"Jeff Lee, please," Sammy Wynn said hurriedly into the telephone.
He listened as Jeff's secretary told him that her boss wasn't in the office at the moment. Goddamn, Sammy thought, he can't be out. If he wants the story he's got to see me. Sammy knew that he couldn't wait long because the mob would be after him. The two hoods at Paula's would know that he had left a warning for her when she didn't show up. He knew she was safe, but they would be hunting for them both.
"Look," he said to the secretary. "Tell, him I've got the information he needs on Wade Jackson, but he's got to hurry. I'll be waiting at the bar in the Hilton Hotel. Tell him to hurry, because he might be in trouble."
Sammy looked up from his drink at the grey-haired man who stood framed in the doorway. He waited as the distinguished looking young man entered and walked toward him.
"Are you Jeff Lee?" he asked from his stool.
"You wanted to see me," Jeff answered, cautiously. He didn't want to be caught in a trap.
Sammy motioned toward one of the booths near the corner and they walked through the mass of convention delegates who were standing in the center of the room. Delegates had a habit of convening in bars before each session while they made sure their loyalties and plans were still in order.
Sammy spoke first: "I work for Wade Jackson."
A bribe, Jeff thought when the young man spoke. Wade must be getting pretty uncomfortable to send a kid to offer him a bribe. The mob underestimated Jeff Lee's integrity. As far as crime was concerned, he had no price and could not be bought.
"I think I've got what you want on Wade Jackson," Sammy continued. "I've been with him for two weeks as a collector, and already I know about a fourth of the girls who work for him, and can name the other men that work with him. What do you think?"
"Go ahead," Jeff said, his interest stirred.
"First, we've gotta make a deal."
So that's it, Jeff thought. Some punk who wants out of the mob the easy way.
"No deals," Jeff told him. "I can't make any deal for the district attorney's office. If you want immunity from the law, you'll have to talk to them."
But Sammy had another surprise for Jeff.
"It's not the law I'm worried about," he whispered, not wanting any of the nearby convention delegates to hear him. "I want immunity from Wade Jackson."
Jeff Lee was impressed. Here was a young man, he thought, who not only had realized his mistake, but didn't mind paying for it. He just didn't want to die at the hands of the syndicate.
"What makes you think you'll need protection from them?" Jeff asked. "We can keep everything quiet enough so that they won't know it's you who gave me the information."
That'd be great, Sammy thought, but impossible. He had a vivid picture of Carl and Red waiting furiously in Paula's living room waiting for her to return. After Sammy had already failed to appear at Wade's command twice in a row, they would all know why when they got their subpoenas in a few days. Sammy would need more than just a little protection. Besides, there was someone else for him to consider.
"It's not just for me," he said. "There's a girl involved, and well, I don't want her hurt either."
Always a woman involved, Jeff thought as he suddenly remembered his own wife. If Pamela were involved in this thing it would be better for me, easier, but Pamela wasn't the only woman that now occupied his thoughts. Carmen, the Cuban dancer had made him remember what a real woman was like in bed, wild and inhibited. Thinking of her as he considered Sammy's request, he felt a little guilty, yet justified in having screwed her. After all, he had done it in the line of duty, trying to get information on Wade Jackson. Although he couldn't use her for a witness she had provided him with almost all the links to the chain that would jail Jackson for good.
But he had been unfaithful to his wife. He had gone to bed with a prostitute because his wife couldn't satisfy him. She couldn't give him the physical pleasures that he had found with the Cuban girl. His love of his wife was more of a spiritual thing than physical. She couldn't excite him with salacious talk or the obscene displays of her body that Carmen used to entice and arouse the deepest animal passions that lay in the minds and bodies of every man. Pamela just wasn't enough woman for him. She may as well be sexually non-existent. Jeff wondered if Sammy's girlfriend was as much a woman in bed as Carmen.
"Who's the girl?" Jeff asked.
"She works for Wade," Sammy replied defensively. "She's one of his prostitutes."
Jeff stared at the young man for almost a minute before speaking. So Sammy did have a real woman, he thought. He wondered how Sammy felt about knowing all the men his girlfriend had been screwed by. Maybe it excites him, maybe he just doesn't care. That would have to be love, Jeff thought, knowing that he couldn't love his wife if she went to bed with another man, especially if she knew how to do all the things that Carmen did with her mouth, and with the furry little animal that breathed between her legs.
"Who is she?" Jeff asked.
"Her name's Paula Moore," Sammy told him. "She doesn't know I'm here yet, but she'll talk if I tell her. She's in big trouble with Jackson and his henchmen. That's the main reason I'm here. Two of his men came to her apartment this morning when I was there. They had a huge St. Bernard with them, and when I left I overheard them talking about how they were going to use the dog to punish her for the mistake that she had made."
Jeff listened, amazed at the cruelty that Jackson and his hoods used to get their petty revenge.
"… So that's how I heard about you," Sammy continued. "They're going to do something to you too, and I thought you'd want to be warned. That's why I wanted to tell you everything I know. If you're after them, then you can help me. There's no one else that I can turn to."
Jeff sat for a minute thinking about what Sammy had said. He tried to picture the two hundred pound St. Bernard driving his hard pink penis in and out of the girl's crotch, but his imagination would not allow him to view the thought for long. He remembered hearing about such things when he was in the service, but he always thought it too far below him to even imagine such a thing, and now he had met a man whose girlfriend had almost suffered the same fate.
"Do you know if she got the note?" Jeff asked him.
"I'm not sure," he answered. "But she said she always gets the mail in the morning, so she must have. I told her to get a hotel room and call me here at noon."
Jeff looked at his watch and back at the young man sitting across from him.
"It's one-thirty now," he said. "Maybe we'd better find her before we go on. If they did get to her, she's going to need a doctor."
Sammy looked at his own watch. God, it was late. He didn't realize that they had been talking for so long, but she had to be alright, she just had to. If Carl and Red had gotten hold of her she could be dead, or worse. That dog could have driven her insane.
"Come on," Jeff said, getting up from his seat. "We'll split up and try to find her, then we'll talk."
Just as Sammy nodded and started to rise, a waiter brought a telephone to the table and plugged it into the wall.
"It's for you, Mr. Lee."
"Hello," he said into the receiver.
"Oh, Mr. Lee," his secretary's voice said. "I'm so glad I've found you. A man called. I think he said he was a doctor or something. You're supposed to call home right away. He wasn't very clear, but said that something was wrong and you should call home immediately."
Pamela! he thought. God, what was wrong? She could be sick or hurt, or anything.
"O.K.," he said. "I'll call her right away."
Jeff hung up the phone and looked at Sammy.
"My wife's sick, or something. I've got to call home. Look, you get started in some of the spots you know," he said. "Start with her apartment. I'll get in touch with my contacts as soon as I find out about my wife. Call me at my office later on."
Sammy agreed and quickly left the bar, worried about what he might find at Paula's apartment. As he left the room, Jeff turned to the telephone and dialed his home number.
The phone rang once, twice, then…
"Hello Mr. Lee," Wade Jackson's voice came over the receiver.