A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(36)
“Car coming in,” said Harriman. He was looking out the front window toward the street.
Crane raised his eyes to the color security monitor for the camera at the gate and saw the dark gray Mercedes stopped at the front gate. The driver reached out his window and took a ticket from the machine, the barrier went up, and the car glided into the lot. Crane knew the car, which had always seemed a little eerie to him. The color was exactly the dark gray color of the road, so it was practically invisible except for the chrome parts. Crane saw that the driver’s arm still hung out the open window, and the hand released the ticket to flutter to the pavement. The car pulled up to the building and parked directly behind Crane’s Range Rover, blocking him in.
Crane said, “You can go down and help Steel and Slawicky for a bit.”
Harriman got up and went down the stairs. Crane could hear him open the side door, and he looked up at the monitor to watch him start walking along the drive between two long rows of storage bays.
Crane waited. He always felt a twinge of fear when Salamone showed up this way. Some time ago Crane had begun to think that the last sounds he would hear on earth might be the footsteps of Salamone and a couple of his guys on the stairs. The idea had bothered him for such a long time that he had tried several ways of lessening the anxiety. He had tried talking to Salamone on the telephone so he wouldn’t have a reason to drive all the way out here in person. But Salamone wouldn’t talk to him on the telephone. He said he liked to be able to look into a man’s face while he talked business, but Crane suspected it was because so many men of Salamone’s acquaintance had been the victims of wiretaps.
He had also tried keeping a short-barreled shotgun in the coat closet behind his desk. The shotgun hadn’t been a good idea. Salamone came in one rainy day, took off his coat, and opened the closet door to hang it up. He said, “What’s the shotgun for?”
Crane said, “Protection. People know we have duplicate keys to all the bays, and we take in cash and checks. I don’t want some holdup jerk to come in and kill one of my guys so he can steal some customer’s stamp collection.”
“If your guy is smart enough to give him the keys, nobody gets killed. Get rid of the shotgun. If your place gets robbed, we’ll get it all back. I promise.”
Crane knew that Salamone was telling the truth, that it had been the truth for over a hundred years, and that it would still be true after they were both gone and forgotten. Salamone wasn’t just some guy. He was speaking as a member and representative of the organization, which in Western New York was called the Arm.
Crane listened to the footsteps coming up the stairs. As always, the first one to appear was Cantorese, the big man. He was about six feet three and fat. It was a hot, humid day, and he was wearing a loose Hawaiian shirt that hung down over his belt and covered the gun at the back of his pants. His small eyes were already scanning everything in sight, and then settled on Crane and never left him. He stepped aside from the landing and stopped to Crane’s right. The etiquette of these meetings was that one didn’t greet Cantorese. He was there, and you could nod to him or—if you were, for some strange reason, happy to see him—you could smile. He didn’t care what you thought, so either was wasted.
The second man up was Salamone. He was about fifty years old, but his body seemed younger. He had good posture and was light on his feet. Today he looked as though he had been golfing. He wore a dark blue polo shirt and a pair of well-tailored black pants, with a pair of rubber-soled walking shoes.
Behind him was Pistore, who trailed behind Salamone by five or six steps and half turned to look over his shoulder occasionally. It was clear to Crane that if something had been happening behind the three men, it was Pistore’s job to take care of it. Crane had, a couple of times, caught sight of guns on Pistore. Today he didn’t have a sports jacket, but he carried a thin nylon windbreaker over his left arm, undoubtedly to conceal something lethal.
Salamone reached the office and stepped up to Crane. “Danny boy.” He gave Crane a quick hug and a pat on the back, then held him at arm’s length and stared into his eyes for a half second, then released him. He went to sit behind Crane’s desk.
When Salamone was settled, Pistore returned to the top of the stairwell and leaned against the wall. From there he could see the bottom of the stairs, the big paved aisles between storage buildings, and Daniel Crane. Pistore was a generation younger than the other men, so he seemed to do most of the chores. Crane knew that if death were to come, he would probably be the one to administer it.
Salamone sat back in Crane’s leather desk chair looking contented. Crane knew that the hug Salamone sometimes gave other men had nothing to do with friendship. He had been checking to see if Crane had microphones or wires on his body. Salamone was the conduit for Crane’s stolen goods, but Crane couldn’t know all of the other businesses that Salamone had going. For many years he had run the network of barbershops, bars, gas stations, and convenience stores where people bought each week’s football betting slips in this area. On Mondays, Salamone drove around to those businesses and picked up his profits. He also had some kind of deal with the people who stole luggage at the airport, and some share of an auto parts business. But he could be doing almost anything.
Salamone leaned forward. “Well, Danny, what have you got to tell me?”
“I’ve got your percentage for the storage business,” Crane said. “It was pretty good last month. People paint and remodel during the summer, or go on vacations, so they seem to store things more often.” He went to the safe in the corner of the room. It was left unlocked during the day, so he just opened the door and took out a stack of bills he had placed there. He set it on his desk in front of Salamone.