Memories Of Another Day Part 49

"Then what is it?"

*'I would like a son who feels as I feel. Who dreams the way I used to when I was a boy, who senses the beauty in people and things around him, for whom living doesn't have to be a series of logical explanations."

''Couldn't a girl feel like that?"

He smiled. "I suppose so. But it will be a boy."

''Will you be unhappy if it is a girl?"

"No."

She was silent for a moment. "It will be a boy." She got out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror. "My stomach isn't very big, but my b.r.e.a.s.t.s are."

He smiled. "Beautiful."

"You like big b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"

He laughed. "I like your b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

She reached for a robe. "I'll go downstairs and get breakfast started.''

"Mamie will do it."

"I like to do breakfast for you. She does everything else."

He walked over and put his arms around her. "Not everything,"

"I hope not," she said, kissing his cheek.

He slipped his hands inside her robe, cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were strong and heavy in his fingers; he felt her nipples hardening and the corresponding surge in his loins. "Come back to bed."

She felt herself flowing toward him. "You'll be late for work."

He pulled the robe down from her shoulders, exposing the milky whiteness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He lowered his head to them, his tongue licking at the ch"cle of her flushed aureole. "Not if you let Mamie get the breakfast."

Her hand found his ready strength as they moved back to the bed. They sank back on the bed, her legs climbmg around his waist as she guided him into her.

''Daniel," she whispered, her eyes half closed. ''It's so good. So good. So good."

Only Junior was at the table when she came into the kitchen. "Good morning, Maggie Mother," he said, smiling.

"Morning, D.J.," she said, smiling back as she went to the stove and helped herself to a cup of coffee. She came back to the table and sat down. "Your father gone to work?"

He nodded. "He's dropping Mamie off at the market."

She sipped at her coffee. "You're going back to school on Monday?"

He laughed. "If you two lovebirds can be trusted to manage alone."

"D.J.," she said in protest. She had begun calling him that after they met. Short for Daniel Junior, it sounded better to her than Junior alone. He retaliated by calling her Maggie Mother, but there was a genuine liking between them, a respect for each other's love of the man that bound them together. "He didn't sleep well last night."

D.J. looked at her.

"Something's worrying him," she said. "Ever since last week, he's taken to wearing a gun in a shoulder holster under his jacket."

"He say anything to you?"

She shook her head. "No. If I ask, he says he's always done that."

"That's true. I remember seeing that ever since I was a kid."

"What's going on, D.J.? I'm not a child, no matter what he thinks, I'm his wife."

"Father doesn't confide in me either." He thought for a moment. "He's made a lot of enemies coming out in support of the U.M.W. after the riots and trouble in Jellico a couple of months ago."

*'I>o you think they would threaten him?"

DJ. shook his head. *'I shouldn't think so. That's the kind of war he's been in all his life."

''What could it be, then?"

DJ. looked at her. ''Now you've got me worried."

"I didn't mean to do that," she said. The tears came to her eyes. "I wors.h.i.+p him. You know I do. He's the most wonderful man I've ever known."

He spoke awkwardly. "Maybe it's nothing. He's always carried a gun. Maybe we're creating something that doesn't exist."

She was crying now. Softly. Quietly. "I want to help him. I want to talk to him. But I don't know how. He knows so much more than I do. I don't know what to say."

He reached across the table and patted her hand gently. "You jirst relax, Maggie Mother. Getting yourself all upset isn't going to do the baby any good."

"You're just like your father," she sniffed, the beginnings of a smile tugging at her lips. "That's just what he would say."

"Maybe that is what he would say," D.J. admitted. "But I'm afraid I'm not just like him, though I wish I were."

Daniel parked the car in the alley behind the warehouse, walked up the rickety back stairs and knocked on the iron fire door. Three times quickly, then one knock.

The door opened quickly. A heavy set man stood there looking at him. "Mr. Huggins?"

Daniel nodded.

"This way."

Daniel followed the man through the long empty warehouse, its storage bins gathering nothing but dust, then up another staircase at the far side of the building. He went through another steel door and now they were in an office. At a long table were a number of men and women sorting slips of paper. They didn't look up as the two men walked past them into another room. Here too was a long table around which were gathered men and women. Only at this table they weren't sorting slips of paper, they were counting money. Bills and coins, the coins set in a machine that rolled them into neat, banklike stacks. They were ignored as they continued through into the next room.

Lansky was seated behind a desk in the barely furnished white-walled room. There were several nondescript chairs and couches in the room. The other two men in the room were the bodyguards Daniel had met when he visited Lansky in Florida. At a gesture from Lansky, they left the room, leaving him alone with Daniel. "Pull up a chair," Lansky said.

Daniel sat down in front of the desk. He didn't speak.

''You've done a good job," Lansky said. ''I think this is the first time union members ever got their fair share of insurance and pension-fund benefits. They're so used to getting screwed by their officials I wonder if they really understand what you're doing for them."

Daniel remained silent.

''We haven't done too badly either," Lansky said. "Though some of the insurance companies complain to me that you drive too hard a bargain."

"Let them b.i.t.c.h," Daniel said. "There's enough there so that n.o.body has to steal."

