* * * * *
The girl went off through a door at the left of the club. Malone
threaded his way past tables with chairs piled on top of them until he
came to Palveri's side. The club owner was sitting on a single chair
dragged off the heap that stood on a table next to him. He didn't turn
around. "Mr. Malone," he said, "take another chair, sit down and we'll
talk. O.K.?"
Malone blinked. "How'd you know I was there?" he said. "Much less who
I was?"
"In this business," Palveri said, still without turning, "you learn to
notice things, Mr. Malone. I heard you come in and wait. Who else
would you be?"
Malone took a chair from the pile and set it up next to Palveri's. The
chunky man turned to face him for the first time. Malone took a deep
breath and tried to look hard and tough as he studied the club owner.
Palveri had small, sunken eyes decorated with bluish bags below and
tufted black eyebrows above. The eyes were very cold. The rest of his
face didn't warm things up any; he had an almost lipless slash for a
mouth, a small reddish nose and cheeks that could have used either a
shave or a good sandblasting job.
* * * * *
"You said you wanted to see me," Palveri began after a second. "But
you didn't say what about. What's up, Mr. Malone?"
"I've been looking around," Malone said in what he hoped was a grim,
no-nonsense tone. "Checking things. You know."
"Checking?" Palveri said. "What's this about?"
Malone shrugged. He fished out a cigarette and lit it. "Castelnuovo in
Chicago sent me down," he said. "I've been doing some checking around
for him."
Palveri's eyes narrowed slightly. Malone puffed on the cigarette and
tried to act cool. "You throwing names around to impress me?" the club
owner said at last.
"I'm not throwing names around," Malone said grimly. "Castelnuovo
wants me to look around, that's all."
"Castelnuovo's a big man in Chicago," Palveri said. "He wouldn't send
a guy down without telling me about it."
"He did," Malone said. He thought back to the FBI files on Giacomo
Castelnuovo, which took up a lot of space in Washington, even on
microfilm. "You want proof?" he said. "He's got a scar over his ribs
on the left side--got it from a bullet in '62. He wears a little black
mustache because he thinks he looks like an old-time TV star, but he
doesn't, much. He's got three or four girls on the string, but the
only one he cares about is Carla Bragonzi. He--"
"O.K.," Palveri said. "O.K., O.K. You know him. You're not fooling,
around. But how come he sends you down without telling me?"
Malone shrugged. "I've been here two weeks," he said. "You didn't know
I was around, did you? That's the way Castelnuovo wanted it."
"He thinks I'd cheat him?" Palveri said, his face changing color
slightly. "He thinks I'd dress up for him or drag down? He knows me
better than that."
Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure,"
he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted
terrible and he put it out in an ashtray from the chair-covered table.
"You're telling me," Palveri said. "Things are crazy. What I'm
thinking is this: Maybe Castelnuovo wants to keep this place
operating. Maybe he wants to keep me here working for him."
"And if he does?" Malone said.
"If he does, he's going to have to pay for it," Palveri said firmly.
"The place needs dough to keep operating. I've got to have a loan, or
else I'm going under."
"The place is making money," Malone said.
Palveri shook his head vigorously. He reached into a pocket and took
out a gold cigar case. He flipped it open. "Have one," he told Malone.
An FBI Agent, Malone told himself, had no business smoking cigars and
looking undignified. But as a messenger from Castelnuovo, he could do
as he pleased. He almost reached for one before he realized that
maybe, sometime in the future, Palveri would find out who Kenneth J.
Malone really was. And then he'd remember Malone smoking cigars, and
that would be bad for the dignity of the FBI. Reluctantly, he drew his
hand back.
"No, thanks," he said. "Never touch 'em."
"To each his own," Palveri muttered. He took out a cigar, lit it and
returned the case to his pocket. The immediate vicinity became crowded
with smoke. Malone breathed deeply.
"About the money--" Malone said after a second.
Palveri snorted. "The place is making half of what I'm losing," he
said. "You got to see it this way, Malone: the contacts are gone."
"Contacts?" Malone said.
Palveri nodded. "The mayor's resigned, remember?" he said. "You saw
that. Everybody's getting investigated. A couple of weeks ago the
Golden Palace guy knocked himself off, and where does that leave me?
He's my only contact with half the State boys; hell, he ran the whole
string of clubs here, more or less. Castelnuovo knows all that."
"Sure," Malone said. "But you can make new contacts."
"Where?" Palveri said. He flung out his arms. "When nobody knows
what's going to happen tomorrow? I tell you, Malone, it's like a curse
on me."
Malone decided to push the man a little farther. "Castelnuovo," he
said with what he hoped was a steely glint in his eyes, "isn't going
to like a curse ruining business." He took another deep breath of
tobacco smoke.
"Primo Palveri don't like it either," Palveri said. "You think
whatever you like but that's the way things are. It's like Prohibition
except we're losing all the way down the line. Listen, and I'll tell
you something you didn't pick up around town."
"Go ahead," Malone said.
* * * * *
Palveri blew out some more smoke. "You know about the shipments?" he
said. "The stuff from out on the desert?"
Malone nodded. The FBI had a long file on the possibility of
Castelnuovo, through Palveri or someone else in the vicinity, shipping
peyotl buttons from Nevada and New Mexico all over the country. Until
this moment, it had only been a possibility.
"Mike Sand wanted to get in on some of that," Palveri said. "Well,
it's big money, a guy figures he's got to have competition. But it's
business nowadays, not a shooting war. That went out forty years ago."
"So?" Malone said, acting impatient.
"I'm getting there," Palveri said. "I'm getting there. Mike Sand and
his truckers, they tried to high jack a shipment coming through out on
the desert. Now, the Trucker's Union is old and experienced, maybe,
but not as old and experienced as the Mafia. It figures we can take
them, right?"
"It figures," Malone agreed. "But you didn't?"
Palveri looked doleful. "It's like a curse," he said. "Two boys
wounded and one of them dead, right there on the sand. The shipment
gone, and Mike Sand on his way to the East with it. A curse." He
sucked some more at the cigar.
Malone looked thoughtful and concerned. "Things are certainly bad," he
said. "But how's money going to make things any better?"
Palveri almost dropped his cigar. Malone watched it lovingly. "Help?"
the club owner said. "With money I could stay open, I could stay
alive. Listen, I had investments, nice guaranteed stuff: real estate,
some California oil stuff ... you know the kind of thing."
"Sure," Malone said.
"Now that the contacts are gone and everybody's dead or resigned or
being investigated," Palveri said, "what do you think's happened to
all that? Down the drain, Malone."