The Greatest Works of Randall Garrett. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ in my position, he has to make sure he knows what is what, and all the time. It's routine, what you call S. O. P. Standard Operating Procedure, they call it."

      "I'm sure they do," Malone murmured politely.

      "And besides," Manelli said, "you are a well-known type. I thought I knew the name when old Fred mentioned it, or I would never talk to you. You know how it is."

      Malone nodded. "Well," he said, as Manelli went over to a small portable bar at the back of the room and got busy, "we're being frank, anyway."

      "And why shouldn't we be frank, Mr. Malone?" Manelli said. "It's a nice, friendly conversation, and what have we got on our minds?"

      For the first time, as he turned, Malone got a glimpse of something behind the structured and muscular face. There was panic there, just a tiny seed under iron control, but it showed in the eyes and in the muscles of the cheek.

      "Just a nice, friendly conversation," Malone said. Manelli brought the drinks over and set them on the table.

      "Take your pick," he said. "That's not what a good host should do, ask the guest to pick one, like a game; but I got into the habit. People get nervous about arsenic in the drinks. Which is silly."

      "Sure it is," Malone agreed. He picked up the left-hand glass and regarded it carefully. "If you wanted to kill me, you'd need a motive and an opportunity, and you don't have either at the moment. Besides, you'd make sure to be far away when it happened." He hoped he sounded confident. He took a sip of the drink, but it tasted like bourbon and soda.

      "Mr. Malone," Manelli said, "you say these things about me, and it hurts. It hurts me, right here." He pressed a hand over the checkbook side of his jacket. "I'm a legitimate businessman, and no different from any other legitimate businessman. You can't prove anything else."

      "I know I can't," Malone said. "But I want to talk to you about your real business."

      "This is my real business," Manelli said. "The advertising agency. I work here. Advertising is in my blood. And I don't understand the least little bit why you have to do things to me all the time."

      "Do things?" Malone said. "What did I do?"

      "Now, Mr. Malone," Manelli said. He took a swallow of his drink. "You said let's be frank, so I'm frank. Why not you?"

      "I don't know what you're talking about," Malone said, telling part of the truth.

      Manelli took another swallow of his drink, fished in a jacket pocket and brought out two cigars. "Smoke, Mr. Malone?" he said. "The very best, from Havana, Cuba. Cost me a dollar and a half each."

      Malone looked with longing at the cigar. But it was okay for Manelli to smoke cigars, he thought bitterly. Manelli was a gangster, and who cared how he looked? Malone was an FBI man, and FBI men didn't smoke cigars. Particularly Havana cigars. That, he told himself with regretful firmness, was that.

      "No, thanks," he said. "I never smoke on duty."

      Manelli shrugged and put one cigar away. He lit the other one and dense clouds of smoke began to rise in the room. Malone breathed deeply.

      "I understand you've been having troubles," he said.

      Manelli nodded. "Now, you see, Mr. Malone?" he said. "You tell me you don't know what's happening, but you know I got troubles. How come, Mr. Malone? How come?"

      "Because you have got troubles," Malone said. "But I have nothing to do with them." He hesitated, thought of adding: "Yet," and decided against it.

      "Now, Mr. Malone," Manelli said. "You know better than that."

      "I do?" Malone said.

      Manelli sighed, took another swallow of his drink and dragged deeply on the cigar. "Let's take a for-instance," he said. "Now, you understand my business is advertising, Mr. Malone?"

      "It's in your blood," Malone said, involuntarily.

      "Right," Manelli said. "But I think about things. I like to figure things out. In a sort of a theoretical way, like a for-instance. Understand?"

      "What sort of theoretical story are you going to tell me?" Malone said.

      Manelli leaned back in his chair. "Let's take, for instance, some numbers runners who had some trouble the other day, got beat up and money taken from them. Maybe you read about it in the papers."

      "I haven't been following the papers much," Malone said.

      "That's all right," Manelli said grandly. "Maybe it wasn't in the papers. But anyhow, I figured out maybe that happened. I had nothing to do with this, Mr. Malone; you understand that? But I figured out how maybe it happened."

      "How?" Malone said.

      Manelli took another puff on his cigar. "Maybe there was an error at a racetrack--we could say Jamaica, for instance, just for laughs. And maybe two different totals were published for the pari-mutuel numbers, and both got given out. So the numbers runners got all fouled up, so they got beat up and money taken from them."

      "It could have happened that way," Malone said.

      "I figure maybe the FBI had something to do with this," Manelli said.

      "We didn't," Malone said. "Frankly."

      "And that's not all," Manelli said. "Let's say at Jamaica one day there was a race."

      "All right," Malone said agreeably. "That doesn't require a whole lot of imagination."

      "And let's say," Manelli went on, "that the bookies--if there are any bookies in this town; who knows?--that they got the word about who came in, win, place and show."

      "Sounds natural," Malone said.

      "Sure it does," Manelli said. "But there was a foul-up someplace, because the win animal was disqualified and nobody heard about it until after a lot of payoffs were made. That costs money." He stopped. "I mean it would cost money, if it happened," he finished.

      "Sure," Malone said. "Certainly would."

      "And you tell me it's not the FBI?" Manelli said.

      "That's right," Malone said. "As a matter of fact, we're investigating things like these confusions and inefficiencies all over."

      Manelli finished his drink in one long, amazed swallow. "Now, wait a minute," he said. "Let's say for a joke, like, for laughs, that I am some kind of a wheel in these things, in bookies and numbers boys and like that."

      "Let's call it a syndicate," Malone said. "Just for laughs."

      "Okay, then," Manelli said, with a suspicious gaze at Malone. "Whatever you call it, a man like me today, he wouldn't be some two-bit chiseler without brains. He would be a businessman, a smooth-operating smart businessman. Right?"

      "Right," Malone said. "And what I want to know is: how's business?"

      "You're kidding?" Manelli said.

      "I'm not kidding," Malone said. "I mean it. The FBI's investigating mix-ups just like the ones you're telling me about. We want to stop them."

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