Supermind by Randall Garrett and Laurence M. Janifer (well read books .TXT) 📕

P. Standard Operating Procedure, they call it.”

“I’m sure they do,” Malone murmured politely.

“And besides,” Manelli said, “you are a well-known type. I thought I knew the name when old Fred mentioned it, or I would never talk to you. You know how it is.”

Malone nodded. “Well,” he said, as Manelli went over to a small portable bar at the back of the room and got busy, “we’re being frank, anyway.”

“And why shouldn’t we be frank, Mr. Malone?” Manelli said. “It’s a nice, friendly conversation, and what have we got on our minds?”

For the first time, as he turned, Malone got a glimpse of something behind the structured and muscular face. There was panic there, just a tiny seed under iron control, but it showed in the eyes and in the muscles of the cheek.

“Just a nice, friendly conversation,” Malone said. Manelli brought the drinks over and set them on the table.

“Take your pick,” he said. “That’s not what a good host should do, ask the guest to pick one, like a game; but I got into the habit. People get nervous about arsenic in the drinks. Which is silly.”

“Sure it is,” Malone agreed. He picked up the left-hand glass and regarded it carefully. “If you wanted to kill me, you’d need a motive and an opportunity, and you don’t have either at the moment. Besides, you’d make sure to be far away when it happened.” He hoped he sounded confident. He took a sip of the drink, but it tasted like bourbon and soda.

“Mr. Malone,” Manelli said, “you say these things about me, and it hurts. It hurts me, right here.” He pressed a hand over the checkbook side of his jacket. “I’m a legitimate businessman, and no different from any other legitimate businessman. You can’t prove anything else.”

“I know I can’t,” Malone said. “But I want to talk to you about your real business.”

“This is my real business,” Manelli said. “The advertising agency. I work here. Advertising is in my blood. And I don’t understand the least little bit why you have to do things to me all the time.”

“Do things?” Malone said. “What did I do?”

“Now, Mr. Malone,” Manelli said. He took a swallow of his drink. “You said let’s be frank, so I’m frank. Why not you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Malone said, telling part of the truth.

Manelli took another swallow of his drink, fished in a jacket pocket and brought out two cigars. “Smoke, Mr. Malone?” he said. “The very best, from Havana, Cuba. Cost me a dollar and a half each.”

Malone looked with longing at the cigar. But it was okay for Manelli to smoke cigars, he thought bitterly. Manelli was a gangster, and who cared how he looked? Malone was an FBI man, and FBI men didn’t smoke cigars. Particularly Havana cigars. That, he told himself with regretful firmness, was that.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I never smoke on duty.”

Manelli shrugged and put one cigar away. He lit the other one and dense clouds of smoke began to rise in the room. Malone breathed deeply.

“I understand you’ve been having troubles,” he said.

Manelli nodded. “Now, you see, Mr. Malone?” he said. “You tell me you don’t know what’s happening, but you know I got troubles. How come, Mr. Malone? How come?”

“Because you have got troubles,” Malone said. “But I have nothing to do with them.” He hesitated, thought of adding: “Yet,” and decided against it.

“Now, Mr. Malone,” Manelli said. “You know better than that.”

“I do?” Malone said.

Manelli sighed, took another swallow of his drink and dragged deeply on the cigar. “Let’s take a for-instance,” he said. “Now, you understand my business is advertising, Mr. Malone?”

“It’s in your blood,” Malone said, involuntarily.

“Right,” Manelli said. “But I think about things. I like to figure things out. In a sort of a theoretical way, like a for-instance. Understand?”

“What sort of theoretical story are you going to tell me?” Malone said.

Manelli leaned back in his chair. “Let’s take, for instance, some numbers runners who had some trouble the other day, got beat up and money taken from them. Maybe you read about it in the papers.”

“I haven’t been following the papers much,” Malone said.

“That’s all right,” Manelli said grandly. “Maybe it wasn’t in the papers. But anyhow, I figured out maybe that happened. I had nothing to do with this, Mr. Malone; you understand that? But I figured out how maybe it happened.”

“How?” Malone said.

Manelli took another puff on his cigar. “Maybe there was an error at a racetrack—we could say Jamaica, for instance, just for laughs. And maybe two different totals were published for the pari-mutuel numbers, and both got given out. So the numbers runners got all fouled up, so they got beat up and money taken from them.”

“It could have happened that way,” Malone said.

“I figure maybe the FBI had something to do with this,” Manelli said.

“We didn’t,” Malone said. “Frankly.”

“And that’s not all,” Manelli said. “Let’s say at Jamaica one day there was a race.”

“All right,” Malone said agreeably. “That doesn’t require a whole lot of imagination.”

“And let’s say,” Manelli went on, “that the bookies—if there are any bookies in this town; who knows?—that they got the word about who came in, win, place and show.”

“Sounds natural,” Malone said.

“Sure it does,” Manelli said. “But there was a foul-up someplace, because the win animal was disqualified and nobody heard about it until after a lot of payoffs were made. That costs money.” He stopped. “I mean it would cost money, if it happened,” he finished.

“Sure,” Malone said. “Certainly would.”

“And you tell me it’s not the FBI?” Manelli said.

