The Peddler Read online

  Tony thought about things Swan had told him, and his references to Angelo, and asked Maria, “This Angelo guy, he’s about the biggest joe in the Frisco rackets, isn’t he?”

  “I dunno. He’s pretty big, I guess.”

  “He tied in with any higher-ups? You know, the national guys?”

  “They got the gambling, naturally, and the dope. But the girls is what you might call independent. Angelo’s the whole thing far as Frisco is concerned—^I mean that’s as far as the girls’ money goes.”

  “Must add up to dough,” Tony said thoughtfully.

  She lived in an apartment building up on Pine Street, out about a mile, and as they drove down Pine where the lights were a little dimmer than downtown, Tony put his arm around Maria’s shoulder and pulled her to him. She lifted her head to look at him from inches away, and he pulled her closer, bending his face to hers.

  This had to be right, he thought. She’d been slobbered on by enough drunken suckers and guys with only one thing on their minds. That wasn’t the way to act around a woman, even a woman you were paying. Tony pulled Maria close to him, and he said softly, “You won’t never get away from me again for no three years. I’m sure glad I found you again, Maria.”

  She said, “Oh, Tony, so’m I.”

  Then he kissed her. He kissed her softly with parted lips, gently, with no passion, no roughness, but almost with tenderness. He pulled her nearer to him, shifted in the back seat of the taxi so that their bodies were closer together, touching along more of their surfaces, and he pulled her tighter with his strong arms. His right hand caressed her shoulder, slid down her back, came to rest beneath her armpit at the swell of her breast. He kissed her carefully. And all the time his brain was coldly clicking, clicking, adding, multiplying, piling dollar upon dollar in his mind, and as if his eyes were turned inward upon his brain he saw the money growing, dollar upon dollar, pile upon pile, money, dollars, power.

  Their lips parted with a soft moist sound and Maria leaned her head forward, burrowing it against his neck. “Oh, Tony, Tony,” she whispered. He could feel the rise and fall of her breasts, hear the heavy breath sigh in and out of her throat.

  “Maria, honey,” he said. “Maria, baby.”

  They sat quietly for a few blocks, then she moved away from him. “We’re almost there,” she said. “You comin’ up for a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “I got wine, Tony, good red wine, the kind you like. And I got gin and some whiskey.”

  “Swell, baby. Sounds real good.”

  Tony leaned back against the cushions and sighed. After a few seconds he asked pleasantly, “Say, honey. How many girls they got in that place on Fillmore?”

  chapter two

  Tony had a date to meet Maria at the Iron Horse on Maiden Lane about one in the morning, and he was getting cleaned up early Saturday night. He thought he’d walk around a little bit, maybe hang around the St. Francis or Union Square, have a drink or two to kill time.

  He finished bathing and shaving in the bathroom, then walked back down the hall to his room. He’d run a comb through his thick black mass of wavy hair and was getting dressed in a dark blue single-breasted suit when the phone rang. It was Maria.

  “Tony?”

  “Yeah, honey. Who else you think’d be here?”

  She laughed, then said, “Tony, I’m sorry, but I can’t meet you at one. Something’s come up.”

  “The hell, I’m akeady gettin’ dressed up. What’s the matter?”

  “1 got to go to a party. It’s a real good thing for me—it’s up at Sharkey’s. You know, I mentioned him, he’s one of the big fellows. I’m lucky to get to go, Tony. There’s going to be four of us girls there, and Castiglio—he’s Sharkey’s man that’s got my district—told me they wanted the prettiest girls, and I’m supposed to be one of them.” She sounded excited, a bit breathless. She paused a moment, then said, “That’s a real compliment, huh? Tony, you think I’m one of the prettiest?”

  “You’re the top, baby.” Then he added, “Hell, Maria, I was lookin’ forward to seein’ you tonight. This a private party, or is there a chance I could run up after a while?”

  “Look, hon, I gotta hurry. I got to get ready. About the party, it’s more an open house thing, but just for the fellows work with Sharkey. There’s Castiglio and another of the guys under him—”

  “Angelo gonna be there?”

  “No, just some of the guys. Castiglio tells me it’s mainly for this Senator that’s back in town.”

  “A Congressman?”

  “No, the state thing, what you call it?”

  “Legislature?”

