“I didn’t know he was so thin-skinned.”
“It is not a matter of sensitivity, Mr. Gilrein. It’s a matter of respect and ritual. My client lives by a fairly exacting code. I must say, it’s amazing to me that you’ll be forgiven for this breach.”
“Yeah,” Gilrein says, “I guess maybe Hermann is mellowing.”
“Our organization has suffered a minor setback. One of our top managers passed away and we lost a good portion of our labor force—”
“Listen, counselor, I don’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other about the big man’s balance sheet. Save it for the auditor, okay? Just tell me why Kroger came after me.”
“I don’t—”
“For Christ’s sake, Gustav, even when he’s on the ropes, Hermann knows every Bohemian move in town. Kroger spills some blood, Hermann would know it before the first drop hit the dirt.”
Weltsch stares for just a few seconds, then shakes his head in consent and maybe a little relief.
He shrugs his shoulders and says, “You know, if it had been up to me, the two-bit seamstress, as you so beautifully dub him, would have been buried some time ago. Even back in Maisel he was under constant suspicion by the secret police. Say what you want about the Communists, they knew a troublemaker when they saw one.”
“So why does Kinsky put up with him?”
“Hermann takes his standard percentage, but mainly it’s sentimental reasons. They came out of the same neighborhood.”
“That’s what everyone says about Hermann,” Gilrein nods, “that sentimental old bastard. I’ll bet he loves a parade, too.”
“Mr. Gilrein, are all the taxi-boys this masochistic?”
“Trust your instincts, Gustav. They’ll serve you well.”
Weltsch takes a roll of mints from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, peels one free and pops it in his mouth, then turns and offers the roll to Gilrein, who declines.
“My instinct,” Weltsch says, “tells me to give you what you want and be rid of you.”
“You’re a good businessman. Time is money.”
Weltsch hunches forward with his elbows on the table and lets his back molars splinter his candy with an unsettling cracking noise.
“The Family,” he says, as if there were anyone left beyond himself and his boss, “has virtually nothing to do with Kroger. He falls under our jurisdiction by fault of genetics and geography. Hermann can’t stand the toad. We’ve always felt that sooner or later he’d begin to imagine he could oversee the Bohemian Wing. It’s absurd, of course.”
“Wouldn’t last a week,” Gilrein affirms.
“A week?” Weltsch raises his eyebrows and gestures out at the cafeteria. “The man is a little dilettante. Can you even imagine him taking his supper in here?”
Gilrein smiles and says, “I’ve got to be honest with you, Gustav. You’re sitting right here in front of me and I’ve got trouble imagining you in this place.”
Weltsch takes it as a compliment and continues.
“A year ago Kroger began making small comments about his licensing costs. He runs several franchises in the Wing. You must be familiar with his publishing concern—”
“I’ve been to the home office,” Gilrein interrupts.
Weltsch grimaces politely.
“Kroger’s yearning for more control began to manifest itself last year. Hermann thought it best to nip the problem in the bud. We’d already decided on a contractor.”
“That’s when the family Kinsky had their first big setback.”
Weltsch nods.
“Jakob, the son, he left the nest and cashed in his stock options on the way out the door. And Felix, the nephew, who was so good on the street …”
He breaks off and Gilrein says, “You know the rumor has been that the son whacked the nephew.”
Gustav meets his eyes and in a low and suddenly unlawyerly voice, he says, “Rumors are vicious things.”
Gilrein drops the subject and steers back to Kroger.
“So Hermann postponed the job on August?”
“It’s been a very unstable time. Perhaps more trying than Hermann would like to admit. The Roaches followed Jakob off into the Canal Zone. People are watching and waiting to see how we rebound. We didn’t think it was the most appropriate moment. Mr. Kroger’s time will come again.”
“No doubt,” Gilrein says. “But who is Hermann using for street muscle these days?”
Gustav stares at him, expressionless, then finally lets a small smile break at the left side of his lips.
“You are a character, Mr. Gilrein.”
“I am?”
“Is this your old friends’ way of renegotiating their contract?”
“My old—”
“Because, let me advise you here and now, we won’t discuss a revision. Your Mr. Oster agreed to a flat monthly fee and he’ll abide by that agreement.”
“Oster?” Gilrein says. “Kinsky is using the Magicians for his street crew?”
“You run back to your police friends and tell them we won’t even discuss it until their term expires. Tell them their behavior is pathetic and we expected more from professionals.”
“Weltsch, I’m telling you, I had no idea.”
The distant sound of a toilet flushing reverberates through the walls of the cafeteria and Attorney Weltsch begins to gather his financial journals together into a neat pile.
“But I just—” Gilrein begins, and Weltsch motions him out of the booth.
“Depending on how things went in there,” gesturing now toward the men’s room, “your life could be in genuine danger if you’re still here when Hermann returns.”
18
The names you used to call me
Sound so strange and they fill me with fear
But will we ever know if this difference is born
On your tongue or perhaps in my ear …
It’s “What Is and Isn’t Said,” a live version off the One Night in Wiesbaden album. The tune was done with a string section backing and Gilrein finds it greatly inferior to Imogene’s original a cappella rendition, so he asks the driver to turn off the radio and tries to stop wondering which interpretation Ceil was partial to, tries instead to focus on the more pertinent question at hand — why the hell two Bohemian gangsters might be vying to ice one insignificant ex — bunko cop? He relays the final directions to Wormland through the safety partition. He knows he should be humiliated, one of the last of the independent hacks paying a corporate grunt for a ride home, but all he feels is tired and jangled, certain only of the fact that it will probably be a good idea to bring the gun into bed with him tonight. The smart way to run this mess down is probably to go back to the beginning and start with Leo Tani, to find out what kind of book he was moving and who it belonged to and who has been bidding on it. But the best person to help him answer those questions would be Wylie Brown. And just a few hours ago, she handed him over to Kroger.
Or did she? It’s possible, if unlikely, that she had no idea Kroger’s animals were coming for him. But in Gilrein’s experience, cynicism comes faster and easier than faith and though he doesn’t actively want to believe that Wylie set him up, he can’t shake the familiar sensation of betrayal that’s resting in the hollow of his stomach like a snake with a skin made of diamonds.
So he tries sticking with the few thin facts that he’s got and their corollary suppositions.