Peter Rabe - Murder Me for Nickels

“Yes, Patty.”

“And have a lot in common.”

I almost said, “Like whom?” but I said, “Like what?”

“Business. Because you’re in business together.”

“Of course we’re in business together.”

“Really, Jack,” she said, “don’t be so nervous,” and she folded her robe across in front and held it that way.

Then she put her cigarette out and kept holding the robe while she leaned over the table. She looked serious and off-handed all at the same time.

“I just thought about it,” she said, “because of what you mentioned.”

I had no idea what I had mentioned and was getting nervous about it. When she explained herself, it didn’t make me feel any better.

“I’ll just have to ask him about it,” she said, “Walter, I mean. Because he never said anything about Blue Beat before.” She looked at me with no guile whatsoever, or with none of it showing. “Because he does talk to me about things which have to do with his business.”

I sighed and said, “Yes. With me too,” and wished he was here to talk business. About mayhem, extortion, gang war, and beatings. Anything like that.

“And of course he knows about my singing career, it goes without saying, and what it needs to get helped along. So it’s strange he never said anything about Blue Beat, don’t you think?” Then she looked at me and said it again. “Don’t you think, Jack?”

“Ah-no.” I got up and stood in the room, looking at her, at the furniture, all for the touch which showed how little this bothered me. “Not strange at all,” I said, “because he and I don’t have anything to do with that outfit.”

“Then why did you mention it?”

“The better to get you with, little Red Riding Pat,” and then I laughed to keep her from answering and then she laughed too, light and merry, because the door in the hall opened right then and next Lippit was there.

“What are you doing up?” he said to Pat.

“I had to open the door for Jack. He was early.”

“Yeah. He keeps doing that today.”

“We were talking,” she said.

“And laughing. Go to bed, huh, Patty?”

“Jack was telling me something about little Red Riding Hood. And the wolf. Remember that story, Walter?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“The wolf got clobbered,” she said and went off to bed.

Lippit made two drinks and I sat on the couch now, relaxing a little. He came over and sat down too and when he gave me my drink he said, “Let’s talk business,” and I said, “Christ, yes.”

He sipped on his drink and I took one gulp of mine and let the rest of it warm while I told him how all of it looked to me. That Benotti was no smalltime repair man, and also not somebody crazy who thought he could buck Lippit’s set-up. But that he was somebody smart, with backing, who thought he could buck Lippit’s set-up. I told him that the tie-in might be Chicago, and that Lippit, with his background, should be able to check it from there. He said yes, he would, though for the moment it made little difference to the way he would handle this thing.

“We’re going to do this up brown,” he said. “We’ll clobber him.”

It wasn’t Lippit’s kind of word, but like a lot of things, Pat had just put it into his head. I myself wished he hadn’t used it.

I said, “You know how big Benotti is?”

“He lives in a frame house with used furniture.”

“So is your furniture.”

“But I don’t live on the East Side.”

“He’s been living on the East Side I don’t know how long and has been running a repair shop all that time, and we haven’t paid any attention to him for just that reason. That’s why he’s been running it that way.”

“Likely,” said Lippit, and looked at the ceiling. “And I just told you, Jack, that his size makes no difference right now, the way we’re going to clobber.”

“His size would make a difference in how hard we have to-er, clobber.”

“Not for long,” he said and took a nip from his glass. “What we’ll do is this.”

Lippit often said “we” when he didn’t mean it. I put my drink down, put my cigarette out, and sat back. What came next would be mostly instructions.

“He’s big enough,” said Lippit, “or thinks that he’s big enough, to buck our servicing. With Stonewall he’s also tried putting a machine in the place, which may be a sign of what he plans for the future. But right now what he’s setting up for is to buck our servicing. Then he’ll take over.”

“Hm.”

“Just listen. Therefore, first off we fix it so he doesn’t have anything to service with.”

“Tit for tat?”

“Right, but don’t talk like a baby. Here’s how, Jack. We hit the workers; we hit his goons, and we hit the supplies. One, two, three, get it? One, two, three days, and no more Benotti.”

I just nodded, because I didn’t like it.

“Here’s one at a time,” he kept on. “I was late because I arranged about the workers already. I called Folsom. He’s getting a team set up to sit at the phones. They’re gonna call up Benotti’s service men-we know some of them-and give them a hard time with those telephone calls.”

“At three in the morning.”

“Sure at three in the morning. Don’t you know it’s much scarier at three in the morning? Imagine you’re asleep in bed and the phone rings. There’s this voice, like from a beast, and it says…”

“I know. I know.”

“And Benotti’s got all non-union labor. I checked this out through Folsom between the time at the club and now. He’s got six men, it looks like, and they all do moonlighting on the side. So we tighten up on the closed shop arrangements. They either get fired right off, or Folsom pulls a strike or a slowdown on the shop and they get fired then. Unless, we explain to them, they quit Benotti’s shop. And that takes care of the servicing he’s planning to do on our busted machines.”

I lit a cigarette and waited for the other two arrangements he had in mind. Because one of them worried me.

“Second, the goons. We got our machines all over, but Benotti’s been concentrating on the West Side. The operators are closer together, they’re little guys, maybe scare easier. What we do, Jack, we get a gang in that bar at Liberty and Alder Road, another bunch in Morry’s bowling alley, and a third in that place with the malteds and ice cream concoctions, Third and Liberty, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And we got the area triangled off. An operator has troubles with Benotti’s bums anywhere, he calls one of the three places, and a flying squad of our very own bums comes barreling down for a free-for-all. Nice?”

“Ak-”

“Whadda ya mean, ak? ”

But he was in no mood to listen, because he had one point to go.

“Third, we maul their supply.”

“Their what?”

He was starting to sound like a general and I was getting more nervous.

“Hough and Daly,” he said. “Suppliers of electric and electronic equipment.”

I knew damn well who Hough and Daly were.

“Didn’t you know Benotti’s got space rented there? His five trucks use the same ramp; his equipment shop is right next to Hough’s storage rooms, not to speak of the fact that he buys his supplies from them.”

“So do we, Walter. In case you’re thinking of messing up Hough and Daly.”

Lippit folded his hands in his lap, which looks weird and dainty because of his size, and then he cocked his head at me and talked very patiently.

“Jacky,” he said, “sometimes you talk like an idiot, you know that, Jacky?” and then just with a little bit of a change in his voice, “Or like a stockholder in Hough and Daly, perhaps, do you know that?”

I wasn’t a stockholder in Hough and Daly, and it was nothing that simple.