Both Wanamaker’s and Wachenhut had offered him a full-time job, but the money was anything but great, and he didn’t want to get tied down to having to go to work every day, especially when the leg was giving him trouble.
He got some work from the sleazebags who hung around the courts and called themselves “The Criminal Bar,” but there were two things wrong with that: he didn’t like helping some scumbag lawyer keep some scumbag from going to jail, and they paid slow.
And he’d done a couple of jobs for Joe Fiorello before this one. Fiorello had called him out of the blue about a year ago, said he’d seen the ad in the yellow pages, and needed a job done.
Chason had told Joey his “initial consultation fee” was fifty bucks, whether or not he took the job. He knew who Fiorello was and he had no intention of doing something illegal. Joey had told him no problem, that he should come by the used-car lot and he’d tell him what he wanted done, and Chason could decide whether or not he wanted to do it.
What Joey wanted the first time was for Chason to check out a guy he was thinking of hiring as a salesman. The guy had a great reputation as a salesman, Joey said, but there was something about him that didn’t smell kosher, and before he took him on, he wanted to be sure about him, and how much would that cost?
Chason had told him it would probably take about ten hours of his time, at twenty-five dollars an hour, plus expenses, like getting a credit report, and mileage, at a dime a mile, and Joey thought it over a minute and then said go ahead, how long will it take, the sooner the better.
That time, Chason had found out the guy was what he said he was, what his reputation said he was, a hard-working guy with a family, who paid his bills, didn’t drink a hell of a lot, went to church, and even, as far as Chason could find out, slept with his own wife.
Chason couldn’t figure why a guy like that, who already had a good job as sales manager for the used-car department of the Pontiac dealer in Willow Grove, would want to work in the city for Fiorello. The answer to that was that he didn’t. The second time Joey Fiorello called Chason, to do the same kind of a job on another guy Joey was thinking of hiring, Chason asked him what happened to the first guy, and Joey told him he’d made the guy an offer that wasn’t good enough—the guy wanted an arm and a leg, Joey said—and that hadn’t worked out.
The second time had been like the first job. Only this time the guy was selling furniture on Market Street, and thought he might like selling cars. Another Mr. Straight Citizen. Wife, kids, church, the whole nine yards. And he either came to his senses about what a good job he already had, or somebody whispered in his ear that Joey Fiorello wasn’t the absolutely respectable businessman he wanted everybody to think he was. Anyway, he didn’t go to work for Fiorello Fine Cars, either.
This last job was something else. This one was a young guy, from Bala Cynwyd, who was a stockbroker. Chason thought there was something fishy about a stockbroker wanting to be a used-car salesman right from the start. Usually, it would be a used-car salesman trying to get into something more classy, like being a stockbroker, not the other way around.
Once he started nosing around, Chason thought he understood why. This guy was a real sleaze, too sleazy even to work for a sleazy greaseball like Joey Fiorello.
One of Joey’s salesmen, a young guy wearing an open-collared yellow sport shirt with a gold chain around his neck and a phony Rolex on his wrist, came out of the office with a toothy ‘Hello, sucker!’ smile on his face.
“Can I be of some assistance, sir?”
“Mr. Fiorello around?”
“Yes, sir,” the salesman said. “But I believe he may be tied up at the moment. Is there something I can do for you?”
“No, thanks,” Chason said, and walked around the guy and into the office.
Joey’s secretary, a peroxide blonde with great breasts who Chason had learned wasn’t as dumb as she looked, smiled at him, then picked up her telephone.
“Mr. Chason is here, Mr. Fiorello,” she announced, listened a minute, and