'Yes.'
'For God's sake, Mike! Why didn't you tell me?'
Mike shrugged. 'I'm telling you now.'
'But why now? I could have done something. I could have been with you --'
'No one could have done anything for me,' Mike said quietly. 'I had to sort it out for myself. I have no wife and have Chrissy on my hands. I've put her in a home near my barracks so I can see her on weekends, and I got rid of our little house. This home is good for Chrissy, but it costs. I now live in my barracks. I've managed so far.'
'You want money Mike? I can give you some. How much do you want? I'll do what I can.'
'Not the kind of money I need, Art,' Mike said.
'What's that mean?' Art asked. 'I could lend you the money, damn it! I could give you a couple of grand.'
'I'd need at least fifty thousand,' Mike said.
Art gaped at him.
'You crazy? What the hell do you want all that for?'
'It's to take care of Chrissy. I've talked to the doctor who runs the home. He's a good guy. He tells me she has a malformation of her heart. It's the usual thing with Mongols. She won't live for more than a few years if we give her the best attention, and I know she'll get the best attention at this home. It's going to cost big dollars, and that will take care of her for the rest of her short life.'
'But Mike! You're earning! I'll chip in. You don't have to have all this money at once. You can pay month by month.'
Mike nodded. 'That's what I thought, but I'll be dead in six months or so.'
Art stiffened. Looking at his brother, seeing the drawn face and the sunken eyes, he felt a chill crawl up his spine.
'What are you talking about? Dead? Don't talk crap! You're good for a long time.'
Mike stared at the whisky in his glass for a moment, then looked straight at his brother.
'I have terminal cancer,' he said quietly.
Art closed his eyes. He felt the blood drain out of his face.
There was a long silence, then Mike said, 'The last two years I have had odd pains. They'd come and go. I didn't tell Mary. I thought it was nothing. People have pains, and it is nothing, but these didn't go away. When I lost Mary and the pains got worse, I got worried about Chrissy, so I talked to a specialist at Northport, Long Island. That's why I'm here. I saw him a couple of days ago. He told me I had around six months to live. I'll have to stay in the hospital in a couple of months, and I won't be coming out.'
'God! I'm sorry!' Art said. 'This quack could be wrong.'
'He isn't. Forget it. Let's talk business, Art.' Mike said.
Mike looked straight at his brother. 'Now, you told me what your racket is: finding men to pull a crime. There is no way that I can raise fifty thousand dollars with only a few months to live, but I've got to do it. I don't care what I have to do as long as it pays fifty grand. For Chrissy, I'll even go to murder. Can you get me a job that'll pay fifty grand?'
Art took out his handkerchief and mopped his sweating face. 'I don't know, Mike. I see your reasoning, but fifty grand for a job is pretty scarce work. You're an amateur. You have no police record. My people wouldn't want to work with you. A job that pays that big is kept in the family, so to speak.'
'Skip that, Art,' Mike said, 'I'm relying on you. Whatever the job is, I'll do it, and I'll do it well. I have a month's sick leave. I'll stay here until you find something. I'm at the Mirador Hotel.'
He got to his feet. 'Anything -- repeat anything -- that pays fifty grand. Think about it, Art. I'm relying on you. Okay?'
Art nodded. 'I'll do what I can, but I can't promise anything.'
Mike stared at him. 'In your bad days,' he said, 'I stayed with you. Now I expect you to stay with me. So long for now,' and he left.
Art had done his best, but his regulars would have nothing to do with an amateur, and this morning he sat at his desk, at his wits' end to find a job that would pay his brother fifty thousand dollars. He wondered if he should sell stock, but he knew Beth wouldn't stand for that. He had discussed the situation with her and she had been unsympathetic.
'Dotty brats should be smothered at birth,' she had said. 'One thing you don't do, Art, you don't sell stock and give our money to Mike. Is that understood?'
A week had passed since his brother's visit. Art had heard nothing from him, but the memory of those sunken eyes and the look of despair haunted him. Interrupting his dismal thoughts, Beth put her head around his office door.
'Ed Haddon on the line, Art,' she said.
Art stiffened to attention. Haddon was his most profitable client. He had supplied Haddon with many top-class thieves, and Haddon paid generously.
Picking up the receiver, he said, 'Hi, Mr. Haddon! Good to hear from you. Something I can do?'
'I wouldn't be telephoning just to hear your voice,' Haddon snapped. 'I want a man: good appearance, a dead shot, able to handle a Rolls Royce and act the part of a chauffeur.'
