“Well, that’s funny, too, but it seems that me and Mr. Dye here are sort of going to have to look after things. We were talking about it just this afternoon, weren’t we, Mr. Dye?”
“This very afternoon,” I said. “Just before you got here.”
“I see,” Schoemeister said. He wasn’t pushing anything.
“The trouble, Mr. Schoemeister,” I said, “is that neither Chief Necessary nor I have schedules that will permit us to devote full time to the various activities that formerly were under Mr. Lynch’s personal supervision. We were thinking of taking in a partner — a working partner, of course — who could devote at least a portion of his time to these various interests. Your name happened to come up, so we thought we’d arrange this meeting.”
“I’m going to ask you a question,” Schoemeister said.
Necessary smiled. “Go ahead.”
“This place bugged?”
“You think I’d bug my own office?”
“Some do.”
“Some are goddamned stupid, too.”
“Okay,” Schoemeister said and looked at me. “You talk awful pretty, but you don’t really say anything. See if you can’t make it not quite so pretty and a little more plain.”
“All right,” I said. “Lynch is out as of noon today. I’m in. So is Necessary and so are you, for a third if you can run it.”
“I hear it’s pretty rich,” Schoemeister said.
“You hear right,” Necessary said.
“I also hear that Lynch was under Luccarella.”
“Luccarella’s out too,” I said.
“Since when?”
“Since tomorrow,” Necessary said.
“What keeps him out?”
Necessary tapped the third gold button down on his uniform. “This keeps him out and gets you in, if you’re interested.”
Schoemeister nodded. “Like I say, I’ve been on vacation down here, but you know how it is, I sort of nosed around.”
“We know how it is,” Necessary said.
“I’d kinda heard of some trouble when I was up in Chicago.”
“It gets around,” I said.
Schoemeister looked at me. “When you talk about these interests, just what’re you talking about?”
“Everything,” I said.
“How much you figure it’s worth?”
“By the month?” Necessary said.
“That’ll do.”
Necessary looked at me. “What did we come up with?”
“Before we reorganized the police department it grossed about two million a month. There was the usual big overhead and that knocked the net down to around two or three hundred thousand. Some months were better than others.”
“How many ways is the net split?” Schoemeister said.
“Three,” Necessary said. “Just three ways and each of us pays his own expenses.”
“And what do you expect me to do?” Schoemeister said.
“The operation has deteriorated during the past month,” I said. “Gone to hell really. We expect you to personally supervise its rebuilding. After it’s functioning smoothly again, you can appoint your own supervisor. He — and whoever he hires — will be responsible to you and you will be responsible to us.”
Schoemeister nodded thoughtfully. “Suppose I just moved in on my own? Suppose that happened?”
“We’d move you right out,” Necessary said.
“What about Luccarella? He’s tied in back east, you know.”
“That bother you?” I said.
“Those guys back east don’t bother me,” Schoemeister said. “I don’t go looking for trouble from them, but they don’t bother me.”
“Luccarella might get a little unfriendly,” Necessary said.
“Who takes care of him?”
“You do,” Necessary said. “And anybody else who starts getting pushy. There may be a couple of them or so.”
“I’ll have to get some people down.”
“How soon?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I call ‘em today; they’ll be here tomorrow. How much trouble you think there might be, not counting Luccarella?”
“Two or three maybe,” Necessary said.
“You got any names?”
“A couple. Tex Turango from Dallas. Nigger Jones from Miami.”
Schoemeister shook his head and smiled his horrible smile. “That ain’t much trouble.”
“We didn’t think it would be.”
“One thing though.”
“What?” I said.
“I’d like to go over the books. I mean you go into a business like this and invest time and money and you’re a damn fool if you don’t go over the books.”
“Tomorrow afternoon be okay?” I said.
“Fine,” Schoemeister said. “I’ll have my accountant come down too.”
“Good,” Necessary said.
“Well,” Schoemeister said, rising, “I guess that does it for now.”
We shook hands all around. “I think it’s going to be nice doing business with you fellows,” he said.
“I think it’ll work out fine all the way around,” Necessary said.
“You might want to use the private entrance over here,” I said and steered Schoemeister to it.
“Thanks for the drink,” he said as he went out, and I told him not to mention it.
When he had gone Necessary picked up the phone and spoke to Lt. Ferkaire, who came in promptly.
“Who’s next?”
“The Onealo brothers, Ralph and Roscoe. Kansas City.”
“Send them in,” Necessary said.
After they came in and after they were seated, Homer Necessary leaned back in his chair and said, “We got a nice little town here. Got some new industry and more on the way. Got one of the best little beaches...”
It went that way all afternoon. The Onealo brothers, blond, dumpy and stupid-looking, couldn’t conceal their eagerness. Arturo (Tex) Turango, handsome and olive-skinned, smiled a lot with his big white teeth and said he did believe it was his kind of proposition. Edouardo (Sweet Eddie) Puranelli from Cleveland wanted to know more about how Luccarella figured in the deal and when we told him he said that he never did like the sonofabitch anyhow. Nicholas (Nick the Nigger) Jones from Miami was whiter than either Necessary or I, spoke with a clipped Jamaican accent, and thought the proposition had “fascinating possibilities” and asked if we wanted him to fly his people in that same evening and we told him that it might be a good idea.
When Jones had gone, I turned to the window and stared out at the Gulf Coast through the black-tinted glass. “How many times did we sell Swankerton this afternoon?” I said.
“Five,” Necessary said. “Six if you count the Onealo brothers twice.”
“The meeting with Luccarella tomorrow could get rough.”
“You think he’s as nutty as they say?”
“It’s worse than that,” I said.
“How?”
“He knows he’s nutty.”
Lt. Ferkaire stuck his head in the door. “That’s the last of them, Chief Necessary.”
“Good.”
“By the way, Mr. Dye, I just got a report from the airport.”
“Yes?”
“A Mr. Carmingler arrived on a Braniff flight from Washington about twenty minutes ago.”
“Redheaded?”
“Yes, sir. I thought you’d want to know. Do you want us to keep him under surveillance?”
I turned back to the window and looked out at the Gulf and wished it would rain. “No. He’ll get in touch with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Ferkaire said, and I could hear the pneumatic door close behind him.
“The hard case?” Necessary said.
“That’s right.”
“You need some help?”
I turned and shook my head. “Nobody stocks the kind I need anymore.”
Necessary examined a hangnail. He bit it. “Maybe they never did,” he said in between bites.