The Erection Set

Lagen took out a small notebook, flipped open the cover and glanced at it. The whole damn thing was an act, but I couldn’t care less. He said, “In 1946 you took your discharge in England, preferring to stay there rather than return to the States.”

“True.” I dragged on the butt and it tasted good. Sharon was watching me, her eyes shielded.

“You had a friend who was a mathematical, and a financial, genius.”

“Quite true. Rollie had a flair for business.”

“But no money.”

“He was destitute at the time, to be precise.”

“However,” Lagen continued without interruption, “Roland Holland accepted a gratuity from someone”—I let him realize I accepted his accentuation with a smirk, “—and ran it up into a sizable fortune within a short time. Actually, he became an overnight millionaire.”

“Legitimately,” I said.

“Indubitably. However, he observed his obligations of unwritten partnership and transferred funds to his benefactor, who, in turn, used this wealth to go into business activities that were ... shall we say, not quite legitimate.”

“Why don’t we lay it on the line and say it was crooked?” I said.

“Good. Crooked. His partner engaged in black market operations that gained him a gigantic independent fortune, but at the same time involved him with the most nefarious group of criminals Europe ever produced.” Lagen looked at me, saw me sitting there blowing smoke rings at the cream-colored roof and sat back, satisfied that the play was all in his hands.

“There’s an evolution to this,” he continued. “Crime begets crime. Black marketing of medicines begets black marketing of cigarettes, then it’s gun running and finally into the ultimate of all criminal activities, trafficking in drugs.”

“You missed the ultimate,” I said.

“Murder?”

“Call it killing and that’s the ultimate,” I told him.

“Ah.”

“Don’t be so smug. Off the record, do you deny these things?”

“On the record. No.”

“Have you killed?”

I blew another smoke ring. “Why sure.”

“You’re awfully complacent.”

It was too bad he couldn’t read me at all. So I let him go on.

“The head of the biggest European criminal operation,” he said. “And you came home. Death and destruction have followed in your wake.”

“Shit, man,” I said, “Stop waxing poetic. You’re writing a column, remember?”

“No, it is yet to be written. I am simply gathering my facts together. Incidentally, how am I doing?”

“Beautifully,” I said.

“There were incidents in New York, there were incidents here.... All checked with the police,” Lagen said. “The handiwork of an expert.”

“How about that?”

“Foresighted and clever,” he mused. “But there is more to come. I am waiting for the final kill.”

“Then you pounce?”

“With gusto,” Lagen told me.

“Who does the killing?”

“They who are waiting for all those millions of dollars in a heroin shipment that you have, er ... pirated?”

“You’re off your rocker, columnist.”

“Any rebuttal, Mr. Kelly?”

I finished the cigarette, wound the window down again and tossed the butt outside. The cop and his chauffeur looked back a second, then resumed their conversation.

“No rebuttal,” I said. “I just want to hear your tag line.”

Lagen smiled, a small enigmatic smile, looked at Sharon, then back to me and said, “Somehow she’s a catalytic agent. When you’re spoiled, I want to see you soured completely.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“I may.”

“What, for me to be killed?”

“Exactly. I know other things too.”

“And you don’t want me forewarned, therefore fore-armed?”

“Naturally not.”

“Spoken like a good reporter,” I said. “Anything for a story.”

“Do you blame me?”

I gave him another terrible smile and watched him draw up inside himself. I opened the door, got out and opened the door for Sharon. She grabbed her folder, snaked out into the rain and got behind me while I looked inside the big, black Cadillac and let him see all my teeth again.

“Naturally not,” I said.

We waited there until he waved his chauffeur back in and drove away, the rain slashing down at us, then Sharon took my hand, drew me off toward the barricade where the spectators were still waiting and stood there beside me without saying anything at all.

Somebody blew a whistle. The extras came out from under the tent clutching their dinner buckets and paper bags. They all walked to the figure in the yellow slicker, got the directions, assembled themselves for the action shot, and when it came, walked toward the big gates of the Barrin Industries.

Sharon said, “Was all that true?”

I bobbed my head. “He even left the best parts out.”

“You really are a criminal?”

“Of sorts.”

“But you killed people?”

“Often, sugar.”

“Yet after what you’ve started ... these people here ...”

“None of them will get hurt, kitten.”

“He said something worse was going to happen.”

“That’s right.”

“Dog ...”