Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 2, April 1961

Paoli poured himself a shot of Old Forester at his bar. He tossed it down like water. He returned to his desk and sat down, accompanied by a persistant sense of danger from the tall man in the chair. He thought perhaps a little show of guts might help him with Dubrowski. He said, “You ought to be more careful, then, where you carry your heater. It shows.” The hand he pointed had a slight tremor. “There.”

Thomas dropped his eyes to the side pocket of his jacket. He had taken his hand out of it long since. But even in the chair, it was obvious that something heavy in the pocket was dragging the cloth of his coat into deep wrinkles.

“Nuts,” said Thomas shortly. He seemed nettled. “That’s not my gun.”

“You think I was born yesterday? You don’t need to show me. It’s a gun.”

“Have it your way,” said Thomas. For the first time since the interview began, he smiled widely. The lift of his lip exposed his long eyeteeth, pointed and projecting three eighths of an inch below his other uppers.

The sight of the menacing teeth thus deliberately exposed, made Paoli feel cold. And that was funny, too, he thought, because he was still sweating.

Thomas said slowly, “I don’t smile or laugh very much, Vergil. Generally I keep my mouth closed.” His eyes, as hard as chips of blue-white diamonds, drilled into Paoli’s. After a moment he added, “Matter of fact, the kind of work I do, a fellow doesn’t feel too much like laughing.”

Paoli nodded. He felt sick. He passed the telegraph form across the desk to Thomas. “You know about this, don’t you?”

Thomas read the wire. Slowly he nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I know about that.”

“So. Then why the hell not admit who you are in the first place?” Paoli blew out a breath of mingled relief and impatience. “The boys in Chicago are teed off with me for moving in on Cal Schirmer over in Riverton, ain’t that it?”

Thomas said nothing.

“That dumb Prussian don’t know which end is up, Dubrowski! His territory could produce three times what it does!” Paoli tried to make the note of bluster in his voice sound like toughness and confidence. It was difficult. “Tell them that in Chicago, will you? Do they want to see it all slip through their fingers, for God’s sake, just because Schirmer ain’t got the brains of a twelve-year-old moron?” He appealed to Thomas as one intelligent man to another.

Thomas responded in a neutral voice. “What is it of Cal’s that’s sticking to your fingers, Paoli? Dope? Prostitution? What? Cal didn’t say. He just said you were trying to move in and take over.”

“Only Horse,” Paoli said, “so far. Honest, Dubrowski, it’s nothing to get hot about. Just enough to show that if I had both territories, if the boys would throw Demmlertown and Riverton into one package for me, I’d triple their take in six months! Tell them that, right?”

Thomas was noncommittal. “You made a mistake, Paoli. Usually we allow our guys only one. Why didn’t you mention this to Chicago yourself, before you moved in on Cal? That’s what we want to know. You got your own ideas about the percentage? Maybe you’d like to bust loose from Chicago and try to make it on your own?”

“No, Dubrowski, no!” Paoli’s Latin temperament showed through the cracks in his self-control. “I ain’t stupid. I had no such an idea. I swear it to you! I figured I could show you how well I could handle both territories, before I bothered Chicago about Schirmer. You believe that, don’t you?”

“No, frankly, I don’t.”

“You got to! It’s the truth.” Paoli wiped his forehead with his crumpled handkerchief. “Why should I set up against you? I’m not a goddam fool. I know where the protection is. And the organization. And the...” he hesitated and looked at Thomas’s pocket... “the firepower.”

“Glad you do, Vergil.”

“I do, all right. I ain’t a complete dope, Dubrowski.”

“You keep saying.”

“It’s the God’s truth.” Paoli was running out of conversation. He wanted to get himself another, drink but he was afraid it would indicate his nervousness. He sat still behind his desk.

As casually as though commenting on the weather, Thomas said, “The way I hear it, you aren’t breaking any records with your Demmlertown set-up.”

“I ain’t?” Paoli was suddenly indignant. His fear burned away in the fire of injured pride. He defended himself with spirit. “Tell me any other territory the size of mine that produces as good! You can’t... because there ain’t any! Fourteen pushers I got here, for H alone! And the best, Dubrowski. The best! With solid connections in the high school bunch!”

“Fourteen?” Thomas said, surprised. “That isn’t the way I heard it. Seven was nearer what I heard.”

“You heard wrong, then. Didn’t you look up the records on my operation? Fourteen!” Paoli insisted. “Count them!” He reeled off a list of names that totalled thirteen.

“That’s only thirteen,” Thomas said, counting on his fingers.

Paoli repeated the list and remembered the fourteenth name.

“Yeah. That’s fourteen, all right.” Thomas was approving.