Brian Garfield: Villiers Touch

There was the driver, and a skinny bald man in the front passenger seat, and one man in the back seat beside him. That man reached across him to pull the door shut, and said to the driver in a voice that rumbled out like lump coal tumbling down a metal chute, “Let’s go, Charley.”

Villiers didn’t offer to shake hands with the man. He sat back and put his briefcase in his lap and said mildly, “This has got all the heavy-handed, cloaked melodrama of an old German silent movie. Is it really necessary?”

“We ride now,” the man said. “We talk when we get there.”

After that there was no more talk. Villiers gave the man a sidewise study. Civetta’s black hair was slicked back; his dark suit was carefully tailored, his shirt monogrammed on the pocket, his tiepin a glistening diamond. He wore Stacy Adams shoes and a pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses which failed to soften the lines of his big square face. He had burly arms inside the tailored cloth, and the hard-jowled features of a cross-country truck driver.

Civetta turned his head and gave him a frank appraisal; his iron eyes studied Villiers with cool mistrust. Then, with a trace of a smile, he said, “Maybe the heat’s gonna break soon, what do you think?”

“I think we may get some rain.”

“Should clear some of the gunk out of the air, huh?”

“Bound to,” Villiers said, hating small talk, volunteering nothing more.

Civetta started talking about a Broadway musical he had seen recently. Villiers feigned attentiveness and grunted now and then. The Continental glided noiselessly toward the river, stair-stepping north along avenues and streets until it bumped up the ramp onto the West Side Highway and accelerated into the traffic stream with a smooth surge of power. The driver was superb-he crowded the speed limit all the way but never had to hit his brakes hard. They prowled north past the steamship piers-Villiers had a glimpse of the Queen Elizabeth II looming against the sky at the Cunard dock, probably just returned with a capacity load of summer travelers from England. The Lincoln swept past Harlem’s tenement roofs at a precise fifty miles an hour and climbed the ramp to the George Washington Bridge. A freighter churned its way up the Hudson beneath them, its screw fighting the current. The driver paid the toll with a green ticket book, and they swung north onto the Palisades Parkway. At this hour it was all but deserted, but the driver kept carefully to the speed limit. Lush trees whipped past, black against the translucent gray of light-reflecting clouds. Within ten minutes, somewhere toward the northeastern corner of the state of New Jersey, the driver pulled off onto U.S. 9W and made a quick turnoff into a side road. Trees intertwined thickly, arched over the road, cutting out the sky. The driver slowed to a crawl, peering forward. Shortly they came to a dirt road which went into the woods through a locked gate with a metal “NO VEHICULAR TRAFFIC” sign. The driver pulled off and parked on the narrow strip of dirt between the main road and the gate. The headlights flicked off, and Civetta said, “End of the line. We walk from here.”

They got out of the car and chunked the doors shut. Civetta looked both ways and walked quickly through the small pedestrian opening beside the gate, into the woods. The little bald man smiled nervously at Villiers and went ahead of him, as if to reassure him. Villiers, frowning, began to follow; but the driver took a step forward and said, “Pardon me, sir. Your briefcase.”

Villiers scowled at him. “What about it?”

“Mind leaving it in the car, sir?”

“You’re damn right I mind. Look-”

Civetta, having looked back, spoke harshly. “What the hell’s the matter back there?”

The driver only pointed toward Villiers’ briefcase. Civetta snapped, “Leave the case, if you don’t mind. He won’t steal anything.”

Reluctantly, Villiers handed it over and followed the two men into the woods. As he stepped through the pedestrian gate, he saw a car’s headlights appear around the bend of the main road a quarter-mile away, but he paid it no attention; none of the others seemed to mind. The driver got back into the car, holding his briefcase, and sat smoking, the button tip of his cigarette alternately glowing and dimming. Villiers turned and joined up with the others. Civetta led them a hundred feet or so into the woods, and, to his surprise, Villiers discovered they were at the edge of a clearing. Three or four picnic tables were

scattered around; there was a perforated trash drum and a number of signs posted-“ NO FIRES,” “ NO COOKING,” “ NO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES ON PARK PREMISES.”

“It’s the backside of a county park,” Civetta explained. “Nobody comes here at night-they lock the front gates, and I guess the teen-age lovers haven’t discovered the back way in. It makes a useful place to talk. This is my legal associate, Mr. Norman Fields.”

Fields offered a hand, and Villiers, not without distaste, shook it briefly. Civetta sat down on one of the picnic benches and said, “Sit down and make yourself comfortable and let’s talk.”

“I don’t like the setup,” Villiers said. “You’ve got a witness, I haven’t.”

“Do we need witnesses, Mr. Villiers? My, my. I only brought Mr. Fields along for legal advice.”

Villiers took out his wallet and extracted a bill. He stepped forward and held it up to Norman Fields. The little man frowned. “What’s that for?”

“One dollar. You take it, and you agree that in the matter we’re about to discuss, you’re acting as my legal counsel as well as Mr. Civetta’s. That makes it a privileged communication. If anybody subpoenas you, you don’t have to answer questions.”

The lawyer looked over his shoulder at Civetta, who nodded impatiently. “Sure-sure. It’s all right, Norm, take the damn dollar and let’s get down to it.”

Fields stuffed the dollar in his pocket and sat down. Villiers kept his feet. He didn’t like the clandestine setting, and he didn’t like the fact that they had forced him to leave his briefcase behind. It contained the jammer, and the jammer wouldn’t do a bit of good as long as it was enclosed in four thousand pounds of Detroit steel; the car would absorb its signals completely.

But it was no time to call the meeting off. He would take his chances; he had to.

He said, “All right. I want to make you a business proposition.”

“Senna said that much. You worked pretty damn fast, getting him out of the Montreal brig on bail so he could set up this meeting. You must be in a hurry, Mr. Villiers.” Civetta said it in a way that made it abundantly clear he was prepared to extract every possible advantage from Villiers’ need for haste.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” Villiers said. “I’m taking over Northeast Consolidated Industries.”

“You wouldn’t kid me,” Civetta said with a straight face. “Do you mean to tell me Heggins Aircraft is just a front for Mason Villiers?”

“You knew that already-everybody knows it.”

“What everybody knows and what somebody can prove are two different things. You’ve just admitted it out loud, which means you’re giving something away to me, and when a man puts that kind of advantage in my hands, Mr. Villiers, I kind of figure he wants something in exchange. Or am I gettin’ too cynical in my old age?”

“Let’s not play games, Civetta. I’ve got a proposition to make. Something I want in exchange for something you want.”

“I know that, Mr. Villiers. You want money to finance your proxy fight. A lot of money. That’s what you want. Now, what do I want that you could possibly give me in return?”

“Interest on a loan, to begin with.”

“Peanuts, Mr. Villiers,” Civetta murmured in his low gravel growl; but his face was attentive. “Let’s talk facts and figures. How much?”