“I like Jim,” he said. “We’ve had our disagreements. But I think we can come to terms.”
“You’d still like to buy him out.”
“Or go partners. Heller, you got to understand our point of view. Back in 1940, after Jim was convicted on that tax rap, he was on probation-he was ordered by the court to stay out of the racing information business. We ran Continental for him, while he was on probation-we sank money in that we lost. Large sums of money, getting this new business off the ground, after Annenberg had to fold up. Of course Continental went on to be a big success, but without our backing, it couldn’t have gotten started. We feel we already own a part of Continental, based on this indebtedness.”
“None of this is on the books, though. You couldn’t go to court over it.”
“No.” Guzik’s thin smile connected his jowls again. “I get a charge out of Jim, taking us to court, on this, on that. He’s just taking a page out of my book-he knows I sue at the drop of a hat.” He grunted. “I’m paying those judges-why shouldn’t I put ’em to use?”
I sipped my wine.
Guzik sipped his, got reflective, said: “You know how you buy a judge, Heller? By weight-like iron in a junkyard. A justice of the peace or magistrate can be had for a five spot. Municipal court judge’ll cost you ten. Circuit or superior courts, he wants fifteen. And you can’t buy a federal judge for less than a twenty-dollar bill.”
“Ragen got a court order against you, though. And he’s got you tied up in litigation right now.”
Guzik shrugged. “I’m not the only guy in town with money. Jim’s got money, too. Judges don’t care who’s paying.”
“I’ve already advised him to retire. To sell to you.”
“That’s wise. I think Jim will come to his senses, too. He needs to understand that we-I-did not do this thing. He needs to understand that he’s up against a man who is sick in the head.”
“Siegel, you mean.”
“They don’t call him Bugs because he has fleas. You know me, Heller. You’ve known me a while, and you knew of me before you knew me. Am I lying when I say that it’s well-known I stand for a sound business approach? That I always say, don’t kill a guy when you can pay him off?”
“I’ve heard that,” I said. And I had.
“All I want to do is negotiate with Jim. Reason with him.” He shook his head again. “These Irishmen. I remember when Dion O’Bannion got himself in hot water. He was running twenty-some handbooks, forty-some speaks, seventy-some houses. I was ready and willing to buy him out. I offered him a six-figure sum for his territory. Said we’d pay him two grand a month, take in all his people in our Outfit. But he wouldn’t budge. Not an inch. These Irishmen.”
The aforementioned Scalise and Anselmi, they of the baseball bat banquet, had, of course, assassinated O’Bannion in his flower shop back in ’24. So despite all this talk of business and negotiation and reason, Guzik was still threatening to kill Ragen, if he didn’t sell.
“What do you want from me, Mr. Guzik?”
“I want you to do what you did for me before. Be a neutral intermediary.”
“I’m not neutral. I work for Jim. His niece is my girl. I’m just giving it to you straight, Mr. Guzik.”
“I appreciate that. But I only mean that you’re somebody both parties can trust. All I want you to do is get the message to Jim that we did not do this thing. That it is Siegel’s work-that Siegel is a madman and will try it again. I can’t stop it. Maybe someday somebody will stop Siegel; but right now his stock is high with his friends out East. I need to maintain good business relations with them.”
“So Siegel is Jim’s problem.”
“He would be my problem-one I could handle-if Jim were to sell us half interest in Continental. I believe Siegel’s Eastern friends would tell him to shut Trans-American down.”
“Would Siegel go along with that?”
“He’d have no choice. His friends out East aren’t going to say much of anything if he wants to go having a Jim Ragen shot up. But if he goes against us, he would be in effect going against them.”
“I see.”
“Here.” Guzik dug deep into his right pants pocket. He withdrew the fattest roll of paper money I have ever seen, bound by a thick rubber band. You couldn’t begin to get your forefinger and thumb around that wad. He peeled off five bills, like a hand of poker. I looked at them the same way: I had five of a kind. All hundreds.
I swallowed; my tongue felt thick. “Isn’t carrying a roll like that a little dangerous, Mr. Guzik? Even for a guy with bodyguards…”
“Just the opposite. I always carry ten or twenty grand with me.”
He said that like ten or twenty bucks.
“With a roll like this, I don’t have to worry about getting kidnapped no more. I just give the dough to the guys who want to snatch me and they go away more than satisfied.”
“All you want for this five hundred is for me to tell Ragen about Siegel?”
“Yes. And tell him we’re prepared to double our last offer to him.”
“Double it?”
“Yes. That’s two hundred grand for fifty-one percent of the business.”
That sounded like a lot of dough to me.
“What,” I asked, “if he wants to sell out altogether?”
“We’d make a fair offer. All I ask is to negotiate and reason.”
And then, failing that, shoot you dead.
“Okay,” I said. I rose, sticking the five hundred in my wallet. “Is that all you wanted, Mr. Guzik?”
“Yes. Report back to me. I’ll give you a number.” He took a card from his breast pocket and handed it to me. There was no name on it, just a phone number.
“I’ll send flowers, as well,” he said. “He’s in Michael Reese, I understand. I was in there for pneumonia, oh, ten or fifteen years ago, myself. Good hospital. I had ’em put me in that Meyer House wing. Better for security.”
“Really,” I said, slipping his card in my wallet next to the five C-notes.
I was just turning to go when I heard a commotion in the adjacent room.
One of the waiters, in his mock English accent, was saying, “You can’t go back there, sir,” and somebody else was saying, “Oh yes I can.”
And then, big as life, there was Bill Drury standing there in his natty vested blue suit. He was grinning like a fox; of course, the sporting prints on the walls around him were all about foxes getting killed, but that probably didn’t occur to him.
“Jake,” he said, not acknowledging my presence, “stand up. Everybody else, stay seated.”
“Drury,” Guzik said, standing slowly, a dirigible lifting off, “why don’t you wise up. Look at the record.”
“And what will I see if I do, Jake?”
“You’ll see I always reward my friends and punish my enemies.”