The Devil's Dozen

Four

“It’s Al,” I whispered through DeSantis’s door.

As soon as he cracked the door, I gave the hamper a kick, slamming the door open into DeSantis’s face. The hamper shot across the room, caromed off a coffee table, and spilled laundry and killers over the floor. My hand was on the consigliere’s chest, my gun nuzzling under his chin, and I pushed him gently into an easy chair.

“All right. We’ve been through the part where you’re not interested and the part where you murder me. Now, let’s be serious, Mr. DeSantis.”

He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple throbbed close to the Astra.

“Sure, Raki.”

“Serious means you give me a deposit of $100,000 as an option on my services. That’ll make us even.”

“What did you give me?” he worked up the nerve to ask.

“You will take my calling card.” I stuffed the plasticene bag of dope into his pocket. “I am also giving yon three lives. Don’t play stupid. Just look around the room and count.”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“If I wanted to get away I would not have come up here. After I leave here, I want you to find me. In fact, I will tell you exactly where I will be so that you can send a representative, someone you trust who can watch how I make the shipment. If you send someone to ‘hit’ me, then I will kill him, and you forfeit your deposit.”

I moved the gun about a foot. His neck was red where the iron had burrowed in.

“You should have run, Raki.”

“Turks are an honorable people. Not like Corsicans, who have been taking all the profits in Turkish opium for too long. I said I was willing to make a deal with you. I still am.”

DeSantis fumbled for his cigarette case. He took his time lighting up, as if he were cagily stalling me.

“And how do you propose to get the hundred grand, Raki? Holding me while my boys go to the bank?”

“I’ll show you.”

It was four in the morning, but there are some banks in Beirut that never close. There are the casinos, naturally, but there are also very private money changers, men who are always available for the unannounced disposal of gold, uncut stones, or stock certificates. I picked up the phone, dialed, and spoke in Arabic, then switched to Portuguese when the changer himself came on the line. The Portuguese have been the world’s moneychangers for over five hundred years, and it took no more than a minute to explain everything I wanted.

“Now what?” DeSantis asked when I hung up.

“We enjoy each other’s company. Smoke or drink if you wish.”

“Thanks. You mean we just wait here?”

“There is a saying in Islam,” I explained to the consigliere. “It goes, ‘If Mohammed cannot go to the moneychanger, the moneychanger will come to Mohammed.’”

The moneychanger came in fifteen minutes. By then DeSantis’s bodyguards were off the floor and staring sullenly at me from the sofa. The talkative one bore a purple bruise over half his face, and the silent one kept wincing with pain. Actually, neither of them was very talkative anymore.

“I am Silvestro Boaz,” the Portuguese introduced himself. He was small and as neatly dressed and punctilious as a head waiter. He did not introduce his companion, an African with a shaved head and shoulders that nearly touched the walls. “You have all the necessary papers?”

“Yes.”

“What the hell is going on here?” DeSantis demanded.

The African put an attaché case on the coffee table, opened it, and counted out eleven packs of G-notes, ten in each pack — $110,000 American.

“You said $100,000,” the consigliere swore.

“$100,000 for me. The rest is Senhor Boaz’s commission,” I explained. I scratched my Astra where it itched. “Don’t you think you should start making out your checks?”

“As soon as you get this money you’re a dead man,” he hissed under his breath. I handed him his traveler’s checks which lay conveniently on the table.

“I don’t want you to get writer’s cramp. Just write your name and the date,” I told him.

Making out the traveler’s checks was a time-consuming transaction. Boaz had a rubber stamp for himself, a fact that seemed to gall DeSantis.

“That’s it, then,” he exploded as he handed over the last check.

“Not quite,” I answered, as I handed the moneychanger his $10,000 and took the attaché case and its contents for myself. “We might as well get the rest of the paperwork done now, too. After all, if I just walked off with your money, I could be called a thief.”

“I have the transfer papers all typed in triplicate, witnessed and stamped with the official seal,” Boaz assured DeSantis.

“Now what?” DeSantis stared past the Portuguese at me.

“Sign please, here and here and here,” Boaz unfolded the very official looking onionskin agreement.

“Sign,” I repeated and shifted the Astra in my hand.

DeSantis signed three times. Then he read the statement.

“This says I just bought 500 shares of what?”

“Of Hauffmann Ubersee Gesellschaft. A little German exporting company I happen to head,” I said. “And you haven’t bought the shares. You’ve only bought the right to sell that many shares within the next year. I congratulate you. You’ve made a sound investment.”

“Who ever heard of this company? The shares are worthless!”

“Such a hard bargainer,” I commented to Boaz. Then to DeSantis, I said, “Don’t make a fool of yourself. You have made a much better deal than you could ever understand. I am going with Senhor Boaz so you will not see me again for a week. By that time I will let you know where I am. I leave it to you whether you choose to be a sensible partner or remain foolish and angry and forfeit the contract you’ve made.”

“There’s only one contract I’m interested in,” the talkative bodyguard put in from the couch.

DeSantis put his hand up for the bodyguard to be quiet. The consigliere had had a minute to cool off and think.

“You say I can send a man to watch you operate. What if he gets word to me that he thinks your whole scheme is a bust, that it won’t work. What then?”

“Your money will be returned. But that won’t happen.” I leaned over DeSantis and dropped his bodyguards’ two unloaded guns in his lap. “If there’s one thing you should be learning by now,” I pointed to the hamper, “it’s that I deliver.”