, as if he were frozen there and nothing went on inside. But that wasn’t so. At one o’clock in the morning he picked up the phone and got a sleepy night girl at the switchboard a few hours to the south of New York. He got a number from her and he called that. He talked and was very convincing; so much so that he got simple answers that sounded more and more frightened. Nancy Driscoll was very frightened when she hung up the phone by her bed and started to dress.
Chapter Twenty-Four
He had never been any bigger, but if Benny ever thought about it at all, he would only have figured it was his due. For the time being it meant three things.
There was the job to learn the receiving end of the imports.
There was Pat.
There was Pendleton.
To learn the new operations wasn’t different from what he’d been doing for years. He had kept his eyes open then, he was keeping them open now, and if there was any detail that Pendleton wasn’t asked to explain, it wasn’t important They met every day. There now were four men following Pendleton and they kept their hands in their pockets. Benny came alone. What he had by way of protection was a thin girl sitting on Alverato’s estate who sometimes played the piano, or slept, or did listless things with her hands.
In a way it was simple now to take care of Pat. He knew how much to give her and when. Doc Welch had taken care of that. Doc Welch made a solution of the stuff and showed Benny how much she needed. He used a clean syringe and a sterile needle. It was that simple. She didn’t know it, but the hook was in deep. She was a main-liner.
Sometimes Benny thought of the hot nights in the cabin where the Louisiana swamp was singing outside the windows, and how she’d wake with sudden shivers and a wild look in her eyes, as if she were being chased. He thought of that and of the girl now, safe in her addiction; then of how much longer it would have to last.
And finally, there was the job of Pendleton. For a while that could wait. Benny even forgot about the thing between him and Pendleton, even when he was with the man, and Pendleton gave no cause to bring out what was in the past. He was a machine, without memory, and nothing showed on the surface.
So Benny was thinking of something else when he came back to the gate of the Westchester place. There was a cab there, all the way from the city. That was rare in itself. That it should try to get into the Alverato place was even more unusual. But when Benny saw the cabbie arguing with the man behind the closed gate, he felt only irritation because the cab was blocking the way. He cooled fast, though. He got out of his car, gave a short look inside the cab, and he cooled fast.
“Let ‘em in,” he called to the man behind the closed gate. “This is special.”
It was special that Nancy Driscoll should be coming this way.
At the house he watched her pay off the cabbie and took her into a small room in the rear. She wasn’t wearing seersucker this time, but a dress with a print that showed squishy red flowers and a small berry here and there. He told her to sit down, watching the way she kept smiling, a smile neither here nor there, but spread over her face as if it were meant to stay.
