The Expendables

"Really, Mr. Carmen," I said, "this isn't the sort of thing you discuss with a total stranger. I'm not a doctor--not of medicine, anyway--or a lawyer."

"They can't help me. I need an operator in your line."

"I work for the United States government. I can't become involved in anything illegal."

Carmen smoothed down the front of his too-tight midnight blue suit and touched the diamond sticking in his silver tie. "You can't, Professor Venetti? Ever hear of the Mafia?"

"I've heard of it," I said uneasily. "An old fraternal organization something like the Moose or Rosicrucians, founded in Sicily. It allegedly controls organized crime in the U.S. But that is a responsibility-eluding myth that honest Italian-Americans are stamping out. We don't even like to see the word in print."

"I can understand honest Italian-Americans feeling that way. But guys like me know the Mafia is still with it. We can put the squeeze on marks like you pretty easy."

You don't have to tell even a third generation American about the Mafia. Maybe that was the trouble. I had heard too much and for too long. All the stories I had ever heard about the Mafia, true or false, built up an unendurable threat.

"All right, I'll try to help you, Carmen. But ... that is, you didn't kill any of these people?"

He snorted. "I haven't killed anybody since early 1943."

"Please," I said weakly. "You needn't incriminate yourself with me."

"I was in the Marines," Carmen said hotly. "Listen, Professor, these aren't no Prohibition times. Not many people get made for a hit these days. Mother, most of these bodies they keep ditching at my club haven't been murdered by anybody. They're accident victims. Rumbums with too much anti-freeze for a summer's day, Spanish-American War vets going to visit Teddy in the natural course of events. Harry Keno just stows them at my place to embarrass me. Figures to make me lose my liquor license or take a contempt before the Grand Jury."

"I don't suppose you could just go to the police--" I saw the answer in his eyes. "No. I don't suppose you could."

"I told you once, Professor, but I'll tell you again. I have to get rid of these bodies they keep leaving in my kitchen. I can take 'em and throw them in the river, sure. But what if me or my boys are stopped en route by some tipped badge?"

"Quicklime?" I suggested automatically.

"What are you talking about? Are you sure you're some kind of scientist? Lime doesn't do much to a stiff at all. Kind of putrifies them like...."

"I forgot," I admitted. "I'd read it in so many stories I'd forgotten it wouldn't work. And I suppose the furnace leaves ashes and there's always traces of hair and teeth in the garbage disposal... An interesting problem, at that."

"I figured you could handle it," Carmen said, leaning back comfortably in the favorite chair of my bachelor apartment. "I heard you were working on something to get rid of trash for the government."

"That," I told him, "is restricted information. I subcontracted that work from the big telephone laboratories. How did you find it out?"

"Ways, Professor, ways."

The government did want me to find a way to dispose of wastes--radioactive wastes. It was the most important problem any country could have in this time of growing atomic industry. Now a small-time gangster was asking me to use this research to help him dispose of hot corpses. It made my scientific blood seethe. But the shadow of the Black Hand cooled it off.

"Maybe I can find something in that area of research to help you," I said. "I'll call you."