The Erection Set

to pick up a lousy ten-grand bonus to add to that suitcase and it was like Titanic time. The fucking ship is sinking only nobody knows it. They keep eating and singing and when it comes time for the big bailout there aren’t enough lifeboats and the only ones having a ball are the sharks.”

“You think too much,” I said.

“What happens to your little doll, buddy? Suddenly you got her all turned upside down too.” I went to talk but he stopped me short. “Shit, man, don’t put me on. Everybody knows everything in this town. That kid’s turned colors like a chameleon since you gave her that tingly look of yours. You melted the ice, now you’re going to let her drip all over the place. What happens if they try giving her the bath too?”

“She’s got a cover on her.”

“Great. Fine. Beautiful games you play, kiddo. For what? Just what the hell are you after, Dog?”

I snubbed out my cigarette in the coffee cup and looked at the wet filter floating in the dregs. “I keep saying it, but nobody wants to believe me. I don’t want anything. Just my ten grand.”

“Suppose they keep on not believing you?”

“Then they’re going to have to find it out the hard way.”

The late editions of the papers carried a bigger story on Markham and Bridey-the-Greek. A reporter with an inside track to classified information blew the whistle on their being contract men and the six o’clock TV news report confirmed it with an overseas source tying them in with The Turk’s operation in Europe. One of the wire services had managed to contact The Turk, but he claimed he was a legitimate businessman and denied the connection. The analysis mentioned the suspected killing of a narcotics courier in Marseilles and the furor in certain circles because a multimillion-dollar shipment of heroin was supposedly sidetracked and hinted at a connection between all the events.

Al DeVecchio gave the new color TV a disgusted slam with the flat of his hand and switched the set off. “Now we know,” he said.

“Now you know nothing.”

“I made some calls today,” Al told me. He eased out of the sofa and poured himself another beer, watching me in the mirror in the back of his bar. “I finally got to a police chief in the south of Spain who was willing to talk upon recommendation of a certain friend.”

“So?”

“There was a shadowy figure they referred to as El Lobo who raised all kinds of hell over there. Nobody ever identified him and very few knew him. One that did claimed he died in the hills just outside that city in the south of Spain.”

“So?” I sipped my beer and waited.

“El Lobo seemed to take particular pleasure in muscling in on the activities of another shadow figure they call Le Fleur. In fact, he was so damn good at it that he was inching his way up to being top man in the narcotics racket.”

“If he’s dead, why worry about it?”

“Because nobody has ever seen the body and his handiwork is still being felt.”

“That’s a police problem,” I said.

Al turned around, walked over and stood in front of me and dug his eyes into mine. “It goes a little bit further. The police are on one side and those pretty deadly organizations are on the other. The cops are restricted. The others aren’t. They got the money, the men and the expertise to enforce their own rules and they couldn’t care less who gets in the way. They don’t think El Lobo is dead at all.”

“Get to the point, Al.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve picked up the similarity between El Lobo... the wolf... and your name. Tell me, pal, did anybody ever refer to you as The Dog?”

“I’ve been called worse.”

He shook his head and waited. I nodded. “Come on,” I said, “it’s a natural for anybody with my name.”

“All right, Dog ... just don’t lie to me this time. It’s something I can do very few other people can do. I can tell when you’re lying without any doubt at all. Are you... were you El Lobo?”

This time I let my own eyes do the digging. “Nope. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Across the room the clock ticked on the wall. It was a long time before Al gave me a tight little smile and took another pull of his beer. “Okay, Dog, I believe.”

“I’m glad somebody does.”

He eased back down on the sofa again and crossed his legs. “I cross-checked on Roland Holland today too. Our old buddy is sitting pretty.”

“Smart boy, that one.”

“You guys were pretty close at one time.”

“Hell, we flew together,” I said. “You knew him as well as I did.”

Al nodded, finished his beer and got up for another one. “Funny, him taking his discharge overseas the way you did.”

“He didn’t have anything to come home to either.”

The beer can popped open in Al’s hand and he sipped the foam off before it could spill. When he wiped his mouth he said. “Rollie was a Phi Beta Kappa man. Masters degree and all that stuff. Pretty brilliant guy with a hell of a lot of potential.”

I knew what he was getting at. “That’s why he stayed in Europe. That’s where all the big opportunities were. If you checked on him you damn well know he didn’t make any mistakes. Right now he heads up some mighty big industries. Hell, even government leaders consult him before they make any moves.”

“Does he ever consult you, Dog?”

I let out a laugh. “Sure. Who do you think is the brains behind all that Phi Beta Kappa business?’

Al grunted and tried his drink again. “Not you,” he said “You never could even count.”

“Then why the interest in Holland?”

“Because, Doggie boy, friend Roland Holland comes across as thinking you’re the greatest and praise from somebody in that quarter is praise indeed, especially when you balance it against the fact that you have an unexplained source of wealth, your name seems to draw a clamlike silence in certain quarters, you’re a target of attack by a couple of killer and you’re damn inquisitive about the machinery of narcotics traffic.”

“I’m an enigma,” I said.

“You’re a pain in the ass and you scare me.”

“Did you get what I asked for?”

He put the beer down on the table beside him and made circles on the polished mahogany with the wet bottom of the can. “I got some information by not asking anything. Two important parties were conspicuously absent from our meeting and from what I overheard during a phone conversation, and extrapolated from the tone of voice, those two parties are not in good standing with key figures because of a bungled operation, and unless they come up with the answer... and a missing product, the situation is likely to turn into one of those concrete overcoat affairs.”

“You extrapolate pretty well.”

“That’s my business.”

“Who’s holding the dirty end of the stick?”

“Familiar with the Guido brothers?”

“Didn’t they work the waterfront and the airport rackets?”

“They moved up,” Al said. Then he paused and gave me another hard look again

“For a guy who’s been away. you’re pretty knowledgeable ”

“We have newspapers in Europe. They go in heavy for sensational crime in America.”

“The Guido brothers handle narcotics. The state and the U.S. Senate ran two investigations on them and couldn’t get past their cover. Neither one ever took a fall. They lie behind a legitimate front and play it from there.”

“If they’re that good, then why the sudden heat from their friends?”