“The hell you are.”
He turned the light off. In the dark she listened to his breathing.
And then finally he said, “Hell yes.”
He gathered her against him. She couldn’t help it: She cried.
3
The kid bustled around the office like a termite inspector and Ezio stood out of his way by the window looking down into the traffic. He saw it when Cestone double-parked the limousine in front of the building entrance and went around the car to open the door for Frank Pastor. Frank was wearing a light-gray suit and a yellow shirt and looked boyish and foreshortened from this high angle. Ezio watched him disappear into the building.
You could tell a good deal about Frank’s mood by his choice of clothes in the morning. He was wearing something light and colorful today. The meeting was going to be tricky enough; if Frank had been in a bad mood it might have gone awry.
The elevator must have been right there waiting because Frank arrived very quickly. Down in the street Cestone was still waiting for the light to change so he could pull the limousine out into the traffic. Ezio turned away from the window and Frank was in the doorway watching the kid work on a lamp.
“How’s the electronic genius this morning?”
“Morning, Mr. Pastor. Doing just fine, thank you. Nothing to report, I’m happy to say. I’m just about finished up — just want to check out the door hinges before I go.”
“You take your time and do your job,” Frank told the kid. “We’re paying for thoroughness, not speed.”
Frank settled into the leather couch. Ezio said, “That rain last night sure cleaned out the air. You can see clear to Jersey.”
“Beautiful day,” Frank agreed.
The kid picked up his little electronic gizmos and fitted them back into his kit; he closed the case and went toward the door. “See you next week, Mr. Martin. Nice to see you, Mr. Pastor.”
“So long, kid. Thanks.”
The door closed behind him. Frank said, “These kids today, they’re born with printed circuits and transistors in place of skin and bones.”
“You look happy this morning.”
“Well it’s a nice day, you know how it is. Hell, I’m a free man, I got a good business, I got a great wife. I should be unhappy?”
“Sure as hell not.”
Frank said, “What time the others getting here?”
“Ten-thirty. That gives us half an hour. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“What about?”
“Well you know we’ve got a whole octopus out there trying to pin down Merle and those others.” Ezio pulled the big glass ashtray toward him and leaned back in the swivel chair. “There’s something curious that’s come up.”
“You got the jammer running, Ezio?”
“Sure. The kid checked it out and turned it back on.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
Ezio said, “We’re blowing a great deal of money and man-hours on finding those four guys.”
“You want to stop looking for them?” Frank’s voice was soft and dangerous.
“No. I’m just stating a fact.”
“Ezio, we need to nail those four gentlemen. For a lot of very good reasons, as you know.”
“Sure. I’m just saying we’ve got a board of directors to answer to and some of them aren’t — well they maybe don’t understand some of these things. One or two of them may bring it up at the meeting. I’ve already heard a couple of beefs. I mean nobody’s going to make a dime off this deal whether we nail those four guys or not.”
“If we don’t nail them we could lose a lot of dimes in the future. People get the idea they can spit in our faces and get away with it, pretty soon we lose respect.”
“You don’t have to argue it with me, Frank.”
“Who’s been beefing?”
“A couple of the guys. Malone for one.”
“Stupid Mick. Who else?”
“Lorricone.”
“Mittens? He’s beefing? All the shylock skips he’s gone after and maimed?”
“Well he was making some remark about how you cut your losses after you reach a certain point. You figure you’ve driven him out of town, you’ve got him on the run, that’s lesson enough.”
“These four gentlemen spit in my face, Ezio.”
“I know that. But I’d soft-pedal that argument with the board if I were you.”
“You’re not me.”
“It’s likely to come up in the meeting, that’s all. I wanted you to be ready for it.”
“I appreciate that.” Frank crossed his legs. “Now you said there was something curious that came up.”
“It’s about Merle.”
“Go ahead.”
Ezio snapped the gold lighter open and fiddled with it. He felt unnerved by the abrupt coldness of Frank’s voice. “Well I’m not sure about this. It’s all kind of vague. What happened, we sent photographs of Merle and the other three out to a lot of contacts, particularly out on the West Coast.”
“I know all that.”
“Sam Ordway out in Los Angeles, you remember him?”
“Sure.”
“Ordway started up a new racket out there a few years ago. It was while you were away. He’s running a big executive-car operation. You know, they heist cars to order, they deliver them to South Americans and false-front movie producers and some of those fly-by-night livery and leasing outfits. The way it’s set up, they mainly lift the cars from doctors, people like that, and they’ve got a whole chain of body and paint shops scattered around the Southwest and the Coast. They boost a car, it goes straight into the shop. It’s a very smooth operation. Each item is a custom heist — they don’t boost a car until they get an order for that particular kind of car — but it’s pretty big business. All right, it’s just a sideline to Ordway, he’s got a lot of big irons in the fire, but I imagine this one clears something up in six figures every month.”
“What’s this got to do with Merle?”
“Just background, Frank. Ordway runs this executive-car business, he’s involved in interstate car laws, right? It’s FBI jurisdiction. He’s got one or two FBI agents in his pocket. Not big-timers but if orders ever come down to move against his operation he’ll get the word from them in time to move out. These FBI agents also pass on information to him from time to time. They sell it to him for a little extra money.”
“So an FBI agent passed Ordway some information that’s connected with Edward Merle. What was it?”
“Well it seems they’re looking for him.”
“Who’s looking for who?”
“According to Ordway the FBI put out an all-points on Edward Merle, or at least on a guy who looks like him. It looks like Merle but the name is Baxter. Paul Baxter. Now the last name he was running under was Jason Greene. He was using that name up there in Arizona when George Ramiro almost ran him down.”
“You’re sure it’s Merle? Why would the FBI put out an APB on him?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Evidently it’s not an urgent bulletin. It’s just one of those ordinary daily assignment-sheet items. You know, keep an eye out for this guy and if you spot him report him to headquarters. Now maybe it isn’t Merle at all, but Ordway swears it is.”
Frank reached up to scratch his head and sat up irritably when he touched it; apparently he’d forgotten he was wearing the rug. “Let’s take this through slowly. It’s all assumptions. Assume the government gives Merle another new identity, this Paul Baxter name. Then they put out an all-points for the guy. If we assume Baxter and Merle are the same man, why do they provide him with a new name and then go looking for him? It only makes sense one way. It means Merle walked out on them.”