Chapter III

A family council was called the next day. Orsino, very much a junior, had never been admitted to one before. He knew why the exception was being made, and didn’t like the reason.

Edward Falcaro wagged his formidable white beard at the thirty-odd Syndic chiefs around the table and growled: “I think we’ll dispense with reviewing production and so on. I want to talk about this damn gunplay. Dick, bring us up to date.”

He lit a vile cigar and leaned back.

Richard W. Reiner rose.

“Thomas McGurn,” he said, “killed April 15th by a burst of eight machine gun bullets in his private dining room at the Astor. Elsie Warshofsky, his waitress, must be considered the principal suspect, but--”

Edward Falcaro snapped: “Suspect, hell! She killed him, didn’t she?”

“I was about to say, but the evidence so far is merely cumulative. Mrs. Warshofsky jumped--fell--or was pushed--from the dining room window. The machine gun was found beside the window.

“There are no known witnesses. Mrs. Warshofsky’s history presents no unusual features. An acquaintance submitted a statement--based, she frankly admitted, on nothing definite--that Mrs. Warshofsky sometimes talked in a way that led her to wonder if she might not be a member of the secret terrorist organization known as the D.A.R. In this connection, it should be noted that Mrs. Warshofsky’s maiden name was Adams.

“Robert Orsino, killed April 21st by a thermite bomb concealed in his pillow and fuzed with a pressure-sensitive switch. His valet, Edward Blythe, disappeared from view. He was picked up April 23rd by a posse on the beach of Montauk Point, but died before he could be questioned. Examination of his stomach contents showed a lethal quantity of sodium fluoride. It is presumed that the poison was self-administered.”

“Presumed!” the old man snorted, and puffed out a lethal quantity of cigar smoke.

“Blythe’s history,” Reiner went on blandly, “presents no unusual features. It should be noted that a commerce-raider of the so-called United States Government Navy was reported off Montauk Point during the night of April 23rd-24th by local residents.

“Charles Orsino, attacked April 30th by his bodyguard James Halloran in the lobby of the Costello Memorial Theater. Halloran fired one shot which killed another bodyguard and was then himself killed. Halloran’s history presents no unusual features except that he had a considerable interest in--uh--history. He collected and presumably read obsolete books dealing with pre-Syndic Pre-Mob America. Investigators found by his bedside the first volume of a work published in 1942 called The Growth of The American Republic by Morison and Commager. It was opened to Chapter Ten, The War of Independence!”

Reiner took his seat.

F. W. Taylor said dryly: “Dick, did you forget to mention that Warshofsky, Blythe and Halloran are known officers of the U. S. Navy?”

Reiner said: “You are being facetious. Are you implying that I have omitted pertinent facts?”

“I’m implying that you artistically stacked the deck. With a rumor, a dubious commerce-raider report and a note on a man’s hobby, you want us to sweep the bastards from the sea, don’t you--just the way you always have?”

“I am not ashamed of my expressed attitude on the question of the so-called United States Government and will defend it at any proper time and place.”

“Shut the hell up, you two,” Edward Falcaro growled. “I’m trying to think.” He thought for perhaps half a minute and then looked up, baffled. “Has anybody got any ideas?”

Charles Orsino cleared his throat, amazed at his own temerity. The old man’s eyebrows shot up, but he grudgingly said: “I guess you can say something, since they thought you were important enough to shoot.”

Orsino said: “Maybe it’s some outfit over in Europe or Asia?”

Edward Falcaro asked: “Anybody know anything about Europe or Asia? Jimmy, you flew over once, didn’t you? To see about Anatolian poppies when the Mob had trouble with Mex labor?”

Jimmy Falcaro said creakily: “Yeah. It was a waste of time. They have these little dirt farmers scratching out just enough food for the family and maybe raising a quarter-acre of poppy. That’s all there is from the China Sea to the Mediterranean. In England--Frank, you tell ‘em. You explained it to me once.”

Taylor rose. “The forest’s come back to England. When finance there lost its morale and couldn’t hack its way out of the paradoxes that was the end. When that happens you’ve got to have a large, virile criminal class ready to take over and do the work of distribution and production. Maybe some of you know how the English were. The poor beggars had civilized all the illegality out of the stock. They couldn’t do anything that wasn’t respectable. From sketchy reports, I gather that England is now forest and a few hundred starving people. One fellow says the men still wear derbies and stagger to their offices in the city.

“France is peasants, drunk three-quarters of the time.

“Russia is peasants, drunk all the time.

“Germany--well, there the criminal class was too big and too virile. The place is a cemetery.”

He shrugged: “Say it, somebody. The Mob’s gunning for us.”

Reiner jumped to his feet. “I will never support such a hypothesis!” he shrilled. “It is mischievous to imply that a century of peace has been ended, that our three-thousand-mile border with our friend to the West--”

Taylor intoned satirically: “Un-blemished, my friends, by a single for-ti-fi-ca-tion--”

Edward Falcaro yelled: “Stop your damn foolishness, Frank Taylor! This is no laughing matter.”

Taylor snapped: “Have you been in Mob Territory lately?”

“I have,” the old man said. He scowled.

“How’d you like it?”

Edward Falcaro shrugged irritably. “They have their ways, we have ours. The Regan line is running thin, but we’re not going to forget that Jimmy Regan stood shoulder to shoulder with Amadeo Falcaro in the old days. There’s such a thing as loyalty.”

F. W. Taylor said: “There’s such a thing as blindness.”

He had gone too far. Edward Falcaro rose from his chair and leaned forward, bracing himself on the table. He said flatly: “This is a statement, gentlemen. I won’t pretend I’m happy about the way things are in Mob Territory. I won’t pretend I think old man Regan is a balanced, dependable person. I won’t pretend I think the Mob clients are enjoying anywhere near the service that Syndic clients enjoy. I’m perfectly aware that on our visits of state to Mob Territory we see pretty much what our hosts want us to see. But I cannot believe that any group which is rooted on the principles of freedom and service can have gone very wrong.

“Maybe I’m mistaken, gentlemen. But I cannot believe that a descendant of Jimmy Regan would order a descendant of Amadeo Falcaro murdered. We will consider every other possibility first. Frank, is that clear?”

“Yes,” Taylor said.

“All right,” Edward Falcaro grunted. “Now let’s go about this thing systematically. Dick, you go right down the line with the charge that the Government’s responsible for these atrocities. I hate to think that myself. If they are, we’re going to have to spend a lot of time and trouble hunting them down and doing something about it. As long as they stick to a little commerce-raiding and a few coastal attacks, I can’t say I’m really unhappy about them. They don’t do much harm, and they keep us on our toes and--maybe this one is most important--they keep our client’s memories of the bad old days that we delivered them from alive. That’s a great deal to surrender for the doubtful pleasures of a long, expensive campaign. If assassination’s in the picture I suppose we’ll have to knock them off--but we’ve got to be sure.”