“You’re right about something bothering me, Salmi,” Malleck said. “On the first four loops we got along just fine. Goods picked up, paid for and delivered. We had our formula. Why did it have to change? I’ll tell you why. I think Mr. M.’s got a cob of racial pride up his ass, wants to know what the fuck I’m up to, wants a face-to-face meet, is ready to prove to me he’s the Big Tom here in Chicago. Isn’t that right. Salmi?”
“That’s roughly the word he gave me,” Salmi said.
“He didn’t give a shit about sitting down and having a drink with me, talking things over when he first started to bankroll, right? He let me do the planning, put my neck out, take the risks. Now that we’re thinking big kilos, going to make big money, he wants to get nosy.”
In spite of himself, Malleck heard his voice rising. “Doesn’t that boss-nigger know I’m doing him a favor? I got stencils and forms and name stamps and official seals—”
Malleck walked back to his desk, flipped a key from his pocket and turned the lock on a double drawer and pulled it open. “Right here, Salmi, I got the equivalent of a fucking magic carpet. I can fly that dumb ginzo Lasari anywhere in the world we got GIs. I don’t need Mr. M. There’s people in Detroit, Newark, Miami who’ll finance me, and Mr. M. sure as shit knows that. I’m not just some goddamn Chicago beat cop with his hand out like a trained monkey. I’m his fucking equal, doesn’t he realize that?”
Malleck looked at Salmi’s troubled face, then smiled. “That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? I’m a big man now and it bothers Mr. M. that I don’t need him, isn’t that it? That we are equal...”
Salmi nodded. “I guess that’s the way I’d call it, sergeant.”
Still smiling, Malleck sat down at his desk and put a polished boot against the drawer. He sipped his whiskey, the overhead lights drawing deep lines in his hard face. “I like that. Salmi. I like having the big buck figure I’m as good as he is, ’cause if he’s come that far, he’s shitting himself into a corner whether he knows it or not. I got the edge now, that’s the truth of it.”
Raising his voice, he called, “Scales? Get your ass in here. I’m partying tonight.”
Scales appeared in the doorway, his teeth opalescent in a wide smile. “Want that new dark blue suit, sarge? That’s what I got laid out. You look like a real dude in that one, Top.”
“Yeah, the blue suit will do fine, Scales. And I want to see the pearly gales in the tips of my shoes when you get through shinin’ them.”
Scales laughed cheerfully and said, “And behind ’em, Top, there’ll be St. Peter grinnin’ at you. I’ll take care of it. I’ll fix everything up, sarge.”
“Be sure you do, Scales. And I want you to do a little pimping for me. Phone those two clerk broads of ours and whoever answers the phone, Avers or Sio, she’s the lucky lady. Tell her to meet me at the Black Forest on Quincy Street at seven-thirty. I got an important call to make. And tell her I’m partial to bimbos wearing red.”
As Scales turned to leave, Malleck said in a strange, wheedling voice, “You weren’t going to let me off that easy, were you, Uncle Andy? You forget to let your old sarge say thank you?”
Malleck took a small plastic bag of white powder out of the top desk drawer and tossed it into the black man’s cupped hands. “I never forget a friend, Scales, just you remember that.”
When Scales left, Malleck nodded at the bottle on his desk. “You want a belt for the road, Frank? You can afford it, you know. In three weeks or so, you can afford any goddamn thing you want.”
Detective Salmi hesitated a moment and then nodded. Malleck put a canteen cup in front of him and leaned forward, carefully filling it to the rim.
Chapter Twenty-five
It was called Teufel’s Atelier, a restaurant-disco on a narrow street leading off one of Heidelberg’s old stone bridges. From a revolving bandstand a group in silver tuxedos played soft rock music. Blue and green lights flashing out over the dance floor gave an incongruous modern effect to the otherwise burgherish atmosphere of Germans dining seriously in red leather banquettes. A group of candle-lit tables for two encircled the dance floor.
At the mahogany bar at one side of the room, there was another clash of styles; a plump bartender wore leather breeches, a green vest and a yodeler’s hat while the other, a young man with thick blond curls, was outfitted in tight black jeans and a spangled white shirt open to the navel, showing a hairy chest and a glitter of neck ornaments.
Lasari sat with Greta and Sergeant Strasser in one of the banquettes. The German girl wore a white cashmere sweater with a pink scarf and a short white corduroy skirt. Her blonde hair was brushed back from her face and fell smoothly to her shoulders from a ridge of amber combs. A waiter had been standing on one foot and then the other while she frowned and studied the long menu. A bottle of white wine stood next to her goblet. Lasari was drinking beer, the sergeant a citrus soda with Dutch gin.
“Everything they have here is so German,” Greta said, tapping the rim of her wine glass. The waiter filled it for the second time.
“We have hamburger with frites,” he said, “and shrimps in dill sauce, fraulein.”
“That’s what I mean,” Greta said. “The hamburger will have gravy on it and the shrimps are boiled in beer.” She faked a delicate shudder and then said in a singsong voice, “I don’t want dumplings or oxtails or sauerbraten, or any kind of apple Kuchen or whipped cream or suppen mit ei...”
“Goddamn it,” Strasser said, “then don’t order anything. Just drink the wine and have some bread and butter. We’re in Heidelberg, Greta, der Faterland.”
He had been drinking double gins and his voice was sarcastic. “Do you hear me, dummkopf? Heidelberg! You think that’s Yonkers or East Lansing? This joint’s called Teufel’s Atelier, heinie talk for Devil’s Workshop. You think that’s a fucking pizza joint in the Vatican run by cardinals? No offense, Jackson, but we go through this every time we go out. She’s pure Deutscher but I’m gonna die of hunger some night while she’s wondering why she can’t get chop suey or chile rellenos.”
Strasser put both hands over his heart. “Give us a break, Greta.”
Greta decided on an omelette with truffles and the sergeant ordered steak tartare with rolled anchovies and rye toast for himself and Lasari, then waved a hand for more drinks all around.
A half hour later they were joined at the banquette by two men in dark suits who nodded briefly at Greta and then bowed formally when they were introduced by Strasser to “Private George Jackson” as Pytor Vayetch and Herr Manfred Rauch.
Pytor Vayetch turned to Strasser with a fixed smile and said, “No one should sit eating while there is music and a pretty girl. Go on, enjoy yourselves.”
Greta hesitated and then said uncertainly, “Ah, yes. We can leave the dessert cart for later. It is exciting to have something to look forward to...”
Vayetch looked expectantly at Strasser, but Rauch, a tall, broad man with sallow features and gaunt cheeks, looked solemnly down at his hands. Lasari knew an order had been given and there was an unmistakable weight behind it. Strasser slid out of the red leather booth, took Greta by the arm and led her to the noisy dance floor.