this. Somebody who collects butterflies might talk this way, or someone who collects recipes from Greenland and Ceylon, or maybe instructions on how to grow mandrake roots without benefit of gallows and moonlight.
The cafe had an outdoor part and an indoor part. In spite of the weather there were few people inside. Most of them were at the little round tables which stood by the sidewalk. The men were wrapped in their overcoats and the table tops were damp from the evening fog, but to sit inside would mean not to be able to see anything. They sat with their hands in their pockets and stared at the street, at the leaves dripping on the potted tree, at each other.
“Tell me something,” said Quinn, “you use any local people in your organization?”
“Christ, no,” said Motta, and then he crossed himself.
They walked to the inside of the cafe where two waiters started to scurry as soon as Motta showed in the door. They pushed tables, they jabbered, and they bowed like two pigeons doing a mating dance.
Motta was affable about all of this; he nodded his head, he nodded his stick, and when he took off his hat and one waiter lunged for it Motta smiled at the man and said something in Sicilian.
They took a table which had been pushed to the fireplace, where Motta could warm his back and look at the rest of the room which was almost empty. The usual bare bulb hung from the ceiling, a velour curtain with grease on it covered the kitchen entrance, and the tables were the same as those outdoors-warped wood tops and rusty legs. On Motta’s table was a white tablecloth.
The waiter brought wine without being asked. He poured from the same bottle for Quinn and Cipolla, and all this, Quinn felt, was the usual routine, a nice evening, a nice fire, and a cold fog outside. Maybe, thought Quinn, I shouldn’t have anything to drink.
Chapter 20
Motta held the wine in his mouth and then he swallowed it. While doing this he dipped the end of his cigar into the wineglass, just the tip of it ever so gently, and when he swallowed the wine he immediately put the cigar into his mouth. And now, Quinn thought to himself, something else about new taste sensation.
“So tell me, Quinn,” and Motta took the cigar out again. “Our set-up on the other side, what’s it look like to you?”
“Lousy.”
“It’s making a lot of money for us, Quinn.”
“If I can shake it up…”
“Did you?” said Motta.
“Well,” said Quinn, “just a little tilt. Enough for you to sit here with me and talk about it.”
“That’s true,” said Motta. “That’s true.”
“I’m not here to shake anything up for you,” Quinn said very slowly. My own Santa Claus voice, he thought. Listen to the kindly rumble. “But I am here, Motta, to tell you that the other end of your operation can slide right out from under you, make less money, you know, instead of more.”
“You think it can?”
“Make more?”
“Slide out from under me.”
“Motta, look. I was over there for a few days and saw enough and did enough to start up a take-over, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Motta sighed, stretched, and stroked his vest as if he were stroking a baby. Then he patted it some.
“What I’m asking, Quinn, do you think we can do a job together?”
“I don’t know,” said Quinn. “I can’t answer that because I don’t know enough about your operation.”
“ Right answer!” said Motta. “Very good, boy. Very good.”
Cipolla spat on the floor next to his chair and stepped on it. Quinn lit a cigarette.
“Now I,” said Motta, “got naturally an idea of the set-up, me having made the set-up, but before we go into that, and before you make suggestions-you got suggestions about the other side, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Before any of that, Quinn, let me ask you a question.”
“Go right ahead,” said Quinn, feeling hopped up from all the delay.
“This is about how well you covered your tracks. You got dumped by an independent tramper, didn’t you?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
“That’s what I was told. You know the name of that captain?”
“No. I was…”
“Name of the tub?”
“Why do you ask? I don’t know the name, but why do you ask?”
“Simple reason. By rights, that captain has to report what happened, back home.”
Quinn sighed and then he said yes, he had thought about that too. He didn’t think the matter important. He wanted to start talking business. He wanted that more than anything in the world so as to be done with waiting, and doubting.
“And what did you do about it?”
“Not much. Just some questions. Upshot was, I didn’t think it very likely that the captain would report back the whole irregularity, just for his own sake.”
“Makes sense,” said Motta. “That makes sense.” He nodded his head and sipped a little wine. This time he did not keep it in his mouth but started to talk again right away. “Reason I bring this up, Quinn-what if you start operating out of Okar and then your friends from way back move in on you, not the operation, I mean, but on you?”
“Should that happen,” said Quinn, “I expect to be set up by then in such a way-there are ways-that no outsider can do very much to rock my boat. Speaking of the set-up on the African side, what I’d like to discuss…”
“Later,” said Motta.
Then he waved at the waiter and ordered a meal. Quinn had no idea what was being ordered and did not care. He sat smoking and looking around while Motta went through a long ritual, as if this dump, Quinn thought, was Maxim’s or Antoine’s, unless Antoine’s is a hairdresser’s and I got the names mixed up.
When Motta was done ordering he threw his cigar into the fireplace behind him and folded his hands on his belly. He smiled at Quinn and stroked the belly twice.
“I know you got ways,” he said, as if nothing had interrupted the conversation, “but on the other hand, Quinn, couldn’t any of this interfere with our operation on this side?”
Quinn thought for a moment and then he explained that he did not think so. He thought, first of all, that no one from the States would come looking for him, second, that he could take care of any eventualities, and third, that none of this would interfere with the business, Motta’s business, Quinn’s business, any business. Quinn sighed when he was through, feeling like a schoolboy who had gone through a recitation. And when a schoolboy recites, the teacher always knows everything ahead of time, so this whole talk was sham and useless. Quinn lit another cigarette and felt he smoked too much.
Motta, he was sure, had something entirely different on his mind. I’ll just have to wait, even if I bust.
“I was thinking this,” said Motta, and poured more wine. “I was thinking this because I know the whole operation, of course, and maybe once you do, you’d see it the same way I do, but I’ll explain the details some other time. Antipasto,” he said, and watched the waiter come with the big plate.
Quinn did not wait for the waiter to get done.
“I didn’t understand a word you said,” he told Motta. “Maybe because I don’t know the whole operation?”
Motta laughed and put a pickled cauliflower in his mouth. He kept it there and sucked.
“Ever taste it the way it tastes when you suck?” he mumbled.
No, said Quinn, he had never tasted it the way it tastes when you suck, and what exactly was Motta talking
