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All he had to be was calm and professional.
Frankie steered his five-year-old Buick convertible into the left lane, turned left off Kennedy Boulevard onto South Nineteenth Street, crossed Market Street, and then made another left turn into the parking lot at South Nineteenth and Ludlow Street. During the day, you had to pay to park there, but not at this time of night. There were only half a dozen cars in the place. He got out of the car, walked back to Market Street, and turned right.
He caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a storefront window. He was pleased with what he saw. There was nothing about the way he was dressed (in a brown sports coat with an open-collared maroon sports shirt and light brown slacks) that made him look any different from anyone else walking up Market Street to have a couple of drinks and maybe try to get laid. No one would remember him because he was dressed flashy or anything like that.
He pushed open the door to the Inferno Lounge and walked in. There were a couple of people at the bar, and in the back of the place he saw Atchison glad-handing a tableful of people.
“Scotch, rocks,” Frankie said to the bartender as he slid onto a bar stool.
The bartender served the drink, and when Frankie didn’t decorate the mahogany with a bill, said, “Would you mind settling the bill now, sir? I go off at eleven.”
“You mean you’re closing at eleven?”
“The guy who works eleven ’til closing isn’t coming in tonight. The boss, that’s him in the back, will fill in for him,” the bartender said.
“Hell, you had me worried. The night’s just beginning,” Frankie said, and took a twenty—his last—from his wallet and laid it on the bar.
So far, so good. Atchison said tonight was the late-night bartender’s night off.
Frankie pushed a buck from his stack of change toward the bartender and then picked up his drink. There was a mirror behind the bar, but he couldn’t see Atchison in it, and he didn’t want to turn around and make it evident that he was looking for him.
Frankie wondered where whatsername, the wife—Alicia—was, and the partner.
I wonder if I should have fucked her. She’s not bad-looking.
Goddamn it, you know better than that. That would have really been dumb.
“What do you say, Frankie?” Gerry Atchison said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Frankie was a little startled; he hadn’t heard or sensed him coming up.
“Gerry, how are you?”
“I got something for you.”
“I hoped you would. How’s the wife, Gerry?”
Atchison gave him a funny look before replying, “Just fine, thanks. She’ll be here in a little while. She went somewhere with Tony.”
Tony is the partner, Anthony J. Marcuzzi. What did he do, send her off to fuck the partner?
“Tommy,” Gerry Atchison called to the bartender. “Stick around a couple of minutes, will you? I got a little business with Mr. Foley here.”
There was nothing Tommy could do but fake a smile and say sure.
Atchison started walking to the rear of the Inferno. Frankie followed him. They went down a narrow flight of stairs to the basement and then down a corridor to the office.
Atchison closed and bolted the office door behind them, then went to a battered wooden desk, and unlocked the right-side lower drawer. He took from it a small corrugated paper box and laid it on the desk.
He unwrapped dark red mechanic’s wiping towels, exposing three guns. One was a Colt .38 Special caliber revolver with a five-inch barrel. The second was what Frankie thought of as a cowboy gun. In this case it was a Spanish copy of a Colt Peacemaker, six-shot, single-action .44 Russian caliber revolver. The third was a Savage Model 1911 .32 ACP caliber semiautomatic.
“There they are,” he announced.
“Where’s the money?” Frankie asked.
“In the desk. Same drawer.”
“Let’s see it.”
“You don’t trust me?” Atchison asked with a smile, to make like it was a joke.
