going. The next cab that came along I flagged down, gave him a Brooklyn address with instructions to stop by the Atlantic Avenue apartment first. The answer came fast enough when we reached the joint. The name was still on the wall but the neighbors said she had moved out during the night and the apartment was empty. A small truck with the trunks of a new customer started backing into the curb as we drove away.
The second Brooklyn address belonged to a newspaper man who had retired ten years ago. He was forty-nine years old but looked seventy. One side of his face had a scar that ran from the corner of his eye to his ear and down to his mouth. If he took off his shirt he could show you the three dimples in his stomach and the three larger angry pink scars in his back. One arm couldn't move at the elbow. He hadn't retired because he had wanted to. Seems like he had written an expose about the Mafia one time.
When I came out it was two hours later and I had a folio of stuff under my arm that would have been worth ten grand to any good slick magazine. I got it free. I took another cab back uptown, sat in the back room of a drugstore a buddy of mine ran, went through it twice, then wrapped it and mailed it back to the guy I got it from. I went into a bar and had a beer while the facts settled down in my mind. While I sat there I tried to keep from looking at myself in the mirror behind the back bar but it didn't work. My face wasn't pretty at all. Not at all. So I moved to a booth in the back that had no mirrors.
Evello's name was there. Billy Mist's name was there. In the very beginning. They were punks then but they showed promise. The guy in Brooklyn said you didn't. pick up the connections any more because most likely the boys had new assignments. They had been promoted. That was a long time ago so by now they should be kings. There were other names that I didn't know, but before long I'd know. There were empty spaces where names should be but couldn't be supplied and those were in the throne room. Nobody knew who the royalty was. They couldn't even suspect.
Big? Sure, they were big. But then even the big ones would hear the word and their bigness would start to leak out all the holes. I was thinking about it and wondering if they had heard it yet when Mousie Basso came in.
Guys like Mousie you see around when there's not too much light and never see around when the heat's on. Guys like Mousie you see in the papers when the police pull in their dragnet at a time when there were no holes in the walls for them to duck into. In the faces of guys like Mousie you can tell the temperature of the underworld caldron or read your popularity with the wrong people by the way they shy away or hang on to you.
From Mousie's face I knew I was hot.
I knew, too, I wasn't very popular.
Mousie took one look at me sitting there, shot a quick look at the door and would have been out if I hadn't been reaching inside my coat for a smoke at the time. Mousie got white past the point of being pale when he saw where my hand was and when I gave him the nod to come over, he didn't walk, he slunk.
I said, 'Hello, Mousie,' and the corner of his mouth made a fast, fake smile and he slid into the booth hoping nobody had seen him.
He grabbed a nervous cigarette that didn't do him a bit of good, shook out the match and flicked it under the table. 'Look, Mr. Hammer, you and me ain't got a thing to talk about. I...'
'Maybe I like your company, Mousie.'
His lips got tight and he tried hard to keep from watching my hands. Half under his breath he said, 'You ain't good company to be seen with.'
'Who says?'
'Lots of people. You're nuts, Mr. Hammer...' He waited to see what would happen and when nothing did, said, 'you go blowing off your stack like you been doing and you'll be wearing a D.O.A. tag on your toe.'
'I thought we were friends, kid.' I bit into my sandwich and watched him squirm. Mousie wasn't happy. Not even a little bit.
'Okay, so you did me a favor. That doesn't make us that kind of buddies. If you want trouble you go find it by yourself. Me, I'm a peace-loving guy, I am.'
'Yeah.'
Mousie's face sagged under the sarcasm. 'So I'm a chiseler. So what? I don't want shooting trouble. If I'm small potatoes that's all I want to be. Nobody gets bumped for being small potatoes.'
'Unless somebody sees them talking to big potatoes,' I grinned at him.
It scared him, right down to his shoes. 'Don't... don't kid around with me, will you? You don't need me for nothing. Besides which if you do I ain't giving or selling. Lay off.'
'What did you hear, Mousie?'
His eyes were quick things that swept the whole room twice before they came back to me. 'You know.'
'What?'
'You're going to scramble some people.'
'What people.' I didn't ask him. I told him to say it.
He whispered the word. 'Mafia.' Then as if it had been a key he swallowed he spilled over with the things he had been holding down while his eyes bulged in his head. His hands grabbed the edge of the table and hung on while the butt he had started to smoke burned through the tablecloth. 'You're nuts. You went and got everybody hopped up. Wherever you go you'll be poison. Is it true you got something on the wheels? You better clam if you have. That kind of stuff is sure to lead to trouble. Charlie Max and Sugar...' The mouth stopped and stayed open.
'Say it, Mousie.'
Maybe he didn't like the way I had edged forward. Maybe he saw the things that should have been written across my face.
The bulging eyes flattened out, sick. 'They're spending advance money along the Stem.'
'Moving fast?'
I could hardly hear his voice. 'Covering the bars and making phone calls.'
'Are they in a hurry?'
'Bonus, probably.'
Mousie wasn't the same guy who came in. He was the mouse, but a mouse who didn't care any more. He was the mouse who spilled his guts to the cat about where the dog was and if the dog found out, he was dead. He reached for the remains of the cigarette, tried to drag some life into it and couldn't make it. I shook a new one out of my pack and handed it to him. The light I held out was steady, but he couldn't keep the tip of the butt in it. He got it going after a few seconds and stared into the flame of the lighter.
'You ain't scared a bit, are you?' He looked at his own hands, hating himself. 'I wish I was that way. What makes a guy like me, Mr. Hammer?'
I could hate myself too. 'Guys like me,' I said.
The laugh came out his nose like he didn't believe me. 'One guy,' he said, 'just one big guy and everybody gets hopped up. For anybody else, even the mayor, they wouldn't even blink, but for you they get hopped up. You say you're going to scramble and they make like a hillbilly feud. The word goes out and money starts passing hands. Two of the hottest rods in town combing the joints looking for you and you don't even get bothered enough to stop eating. They know you, Mr. Hammer. Guess maybe everybody knows something about you. That's why Charlie Max and Sugar Smallhouse got the job. They don't know nothing about you. They're Miami boys. You say you're going to do something, you do it and always there's somebody dead and it ain't you. Now the word has it you're going to scramble the top potatoes. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. With anybody else I'd take bets on your side, only this time it's different.'
He stopped and waited to see what I'd say. 'It's not so different.'
'You'll find out.'
He saw my teeth through the smile and shuddered. It does funny things to some people. 'The word still goes,' I said. 'From now on to the end they'll have to stay away from windows and doors. They'll never be able to go out alone. Every one of the pack will have to keep a rod in his fist and wait. They'll have to double check everything to make sure I won't find out who they are and no matter how hard they try I'll reach them. Their office boys'll try to check me off but they're like flies on the wall. I'm going to the top. Straight up. I'm finding out who they are and when I do they're dead. I know how they operate... they're bad, but they know me and I'm worse. No matter where I find them, or when... any time, any place... that's it. The top dogs, those, are the ones I want. The slime who pull the strings in the Mafia. The kings, you understand? I want them.'
