“It sure isn’t,” I said. “In the old days a man had a little respect for his friends.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m calling,” Louie said, tossing in two red chips. “Let’s see what you’re so goddamn proud of, Al.”
Al smiled and fanned his cards face up in front of Louie’s nose. “Had you wired from the start, Louie. Three bullets.”
“Lousy jacks and tens,” Louie said in disgust. He threw down his cards while Al raked in the pot.
I said, “So how come Quick Willie isn’t here with you guys?”
Al shook his head. “That gook keeps Willie jumping. Poor Willie don’t like it, but what can he do? Rozano says, ‘You do what Tai Sheng tells you or you go back to the States and fry for that rape murder.’ Willie’s hands are tied.”
“I think I heard about that one,” I said. “Schoolteacher, wasn’t it? He had her on a boat for three days.”
Al nodded. “There wasn’t much he didn’t do to her either. Young broad too, maybe twenty-two or — three. He busted her up so bad he got scared. So, I guess he figured the only way was to knock her off completely.”
I used one of their ash trays to mash out my cigarette. “How did he get a name like Quick Willie?”
Al fixed me with a steady stare. “Don’t underestimate Willie, friend. He may not be a mental giant, but he is very fast. He got the name Quick because he is very, very fast in getting a rod to his hand and squeezing off those first three shots.”
“I see.” I stood with my hands behind me while the man next to Al dealt.
“Same game,” he said. “Jacks or better.”
There was a screen door leading out to the back patio. I eased around the poker table and went out. The swimming pool was about fifty yards in front of me. Evidently the girls had gone inside.
The well-manicured lawns flowed under olive trees in all directions around the pool. Far to my left were the tennis courts; beyond the oasis of trees and grass and structures stretched the vineyards.
I walked out from the mansion, past the pool and down the first row of vineyards. The vines had been picked clean of grapes. The earth between them was as soft as powder. When I had gone about twenty feet along the row I looked back at the mansion.
It stood majestic, looking like an old Virginia plantation home. Anyone who had just been transported there would not believe he was anywhere else but America. But something was wrong.
This was the first time I actually had a look at the entire side of the house. The thing was lopsided. On the left quarter of the place there were no windows. Three stories, windows spaced evenly across, except for that wide strip on the end. It wasn’t all that wide, maybe large enough to hold an elevator shaft. But surely not as wide as the house itself.
I started across the rows of vines, heading for the left corner of the house. If you looked at the mansion from the front, this would be the right side. As the side came into view, I stopped dead. No windows. The whole right face of the house did not have one window.
They tried to conceal it with a row of olive trees and honeysuckle vines growing up the house itself. But the wall was blank — no windows, no doors, nothing.
Rozano Nicoli had a section of that house unlike the rest of it. Was it a secret section? Is that where they had Tanya? With my head bowed in thought, I started back toward the swimming pool. I almost missed seeing Quick Willie coming toward me.
He lumbered with his long arms swinging like water hoses. Except the size of those arms were closer to fire hoses coming out of hydrants. There was a scowl on his face as he squinted against the sun.
I waited for him, letting my arms hang loose. What he wanted, I didn’t know. Maybe he was angry because I left the room.
Before he was five feet away, I could hear him puffing. He held his hand up in a friendly gesture. “Mr. Acasano,” he said in a quick pant.
“Keep moving like that, Willie, and you’ll have a coronary.”
“Heh, heh. Yeah, dat’s a good one. A coronary. Yeah. Dat’s a heart attack, huh?”
“Yeah, Willie.”
He stood in front of me, looking straight ahead across the vineyards. With his handkerchief he wiped his face and brow. There was a frown of concentration on his mangled and scarred face.
“I gotta tell you somethin’,” he said.
“What, Willie?”
He stared far off into the vineyards, blinking and frowning. His wheezing and panting was nasal. Breathing must have been very difficult for him.
Then his face suddenly brightened. “Yeah. Rozano says ta come get you. He’s ready ta see you now.”
I nodded and we started walking back toward the mansion. “What about my broad, Willie? Is she going to be there?”
If he heard me, he made no note of it. He just kept plowing ahead. For now he could not be confused with such complications as my questions presented; he was concentrating on just one thing, getting to the door of the mansion. As he stumbled along, I could almost hear him thinking. Right foot, then the left, then the right. Not far now. Where to after the door is opened?
The door was opened and I followed him. Although smoke still hung in the air, all the poker players were gone. From the looks of the cards and chips on the table, they must have left in a hurry.
Willie plodded on. Through the kitchen and down a short hallway that flanked the study. When he reached the stairs he paused to catch his breath. Then we climbed them one at a time. There was no sign of Michaels.
At the landing he turned left instead of right toward the room I’d been in. We passed more doors looking just as thick as the one closing off the room I’d been in. And then we came to a blank wall. It was wallpapered and looked just like the end of any hall. Willie stopped.
“What is it?” I asked with a frown.
He turned around and around slowly, his stupid eyes searching the floor. “Da button is here someplace.” Then the frown disappeared and once again his ugly face lit up. “Yeah,” he said softly. It was a discovery that he shared only with himself.
His toe touched a small square piece of the baseboard, and suddenly there came a whirring sound. The wall began to move. It slid slowly to the side, and when it was open another hallway on the other side was revealed with double doors at the end.
This hall was well lighted. I followed Willie toward the double doors, hearing the muffled sounds of voices as we approached them. Willie opened one, letting out more smoke, then he stood aside to let me enter.
There could be no doubt as to where I was. The windowless section of the house. I saw the men who had been playing poker downstairs. They were standing in a group, each with a drink in his hand. And then I saw Rozano Nicoli.
His back was to me but I had studied enough films of him to know him on sight. Michaels had just mixed him a drink and was handing it to him.
He turned and saw me. The face was much older than the films I had seen, but the years had been kind to him. He wore a perfectly tailored suit of expensive material. Physically, Nicoli was chunky, with short, stubby legs and a potbelly. He was almost completely bald except for a pelt of gray over each ear. His face was as round as a canteloupe and had about the same skin texture. Milky gray eyes looked at me through rimless bifocals; the nose was small and pert, the mouth a straight line just above his double chin.
This was the man who was taking over organized crime in the U.S. He started toward me, arms extended, standing about five-nine, smile showing gold fillings.