“In Connecticut. In a town called—”
“Never mind,” I interrupted, “I know the town.”
Durkinsen never forgot a face. He must have seen mine twice a day in the papers and he never forgot a face. I wondered where he would be when he sobered up. He’d either place the face or not remember running into me at all. Maybe he would run around screaming about a wife-murderer at large in the peaceful state of Nevada. Maybe...
So we were on a plane leaving the following afternoon. We didn’t run. I got up in the morning, yawned, stretched, yawned again, then rolled over and nudged Annie. ‘This town stinks,” I said. “I’m bored stiff.”
So was she.
“Let’s leave it,” I said. “I’m sick of slot machines, I’m sick of roulette wheels, I’m sick of tourists. I’m even sick of hotels where they fall on their faces to serve you. It’s a pain in the neck.”
“Breakfast first,” she said. “Then we’ll pack.”
We had scotch and eggs for breakfast, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. Then we packed. I called the desk and told them to reserve the nearest jet to Buffalo. I called Dan Gordon, went downstairs to see him and told him I had to run and that he ran the best damned hotel in the world. He laughed like a baboon, pounded my arm, and told me to give Tony his love. I told him I’d kiss Tony for him. Gordon had an even bigger laugh over that one. When we got downstairs I signed my tab. They had a Caddy waiting for us and we made our plane with time to spare.
The flight back was a fast one, a good one. We took a cab in from the airport. I told Annie to pick up her stuff from her old apartment in the morning and let the cabby take us both to the Stennett.
“You live here,” I said “With me.”
“That’s the rule?”
“Your landlord threw you out,” I said. “You might as well take advantage of my hospitality.”
She didn’t argue. From the Stennett I called Tony. He sounded glad to hear from me.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You really couldn’t stay away.”
I said, “It was fun. But I figured you’d go nuts without me.”
17
October was a lazy month. The days got a little shorter. The trees dropped their leaves and the police dropped the lid on a few of our numbers locations on William Street. That was the closest October got to being hectic. We got word of the raid just four hours ahead of time and we had to work fast. The boys minding the stores scouted around for some neighborhood loafers who could use a hundred fast dollars for thirty days’ work. Then our boys went home and the loafers waited for the cops behind the counters. The police came on schedule and arrested the patsies — and the next day we had business as usual. The newspapers were happy, the townsfolk were assured they had a functioning police force and nobody got hurt.
That was October. I spent it at my office, at Cassino’s, at Noomie’s, at the Stennett. There was a week, maybe two weeks, when I sat on the edge of my chair and waited for Albert Durkinsen to remember where he had seen my pretty face. Evidently he forgot all about me. Or, if he remembered, he decided to let it lie. Or, if he went screaming to the nearest cop, the cop wrote off little Albert as a screwball to be neatly ignored. Whatever way the incident played itself out, Albert from Connecticut was a man to be forgotten and Donald Barshter was deader than a dozen doornails.
My job was easy and got to be surprisingly satisfying. The job involved business and at the same time it was illegal — and the combination got to be a hell of an interesting one. I had the inside track and the inside story, which kept the job exciting. But when I was in my office with my door closed and my secretary buffing her nails and a pile of papers and correspondence on my desk in front of me, I was just another straight-and-narrow businessman all over again. It was bookkeeping and figure-juggling and memo-writing, and only the pay and the underworld undertone made the job different from being somebody’s accountant. Or from selling insurance. But that was enough for me. I’d always been good at the work, and this way it didn’t bore me.
And I was starting to like Buffalo. It was my town now — this made a difference. The trip to Las Vegas — Tony’s idea, not mine — had been a good move. It made coming back to Buffalo a pleasure.
So that was October and it was pleasant. I had a closet filled with suits and a bank account filled with money. There was a safe-deposit box, also filled with money, and on that money I didn’t have to pay taxes. There was Berman’s basement, where we still played poker once a week, and there were half a dozen nightclubs where they always had a table free for me. There was the place at the Stennett which got more and more like a home.
And when I wanted her, there was Anne Bishop.
She wasn’t the same girl, not exactly. A mistress is not the same thing as a girlfriend. Anne was a mistress now and her independence was over and done with. She lived with me and slept with me. I gave her money for clothes, money for books, money for her to do as she pleased with. We still had our cute conversations but they were milder now, never so fierce as they had grown before. We still had our probing sessions, Anne playing her “Who Is This Nathaniel Crowley?” game, but they were fewer, farther between and infinitely subtler. We still had our kicks but they were somehow a different sort, our roles more clearly defined. I hadn’t had reason to slap her again, since Vegas. She hadn’t wielded any shivs.
“You ought to break down,” she said one night. “You ought to make an honest woman out of me, Nat.”
“That a proposal?”
“Just an idea. Why don’t we get married?”
“Sure,” I said. “Maybe we could find one of those split-levels. I hear you can get a thirty-year mortgage with no sweat these days.”
“Not a split-level. A huge stone house with a lot of land around it and respectable neighbors. Gangsters love to brag about their respectable neighbors. I watched The Untouchables and I know all about gangsters.”
“I know the program. It’s about lower-caste Hindus. In India.”
“That’s the one,” she said.
“Are you untouchable?” I asked.
“Not exactly. Why?”
I said, “Come here and I’ll show you.”
And I showed her. We’d grown used to our roles, and it was not murderous now. There was no fight to have the upper hand. You could almost think of it as making love — if you squinted. If you forgot about how we got here, about the things we’d said and done. The things I’d said, the things I’d done.
She played the let’s-get-married record again a few days later. This time there were violins in the background. She almost made marriage sound interesting but I remembered Ellen too well to really meditate about it. Besides, for obvious reasons, marriage was impossible.
“I’m twice shy,” I said.
“Meaning you were once bitten?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s interesting,” she said thoughtfully. “Tell me all your troubles, Nat Crowley. Tell me about your past love and your past life. Do you have an exciting past?”
“No past at all.”
“Where were you born?”
“I wasn’t,” I told her. “I sprang full-blown from the brow of Johnny Torrio. Don’t you read your crime comics? They’re part of American mythology.”
“What happened to her?”
I looked at her. “To who? You lost me.”
“To your wife.”
“Oh,” I said. “She left me. She ran away with a pencil sharpener. It was very sad.”
“I guess you don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said. “But I’ve got this terrible allergy — I break out whenever I’m near a sharp pencil.”