midnight, in an all night cafe in the american capital. the lights of the state department building could be seen from it, through the trees in the great park that surrounded the imperial palace (the former “white house”) and through the whole conglomeration of imperial headquarters buildings.
outside, it was snowing, but lightly. the storm that had raged for almost two days had passed.
an oddly assorted pair sat in a booth beside the window, sipping coffee from cracked porcelain cups.
“i swear you can trust me, mister brown. i hate the whole stinking human race, and will do anything to betray it.” the speaker was pablo “the piranha” perkins, a former messenger and errand boy for the west side mob, which had been recently ground to powder and scattered to the four winds by the machine-gunning minions of attorney general moran’s “special squad”.
his companion, who had paid for the two cups of coffee and two doughnuts, was “mister brown”, an individual who had come out of nowhere, and whose purpose pablo could not figure out. he had paid pablo a few dollars over the last couple of days,to follow a few people, in what pablo suspected were meaningless jobs just to see if pablo would do what he was paid to do.
now, mister brown had bought pablo a cup of coffee and a doughnut and seemed to be leading up to something real, maybe even something big.
mister brown could have been any age, and looked like a model in a magazine ad for men’s suits, except that he had thick glasses that almost covered his face.
the part of the face that pablo that pablo could see never moved. his lips did not seem to move.
“nobody said anything about trusting you, perkins. i just expressed some skepticism as to whether to were up to the challenge of doing this particular job.”
“i’ll do my best, mister brown,” said pablo. “honest, i will.”
mister brown laughed. the laugh seemed to come from the back of his head. “i am afraid that where i come from, that is not good enough.”
“i’m sorry.” pablo did not know what else to say.
“well. why don’t you elucidate exactly why you hate the whole stinking race, and are eager to betray it.”
pablo was not sure he knew what “elucidate” meant, but he replied, ‘because of what they done to us! the west side mob was the greatest bunch of guys that ever was! we were a band of brothers! and we gave good service! we gave the people what they wanted! and that skunk moran and his goons had to go and bust us up, put my brothers in the river and up the river.
it just wasn’t right! and for what? just to get some votes from little old ladies and archbishops out in the countryside planting flowers on their green lawns? what about the people here in town? the little people who do their jobs and just want to smoke a little dope or take a shot at the numbers? what about them? and not just shut the mob down but with machine guns? it wasn’t right…”. pablo was out of breath, and he noticed the counterman, the only other person in the place, looking at him from across the room with a little smile on his face.
“tell me, mister brown asked pablo, “were you ever one of the little people, as you call them, who just do their jobs?”
“um… not exactly, things didn’t work out that way for me. i wasn’t too good at school. i got especially confused by numbers.”
“another thing,” mister brown continued, “you blame mister moran for the demise of your beloved gang. what about president capone, for whom mister moran works? don’t you hold him responsible too?”
“no way! big al didn’t know anything about it! big al is a man of the people! he loves his people! it was all on that rat moran!”
“i see. or maybe i don’t see. be that as it may, here is the job i have for you.” mister brown reached into the inside pocket of his perfectly tailored coat and took out a small photograph. he pushed it across the booth to pablo. “i want you to follow this person.”
pablo picked up the photo. it was a picture of the professor, a very clear shot, of the professor standing n the corner waving a copy of the federal -democrat in the air.
“he’s just a little kid!” pablo exclaimed. “you want me to follow a little kid?”
“do you want the job or not?”
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