"Well, because Clayton came here to work at opening a San Francisco
branch, and because he brought the _Liber Veneficarum_ along, he got to
know Bruce. In fact, they came to be on very friendly terms. Clayton is
genial enough, if you don't get in his way. Uncle Luigi, being somewhat
anti-American, insisted that Signor Clayton had an unfair advantage,
having started as a wealthy man with lots of dollars. That didn't fit
with Clayton's own rags-to-riches story. Bruce got indignant, checked
up, and established that Clayton had indeed been almost penniless
when he came to Italy. And Luigi, as I mentioned before, had also
happened to give Bruce some facts regarding crime, corruption, and the
syndicates.
"I don't know just when Clayton learned about all this discussion.
Perhaps a week ago last Sunday, when he saw Bruce over in the City and
refused to give Guido a job. Clayton admits Bruce got mad; perhaps he
said things then. Clayton smoothed his feathers and agreed to interview
Guido next day. Maybe Clayton was already spinning a plan.
"Or it may have been amicable. Bruce had no reason to suspect Clayton
of anything. We'd have known it otherwise; Bruce was constitutionally
incapable of keeping a secret. Maybe in the love feast following his
explosion, he blurted out how he had triumphantly refuted Uncle Luigi's
sneers at the Horatio Alger rise of Gerald Clayton, and planned to send
Uncle Luigi all the facts and demand an apology. At the same time,
Bruce could have spoken about the syndicates. He was just naïve enough
to have warned Clayton, who spent half his time overseas, to look out
for the mobs! Well, one way or another, Clayton drew him out, doubtless
in that conference they had after Guido was dismissed. Clayton was
alerted."
It was peculiar, thought Kintyre, that he could talk so coolly while
the horror was on him. But he had the horror locked away for this short
time, he heard it speaking but did not really feel it.
"He could have pumped both brothers on Monday," nodded Yamamura. "Bruce
in particular, but he would have seen how Guido might be made into a
decoy--uh-huh. So he called a Chicago mob. But--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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