However, he liked the feel of her in his lap, and before long Sherry was back on the carpet, but in a different sense, and out of her waitress uniform both temporarily and permanently. By that afternoon her name was listed on the payroll as “Social Consultant.” And so began a relationship that was clearly immoral, entirely corrupt and wholly enjoyable.
“Unnngghhh,” she said. Her eyes were still closed.
Nolan said, “Did you say something?”
“Ungh... what time is it, honey?”
Nolan looked at his wristwatch. “Five after two.”
“Morning or afternoon?”
“Afternoon.”
“We miss breakfast?”
“And lunch.”
“I’m hungry, honey.” Her eyes were open now; half open, anyway.
“That’s understandable,” Nolan said.
“What do they call it when you mix breakfast and lunch together?”
“A goddamn mess.”
“Don’t tease me, honey.”
“You call it brunch.”
“That’s right. Brunch. Let’s have brunch.”
“Good idea. Scrambled eggs and bacon and toast?”
“Good idea, honey.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and used the phone. “This is Logan. Put Brooks on.” Logan was the name Nolan was using right now.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Logan.”
“Good morning, Brooks. Send my usual breakfast over, will you?”
“For two?”
“I said my usual breakfast, didn’t I? And Brooks?”
“Yes, Mr. Logan?”
“You scramble the damn things, this time. With milk and some grated cheese the way you do. Don’t put one of those half-ass college kids on it, for Christ’s sake.”
“When did I ever do that to you, Mr. Logan?”
“Yesterday.”
“I’ll get right on it, Mr. Logan.”
Sherry was getting out of bed, jiggling over to the dresser where she’d left her bikini. He watched her get into it. The bikini was innocence-white and Sherry was berry-brown.
Happy birthday, you bastard, he said to himself, grinning. You’re finally getting there. He was really enjoying this job, even though it was only temporary, only a trial run. The place was called the Tropical Motel, and consisted of one building, half restaurant and half bar-with-entertainment, and four buildings with sixteen motel units in each. There were also two swimming pools, both heated, one indoor, one out. The Tropical was located ten miles outside of Sycamore, Illinois, and was devoted to serving newlyweds of all ages, regardless of race, creed, or actual marital status. Nolan had known nothing about running the hotel end of it, but had been given sufficient help, so no sweat. What he was good at was running nightclubs and restaurants, that was something he’d done for years, though admittedly it had been years since he’d done it.
Seventeen, eighteen years, in fact, since the trouble with Charlie put an end to his career as a nitery manager. Nolan had managed several Chicago clubs to great success, but those clubs were owned by the Family. Of the many Families around the country (loosely united and known by various names — Syndicate, Mafia, Cosa Nostra, etc.), the Chicago outfit was the single biggest, most powerful Family of them all, and was in a very real sense the Family. And Charlie was one of the most powerful men in the Family.
It was after a violent clash with Charlie that Nolan had turned professional thief, using his organizational ability to put together strings of specialists who under his command pulled off one successful robbery after another. The world of organized crime and professional thievery don’t intersect as often as you might think, and Nolan steered clear of his old enemy Charlie for many years, without much trouble, just by staying away from places owned or controlled by the Family, avoiding Chicago itself altogether. Besides, a pro thief generally shied away from hitting any Syndicate operations, anyway, out of inter-professional courtesy.
Last year, though, Nolan had returned to the Chicago area, thinking that after sixteen years the feud with Charlie was past history. That led to the first of his two injuries: one of Charlie’s men had spotted Nolan in Cicero and tagged him with a bullet. Later, Nolan and Charlie met for a meeting of truce, in which Nolan agreed to pay Charlie a set amount of money to repay past damages. The treaty was signed but broken by Charlie, and that had led to Nolan’s second and near-fatal trial by gunfire.
And then, after months holed-up recuperating, word filtered down to Nolan that the Family wanted to send a representative to meet with him. The representative was to be Felix, counselor in the Family, a lawyer with a single client. Sending the legal arm of the Family meant reconciliation was not only possible, but imminent.
Which was beautiful, because Nolan had nearly four hundred thousand dollars and the inclination to set himself up in business with a restaurant or nightclub or both, but he wanted all past wounds with the Family to be healed before making a move.
Nolan had conferred with the man named Felix in a room in a motel at the LaSalle-Peru exit on Interstate 80. Felix had said, “We want to thank you, Mr. Nolan.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “What for?”
“For exposing that idiot for the idiot he was.”
“Charlie, you mean.”
“Yes,” Felix had said. Felix was a small man, about five-four. His hair was gray and modishly long and his face was gray and he wore a well-cut gray suit and a tie the color of peaches. Felix could have been thirty or he could have been fifty or anywhere along the road between.
“You said ‘was,’ ” Nolan said.
“That’s right. Charlie is no longer a problem.”
“You mean Charlie’s dead.”
“Excuse my euphemism. Force of habit. Charlie is most certainly dead.”
“Maybe we ought to have a moment of silence or something.”
“The news hasn’t broken yet,” Felix said, pleasantly, “but you should be seeing something about the tragic event in the papers and on television this evening and tomorrow morning — though a ‘gangland leader’ who dies in an automobile mishap does not make nearly as good copy as one who dies by the gun.”
Nolan began to understand Felix’s friendly attitude. Nolan knew that the Family in Chicago had been much torn with political maneuvering within ranks, as for several years now the Chicago Boss of All Bosses had been living in Argentina in self-imposed exile to avoid prosecution on a narcotics charge. With the top seat vacant but still unattainable, underboss Charlie was the man with most authority, though even he was not wholly in command, as the exiled overlord had (perhaps unwisely) spread his authority out among a number of men, unwilling to see anyone gain total control. Nolan looked at Felix and realized that the lawyer was representing an anti-Charlie faction, which had apparently won their power struggle, having just pulled a relatively bloodless coup.
Which was no doubt supported by members on the executive council of the national organization of Families, who sympathized with these younger, anti-Charlie forces in the Chicago outfit. The sympathy was a chauvinistic one, as the other Families throughout the nation weren’t nearly as strong as Chicago. New York alone had five weaker, sometimes warring Families to Chicago’s powerful, monolithic one. Dumping Charlie would further destroy the strong center of power in the windy city, spreading the biggest Family in the country out among younger, less dominant gang leaders. It was all very similar to chess, or Cold War politics.