"Which you did."
"Right."
"And we did."
"Right," Fortunate said.
"Then I kept an eye on him until Anaheim showed up in person."
"And you rented him a hotel room in your name."
"Yeah, and he stiffed me on it, and he stiffed me on the job," Fortunate said.
"And after he popped you one on the kisser, I figure you and him ain't pals so I'm telling you what I seen."
"To get even?"
"You interested or no?"
"Interested," I said.
"You want to work for me?"
"I'm in business."
"Good, keep an eye on Bibi Anaheim until I get there. If she leaves follow her."
"Expenses?"
"Guaranteed," I said.
"Even if she goes to like, Paris?"
"Even then," I said.
"You want to know what I charge?"
"No."
"I ain't getting burned again. I give you the numbers you wire money to my account today. I don't get it today, I drop the broad like a bad habit."
"Spenser's the name, cash is the game, where you want it sent?"
He told me the amount and how to send it. Lucky I was bucks up.
CHAPTER 45
Joe Broz still kept an office in the financial district with an executive-level view of the harbor. There were still a couple of hard cases lounging around in the outer office, working on their relaxed tough guy look. And Joe himself still had a little left of the old theatricality. But this time when I went into his white office he was an old man. The changes weren't so much physical as attitudinal.
As if he had decided to be old. He had arranged himself in front of the big picture window behind his desk, his back to the door, a dark form without detail against the bright morning light that came through the eastward-looking window. When I came in he didn't move while I closed the door behind me and walked to a chair and sat down in front of his desk. I waited for a while. Finally, Joe turned slowly from the window to look at me. He had on a dark blue suit, a dark blue shirt, and a powder blue tie. He should have been nipping a silver dollar.
He said, "How long I known you, Spenser?"
"Long time," I said.
"You got a smart mouth. You think you're God's gift to the fucking universe. And you been a pain in my ass since I knew you."
"Nice of you to remember, Joe."
"I shoulda put you in the ground a long time ago."
"But you didn't," I said.
"Half the people I know are dead and most of the others are gone, and you keep showing up."
"Good to be able to count on something, isn't it?"
Broz walked stiffly from the window and lowered himself gingerly into the chair behind his desk. He put the palms of his hands carefully together and rested his chin lightly against his fingertips.
He took in some air and let it out slowly through his nose.
"Whaddya want?" he said.
"Some Russians tried to kill me last night."
"Good for them."
"Depends how you look at it," I said.
"Two of them are dead."
Broz shrugged.
"I know you're good," he said.
"Never said you weren't good."
"I got no fight with any Russians," I said.
"Somebody sent them."
Broz kept looking at me with his clasped hands under his chin.
He had a powder blue show hankie in his breast pocket. It matched the tie perfectly.
"And there's some, ah, realignment, maybe, going on in the rackets in town. There's something happening with Gino Fish and Julius Ventura. I hear the Russians are trying to move some people up from New York."
Broz nodded silently.
"Thought you might be able to tell me a little something."
Broz didn't move. He didn't say anything. Looking past him through the big window all I could see was sky and the kind of light you get over water. I waited. Joe unclasped his hands and rested them on the dark walnut arms of his leather chair and tilted the chair back slowly.
"You want a drink?" he said.
"Little early in the day for me."
Joe nodded.
"Early, late, don't make much difference to me anymore. I don't sleep much and when I do, I don't know I'm sleeping unless I have a dream. I eat when I'm hungry. I drink when I want to."
He stood and moved slowly to the ebony bar with the blue leather padding in the corner of the room where so many years ago a guy named Phil had made me a bourbon and water, with a dash of bitters. Things hadn't worked out between me and Phil. I had to kill him a couple of weeks later. He took some ice from a silver ice bucket and put it in a lowball glass and poured some Wild Turkey over it. He carried the drink carefully back to his desk and put it down and sat carefully back down in his chair. Then he picked up the drink and looked at it and took a sip and put it down carefully.
He looked at me for a moment and then shifted his eyes so that he was staring past me.
"I know I owe you," Broz said.
"You don't say anything about that, and I notice that you don't. But you coulda killed my kid, when was it? Three years ago?"
"More like five," I said.
"Five years ago. You coulda killed him, and you' da been justified."
He picked up his drink and had another sip, put the glass down carefully without spilling any, and looked at it absently.
"Kid's out of the business," Broz said. He could have been talking to himself for all the notice he seemed to take of me.
"Set him up in a nice tavern out in Pittsfield. Wasn't cut out for the business. And Vinnie's gone."
"He's with Gino now," I said, just to remind him I was there.
"You know Gino's a fairy?"
I didn't answer. Broz didn't care.
Broz shook his head.
"When I got Gerry settled in the tavern I was gonna pass the business on to Vinnie."
He drank some more Wild Turkey.
"I was gonna retire," he said.
"I was gonna give the business to the kid and Vinnie coulda helped him, but it didn't work out. My wife's dead. I got nothing much going on at home, I got nothing to do, so I figure I may as well work some more. Tony Marcus is away, and his deal is up for grabs, and Gino and Julius are starting to move in 'cause they think I'm over the hill, you know? And I'm thinking about all this and one day this Russian comes in to see me from New York, and he says they'd like to get an operation going up here, and I tell him there's no room for anybody else, and he says they want to join my crew and get rid of Gino and Julius and take over the Marcus operation and they want me to run the whole deal."
Broz smiled a little and tasted a little more of his Wild Turkey.
"And I ask the Russki what his people get out of it? And he says they don't know the territory up here, they want to get set up and sort of ease in, and all they want from me, when I die, they get the business."
"What about Fast Eddie Lee?" I said.
"I asked him that. He says they don't do business with Chinks.
Says they leave Fast Eddie alone, long as he leaves us alone."
"You believe that?" I said.
"They think Fast Eddie's too tough a nut for them right now, they figure they get everything else and isolate Fast Eddie and then when they're ready they move on him. Be what I'd do."
I nodded. We sat quietly. Me looking at Broz. Broz looking past me. Broz was taking a lot of time to get there. But I had time. The plane to Vegas didn't leave until 4:05 in the afternoon.
"I told him no," Broz said.
"I told him there wasn't much outfit left, certainly not enough to take on a partner. He says they bring in new business as they expand. I tell him I don't want to expand. I got no heart for it anymore. I tell him I don't care what happens to the outfit after I die. They can have it as well as anybody else. But, I told him, if anybody makes a move on my outfit while I'm still around I will chew them up and spit them into the harbor like mackerel chum. He says okay would I consider acting as a kind of consultant for them, being as how I know my way around this city.
I say if the price is right I got no problem giving them advice. So the price is right and we make that deal. They leave my crew alone, they can consult me on whatever else they want to do."