Ackie came round the bed like I’d asked him to sit on a rattlesnake. He didn’t look at Katz, but he pinned him just the same. I jerked off Katz’s sock and looked at him. “When you’re ready to talk, just let me know,” I said, “I ain’t in no hurry.”
I took a cigarette from my case and lit it. When the end was glowing, I took it out of my mouth and mashed it on his foot. If Ackie hadn’t been sitting on him, I guess that guy would have bounced off the ceiling. I guess these tough guys are all the same. He just curled up, the sweat jumping out of his face.
“Okay… okay….” he said hoarsely, “I’ll talk.”
“There’s your rattlesnake,” I said to Ackie. “Just yellow right through.”
Ackie stood up and sneered. “Why, you punk,” he said, “we ain’t even started on you yet.”
“Leave him alone, Mo. You talk rough to this guy an’ he’ll take his hair down and weep.”
Katz just lay on the bed glaring at us.
I threw the cigarette into the fireplace. “Come on,” I said, “What’s behind the Mackenzie racket?”
It took some time to drag it out of him, but I got it out of him at last. The set-up was simple once you got the key.
The Mackenzie Fabric Inc. was an enormous clearing-house for stolen goods. It worked like this: with the big imports from China and England of clothes and silks, all kinds of stolen articles were smuggled in the bales. In the same way articles stolen in America could be shipped out to the various continental agencies representing Mackenzie Fabrics abroad.