Don Salvatore snapped the paper closed and leaned forward to check in the rear-view mirror. Grassione's car, driven by that strange looking Oriental who had accompanied him, was still behind the Don's as they pulled into the closed boatyard and arrived at Massello's tied-up yacht.
He politely offered Grassione and his men the use of his yacht as their headquarters and home while in St. Louis, as custom required.
"No, Don Salvatore," Grassione said. "We're going straight to the campus to look it over for the hit."
"If there is a hit," Massello reminded him.
"Of course, Don Salvatore," Grassione said. "But if there is to be a hit, I want to know everything I can about this college and all, so we can do it and get out without trouble."
Massello nodded his approval as Grassione's car turned and drove off. On his way from the boatyard, Grassione sank deeper into the seat and thought that Don Salvatore was very bright, but he didn't know everything.
For instance, he didn't know that Grassione's uncle, Don Pietro Scubisci, had personally visited Grassione the night before to tell him that Don Salvatore seemed "to be getting too big for his own good" and that an accident to him would not be looked on unfavorably by the national council.
No. Don Salvatore didn't know everything. There would not be one hit; there would be two. And neither of them was a maybe.
Definite.
As definite as bang, bang.
CHAPTER SIX
If God had created a human vessel for worry on earth, its name was Norman Belliveau. He had been born in France on D-Day and grew up in the United States to be the living embodiment of worry. He worried about how he looked, which was tall and thin with sunken cheeks and a hooked nose. He worried about how he dressed, which was after the fashion of college drama teachers: lousy.
He wore loud jackets and fuschia or purple or pink shirts, with an ascot. To keep up with the changing theatrical world, however, he wore levis and hush puppies.
But he usually bought a new pair of jeans after the first wash. Levis always faded and Norman thought faded Levis looked tacky. So now everyone on the Edgewood University campus knew when Norman was coming by the swish-swish-swish of his too new jeans.
Norman Belliveau inherited his worry from his mother who named him Norman because the allies landed in Normandy and she thought naming her son that would bring him good luck.
And then it didn't, and their home was destroyed by an erring artillery shell, and Norman's father killed by stepping on a forgotten land mine, she tried various other methods: stuffing rabbits' feet in Norman's pockets, throwing salt over his shoulder constantly, and not allowing him to step on cracks in her presence.
But nothing worked and Norman worried about that, but now he had more important things to worry about.
Like the rooms.
It was bad enough that Professor Wooley had gone ahead and scheduled the conference on some kind of technological breakthrough without telling anyone. That was bad enough. Suppose no one came? The university would be a laughing stock.
But people came. Oh, how they were coming, and where was Norman going to put them all?
This new interruption was the last straw. Imagine being dragged away from a very important classroom lecture to have to personally inform somebody that there was no more room. Hadn't he told the guard to allow nobody else in?
Norman worried about why guards never followed instructions. They had ignored his orders when that television reporter, Patti Shea, had shown up.
Norman had heard of her and her catty reports on the odd and unusual gatherings all over the world. He could not understand what she was doing at a technical conference in Missouri and he told her so.
"Just get me a room, will you, bub?" she said. "I've got a migraine you wouldn't believe."
She had rubbed a delicate hand on her forehead, highlighting her springy breasts under a tight yellow turtleneck. She let her right leg bend under her purple miniskirt and posed for an imaginary camera as "Woman in Pain."
Norman Belliveau checked the lists of representatives arriving and dormitory rooms still vacant. He stammered that there was very little room left.
"Oooh, that looks nice," said Patty, pointing to a small cottage with one hand while rubbing Belliveau's thigh with the other. She had to bear down to be felt through the stiff denim.
Norman stopped going through the lists.
"Uhhhh," he said, feeling lightheaded, "I don't see why we couldn't put you there… I mean, uhhh, I wouldn't mind."
And he didn't really. After all, it was his cottage and if he wanted to lend it to somebody, why not? And the dorm rooms really weren't that bad. He could stay in one for just a few days, even with all that horrid music all night long and the dirty students.
But he had only one cottage to give and now he was called to the gate again, where the guard had been given strict orders to admit no one who did not have a room already.
What a waste of his time. If he wanted to do something besides teach his class, there were plenty of things he could do. He could go to the cafeteria and make sure that they could get the student's macaroni-and-cheese dinner out in time, to bring in brisket of beef for the university's guests.
Norman was worried that the beef brisket wouldn't thaw out in time. He worried that it might cook up dry. He worried that the delegates to the conference wouldn't like it.
He worried about his health when he saw the huge black limo parked just inside the gate.
He stopped a full twenty feet away, blinked, and stood staring.
Outside the car stood a Chinese, wearing a chauffeur's uniform, and a big ugly man in a suit that didn't seem to fit because of the lumps between his chest and his arms.
Norman Belliveau worried about whether to run or not.
The man froze him in place with a growl. "Are you Bellevue?" he asked.
Norman worried about whether he should correct the man's pronunciation. He just nodded.
The big man tapped the black back window which was sealed off from the outside world by a curtain.
Belliveau worried about getting his pension in fifteen more years.
The back door of the Fleetwood opened and Belliveau heard a song ring out:
"Meet George Jetson!"
A head followed the sound.
"His boy, Elroy!"
The face was impassive and the dark eyes under the neatly combed hair seemed to bore into Belliveau.
"Jane, his wife!"
The fading strains of a highly orchestrated "chopsticks" disappeared. The green glow that had illuminated one side of the man's face faded as he leaned out of the car, away from its built-in television set.
Arthur Grassione looked at Norman Belliveau and said simply: "You're going to find room for me and my men."
Norman worried whether the new guests would like the rooms he had picked for them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tuesday's Pub was not just any old bar.
When it had been called the St. Louis Tavern, it was any old bar. When it was the St. Louis Tavern it served the beer that made Milwaukee famous on tap to the bums that made St. Louis famous.
But then some smart cookie downtown figured that since it was near the train station and across the street from the Greyhound bus stop, and not far from the airport, the St. Louis Tavern was the perfect place to renovate into a modern watering hole.
So as the sodden regulars continued trying to see their gray futures in the golden liquid in their dusty glasses, the old interior was transformed into the smooth plastic decor of Tuesday's Pub.