  “Yeah. This Swan guy, Angelo’s man. He’s—” “Who? Swan what? I mean what Swan? What’s his first name?”

  “I dunno. Just Swan. He’s a good friend with Angelo.” “Honey, I know the guy. He’s a pal of mine—he was. Look, I want to go to that party.” Tony’s mind was busy; this was what he’d been waiting for. He could have gone to see Sharkey, even Angelo, and asked for a spot, any kind of spot in the organization—and probably he’d have gotten nowhere. This was perfect, better than he’d hoped. But it was like any break that ever was: A guy had to help make his own.

  Maria said, “I know why you want to go there. You don’t want to be with me; you want to meet those guys, Sharkey and the others.”

  She did know, of course; Tony had talked to her about wanting to get in with them, but Maria hadn’t ever liked the idea. She wanted him to keep out of the racket, get in something else; she Uked things just as they were between the two of them.

  Tony said, “O.K., so I want to meet Sharkey. You can fix it for me.”

  “Btit I don’t even know him, hon. Please. You don’t want to come up. I’ll see you after.”

  “You’re goddamn right I want to come up. Now, you fix it.”

  “No, Tony.”

  “O.K., baby. You can get lost. I’ll see you around.”

  He stopped, but held the receiver to his ear, listening. He had to get up to Sharkey’s.

  “Tony? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Honey, I don’t know how. I don’t mean a thing to them guys.”

  “You don’t have to. You go on up—^when you supposed to be there?”

  “Ten o’clock. About an hour from now.”

  “O.K. You’ll meet Swan there. Tell him you know Tony Romero—just talked to him. Tell him I’m dyin’ to see my old pal again. See? He can fix it easy; you tell him I want to come up there and see him. Up there.”

  “Well … all right, Tony.” She sounded subdued, not as breathless and excited as she had been. “I’ll do it, but maybe it won’t make no difference.”

  “That’s O.K. You just do it. And, baby, I won’t mess you up none. I want to see Swan again—and talk to Sharkey a little. I won’t get you in ditch.”

  “All right, Tony. I’ll call you sometime after I get there.”

  “So long, baby. You call me.”

  He hung up and started walking back and forth in the small room. He smacked his big fist into his palm, brows furrowed. Hell, it couldn’t miss, not if Swan was up there. Swan! How do you like that? Swan, of all people. The least the guy could do would be to get in touch with him. And Maria had said Swan was thick with Angelo. Angelo, the Top. Goddamn! This was it, all right. He couldn’t miss now. Just that first little break was all a guy like Tony Romero needed, and this was the break. He pounded his palm again, rapidly, nervous and tense. He looked at his watch; only a few minutes past nine, over an hour till the brawl started. He had a tight, excited feeling in his chest. Maybe in a little over an hour he’d be talking to the big boys, the real ones.

  At ten minutes before eleven P.M. Tony walked over to the dresser, unknotted his tie and carefully tied it again, working the big knot up between the wide wings of his collar. He looked good. The suit had set him back a bill and a quarter to have made. It set well on his heavy shoulders, tapered smoothly to his lean, flat wai
st and hips. The dark blue looked all right on him too, with his dark complexion. He looked like a guy that knew his way around. He went back and sat down on the bed, lit the last cigarette in his pack and puffed nervously on it as he glanced at the phone.

  What the hell was wrong? He’d been sitting here for almost two hours now. If that Maria crossed him, he’d knock her silly. She didn’t know how important this was to him; or maybe she did. Maybe that guy Swan was somebody else besides the one he’d known. He couldn’t see Swan as a State Senator, anyway. That was it. He’d got himself all worked up for nothing. But Swan was the type: tall, blond, honest-looking guy, open-faced. And he had the voice for it, he remembered. He knew Angelo, though; it could be. Angelo could get damn near anybody in the goddamn legislature. Sonofabitch. He wanted a drink. A big drink. But if he went up to Sharkey’s he wanted to be sober. There’d be plenty to drink up there. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn. The hell with it. I’ll get plastered. I’ll make it another way. He stubbed out the cigarette after two deep drags, reached for the empty pack, fumbled inside it, then crumpled the pack and threw it into the corner.

  The phone rang.

  Tony jumped toward it, reached for it, then hesitated, let the phone ring again, a third time, before he picked up the receiver and said into the mouthpiece, “Hello.”

