back in 1948. His name was Weal and we used to refer to him as the Ferris Wheel because he was so damn devious he went around and around to keep from being tagged by anybody at all, taking his cut without asking questions, always delivering on schedule and never tried the shit the others did when they thought they had an advantage. I had to run him down because I didn’t like any loose ends in the organization and besides, his damn anonymity was a challenge to me and they said I couldn’t do it. So I did it anyway and finally saw the guy who terrorized the Nazi bigwigs who occupied Paris during the little time they were there and he saw me and all he did was give me that funny smile and walk away, head down, knowing I realized he really wasn’t eighty years old, but maybe fifty or so and quick and strong enough still to be able to kill with hands or feet and get away across the rooftops while the Gestapo were looking for an aged cripple.
How many years ago was that? Hell, now he would be an old man. Shit, the Ferris Wheel was still turning, but where and why and how? Especially why?
Then I knew why and I damn well had to make Ferris come out into the open. If he was cagy then, he’d be cagier now and with what was happening he was about to throw everything away. He’d figure it was still the old days and the old ways, but if things soured out the river would get it all and he’d kiss everything good-bye and go back to some little place some little somewhere, remembering all that went past and maybe smile because there was still enough left in him to almost carry out the last mission.
So think, baby, where would Ferris be? Where would the old wheel be hiding?
I thought, and I knew.
There wouldn’t be a chance in hell of finding him because I knew where he was, and unless he tapped me on the shoulder or the long arm of improbable coincidence reached out, Ferris was buried in his natural cover.
Ferris, you bastard, I thought. You’re going to make me smoke you out. Okay, old snake. I can do it. You’re waiting to see if I can.
The sky laughed and spit down on me again.
Rain. And Teddy Guido was dead. Somebody had thrown a hand grenade through the window of his study and he was a little bag of garbage in a closed copper coffin on a shelf in Mario Danado’s New Jersey mortuary. The services were slated for the day after tomorrow. The grenade would have gotten the entire family if they hadn’t left the room a minute earlier. His brother was in South America shivering his insides out knowing his turn was coming next. I was on Chet’s wipeout list as fast as he could get the men inside the perimeter and I told him to send the best and if they didn’t make the hit I’d be on his back, like personally and with the old blade, so watch it, boy. All contacts were cut and it was time to flush the toilet. I was the bowel block that had to go down the drain. I told him I’d have to be surgically removed and he said he’d do that too, if necessary. I said to bring a big, long-handled spoon because he was going to need it.
I looked up at the house where my father fucked my mother and got me in the bargain and I said into the night, “Damn, Pop, I’m glad you fucked and didn’t have intercourse. There’s a difference, isn’t there?”
Maybe the wind had a voice, but something answered me. “You’re damn well told, son,” it said.
I nodded and started on the last lap.
Down at the flag line a leering skeletal head with a black cloak was standing. It held all the armament.
Except the big one.
I had that.
They had the stockholders’ meeting and I lost. I was holding a boxful of paper and elected to the board along with my cousins, but Cross McMillan was chairman and his boy was president with all the power going to the head of the table and only a few swing votes put it that way and it was enough. All I had was the dubious satisfaction of knowing Dennie and Alfred realized I was the one who had bought up all the crappy stock and the money I had spent was already down the drain. Sure, I owned Mondo Beach, but they had Grand Sita which stood smack square in the middle of all the action and it was theirs. Like theirs. The counselor could even prove it for them.
Time was running out and they damn well knew it.
Only I didn’t know it.
We had dropped off the idiots and I sat across from Leyland Hunter, watching him play with his drink and he finally said, “You’re gone, boy. I tried to tell you.”
“Trying isn’t good enough.”
“You know McMillan can even stop the picture if he wants to?”
“Yup.”
“What else do you know?”
“He won’t.”
“Why?”
“Cross wants me to fall, that’s why.”
“And you won’t?”
“Hell, Counselor, I can’t.”
“Refuse to quit?”
“Why die before your time, old buddy?”
He put his glass down and looked at me across the table. “You’re even worse than your old man.”
“Inherited factors, Lawyer,” I said.
“You have something on your mind.”
I finished my drink. “Nothing I’ll tell you.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
“Why not?” he repeated.
“Once before you told me. I think I have the situation conned now.”
“So con me.”
“Shit,” I said, “you’re an old legal hound. How could I?”
“I think you can,” he said. “What do you know?”
“As my erstwhile buddy put it, I have extrapolated.”
“I see.”
“The pig’s ass you do,” I said.
“So, as your lawyer, is there anything else you need of me?”
“To be sure, Counselor,” I said. Damn, I was getting drunk and I couldn’t afford to get slopped up. I reached in my pocket and dragged out an old envelope. I filled half of it with my own miserable penmanship, made Hunter sign it, then tossed him my two big bank books. “Is that adequate?” I asked him.
“You should have been a lawyer,” he said. “If this were a dying man’s statement it would stand up in any court. Holographs ...”
“Consider me a dying man, mighty Hunter. What difference does a few days make?”
“Your choice, Dog.”
“Of course. By the way,” I added, “you screw that broad again?”
His smile was ·simple and sweet. “I took them both as mistresses until they can find somebody better. In fact I have even endowed them with a dowery.”
“You’re a dirty old man.”
“I’m a sexy senior citizen, remember?”
“Will they?”
“A man of my age is thankful for all he can get and they Seem to be grateful for all I can give them that they could not get otherwise. Funny enough, my clientele seems to think more of me now than before. Do you remember my receptionist ...”
“Don’t tell me you banged her!”
“No, but she caught me screwing the Polack and dropped her glasses and stepped on them.” He got up grinning. “As a matter of fact, when I leer at her, certain physical, ah ...er...”
“She comes.”
“Precisely,” he said.
“Sexy senior citizen hell,” I told him. “You’re a dirty old man.”
