“Do you know Dominick the Guru?” The Silver Fox asked.
Benny turned and looked at the young man standing in the doorway to the living room. “Yes, I believe we’ve met,” he said, “but that was before you had the beard and the long hair.”
“How do you like it this way?” Dominick said, walking over and shaking hands.
“It’s becoming,” Benny said.
“It’s becoming too long,” The Silver Fox said, wagging his head. “Nice Italian boy.”
“Bloomingdales doesn’t like it neither,” Dominick said. “By the way,” he added, turning to The Silver Fox, “he said to tell you he hopes you get hit by a subway.”
“Why?” The Silver Fox asked. “Because his sister’s a no-good whore? Whereas everybody knows that anyway?”
“I’m merely conveying his regards,” Dominick said. Boy, what bullshit, he thought.
“What have you brought me?” The Silver Fox asked. He noticed Dominick’s sidelong glance and quickly said, “You can trust Benny. He’s an old friend.”
Dominick studied him for a moment, and then went out into the foyer again.
“What shall I do?” Benny whispered to The Silver Fox.
“About what?”
“About Ganooch’s son?”
“I never heard nothing about Ganooch’s son.”
“I just told you...”
“I don’t even know if he has a son or not. Has he got a son? Never mind, don’t tell me.”
Dominick came back into the room, carrying a suitcase which he hoisted onto the long wooden table. “Lots of nice stuff here,” he said, and opened the bag. The Silver Fox picked up a magnifying glass, and began examining the pieces.
“Did you see this?” Dominick asked Benny.
“What is it?” Benny asked.
“A wrist watch,” Dominick said, and handed it to him.
“Very nice,” Benny said, and looked at it distractedly.
“Who’s that whose picture’s on the watch?” The Silver Fox asked.
“That’s the Vice-President,” Dominick said.
“Herbert Humphrey? It don’t even look like him,” The Silver Fox said.
Benny was about to return the watch to Dominick when, for no reason whatever, for no good reason that he could think of, he turned it over and looked at the back. There was an inscription on the case. The inscription read:
“Where did you get this watch!” Benny shouted.
In a blue Plymouth sedan borrowed from his old friend Arthur Doppio, Snitch drove up to Larchmont that afternoon to pay a visit to the Ganucci governess. He had been promised twenty-five dollars if he could come up with information Bozzaris did not already possess, and Snitch was not a man to let twenty-five dollars slip away quite that easily. He drove up the long tree-lined driveway to Many Maples, parked the car in the oval before the sumptuous front entrance, walked onto the flagstone portico, admired the brass escutcheon with the single word Ganucci inscribed upon it, and then rang the bell and waited.
Nanny opened the door immediately, almost as if she had been standing behind it and waiting for expected company. When she saw Snitch, her face fell.
“Yes?” she said.
“Nanny,” Snitch said, “I think I have some further information about that felony you say was committed Tuesday night.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Yes. Would it be all right if I came in? You never know who’s hiding in the bushes these days.”
“Come in,” she said, and because it was exactly two P.M., the clocks in the living room all tolled the hour, Bong, Bong, and were finished almost before they began. Snitch looked at his wrist watch.
“Three minutes slow,” he said, and followed Nanny into the study. “Very nice place Ganooch has here,” he remarked.
“Yes,” Nanny said. “What information have you got for me?”
“I know there’s fifty thousand dollars involved,” Snitch said, referring to the cable he had seen on Mario Azzecca’s desk. Judging from the way Nanny went suddenly pale, he suspected he had struck pay dirt.
Her hand went to her throat. In a tiny, quiet voice, she said, “Yes, that’s right.”
“‘Essential and urgent raise fifty delivery Saturday,’” Snitch said, narrowing his eyes as he quoted exactly from the cable now, figuring what the hell.
“Is that what the last note meant?” Nanny asked.
“Precisely,” Snitch said. He recognized that he had seen only one note (which, in fact, had been a cable rather than a note), and that he hadn’t the faintest notion whether it had been the first note, the last note, or the one in between. But he felt he had gained Nanny’s confidence, and if he could continue to sustain her belief in knowledge he did not truly possess, he might eventually get the information Bozzaris wanted. Besides, intrigue was the most exciting profession in the world.
“Saturday when?” Nanny asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the last note. Benny couldn’t either. I read it to him on the phone.”
“Benny?”
“Napkins.”
“Oh yes. He knows about this, huh?”
“Yes. I rang him up the moment I knew he was gone.”
“I see,” Snitch said, not knowing what she was talking about.
“Where did you see the note?” Nanny asked.
“On Mario Azzecca’s desk.”
“Mario... oh my!” she said, and put her hand to her throat again. “Does he know about it too?”
“Sure he does. It was addressed to him,” Snitch said.
“Addressed to Mario Azzecca? But why?”
“I guess because when Ganooch wants fifty thousand dollars, he drops a little note to his lawyer and tells him to get it for him. That’s why.”
“Ganooch?”
“Sure.”
“Mr. Ganucci asked Mario Azzecca for fifty thousand dollars?”
“Sure,” Snitch said, and shrugged.
Nanny looked as if she were about to faint. She leaned back against the bookcases and almost dislodged The Rubáiyát from its shelf. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. “He knows,” she said, her eyes wide.
“Knows what?” Snitch said.
“All about it,” Nanny said. “Oh my God, he knows all about it.” She put her hand on Snitch’s arm. “He’ll kill us. Both of us. Me, and Benny as well.” Her hand tightened. “Do you know who has him?” she asked.
“Benny? Jeanette Kay, ain’t it? He’s got an arrangement with Jeanette Kay, ain’t he?”
“No, the boy.”
“Benny’s living with a boy?”