  It wasn’t Maria. It was a man’s voice, a deep, booming, pleasant voice. It was heavier, richer now, but it was the one he remembered. “Hey, Romero? This that punk kid, Tony?”

  “Yeah. Swan? That you. Swan?”

  “Himself. How are you, Tony? Where the hell you been, kid?”

  “In Frisco all the time, Swan. You’re doin’ all right I hear. Man, it’s sure good to hear you again, I ain’t passed no queer for years. Times is tough.”

  Swan laughed. “I bet you’re doing O.K., Tony. You always were a hot one.”

  “Well, not bad. You give me my start. Man, I’d sure like to see you again.”

  “Look, kid. I got a blonde hanging on my tail. I’ll see you when you get up here.”

  Tony’s heart thudded once, then beat normally. His mouth was dry and it seemed silly; he’d wanted to go up there more than he’d admitted even to himself. He said, “Up there? O.K. if I bust in, huh?”

  “Why not? I’d like to shoot the breeze with you again, kid. You always gave me a charge. Hell, this is just a loose brawl, anyway. Well, I gotta ring off. I’ll see you.”

  “Sure, Swan.” Tony started to hang up, then remembered, panicked, that he didn’t know where the party was. “Swan,” he yelled into the mouthpiece. “Hey, Swan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, where you at? I almost forgot.”

  Swan laughed, then gave Tony the address and apartment number and hung up.

  He was already a little awed by the place. Sharkey lived in the Arlington Arms, a big apartment house near the Bay. There was even one of those cloth canopy things over the walk leading up to the door, and when the cab had stopped a uniformed doorman had opened the door for Tony. Tony gave him a buck, then wondered what he’d done that for. There was sure no work to opening a door; he could do it for himself. The hell with it. He’d have to get used to giving out bucks to all the guys with palms shoved out.

  He walked boldly through the rich lobby and took the elevator up to ten, then walked over thick carpeting to 1048. Even before he reached the door and rang the buzzer, Tony could hear the laughter and shrieks from inside the room. He rang the buzzer thinking that this was one of those places that smelled like money, smelled good, rich. It made him think of fat guys getting their pink faces patted in barber shops, and slant-eyed women with gold douche bags. He heard footsteps trotting toward the door and then the door swung open.

  There was a slinky-looking, shapely brunette, almost as tall as Tony, standing inside holding the door open. Tony nodded at her, not sure what to say.

  “Well!” she said. “Where’d you come from?” She raised one dark, thinly-penciled eyebrow a half inch.

  “I’m Tony Romero,” he said. “Swan invited me up here.”

  “Well, come on in, honey.”

  Tony looked into the room as he brushed past the brunette. She shut the door behind him and he pressed his teeth together, feeling good, enjoying himself already, glancing rapidly around the room and taking it all in, drinking it in. This,was something. He was in the big living room and it was the room that Tony had half visualized in his mind, the room he wanted. There was even a bar against one wall, four chrome-and-red-leather stools in front of it; on the opposite wall was a huge picture five or six feet square, of half a dozen nude women running around in a kind of mist in green forest by a lake, some of them swimming.

  There were twelve or fifteen people in the living room, and he could hear more voices from the open door of the kitchen ahead and on his right. Noise and laughter and conversation beat against his ears and he could smell the odor of whiskey cutting sharply through the faint scent of women, of their bodies and their perfume. Three people sat on a long divan, all of them holding highballs, others were at the bar, and some stood about the room, talking and drinking. Directly ahead of him, across the room from the entrance, the wall was a huge window, black draperies at each side. It was night beyond the window, but Tony knew the Bay was out there, and the lights of the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

  He sucked in his breath, glancing rapidly about. He hadn’t yet recognized anyone; the few seconds he had stood inside the door had been filled only with the sudden impact of sound and color and the heavy and subtle odors. He heard Swan’s booming laugh and spotted him, tall and blond, leaning against the wall on the right of the black drapery at the window’s edge. He was talking to a red-haired woman who played with the ribbed lapel of his dinner jacket.

  Tony walked toward him just as Swan looked around and saw him. “Hi, kid,” he boomed, and advanced toward Tony with one hand extended. They met in the middle of the room and shook hands. Tony felt swell. Several of those in the room turned to look at them; at Tony Romero in this swank place shaking hands with Swan—with State Senator Swan.

