The Box (20 page)

“Well,” said Motta, “what say we go down to the cafe and talk business, huh, Quinn?”

Quinn had wondered when they would get to it and if Motta was stalling. But Motta simply did not care for speed; he had his evening routine, and business is discussed over a glass in a cafe.

“You notice,” said Motta and got up, “that I just lit this cigar, and if you know anything about cigar smokers who care about the product they smoke, you’ll have noticed they don’t like to walk around with the cigar in their mouth. Cipolla, find me the cane with the bone handle, huh?”

Cipolla left the room to look for Motta’s cane.

“I was saying,” and Motta smoothed his vest down in front, holding the cigar in his mouth, dead center. “Now, I’m the kind of cigar man I’ve been describing to you, Quinn, but here you see me walking out with more than half of the Havana still good.”

“Yes,” said Quinn, a little bored with the gentle small-talk.

“I do this,” said Motta, “in fact I do this every day this time of evening, because of the humidity.”

Cipolla came back with Motta’s hat, which was big-brimmed and light colored and had a black band—this hat, thought Quinn, no doubt goes on the head dead center—and also brought the cane with the bone handle. It was a beautiful, shiny handle, and there was a little silver band where the bone joined the wood. Maybe he’ll have forgotten about the cigar talk by now—

The hat went on the head dead center and the cane went in the left hand, because the right hand was for the cigar. Motta looked like somebody happily retired, modestly happy and entirely done with the rat race. They walked out to the street through somebody else’s apartment, the same way Quinn had come. Outside it was dark now and miserably damp.

“This dampness,” Motta said, “slows the smoke, cools the coal, and brings out tobacco flavors like you don’t get in any other way.
That’s
why I do this.”

Then they walked. Every time they passed a corner there was a street lamp sticking out from a wall and around the light there was always a milky halo of dampness.

“Very important for our operations,” said Cipolla, who had been suffering from not saying anything. “This fog every night is like part of the business set-up.”

“Now, some would say,” Motta went on, “that a cigar, damp like this, gets to be like rotten leaves or the comer of a basement or something like that.”

“Of course,” said Quinn. “And nonetheless, they keep cigars in a humidor.”

Motta ignored that. “But I say, and I think there’s something to this, Quinn, I say, don’t you eat cheese and like it, and that’s rotten? Don’t you grow mushrooms in a basement, and that’s delicious?”

Quinn got the impression again that Motta had rehearsed this. It did not sound like his usual kind of talk, and of course it did not fit the Santa Claus thing any more. Santa Claus, Quinn thought, would not talk about cigars like this. Somebody who collects butterflies might talk this way, or someone who collects recipes from Greenland and Ceylon, or maybe instructions on how to grow mandrake roots without benefit of gallows and moonlight.

The cafe had an outdoor part and an indoor part. In spite of the weather there were few people inside. Most of them were at the little round tables which stood by the sidewalk. The men were wrapped in their overcoats and the table tops were damp from the evening fog, but to sit inside would mean not to be able to see anything. They sat with their hands in their pockets and stared at the street, at the leaves dripping on the potted tree, at each other.

“Tell me something,” said Quinn, “you use any local people in your organization?”

“Christ, no,” said Motta, and then he crossed himself.

They walked to the inside of the cafe where two waiters started to scurry as soon as Motta showed in the door. They pushed tables, they jabbered, and they bowed like two pigeons doing a mating dance.

Motta was affable about all of this; he nodded his head, he nodded his stick, and when he took off his hat and one waiter lunged for it Motta smiled at the man and said something in Sicilian.

They took a table which had been pushed to the fireplace, where Motta could warm his back and look at the rest of the room which was almost empty. The usual bare bulb hung from the ceiling, a velour curtain with grease on it covered the kitchen entrance, and the tables were the same as those outdoors—warped wood tops and rusty legs. On Motta’s table was a white tablecloth.

The waiter brought wine without being asked. He poured from the same bottle for Quinn and Cipolla, and all this, Quinn felt, was the usual routine, a nice evening, a nice fire, and a cold fog outside. Maybe, thought Quinn, I shouldn’t have anything to drink.

