Yellow-Dog Contract by Ross Thomas

Author:Ross Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd

CHAPTER TWELVE

WE TOOK MUBFIN ’S car, the big brown 450 SEL Mercedes that he drove carelessly, almost recklessly, the way a lot of people drive leased cars, secure in the knowledge that somebody else will have to pay for the skinned paint or the nicked bumper.

“You wanta know something?” Murfin said.

“What?”

“I like this car better’n any car I ever had except one. You wanta know what that one was?”

“A 1957 Cadillac convertible that you had when you were nineteen,” I said. “It was yellow.”

“I already told you about it?” He sounded disappointed.

“You already told me.”

He told me again anyway.

When Murfin was graduated from high school in 1956 he hadn’t gone on to college because there hadn’t been any money to send him and because he really hadn’t wanted to go anyway. Instead he had gone to work for something called the Acme Novelty Company in Pittsburgh. The Acme Novelty Company supplied Pittsburgh with most of its pinball machines, which were legal, and with all of its slot machines, which weren’t.

The principal owner of the Acme Novelty Company was one Francesco Salleo, quite often referred to in the Pittsburgh papers as Filthy Frankie, who was alleged to have certain important connections Back East (New York) and Out West (Las Vegas). Filthy Frankie was quick to recognize Murfin’s genuine mechanical ability, as well as his flair for sound business practices. As a result Murfin quickly went up the promotional ladder at the Acme Novelty Company and soon was in charge of the placement and servicing of all slot machines in Pittsburgh’s numerous fraternal halls, country clubs, veteran’s posts, after-hours joints, and whorehouses.

As a reward for his diligence, ability, and unswerving loyalty to the firm, Filthy Frankie rewarded Murfin, by then nineteen, with a salary of $500 a week, not an insignificant sum to a nineteen-year-old back in 1957 or, for that matter, today.

It was with his newly gained prosperity that Murfin purchased the 1957 yellow Cadillac convertible, a car remembered, if not cherished, for its enormous tail fins. In it he went courting Miss Marjorie Bzowski, eighteen, daughter of Big Mike Bzowski, business agent for Local 12 of the United Steelworkers of America (AFL-CIO).

Filthy Frankie was to have been best man at the marriage of Murfin and Miss Bzowski and doubtless would have been had he not been found floating in the Monongahela River on the wedding day, the back of his head blown off by a shotgun blast.

Frankie’s connections Back East (New York) started feuding over the spoils with his connections Out West (Las Vegas) and the feud developed into a minor war that left dead bodies about. Murfin, forced to take sides in the war, unfortunately chose the wrong side. As a result he was hailed before a grand jury, but with the aid of an expensive lawyer he managed to escape being indicted. However, it cost him his job, his savings, and his treasured 1957 yellow Cadillac convertible.

Burdened, or perhaps blessed, with a young wife who was expecting their first child Murfin took the only job he could get.

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