"Oh?" said Kintyre. He should be on his way soon, he thought, and use
the short time until then to be good to Margery. But a certain sense
of the chase was on him. Trained to scan reading matter, he found the
passage he wanted in a few minutes. Bruce's anger spoke through a cage
of civilized words:
"... I am not one of our radical rightists, but I too resent this
eternal meddling which is the modern idea of government. It would not
surprise me if Clayton profited originally on the free exchange, when
the postwar official rates were so ludicrously unreal. Who didn't, in
those days? But if so, I say he did you all a service! I swear you
could double your production over there simply by abolishing those
medieval frontiers and restrictions, and putting the customs men to
useful jobs!"
Luigi, after the inevitable reference to American tariffs, wrote: "The
problem is more serious and urgent than you understand. One hears less
about it than about your similar troubles, but we in the old countries
are having our own postwar crime wave. And some of these syndicates
are--not mere black markets, not mere smugglers of an occasional
perfume bottle--but dealers in narcotics, prostitution, gun-running,
extortion, blackmail, counterfeiting, corruption, and murder.
"Yes, I blame your government in part. We watch the criminals they
deport to us, but we cannot forbid everyone to come talk to them. There
is influence, there is advice. From the Communists these syndicates
have also learned much, including the cell type of organization. We
can arrest a man here and a man there, but he can only lead us to
a few others. Sometimes we think we have identified an organizing
brain, but it does not always follow that he can be seized. Not even
in this country, where the police have a latitude that I am sure your
Anglo-Saxon mind would be shocked by. I name no names, but now and
again something rises to the surface, a scandal, the corpse of a
young woman who belonged to a proud family, a member of the parliament
seen in dubious places--and nothing comes of it. The newspapers are
forbidden to follow the story to its end; everywhere protecting hands
are reached out.
"Give us time, we will settle with these latter-day _condottieri_.
Meanwhile, I could wish your Clayton were more circumspect in his
choice of friends. He associates somewhat (not very much, to be sure,
and there are business reasons) with a dealer named Dolce. And Dolce
is a hard man from the slums of Naples. One of _his_ associates is the
deported Italian-American criminal chief named--"
Bruce's reply to this was a single explosive line: "And you used to
wring your hands at me about Senator McCarthy!"
Kintyre put the box aside. He had been translating as he read, in a
rapid mutter. "That's the end," he said. "Bruce wrote that two weeks
ago, and I guess the uncle hasn't replied yet."
"Clayton," said Margery on a note of horror. "Do you think maybe--?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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