The Scarlet Ruse Read Online Free PDF Page B

responded, his voice rising with exasperation. "Look. Okay. I wanted to tell somebody. I wanted to brag. We had a lot of time and nothing to do, and neither one of us figured we had a chance of getting out of there once it was daylight and they could use those goddamn rifles."
    "Wouldn't you like other people to know?"
    He calmed down. "Sure I would. But it would cost me. I get nibbled pretty good. The unions, the assessments, the graft, the public servants on the take, the gifts you make like insurance premiums. But there's restraint. They have the idea that if the bite gets too big, some very important muscle is going to come down here and straighten some people out. If they knew it was just Willy Nucci, owner and operator, there would be a big grin, and they'd smack their lips and move in very tight and close. I don't have much margin to play with. I've got sixteen years invested. The books look good right now. Last season was good, and this one will be better. You might as well know this too. I'm going to try to move it this season. I can come out well. And cut out of here. How come I always run off at the mouth to you, McGee?"
    "I win friends and influence people."
    He frowned at his private piece of ocean. "You could have used what you know, but you haven't. Except you use it to leverage me."
    "Not often."
    "I make this the third time. In three years. Maybe this time I can't help you."
    "The man is big and broad and suntanned. Officially or unofficially, he's in a penthouse at the Seascape. He moves around with some fetch-and-carry people. Frank Sprenger."
    Silence. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked up at murky stars.
    "Willy?"
    "I don't know how much you know about the way things are. For all I know you think that soft, romantic crock of shit, The Godfather, was for real."
    "I thought it was real, like a John Wayne western."
    "There's hope for you. All the action is divided up. There are independents, and when they get big enough, they are absorbed or smashed. There are three neutral areas. Places where anybody can go who is part of the national action and not get pressured. Sanctuaries. Miami, Vegas and Honolulu. There are hits sometimes, but outsiders, amateurs. Discipline situations. 'Do not crap in your own nest' is the motto. There's enough for everybody in the sanctuaries. That's how come you have maybe nine different groups from elsewhere, owning lots of pieces of property and pieces of action along the Beach here. Like there are twelve groups operating side by side in Vegas. Other areas are strictly territorial. That's how come all the trouble in New York lately. Now suppose every one of the nine organizations operating here sent down their own bag men and bankers and enforcers? It would get too hairy. People would start pushing. People would push back. It would stop being a safe place for the topside people to come and relax, and it would hurt trade. So there's been a working arrangement for maybe thirty years. The local group has their own operations, like a franchise area, but you can see how it wouldn't be fair to cut the out-of-town groups out of the picture entirely because a certain substantial piece of business comes through their owning certain situations here."
    "Example?"
    "Okay, say that Minneapolis has substantial points in a couple of hotels and owns a steak house franchise and a taxi company. The local group will be scoring from every part of the operations. Hookers and games and drugs at the hotels on top of linen service, union dues, kickbacks, dozens of angles. And they will work the steak houses and the taxi company pretty good too. So it works almost like a money-room skim. The extra costs of doing business get built into the books as legitimate expenses, and then out of the unrecorded cash flow, an equal amount gets bundled up and couriered to Minneapolis. The profit is minimized, which cuts taxes, and the rebate is under the table, ready for more investment."
    "And somebody has