“Now here is what it is, all right?” Leo said. “I will tell you what it is: fuckin’ niggers’ve got rights. If the niggers can’t find no apartments they can get a Jew or two and go to federal court and pretty soon every landlord in the city’s gonna be in federal court with his own high-priced loudmouth tryin’ to stop the judge from throwin’ him in jail because he didn’t take in every nigger that came down the street and make sure he had a warm bed and a good dinner in addition to, the roof didn’t leak. But when the niggers get in the apartments, then it is a different story. They don’t pay their rent. They stick out their lower lips and they look at you and they roll them big white eyes and they say, ‘Muh-fuck, I ain’t payin’ you no rent. I ain’t payin’ you no hundred thirty-five this month for them five rooms. I ain’t been warm enough. You ain’t got the heat up high enough. I is with-holdin mah rent until you gets the heat up there.’ And then they go shuckin’ and jivin’ down the street and you just try to get them into court, collect from them. You can’t get ‘em into court and you can’t get ‘em out the building, and they won’t pay you nothin’ while they’re in it, and your lawyer costs you money but theirs is free.
“Try and tell a banker that, sometime,” Leo said, “you got a half a day and nothin’ else to do. He won’t even hear you. He won’t understand a single word you’re saying. He will just keep telling you, you got to pay some money to him and it’s not his responsibility, get it for you.
“And that, Billy boy,” Leo said, “is when you learn to play with matches.”
“Leo,” Malatesta said, “that was a different kind of thing. A different kind of thing entirely. That was a vacant warehouse. There wasn’t anybody living in it. The only thing in it was that old truck. I had no problem with that at all.”
“That isn’t what you told me, Billy,” Leo said. “You said it’d take at least five hundred to get that one traced to the wiring.”
“That was for somebody else,” Billy said. “That was for somebody else I hadda take care of, or he would’ve gone down there and started poking around and then his price would’ve gone up. Double, at least. I wasn’t in the same position then. I was new. I hadda clear things through guys. I didn’t make a dime off of that deal.”
“Yeah,” Leo said.
“I didn’t,” Billy said. “I hadda keep that guy out of there. That was a dog-ass amateur job. If he’d’ve gone in there he would’ve known right off, the way those charrings, alligator burns, showed, he would’ve known you torched it. I hadda keep him out.”
“Yeah,” Leo said. “Well, it don’t matter. I’m outta warehouses now. I still got loans, and I still can’t pay them, but now there’s niggers livin’ in the collateral, and I can’t get ‘em out. I’m no amateur anymore, but I can’t get those bastards out. And I have got to do something.”
“Don’t come to me, you do,” Billy said.
“Billy,” Leo said, “I already came to you, long time ago. Don’t give that kind of talk, an old buddy.”
“Leo,” Billy said, “you can come to me any time. I’m just telling you, I’m not gonna be able to cover you, you do. You touch off one of those joints with niggers in it, you just burn yourself one nigger, and you are on your own. You own those buildings, my friend. They maybe aren’t worth what you owe on them, but you own ‘em, and if some tenant goes up with the parapet roof, you’ll be right behind them.”
“Billy, my friend,” Leo said, “you remember you asked me how come I hired Four-flusher Fein to represent me?”
“Yeah,” Billy said.
“Well,” Leo said, “now I am gonna tell you. I didn’t hire Jerry. Jerry hired me.”
3
Mickey asked Don for a cigarette and learned that he had none. He got up from the counter and came over to the booth where Leo Proctor sat with Billy. “You wouldn’t have a smoke, would you?” he said.
“Sure,” Proctor said. He fished a pack of Winstons from his pocket. He handed it to the trucker, who took out one cigarette and returned the pack.
“Jesus Christ,” Mickey said, patting his pockets, “I haven’t got a match. I’m outta lights, too. I’m tryin’ to quit. You got a match?”
“Sure,” Leo said, producing a matchbook. The trucker lit the Winston and returned the matches. He thanked Leo and returned to the counter.
“That, Bill,” Leo said, “is what I’ve got. I’ve got the matches and the know-how and a criminal case that I can’t afford. I also got niggers inna joints and I can’t get ‘em out. Thing of it is, Fein has got this ticket, he can practice law. And he has also got buildings with niggers in them and he can’t get them out. Only Fein don’t carry no matches. So what me and Fein figure, maybe we can do some business, you follow me? He will get me out of the court thing, and I will get his niggers outta his buildings, and then we will sit down together and figure out a way, get the niggers outta my buildings, which will get the bankers off my ass.”
“Uh-huh,” Billy said. “Sounds great. Lot of guys’ve done a lot of time on things that didn’t sound half as good as that does.”
“Billy,” Leo said, “I’m not a banker. I do live inna real world. I’m not a bad carpenter. I can lay brick, if there’s nobody from the union standin’ around. I can do the pipe work. I dunno how many furnaces and burners I took out and put in. I can install your hot-water heater. I can refit your fuckin’ waste disposal. You give me enough furring and wallboard, and let me into your place in the morning, I will have the joint rebuilt before you can get through the traffic that night and there will be no plaster dust lying around all over the place. I can insulate your attic and I can make your cellar stop leaking, sometimes. I can glaze your windows where the vandals broke ‘em and I can point your exterior bricks if I have to. Roofing’s something I learned about thirty years ago. I can put in dishwashers and change your locks and fix your garage-door opener. Custom bookcases and platform beds, bathroom vanities and moulded showers, parquet floors and new bay windows: I do all of them things, and I never once had one complaint that was legitimate. You want gold-plated faucets that look like swans? I can put those in. A little orange stove that’s shaped like an ice-cream cone? No sweat. Rewire the upstairs, put in an intercom, put a humidifier on the furnace, put in your sump pump – I done all those things.
“The trouble is,” Leo said, “doing all them things hasn’t done me enough good as far’s money’s concerned, and as a result I am in a lot of trouble with a lot of bankers who don’t seem interested in my explanations.
“Now,” he said, “I was satisfied with that, and I don’t really see why I thought I hadda go out and get myself in trouble with the cops too. I didn’t need any cops chasing me around. I had enough on my plate as it was. But once they started, all of a sudden I needed a lawyer.
“Of course I can’t get no lawyer. None to speak of, anyway. But I can get Fein, and Fein has got the thing there that says he is a lawyer, even though the idea of Jerry Fein in court is something that’d gag a billy goat that had to go to court. But Jerry Fein has to do what I say.”
“What you ought to say,” Billy said, “you ought to say, ‘Get me somebody else.’”
“That’s what I said,” Leo said. “And that is what Jerry Fein is doing. And that is why I wanted to talk to you. I thought maybe you could use some cash.”