William McGivern - A Matter of Honor

“So?” Salmi said. “You listening?”

Malleck felt the heat of anger touch his cheeks. The Caidin woman had done it. Her voice, the memory of her cool bitch face had roused him sexually, had blurred his final concentration.

“Give me that again, Salmi.”

“Mr. M. says he’d like a meet this time. He’d like you to make the payoff in person, wants to see you. I don’t think you realize what a big man you’re dealing with, sergeant. Mr. M. don’t like to be a third party.”

Malleck stared at the detective for a long moment, then hit the top of the desk with the flat of his hand.

“Salmi,” he said, “we’ve got an S.O.P., a formula for what’s working, and we’re going to stick to it. Nothing else. Got that? And Mr. M.’s our bankroll, our distributor, and nothing else. We don’t need a meet and we’re not gonna go steady. He’s been paid off three times already, and he’ll get paid next week. That’s our deal, nothing’s changed.”

“I’m just passing on what Mr. M. told me,” Salmi said. “I’m taking a lot of pressure personally, Malleck.”

“That’s what you’re paid for, Frankie,” the sergeant said. “I wouldn’t have hired a detective badge if I didn’t need privilege and protection. You keep Mr. M. cooperative, and I’ll run the rest of the operation.”

“There should be some way to quit wasting those couriers each time,” Salmi said.

Malleck looked thoughtful. “Maybe you’re the only one who cares, Salmi. They get ten, twenty guys shot or knifed to death every month or so on the south side. Run more than a paragraph apiece in the newspaper on each case, they’d have no room for the Marshall Field ads. What’s one more drunk or junkie soldier dying in the gutter?”

“The city’s got some smart cops down at Homicide.”

“Your Lieutenant Weir? He’s been on those homicides since number one, Private First-Ass Sammy Cullen, right? You told me that. And Weir’s got nothing. You told me that, too. So his old man’s Army brass, a big hero. Big deal.” The sergeant was thoughtful. “They’re all heroes after they retire, sitting on their asses in some country club bar.”

Malleck looked at his watch, a gold Rolex shining on his thick wrist. It was nearly time to call Frankfurt. Strasser would be waiting at the fucking phone, a glass in one hand and some fraulein ’s buns in the other, probably.

“Let me tell you something about your Mr. M., Salmi,” he said, “your ‘big man.’ We’re one of a kind, the two of us, and that’s why we get along; and why we ain’t ever going to see each other. We’re both double-crossers, we’re both out to get ours. The Army don’t know what I’m doing and you can be damned sure the Syndicate better not find out that their Mr. M’s got his own little racket on the side. They’d have his black balls, right? Just like the Army brass would grab mine. So he’s going to cooperate with me and I’m going to cooperate with him and we’re both gonna stay alive. We don’t need to meet. It’s easier to respect strangers.”

Malleck took a sip of the cold coffee, savoring the strong Bushmill’s on his tongue. “Old man Weir,” he said suddenly. “I heard of him and he’s got the medals. Maybe he earned ’em.”

Salmi stood, small against Malleck’s bulk, an unfocused worry clouding his soft eyes. “I should get that kid of mine to the dentist,” he said.

Malleck was looking at the slip of paper with a name and address in Calumet City scrawled on it. “Do what you gotta do, man,” he said absently.

“I don’t like any of this operation any more,” Detective Salmi said nervously. “It’s me who takes all the risks. Mr. M. may not know who you are, but he knows who I am.” He paused and breathed deeply. “My wife’s a Catholic. Everything’s the Church with her, being in a state of grace and ready to die. She knows I’m not ready to die, but she’s afraid I’m going to.”

“Surprise her then,” Malleck said. “Don’t. I want a couple of more big scores — nothing real greedy — and then out. Tell your Cuban lady—”

“Puerto Rican, Malleck. Adella’s Puerto Rican.”

“Okay, fine. Tell Adella to light a candle for both of us and in a few more months we’ll be home free, our tickets to heaven bought and paid for.”

“She don’t like jokes about it, sergeant. That’s another thing.”

“Then fuck her!” Malleck said. “She must like that. You got five kids, Salmi, you’re not firing blanks. So fuck her, Frankie, and tell her to stop worrying about us. Her prayers are making me nervous.”

When the detective left, Malleck began pacing in front of windows. He wasn’t due for his next tot of whiskey for an hour and he’d already overextended his morning ration. He could feel the muscles in his stomach tightening with tension. It wasn’t Mrs. Salmi who stirred him, it was the other lady.

At the left of the main entrance to the armory was an open-air exercise area, used for training parade horses when mounted troops were stationed here. Now it was a personnel parking lot, partially paved over with asphalt, wet, black and shining next to the rows of old brick. The tack room and stables had been tom down years ago, replaced now with barracks and showers. The first floor of the old armory had been converted into a gymnasium with basketball courts, tumbling equipment and a weights room where Malleck worked out.

He opened and closed his hands slowly now, concentrating on the remembered feel of cool, black iron, and the therapeutic, demanding pull that the heavy weights put on his tense shoulder muscles.

Malleck hesitated, then went to his desk for the last of the whiskey-laced coffee and began pacing again, the canteen cup cradled in one big hand.

Only the tall windows were clean. The neighborhood area outside was crusted with industrial grime, the fucking pits, Malleck thought. Hundreds of troops had been housed in this armory during a series of wars but now the building was a near-derelict, bounded on two sides by low income housing projects and on the others by warehouses and run-down river sidings.

Malleck disrespected poverty and despised dirt. He savored the weekends at the apartment he kept on the north side, a supply of Bushmill’s, a good steak and, once in a while, just the right company. For next weekend he’d been looking forward to a little something with one of the tech clerks, Jane or Coralee, it didn’t really matter which one, but now it all depended on what Scales found out. If he was sharing, Malleck wanted to know who he was sharing with.

Duro Lasari...

The sergeant reviewed what he’d been told about the man, trying to fix a psychological image in his mind. Wouldn’t admit he was a deserter, start there. Called himself a phony name, said he was concerned about a friend. A plus, Malleck thought. Lasari was covering up, ashamed of what he’d done, wormed away by guilt. They could use that.

And the deserter had guts, a lot of guts, and know-how. Argella reported that Lasari used an expert karate kick last night. A man could pick up the basics of unarmed combat tactics in regular training but it took real guts to use them, three against one and one a spic with a knife.

The deserter was undoubtedly a noncom, Malleck decided, since he hadn’t claimed rank for his friend Carlos. From the beginning, even when the operation was just a dream, Malleck had resolved to use only men from the ranks, no commissioned officers. GIs were what he needed, combat-trained men accustomed to taking orders but basically resentful and angry about their backgrounds, about Army privilege, knowing they would never rate the Officers’ Club, or even the high-class broads who wouldn’t think twice about a motel room when they saw captains’ bars.