Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51 by Humans (v1.1)

Author:Humans (v1.1) [Humans (v1.1)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as Joey thought; it couldn’t be. The old guy was there, all right, and he made his collections every day, and he drove his car alone around his route, but he wasn’t without security, not at all. There was always another car trailing around behind him, with two bulky guys inside. Different cars on different days, different guys taking the duty, but always there, hanging a block or so back on the road, parking nearby when the old man made his stops.

The old man himself was—what? seventy? eighty?—old, but spry. Skinny old guy, always wearing a gray topcoat and a nicely blocked gray fedora hat, no matter what the weather. He drove at a normal pace, maybe a little cautious, and he always moved in a dignified way, like he was the messenger of the king; which in a way he was. His stops were bowling alleys, delicatessens, bars, private homes; anywhere that one of Leo Ganolese’s books or numbers drops or tables operated. At every stop, the old man would get out of the car (that other car discreetly stopped just up or down the street), enter the place with a calm and measured tread, and come out a few minutes later with usually two or three other guys. (More security, that.) One of the guys would carry a package of some kind, a paper bag or a shoe box or something else equally nondescript. The guys would stand looking this way and that while the old man opened the trunk and the package was put in there with all the other packages. Then the old man would shake hands with one or two of the other guys, get into his car, and drive away. The people from the establishment would wait on the sidewalk until he was a couple blocks off and the other car had moved after him.

“Not easy,” Frank said, back at the table in Mindle’s. He was feeling cold in the pit of his stomach. There were things you did, and things you were foolish to do. This was beginning to look foolish.

Joey, of course, didn’t get it. “All we gotta do is take out that backup car,” he said. “Look, Frank, between Belleville and Millstadt there’s a long run, maybe ten minutes, lotsa places where we could get rid of that other car. Then it’s easy.”

“What do you mean, get rid of that other car?”

‘Take it out,” Joey said, shrugging the whole problem away. “Listen, I know a guy down in Missouri, down in Branson, we can get hand grenades, no fooling. We drive by, we flip one in the car, we—”

“Goodbye,” Frank said, and got to his feet, and walked out of the bar.

He was half a block toward the furnished room when Joey caught up with him, looking bewildered, maybe even a litde put out. “Whad I do? Whad I do?”

Frank kept walking, Joey sweaty beside him. “I don’t ever go near violence,” he said.

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