Walter Lippit, I knew, was not a phone-out-of-the-wall tearer, or door kicker, or anything like that. If he should kick a door it was because the door didn’t open and he wanted in. If he tore a phone out of the wall, it meant he didn’t want anyone to use it.
So while Benotti would be pretty much out of touch, Lippit meant to hustle.
I took him so seriously, I got to his apartment before he did. Because when I rang the bell Pat opened the door and when she saw me she slammed the door shut again.
“No!”
“Pat, listen. You listening, Pat?”
“Walter is going to be home any minute,” she said through the door, “so you better beat it, Jack.”
“I know he’ll be home any minute. That’s why I want…”
“I know what you want and you must think you’re pretty good.”
I know that she wanted to slam the door right then except it was closed already. I heard her walk away and knew just when she’d get to the living-room door, to slam that one, but nothing happened. I knocked again and said, “Pat?” when she suddenly opened up.
“What changed your mind?” I asked her. “I mean, aside from the fact that you just can’t help yourself.”
I walked in but she didn’t answer. On the way to the living room I looked at her once but she just smiled back.
I mean, I was used to No’s from this girl. Not counting an overwhelming gambit like that zipper deal, this girl was Lippit’s, she could say no in her sleep, and our boss was due any minute. In addition, of course, Pat was a great calculator. She had on a nightgown and a robe over that. She held it tight where it mattered and left it loose where it mattered and without make-up on she looked soft and sleepy. It made me think of a warm bed.
“Sit down, Jack, won’t you?”
She took an attitude on the couch and patted the place next to her. I said, “Thank you,” and sat down on an easy chair.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “Everything go all right?”
“Yes. So far.”
She pulled her shoulders up for a moment, slid her hands up her sleeves, then let her shoulders relax again, soft and casual. I liked that sight so much, I was now very suspicious.
“When’s Walter coming, Jack?”
None of this made very much sense, unless she wanted Lippit to catch me in flagrante delieto so to speak. Not that I knew what the term really meant, except that it was something no good, and Pat, with her hands up her sleeves, wasn’t up to any good either.
“You look extremely sleepy, dear Pat. Really. You should go right back to bed.”
“Sure, Jack.”
What a compliant girl, I thought, and so suddenly. Except that I didn’t know what she was compliant about. Lippit, I hoped, would be here any minute.
She leaned forward and got a cigarette out of the crystal thing on the table and then she closed her robe again. “Was nice before, wasn’t it?” she said.
“Oh yes. You want a light?”
“Please.”
I had to come around the coffee table and unless I wanted to stand there like a jackknife and look down where her robe didn’t make it and she was holding it closed just under the breasts so that they curved in the damnedest half-naked way-I sat down on the couch and held the lit match up between us.
She made no fuss about lighting up and got it on the first drag. I think she wanted to talk.
“I want you to know that I had a very good time on this couch here,” she said, “and I want you to know that doesn’t mean a damn thing for the future, Jack.”
It was a fine time to make this point, the way she was sitting there.
“Really, Pat,” I said. “I wouldn’t presume.”
“When you get formal like that,” she said, “I know you’re lying.”
“I’m under a strain, is all.”
She liked that and shifted a little, just to show how live everything was and how real. Then she laughed.
“I love seeing you strained like that. It shows how you’re loyal to Walter, how you’re devoted to me…”
“That’s not the word, Patty. Devoted isn’t the word.”
“… and how you’re not at all flip and distracted.”
“You want a drink? I’m going to get me a drink.”
“No. I’m going to bed soon, Jack.”
“That’s right. Yes.”
“And with all those qualities,” she went right on, “I understand how you and Walter are making out so well.”
“Yes, Patty.”
“And have a lot in common.”
I almost said, “Like whom?” but I said, “Like what?”
“Business. Because you’re in business together.”
“Of course we’re in business together.”
“Really, Jack,” she said, “don’t be so nervous,” and she folded her robe across in front and held it that way.
Then she put her cigarette out and kept holding the robe while she leaned over the table. She looked serious and off-handed all at the same time.
“I just thought about it,” she said, “because of what you mentioned.”
I had no idea what I had mentioned and was getting nervous about it. When she explained herself, it didn’t make me feel any better.
