Timothy's game

Three

May is a rackety month for Sally Steiner. She is living in a jungle and giving as good or better than the blows and bites she endures.

“Listen, Jake,” she says to her father, “I’m going to take a few hours off this afternoon to go see some customers.”

“Yeah?” he says, looking up from his tipsheet. “Who?”

“The new people we got from Pitzak.”

“I already seen them.”

She sighs. “You saw them, pa. But so what? I’m the one they call with their kvetches. I want to know who I’m dealing with.”

“So do what you want to do,” he says. He puts aside his chewed cigar and picks up his whiskey and water. “You’re going to do it anyway, no matter what I say. So why ask?”

“I didn’t ask,” she says, as prickly as he. “I’m telling you.”

But there is only one customer she wants to visit: Bechtold Printing, downtown on Tenth Avenue. She’s planned this interview and dressed for it. Black gabardine suit. High-necked blouse. No jewelry. Opaque pantyhose. Clunky shoes. With a leather portfolio under her arm. The earnest executive.

“Mr. Frederick Bechtold, please,” she says to the lumpy blond receptionist, handing over her business card. “From Steiner Waste Control.”

The klutz takes a look at the card. “He’s in the pressroom,” she says. “I’ll see.”

It’s almost five minutes before the owner comes out, a chunky slob of a man. He’s wearing a cap of folded newsprint and an ink-smeared apron that doesn’t hide a belly so round that it looks like he’s swallowed a spittoon.

“Zo,” he says, peering at her card. “Sally Steiner. You are related to Steiner Waste Control?”

“Daughter,” she says brightly. “I just stopped by to see if you’re satisfied with our service, Mr. Bechtold. Any complaints? Any way we can improve?”

He looks at her in amazement. “Eight years with Pitzak,” he says, “and he never came around. No, lady, no complaints. You pick up twice a week, right on schedule. My contract with Pitzak is still good?”

“Absolutely,” Sally says. “We’ll honor the prices. Nice place you got here, Mr. Bechtold. I’ve heard about your reputation for top-quality financial printing.”

“Zo?” he says, with a smile that isn’t much. “I do the best. The best! You’d like to see my pressroom?”

“Very much.”

It’s a cavern, with noise and clatter bouncing off cinderblock walls. There’s one enormous rotary, quiet now, and four smaller presses clanking along and piling up printed sheets. Sally is surprised at the small work-force-no more than a half-dozen men, all wearing ink-smeared aprons and newsprint caps. Two guys are typing away at word processors. One man is operating a cutter, another a binder. A young black is stacking and packing completed work in cardboard cartons.

“This is my pride,” Frederick Bechtold says, placing his hand gently on the big rotary. “West German. High-speed. The very best. Six colors in one run. And I use high-gloss inks from Sweden. Expensive, but the people I deal with want only the best.”

“You have some big Wall Street accounts, Mr. Bechtold?”

“Absolutely,” he affirms. “For them, everything must be just zo.”

“Annual reports?” Sally suggests.

“For the color, yes. And in black-and-white, we do brochures, documents, instruction booklets, proxy statements-everything. They know they can depend on Bechtold Printing. They give me a deadline, and I meet it. I have never been late. Never!”

Sally shakes her head in wonderment. “A marvelous operation,” she says. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Bechtold. You ever have any complaints about our service, you just give me a call and I’ll take care of it.”

She goes back to the office and gets to work. First, she finds gimpy Ed Fogleman, who runs the dump.

“Ed,” Sally says, “we got a new customer: Bechtold Printing, on Tenth Avenue. It’s a clean job; practically all their shit is paper. We’ll pick up twice a week. Is there any place we can store the barrels for a day or so before we bale?”

He peers at her, puzzled. “Why do you want to do that, Sal?”

She’s prepared for questions. “Because I got a look at their operation, and they use everything from coated stock to blotting paper. Up to now we’ve been baling everything from good rag to newsprint in the same bundle. I figure maybe we could make an extra buck if we separate the good from the lousy and sell different qualities of scrap paper at different prices.”

“Yeah,” the old man says slowly, “that makes sense. But who’s going to spend the time separating all the stuff? Sounds to me like a full-time job-and there goes your profit.”

“That’s why I want to hold out the Bechtold barrels,” Sally says patiently. “To see if it would be worth our while. Where can I put them temporarily?”

