It was late evening, Turkish time, by now. There was a sort of fascination about watching Heller. I desperately longed for a time when I would see him curl up in a ball, preferably in agony, and die and yet, so long as I did not have the platen, he carried my life in his careless, brutal hands. So I hung on to the viewscreen and raced the strips forward to the present.
Heller was going down in the elevator. He was dressed in a casual dark suit but there was nothing casual about the way he was acting.
He rushed out of the elevator and burst into Vantagio’s office. “It’s here! It’s here! The car I want is here!”
Vantagio was in a tuxedo, apparently all ready for a Saturday night rush not yet started. “Well, it’s about time! Babe mentions it every day and ever since you spaghettied Grafferty she’s been insisting it be the best. Where is it? Out front or down in the garage?”
“Garage,” said Heller. “Come on!”
Vantagio needed no urging. He went rapidly out of his office, followed by Heller, and into the elevator they went and down to the garage.
“It better be a beauty,” said Vantagio. “I got to get this action completed so I can have some peace. Been over a week since Babe told me to buy you a lovely car!”
At the garage elevator exit, there stood Mortie Massacurovitch. Heller introduced him to Vantagio. “I been workin’ double shift,” said Mortie. “I couldn’t get here until this evening. But there she is!”
Standing in the middle of the vast pillared structure, surrounded by sleek limousines of the latest model, stood the old, shabby, paint-worn-off, cracked-window Really Red Cab of decades ago.
It looked like a piece of junk that had been shovelled in.
“Where’s the car?” said Vantagio.
“That’s the car,” said Heller.
“Oh, come off it, kid. A joke’s a joke but this is serious business. Babe will just about tear my head off if I don’t get you one.”
“Hey,” said Heller, “this is a great car!”
“This was built when they really built cabs!” said Mortie.
“Kid, this isn’t any joke? You mean you are really proposing I buy this piece of scrambled trash for you?”
“Hey,” said Mortie, “the company ain’t charging hardly anything!”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t dare!” said Vantagio. “You ought to give the buyer twenty-five smackers to get it towed to a junkyard!”
“Oh, come on,” said Mortie. “I’ll admit she don’t look like no limousine. But I had quite a time trying to get the company to agree to sell it. It’s sort of a keepsake.
Like old times. Tradition! Of course, you can’t keep it red or run it as a Really Red Cab in competition and you can’t have its taxi license — that’s expensive and stays with the company. But it’s a perfectly legal car and the title would be regular.”
Vantagio had looked inside. He backed off holding his nose. “Oh, my God.”
“It’s just the leather,” said Mortie. “They didn’t have vinyl in them days so it’s real leather. Of course, it’s kind of rotted and saturated a bit. But it’s real leather.”
“Please,” said Heller.
Vantagio said, “Babe would kill me. She would have me whipped for two or three hours and then kill me with her bare hands.”
“I got orders that you can have it cheap,” said Mortie. “One thousand dollars and that’s rock bottom.”
“Quit torturing me!” said Vantagio. “I got a tough night ahead. This is Saturday night and the UN is hotting up — in just two weeks it is reconvening! Kid, have you got any idea—”
“Five hundred,” said Mortie. “And that’s absolutely rock bottom.”
Vantagio tried to walk away. Heller got him by the arm. “Look, real quarter-inch steel fenders and body. Look, Vantagio, real bulletproof windows! See those stars in them? They stopped real bullets just a while ago.”
“Two hundred and fifty,” said Mortie. “And that’s rock rock bottom.”
“Kid,” said Vantagio, “please, for God’s sake, let me go upstairs and call the MGB agency, let them send over a red sports car.”
“This cab,” said Heller, “is a real beauty!”
“Kid, let me call the Mercedes-Benz agency.”
“No.”
“Alfa Romeo?”
“No.”
“Maserati. Now, there’s a good car. A real good car,” said Vantagio. “I can get one custom built. Custom built and bright red, kid. A convertible. I’ll fill it full of girls.”
“No,” said Heller.
“Oh, che il diavolo lo porti, kid, you’re going to get me killed! I wouldn’t even dare put that in this garage! It’s just an ancient wreck!”
“It’s an antique!” cried Mortie. “It ain’t no wreck! It’s a bona fide antique!”
Vantagio stared at him. Then he went on pacing.
Mortie pressed on. “You put that cab in the Atlantic City Antique Auto Parade and it’ll win a twenty-five thousand dollar prize. I guarantee it! Antique cars are the rage!”
Vantagio stopped pacing. “Wait. I’ve just had an idea. If we put that car in the Atlantic City Antique Auto Parade…”
“And filled it full of girls dressed in costumes of the 1920s,” prompted Heller.
“And put guys on the running boards holding submachine guns,” said Vantagio.
“And prohibition agents in 1920 costumes chasing it,” said Heller.
“And painted ‘The Corleone Cab Company’ on the doors,” cried Vantagio, “Babe would LOVE it! Tradition! And a million bucks’ worth of advertising! Right?”
“Right,” said Heller.
“Now, you have to do what I tell you, kid. Right?”
“Right.”
“Choose this as the car.”
“Like I was saying,” said Mortie. “The price is one thousand smackers.”
“Five hundred,” said Vantagio, “providing you can get it to this address. And I’ll buy its cab license later from your company.” He was scribbling on the back of a card, Jiffy-Spiffy Garage, Mike Mutazione, Newark, N.J.
“Can I drive it and monkey with the motor?” said Heller.
“Oh, hell, yes, kid. It’s your car. Just so long as you make it available for the parade and just as long as you let Mike Mutazione put it in new-car condition before you park it in here. You see, I can tell people it’s for the parade and the UN diplomats will be happy on cultural grounds. They love to see tribal customs preserved.”
A new voice was heard. “Hey, where’d this battle casualty come from?” It was Bang-Bang.
“That’s the car you’re going to drive,” said Heller.
“Don’t try to snow me under, kid,” said Bang-Bang. “I’ve had a tough day trying to teach the Army the difference between their left feet and their (bleep).”
“Look, Bang-Bang,” said Heller, pointing to a star in the glass.
“Hey, that’s a 7.62-mm NATO round. See, it dropped down into the ledge outside. Belgian FN? Italian Beretta? Flattened the hell out of it. Bulletproof glass!”
“And fenders. Quarter-inch steel,” said Heller.
Vantagio tapped Bang-Bang. “As long as you’re working for the kid, go over to Newark with this cabby and tell Mike what to do. Use the same material but replace everything! New bulletproof glass, new upholstery, beat the body out, paint the whole car orange and put ‘The Corleone Cab Company’ on the doors. Make it all look brand-new. Even the motor. Tell him to do it in a hurry so the kid can have his car.”
“I ain’t supposed to leave New York,” said Bang-Bang.
“It’s Saturday night,” said Vantagio.
“Oh, that’s right,” said Bang-Bang.
“I’ll go, too!” said Heller.
“No, you won’t,” said Vantagio. “It’s going to be a busy night and I want you in the lobby for a while. And I told two South American diplomats you’d be pleased to meet them. And there’s something else you got to do.”