Knock Knock Who's There?

He thought about what Scott had told him. Eight hours a day in this hot truck and the pay off: one hundred and fifty dollars! His mind shifted to all that money waiting for him in the left-luggage locker! $186,000! But when would he get it? Would be ever get it? The organization was now looking for him! That meant hundreds of people throughout the south who had some connection with the Mafia would be warned to look out for him. One never !mew who was employed by the Mafia and who wasn't, but he was certain that there would be always someone in a bar, a cafe, even a garage, a cheap eating-house, a cheap hotel, a motel who might have Mafia connections. When he finally reached Little Creek which Scott had said was where he lived, what was he to do? A sudden stranger! Even with his beard, he would be investigated. He was sure, knowing how the Mafia worked, there would be a reward out for him. He looked at the sleeping man lolling in the corner of the cab. Very few brains there, he thought. An individualist: a man who had worked on his own because he couldn't submit to discipline. Johnny understood that, but because of this failing, this man had got himself into a rat race that made him less than a slave.

Johnny switched his mind from his own troubles and thought about what Scott had told him. He got up at 05.00, loaded up crates of shrimps, then belted up the freeway, four hours there, four hours back, got home at 19.00, in time for dinner, a look at the telly and then bed: six days a week for one hundred and fifty dollars! At the present cost of living, what did that mean?

Suddenly, he could smell the sea. He sniffed at it the way a man will sniff at an outrageously expensive perfume. The Sea! His mind flashed to a white, beautiful forty-five footer . . . his! Once he had got all this money, waiting for him in the left-luggage locker, he would go to some ship builder and talk boats. His heart beat excitedly as he imagined the moment when he had signed the papers, paid the money, then walked on the gang plank and on to the deck. His! Then he thought of the danger: going back, getting those two heavy bags out of the left-luggage locker, then getting out of town. Not yet! He would have to be patient. He would have to remain in hiding until the heat had really cooled off. Patience! Discipline! He would do it. Suddenly he felt confident. Sooner or later, Massino and the Mafia Dons would get bored trying to find him. He would keep in touch with Sammy who would alert him of any danger. When Sammy finally told him that the heat was off, then he would go back, but not before.

Ahead of him, he saw the signpost: Eastling, and he slowed down. Reaching across, he shook Scott awake.

"Here we are," he said. "Eastling."

"Pull over and stop," Scott said, shaking himself awake. "Phew! Seems only five minutes." He dug sleep out of his eyes. "I'll take her."

They changed seats.

"Would there be somewhere for me to sleep?" Johnny asked.

Scott looked at him.

"I've a spare room: cost you five bucks a day and all found. Want it?"

"You have yourself a deal," Johnny said.

Scott engaged gear and drove the truck on to the freeway.

While Johnny was driving Scott's truck, Massino was holding a meeting in his office. Present were Carlo Tanza and Andy Lucas.

Massino had just explained to Tanza that the lead they had on this old guy Giovanni Fuselli was a washout. It was only with difficulty that Massino contained his rage and he kept glaring at Andy who had been responsible for this waste of time.

"What we've got to remember is Johnny didn't have the money with him when he left town," Massino said. "It was Andy's idea he was working with someone else and we thought it could be this Fuselli, but it wasn't. Toni and Ernie are sure Fuselli is clean. So . . . one of two things. Either Johnny was working with someone we don't know about or he panicked and left the money stashed somewhere in town." He looked at Tanza. "What do you think?"

"There's a third possibility," Tanza said. "He could have put those two bags on a Greyhound bus. The station is right across the street. No problem there for him. You buy a ticket, stick the bags on a bus and they'll deliver to any Greyhound station on their route. I know that's what I would have done. I wouldn't have been nutty enough to stash the money here where I would have to come back for it, and from what I know about Bianda, he's far from nutty."

"You don't think he was working with someone?" Tanza shrugged.

"Doesn't seem likely. He's a loner . . . the only friend he seems to have had is this smoke, Sammy the Black and he wouldn't have the guts to steal chewing gum from a kid. Yeah, seems to me that's what Bianda did. Grabbed the money, rushed it across to the bus station, got the bags on a bus, knowing they would be delivered to await arrival, then he went back to his whore, found he had lost his medal, flipped his lid and beat it out of town."