Fogleman chews his scraggly mustache. “Maybe in the storeroom,” he says finally. “I can make space. It’s against fire regulations ’cause we got inflammables in there, but if it’s only for a day or so, who’s to know?”

“Thanks, Ed,” Sally says gratefully. “I’ll get the barrels out as soon as I can.”

She goes back to her office and looks out the window every time a truck rolls into the dump. She goes running when she spots Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton in their big Loadmaster compactor.

“Hey, you paskudniks,” she yells, and they stop. Terry leans out the window.

“Sally baby,” he says, grinning. “You’ve finally decided you can’t resist my green Irish joint.”

“Up yours, moron,” she says. “Listen, I’m revising schedules and pulling you two bums off that chemical plant on Twenty-fourth Street and giving you Bechtold Printing on Tenth Avenue.”

“God bless the woman who birthed you,” Leroy Hamilton says. “That chemical place smells something fierce. Gets in your hair, your clothes; you can almost taste that stink.”

“Yeah,” Sally says, “well, now you’ve got Bechtold. A nice clean job. Practically all paper. Pickups on Tuesday and Thursday. When you get the stuff, keep it in separate barrels and leave them in the storeroom. Ed Fogleman will show you where.”

“What the hell for?” Mulloy asks.

“You know what curiosity did to the cat, don’t you?”

“I don’t know from cats,” he says. “All I know is pussy.”

She gives him the finger and stalks away, followed by their whistles.

On Thursday night, she complains to her father and Judy Bering about having to work late on a couple of workmen’s compensation cases. It’s almost seven o’clock before they leave, and she sees Ed Fogleman drag himself home. Then the dump is almost deserted; only the night watchman is in his hut at the locked gate, flipping through his dog-eared copies of Penthouse.

She goes out to the storeroom, puts on the light, starts digging through the barrels of scrap paper from Bechtold. It’s almost all six-color coated stock. Someone is running a slick annual report, and the discarded sheets are preliminary press proofs with colors out of register and black type too heavy or too faint.

That’s not what she’s looking for. She spends more time with black-on-white proof sheets: documents, proxy statements, prospectuses. Nothing of any interest. She gives up and drives home. The next morning she tells Fogleman to empty the barrels and bale everything.

She goes through the same routine on the following Tuesday evening with similar results. She’s beginning to think her wild idea, her Big Chance, is a dud. But on the next Thursday night she finds some interesting proof sheets on Pistol amp; Burns letterheads. She scans them hastily. They look like a plan for a leveraged buyout of Wee Tot Fashions, Inc. She gathers up all the pages she can find that mention Wee Tot, crams them in her leather portfolio, and drives home to Smithtown, singing along with Linda Ronstadt on her stereo deck.

She stops up to visit with her mother for a while. Then when Becky and Martha settle down for an evening of TV, Sally rushes downstairs to the den. She’s too excited to eat, but pours herself a Perrier before she goes over the Pistol amp; Burns documents scavenged from Bechtold’s scrap. She reads them three times because some of the type is blurred, and she has to use a magnifying glass to make out certain words and phrases.

Then she does swift computations on her pocket calculator. The next morning she calls her stockbroker and sells some of the dogs in the Steiner portfolio, taking a tax loss. But she accumulates enough funds to buy 10,000 shares of Wee Tot Fashions at a total cost of about $48,000, including commission. Have a hunch, bet a bunch.

A week later, after following the market anxiously, she sells out her Wee Tot stake for about $112,000, and is so elated and unbelieving that she doesn’t know whether to weep or laugh.

And a week after that, she’s having a coffee with Judy Bering in the outer office when a tall, thin guy, nicely dressed, walks in and smiles at the two women.

“I’m looking for Sally Steiner,” he says.

“That’s me,” Sally says. “Who are you?”

He hands her a card. “Jeremy Bigelow,” he says. “Securities and Exchange Commission.”

She’s sitting naked on a three-legged kitchen stool, hunching forward.

“I think I’m getting splinters in my ass,” she says.

“Shut up,” Eddie says, “and try to hold that pose. Don’t relax. Make yourself tight and hard.”

She is tight and hard. Her body has a rude grace, heavy through shoulders and hips. Not much waist. The thighs are pillars tapering to unexpectedly slender ankles. A muscled woman. Her skin is satin.

