The Erection Set

Two secretaries and an old man wearing outdated sleeve garters and an archaic green eyeshade worked in compartments lined with modern business equipment, but Al’s private quarters were in the front end of the triangle where he could look out over his city like the master of a ship conning his vessel from the bridge. His coffee maker was still in the perpetual state of percolation, his small freezer still full of imported salamis and cheeses, one wall still full of books on mathematical formulas it took an Einstein to understand, and the same pair of rocking chairs he had had in the operations shack in England during the war. The arms were polished from use and the hardwood sweeps a little thinner now from the years of oscillating, but their gentle roll was still as damnably mesmerizing as ever. A lot of generals had cooled off in those chairs and a lot of command decisions arrived at in their easy motions.

“Nostalgic, isn’t it?” Al asked me.

“You were born too late, buddy.”

“I’ll buy that,” he grinned. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

“Hunk of Genoa? Came in last week. Spicy as hell. You could stink up a place for hours with it.”

“Unh-uh. I can still remember the last one we split.”

“Tasted lousy when you burped into an oxygen mask, didn’t it?”

“Fierce. I don’t know how you guineas can eat all that stuff.”

“So you Irish live on corned beef and cabbage draped around a melted potato. Peasant food.”

“Only when we’re affluent.”

“You must be gorged by now,” Al said.

“Glad you did your research, Captain.”

“Oh, you were always a pet project of mine.” He held a cup under the coffee spigot, filled and sweetened it, then got back in his rocking chair. “You know, little Italiano from the poor end of Hell’s Kitchen wondering what made the rich kid from the bi^g estate tick. We all looked alike in uniform, but the difference was still there.”

“Keep talking,” I said. “How does a prejudiced slob from an uptown penthouse feel going back to the old turf?”

“Great,” he told me. “I keep rubbing it in to any of the old gang who are still around. I like the envious look. They all think I belong to the Mafia.”

“Tell ’em any different?”

“Nope. It gets respect, especially from the young punks I use occasionally.”

“Let the mob get wise and you’ll be holding your head.”

“They already tried. Just once. I get respect from them too.”

“How?”

“Easy,” he said. “I used your name.”

“That must have gone over big.”

Al grinned slowly, mulling over the memory. “You’d be surprised, Dog. They sent their three best hatchet men out to chop you down and none were ever heard from again. They simply disappeared. No bodies. No rumors. Just sudden and total disappearance like they never even existed, and within three days after each one vanished somebody’s grand villa burned down or their seagoing yacht mysteriously blew up. Oh, and I almost forgot the one in Naples those old French Resistance boys nailed with new and damning evidence of being a Nazi collaborator and hung from the bell tower in the church he had financed.”

“You’re talking over my head, buddy,” I said.

“Sure I am.” His tone held mock sarcasm. “Let’s just say I’m a good guesser. Aren’t you taking a chance exposing yourself away from your own field of operations?”

“Al, you got one hell of an imagination.”

He nodded, looking at me squarely. “I hope you have too. Somebody with all your earmarks left one hell of a mark on things over there. Here too. You echo, Dog, big and loud. Why didn’t you come home with the rest of us?”

“Social football isn’t my cup of tea, kid.”

“Man,” he said, “you could have taken over all of Barrin Industries with your smarts. The old man could have used you.”

“All I want is my ten grand,” I told him.

Al sliced another chunk off the salami, skinned it and pulled two cold beers out of his freezer. He popped them open and handed one to me. “Sure you don’t want some Genoa?”

I shook my head and took the beer. It was tangy and tasted good going down. “Just your report, old buddy.”

“You know, I think I liked you better in the old days. You’re a mean bastard now,” he said. Al didn’t have to look at any files. They were all carefully stored away in his mind, detail by detail, and when he finished his salami he stared out the window a moment, then looked back at me. “You want it all broken down?”

“Just your summation.”