‘You don’t have a friend, Andy,’ I said. ‘You’re the enemy of everybody.’
Pappas nodded. He did not stop smiling. It was an old story with us.
‘You don’t soften up, do you, Danny?’
‘You never change, do you, Andy?’ I said. ‘This isn’t a social visit.’
I nodded towards the lamp-post a few feet away from the table of the tiny sidewalk cafe. It was one of those old gaslight lamp-posts O. Henry’s has put up for atmosphere. Leaning against it now, pretending to watch the little-girl tourists pass, was Jake Roth. Roth was not watching girls; he was watching me. Andy Pappas never carries a gun, everyone says, but Roth goes to bed with a shoulder holster under his pyjama top. Roth is Andy’s top persuader. Across the street I saw Max Bagnio. Little Max is the second-best gun, and now was trying to read a newspaper in front of a stationery store by spelling out the words one at a time. Actually, Bagnio was watching me in the store window. And just up the block towards Sheridan Square I saw Andy’s long, black car parked in front of a Japanese knick-knack shop. The driver sat behind the wheel with his cap down and his arms folded. I did not need to guess that a gun was hidden under those folded arms.
Pappas had followed my glances at his men. He shrugged.
‘You said it, Danny. Everyone is my enemy. A man has to protect himself.’
‘That isn’t exactly what I said, Andy, but let it pass. What’s on your mind?’ I asked.
‘Drink up first, Danny. You’re my friend, if I’m not yours. The lady seems thirsty.’
‘I don’t drink with you Andy, and neither does the lady,’ I said. ‘Those days went a long time ago.’
I know I go too far with Pappas. There was that glint in his cold eyes. They are dead, Andy’s eyes. The cold eyes of a dead man who long ago stopped asking himself what he really wanted or why he was living. I have seen eyes like that on generals. Perhaps too much looking at death can kill a man’s inside. It’s not brave to refuse to back off from a mad dog; it’s stupid. But with Andy I can’t help myself. I have to push him. It is one thing to hear about an Andy Pappas and hate him, and another thing to really know an Andy Pappas and hate him. Part of it is fear, of course. I fear Andy as much as anyone else who really knows him, and that deepens the hate. I sit and talk to him, and I fear him and what he is capable of doing, and so I hate him more than anyone.
Another part is guilt. I feel guilty around Andy because, in some way, I have failed and he is my fault. I have to share the blame for Andy. I can’t back off, tread softly as any man in his right mind should, because he is what is wrong with it all. A man like Andy Pappas is where we all went off the track. All the men like Andy who believe that all that counts is some advantage, some victory here and now no matter how it is done or who gets hurt. Any advantage, any victory. The men who will destroy us all just to win some small victory, if it is only to be King of the Graveyard.
‘All right, Dan,’ Pappas said at last. ‘I’ll make it short. Lay off Swede Olsen and his family.’
I won’t say that it hit me between the eyes. It hit a lot lower than that. My stomach took an elevator ride, and all of it down. There was part of an answer to a lot of good questions. Somehow, Andy Pappas was involved in the Jo-Jo Olsen affair. It explained a great deal. If I were the Olsens I would be worried. If Andy Pappas had a stake in this, and I was on the wrong side, I would have done a rabbit — a very fast and far rabbit. I’m not the Olsens, I knew nothing, and I was still worried.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘Olsen works for me,’ Pappas said.
‘Olsen?’ I said. The question was clear.
Pappas shrugged. ‘Not much. Odd jobs, driving, errands, stuff like that. But he gets my protection, Danny.’
‘Does he need it, Andy?’ I pushed.
Pappas laughed aloud. ‘Look, Dan, I don’t know it all. I don’t even want to know it all. What I know is that Olsen doesn’t want you bothering him or his family. Okay?’
‘Did he tell you why I’m bothering him?’
Andy dried his hands fastidiously on the paper napkin that came with all drinks. ‘I didn’t talk to him. I got the request through channels, Dan. If it was anyone but you I’d have sent a punk to give the word.’
‘His boy’s done a rabbit,’ I said.
‘So it’s a family matter. Since when do you work for the cops?’
‘I’m not working for the cops. I’m working for a nice kid who wants to find his friend. A nice kid who was beaten ninety per cent to death today. I guess he didn’t have the luck to have grown up with you, Andy.’
I got a flash of the claws and the terror of Andy Pappas.
‘Back off, Dan!’
The dead eyes dilated with a flash of the essential insanity that must lurk deep inside Andy Pappas. Then they came back, and Andy smiled thinly.
‘I don’t beat ninety per cent, Danny.’
I pushed once more. ‘Whose tail is getting burned, Andy? Who’s been stepped on?’
It was the push of the absurd. Even Andy knew that I did not expect any kind of answer. He stood up, smiling.
‘Remember, Danny, Olsen has my protection.’
When Pappas stands up it is a signal. The way when a king stands up it is a signal for everyone to rise. I heard the motor start in the big car up the block. Max Bagnio crossed the street towards us. Jake Roth stepped up to the table beside his boss. I found myself looking at Roth. His eyes were even shaped like the eyes of a snake. The snake eyes were fixed at me.
‘He must be in real trouble, Andy,’ I said to Pappas, but it was Jake Roth I was looking at.
It was Roth who answered me. The tall, skinny killer leaned half down and across that small table like a long-necked vulture. He stank of sweat in the heat. Roth never takes his coat off in public.
‘Slow, peeper,’ Roth said. ‘Real slow. Mr Pappas said lay off. Mr Pappas said forget it. You never heard about no Olsen. You don’t know the name. Mr Pappas said cool it. You cool it.’
Roth’s black, luminous, snake-shaped eyes seemed to float in dark water. His breath was thick. He breathed fast as he bent his face close to me. Andy Pappas touched him lightly on the shoulder. Roth jerked upright like a dog on a leash.
‘I told him, Jake,’ Andy Pappas said. ‘You can tell Olsen that Fortune got the word. Tell Swede it’s okay.’
The black car purred up to the kerb. Pappas touched his dark blue homburg to Marty and climbed into the back of the car. Roth got in with Andy, and Little Max Bagnio went around and joined the driver in the front seat. The car eased away and turned into the Sixth Avenue traffic. I watched it go. I ordered a double Irish for both of us.
‘I know that you know him,’ Marty said, ‘but I’m surprised every time. Just seeing him makes me shiver.’
‘Join the club,’ I said.
The drinks came.
‘You know what is so terrible?’ Marty said, her eyes still looking towards where the car had vanished. ‘That a man like that, an animal like that, can actually affect people trying to live good, normal lives. I mean, he could help or harm me, my acting. An animal, a parasite like that.’
‘Believe it,’ I said.
‘How can you talk to him like that?’ Marty said, shivering.
‘I can’t talk to him any other way,’ I said. ‘What I never really understood is why he lets me. I guess even Andy needs to think he is human. I’m his human feeling, his charity.’
Marty shivered again. ‘I wonder what trouble Olsen is in that he’d have to have Pappas’ protection?’
‘Who knows? Maybe it was Jo-Jo who killed Tani Jones. Maybe he knows who did.’
‘Tani Jones?’ Marty said, stared. ‘My God, Dan, Pappas wouldn’t protect anyone involved in her murder.’
She stared at me, I guess I stared back. I waited for her to drop the bomb I had guessed from her face.
‘She was his girl friend, Dan. At the club, the girl who talked about her said she was Pappas’ girl. I remember. This girl at the club said it was scary, the way Tani had loved jewels, and it was jewels that got her killed.’