Alfred Bester - The Computer Connection

But percentage prevented him from killing. Not that he gave a damn about murder, but he didn’t like the odds against. He never took a chance when the odds were against. “Bod once wrote that all life was six-to-five against,” Rip said. “I don’t try anything unless it’s six-to-five for.” Yes, Capo Rip could read, and he didn’t play even-money bets. He always looked for the edge.

That made him the ideal cannon and the idol of the Bellyworld. He was strictly business; robbery, burglary, extortion, blackmail, bribery. He won tremendous respect. Best of all, the Belly learned that he was dependable; he never slashed, he paid all contract cuts promptly, and never welshed on an obligation. Bad percentage. He knew that loyalty could only be bought.

He lived quietly in small hotels, drop-ins, lodges, gambling houses — provided he kept away from the tables. He was never armed but had shown himself to be a cold crusher when cornered into a gut-fight. He always preferred the coward’s copout from one-on-one trouble — no percentage in that — but some goons on a machismo trip wouldn’t let it alone. Then he crunched. The Belly believed he could be light-heavy champion in all-out if he wanted to.

Capo Rip won so much respect that a small coterie gathered around him, uninvited. They were unknown bods without records and therefore of no account, but they seemed to be serviceable. One was a woman, also uninvited and unwanted but she remained loyal and laughed off outside propositions. No odds in them for her. Mercenary.

Rip’s capers were ingenious. A few examples: The Exchange Brokerage House protected itself with a quicksand moat. The drawbridge was raised after hours and no one could pogo onto the pointed roof. Capo Rip froze a path across the quicksand with dry ice and skipped quietly over the skulls of long-gone failures for the heist. He bribed a secretary at the Foreclosure Trust to type on her terminal keyboard in Morse clicks giving him crucial security information. He ripped the vaults.

A governor’s fifty-year-old wife began to turn youthful; hair glossy, skin transparent and lovely. Rip checked the governor’s staff. A ravishing young secretary. He checked the rejuvenation salons. The wife had no accounts. “Arsenious poisoning,” he said, and the governor paid, and paid and paid. Posing as a pianolo tuner he came to the home of a celebrated but cautious collector, casing for a rare Russian gem, a seven-inch goddess carved out of the largest emerald in history by Fabergé three centuries ago. Nowhere in sight. He returned with a compass and located her in a steel casket plastered up in a wall. He sold seven replicas molded out of synthetics to demented collectors and then had the chutzpah to return the original gem to its original owner. The Belly loved that.

Between the heavies he worked the petty buncos: medical frauds, radium pitchers, glass caskets, the honeymoon and obituary racks, the cataracts swindle, building lots in Atlantis; Atlantis , for God’s sake! begging cassettes, fading-tape contracts. Oh, he was versatile and busy, busy, busy. His energy was unbelievable. The Underbelly estimated that his vigorish must come close to a million a month.

His capers were quiet. Capo Rip did not care for publicity, and that was one of the constraints he required of his coterie, which they respected. For unknowns they were remarkable; as silent as knives, never speaking. The Belly could not persuade them to talk, drink, gas, trip, gamble, communicate. They were dead-face deadly, so no one cared to get acquainted through a gut-rap.

The Underbelly could not believe it when Capo Rip and his Merry Men disappeared. He had started on a job and then there was none. They thought he’d been busted (improbable) but when discreet questions were asked of his professional fixer, who was in possession of a generous retainer, he reported that Capo had not been in touch with him. Capo Rip had gone up like a skyrocket, burst in a blaze of glory, and then vanished.

He was belted down in a berth that rocked. The belts were locked, he found out soon enough, but there was a dark stranger hatefully smiling at him constantly, always calling him “Great Capo.” The woman was there, too, feeding him meals with a runcible spoon. Rip still didn’t know her name and didn’t want to, now more than ever. He took some pleasure from spitting the food into her face.

Whatever the place was, it swarmed with nurses and doctors in agitated conversation, using words like “platysma myoides,” “abdominal aponeurosis,” “rectus femori,” and “ligamentum cruciatum cruris.” Bewildering. The only one who made sense was a young surgeon who was a lycanthropist. He kept turning into a fanged wolfman and devouring the shrieking nurses alive, usually starting with the gluteus maximus. The dark man and the woman paid no attention to them.

“This a hospital?” Capo Rip growled.

“No, Great Capo. You’re watching a kiddie show, Young Doctor Prevert . I’m sorry. We can’t block the broadcasts.” And he took the captive to the head and guarded him with a burner.

“You bastard. I hate you.”

“But of course, Great Capo. Lunch now.”

Back to the rocking berth and the woman came to feed him.

“You bastard’s bitch. You sold me out.”

“Yes, Capo, but you don’t know why, yet.”

“Where am I? What am I doing here?”

“On a schooner in the middle of Lake Mitchigan,” the dark stranger said. “What are you doing? Preparing to pay a price.”

“How much?”

“First for what. No?”

“To hell with that. Name the price, you damned bastardly barber. I’ll pay it, and I promise you you’ll never barber anyone in the Belly again.”

“I believe you, Great Capo.” He started to leave and then turned. “The price is telling me where I can find a man named Edward Curzon.”

“Who?”

“Edward Curzon.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Oh, come now, Great Capo. With your connections and experience you must have come across him. And with your ingenuity and expertise you can find him for me. I’ll contract for the hit and make it worth your while.”

“I never hit. Bad percentage.”

“I’m aware of that, which is why you’re here under gentle persuasion. You must find and hit Curzon, Great Capo.”

“Why me? I can put you onto twenty killers.”

“To be sure, but none with your integrity. An essential part of the contract must be that it can never be traced to me. I can trust no jimp except you. Find and hit Edward Curzon, Great Capo.”

“How did you snatch me on the Chalice job?”

“I set it up. I also have ingenuity. Now be reconciled. You must find and hit Edward Curzon.”

“Suppose I agree. I can always sell you out, the way that bitch sold me.”

“No. Your word is your bond. That’s why you’re here. Think about Curzon, Great Capo. When you’re ready to agree, we’ll talk. Surely you must have run across the name during your brilliant career. The name or something like it. Search your mind, Great Capo. Think hard.”

Curzon? Or something like it? Curzon, Curzon, or something like it? The Capo thought hard. How many did he know in the Belly? There was Cur the Lion. Not worth hitting. A cheap jimpster who only worked a cold house. Larry the Lace Curtain. A society goniff who reported the comings and goings of the heeled for a rotten two percent. A shroff named Chan Kersey, who sold his chop to the counterfeit crowd. Curmin the Vermin, who ran a decoy swindle outside the legit gambling houses. Yellow Kid Kurze, who operated a big store in an abandoned bank building. Now he sounded likely, but the Kid was gentle and harmless.

The woman came in, balancing a plate of food and that goddamn runcible spoon. There was a hard gale and she had to balance herself against the lurch of the goddamn schooner, clutching at whatever was handy. Nevertheless she was thrown and the plate went up out of her hand. She was quick on her feet and poised when it came down, still right-side-up. She caught it, smiled at Capo Rip, and even winked.