Promised Land

Chapter 23

I slept on the couch. A triumph once more of virtue over tumescence. I was up and showered and away before Pam Shepard woke up. At 10:00 A.M. I was having coffee with King Powers’ man Macey in the Holiday Inn in Hyannis.

“Care for some fruit?” Macey said.

“No thanks. The coffee will do. When can you deliver the guns?”

“Tomorrow maybe, day after for sure.”

“What you got?”

“M2 carbines, in perfect condition, one hundred rounds apiece.”

“How many?”

“Four hundred and fifty.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s more than two bills apiece.”

Macey shrugged. “Ammo’s included, don’t forget.”

“Christ, you can pick ’em up in the gun shop for less than half that.”

“Four hundred and fifty of them? M2s?”

“There’s that,” I said. “But a hundred grand for four hundred and fifty pieces. I don’t think my people will like that.”

“You came to us, Spence. You asked us. Remember.”

I loved being called Spence. “And remember there’s thirty thousand out for your share.”

“Which you’re keeping.”

“Hey, Spence, it’s owed us. We wouldn’t be long in business if we didn’t demand financial responsibility from our clients. We didn’t go to Harvey either. He came to us. Just like you. You don’t like the deal, you’re free to make another one someplace else. Just see to it that Harvey comes up with the thirty thousand dollars he owes us. Which, incidentally, will increase as of Monday.”

“Oh yeah, you private-service firms seem to work on an escalated interest scale, don’t you.”

Macey smiled and shrugged and spread his hands. “What can I tell you, Spence? We have our methods and we attract clients. We must be doing something right.” He folded his arms. “You want the guns or don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then we have a deal. When do you wish to take delivery? I can guarantee day after tomorrow.” He checked his calendar watch. “The twenty-seventh. Sooner is iffy.”

“The twenty-seventh is fine.”

“And where do you wish to take delivery?”

“Doesn’t matter. You got a spot?”

“Yes. Do you know the market terminal in Chelsea?”

“Yeah.”

“There, day after tomorrow at six A.M. There are a lot of trucks loading and unloading at that time. No one will pay us any mind. Your principals have a truck?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. We’ve got a deal. You going to be there with your people?”

“Yeah.”

“I won’t be. But you should have ready for the man in charge one hundred thousand dollars in cash. Go to the restaurant there in the market center. You know where it is.” I nodded. “Have a cup of coffee or whatever. You’ll be contacted.”

“No good,” I said.

“Why not?”

“King’s got to deliver them himself.”

“Why?”

“My people want to do business with the principals. They don’t like working through me. They might want to do more business and they want to deal direct.”

“Perhaps I can go.”

“No. It’s gotta be King. They want to be sure they don’t get burned. They figure doing business with the boss is like earnest money. If he does it himself they figure it’ll go right, there won’t be anything sour, like selling us ten crates of lead pipe. Or shooting us and taking the money and going away. They figure King wouldn’t want to be involved in that kind of goings-on himself. Too much risk. So, King delivers personally or it’s no deal.”

“Mr. Powers doesn’t like being told what to do,” Macey said.

“Me either, but we been reasonable, and you’re getting your price. He can bend on this one.”

“I can assure you there will be no contrivances or double dealing on this. This is an on-the-table, straight-ahead business deal.”

“That’s good to know, Macey. And I believe you ‘cause I’m here looking into your sincere brown eyes but my clients, they’re not here. They don’t know how sincere you are and they don’t trust you. Even after I mentioned how you been to college and everything.”

“How about we just cancel the whole thing and foreclose on Harvey.”

“We go to the cops.”

“And Harvey explains why he needed all that money we advanced him?”

“Better than explaining to you people why he can’t pay.”

“That would be a bad mistake.”

“Yeah, maybe, but it would be a bad one for you too. Even if you wasted Harvey you’d have the fuzzy-wuzzies following you around and you’d have me mad at you and trying to get you busted and for what? All because King was too lazy to get up one morning for a six o’clock appointment?”

Macey looked at me for maybe thirty seconds.

“You don’t want to maneuver me and Harv into a place where we got no options. You don’t want to make the law look more attractive than you guys. You don’t want to arrange something where Harv’s got nothing to lose by talking to the D.A. My people are adamant on this. They are interested in doing business with the man. And you ain’t him. King is the man.”

Macey said, “I’ll check with him. I’m not authorized to commit him to something like this.”

“You’re not authorized to zip your fly without asking King. We both know that, preppy. Call him.” Macey looked at me another thirty seconds. Then he got up and went into the next room.

He was gone maybe fifteen minutes. I drank my coffee and admired my Adidas Varsities, in rust-colored suede. Excellent for tennis, jogging and avoiding injury through flight. I poured another cup of coffee from the room service thermos pitcher. It was not hot. I left the cup on the table and went to the window and looked down at the pool. It was as blue as heaven and full of people, largely young ones, splashing and swimming and diving. A lot of flesh was darkening on beach chairs around the pool and some of it was pleasant to see. I should probably call Susan. I hadn’t been back last night. Maybe she’d be worried. I should have called her last night. Hard to keep everything in my head sometimes. Pam Shepard and Harvey and Rose and Jane and King Powers and Hawk, and the New Bedford cops and getting it to work. And the tumescence. There was that to deal with too. A girl with long straight blond hair appeared from under one of the sun umbrellas wearing a bikini so brief as to seem pointless. I was looking at her closely when Macey came back into the room.

“King okayed it.”

“Say, isn’t that good,” I said. “Not only is he a King but he’s a Prince. Right, Macey?”

“He wasn’t easy to persuade, Spence. You’ve got me to thank for this deal. He was going to have you blown away when I first told him what you wanted.”

“And you saved me. Macey, you’ve put it all together today, kid.”

“You laugh, but I’m telling you it was a near thing. This better go smooth or King’ll do it. Take my word. He’ll do it, Spence.”

“Macey,” I said. “If you call me Spence again I’ll break your glasses.”