“So let’s have it, Murph. What’s his beef this time?”
“His beef? Nothing. Just you. Like always.”
Jesso curled his mouth under, as if he wanted to give his face a stretch. “Like always, like always. How long’s that bastard been in? A month, two months? That’s always? You know how long I been here, Murph?”
“Sure. You been-”
“From the beginning! And no trouble all along the line. A neat little setup, right here, and nobody big enough to buck it.”
“It sure was neat, Jackie. Remember when Delancy tried to muscle in, and-“
“Delancy was small time. We were big enough for the syndicate to want a piece.” Jesso sat chewing his lip, thinking about the time the syndicate wanted a piece. They could use a man with his local connections, they said, a man as big as he was and all on his own. They gave him a wire service and they asked him how to handle local problems. Sometimes he told them. Most of the time he just got things done the way he knew how, fast, no fuss, no ass-kissing, and nobody left to ask any questions. They liked that and Jesso went his own way. And then one day he saw how big the organization had got, bigger than one man, bigger than Jesso. They were sweet as pudding when he found that out. They were so sweet they sent him a man to help with the details, because big time needs big-time organization, they said. It needs the individual touch-and that was Jack Jesso. It needs a smooth-looking front-and that was Gluck. And when they trimmed up the whole big beautiful setup, with wire service, numbers, and a piece of the water front all tucked in neat little pigeonholes, with dummy companies and tie-ups to the Coast and hell knows where else making a net like a spider, then Gluck was in and Jesso was out. “We need you,” Gluck said, “but now do it my way.” He didn’t say “or else.” He was too oily for that.
“Jackie,” Murph swung to the right lane of the parkway, “I can still cut off and get to Gluck’s place without-“
Jesso gave Murph a look as if he were going to spit. “The bastard can wait. I set up the Vegas deal a week faster than he could have done it.”
“That’s what he’s beefing about, Jackie. That’s just what-”
“How can a pig beef?” Jesso pulled the hat over his eyes and tried to sleep.
So Murph just drove. He turned off the parkway before they got to the George Washington Bridge and wound up the hillside to the apartment houses. When he stopped the car he tried once more.
“Look, Jackie-”
Jesso got out of the car. It was ten in the morning and the white sunlight on his face made him look all used up.
“Take the brief case and give it to Gluck. I’m going to bed. Be back here at seven and tell Gluck I’ll see him after nine tonight.”
He walked around the car and into the apartment building.
There was a barbershop off the foyer. Jesso saw that the place was empty and walked in. The barber jumped up from behind his paper and beamed. “Why, Mr. Jesso! I’m glad to see you back from the Coast. Shave today? Haircut?”
“Shave is all.”
Jesso sat down in one of the chairs and stretched out. He liked sitting in a barber’s chair. The barber started to lather up. “You don’t have a tan, Mr. Jesso. I thought when people went to the Coast-“
“Just business.”
He stretched his head back and closed his eyes. The pose made his face change expressions; it was a blanker, smoother face now. The barber finished and jacked up the backrest. “How about a trim, Mr. Jesso? Just the edges?”
“Go ahead.”
The barber flicked his scissors around. He flourished his hands like a conductor. “A remarkable head of hair, Mr. Jesso.”
He was right. The hair was thick and black, cut short so it stood up like the nap of an expensive rug. When the light hit the hair just right it looked like velvet on top.
“Massage, Mr. Jesso? To relax-”
“I’m relaxed.” He got up and paid.
“Manicure, Mr. Jesso?”
The girl had wheeled her tray in, nudging it with one thigh. Jesso watched her do it, then looked at her face.
“Give me fifteen minutes,” he said. “You know the suite number.” He walked to the elevator.
After his shower he put on a bathrobe and fixed himself a drink. He felt tired, but it was pleasant now. It was the kind of tiredness that feels good.
There was a knock on the door. Jesso put his drink down and turned.
“The door’s open,” he called.
The girl from the barbershop came in, pushing her cart with the manicure stuff. She was smiling the way she’d done before. She closed the door and came across the room. She left the cart where it stood, because Jack Jesso never took a manicure in his life.
Chapter Two
Boss Gluck had a tower place in the Wells Arms and it wasn’t easy to get there. First there was the doorman and then there was the desk in the foyer. After the ride in the elevator came the tower foyer and another desk. Behind the suite door marked B-2 was a room with couches and a kid who kept his hat on all the time. He had a phone with buttons. Then there was a big guy dressed like a butler, and he took you through the doors into a neat little place that didn’t have anything but a chair and an ash tray. After that came Boss Gluck. If it was important, Boss Gluck got up from behind his desk in the room with the terrace, took the visitor through a door with a drape, and sat down in the little cubicle where the filing cabinets stood.
It took Jesso no time at all to get to the room with the ash tray. He stood by the chair, walked to the window, went back to the chair, and sat down. He was lighting a cigarette when the door opened. Jesso threw the cigarette in the ash tray and got up again. But it hadn’t been the door to Gluck’s office. The butler was back, holding the door wide so the two men could pass. The tall one came first, looking anonymous in a black ulster and a stiff hat. The short one followed in step. He seemed stout but walked with a spring and made sharp little sounds with his heels. He wore black, too, with a Persian-lamb collar folding wide over his shoulders and down the front.
They stopped in the middle of the room and Jesso watched a fast ritual with gloves, hat, scarf, and overcoat. Holding the stuff, the tall one bowed to the chair, and before Jesso had taken all of it in the stout one was sitting down.
“You’re welcome,” Jesso said.
No answer.
“My chair is your chair,” Jesso said.
The tall one took off his hat and looked around.
“If you will take these,” he said. He held out the clothes over his arm without even looking as if he were waiting.
Jesso took the bundle and watched the man remove his coat. “You’re welcome,” he said.
When the tall one draped his coat over the rest of the stuff on Jesso’s arm, put his hat on top, and turned away, Jesso started to get the picture. He hefted the load and made a laugh.
“Bundles for the Bowery don’t get picked up except Monday and Tuesday. Today is Friday.”
Nobody laughed back. The tall one stood next to the chair like a standard bearer. He ran his hands through his long hair and then folded his arms over his chest.
“What I mean to say is, perhaps it doesn’t show, but I haven’t got my moth bags and clothes hangers along.”
Jesso looked from one to the other, making an expectant face. He still thought it was funny. He stepped close to the squat man in the chair and leaned down confidentially.
“Now, Bean Pole has said his daily words and I’m not going to be unfair to him. How about it, Porker? You haven’t talked yet.”
But Porker looked right through him. His small white hands lay peacefully in his lap, and Jesso was surprised at the hands, because they were so different from the bull neck and the thick face of the man. His skull was shaved to a stubble except for a full-grown patch over the forehead, and that patch was arranged in a fat shiny wave.