“He stays. Whatever you have to say can’t be as important as all that. I assume it’s the Ager business again. Am I correct?”
“Look, Pendleton. Don’t high-hat me. We got business together.” Then he turned to Benny. “All right, James, beat it.”
“He stays. And come to the point, Alverato. My time is limited.”
Alverato stared for a moment but he didn’t say a word. He was still holding a drink in his hand. With a sudden movement he slammed down the glass and took three steps to the door. He yanked open the door and yelled, “Birdie! Get over here! And bring two of the boys.” They could hear footsteps running before Alverato got back to the table.
The little guy with the thin head came chasing into the room and then two others, guns in their hands.
“All right, close the door. Stand over there and make an impression. Pendleton and I are playing games.” They stood as they were told and Alverato sat down. “Over here, Pendleton, and let’s get down to business.”
Pendleton didn’t move. Then Birdie walked over to his chair. Pendleton got up and took a chair by the table.
“All right, Pendleton.” Alverato’s eyes didn’t look lazy any more. “From the beginning.”
He reached for the bottle again and offered to pour a drink for Pendleton. Pendleton shook his head.
“All right, Pendleton. Old Man Ager is dead. Now there’s you and me.”
There was a pause while Pendleton looked bored.
“For Chrissakes, Pendy, we got to settle this thing. Look what I got to offer, the whole organization! I ran it for him. I built it up.”
“What you are trying to say, Alverato, is that I have the contacts and neither you nor your army of hoodlums can do a thing without them.”
“Damn it, I don’t care how you put it. You ran one end of the business and I handled the other. Old Ager is dead and you and I got to get together, don’t you see?”
“I don’t see that at all.”
“Whaddaya mean?” Alverato was starting to shout “For Chrissakes, everything is standing still! Nothing big has moved for months now. You want the whole thing to fold up?”
“Alverato. The organization has always been your concern. Aside from some minor collection activities that I inherited from Ager, my business dealings don’t resemble yours in the least. And as I have told you, I am not interested in helping you along in your affairs.”
Big Al took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again they looked small and piggish. “The dough, Pendleton. Think of the dough. Without our partnership-”
“I am not interested in money. That is to say, not the way you make it. My activities as Ager’s assistant had very little resemblance to your outdated methods.”
“Outdated! Listen, you bastard. I was making dough when you were still sitting on your wrinkled ass doing bookkeeping someplace. What I got to offer-”
“I know what you have to offer. An army of hoodlums with guns in their hands. Outdated, as I have said. Guns are noisy and corpses talk, Alverato.”
“Well, you listen to me. It happens I like noise and I got a way with a corpse so he don’t talk!”
“Nevertheless, Alverato, I would always consider you a liability. In fact, it escapes me how you ever got to where you are.”
Pendleton did the trick with his shoulder and continued to look bored. Even when Alverato jumped up from the table, his face livid, Pendleton did not stir.
“Escapes you?” Alverato roared. “Escapes you, you sonafabitch? I’ll show you in a second how I got where I am! Scotty, get over here,” and he waved at one of the hoods. The man stood close to the table while Alverato kept bellowing: “And I’ll show you how I’m going to stay where I am!” Without the slightest sign of preparation Alverato’s massive fist swung out and cracked hard into the gunman’s face. Scotty’s head snapped back and he hit the floor with a dull thud. His gun clattered down next to him. “Did you see that, Pendleton? Did you catch the meaning, Pendleton? Hey, Scotty!” Alverato walked over to the man on the floor and prodded him with his shoe. “Get up, Scotty.”
The man tried his best, but there was blood in his eyes and he started choking on a broken tooth.
“Get up, damn it,” Alverato took him under the arms. When Scotty was up, Alverato leaned down and picked up his gun. He gave it back to the man and nodded toward the wall.
“You got any other questions in your mind, Pendleton? You got any other ideas about what’s outmoded or something?”