“When’s Paul coming back?” she asks.

Her brother sighs. “I told you. He’ll ring before he comes up. Don’t get so antsy.”

He continues sketching, using a soft carpenter’s pencil on a pad of grainy paper. He works swiftly, limning her body with quick slashes, flipping pages, trying to catch her solidity, the aggressiveness of her flesh. He was right: She does loom.

After a while she forgets that she’s exhibiting herself in front of her brother and thinks about why she’s there. Because she wants something from him-or rather from his consenting adult, Paul Ramsey.

That visit from the SEC investigator spooked her. The guy wanted to know how come she had sprung for 10,000 shares of Wee Tot Fashions, Inc. Had she heard something? Did someone tell her something? Did she know anyone at Wee Tot? At Pistol amp; Burns? Why, suddenly, did she buy such a big block of that particular equity?

Without pause, she scammed the guy silly. She was proud of that. She wanted to get out of garbage hauling, she told him, and open a store that sold kids’ clothes. She bought Wee Tot to get their annual reports so she could learn more about the business. Besides, she owned a dozen other stocks. She was in the market for kicks.

He departed, apparently satisfied, and Sally went back to her own office. She was sweating. What if Jeremy Bigelow subpoenas Steiner’s customer list and discovers they’re collecting trash from Bechtold, who does confidential printing for Pistol amp; Burns? What if he comes poking around, asking questions of Ed Fogleman, Terry Mulloy, Leroy Hamilton, and learns she’s been putting aside barrels of Bechtold waste? Curtains!

She decides she handled her Big Chance stupidly. Too many people involved, too many potential witnesses. And she purchased the stock in her own name. Idiotic! And she bought 10K shares. That would be a trip wire to alert anyone investigating the possibility of insider trading.

Eddie’s phone rings. Three times. Then stops.

“That’s Paul,” he says. “He’ll be up in about ten minutes. You can get dressed now. I got some good stuff. But I’ll need a couple more sessions.”

“Sure,” she says. “Anytime.”

To her surprise, she finds she’s no longer self-conscious, and when Eddie helps her hook up her bra in back, she thinks it’s a nice, brotherly thing for him to do. By the time Paul Ramsey shows up, Sally is dressed and sipping a glass of their lousy chianti.

Paul is a tall blond with a sweet smile and more teeth than he really needs. He’s got a laid-back manner, and Eddie says that when the world blows up, Paul is going to be the one who murmurs, “Oh, yeah? Cool.”

Sally has already decided what she wants to do. She’s going to continue picking through Bechtold Printing trash. But if she finds another lead on a takeover, merger, or buyout, she can’t invest in her own name, or in the name of anyone else connected with Steiner Waste Control. Too risky. And the stock purchase has got to be less than 10,000 shares.

“Paul,” she says, “I got a proposition for you.”

“Sorry,” he says with his seraphic grin, “my evenings are occupied.”

She tells him what she wants. She’ll give him the name of a stockbroker. He’s to open an account by purchasing shares of AT amp;T. She’ll give him the money. After that, he’ll buy and sell on her instructions.

“I’ll pay all the losses,” she says. “You get five percent of the profits. How about it?”

The two men look at each other.

“Go for it, Paul,” Eddie Steiner advises. “My little sister is a financial genius.”

“Okay,” Paul Ramsey says, shrugging. “Why not?”

Sally has come prepared. She hands over a manila envelope with $2,500 in cash and the name and phone number of her stockbroker.

“Stick with me, kid,” she tells Paul, kissing his cheek, “and you’ll be wearing diamonds.”

“I prefer emeralds,” he says.

She goes back to the office, pondering her next move. She’s walking from her parking slot when she meets Anthony Ricci. The kid is wearing tight jeans and a Stanley Kowalski T-shirt, and he looks beautiful.

“Hey, Tony,” Sally says. “How’s it going? You like the job?”

“No,” he says with his 100-watt smile, “but the money is good.”

“All money is good,” she tells him. “The loading-you can handle it?”

“Sure,” he says. “I’ve done worse. Maybe someday I’ll be a driver-no?”

“Why not? We have a lot of turnover. Hang in there, kiddo.”