Art drew in a long deep breath. This looked custom made for Mike.
'No problem, Mr. Haddon. I've got just the man. What's the job?'
'A big one. It'll pay around sixty thousand.'
Art closed his eyes. This was too good to be true.
'No problem, Mr. Haddon.'
'Who's your man?'
'My brother. He's a top-class shot and needs the money. You can rely on him.'
'What's his police record look like?'
'He hasn't one, Mr. Haddon. Right now he is a Musketry instructor in the Army. He looks good, talks well and is a certain shot.' So anxious was Art to get his brother fixed, he went on, 'I will guarantee him, Mr. Haddon.'
The moment he had said this, he regretted it. How did he know that Mike would deliver to Haddon's satisfaction? Haddon was ruthless. So far, Art had given him more than satisfaction, but he knew for sure, one slip and Haddon would deal with him no longer. Haddon's account with Art was the guts of his agency. If Haddon dropped him, so would all his other clients drop him. He broke out into a cold sweat, but he had shot off his mouth, and there was no retreat.
Haddon said, 'That's fine with me. If you guarantee your brother, that's good enough for me. Okay, tell him to report to Cornelius Vance at the Seaview Hotel, Miami at ten o'clock Sunday the twenty third.'
'How about the gun?'
'Vance will give him that. And Bannion, there is to be no violence. No one gets killed, but this man has to be a dead shot.'
'When's the payoff, Mr. Haddon?'
'When the job's done. It'll take around a couple of months. This is a big one, Bannion. You screw it up, and you'll be out of business,' and Haddon hung up.
Beth stormed into the office.
'I was listening,' she said, her face cherry red. 'You gone out of your mind? That pin-head of a soldier? We have dozens of dead shots on the cards. Why pick on him, a goddam amateur?'
Art glared at her.
'He's my brother. He needs help. Go away!'
When Beth, grumbling, had gone, Art dialled the Mirador Hotel number and asked to speak to Mr. Mike Bannion. He expected his brother would be out on this mild sunny morning, but Mike came on the line immediately.
Art thought: The poor bastard has been sitting in his dreary hotel room, waiting for me to call. Well, I've good news for him.
When Art had told him the news, Mike said with a catch in his voice, 'I knew I could rely on you, Art. I owe you more than thanks. I won't let you down, I'll get going right away, but I'll need money.'
'That's okay, Mike. I'll send you three thousand in cash to your hotel. Don't skimp on the chauffeur's uniform. It has to be convincing. My client is important.'
There was a long pause, then Mike said, 'No one gets killed?'
'That's what the man said.'
'Okay, Art, and thanks again. You can rely on me.'
As Mike hung up, Art sat back in his chair wondering if he should consider himself a saint or a sucker.
Anita Certes entered the second bathroom of the penthouse suite of the Spanish Bay Hotel, bracing herself for what she knew she would find. The penthouse suite, the most luxurious and most expensive suite in the hotel had been taken by Wilbur Warrenton, the son of Silas Warrenton, a Texas oil billionaire, just married to Maria Gomey, a South American, whose father owned a number of silver mines. Wilbur had decided that Paradise City would be the place to spend their honeymoon, and Maria, difficult to please, had agreed.
At the age of twenty nine, Wilbur had not, as yet, joined the Texas Oil Corporation over which his father reined. He had had a Harvard education, taking a Master's degree in economics, had spent a year in the Army as Major (Tanks), had travelled the world in one of his father's yachts, had met Maria, fallen in love and married. When the honeymoon ended, he was to become one of the ten vice-presidents of his father's vast oil kingdom.
His father, Silas Warrenton, a tough oil man, had no love for anyone except his son. Silas's wife had died a few years after Wilbur's birth, and Silas, who had been deeply in love, had transferred this love to his son. When Wilbur told his father that he wanted to marry and had introduced Maria, Silas had stared thoughtfully at her. Her dark complexion, her slim, sensual body, her big sexy eyes and her hard mouth gave him doubts, but he knew of her father with his billions, so he mentally shrugged. If this piece was what his son wanted to marry, he would raise no objection. After all, he told himself, she was worth screwing and divorce was easy. So he gave her a crooked smile, patted her shoulder and said, 'I want grandchildren, my dear. Don't disappoint me.'
Maria thought he was the most horrible, vulgar old man alive. Even when Wilbur had hinted he, too, would like children, she had stared bleakly at him.
