Part 2 (1/2)

”You come back, hear? I'm off at nine tonight.”

”Wish I could, Kay. I really do. But this one is priority.”

The desk tried to brush me off. I told the cold-eyed old man to check with Mr. Nucci before he made it final. He went over and murmured into the phone, studying me as he talked. He hung up and came over and told me that if I would go to the Winner's Circle Bar, Mr. Nucci would join me there in a few minutes.

It was more like twenty minutes before he slipped onto the stool beside mine. He wore a brown denim suit with lots of pockets and ropes and zippers, and a yellow velvet s.h.i.+rt, open to the umbilicus. His face was bland-brown, hairless as his brown smooth chest. Sleepy eyes, languid manner, a thin little mouth, like a newborn shark.

w.i.l.l.y Nucci started as a bus boy and now owns more points in the Contessa than anyone else. This is an unlikely Horatio Alger story along the oceanfront. He managed it by making various pressure groups believe he was fronting for other, just as deadly, pressure groups. He did it by expert intelligence work, bra.s.s, guile, persistence, and hard work. Nearly everyone thinks he is a front for New Jersey money, money that comes down to be dry-cleaned and flown back or flown abroad. I am one of the very few people who know w.i.l.l.y is clean and that he owns the biggest piece of the hotel. Maybe the IRS knows.

The motif of the bar is horse. Everything except saddle horns on the bar stools. In season it is a good place for the winners to spend and the losers to cry.

”I kept you waiting,” Willie said in a flat voice. Statement of fact. I nodded. Silence is the best gambit with w.i.l.l.y Nucci, because it is one of his useful weapons. He makes people edgy by saying nothing. It's always handy to use the other man's tricks, because he never knows if he is being mocked.

I outwaited him, and finally he said, ”It's your dime, McGee.”

”Look at the edge of my gla.s.s.”

He leaned toward it, tilting his head, and saw the little pale pink smear of stale lipstick. He called the barman over and chewed him in a small terrible voice. The man swayed and looked sweaty. He brought me a new drink, delivering it with a flourish and a look of splendid hatred.

”What else is bothering you?” w.i.l.l.y asked.

”I have a name, an address, a description, and I want a fill-in.”

”I don't know many people anymore. The Beach keeps changing.”

”You have have to know, w.i.l.l.y.” to know, w.i.l.l.y.”

”All I have have to do is run this place and turn a dime on it for the owners.” to do is run this place and turn a dime on it for the owners.”

”w.i.l.l.y?”

He gave me a quick, sidelong glance. Silence. A barely audible sigh.

”w.i.l.l.y, there is a young lady with a lot of energy on the paper in Lauderdale, and she keeps after me, saying she wants human interest stories about playtown, USA. She digs pretty good. She knows how to use courthouse records.”

He got up slowly, looking tired. ”Come on, d.a.m.n you.”

We went out past the guard and the empty pool and up the stairs to the roof of the cabana row of the Contessa Hotel. These are the days of exotic bugs, induction mikes, shotgun mikes. People like w.i.l.l.y Nucci talk in the open, at night, near surf roar or traffic roar. Or they rent cars and turn the radio volume high and drive around and talk. They never say anything useful over the phone, and they put in writing the bare minimum information required by the various laws and regulatory agencies.

We crossed the recreation roof to the ocean side and stood side by side, leaning on the railing. Freighters were working south, inside the stream. The sleepy ocean whacked listlessly at the little bit of remaining beach, with a little green-white glow of phosph.o.r.escence where it tumbled.

In my Frank McGee voice instead of my Travis McGee voice, I said, ”When w.i.l.l.y Nucci quietly acquired his first small percentage of the Contessa Hotel, it was laboring under the crus.h.i.+ng burden of a sixth and a seventh mortgage. Today, hiding behind a bewildering maze of legal stratagems, Mr. Nucci is not only the princ.i.p.al owner, but he has managed to pay off most of the indebtedness-”

He responded, his voice rising with exasperation. ”Look. Okay. I wanted to tell somebody. I somebody. I wanted to brag. We had a lot of time and nothing to do, and neither one of us figured we had a chance of getting out of there once it was daylight and they could use those G.o.dd.a.m.n rifles.” wanted to brag. We had a lot of time and nothing to do, and neither one of us figured we had a chance of getting out of there once it was daylight and they could use those G.o.dd.a.m.n rifles.”

”Wouldn't you like other people to know?”

He calmed down. ”Sure I would. But it would cost me. I get nibbled pretty good. The unions, the a.s.sessments, the graft, the public servants on the take, the gifts you make like insurance premiums. But there's restraint. They have the idea that if the bite gets too big, some very important muscle is going to come down here and straighten some people out. If they knew it was just w.i.l.l.y Nucci, owner and operator, there would be a big grin, and they'd smack their lips and move in very tight and close. I don't have much margin to play with. I've got sixteen years invested. The books look good right now. Last season was good, and this one will be better. You might as well know this too. I'm going to try to move it this season. I can come out well. And cut out of here. How come I always run off at the mouth to you, McGee?”

”I win friends and influence people.”

He frowned at his private piece of ocean. ”You could have used what you know, but you haven't. Except you use it to leverage me.”

”Not often.”

”I make this the third time. In three years. Maybe this time I can't help you.”