Benny looked over at Scotty. The man was standing as before, gun in hand, watching Pendleton the way he had been told. He was breathing open-mouthed because of the blood in his nose. Benny reached in his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and started to walk to the other wall when Pendleton pushed himself up from his chair.
“My hat, Tapkow,” he said.
Benny stopped and gave Pendleton a short look. Then he walked over to Scotty and put the handkerchief in his hand.
“My hat, Tapkow.”
Benny walked to the chair by the French windows and picked up the hat.
“What’s this hat business?” Alverato’s voice was still loud. “Sit down, Pendleton, and let’s get down to brass tacks.”
Benny had stopped by the window, waiting for Pendleton to sit down again. But he didn’t. When Pendleton waved, Benny didn’t see it. He wasn’t thinking about hats. He was thinking about the deal that was breaking up, Old Man Ager’s empire halfway on the rocks because that dried-up bastard-
“Look, Mr. Pendleton.” Benny said it fast. “This thing you’re talking about. I got an idea-” and then he saw Pendleton’s face.
There was no point in going on. Benny looked around the room, at Alverato, and at Pendleton’s back by the door. Then he followed his boss to the car and drove him back to Sutton Place.
Chapter Three
Pendleton sat behind the glass in the dark and Benny drove back to New York without a word, as a chauffeur should. But he wasn’t through yet. Seven years of saying, “Yes, sir,” seven years of pushing up the hill-that wasn’t going to end with a little slap on the wrist and a “Thank you, sir, for the uniform.” Benny worked his hands on the wheel. He wasn’t through yet; nor was Pendleton.
He let him out at the front of the apartment, parked the car in the basement garage, and took the service elevator to the top floor.
“In the library,” said the butler, and Benny walked into the long room where Pendleton was waiting behind the desk. No part of him moved. When he opened his mouth to speak he looked almost like a puppet.
“Tapkow,” said the voice.
Benny waited.
“You were much impressed with my former associate, Tapkow… Well? Answer me.”
“You didn’t ask anything.”
Pendleton twitched his shoulder. He put one white hand on the edge of the desk and began to stroke the smooth wood with the movement of a pendulum. “You seem to favor the point of view that a loud voice denotes authority. Have you ever heard me shout, Tapkow?”
“No.”
Pendleton’s hand kept moving back and forth. “There are other methods that ensure discipline. I have other methods.” Pendleton parted his lips and moved the tip of his tongue from right to left. “And you, Tapkow-”
“Listen,” Benny said. His voice sounded rough with impatience. “Now listen to me, Mr. Pendleton.”
The white hand stopped moving back and forth.
“The more you say, Tapkow, the worse it gets.” Then he almost smiled. “What do you think is the worst thing I can do to you, Tapkow? Do you remember a few years ago, a man called Murdock? Did you ever wonder what happened to Murdock? He’s still alive, you know.”
Pendleton paused to give things weight, but he hadn’t been watching Benny. He hadn’t seen the stubbornness and the angry impatience.
“The hell with Murdock,” Benny said. His breath sounded tight “The hell with Murdock and all this talk. You haven’t given me a chance to say a word, Mr. Pendleton. So here it is.” His voice suddenly turned quiet. “I’ve worked for you for seven years. I’ve tried to do better than the next guy because I know something they don’t. I am better. You think so, or you wouldn’t have let me stick around. I’ve done your crumby jobs, I’ve done some big ones. And then I’ve done some extra jobs you didn’t ask for, because all I ever wanted was a chance to show I’ve got the stuff. And then you started putting on the brakes. ‘Tapkow, take my pants to the cleaner,’ while I should have been working at Imports. ‘Tapkow, bring my car around,’ when Turk could have done it just as well.” Benny started talking faster now. “Finally I got a territory, a run-down, no-good territory, where Paddy used to rob you blind. I took that and glad for the chance. I start collecting double in my district and handed the stuff in. I needn’t have. So look at it that way for a minute, Mr. Pendleton, and then see if you’re doing right. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but you’ve got to remember I’m not the chauffeur around here any more. I’ve done better than that.”