"Motivation," said the woman.
"Yeah. What dat is and how you tink of ya'self in de relativition of let's say Goggin."
"Gaugin?"
"Yeah. Him."
"I'm glad you asked," said the woman, her head jerking nervously to the mob that had just passed her headed to her back room where her Paris street scenes were. "But don't you think I should help them?"
"No," said the driver. "They're just looking. I want dis here pitcher and yer gonna take care of me."
"Certainly. You know I have a confession. You're my first customers. All so sudden." She pointed toward the back. "Are they bankers?"
"Dey're da American Kiwanis International."
"Funny. I didn't think so. They seemed too polite for that. Well, now you see, Gaugin saw life, Gaugin saw colour differently. . . ." and the red headed artist was off into her explanation of colour as an art form, as Willie the Plumber nodded and went over his four more questions mentally. He would use them if she slowed up. He would not have to use them.
In the back room, Don Dominic Verillio raised his hands, both for silence and as an indication that the formalities of gathering should be abandoned. He stood before a dark green-blue impression of a night park.
"Last year, I told you all individually when I visited you that drugs had become a serious problem. I told you that little independent dealers all over America were importing and selling heroin. Many of your people were involved. Many of your people were more involved in heroin than in working for you. Many of your own people were losing respect for you because they could independent the merchandise at a better price.
"What could you buy? A suitcase of the stuff. None of you ever got a trunk-full. Quality was irregular. People were selling you sugar. Sand. Baking powder. Cutting the stuff with strychnine. When you got pure stuff, people began overdosing. To get money for their habits, the junkies robbed indiscriminately. More crime. More police. More police meant you had to provide bigger pads and that was only when you could get them to take mordido, payoffs. This heroin stuff is going to kill us as sure as if we were shooting it up ourselves."
Grunts of agreement filled the room. A few men looked nervously out the door. They were within earshot of the shop's proprietor.
"Don't worry about her," said Don Dominic.
"She can hear," said Fat O'Brien.
"She's in her own world. An artist that good has a high of a different kind. We're here to talk horse. When I talked to you last year about my plans in your supposedly safe offices and homes, it took less than a week before it was known where we didn't want it known. Now I told you I was going to bring in tons of the stuff. You expressed doubts. Well, I'm ready to take orders."
"You mean, it's really coming in?" said Francisco Salvatore.
"It is in," said Don Dominic Verillio. "Forty seven tons. It's 98 per cent pure and we're going to ship it in pills that the junkies can break down and in serum bottles that look like they could be medicine. We're gonna be able to sell this stuff so cheap they'll be able to smoke it, like in Vietnam.
"You're going to be able to take the bottom out of this market and when you've cleaned out the independents, you can raise the ceiling on it. You'll own whole cities. I mean, own them. America can say goodbye to the glassine envelope."
"Don Dominic. Don Dominic. Don Dominic," the capos cried. Retro Scubisci kissed the hand of Dominic Verillio, but Don Dominic knew that was more of an opener to bargain for bulk-rates rather than a sign of respect.
"And none of you knew it, did you? Forty-seven tons and none of you knew it. Now tell me who to worry about listening in and who not to worry about. Tell me what a safe place is and what a safe place isn't. I will take your orders now, once, and we will meet again in six months for more orders. The same way."
"You must have the fix in big," said Pietro Scubisci, who was the first to order.
"I got the best fix you can get. They don't come any better," Don Dominic said.
And. Scubisci ordered a ton for New York City. Seven hundred pounds were destined for Los Angeles, 200 pounds for Boston, 600 pounds for Detroit, 300 pounds for Dallas and another 300 for New Orleans, 700 pounds for Philadelphia and a ton for Chicago. Cleveland wanted 300 pounds and Columbus 100 and Cincinnati 100. San Francisco ordered 200 pounds as did Kansas City. Fifty pounds each were ordered by Denver, Phoenix, Norfolk and Raleigh, and Charleston, Las Vegas, and Wheeling.
Don Dominic Verillio totalled it up mentally. Over eight thousand pounds, more than four tons. It was about a six-months' supply for the entire nation. He was satisfied. Orders would grow in size as he proved ability to deliver.
"We'll get it to you," he said. "And it'll have labels of your local druggists. You won't be able to tell the stuff from aspirin, penicillin or seidlitz powder. Gentlemen, this is the big fix." He smiled as befits a man who has just sold $160 million worth of goods to men who would resell them for $800 million.
"Don Dominic, Don Dominic, Don Dominic," again came the voices and Don Dominic Verillio received the adulation. He stood at the doorway and said goodbye to each one personally, as they went out to the front of the shop and then out to the street where the cars waited. The artist hardly looked up.
Scubisci was the last to leave.
"Pietro," said Don Dominic. "I have loved you like a father. I give you, with utmost respect, some advice."
"The Scubisci family always welcomes the advice of Don Dominic Verillio."
"As I told the others, if you don't sell high at first, you can establish your control. I say this for your own good."
"That is good advice if there is a second shipment."
"Is there something that makes you believe there won't be?"
"I am an old man, Don Dominic. Who knows if I live to a second shipment?"
"That is not what worries you," Verillio said.
"If I tell you what causes me concern, you laugh. As I laugh. I think it not worth your ears."
"Anything you say is worth my ears."
The old man nodded slowly. "My Angela, she believe in the stars. The stars this-the stars that. She plays her games. I listen. You know how she said you gonna get married. And you did. And how your wife die. And, may I bless her memory, she did. You know how she says you be capo of all capos. And you are. Maybe it an accident. She also say you get fine daughter and you no have children, so you knows what the stars say?"
Don Dominic's grip tightened on the old man's shoulders. But as soon as it tightened, he caught control of himself and loosened.
"Well," continued Pietro Scubisci, rolling his greasy pepper bag in his fingers. "She come up a crazy this time. I tell you last year, this thing maybe is not the best thing. But I go along."
"Yes?" said Verillio.
"You know how Angela say this day is not the day and to wait and she says wait forever, so you don't wait at all. But I go along because stars are stars and business is business. But this time Angela is frightened. She say . . . you must promise no laugh. She say you going against a god."
Don Dominic could not control the laughter, and he apologized as he guffawed.
"You see, it is nothing," said Pietro.
"Tell me about this god."
"Well, it's not like a god, like a saint. It's like olden times God."
"Zeus. Jupiter. Apollo?"
"Like Chinese," Scubisci said. "A crazy thing. Angela sends away to this old lady in Greenwich Village, because the stars Angela cannot read. And comes back more confusion. What is the word the Jews use when they mourn their dead. Sit on boxes and do not shave and things?"
"Shiva" Verillio said.
"Yah. That's him. Except it sounds like sleeve."