Lansky looked at him; he seemed puzzled. "You're a strange man. Big Dan. As far as I can see, there's been nothing in it for you except hard work. Your loan repayments are made on schedule, the commissions go into the union funds, you draw nothing down except your regular salary, your expense account is minimal. Where's your payoff?"

Daniel smiled. Lansky evidently had checked everything. "Money isn't everything. I'm an idealist."

Lansky laughed. "Ideals, shmideals. Everybody likes money."

''I didn't say I didn't. I only said it wasn't everything. You have ail the money you need, Mr. Lansky. Why do you keep working?"

Lansky looked at him thoughtfully. He didn't answer.

''Why don't you retire and just enjoy the rest of your life?"

"It's not that easy," Lansky said. "I have obligations."

"Money can pay them off. It has to be more than that. There is one thing you don't want to give up."

"What do you think that is?" Lansky asked.

"Power," Daniel said simply.

Lansky stared at him for a moment. "And that is what you want?"

"Yes. But I won't pay for it at the expense of the people I'm supposed to represent."

"Then how do you expect to get it?"

"Simply. I make deals with the devils."

"Isn't that betraying your trust?"

"No. The way I see it, I minimize their capacity for evil. Because of what I did the last six months, more than six hundred thousmid union members are getting twenty-percent greater benefit from their insurance and pension funds. And if I hadn't kept pressing, the U.M.W. would never be opening those ten hospitals in Virginia and Kentucky next June."

"But isn't that helping to perpetuate the devils in power?"

"I'm not a policeman, Mr. Lansky. I didn't elect them to their positions. It's up to the union members themselves to decide who they want to represent them." Daniel took a cigar from his pocket and put it in his mouth. He didn't light it. He looked at it thoughtfully. "I've spent my life in the labor movement, Mr. Lansky. I've seen all the injustices. On both sides. And I've come to the conclusion that I can't improve it from outside. The only way to improve the system is to work within it."

Lansky looked at him. ''I don't mind if you smoke." He waited until Daniel had lighted his cigar. 'Then I suppose you wouldn't be interested in floating five million dollars a year through your pension funds even if you were to get a five-percent commission on it for yourself personally?''

''You're talking about the money out there?" Daniel jerked his head at the door behind him.

"Yes."

"You supposed right, Mr. Lansky."

Lansky was silent for a moment. "But you wouldn't object to working with any union even if the A.F.L.-C.LO. were to expel them for corruption?"

"You're talking about the Teamsters, the Bakery Workers, the Laundry Workers specifically?"

"About them. And the Building and Maintenance Workers and the LL.A., as well as others. I'm talking about two and a half million more union members who might within the next few years be looking for a new home."

"Only on the same conditions that I'm working now. I have no intention of starting another labor organization to counter the A.F.L.-C.I.O. As I said before, my purpose is to gain more benefits for the working people by working with their elected officials, not controlling them."

Lansky smiled. "Remember the story. The Devil and Daniel Webster? Are you sure your name isn't Daniel Webster Huggins?"

Daniel laughed. "No. It's Daniel Boone."

"And I am not the Devil," Lansky said softly. "You don't have to plead with me for the soul of labor,"

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Lansky," Daniel said. "I was beginning to feel concerned,"

"You've been making enemies. Big Dan," Lansky said, "Some of the people you've been helping the most are beginning to resent the appeal you're gaining among their own unions."

"I've been making enemies all my life, Mr. Lan-sky," Daniel said. "I've learned to live with it."

"So have I, Big Dan," Lansky said softly. "And I would like to suggest that you take some of the same precautions that I do to stay alive."

Daniel was silent. This was the point of the meeting. After a moment, he got to his feet. Some whisperings had already reached him, which was why he had taken to wearing the gun again. In a strange way, he was glad that the threat was not coming from the little man in front of him. He felt a strange kins.h.i.+p with him. They were both outcasts of a sort. "Thank you, Mr. Lansky," he said. "I'll do what I can."

Lansky smiled and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the desk. The men came back into the room. The meeting was over.

'That's your job," Hoffa said. ''Now, how do we doit?"

"You want an answer right now?"

"d.a.m.n right I do," Hoffa snapped. "We been collectin' this money for almost a year now, and there's over ten million dollars layin' there in the bank doin' nothin'."

Daniel smiled. "The money beginning to b.u.m a hole in your pocket, Jimmy?"

For the first time, Jimmy laughed. "You better believe it. We got some propositions in front of us that can make a lot of money."

"What kind of propositions?"

"A couple of old friends of mine from Detroit are very big in Vegas. They can use some buildin' capital. They pay big premiums for money because the banks are very sticky with 'em."

Daniel nodded, remembering his conversation with Lansky last month. It made sense. The little man's connections went far and wide. "Sounds reasonable. But you're going to have to diversify your investment portfolio. You can't just go into things like that. How's the insurance package working out?"

"It's okay," Jimmy said. "They gave my friend the exclusive agency, so everything's in order."

"Glad to hear that," Daniel said. "Supposing you give us all the information you have available, and we'll get back to you with a workable plan within the week."

"No later?" Hoffa said.