Chapter 20

Motta held the wine in his mouth and then he swallowed it. While doing this he dipped the end of his cigar into the wineglass, just the tip of it ever so gently, and when he swallowed the wine he immediately put the cigar into his mouth. And now, Quinn thought to himself, something else about new taste sensation.

“So tell me, Quinn,” and Motta took the cigar out again. “Our set-up on the other side, what’s it look like to you?”

“Lousy.”

“It’s making a lot of money for us, Quinn.”

“If I can shake it up…”

“Did you?” said Motta.

“Well,” said Quinn, “just a little tilt. Enough for you to sit here with me and talk about it.”

“That’s true,” said Motta. “That’s true.”

“I’m not here to shake anything up for you,” Quinn said very slowly. My own Santa Claus voice, he thought. Listen to the kindly rumble. “But I am here, Motta, to tell you that the other end of your operation can slide right out from under you, make less money, you know, instead of more.”

“You think it can?”

“Make more?”

“Slide out from under me.”

“Motta, look. I was over there for a few days and saw enough and did enough to start up a take-over, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Motta sighed, stretched, and stroked his vest as if he were stroking a baby. Then he patted it some.

“What I’m asking, Quinn, do you think we can do a job together?”

“I don’t know,” said Quinn. “I can’t answer that because I don’t know enough about your operation.”

“
Right
answer!” said Motta. “Very good, boy. Very good.”

Cipolla spat on the floor next to his chair and stepped on it. Quinn lit a cigarette.

“Now I,” said Motta, “got naturally an idea of the set-up, me having made the set-up, but before we go into that, and before you make suggestions—you got suggestions about the other side, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Before any of that, Quinn, let me ask you a question.”

“Go right ahead,” said Quinn, feeling hopped up from all the delay.

“This is about how well you covered your tracks. You got dumped by an independent tramper, didn’t you?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“That’s what I was told. You know the name of that captain?”

“No. I was…”

“Name of the tub?”

“Why do you ask? I don’t know the name, but why do you ask?”

“Simple reason. By rights, that captain has to report what happened, back home.”

Quinn sighed and then he said yes, he had thought about that too. He didn’t think the matter important. He wanted to start talking business. He wanted that more than anything in the world so as to be done with waiting, and doubting.

“And what did you do about it?”

“Not much. Just some questions. Upshot was, I didn’t think it very likely that the captain would report back the whole irregularity, just for his own sake.”

“Makes sense,” said Motta. “That makes sense.” He nodded his head and sipped a little wine. This time he did not keep it in his mouth but started to talk again right away. “Reason I bring this up, Quinn—what if you start operating out of Okar and then your friends from way back move in on you, not the operation, I mean, but on you?”

“Should that happen,” said Quinn, “I expect to be set up by then in such a way—there are ways—that no outsider can do very much to rock my boat. Speaking of the set-up on the African side, what I’d like to discuss…”

“Later,” said Motta.

Then he waved at the waiter and ordered a meal. Quinn had no idea what was being ordered and did not care. He sat smoking and looking around while Motta went through a long ritual, as if this dump, Quinn thought, was Maxim’s or Antoine’s, unless Antoine’s is a hairdresser’s and I got the names mixed up.

When Motta was done ordering he threw his cigar into the fireplace behind him and folded his hands on his belly. He smiled at Quinn and stroked the belly twice.

“I know you got ways,” he said, as if nothing had interrupted the conversation, “but on the other hand, Quinn, couldn’t any of this interfere with our operation on this side?”

Quinn thought for a moment and then he explained that he did not think so. He thought, first of all, that no one from the States would come looking for him, second, that he could take care of any eventualities, and third, that none of this would interfere with the business, Motta’s business, Quinn’s business, any business. Quinn sighed when he was through, feeling like a schoolboy who had gone through a recitation. And when a schoolboy recites, the teacher always knows everything ahead of time, so this whole talk was sham and useless. Quinn lit another cigarette and felt he smoked too much.

Motta, he was sure, had something entirely different on his mind. I’ll just have to wait, even if I bust.

“I was thinking this,” said Motta, and poured more wine. “I was thinking this because I know the whole operation, of course, and maybe once you do, you’d see it the same way I do, but I’ll explain the details some other time. Antipasto,” he said, and watched the waiter come with the big plate.

Quinn did not wait for the waiter to get done.

