Gangway! by Brian Garfield Donald E. Westlake Page B

were the only two people still on the street. Gabe narrowed his eyes to pierce the five-block downhill distance. Finally he recognized the two figures.
        It was Ittzy Herz's mother dragging Ittzy across the street by the ear.
        Mme. Herz was talking. Evidently she was talking so loudly that she didn't hear the fire engine.
        It filled Gabe's vision, blocking Mme. and Ittzy from his view. The fire engine was obviously going to trample them both.
        But then the dust began to settle in the engine's wake and Ittzy and his mother were still walking across the street, unperturbed; Mrs. Herz continued to drag Ittzy by the ear and yell at him.
        Gabe shook his head in renewed amazement and went on down to the Golden Rule Saloon.
        Inside, Vangie and Francis were at the usual table-the one just big enough for three glasses and six elbows. Gabe threaded a path to them and sat.
        They were having coffee and Francis was complaining about it. "They brew it up six weeks in advance and pour some molasses in and, my dears, they simply let it sit. And then they drop a horse-shoe into it, and if the horse-shoe sinks the coffee isn't strong enough."
        Gabe adjusted his elbows on the table. "What do you expect from this burg? Real coffee?"
        Vangie put on her arch look. "And just what's wrong with this burg?"
        "It's too far from New York."
        "Will you forget New York?"
        "No."
        Vangie turned to Francis, who was touching the surface of his coffee with a doubting fingertip. "Francis," she said, "you used to live in New York. You like San Francisco better, don't you?"
        Francis looked up. "Well, I do, yes, I suppose," he said. He licked coffee from his fingertip, made a face, and gave Gabe a quick worried look. His brow furrowed in his obvious effort to please everybody. "But different people are, uh, well, different. Gabe might rather…"
        "Gabe," Vangie interrupted fiercely, "could do just fine in San Francisco. He could make a million dollars here."
        "Yeah," Gabe said. "That's just what I'm going to do. I want to talk to you about that, Francis."
        But Vangie wouldn't let the conversation be changed. "This is a city of great opportunity," she said, leaning closer to Gabe and holding tight to his forearm on the table. "A man with your brains, Gabe, why, you could own this city if you wanted."
        "I don't want."
        "But…"
        Gabe made one more effort to get his point across. "The city I want to own," he said, "is New York. All I want from this burg is enough cash money so I can go back to New York in style."
        Francis said, "Why did Twill throw… that is, why did you have to leave?"
        "Aagh," Gabe said in disgust, "the fat son of a bitch said the neighborhood needed a little shaking up. Said they were forgetting who the boss was, some of them. So I had to go out and shake things up a little. Or down."
        "Down?" Vangie said.
        "I shook somebody down. A pushcart peddler. I mean, you got to keep these people in their places, otherwise they start thinking maybe you're not as tough as you say you are."
        Francis said, "So you shook down a pushcart peddler. What did you do to him?"
        "Hardly a thing. I just looked fierce and took a little kick-back from him for allowing him the privilege of working on Twill's turf."
        "Well what went wrong then?"
        Gabe threw up his hands. "How was I to know he was the wrong peddler to push? How was I to know his nephew was one of Twill's ward bosses? The guy had no right pushing a cart. I mean if he was my dear old uncle and I was the ward boss, would I let him push a crummy cart around the streets? I ask you."
        "And so this ward boss complained to Twill?"
        "Complained? I guess maybe he complained. He wanted them to dump me off a pier."
        "But one gathers they didn't."
        Gabe let his lip curl.