Free Hit and The Marksman by Brian Garfield Page A

a few minutes, Pete.” He smiled amiably.
    DeAngelo’s mouth pinched together, looking like a surgeon’s wound, but finally, giving no acknowledgment that he had heard the dismissal, he turned on his heel and left us. Madonna, for a brief moment, scowled toward the pool, and I knew why: DeAngelo had committed a faux pas. It was against the rules for the Cosa Nostra to let an outsider know about any division of opinion within the organization; that kind of knowledge could be dangerous—it could give outsiders a chance to set member against member.
    The glass door slid shut. I figured at least one bodyguard was watching us but it was hardly worth staring to find out. I returned my attention to Madonna and said, “Look, if you really think I’m it, then you’ve not only picked the wrong horse, you’ve got the wrong track. Concentrating on Joanne Farrell and Simon Crane will never get your belongings back for you.”
    â€œWhat is it you want me to do?” he inquired with his friendly businessman’s smile.
    â€œLift the heat,” I replied promptly. “You’ve got that girl scared to death.”
    â€œWell, now,” he said, steepling his hands together and tipping his head back to look at me, “for the sake of argument we’ll assume we both know what you’re talking about. Understand, I admit nothing. But let’s you and me set up what the lawyers call a hypothetical case. Assume I’ve got some interest in some items that might be missing from somebody’s safe. Assume there’s been a lot of sensational publicity about somebody’s murder, and there’s going to be more publicity, and I don’t enjoy that at all—in fact you can assume somebody’s busy right now, planting news items about how the deceased must have had personal enemies from back east or something. Assume, in other words, I don’t want any more rumbles. You follow?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œOkay. So we’re prepared to be nice and quiet and civilized about it. If you turn in the missing items within twenty-four hours, or prove you and Mrs. Farrell couldn’t possibly have taken it, then you can assume I’d be willing to forget the whole beef.”
    He smiled. I suppose he meant it to be an engaging smile.
    I felt dismal but not surprised; it had never been anything better than a long shot.
    He looked at his watch, shot his cuff, and said pleasantly, “It’s pushing noon. I’d be willing to go the few extra minutes—call it noon tomorrow, your deadline.”
    â€œAnd if I can’t produce?”
    He shrugged his meaty shoulders and picked at a hairy ear. “I don’t throw raw meat on the floor, Crane, it’s not my style. I leave it to your imagination. I only mention there are friends of mine who don’t mind putting the screws on people, hard, to find out what they know and what they did with stolen property.”
    He didn’t have to spell that out. I said, in a lower voice, “You can’t get blood from stones. She doesn’t know anything—I don’t know anything.”
    â€œThen all you’ve got to do is prove it.”
    â€œHow many people do you know who can prove where they were between two and five in the morning?”
    â€œToo bad you’re not married,” he answered, smiling slightly. Then he tipped himself up on one elbow and said, “If some of the fellows decide they have to put the screws to you two, they wouldn’t leave you around alive afterward to testify about it. You understand that?”
    â€œI understand it,” I said, “but I can’t buy it. You haven’t got enough evidence to justify it with the organization. You haven’t got any evidence at all, period. I know it wouldn’t have to stand up in court, but you’d have to show something.”
    â€œMaybe if you two were members of my organization. But you’re not.