“But what about Miss Colomar?” Glottis asked pointedly.
“That’s what this is all about, buddy.”
“Huh?” His ears twitched a couple of times.
“Look, we haven’t had any luck finding Meche, yeah? My guess is she’s hiding out. We’re looking for her, Domino’s looking for her. I don’t know about you, but that’d make me nervous as hell. So I put my name up in lights, make a big splash, and maybe that’ll draw her out.”
“Maybe,” Glottis said doubtfully.
“And, as a bonus, any profit the club makes I can funnel to the LSA.”
“That’s a pretty good idea,” Glottis admitted. “Hey!” he suddenly exclaimed, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket. “Did you see this?”
“I haven’t had much time for the papers lately,” I said.
“That’s too bad, Manny, ’cause you’re missing some interesting stuff. Take a look at this,” he pointed out an article.
“¡Híjole!” I said as I read it. “I had no idea the LSA was getting so busy.” Hell, I hadn’t even known we were making the papers at all.
“That’s nothin’, Manny,” Glottis said. “A couple’a weeks ago, they raided this warehouse, took a lot of chemicals, broke into some DOD offices, and then ransacked ’em good.”
“Yeah?” I hadn’t heard about any of this from Sal. Not too surprising, considering how far from the main action I was. “Whose offices?”
“Dunno, Manny. Papers didn’t say.”
“So the DOD decides to arm its security agents and the LSA knocks over the shipment. Sal’s on top of things, all right,” I said admiringly.
“If you say so, Manny,” Glottis said, sounding much less so, “but I don’t like it. People are gonna get hurt.”
“I know, buddy,” I admitted, “but, somehow, I don’t think Hector’s gang is going to give up without a fight. The right tools for the job, you know?”
Glottis shrugged. “Yeah, well, I still don’t like it,” he grumbled, making it clear he wasn’t going to give an inch on the subject.
It was my turn to shrug. “So what can you do about it?”
“Hey, I almost forgot!” Glottis exclaimed. “This came for you while you were away.” He dug into a pocket and then held out a telegram.
“What’s it say?” I asked as I took it.
“’Dunno, Manny. I didn’t open it.”
So I opened it myself. It was from Salvador, and it was a pip.
MANUEL
I AM TROUBLED BY REPORTS OF YOU BUYING THE AUTOMAT AND CONVERTING IT INTO A NIGHTCLUB STOP ITS FINE FOR YOU TO BE COMFORTABLE IN RUBACAVA FOR YOUR LONG STAY BUT I PRAY YOU HAVENT LOST SIGHT OF THE LARGER GOALS STOP IT IS NOT THIS WORLD BUT THE NEXT IN WHICH OUR TRUE GLORY LIES
“Well, isn’t that just ducky,” I growled. I grabbed my jacket and put it on. “Keep an eye on those building supplies, carnal… just until Lola gets here.” It was time to get a few things settled.
I went down to the Blue Casket. Olivia had become more than a little inhospitable when work started on my club, but I think that was an act to telegraph the proper attitude toward her customers. She gradually reverted to normal once she saw that her customers were not only uninterested, some were openly hostile. Like Alexi and Slisko.
Gunnar was a somewhat different story. We had started to bump into each other from time to time intentionally by accident—sometimes around the dockyards, sometimes at the bar of the Blue Casket, wherever, and talked. When word spread around town I was going to open a nightclub, Gunnar dropped by the night I closed the Rub-a-Mat for good. Lola and I had cleaned out the kitchen and all the food slots and loaded it into a truck Jock had rented to haul the stuff down to the demon quarter of Rubacava. I’d heard that some of the Sea Bees had been laid off and I figured they could use the food. After Jock had taken off and Lola had gone home, I went back into the Rub-a-Mat to sort of say good-bye to the old place as it was. When I was done moping around I went up to the office to collect the few papers I hadn’t yet moved to my hotel room, stuffed them into my briefcase, and went down to the front doors. Before I reached them there was a tapping at the glass and I saw a shadowy figure outside. It was Gunnar. Something about his body language made me let him in.
“’Fraid I can’t offer you anything, mano,” I said as I shut the doors behind him. “I just sent what’s left of the food down to the out-of-work Sea Bees.”
“I don’t need anything to eat, Clyde,” Gunnar said, giving me a searching look. “What I need is an explanation.” He paused to take a deep breath. “A casino!?” He shook his head. “I was really starting to think you were one of us.”
I sighed, walking into the dining area and turning on the lights. “There are a lot of ways to fight a revolution,” I said, “and most of them need money.”
Gunnar followed me in and remained standing while I sat down at a table. “You are truly a disappointment,” he said. “You really had me with all that jive about justice… and it was all just smoke and mirrors.”
“No. Don’t say that,” I said, almost pleading. “And sit down. Let’s talk like the comrades you know we are.”
He sat down but said, “I don’t know that at all. Give me a reason to believe in you. Like, join us on the docks. Help us organize the workers.”
“You know I’d like to.” Gunnar gave me a look of bitter disappointment. “I really would,” I insisted, “but believe me when I say I’ve got a bigger job to do. There are people in El Marrow who need the kind of money a casino can pull in. There’s another revolution, Gunnar, one fighting corruption and oppression much worse than that of the maritime union.”
Gunnar looked at me, a calculating look in his eye sockets. “Supposing I wanted to believe you,” he said, “why haven’t you said anything about this before?”
“I can’t talk openly about my underground gig, man, or I’d put the whole scene in dangerville.”
“Maybe so,” he allowed. “Maybe not. I don’t know. But I do know that a man with a cause doesn’t keep quiet about it… not around his comrades.” He was twisting the knife and he knew it. I’m sure he wanted to see how I’d react.
“You know,” I said after a few moments, “you remind me of my friend, Salvador Limones.”
Gunnar just stared for several seconds. The eyes he no longer had seemed to go wide and he took the bait. “You know Salvador Limones?” he breathed. I had never spoke of Salvador to Gunnar apart from mentioning his name that one time, but I knew that word of the LSA was starting to get around the radical grapevine. Gunnar leaned forward, eager for news. He was hooked. “What’s he like?”
“He’s not a man you can know from a description,” I said. “You have to meet him.” I shook my head. “But I’m not sure you or your two friends ever will.”
Gunnar looked confused and maybe a little hurt. “I don’t get you.”
“I’m talking about genuine revolutionary instincts, carnal. That’s what Sal is looking for, not just cats who can spout Marx and Engels and Lenin chapter and verse. Real revolution isn’t found in stock answers from a catechism.” I stood up and moved toward the doors. “I don’t know if you three will ever get it.”
Gunnar knew a dismissal when he heard one. He got up, followed me out, and walked slowly away as I locked up. From that night on, whenever we crossed paths, Gunnar was even more polite than before. We spoke alone several times after that meeting in the old Rub-a-Mat and he said he was trying to get Alexi to see I wasn’t a class enemy, but he didn’t seem to be having a lot of luck. He was having even less, if that were possible, with Slisko.