The Erection Set

“The Guido brothers handle narcotics. The state and the U.S. Senate ran two investigations on them and couldn’t get past their cover. Neither one ever took a fall. They lie behind a legitimate front and play it from there.”

“If they’re that good, then why the sudden heat from their friends?”

“Good question,” Al told me. “I’d say their track record. It was rumored that they used to hold out on the organization. They weren’t as big then and it wasn’t all that uncommon a deal at certain levels and for the sake of keeping peace in the outlying areas the organization let it pass. Now it doesn’t smell so good. The in boys think the whole thing could be a fast play to gain leverage or to buck the syndicate. It’s been done before in the days of the beer barons. They don’t want it to happen again. Narcotics comes in a small package with millions in profits, easy to ship, easy to dispose of, and with enough laid by, a smart operator could buy his own organization.”

“Brothers Guido couldn’t be that stupid,” I said.

“Maybe not. Right now they’re trying to prove it. I wouldn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”

“Not you, Al.”

He grinned at me and stopped swabbing the tabletop with his beer can. “Dog ... I don’t give a damn, but my curiosity is killing me.”

“What?”

“Guys can get themselves in trouble all kinds of ways. Sometimes it’s not just the direct action ... it’s more like the links that tie one thing to another.”

“You’re not making sense, kid.”

“Somebody’s tagging you on this narcotics deal.”

I shrugged, not answering him.

“All my phone calls got me some other information too.”

I waited.

“You got wrapped up in black marketeering right after the war, didn’t you?”

“Asking or extrapolating again?”

“That was something you could handle. You still had all that war craziness inside you. You liked the action as long as it spiced up the day and Europe was just the place to find it. You were big and tough and could handle trouble with even bigger trouble and enjoy every minute of it. Killing was nothing new to you and by that time it was simply a natural function of things.”

“That’s what you think?” I asked him.

“That’s what I’m going to find out in a minute,” Al told me.

“I hope you enjoy the answers.”

His eyes had that quizzical expression in them again, deep and heavy, partially closed. “Were you in the black market?”

“Yes.”

“That whole operation was tied in with narcotic traffic, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

“You ever kill anybody since the war?

“Quite a few,” I said.

When he finished studying my face he said, “I’m sorry I asked.”

I got up and put on my coat and hat, picked the last butt out of the pack and lit it.

“What are you planning to do, Dog?”

“Take a little trip to my old hometown. Just simple business like the way I hoped everything would be.”

“Watch it. You’re leaving pretty deep tracks.”

I walked to the door and opened it. Al was sitting there watching me and tossed me a sad salute. I said, “There’s a question you didn’t ask, buddy. You would have liked that answer.”

XV

I changed rental cars twice before I reached Linton, threading my way over a prearranged route I had picked out on the map, driving at night so it would be easier to spot a tail and easier to lose if I had one. Before the first switch I thought somebody had picked me up, but I got off the main road and the other car went by, its headlights out of focus and didn’t show again.

Now the early glow of dawn was winking off the buildings up ahead and I pulled into a diner just outside of town, found a booth in the back and ordered breakfast. Traffic hadn’t gotten started yet and outside of a lone trucker at the counter I had the place to myself.

Back in the city, Hobis and The Chopper were staked out where I wanted them, two others ready to stay in close on Lee and Sharon, all the little wheels were put in motion and I was wound up so tight I could hardly eat.

I was back in the game again. Hell, I didn’t want it that way. They could have laid off me and the whole stinking mess would have stayed in the usual state of ferment. Now it was getting ready to explode. And that was the trouble with an explosion ... it took everything with it, the good, the bad and the neutral. All that was left was ruins until somebody else built on the rubble and let that ferment into an explosion too. For twenty years the crashing thunder of the blast had been all around me and I was tired of it, the kind of tired that makes your bones ache and your mind want to get off into a lonely space and just sit and sit and sit forever.

Home. There never was any such place. It was just something you thought you had and something you thought you wanted, but when you went to find it, it wasn’t there at all. I was playing kid games with myself, using a penny ante inheritance for a ticket to find home again.

My ticket had been punched a long time ago.

Home wasn’t any place on the line.