Garden of Beasts

made inquiries and heard you were being paid five hundred dollars to . . .” Gordon hesitated.
    Touch off.
    “. . . eliminate Malone tonight.”
    “Like hell I was,” Paul said, laughing. “You got yourself some bum wire. I just went to visit him. Where is he, by the way?”
    Gordon paused. “Mr. Malone will no longer be a threat to the constabulary or the citizens of New York City.”
    “Sounds like somebody owes you five C-notes.”
    Bull Gordon didn’t laugh. “You’re in Dutch, Paul, andyou can’t beat the rap. So here’s what we’re offering. Like they say in those used-Studebaker ads: this’s a one-time-only offer. Take it or leave it. We don’t negotiate.”
    The Senator finally spoke. “Tom Dewey wants you as bad as he wants the rest of the scum on his list.”
    The special prosecutor was on a divine mission to clean up organized crime in New York. Crime boss Lucky Luciano, the Italian Five Families in the city and the Jewish syndicate of Meyer Lansky were his main targets. Dewey was dogged and smart and he was winning conviction after conviction.
    “But he’s agreed to give us first dibs on you.”
    “Forget it. I’m not a stool pigeon.”
    Gordon said, “We’re not asking you to be one. That’s not what this is about.”
    “Then what do you want me to do?”
    A pause for a moment. The Senator nodded toward Gordon, who said, “You’re a button man, Paul. What do you think? We want you to kill somebody.”

Chapter Two
    He held Gordon’s eyes for a moment then he looked at the pictures of the ships on the wall. The Room . . . It had a military feel to it. Like an officers’ club. Paul had liked his time in the army. He’d felt at home there, had friends, had a purpose. That was a good time for him, a simple time—before he came back home and life got complicated. When life gets complicated, bad things can happen.
    “You’re being square with me?”
    “Oh, you bet.”
    With Manielli squinting out a warning to move slowly, Paul reached into his pocket and took out a pack of Chesterfields. He lit one. “Go on.”
    Gordon said, “You’ve got that gym over on Ninth Avenue. Not much of a place, is it?” He asked this of Avery.
    “You been there?” Paul asked.
    Avery said, “Not so swank.”
    Manielli laughed. “Real dive, I’d say.”
    The commander continued, “But you used to be a printer before you got into this line of work. You liked the printing business, Paul?”
    Cautiously Paul said, “Yeah.”
    “Were you good at it?”
    “Yeah, I was good. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”
    “How’d you like to make your whole past go away. Startover. Be a printer again. We can fix it so nobody can prosecute you for anything you’ve done in the past.”
    “And,” the Senator added, “we’ll cough up some bucks too. Five thousand. You can get a new life.”
    Five thousand? Paul blinked. It took most joes two years to earn that kind of money. He asked, “How can you clean up my record?”
    The Senator laughed. “You know that new game, Monopoly? You ever play it?”
    “My nephews have it. I never played.”
    The Senator continued. “Sometimes when you roll the dice you end up in prison. But there’s this card that says ‘Get Out of Jail Free.’ Well, we’ll give you one for real. That’s all you need to know.”
    “You want me to kill somebody? That’s queer. Dewey’d never agree to it.”
    The Senator said, “The special prosecutor hasn’t been informed about why we want you.”
    After a pause he asked, “Who? Siegel?” Of all the current mobsters Bugsy Siegel was the most dangerous. Psychotic, really. Paul had seen the bloody results of the man’s brutality. His tantrums were legendary.
    “Now, Paul,” Gordon said, disdain on his face, “it’d be illegal for you to kill a U.S. citizen. We’d never ask you to do anything like that.”
    “Then I don’t get the angle.”
    The Senator said, “This is more like a wartime situation. You were a soldier. . . .” A glance at Avery, who recited, “First Infantry Division, First American Army, AEF. St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne. You did some serious fighting. Got yourself some medals for marksmanship in the field. Did some hand-to-hand too, right?”
    Paul shrugged. The fat man in the wrinkled white suitsat silently in his corner, hands clasped on the gold handle of his walking stick. Paul held his eye for a minute. Then turned back to the commander. “What’re the