The man bore down on him, his hand outstretched. Gesini gave it a limp shake.
“I’m Chuck West,” the man said, and automatically Gesini didn’t like him because he didn’t like anyone who had a nice name like Charles and then went and fucked it over into something like Chuck. Gesini hated it when people called him Solly, although he never made any fuss about it because he didn’t much care for Salvatore either.
Gesini was steered toward the ocean end of the hall by Chuck West, who chattered smoothly about how busy we know you are and how grateful everybody is that you could make it on such short notice. Gesini grunted “Uh-huh” and “Sure” in reply and kept on wondering what it was all about.
At the end of the hall they reached a doorway. West took out a plastic card, something like a credit card, and inserted it into a slot. The door, which looked like wood, slid open, and Gesini assumed that the door was some kind of metal, probably steel.
Gesini’s impression of the room that they entered was one of deep carpet, paneled walls, and a blond secretary at an antique desk who looked up from her typing, smiled slightly, and then went back to her machine. West used the card again to open yet another sliding door. West was talking about the weather now, something to do with rain or the lack of it.
The first thing Gesini noticed when he entered the big room was the gray stone fireplace. On his left were the tinted windows which looked out over the Pacific and on the right was the fireplace with four-foot logs in it that crackled and blazed. Gesini wondered who brought the logs up and how the chimney worked and whether they used a gas jet to light the logs and keep them going.
The second thing Gesini noticed was the man who rose from behind the big spindly-legged desk and advanced to meet them: handsome as an actor, tall, somewhere in his mid or late forties, tanned, and at least in Gesini’s estimation, dressed fit to kill.
The man had his head cocked slightly to one side and a warm but strangely shy smile on his face. “Mr. Gesini,” he said. “I’m Reginald Simms. How splendid of you to come.” They shook hands, and Gesini gave him a little more grasp than he had given Chuck West. Simms seemed to notice West then, nodded at him politely, smiled again, and said, “Thank you, Charles”
“Yes, sir,” West said, and left.
Gesini examined Simms carefully and liked everything that he saw. He liked the dark gray almost black suit with its pearl gray vest. He liked the starched white shirt and the carefully knotted, richly patterned tie and the plain black shoes with their gleaming toes. He liked Simms’s face, too, with its heavy dark brows, gray eyes, bold nose, firm mouth and chin, and just enough lines here and there to make it all look thoughtful and intelligent.
“Do you like a fire, Mr. Gesini?” Simms said, gesturing Gesini into one of the big, comfortable-looking leather chairs that were drawn up to the fireplace. “I suppose it’s rather ridiculous to have a fire in Southern California in June, but I somehow find one rather comforting, don’t you?”
“Fires are okay,” Gesini said, settling himself into the chair. They were barely seated when the door opened and a black man in a white jacket entered, carrying a tray that held cups and a silver coffee service. He served the two men silently, Gesini first. Gesini didn’t much like coffee. He usually drank Tab for breakfast. But he could stand coffee if he put enough cream and sugar into it. He helped himself liberally to both and then noticed that Simms took his black. He also noticed how Simms dismissed the black servant with a small, but very polite, nod. The fucker’s got class, Gesini thought. You gotta admit that.
Simms took a sip of his coffee, gave Gesini another of his warmly shy smiles, and said, “It seems, Mr. Gesini, that we have some mutual friends who speak most highly of you.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
“Vince Imperlino has some very kind things to say about you.”
Gesini nodded carefully. “Yeah, I know him.” He had met Imperlino just twice, the second time at a big, fairly secret meeting at La Costa. Gesini had felt both lucky and surprised to have been invited to the meeting, because a lot of the ninety-nine-centers had been there.
“And then Mr. Minuto down in Palm Springs also has some awfully nice things to say about you.”
Gesini knew that Simms was lying then, but he didn’t care. There are lies and lies. Gesini had shaken hands with Ulderico Minuto just once, and that had been nearly thirty years before, when Gesini had just arrived on the Coast from New York and the newspapers were still calling Minuto Richie Minute. Now Minuto was a retired aging myth that was baking itself to death in the desert sun down in Palm Springs. Shit, Gesini thought, he must be eighty now.
“Well, I met Mr. Minuto a long time ago.”
“He still keeps abreast of things,” Simms said. “A most amazing old gentleman. He’s almost eighty-three now, of course.”
“I figured he was up there somewhere like that.”
“As you probably know, what we do here in our little shop is try to serve as liaison between certain business groups and the city government. I suppose what we really are is an intelligence-gathering organization. We collect the odd bits and pieces of information, feed them into the computer, and from that we can make our projections.”
“Sounds interesting,” Gesini said because Simms was looking at him as though he expected some kind of response.
“It is, actually. Sometimes a comment here and a snippet of gossip there will be just what we need to head us in the right direction.” Simms put his coffee cup down on a small, highly waxed table, reached into his pocket, and brought out a silver cigarette case. He opened it and offered it to Gesini.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Good for you. Do you mind terribly if I do?”
“Go right ahead.”
Simms lit his oval cigarette with a lighter that Gesini assumed was real gold. He blew the smoke out, fanned it away with his left hand, and gave Gesini another almost shy smile. “Let’s see, where were we? Oh, yes. Snippets of information. Well, yesterday — or was it the day before? No matter. What is important is that from all the bits and pieces that were fed into the computer some names cropped up. Among them were yours; two of your associates, a Mr. Egidio and Mr. Norris, I believe; and a Mr. McBride. Edward McBride, I think. Do you know him?”
“Eddie McBride,” Gesini said. “Yeah, I know him.”
“You’ve lent him a small sum to tide him over, I understand.”
“Five thousand bucks.”
“That much? Is he a suitable risk?”
“He’ll pay.”
“I’m sure he will. However, what really caught our eye was this marvelous story about a buried two million dollars that Mr. McBride seems to bruiting about. Are you familiar with it?”
“Yeah, he came to me with it. I thought it was a lot of cock.”
“I don’t blame you, Mr. Gesini. I don’t blame you at all. That was exactly my reaction. Exactly. Still, one must poke about in all the dross. So we did some extremely discreet checking up on your young Mr. McBride, and to our surprise there seems to be a measure of truth in his remarkable tale.”
“Ho shit,” Gesini said.
“Again, my reaction exactly.”
Suddenly, Gesini smelled money. Not a lot, of course, because if this smooth fucker is in on it, although he seems like just one hell of a nice guy, well, there’s not gonna be much left over for yours sincerely. Occasionally, Gesini got his cliches mixed up. But there’d be a payoff of some kind, he knew. A tiny slice; a few crumbs; peanuts, probably — but what the hell, it all added up.
“That’s kinda interesting,” he said.
“Mmm. Isn’t it? Profitable, too, although perhaps not in the immediate future. More of a long-term investment, I should think, wouldn’t you?”