“I didn’t understand a word you said,” he told Motta. “Maybe because I don’t know the whole operation?”

Motta laughed and put a pickled cauliflower in his mouth. He kept it there and sucked.

“Ever taste it the way it tastes when you suck?” he mumbled.

No, said Quinn, he had never tasted it the way it tastes when you suck, and what exactly was Motta talking about before. Quinn rubbed his nose because it had started to itch nervously.

Motta swallowed—Quinn had not seen him chew—and talked again. “I was thinking this,” he said to the ceiling. Then he looked at Quinn. “I think I can use you on this side better than on the other. Maybe Cipolla told you, but I can drop that Remal character any time, and ship out of other ports.”

“Work with you here?” said Quinn. “It’s a proposition. Tell me more.”

Quinn reached over to the antipasto plate and picked something up which looked green and wrinkled. He chewed it and did not like the sourness. He himself felt prickly.

“And I tell you,” said Motta. “If I were you, Quinn, you know I’d just keep worrying and worrying about that captain floating around some place, and who knows what he’ll do about this queer business with the undeclared box.”

Motta talked more, always between mouthfuls, and by the time the pasta and meat sauce came, Quinn was worried. Santa Claus has a strange effect, he thought. Like a snake charmer.

During the veal the talk shifted to Remal, and who knows what a foreigner like that is up to, and what would the reception be, if Quinn were to go back. Ever think of that yet?

And maybe, thought Quinn, no longer tasting his food, maybe there’s an entirely different reason behind all of Motta’s pink-cheeked advice. Maybe all of this has to do with his wish to keep Quinn nearby, to keep Quinn under close check. He doesn’t act like Ryder, and he doesn’t act like Remal, but who knows Motta, except that he likes moist cigars?

The greens were served separately from everything else and Quinn now had to eat a plate full of greens. They were not very hot, they were warmish, and very slippery with oil.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Motta. He burped behind his napkin and explained that this green stuff always made him burp, but how healthy the green stuff really was.

“I’ll give Whitfield a call,” said Motta, “with the shortwave, and find out from him where that tramper has his ports of call.”

“I know that already. Tel Aviv, Alexandria, and then down to Madagascar. From there, home. I don’t know if he goes around the Cape or how, but I remember those ports.”

“Well,” said Motta, “I think Whitfield will remember better. It’s business.” He sucked his teeth and spat something out, all done discreetly behind the napkin. “That is, if you want me to, Quinn.”

“I don’t know what good it would do.”

“If that captain is still in the Mediterranean basin, I can maybe get in touch with him. I got friends here and there, and with a bottle of something or other, maybe we can get it out of him if he’s reported about you in that box, if he intends to do so, and we could even explain to him he should better not report anything, just like you were figuring.”

Quinn nudged his plate away and wondered why Motta was so interested in all this.

“The reason I’m worrying, besides from being a worrier,” Motta said, “is because I’d like to be sure the guy I work with is gonna be as safe as me, seeing he and I, what I mean is, you and I, will be sort of hitched up with each other. Which is true if you work on the African end or here. Right?”

Yes, answered Quinn, he could see that point of view, and he agreed with Motta so he would drop the matter. It was not business.

“Cipolla,” said Motta, “you’ve eaten enough.”

“Huh?”

“You get on this right away, Cipolla, and see if you can raise Whitfield this time of evening and we get this thing rolling. Okay, Quinn?”

It was now okay with Quinn. Cipolla seemed to be used to this kind of treatment, as who wouldn’t be, with Motta pink-cheeked and smiling—a retired hood who likes to be friends.

Cipolla left. Motta ate the next thing, which seemed to be something from the sea, and Quinn sat in the dim room, angry at having to wait through a revolting meal.

“How long will all this take?” Quinn asked.

“If he’s still in the Mediterranean, Quinn, maybe just a few days, you know?” Motta looked up and smiled, to give reassurance. “My guess is we can still catch him. Those tramps are slow. And besides,” he said, with the next piece of gray-looking stuff on his fork, “the next run out of here isn’t for five days anyway, so you’ll be stuck here till then whether you decide to take Okar on or whether you decide to team up on this side.” Motta nodded and said, “I still wanna talk business with you, you know. A few days, you and me, and we might do each other some good.”