Joe Haldeman - The Coming

“They’d use him up real quick,” Willy Joe said.

One chance for the offensive. “I don’t think you’ve thought that through, Willy Joe. Qabil has a lot of friends on the force.” He saw the man’s eyebrows go up and thought, My God, they didn’t know his identity. But he pressed on. “And he’s a family man, cute kids; everybody likes him. You send him off to certain death in prison—yourself not a man well loved by the police—and what do you think his friends are going to do to you?”

“I got friends in the police, too.”

“It just takes one who’s not your friend, but is a friend of Qabil’s. You may have noticed that the police kill criminals all the time, in the course of their duties. If one of them killed you, he wouldn’t go to jail. He’d get a promotion.”

“This isn’t about Qabil,” the lawyer said. “It’s about you and your wife. Your wife’s job and money.”

“Oh, really. You can expose me as a homosexual without naming my partner?”

“This Kabool ain’t the only one you done,” Willy Joe said.

“Oh? Name another.” Norman stared into the little man’s face. “Give me one name and I’ll write you a check.” There were no others, not in this state, this country.

“You’re a piece of work,” the lawyer said. “You take a false premise and build a considerable edifice of conjecture.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Norman said. “That’s your job.”

“You can’t fuckin’ turn this around,” Willy Joe said.

Norman stood up. “Why don’t you discuss the ramifications of this,” he said quietly. “Your life expectancy after you condemn a cop to death.” He picked up his bag.

“Sit down,” Willy Joe said.

“See you here tomorrow, same time.”

“I can have you killed,” he said in a harsh whisper, theatrical.

Norman looked at the sallow man. “You, Solo?”

“Nothin’ personal.” He smiled a genuine smile. “See you soon.”

Norman turned to go and almost ran into the wine steward. He snatched one bottle out of the ice bucket. “This one’s mine, thanks.”

He heard Solo laugh as he walked away. “Balls. You got to admit he got balls.”

“Norman!” Odd to see his neighbor at a fancy place like this.

“Mr. Mayor.” Norman saluted with his left hand and strode toward his bike.

“He looks familiar,” his companion, Rose, said.

“Aurora Bell’s husband. We’re neighbors.”

“They let you bring your own bottle to a place like this?”

“I guess.” He held the door open for her. Nothing wrong with the mayor having lunch with his university liaison. He didn’t know that most of his office knew exactly what their relationship was, and thought he was a fatuous old fool. Some of them had an even lower opinion of her, for being able to stand him.

Southeby stiffened when he saw Willy Joe Capra at a far table, along with that slimeball Gregory Moore and some other gangster type. Capra locked eyes with him and gave a small nod.

“Right this way, Mayor,” the maître d’ said, and led them back to a table distressingly close to Capra’s. Southeby took the chair that would put his back to them.

A waiter came with menus and took their drink order. He asked for lemonade, though he could have used something stronger. She ordered E.T. Lager, a new local brew.

“That any good?”

“Probably not. I just want to see the label.” She lowered her voice. “You know those guys?”

“Not to speak to, except the oldest one, Greg Moore. Used to be public defender. Now he works for the little wop, Capra, who’s got Mafia connections. The third one, I don’t want to know.”

He hadn’t noticed that she flinched at the word “wop.” Blond and blue-eyed, three of her four grandparents had come from Tuscany. “He’s the one the petty cash goes to?”

“Jesus, Rosie!” He took a leatherbound notebook out of his jacket pocket and riffled through it.

“Really, I’m curious,” she said, just above a whisper.

“Who told you this?”

“You withdraw it for ‘office supplies.’ That’s a lot of staples, Cam.”

“Okay. It’s a kind of insurance. For the building, not for me.”

“What?” The waiter brought the lemonade and beer. The label was a movie poster from the twentieth century, a goofy-looking alien with a glowing fingertip. He poured the beer. It was pale green, and probably glowed in the dark.

The waiter left. “You didn’t work here four or five years ago. We used to get trashed all the time—graffiti, broken windows. Gang stuff.”

She nodded. “So they could get their jail time.”

“Verdad. A new gang member would confess and get his week in jail. Rite of passage. But it was costing the city a fortune, and the cops were powerless. You catch one in the act, hell, that’s what he wants.

“So Capra moves in. The gangs stay away from any building that has his mark.”

“Or else… what?”

“That’s another thing I don’t want to know. A few days after Capra started marking buildings, the leaders of three gangs disappeared overnight. Never came back, good riddance.”

“He killed them for vandalism ?”

“Had them killed, probably. And probably not ‘for’ anything, except to show what he could do if they didn’t cooperate.”

She stared at him in silence for a moment. There was a heated argument going on sotto voce at the gangsters’ table. She shook her head. “God. This town.”

“This town is peaches and cream, honey, compared to—”

The waiter had returned. “May I… are you ready to order? Ma’am?” His voice was a little loud and nervous as he glanced at the other table.

“Jimmy!” Willy Joe shouted. “Cancel them specials. We gotta leave.”

“As you wish, sir,” the waiter said. The three of them shuffled out from behind the table, and left in a little procession: Willy Joe striding in the lead, the pale hoodlum following, and then the lawyer.

He stopped to shake the mayor’s hand. “Cam. Long time no see.”

“We seem to travel in different circles now,” he said.

“It’s all circles, isn’t it? ‘What goes around comes around,’ my dad used to say.”

“Your father was a good lawyer.”

“So are you, Cam. Señorita?” She nodded at him with a curious smile, and he followed Solo out the door.

“You’re pals with the mayor?” Solo said, opening the car door.

“Not exactly ‘pals.’ Remind me to wash this hand.”

“He’s a asshole,” Willy Joe said, getting in, “but he’s our asshole.”

The doors slid shut and the air conditioner’s roar abated. Solo, behind the wheel, pushed a button. “Address for Norman Bell.”

“This is lunacy,” Moore said. “Isn’t one murder a day enough?

“He can’t fuck with me that way!”

The car told Solo the address. “Go there.” It pulled away from the curb, hesitated, and slipped into the traffic.

“Plenty of people saw us together. Saw him leave.”

“Shut up, okay? Just gonna check the fuckin’ thing out.”

“Just promise me you won’t—”

“I don’t promise you or nobody a fuckin’ thing,” he said quietly. “But Solo ain’t gonna kill him. Just rough him up a little. Put the fear o’ God into him.”

“Jesus. Listen to yourself.”

Solo turned around to face them. “Boss, I don’t think he’s the kind of guy you just push around…”