  “Hello, Swan,” Tony said. “Sure good to see you. Or maybe I should call you Mr. Swan, or The Honorable something, or whatever it is.”

  “It’s Swan, kid. Same old bastard.” He looked Tony up and down. “You’ve grown up into a little mountain. What you weigh now?”

  “About one-eighty.”

  “Let’s see, you’re—twenty now, huh?”

  Tony grinned. “Well … twenty-three. No, make it twenty-two.”

  “You sonofabitch,” Swan grinned. “You haven’t changed.” He jerked his head. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Shark.”

  “Sure.” This was just as good as if he’d planned it himself. Swan put his hand on Tony’s shoulder and steered him across the room to where a solidly built man sat in a low, wide, cream-colored chair. Maria sat on the arm of the chair talking to the guy. Swan took Tony up to them and stopped.

  So this was Sharkey? He was a big egg, about as tall as Swan, thicker through the chest and middle. He looked around forty, with a pouchy, lined face and a bald spot in the middle of his head. The face was square, with the thick-lipped mouth a straight line gashing the face, the lips almost too red. What hair he had left was red, too, more pinkish than anything else. One of Sharkey’s chunky hands rested on Maria’s thigh, a stubble of short, thick red hairs on the back of his hand like a week-old beard.

  With a slight shock Tony noticed that Sharkey was drunk. He didn’t know why he should have been shocked or surprised; everybody was drinking and it seemed to be a pretty wild party. It just didn’t seem right that a big shot like Sharkey would be plastered. Swan had obviously been drinking quite a bit, too, but it didn’t show much. He just seemed to be having a hell of a good time.

  Tony looked at Maria. He didn’t know whether he should say hello or not; he hadn’t thought about it before. But she smiled and said, “Hello, Tony,” when he and Swan walked up.
/>   He winked at her. “Hi, Maria.”

  Swan said, “Hey, Shark. Look alive. Here’s the kid I was telling you about. Tony Romero. Tony, this is Al Sharkey.” “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sharkey,” said Tony. “I heard a lot about you.”

  Sharkey looked up and smacked his lips. “Romero, huh?” He blinked pale blue eyes. His eyes were too small, Tony thought. Didn’t look big enough in that square face, and they looked bloodshot. No good reason, but he didn’t like Sharkey’s looks. Sharkey went on, “Swanney tells me you’re a regular whip. That right?”

  “Well …” said Tony. Was the guy making fun of him? “I known Mr. Swan quite a while.”

  Sharkey nodded. “Well, glad to know you, Romero. Make yourself at home. Have a drink, boy. And, say, how about bringing me a whiskey-coke while you’re at it. My feet hurt.”

  For a moment irritation flared in Tony. He wasn’t no goddamn servant. But he fought the anger down, forced himself to take it easy, and said, “Sure, Mr. Sharkey. Just a minute.”

  Swan took over then. “Hey, Ginny,” he yelled toward the bar. “Bring us a coke-high and—” he looked at Tony. “What you want?”

  “What you drinking?” “Scotch and water.” “Me too, then.”

  Swan laughed and slapped his hip. “You little sonofa-bitch. If I said poison, I bet you’d say poison.” He asked Maria what she wanted then yelled, “Ginny, and two scotch-and-waters and a rum-coke. O.K., honey?”

  The brunette who’d let Tony in waved a hand and started mixing the drinks. Sharkey slid his hand along Maria’s green skirt and squeezed her thigh. She glanced at Tony, then put her hand over Sharkey’s and patted it. When the drinks came. Swan steered Tony over to the window and pulled two chairs together facing the view. Tony sat down and looked out over the Bay.

  They talked casually for a few minutes, finished their drinks. Swan told him that he’d known Angelo well even before he’d first run into Tony; they were good friends, “like that.” Angelo had fixed Swan up for the legislature job where he could look out for Angelo’s interests. Yeah, Angelo was The Top, for sure. He had all the gambling, dope, houses, the works. He was tied in with the national bunch on the rest, but the houses were his, independent. Of course Angelo had his fingers in a lot of legit things too—that was mainly where Swan came in—apartment houses, this one here for example, a couple movie houses, some other real estate and pieces of several night clubs. Yeah, he must be worth a million or two. Maybe more. Finally Swan asked Tony what he’d been doing, how he’d been getting along.