The Coming by Joe Haldeman

Author:Joe Haldeman [Haldeman, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9780441008766
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2000-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

Southeby

"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.

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