“Thanks, Mr. Burke.”
“I mean it. You think I’m just blowing smoke up your skirt?”
Recevo shook his head.
“Well, I’m not. Take a look at the other men I’ve got in the organization. That alone should tell you that you’re at the top of the list. You’re going to go far with me.”
“Those other men you’re talkin’ about. They been here longer than me.”
“They don’t have the qualities I’m looking for in my right-hand man. Gearhart is fine as far as counsel goes, but he’s a strange one, and he doesn’t have the guts. Reed has the guts but not the brains. And I’m getting tired of him bringing attention to us with his outside activities. That thing in Lafayette Park last year, where he beat those two fairies to within an inch of their lives—”
“I heard about it.”
“A perfect example. Gearhart got him off, of course. But the point is, I can’t control him much longer. I need someone levelheaded who can stand next to me, help me make the tough decisions. The man who can do that, it’s going to be very good for him.”
“I’m here whenever you need me, Mr. Burke.”
“That’s all I wanted to know.” Burke turned to face Recevo. “So, that brings us to tonight.”
“Go ahead.”
“I want you and Reed and a couple of the men to go over to the Stefanos hash-house. I want you to explain to that Greek how things are going to be from here on out. Now, I know that your friend Karras works in that place. I want to make sure you don’t have any problem with that. You don’t, do you?”
“I work for you. If you say go, I go.”
“Good boy,” said Burke. “Let me know how things turn out.”
Recevo took his topcoat off the chair where he had draped it, put it on. He smoothed out the brim of his hat, placed it on his head, cocked it right. He nodded to Burke and headed for the door. Burke kept his eyes on Recevo, tipped the glass of whiskey to his lips.
In the foyer. Face sat in a chair trying to make a ball on a string fall into a cup. Reed stood in front of a mirror, watching his reflection as he smoked a cigarette. Recevo came down the stairs.
“All right, Reed. Get two men together and let’s go.”
Reed smiled, walked into the living room where a half-dozen men sat around having highballs and trading wisecracks with a couple of women who smelled of house booze and off-brand perfume. He returned with a large Welshman in a blue twist suit and a medium-sized man in a double-breasted gray plaid. They arrived shoving revolvers into their waistbands, then retrieved their topcoats from the hall closet.
“We’ll take my car,” said Recevo.
“We going to Stefanos’s place?” said Reed.
“Yeah.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
Recevo felt the eyes of Face upon him.
“Who’s Stefanos?” said Medium.
“Some guy who can’t be pushed around.” Reed smiled, glanced at Recevo as he punched Medium in the shoulder. “Come on, fellas. Let’s go have us a little fun.”
Mike Florek crossed 14th Street, kept an eye out for traffic as he looked through the plate-glass window of Nick’s. Nick and Costa were there, talking to a group of large white men wearing coats over suits who were standing spread out around the customers’ side of the counter. Through the glass of the door Florek could see the big brown arms of Six, hanging loosely at his side. There didn’t seem to be any Negro customers in the place, though that was not unusual, as it was Berle night anyway, and the ten o’clock fights had ended long ago. Florek decided not to stop by to shoot the breeze or anything like that; if Nick and the others were with their friends, having some laughs over a few bottles of beer, maybe they wouldn’t want him around.
Florek went to the entrance of his building, opened the door, and headed up the stairs.
He didn’t mind being alone tonight, not after the time he had had with Kay. He had gone by People’s in the early evening, made like he was surprised to see her working, and then, after the necessary small talk, suggested they take in a show. To his relief, she agreed without a fight of any kind. Despite the fact that she was dressed for work — a sweater and skirt, with a string of fake pearls around her long neck — Kay looked lovely to Florek, as lovely as if she had prepared for him all day. He watched her take a sampler atomizer and spray some perfume on her wrists and behind her ears before she ended her shift. On the way out the door, Florek gave a smart chin-nod to an unsmiling Mr. Simms.
“What do you call that stuff?” said Florek, as they walked south. “I can smell it, even out here in the breeze.”
“It’s ‘Evening in Paris,’” she said. “You like it?”
Then Kay put her hand up to his nose, and the two of them stopped walking as he breathed her in.
“I like it fine,” said Florek, and he lightly kissed the pulsing vein on the inside of her wrist. He didn’t know why he had been so impulsive and forward — it was not something he had done on a first date back home with any girl before — but Florek felt older here, living on his own, more privileged in some natural kind of way. Thankfully, Kay laughed and patted his cheek; Florek knew he was in like Flynn.
The movie was okay, light and fairly plotless and easy to follow, which was okay by Florek. He and Kay sat in the balcony at the Warner, and by the end of the first act his arm was around her shoulder, and the arm was still there when the credits rolled and the house lights had come up. They both agreed that the new girl, Patricia Neal, had something to her, though Florek thought Jack Carson was the standout in his usual sidekick role. Carson always made Florek crack up.
Jackie Harris, the bartender Karras had recommended, was behind the stick at the Crown, and Florek and Kay had two rounds of cocktails there after the show. It went cheaply and without a hitch, though Florek noted with some dismay that Kay could hold her liquor better than he. It was she who had to figure out the tip, after Florek could not do the simple arithmetic in his head. They left three on a two-forty check, and went out into the night.
The two of them walked to a stop at 13th and F, waited for Kay’s uptown bus. At a pause in the conversation, he found himself staring at her, admiring the light freckles showered on the bridge of her nose, the way her red hair fanned out in the wind. She took his face in both her hands and kissed his mouth, her tongue sliding against his. When she was done she butted her forehead lightly on his, then drew back and smiled.
“You were shaking, Mike.”
“It’s cold out, I guess.”
Kay laughed, kissed him once more as the bus pulled to the curb. The doors opened and she went up the steps. Florek waved her off, thinking, he should have gotten on the bus himself. But he was very happy walking home, noting as he neared R Street that he had not thought once about the route he had taken in his journey from downtown to Shaw. He was beginning to know this city — its streets and bus lines, the best cups of coffee, the biggest slices of pie, where to walk to save time and where not to walk late at night — and he was beginning to like it, too. And then he thought: I haven’t called my mother in the last week. I’ll have to do that tonight, as soon as I get in.
Going up the stairs to his room, Florek felt a wash of guilt, imagining Lola, wherever she was, alone in this town without family or friends. Florek, he had friends, and it could be that now he had a girlfriend, and with Karras looking out for his sister, maybe, for the first time in months, he had a little bit of hope. He wanted to turn around, go back down the stairs, ask Karras exactly what he planned to do to help him find Lola. But Nick and the rest of them, they were down there talking to some of their buddies, and tonight was not the time to interrupt. Florek would just have to wait, ask Karras about it the next day.