Occasion ... for Disaster
stockholder of the Great Universal, and the new strip act he was
watching. Malone didn't particularly like the idea of sharing his
conversation with a burlesque stripper, but there was little he could
do about it; he'd waited several days for the appointment already.
As the doors opened he could hear a nasal voice, almost without
over-tones, saying: "Now turn around, baby. Turn around." A pause, and
then another voice, this one female:
"Is this all right, Mr. Palveri? You want me to show you something
else?"
Malone shut the door quietly behind him. The female voice was coming
from the throat of a semi-naked girl about five feet eight, with
bright red hair and a wide, wide smile. She was staring at a chunky
little black-haired man sunk in a chair, whose back was to Malone.
"What else do you do, Sweetheart?" the chunky man said. "Let me see
whatever you do. I want some wide-talent stuff, you know, for the
place. Class."
The girl smiled even wider. Malone was sure her teeth were about to
fall out onto the floor, probably in a neat arrangement that spelled
out _Will You Kiss Me In The Dark Baby_. That would take an awful lot
of teeth, he reflected, but the stripper looked as if she could manage
the job. "I dance and sing," she said. "I could do a dance for you,
but my music is upstairs. You want me to go and get it?"
Palveri shook his head. "How about a song, baby? You mind singing
without a piano?"
"I don't have anything prepared," the girl said, her eyes wide. "I
didn't know this was going to be a special audition. I thought, you
know, just a burlesque audition, so I didn't bring anything."
Palveri sank a little lower in the chair. "O.K., Sweetheart," he said.
"You got a nice shape, you'll fit in the line anyhow. But just sing a
song you know. How about that? If you make it with that, you could get
yourself a featured spot. More dough."
The girl appeared to consider this proposition. "Gee," she said
slowly. "I could do 'God Bless America'. O.K., Mr. Palveri?"
The chunky man sank even deeper toward the floor. "Never mind," he
said. "Go get dressed, tell Tony you got the number five spot in the
line. O.K.?"
"Gee," she said. "Maybe I could work on something and do it for you
some other time, Mr. Palveri?"
He nodded wearily. "Some other time," he said. "Sure."
* * * * *
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."
Malone said: "But--"
"And not only that," Palveri said, waving the cigar. "The club was
going good, and you know I thought about building a second one a
little farther out. A straight investment, get me: an honest one."
Malone nodded as if he knew all about it.
"So I got the foundation in, Malone," Palveri said, "and it's just
sitting there, not doing anything. A whole foundation going to pot
because I can't do anything more with it. Just sitting there because
everything's going to hell with itself."
"In a handbasket," Malone said automatically.
Palveri gave him a violent nod. "You said it, Malone," he added.
"Everything. My men, too." He sighed. "And the contractor after me for
his dough. Good old Harry Seldon, everybody's friend. Sure. Owe him
some money and find out how friendly he is. Talks about nothing but
figures. Ten thousand. Twelve thousand."
"Tough," Malone said. "But what do you mean about your men?"
"Mistakes," Palveri said. "Book-keepers throwing the computers off and
croupiers making mistakes paying off and collecting--and always
mistakes against me, Malone. Always. It's like a curse. Even the hotel
bills--three of them this week were made out too small and the
customer paid up and went before I found out about it."
"It sounds like a curse," Malone said. "Either that or there are spies
in the organization."
"Spies?" Palveri said. "With the checking we do? With the way I've
known some of these guys from childhood? They were little kids with
me, Malone. They stuck with me all the way. And with Castelnuovo,
too," he added hurriedly.
"Sure," Malone said. "But they could still be spies."
Palveri nodded sadly. "I thought of that," he said. "I fired four of
them. Four of my childhood friends, Malone. It was like cutting off an
arm. And all it did was leave me with one arm less. The same mistakes
go on happening."
Malone stood up and heaved a sigh. "Well," he said, "I'll see what I
can do."
"I'd appreciate it, Malone," Palveri said. "And when Primo Palveri