“I’ll just have to ask him about it,” she said, “Walter, I mean. Because he never said anything about Blue Beat before.” She looked at me with no guile whatsoever, or with none of it showing. “Because he does talk to me about things which have to do with his business.”
I sighed and said, “Yes. With me too,” and wished he was here to talk business. About mayhem, extortion, gang war, and beatings. Anything like that.
“And of course he knows about my singing career, it goes without saying, and what it needs to get helped along. So it’s strange he never said anything about Blue Beat, don’t you think?” Then she looked at me and said it again. “Don’t you think, Jack?”
“Ah-no.” I got up and stood in the room, looking at her, at the furniture, all for the touch which showed how little this bothered me. “Not strange at all,” I said, “because he and I don’t have anything to do with that outfit.”
“Then why did you mention it?”
“The better to get you with, little Red Riding Pat,” and then I laughed to keep her from answering and then she laughed too, light and merry, because the door in the hall opened right then and next Lippit was there.
“What are you doing up?” he said to Pat.
“I had to open the door for Jack. He was early.”
“Yeah. He keeps doing that today.”
“We were talking,” she said.
“And laughing. Go to bed, huh, Patty?”
“Jack was telling me something about little Red Riding Hood. And the wolf. Remember that story, Walter?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“The wolf got clobbered,” she said and went off to bed.
Lippit made two drinks and I sat on the couch now, relaxing a little. He came over and sat down too and when he gave me my drink he said, “Let’s talk business,” and I said, “Christ, yes.”
He sipped on his drink and I took one gulp of mine and let the rest of it warm while I told him how all of it looked to me. That Benotti was no smalltime repair man, and also not somebody crazy who thought he could buck Lippit’s set-up. But that he was somebody smart, with backing, who thought he could buck Lippit’s set-up. I told him that the tie-in might be Chicago, and that Lippit, with his background, should be able to check it from there. He said yes, he would, though for the moment it made little difference to the way he would handle this thing.
“We’re going to do this up brown,” he said. “We’ll clobber him.”
It wasn’t Lippit’s kind of word, but like a lot of things, Pat had just put it into his head. I myself wished he hadn’t used it.
I said, “You know how big Benotti is?”
“He lives in a frame house with used furniture.”
“So is your furniture.”
“But I don’t live on the East Side.”
“He’s been living on the East Side I don’t know how long and has been running a repair shop all that time, and we haven’t paid any attention to him for just that reason. That’s why he’s been running it that way.”
“Likely,” said Lippit, and looked at the ceiling. “And I just told you, Jack, that his size makes no difference right now, the way we’re going to clobber.”
“His size would make a difference in how hard we have to-er, clobber.”
“Not for long,” he said and took a nip from his glass. “What we’ll do is this.”
Lippit often said “we” when he didn’t mean it. I put my drink down, put my cigarette out, and sat back. What came next would be mostly instructions.
“He’s big enough,” said Lippit, “or thinks that he’s big enough, to buck our servicing. With Stonewall he’s also tried putting a machine in the place, which may be a sign of what he plans for the future. But right now what he’s setting up for is to buck our servicing. Then he’ll take over.”
“Hm.”
“Just listen. Therefore, first off we fix it so he doesn’t have anything to service with.”
“Tit for tat?”
“Right, but don’t talk like a baby. Here’s how, Jack. We hit the workers; we hit his goons, and we hit the supplies. One, two, three, get it? One, two, three days, and no more Benotti.”
I just nodded, because I didn’t like it.
“Here’s one at a time,” he kept on. “I was late because I arranged about the workers already. I called Folsom. He’s getting a team set up to sit at the phones. They’re gonna call up Benotti’s service men-we know some of them-and give them a hard time with those telephone calls.”
“At three in the morning.”
“Sure at three in the morning. Don’t you know it’s much scarier at three in the morning? Imagine you’re asleep in bed and the phone rings. There’s this voice, like from a beast, and it says…”
“I know. I know.”
“And Benotti’s got all non-union labor. I checked this out through Folsom between the time at the club and now. He’s got six men, it looks like, and they all do moonlighting on the side. So we tighten up on the closed shop arrangements. They either get fired right off, or Folsom pulls a strike or a slowdown on the shop and they get fired then. Unless, we explain to them, they quit Benotti’s shop. And that takes care of the servicing he’s planning to do on our busted machines.”