“That’s right,” Malone said. “As a matter of fact, we’re investigating things like these confusions and inefficiencies all over.”

Manelli finished his drink in one long, amazed swallow. “Now, wait a minute,” he said. “Let’s say for a joke, like, for laughs, that I am some kind of a wheel in these things, in bookies and numbers boys and like that.”

“Let’s call it a syndicate,” Malone said. “Just for laughs.”

“Okay, then,” Manelli said, with a suspicious gaze at Malone. “Whatever you call it, a man like me today, he wouldn’t be some two-bit chiseler without brains. He would be a businessman, a smooth-operating smart businessman. Right?”

“Right,” Malone said. “And what I want to know is: how’s business?”

“You’re kidding?” Manelli said.

“I’m not kidding,” Malone said. “I mean it. The FBI’s investigating mix-ups just like the ones you’re telling me about. We want to stop them.”

Manelli blinked. “You know, Mr. Malone,” he said softly, “I heard about government interference in private enterprise, but don’t you think this is a little too far out?”

Malone shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”

“Just so it’s understood,” Manelli said, “that we’re talking about imaginary things. Theoretical.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Imagine away.”

“Well,” Manelli said slowly, “you heard about this wrecked night-club in Florida? It happened maybe a month ago, in Miami?”

“I heard about it,” Malone said.

“This is just a for-instance, you know,” Manelli said. “But suppose there was a roulette wheel in that club. Just a wheel.”

“Okay,” Malone said.

“And suppose the wheel was rigged a little bit,” Manelli said. “Not seriously, just a little bit.”

“Fine,” Malone said. “This is going to explain a wrecked club?”

“Well, sure,” Manelli said. “Because something went wrong with the machinery, or maybe the operator goofed up. And number seven came up eight times in a row.”

“Good old lucky seven,” Malone said.

“So there was a riot,” Manelli said. “Because some people had money on the number, and some people got suspicious, and like that. And there was a riot.”

“And the club got wrecked,” Malone said. “That’s what I call bad luck.”

“Luck?” Manelli said. “What does luck have to do with roulette? Somebody goofed, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Malone said. “Sure.”

“And that’s the way it’s been going,” Manelli said. He puffed on his cigar, put it in a nearby ashtray, and blew out a great Vesuvian spout of smoke.

“Too bad,” Malone said sympathetically.

“It’s all over,” Manelli said. “Mistakes and people making the mistakes, goofing up here and there and everyplace. There have been guys killed because they made mistakes, and nobody can afford guys being killed all the time.”

“It does run into expense,” Malone said.

“And time, and hiring guys to do the killing, and then they goof up, too,” Manelli said. “It’s terrible. Some guys have even been killed without they made any mistakes at all. Just by accident, sort of.”

“Well,” Malone said carefully, “you can depend on the government to do everything in its power to straighten things out.”

Manelli frowned. “You mean that, Mr. Malone?”

“Of course I do,” Malone said honestly. He hadn’t, he reminded himself, promised to help Manelli. He had only promised to straighten things out. And he could figure out what that might mean later, when he had the time.

“All I say is, it’s funny,” Manelli said. “It’s crazy.”

“That’s the way it is,” Malone said.

Manelli looked at him narrowly. “Mr. Malone,” he said at last, “maybe you mean it at that. Maybe you do.”

“Sure I do,” Malone said. “After all, the government is supposed to help its citizens.”

Manelli shook his head. “Mr. Malone,” he said, “you can call me Cesare. Everybody does.”

“No, they don’t,” Malone said. “They call you Cheese. I’ve got a research staff too.”

“So call me Cheese,” Manelli said. “I don’t mind.”

“There’s only one little trouble,” Malone said. “If I called you Cheese, you’d call me Ken. And word would get around.”

“I see what you mean,” Manelli said.

“I don’t think either one of us wants his associates to think we’re friends,” Malone said.

“I guess not,” Manelli said. “It would cause uneasiness.”

“And a certain lack of confidence,” Malone said. “So suppose I go on calling you Mr. Manelli?”

“Fine,” Manelli said. “And I’ll call you Mr. Malone, like always.”

Malone smiled and stood up. “Well, then,” he said, “goodbye, Mr. Manelli.”

Manelli rose, too. “Goodbye, Mr. Malone,” he said. “And good luck, if you really mean what you said.”

“Oh, I do,” Malone said.

“Because things are terrible,” Manelli said. “And they’re getting worse every day. You should only know.”

“Don’t worry,” Malone said. “Things will be straightened out pretty soon.” He hoped, as he went out the door and down the corridor, that he was telling the truth there, at least. He’d sounded fairly confident, he thought, but he didn’t feel quite so confident. The secretary was busy on the switchboard when he came out into the anteroom, and he went by without a greeting, his mind busy, churning and confused.

He felt as if his head were on just a little crooked. Or as if, maybe, he had a small hole in it somewhere and facts were leaking out onto the sidewalk.

If he only looked at the problem in the right way, he told himself, he would see just what was going on.

But what was the right way?

“That,” Malone murmured as he hailed a cab for the ride back to 69th Street, “is the big, sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. And how much time do I have for an answer?”