“I don’t condone that kind of thing. It’s bad practice, in more ways than one.”
“What I meant about college — where’d you go, Alabama? The name De Blasio is well known. I suppose everybody asked you if you were related to what’s his name, the Mafia don.”
Carl said softly, “I never had a chance to be normal, you know, Mike? Some of those rednecks put a lot of time and effort into thinking up ways to humiliate me. What could I do, fight everybody? Or ask my father for a couple of strongarms to bodyguard me? I toughed it out for three years. But I really wanted that diploma. I always had a vague idea I’d like to be a psychiatrist.”
“The country needs doctors.”
“More than shylocks and bookmakers? Don’t be silly.”
He replenished his drink. If he had looked closely at Shayne’s expression, he might have seen something that would have started him shaking again, but he was absorbed in his own situation.
“I’m a part of it now,” he said, drinking. “I don’t know why you brought up college. The one way I could have made it, the only way, was if I’d gone out to the Coast, and signed up under a different name. I love Nicola — she’s a terrific kid, even though she does have a slight drinking problem — but the big reason we got married — you think I’m going to say she was pregnant, but not at all, it was so I’d have an excuse to drop out of college. It was getting impossible. We had a big old-timey ceremony. Well, make the best of it.”
Looking at Shayne with every sign of sincerity, he said, “We could work together, Mike. I think we complement each other. We could really click.”
“You don’t want to trust me, Carlo. I could surprise you.”
“You’re as much a part of it as I am. Not officially, how could you be, you’re not Italian — that old story. But to all intents and purposes. And you’re what the thing needs. I’ve had a few ideas. Siracusa was the stumbling block. He was the adviser, you know, and his advice was to stay in the same grooves.”
“As long as they make money…”
“Sometime I’ll tell you how much it costs in fees and protection to run a handbook in one hotel. You’ve got to do it — gambling holds the whole thing together. Everybody wants to gamble, and so we get protection on other things, but some years we barely break even. My father believes in taking care of his people. That’s the boss’s job. At least half the regular payroll is a drain. You can’t run a modern business that way. Here’s what I want to do, what I’m pushing for. We’ve got a political nucleus. We’ve got good leverage, and what do we use it for? To protect our policy runners. To fix traffic tickets. Mike, with a little grass-roots work we could elect two congressmen and — it’s not impossible — a senator. Just by collecting on all the favors we’ve thrown at people all those years. We could put together one of the tightest political machines in the country if we bothered. The real money isn’t in shylocking. It’s in Washington.”
He was becoming excited. “The kind of thing I’ve been investigating, a couple of shipyards over on the Gulf are up for grabs. I don’t object to the use of muscle — it’s a matter of how and where. I never could make Siracusa see the point, that we’re wasting our power on loan-shark collections and so on and so forth. Throw it into a proxy fight. What’s that, he wanted to know.” He laughed scornfully. “Those stockholders would be delighted to vote for a management that could get them some contracts. For that you need people in Congress. What I’m trying to say is, I want to pull the family into the twentieth century. The numbers on one of those shipping deals would stupefy you. You put up a hundred thousand, turn around, and six months later you’ve got a million. But you can’t buy senators like judges. They have to be yours before they take the oath of office. That means you have to plan ahead.”
“It’s a long way from peddling football pools.”
“And safer, for the very good reason that it’s legal. People say we’re moving in on legitimate business, but you know that’s a lot of crap, Mike. Laundromats. Bottling franchises. Car hauls. Nickle and dime stuff.”
“And if you took over—”
“Did I say anything about taking over? Persuasion’s the thing.”
He continued to smoke and drink and talk about his plans until the strangely shaped Beach hotels began to rise out of the mist. Shayne corrected his heading.
“Mike,” Carl said suddenly, “thanks a million for — you know, and if there’s anything I can ever do for you…”
“I’m getting paid for it. But not very well.”
“When you tell my father about it, if you could sort of gloss over a few things, how I didn’t help afterward…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He started to drink, but made a wry face and put the flask back in his pocket. “I’m getting the wrong kind of jolt out of this. I’m going to pull into Pier Park for a minute and hit a drugstore.”
Carl said with interest, “What are you into?”
“Nothing heavy. I’m behind on my sleep.”
“Somebody laid some cocaine on me the other day,” Carl said. “Really smoothed me out. But Jesus,” he added, “don’t say anything about that to my father, either.”
Shayne cut around the breakwater at the tip of the Beach and came in past the Kennel Club. “Take over.”
Carl took the wheel. “You’re not trying to be cute or anything, are you, Mike? You’ll be back?”
“Damn right I’ll be back. You people owe me some money.”
He swung over the rail and caught the ladder at the end of the recreation pier, kicking the boat away before it scraped. Leaving the park, he dodged across Ocean Drive without waiting for the light.
There was a pharmacy a few blocks away on Euclid, run by an old man who was known to be a soft touch for prescription junkies. He had been in difficulty only once, and then it was Shayne who by some fast footwork had saved his license. He greeted Shayne cordially, peering over the top of his half-moon glasses.
“Mike, I’m so far out in the woods you don’t ever come to see me? Somebody was telling me you had bad luck in the market. Believe me, you look it.”
“The luck’s been bad all around,” Shayne said, “but I think it’s about to turn.”
He motioned toward the back of the store. The pharmacist followed him.
“What can I give you?”
Shayne explained what he needed, while the old man looked more and more unhappy. “This is without a prescription?”
“Naturally. Would I come over here if I had a prescription? I’ll get one to you by the end of the week.”
“Mike, only for you. And don’t recommend me to your friends, all right?”
“Let me use your phone.”
“That I can let you do without breaking the law.”
As soon as Shayne had a dial tone, he dialed the New Orleans area code, following it with another number he found on a slip of paper in his wallet. A man’s voice answered.
“Star Investigations. Wellington speaking.”
“This is Michael Shayne. My operator says you called me. Does that mean you found him?”
“No sweat, Mike. You said a faggot, and he’s flaming. He hustles out of a Bourbon Street bar, but not with just anybody. I mentioned your name, and I mentioned five hundred dollars, inasmuch as it’s out of town. He looked receptive. Do I go ahead with it?”
“How soon can you put him on a plane?”
“I advanced him fifty, and he promised to stay available. I don’t want to make you nervous, but he’s looking forward to meeting you. Mike Shayne, wow.”
Shayne laughed. “I’ll be careful.”
“I told him you didn’t swing that way, but I’m wondering if he believed me. There’s a flight that gets to Miami at seven, and if everything goes nicely, that’s the one he’ll be on.”