I lit a cigarette and waited for the other two arrangements he had in mind. Because one of them worried me.
“Second, the goons. We got our machines all over, but Benotti’s been concentrating on the West Side. The operators are closer together, they’re little guys, maybe scare easier. What we do, Jack, we get a gang in that bar at Liberty and Alder Road, another bunch in Morry’s bowling alley, and a third in that place with the malteds and ice cream concoctions, Third and Liberty, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And we got the area triangled off. An operator has troubles with Benotti’s bums anywhere, he calls one of the three places, and a flying squad of our very own bums comes barreling down for a free-for-all. Nice?”
“Ak-”
“Whadda ya mean, ak? ”
But he was in no mood to listen, because he had one point to go.
“Third, we maul their supply.”
“Their what?”
He was starting to sound like a general and I was getting more nervous.
“Hough and Daly,” he said. “Suppliers of electric and electronic equipment.”
I knew damn well who Hough and Daly were.
“Didn’t you know Benotti’s got space rented there? His five trucks use the same ramp; his equipment shop is right next to Hough’s storage rooms, not to speak of the fact that he buys his supplies from them.”
“So do we, Walter. In case you’re thinking of messing up Hough and Daly.”
Lippit folded his hands in his lap, which looks weird and dainty because of his size, and then he cocked his head at me and talked very patiently.
“Jacky,” he said, “sometimes you talk like an idiot, you know that, Jacky?” and then just with a little bit of a change in his voice, “Or like a stockholder in Hough and Daly, perhaps, do you know that?”
I wasn’t a stockholder in Hough and Daly, and it was nothing that simple.
“No workers,” said Lippit, “no equipment, no more operators all scared by his goons. Good?”
“I thought for a minute you were going to say, no more operators.”
He slapped his thighs, got up, and let out a big sigh.
“St. Louis,” he said, “something is bugging you, St. Louis.” He went to the liquor cabinet and brought back the bottle. He sat down with it and kept it in his hands. “What, Jack? What is it?”
For a fact, Walter Lippit wasn’t running a democracy or anything like that, but he and I, some of the time, split the jobs, talked this and that over, gave each other a hand. I liked Walter Lippit Rolling his girl on the couch had nothing to do with that. I liked Pat, too.
“Something’s no good, Jack?”
“Yes,” I said. “All of it.”
He looked at me and then down at the bottle. “Just a minute,” he said, and poured himself some. I held out my glass and he gave me some too.
Then I said, “Your beating up Benotti isn’t…”
“I didn’t beat up Benotti, Jack.”
“All right, all right.” I took a swallow and started over. “Your pushing his men around and he pushing ours around sounds too much like a brawl to me.”
“You don’t like brawls?”
“Lay off for a minute, will you please, Walter? I’m talking about business and you’re talking like a delinquent. Which is no good, just as a matter of principle.”
“What kind of business, just as a matter of principle, do you think I’m running? What they do polite-like in the cosmetics business, let’s say, we do the same, except not so polite. Now, you got more sudden principles?”
“And in this brawling around,” I said, trying to ignore the rest he had been saying, “there’s one guy gets caught in the middle, which is the operator, the guy who’s using our machine.”
“In the cosmetics business, maybe, the customer doesn’t get caught in the middle?”
“Gimme another drink,” I said.
He gave me another drink and felt so good about his argument he decided to humor me.
“All right, I grant you. I run a little joint with a jukebox in it and there’s labor trouble in front of the door, with fisticuffs and so on. That’s no good, I grant you.”
“Fisticuffs,” I said and took a swallow. “I like that, fisticuffs.”
“All right. You know what I mean. What you don’t know, what you don’t think of, I mean, is that all this is going to last maybe two, three days. Like I said in the beginning. Now here’s how. You…”
“Just a minute.”
First of all, I thought that his whole plan stunk and secondly, I didn’t like it. It stunk because it was just a move on the surface. I didn’t like it-I was hoping that part wouldn’t come up, between Lippit and me.
“You got a goon’s point of view,” I said to Lippit. “A guy leans on you and you lean back.”
“Harder.”
“Yuh. Goon’s point of view. What I think about all this I’ve explained to you. That I’m sure Benotti’s got money behind him, that he’s well-connected. He’s no independent He’s been sent in to take over where the syndicate missed a trick.”
