Free Act of Fear by Dennis Lynds Page A

every night. That is why Andy survives, grows richer. We were kids together, yes, and that was where it ended. Joe is poor and hard-working. I am poor and work for a living, if not too hard. Andy is rich, and no one alive knows for sure what his work is.
    ‘The same for my friends, and a little Remy Martin for me,’ Andy said to the waiter. The waiter was polite. Andy was polite. He smiled at me again. ‘Say hello, Danny.’
    Andy Pappas is a boss. A boss, that’s all. For the record and the newspapers Pappas is boss of a big stevedoring company on the docks. For the record, and for the sake of all the public people who are supposed to have the power, Pappas runs a good, efficient, profitable, and useful company. Off the record Andy is the boss of something else. There are those who say that he is the boss of everything else. Some even say it out loud. Andy does not worry about that. Everyone knows that what Andy is boss of is illegal, a racket. Only no one really knows just what that racket is, except that a major part of it is keeping the river-front peaceful. Pappas gets the ships unloaded in peace and quiet – for a price. The general guess is that Andy has all, or a piece, of just about every illegal enterprise there is. Of course, the true occupation of Pappas, the true occupation of any boss like Andy, is extortion. That is what a racket is – any activity, legal or illegal, where a major part of the method of operation is fear. Whether it is heroin or just asphalt that the racketeer sells, his main selling method is fear, the fear of harm; extortion.
    ‘Hello, Andy,’ I said. I nodded to Marty. I wanted her to leave. Andy smiled.
    ‘Let the lady stay, Danny. I’ve seen her work. She’s too good.’ Andy has a nice voice, low and even, and his speech is very good for a boy who only barely got out of high school. Everyone says that he took lessons, but I remember that he always had a good voice. ‘Besides, we’re old friends, right, Danny?’
    ‘You don’t have a friend, Andy,’ I said. ‘You’re the enemy of everybody.’
    Pappas nodded. He did not stop smiling. It was an old story with us.
    ‘You don’t soften up, do you, Danny?’
    ‘You never change, do you, Andy?’ I said. ‘This isn’t a social visit.’
    I nodded towards the lamp-post a few feet away from the table of the tiny sidewalk café. It was one of those old gaslight lamp-posts O. Henry’s has put up for atmosphere. Leaning against it now, pretending to watch the little-girl tourists pass, was Jake Roth. Roth was not watching girls; he was watching me. Andy Pappas never carries a gun, everyone says, but Roth goes to bed with a shoulder holster under his pyjama top. Roth is Andy’s top persuader. Across the street I saw Max Bagnio. Little Max is the second-best gun, and now was trying to read a newspaper in front of a stationery store by spelling out the words one at a time. Actually, Bagnio was watching me in the store window. And just up the block towards Sheridan Square I saw Andy’s long, black car parked in front of a Japanese knick-knack shop. The driver sat behind the wheel with his cap down and his arms folded. I did not need to guess that a gun was hidden under those folded arms.
    Pappas had followed my glances at his men. He shrugged.
    ‘You said it, Danny. Everyone is my enemy. A man has to protect himself.’
    ‘That isn’t exactly what I said, Andy, but let it pass. What’s on your mind?’ I asked.
    ‘Drink up first, Danny. You’re my friend, if I’m not yours. The lady seems thirsty.’
    ‘I don’t drink with you Andy, and neither does the lady,’ I said. ‘Those days went a long time ago.’
    I know I go too far with Pappas. There was that glint in his cold eyes. They are dead, Andy’s eyes. The cold eyes of a dead man who long ago stopped asking himself what he really wanted or why he was living. I have seen eyes like that on generals. Perhaps too much looking at death can kill a man’s inside. It’s