She goes into her office, parks her feet on her desk, and tries to figure how to paw through the Bechtold garbage without endangering Steiner Waste Control. She decides she can’t do it by herself. She’s got to use fronts, some bubbleheads who won’t have a glimmer of what she’s doing. She looks out the window and sees Terry Mulloy and Leroy Hamilton wheeling onto the tarmac to dump their load. “Oh, yeah,” Sally breathes.

The next morning, at breakfast, Jake Steiner says to his daughter, “You better take your car. I’ll be gone all afternoon. I got things to do.”

“Sure, pa,” she says. “I’ll drive in.”

They don’t look at each other. She knows about his “things to do.” He’s going to shtup his twist in Brooklyn.

He drives to the dump in his Cadillac and she follows in her Mazda. By the time she arrives at the office, Jake is on his second cigar and third black coffee. He’s also nibbling on a tot of schnapps from a bottle he keeps in his desk.

“You’re killing yourself, pa,” Sally says.

“Tell me about it,” he says, not looking up from his Times.

She keeps glancing out her window, watching for the big Loadmaster crewed by Mulloy and Hamilton. Finally, a little after noon, she sees it coming in. She knows the guys are going to take their lunch break. She grabs her shoulder bag and goes running out. She has to wait until they wash up in the locker room.

“Hey, you bums,” she says. “Want a free lunch?”

“Whee!” Leroy says. “Christmas in May. What’s the occasion, Sally baby?”

“She wants to make nice-nice,” Terry says. “I told you she’d come around eventually.”

“This is strictly business, you schmuck,” Sally says. “Come on, let’s go over to the Stardust.”

She picks out a table in a back corner of the diner. They give Mabel their order: three cheeseburgers, home fries, cole slaw, and beer.

“Can either of you guys get hold of a pickup or a van?” she asks them.

They look at each other.

“What for?” Mulloy says.

“It’s a special job. I need a pickup every Tuesday and Thursday. I want you to load it with the barrels of Bechtold Printing scrap, drive out to my house in Smithtown, and leave the barrels in the garage. The next Tuesday or Thursday when you bring the new barrels out, you pick up the old ones and bring them back here to the dump for baling. Got that?”

“What’s this all about?” Terry asks.

“It’s about an extra hundred a week for each of you. In cash. Off the books.”

They think about that awhile, chomping their cheeseburgers.

“I got a cousin with an old, beat-up Chevy van,” Hamilton says slowly. “I could maybe borrow it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Probably get it for five bucks a shot and gas.

“I’ll pay,” Sally says promptly. “However you want to work it. Just get those Bechtold barrels out to Smithtown twice a week. I’ll rig your Tuesday and Thursday schedules so you’ll have plenty of time to make the round trip. Maybe one of you better stick in town on the big truck, and the other guy makes the drive out to the Island in the van.”

“But we get a hundred each?” Mulloy says.

“That’s right. Per week. Cash. Off the books.”

“No trouble with the buttons?” Hamilton says.

“What trouble?” Sally says. “Anyone asks questions, you know from nothing; you’re just following the orders of the boss.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mulloy says, glancing at Hamilton.

“I’ll play along,” Hamilton says.

She goes back to the office, sets to work rearranging pickup schedules. She lightens up on Mulloy and Hamilton’s Tuesday and Thursday assignments so one or both of them will be able to work in the round trip to Smithtown. It’s about three o’clock, and Jake is long gone in his Cadillac, when Judy Bering comes into her office.

“There’s a woman on the phone,” she says. “She’s crying. Sounds hysterical. Something about your father.”

“Jesus,” Sally says, knowing this can’t be good. “All right, put her on my line.”

She listens awhile to the wails, the sobs, the incoherent babbling. Finally she figures out what has happened.

“What’s your name?” she says sharply, interrupting the woman’s desperate howls.

“What? What?”

“Your name. What’s your name?”

“Dotty. My name is Dotty.”

“Dotty what?”

“Uh, Dotty Rosher.”

“All right now, Dotty, listen to me. Lock your door and get dressed. Go into the living room and just sit there. Don’t do a goddamn thing. Don’t call anyone or talk to anyone. I’m coming to help you. To help you, Dotty. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Now give me your address and phone number.”

She makes quick notes, hangs up, then has the presence of mind to go to the office safe. They keep the petty cash in there, but it’s hardly “petty”-almost five thousand in small bills in case the local cops come around, or the fire inspectors, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors, sanitation inspectors. The petty cash is not for bribes, exactly. Just goodwill.

