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Vincent Mado
I had taken for granted that the place would be festooned with alarm systems and bodyguards; the latter assumption proved accurate enough—the door swung open before I got to it and a rum-looking Neanderthal gave me a sizing up which I associated in my mind with the look a hungry piranha would direct toward a raw hunk of bleeding flesh. He wore a sport jacket which he had obviously only put on in order to open the door so that his shoulder-holstered gun wouldn’t show.
“Yeah?”
“I’d like to see the Don. I’m not armed.”
“What name?”
“Simon Crane.”
“Mr. Mado
“It’ll come as no surprise,” I declared.
The bodyguard looked uncertain; then, abruptly, he turned to look over his shoulder at someone who had come up behind him. It was hard to see inside against the blinding light of the exterior sun, but then I heard that wheeze of a voice and recognized it immediately: an old injury to the larynx had reduced Pete DeAngelo’s voice to a harsh whisper.
“Who’s all this?”
The bodyguard took a step backward to explain to DeAngelo who I was and what I wanted, but DeAngelo brushed him aside and came forward. His tall frame filled the opening. “Hello, Crane.”
DeAngelo was a sleek, cold man, hard and handsome and poison-cruel. He was a dandy: he was wearing white tapered slacks, white loafers with pointed toes, an ascot under a high custom shirt collar. His polished nails glinted. If MGM ever decided to make the Pete DeAngelo Story, the role might have gone to Robert Wagner. He had a deep suntan and opaque eyes; he revealed all the feelings of a marble slab.
I gave him plenty of time to look me over. We had met before a few times—twice at the station house when he’d come to bail out a couple of the boys. Among his other accomplishments DeAngelo was a bar-admitted lawyer. He was also Mado
I said, “I’d like a minute with the Don.”
“What for?”
“To save me trouble and save you people time and effort wasted on wild goose chases,” I said, watching his face. If there was any reaction inside him, he made no sign of it.
He glanced back at the bodyguard, who was tugging at his cuffs and scowling. The bodyguard had a disturbing way of leaning so far forward his feet seemed nailed to the door. Buster Keaton used to do that, I thought. DeAngelo said in his grating whisper, “Keep him company, Freddie,” and went back into the house without another glance at me. DeAngelo’s shoes had heels that clicked like dice.
Freddie propped himself in the doorway with his arms folded, keeping me out under the sun. I said, “You’re from Chicago.”
He shook his head and gri
“Bet your ass,” said Freddie.
Presently DeAngelo clicked back into sight, an intense hungry panther, and nodded to Freddie. DeAngelo’s smile, pointed at me, was without menace; but I felt a chill. He rasped, “Okay, he wants to find out what you’ve got to say. Come on.” He turned without further remarks and walked to the center of the sepulchral living room. I went inside and heard the door click shut behind me. By then DeAngelo had turned and lifted one palm toward me to stop me. He said, “Mind a frisk?”
“No.”
“Go ahead, Freddie.”
I let Freddie paw me for guns and when he was finished I followed DeAngelo through an arched corridor to the back of the house. He opened a sliding glass door and led the way out onto a flagstone walk that ran along to the tiled apron around the swimming pool. It was a big blue pool shaped like a bell, with ladders and diving board. Heat bounced off everything—the water, the walls of the house, wings which enclosed the pool area in a U, the flagstones and gravel, and the barbed wire-topped brick wall that sealed off the far end of the patio. The place was an oven.
Vincent Mado
Mado
Mado
He looked up and beamed at me.
DeAngelo said, “He’s clean.”
“I’m immaculate,” I said.
“We’ll see,” said Mado
“No, sir,” said the sycophant. He put the document down on the beach-umbrella table and held his hand on it while Mado
Not until that one was gone did any of us speak. Then it was Mado
“That’s what I came to see you about.”
Pete DeAngelo husked, “Now tell us something we didn’t already know.”
Mado
“I understand,” I said. “Look, this is all off the record. I’m not carrying a tape recorder around. I’m not interested in meddling in things that are none of my business. I’m sure Tony Se
Mado