'Later. Let's be happy and free while we are young. Children always bring trouble.'
Anita Certes was one of the many bedroom maids employed by the Spanish Bay Hotel. At the age of twenty three, she was of squat build, dark complexioned, hair like a raven's wing and a Cuban. She had been working at the hotel for the past twelve months. Her job was to clean the bathrooms, change the bed linen daily, dust and clean.
Anita had 'done' Wilbur's bathroom. That was no problem. He even folded his bath towels, and there was no mess, but Maria's bathroom made Anita boil with suppressed fury. What a goddam slut this rich, spoilt woman was! Anita thought as she surveyed the mess she was now faced with to clear up.
Sodden towels lay on the floor. (Did she take the towels into the bath with her? Anita wondered.) Face powder and eyelash black splattered the mirrors. A trodden lipstick smeared the floor tiles. The toilet hadn't been flushed.
The rich! Anita thought as she gathered up the sodden towels. Even if she was worth millions as this bitch was, she would never dream of leaving a bathroom in this disgusting state.
As she worked, her mind shifted to her husband, Pedro. They had been married for two years. They had come, on Pedro's urging, to Florida in the hope of bettering their economic condition which had been hard in Havana. Anita had been lucky to have got the cleaning job at the Spanish Bay Hotel, but Pedro could find only occasional work, street cleaning, which paid little.
To her, Pedro was the most handsome man alive, a slim, dark man. She loved him fiercely and possessively, accepting his bad tempers, his complaints, giving him everything she earned. They lived in a one room walk-up in Seacomb which was on the outskirts of Paradise City and where the workers lived. She was so in love with Pedro it didn't occur to her that he was a wastrel.
After a few days with a brush and cart street cleaning, he had given up. His one thought was to return to his father's small sugar cane farm, although a year ago his one thought was to leave it. Anita, listening to all his bitter complaints, had kissed him, telling him that something good for him would turn up. Cutting sugar cane was no way to live. She would work harder and she would provide. Pedro had smiled. Okay, so they would wait.
As she worked, clearing up the mess in the bathroom, she wondered what Pedro was doing. He told her he would be walking the streets, trying to find a job, but she wondered. At the end of each week, he had spent all the money she had earned. Often, there wasn't money enough to buy more rice, and he had complained. Anita, adoring him, promised to work harder.
While she worked, making Maria Warrenton's bathroom immaculate, Pedro Certes was sitting in a shabby bar in Seacomb. With him was Roberto Fuentes. Both men were drinking beer. Fuentes a Cuban, had lived in Seacomb for the past three years. A short, over-fat man with glittering hard eyes, he had carved out a small living on the waterfront, cleaning and helping to service the many yachts of the rich.
He liked Pedro and listened to Pedro's constant complaints. This evening, he had decided that Pedro was ripe for a job that could make Fuentes some three thousand dollars. Fuentes believed that risks were not for him. If a man could pick up three thousand dollars and find someone to take the risk, the idea was worth considering.
Speaking in a low voice, he said, 'Pedro. How would you like to pick up a thousand dollars?'
Pedro twiddled his glass of warming beer, then looked at Fuentes. 'Why talk this way? A thousand dollars? With that money I could take my wife and myself back to my father's farm. What are you saying?'
Fuentes smiled. His smile was like the flickering tongue of a snake.
'It can be arranged. It depends on you. A thousand dollars! Nice, huh?'
Pedro nodded.
'More than nice. Keep talking.'
'You know where my room is on Coral Street? The big block of walk-ups?'
'I know it.'
'There are seventy tenants in this block. Each of them pays sixty dollars a week rent. That makes a take of forty two hundred dollars. Right?'
'So what?' Pedro asked.
'You and I could grab that dough. To you, it'll be as easy as screwing your wife.'
Pedro's eyes narrowed. A thousand easy dollars!
'Keep talking,' he said. 'You've got me interested.'
'Living in this block is Abe Levi. He works for the people who own the block. He's their rent collector as well as the janitor. Every Friday he goes from flat to flat and collects the rent money: forty two hundred dollars. He goes back to his flat, writes the amounts up, then the following morning takes the money to the rental office. He's been doing this for years. I've watched him. Now Levi is a creep without spine. If you waved a gun in his face, he would faint. He is fat and old. All we have to do is to walk in while he's counting the dough, wave a gun in his face and we have got forty two hundred dollars. I tell you, Pedro, it's as easy and simple as that.'