Sally grabs up a handful of twenties and fifties, stuffs them in her shoulder bag. She stalks out, grim-faced.

“I listened in, Sal,” Judy Bering says, beginning to weep. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Sally Steiner says.

She drives her Mazda like a maniac, but crosstown traffic is murder, and it’s almost an hour and a half before she gets over to Park Slope.

Dotty Rosher turns out to be a little thing, a piece of fluff. A strong west wind would blow her away. She’s got wide blue eyes, a mop of frizzy blond curls, Cupid’s-bow lips, and a pair of lungs that make Sally look like a boy. She’s fully dressed-for all the good that does.

“Where is he?” Sally demands.

“I got your phone number from his business card. It was in his wallet, but I swear I didn’t-”

“Where is he?” Sally screams at her.

“In the bedroom. He just, you know, just went out. I thought he had fainted or something, but then I couldn’t-”

“Shut your yap,” Sally says savagely.

She goes into the bedroom. The body of her father, naked, is lying on rumpled pink sheets. His mouth is open, eyes staring. He is dead, dead, dead. She looks down at the pale, flaccid flesh and varicose veins with distaste. His shrunken penis is lost in a nest of wiry gray hair.

“You son of a bitch,” Sally says bitterly, then bends to kiss his clammy cheek.

She goes back into the living room and tells Dotty Rosher what must be done.

“I can’t. I just can’t.”

“You do it,” Sally says stonily, “or I walk out of here right now and leave you with a naked corpse. You can explain it to the cops. Is that what you want?”

So, together, they dress the remains of Jake Steiner, wrestling with his heavy body while they struggle to get him into undershirt and shorts, knitted sport shirt, trousers, jacket, socks and shoes. They remember to lace up the shoes, close his fly. Then they drag him off the bed into the living room, tugging him by the armpits, his heels scuffing the shag rug. They get the body seated in an armchair, head flopped forward, arms dangling.

Dotty Rosher looks ready to pass out. Her mouth is working, and she’s beginning to claw at her throat.

“You better get a drink of something,” Sally advises.

“I think I’ll have a Grasshopper,” Dotty says faintly. “They’re really delicious. Would you like one?”

“No, thanks. Go have your Grasshopper.”

Sally fetches her father’s half-full tumbler of cognac from the bedroom and sets it on the end table alongside his armchair. Then she tips it over so the brandy spills on the table and drips down onto the rug. She inspects the scene, then knocks the tipped glass to the floor. Now it looks authentic: man with history of heart trouble stricken with an attack while drinking.

Dotty comes back with her Grasshopper, looking a little perkier. Sally outlines the scenario for her, speaking slowly and distinctly.

“My father owned this apartment, but you rented it from him. Got that? He and I came up to collect next month’s rent. He and I came here together. That’s very important. Can you remember that? We were sitting in the living room talking, and you offered us drinks. I didn’t want anything, but Jake had a glass of brandy. He took a couple of swallows and suddenly collapsed. We tried to revive him but nothing helped. Got all that?”

Dotty nods.

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Sally says, “and let me do the talking. Okay? You behave and there’ll be a nice piece of change in it for you. Capeesh?”

“What?”

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Oh, sure.”

So Sally calls 911 and explains that her father has died unexpectedly, and since he had a history of heart trouble, she thinks it was a sudden attack.

While they’re waiting for the paramedics and cops, she makes three more calls. The first is to Judy Bering.

“He’s gone,” Sally says. “I may not be in for a couple of days. I’m depending on you to keep the wheels turning.”

“Sally, I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“I know, kiddo, and thanks. Listen, if anyone comes around asking questions, just tell them you know from nothing and refer them to me. Okay?”

“Of course, Sal. I can keep my mouth shut.”

“That’s the way to do it. I’ll let you know when the service is scheduled in case you and any of the guys want to come.”

“I’ll take up a collection. For flowers.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

Her second call is to Jake’s personal physician. She explains that her father dropped dead after drinking half a glass of brandy.

“I’m not surprised,” the doctor says. “I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen. I’m sorry, Sally.”

“Yeah, thanks. I guess they’ll take the body to the Medical Examiner, won’t they?”

“That’s the customary procedure if no physician was present at the time of death.”

“Do you know anyone there? I mean, I’d like to get the body released as soon as possible.”

