The Bone Yard by Don Pendleton Page A

The gun was part of it, he knew. And the layout of the office helped. No windows.
    He had been expecting Paulie Vaccarelli's knock, and even so, it made him jump involuntarily. Spinoza gripped the padded arms of his swivel chair, willing himself to relax with an effort.
    "Come ahead," he ordered.
    The houseman stepped inside, the door ajar behind him and his body sealing off the opening. His rugged face seemed out of balance now with a bulky bandage on his cheek across the wound he received from flying window glass.
    Spinoza wondered if he would ever stand before another open window totally at ease, without feeling fear in the pit of his stomach.
    Paulie's voice cut through his private thoughts, a welcome interruption at the moment.
    "Abe's here."
    Spinoza cleared his throat to rout the squeak.
    "Okay. Thanks, Paulie."
    The houseman backed out and a moment later Abe Bernstein entered. To Spinoza he was moving like a little boy expecting trouble from his grade-school principal. Hell, everyone knew it must have been a hundred frigging years since Bernstein was in school. He looked like some cartoonist's notion of Methuselah, standing there impassively watching Frank through his wire-rimmed spectacles.
    Spinoza did not know exactly how old Bernstein was — a very cautious estimate would place him somewhere in his early eighties — but whatever it was, he looked his age. The thinning hair was frosty white and Bernstein's tailored suit could not disguise the thickening around his waist, the slight droop to his shoulders. He still carried himself pretty well for his age, but the years had carved deep furrows in his face beneath the sunlamp tan and added on some surplus chins. The old man used to be some kind of hot shit in his day, when it was booze from Canada that brought the bucks instead of grass from Mexico and coke from South America. The frigging Purple Gang, for crying out loud. What was that, some kind of Jewish ethnic humor? Spinoza felt like laughing to himself. Those bad-assed Jews had ruled the roost around Detroit — until they ran into the Brotherhood. It did not take them long to cut and run when they came face-to-face with bold and bad Sicilians.
    Purple Gang, my ass, Spinoza thought. More like the Yellow Gang. And where were they now? Filling bone orchards back east, most of them. A few survivors had retired into obscurity or lived, like Bernstein, on the sufferance of the Brotherhood.
    Manhattan owned Abe Bernstein body, soul, and diamond pinky ring — the whole nine yards. Spinoza broke the silence, speaking as he would to a subordinate, his voice and manner vaguely condescending.
    "Abe, I need your help."
    "Whatever I can do," the old man answered.
    "We've got some company coming in. A lot of company. They're landing at McCarran in."
    "Oh..." he made a show of consulting his Rolex, "let's call it ninety minutes."
    Spinoza met the old man's eyes and dropped his bomb.
    "They're going to need some rooms."
    "How many?" Bernstein asked.
    "All of 'em."
    Abe's smile faltered, freezing at half-mast.
    "You're joking, right?"
    Spinoza shook his head, eyes never leaving Bernstein's face.
    "I've never been more serious."
    That did it for the smile. Old Abe was glowering at him now across the desk.
    "It's Friday night. We're almost full, Frank."
    "So?"
    "So, that's three hundred fifty rooms with paying guests. We can't put all those people on the street. You can't need all those rooms."
    Spinoza shrugged, enjoying the game now.
    "You're right. They'll only need a third of that. Fact is, I want an empty house."
    A hesitation, Bernstein judging just how far he dared go.
    "Why's that, Frank?"
    Spinoza allowed himself a frown although he felt like laughing in the old man's face.
    "I don't owe you any explanations, Abe. But since you ask, our visitors are going to need their privacy." He paused, dragging it out to get the maximum effect from his pronouncement. "It's a head party, Abe. We're going hard."
    "I see."
    His tone