Dennis Lehane - Live by Night

“Did you know him well?”

Dion nodded. “Yeah.”

“You like him?”

Dion shrugged. “He wasn’t a bad sort. Clipped his toenails in a couple meetings, but he gave me a goose last Christmas.”

“Live?”

Dion nodded. “Till I got it home, yeah.”

“Why’d Maso want him out?”

“He never told you?”

Joe shook his head.

Dion shrugged. “Never told me, either.”

For a minute Joe did nothing but listen to a clock tick and Gary L. Smith’s secretary turning the stiff pages of an issue of Photoplay. The secretary’s name was Miss Roe, and her dark hair was cut Eton-crop style into a finger-wave bob. She wore a silver short-sleeved vest blouse with a black silk necktie that fell over her breasts like an answered prayer. She had a way of barely moving in her chair—a kind of quarter-squirm—that had Joe folding up the paper and waving it in his face.

Good Lord, he thought, do I need to get laid.

He leaned forward again. “He have family?”

“Who?”

“Who.”

“Lou? Yeah, he did.” Dion scowled. “Why you got to ask that?”

“I’m just wondering.”

“He probably clipped his toenails in front of them too. They’ll be glad not to have to sweep them into the dustpan anymore.”

The intercom buzzed on the secretary’s desk and a thin voice said, “Miss Roe, send the boys in.”

Joe and Dion stood.

“Boys,” Dion said.

“Boys,” Joe said and shot his cuffs and smoothed his hair.

Gary L. Smith had tiny teeth, like kernels of corn and almost as yellow. He smiled as they entered his office and Miss Roe closed the door behind them, but he didn’t get up, and he didn’t put too much into the smile, either. Behind his desk, plantation shutters blocked most of the West Tampa day, but enough creeped in to give the room a bourbon glow. Smith dressed the part of the Southern gentleman—white suit over white shirt and thin black tie. He watched them take their seats with an air of bemusement, which Joe read as fear.

“So you’re Maso’s new find.” Smith pushed a humidor across the desk at them. “Help yourselves. Best cigars in the city.”

Dion grunted.

Joe waved off the humidor, but Dion helped himself to four cigars, placing three in his pocket and biting off the end of the fourth. He spit it into his hand and laid it on the edge of the desk.

“So what brings you by?”

“I’ve been asked to look over Lou Ormino’s affairs for a little bit.”

“But it’s not permanent,” Smith said, firing up his own cigar.

“What’s not?”

“You as Lou’s replacement. I just mention it because the people ’round here like dealing with who they know, and no one knows you. No offense meant.”

“So who in the organization would you suggest?”

Smith gave it some thought. “Rickie Pozzetta.”

Dion cocked his head at that. “Pozzetta couldn’t lead a dog to a hydrant.”

“Then Delmore Sears.”

“Another idiot.”

“Well, then, fine, I could do it.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Joe said.

Gary L. Smith spread his hands. “Only if you think I could be right for the job.”

“It’s possible, but we need to know why the last three supply runs have been hit.”

“You mean the ones heading north?”

Joe nodded.

“Bad luck,” he said. “Best I can figure. It does happen.”

“Why don’t you change the routes then?”

Smith produced a pen and scribbled on a piece of paper. “That’s a good idea, Mr. Coughlin, is it?”

Joe nodded.

“A great idea. I’ll definitely consider it.”

Joe watched the man for a bit, watched him smoke with the diffused light coming through the blinds and spreading over the top of his head, watched him until Smith started looking a little confused.

“Why have the boat runs been so erratic?”

“Oh,” Smith said easily, “that’s the Cubans. We don’t have any control over that.”

“Two months ago,” Dion said, “you got fourteen shipments in one week, three weeks later it was five, last week it was none.”

“It’s not cement mixing,” Gary L. Smith said. “You don’t add one-third water, get the same consistency every time. You’ve got various suppliers with various schedules, and they might be dealing with a sugar supplier over there had himself a strike? Or the guy who drives the boat gets sick.”

“Then you go to another supplier,” Joe said.

“Not that simple.”

“Why not?”

Smith sounded weary, as if he were being asked to explain airplane mechanics to a cat. “Because they’re all paying tribute to the same group.”

Joe removed a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “This would be the Suarez family we’re talking about?”

Smith eyed the notebook. “Yeah. Own the Tropicale up on Seventh.”

“So they’re the only suppliers.”

“No, I just said.”

“Said what?” Joe narrowed his eyes at the man.

“I mean, they do supply some of what we sell but there are all these others too. This one guy I deal with, Ernesto? Old boy has a wooden hand. You believe it? He—”

“If all the other suppliers answer to one supplier, then that supplier is the only supplier. They set the prices and everyone else falls in line, I assume?”

Smith gave it all a sigh of exasperation. “I guess.”

“You guess?”

“It’s just not that simple.”

“Why isn’t it?”

Joe waited. Dion waited. Smith relit his cigar. “There are other suppliers. They have boats, they have—”

“They’re subcontractors,” Joe said. “That’s all. I want to deal with the contractor. We’ll need a meet with the Suarezes as soon as possible.”

Smith said, “No.”

“No?”

“Mr. Coughlin, you just don’t understand how things are done in Ybor. I deal with Esteban Suarez and his sister. I deal with all the middlemen.”

Joe pushed the telephone across the desk to Smith’s elbow. “Call them.”

“You’re not hearing me, Mr. Coughlin.”

“No, I am,” Joe said softly. “Pick up that phone and call the Suarezes and tell them my associate and I will have dinner tonight at the Tropicale, and we’d really appreciate the best table they have as well as a few minutes of their time once we’ve finished.”

Smith said, “Why don’t you take a couple of days to get to know the customs down here? Then, trust me, you’ll come back and thank me for not calling. And we’ll go meet them together. I promise.”

Joe reached into his pocket. He pulled out some change and placed it on the desk. Then his cigarettes, his father’s watch, followed by his .32, which he left in front of the blotter pointed at Smith. He shook a cigarette from the pack, his eyes on Smith as Smith lifted the phone off the cradle and asked for an outside line.

Joe smoked while Smith spoke Spanish into the phone and Dion translated a bit of it, and then Smith hung up.

“He got us a table for nine o’clock,” Dion said.

“I got you a table for nine o’clock,” Smith said.

“Thank you.” Joe crossed his ankle over his knee. “It’s a brother and sister team, the Suarezes, right?”

Smith nodded. “Esteban and Ivelia Suarez, yes.”

“Now, Gary,” Joe said and pulled a piece of string off his sock by the anklebone, “are you working directly for Albert White?” He dangled the string, then let it drop to Gary L. Smith’s rug. “Or is there an intermediary we should know about?”

“What?”

“We marked your bottles, Smith.”

“You what?”

“If you distilled it, we marked it,” Dion said. “A couple months back. Little dots on the upper-right corner.”