“I understand. I’ll do everything I can.”

“Thanks, doc. I knew I could count on you.”

Finally she calls Eddie, tells him the true story of their father’s death, and what she’s doing to cover it up. Her brother starts weeping, a soft, keening sound.

“I loved him,” he says. “I really did.”

“I know, baby.”

“Jesus,” Eddie says, “this will be the end of ma.”

“Nah,” Sally says. “Becky is stronger than you think. Eddie, can you come out to Smithtown? I want you there when I tell her. Take a cab if you have to. You’ve got enough money?”

“I can manage. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Bring Paul if you like. You can stay there for a few days. Until the funeral. Plenty of room for both of you.”

“Yeah, maybe we’ll do that. Sal, are you all right?”

“I’m surviving.”

“My God,” he says, “I couldn’t have done what you did. I wouldn’t have the balls for it.”

“Sure you would,” she says.

The paramedics and cops show up. Jake Steiner is pronounced definitely dead. Statements are taken from both Sally Steiner and Dotty Rosher. While a uniformed cop is scribbling in his notebook, the plainclothesman in charge, a big, beefy guy, wanders about the apartment, hands in his pockets. He seems to be whistling noiselessly.

The body is finally removed on a gurney, covered with a rubber sheet. The plainclothesman crooks a finger at Sally, and the two go into the kitchen. The cop fishes in his pocket and comes up with a little plastic bag. Inside is a chewed cigar butt.

“You forgot this,” he says, staring at Sally. “It was in the ashtray on the table next to the bed.”

She dips into her shoulder bag, picks out two fifty-dollar bills.

“For your favorite charity,” she says.

“Thank you,” he says, taking the money and handing her the plastic bag. “My sincere condolences on your loss.”

She’s in the funeral home, holding herself together while a parade of old guys come up and tell her what a mensch her father was. They were Jake’s gin rummy and pinochle pals, and all Sally can say is, “Thank you very much.”

Then the uniformed doorman tells her there’s a man downstairs who’d like to talk to her. His name is Mario Corsini.

“Jesus X,” Sally says. “All right, I’ll be down in a minute.”

She looks around. Everything seems under control. Eddie is holding up well, and they hired a special van with a lift so Becky in her wheelchair could be transported to the funeral home and eventually to the cemetery. Paul is there. Martha is there. And a crowd of relatives, friends, and neighbors. More people than Sally expected. Dotty Rosher isn’t there. Got tsu danken!

The hearse is parked at the curb, followed by a long line of black limousines. The chauffeurs have congregated, and are smoking up a storm and laughing. The single Cadillac limousine parked across the street is a stretch job, silver gray.

“Mr. Angelo would like to talk to you,” Corsini says.

“Now?” Sally says indignantly. “Can’t it wait?”

“Just a couple of minutes,” he says. “We didn’t want to come inside.”

“I’d have kicked your ass out,” she says, and means it.

She crosses the street and climbs into the back, alongside Vic Angelo. Corsini sits up front behind the wheel, but turns sideways so he can keep an eye on Sally and listen to what’s going on.

“My sincere condolences on your loss,” Angelo says.

“Thanks.”

“Your father was an old friend.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But now we got a business problem. The garbage dump. Who inherits?”

“My mother, my brother, me.”

“And who’s going to run it?”

“Who do you think?” Sally says angrily. “Me. I’ve practically been running the joint for the past ten years.”

“It’s no business for a woman,” Angelo says, shaking his head regretfully. “Too rough. We’ll make you a nice offer.”

“Screw your offer,” Sally says wrathfully. “I’m hanging on to the dump. You’ll still get your tax. Jake is dead, but the business belongs to my family and that’s where it’s going to stay.”

Mario Corsini grins. Or at least he shows a mouthful of big, yellowed teeth. “I don’t think so,” he says.

Sally stares at the two bandidos. If she had her pistol she would have popped both of them, right there. She knows exactly what they can do to Steiner Waste Control: trouble with the union, trouble with city inspectors, maybe firebombs in the trucks if they want to play hard. There’s no way she can fight that. She could run to the DA and scream about the monthly payoffs-but where’s the proof?

“All right,” she says, “you want to take over, you can do it. But you’ll be throwing away a fortune.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Angelo says.

“You guys ever play the stock market?” Sally asks.