“All right, there’s money. And if he’s so well connected, how come they sent a jerk like Benotti?”
“Because they think you’re a jerk.”
“What?”
“They must. You been running this racket pretty nice and friendly.”
“I know,” he said. “I know. Like a jerk.”
“And now more so. Any muscle you’ll show, Benotti will show.”
Lippit just laughed. It had been the wrong argument and Lippit just laughed and wouldn’t even discuss it I waited till he was done and then I tried to make a little more sense.
“You got this slap-dash plan now, Walter, and I grant you that it’s pretty hefty slap-dash and proves how mad you are and what you can do about it. But aside from the way you feel about Benotti and his mosquito tactics…”
“Mosquito? You mean to just brush…”
“Yes, mosquito. You said yourself you’re going to take care of it in maybe two, three days. So how big is it?”
“Listen, St. Louis…”
“Let me finish, Walter. I’m now talking long range.”
“To hell with that long-winded talk.”
“I’m talking to save you grief.”
“Any kind of grief they care to throw…”
“I’m talking money.”
“All right,” he said. “Talk.”
“You got this set-up. You rent out and service machines. I grant you, it’s pretty well sewed up and with your mosquito…”
“Stop using that word, Jack.”
“And with your bomber tactics you’ll even get that set-up down pat for a long time.”
“What else?”
“Walter. Take a drink and let me finish, will you?”
He took a drink and I tried again.
“So you got a franchise on putting all the little wires back in order when a music box stops making music, and meanwhile you collect all the quarters and dimes-which comes to a heap-as long as your servicing includes putting the discs in the machines, taking out the old ones, putting the new hits in, and so on and so on.”
“As long as? What’s this about as long as?”
“The records go this way: manufacturer, jobber, jukebox operator. You got the operators sewed up. They use your machines and they buy your service. You get the discs from the jobber, and the jobber gets his from the factory.”
“And you got this sly proposition,” he said, “I should buy the manufacturer and skip the jobber, huh?” He leaned over the table and said, “Go to sleep, Jack. It’s your bedtime, Jack.”
“I will.” I got up, for the effect of it, and then I said, “But I’m not so asleep, Lippit, that I’d dream up a dumb deal like you just mentioned.”
“Now, wait a minute. I wasn’t serious.”
“But I was.”
“What did you say, boy wonder?”
“You grab the jobber. You buy in, you buy him out, you maybe think of a better trick. You can’t horse with the manufacturer because he’s too big and he isn’t in town, but you grab the jobber and you got two links of the chain, to put yourself solid, and to tie up Benotti.”
He said, “Hmm,” or something like that, and then he poured down the rest of his drink.
“Meanwhile,” he said, “we got this other thing to do.”
“Walter. Listen to me.”
“I did.”
“But did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah. Not bad. Now let’s get back. Tomorrow, first thing, you set up the goon squads the way I was telling you. The thing over at Hough and Daly, I’ll give that to Folsom. He can…”
“Walter, I been trying to tell you…”
“Sit down,” he said. “Just sit and now you listen.”
I tried once more, though I didn’t promise myself very much. Lippit didn’t like stalling and that’s all I was doing now.
“You hit a place like Hough and Daly, Walter, you know what kind of stink that can make? You know how many guys depend on that outfit? Do you know that every radio, TV, electronics, recording outfit in town…”
“You sound like you own a piece in all of them, Jack, instead of working for me. You working for me, Jack, or you just drinking my liquor and sitting there bending my ear as if you knew what you were doing?”
“All right,” I said. “Forget it,” and I hoped he would. It would make my problem simpler and it would mean less to him when I tried for the little bit, for the one little thing where he might give in without giving me trouble.
“Let Folsom do the goon job,” I said. “He should like that.”
“And you do the raid on Hough and Daly?”
“Why do you keep saying Hough and Daly? You mean Benotti’s equipment place, don’t you?”
“You kept saying Hough and Daly, Jack, and I don’t care which you call it as long as you know the job. I want Benotti’s operation to end up like a cripple, understand? If that means going next door and hitting Hough and Daly too, then hit ‘em. Main thing I’m after…”
“Sure, I know.”
He looked at me, wondering about my irritation, but then he just shrugged.
“Your bedtime,” he said. “Beat it.”
I did. Walter Lippit was not running a democracy.