”The man is big and broad and suntanned. Officially or unofficially, he's in a penthouse at the Seascape. He moves around with some fetch-and-carry people. Frank Sprenger.”

Silence. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked up at murky stars.

”w.i.l.l.y?”

”I don't know how much you know about the way things are. For all I know you think that soft, romantic crock of s.h.i.+t, The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather, was for real.”

”I thought it was real, like a John Wayne western.”

”There's hope for you. All the action is divided up. There are independents, and when they get big enough, they are absorbed or smashed. There are three neutral areas. Places where anybody can go who is part of the national action and not get pressured. Sanctuaries. Miami, Vegas and Honolulu. There are hits sometimes, but outsiders, amateurs. Discipline situations. 'Do not c.r.a.p in your own nest' is the motto. There's enough for everybody in the sanctuaries. That's how come you have maybe nine different groups from elsewhere, owning lots of pieces of property and pieces of action along the Beach here. Like there are twelve groups operating side by side in in Vegas. Other areas are strictly territorial. That's how come all the trouble in New York lately. Now suppose every one of the nine organizations operating here sent down their own bag men and bankers and enforcers? It would get too hairy. People would start pus.h.i.+ng. People would push back. It would stop being a safe place for the topside people to come and relax, and it would hurt trade. So there's been a working arrangement for maybe thirty years. The local group has their own operations, like a franchise area, but you can see how it wouldn't be fair to cut the out-of-town groups out of the picture entirely because a certain substantial piece of business comes through their owning certain situations here.” Vegas. Other areas are strictly territorial. That's how come all the trouble in New York lately. Now suppose every one of the nine organizations operating here sent down their own bag men and bankers and enforcers? It would get too hairy. People would start pus.h.i.+ng. People would push back. It would stop being a safe place for the topside people to come and relax, and it would hurt trade. So there's been a working arrangement for maybe thirty years. The local group has their own operations, like a franchise area, but you can see how it wouldn't be fair to cut the out-of-town groups out of the picture entirely because a certain substantial piece of business comes through their owning certain situations here.”

”Example?”

”Okay, say that Minneapolis has substantial points in a couple of hotels and owns a steak house franchise and a taxi company. The local group will be scoring from every part of the operations. Hookers and games and drugs at the hotels on top of linen service, union dues, kickbacks, dozens of angles. And they will work the steak houses and the taxi company pretty good too. So it works almost like a money-room skim. The extra costs of doing business get built into the books as legitimate expenses, and then out of the unrecorded cash flow, an equal amount gets bundled up and couriered to Minneapolis. The profit is minimized, which cuts taxes, and the rebate is under the table, ready for more investment.”

”And somebody has to be the bookkeeper and enforcer, somebody everybody agrees on, to see that the skim is honest?”

”For the last six years, Frank Sprenger. Phoenix. Before that it was Bunny Colder, for years and years. He died of a stroke. I heard that some kinky girlfriend got him smashed and then ran a sharpened piano wire into his brain through the corner of his eye, but n.o.body ran an autopsy to check it out.”

”What is Sprenger like?”

”I'll tell you what he's like. He's like exactly the right man for the job. He doesn't use anything, not even booze or tobacco or coffee. He's a body freak. Not muscle building. Conditioning. He lives like a good heavyweight six weeks away from a t.i.tle shot. Except for women. He takes care of more than his share. He spends a lot of time crosschecking the action. He's found some people clipping off a little as the money went by them, and they are not seen around anymore. I hear the local group has stopped trying to con him, because it isn't safe or healthy.”

”What's his cover?”

”Investment consultant. He has a second-floor office on Lincoln Road. He's in the yellow pages. He pays his taxes. I think maybe he has some legitimate clients. He's a careful man.”

I waited until I thought of the right kind of hypothetical question. ”w.i.l.l.y, I want you to listen to some stuff I am going to make up and tell me if it could happen. Let's say that in the past year and a half Frank Sprenger has been buying important paintings. He has been using an expert and paying a fee for his judgment. Four hundred thousand worth of art. It's been going into a storage warehouse.

”Possible?”

”Sure,” w.i.l.l.y said. ”Especially if it's on a cash basis.”

”Say it is.”

”Money makes more problems every day. You hear how they want banks to report everything over five thousand? Now they are beginning to crack the Swiss and get the numbers. The islands used to be good, but what's going to happen to the Bahamas, the Caymans, Jamaica the next couple of years? It's very hard to set up a corporation and feed cash into it in such a way you can get past an audit. You put cash in a jar in your back yard, it isn't working for you. It's shrinking all the time it's buried. Dry-cleaning money gets more expensive all the time. One way they are using lately is you buy yourself a broker, one who'll fake back records for the sake of the commission and a little present. Then you set up a buy five years ago for something that has gone up like eight hundred percent. Then you have the sale records faked too and pay capital gains, and what you have left is legitimate and you can invest it legitimate. You have to be your own fence, for G.o.d's sake. So why not paintings? I like it. He would be handling it for one of the out-of-town groups or individuals. He handles investment money right here. The local group has legal talent he can use. Raw land has been good. Pieces of home-building outfits have been good. In-and-out marinas have been good.”

”How much would he be supervising in a year? I mean, how much would the total skim be, the amount he'd be watching?”