“That’s me,” she says aloud. “A tough bimbo.”
It’s almost noon when she gets back to Steiner Waste Control. There are four big yellow trucks on the tarmac, waiting to unload. Most of the guys have gone across to the Stardust Diner for lunch, but Anthony Ricci is waiting in the outer office. She knows what he wants.
“Why don’t you go to lunch,” she says to Judy Bering. “I’ll hold down the fort until you get back.”
“I may be a little late, Sal. I want to get over to Bloomie’s. They’re having a sale on pantyhose.”
“Take your time. Tony, come into my office.”
The kid really is a beauty, no doubt about it, and she wonders what Eddie could do with him-and then decides she’s never going to bring them together and find out. Paul Ramsey would kill her.
Ricci has a helmet of crisp, black curls, bedroom eyes, and a mouth artfully designed for kissing. That chiseled face might be vacuous except that, occasionally, the soft eyes smolder, the jaw sets, lips are pressed. And there, revealed, are temper, menace, an undisciplined wildness when the furious blood takes over.
He’s got a muscled body and moves with the spring of a young animal. He’s been working all morning, but he doesn’t smell of garbage; he smells of male sweat with a musky undertone from the cologne he keeps in his locker and uses every time his truck returns to the dump.
“How’s it going, Tony?” Sally asks him. “Like the job?”
“It’s okay,” the kid says. “For a while. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life lifting barrels of shit.”
“You’re not?” she says, putting him on. “And what have you got in mind-an executive job where you can wear monogrammed shirts and Armani suits?”
“Yeah,” he says seriously, “I think I would like a desk job.”
“With a secretary? A blue-eyed blonde with big knockers?”
He gives her the 100-watt grin. “Maybe. But not necessary.”
“No, I don’t imagine you have much trouble in that department. You got someone special, Tony?”
He shrugs. “I have many friends, but no one special, no. Mario, he’d like me to marry a woman he has picked out for me, but I don’t think so. Her father is respected and wealthy, but she looks like a-like a-what is it that farmers put in their fields to frighten birds away?”
“A scarecrow?”
“Yeah,” Ricci says, laughing, “she looks like a scarecrow. Not for me.”
“What kind of a woman are you looking for?”
He leans toward her slightly, his dark, burning eyes locked with hers. “An older woman,” he says in a low voice. “I am tired of young girls who talk only of clothes and rock stars and want to go to the most expensive restaurants and clubs. Yeah, I’m interested in older women.”
“Because they’re grateful?” Sally suggests.
He considers that. “It’s true,” he says finally, and she decides he may be an Adonis, but he’s got no fucking brains. “Also,” he continues, “older women are settled and know about life. They are smart about money, and they work hard.”
“Uh-huh,” Sally says. “Sounds to me like you’ve got it all figured out. An executive desk job-with or without a secretary-and an older woman you can tell your troubles to. And what would you give her? You’d be faithful, I suppose.”
He doesn’t realize she’s kidding him, but sits back with a secret smile. “She would not care about that,” he says. “Where I come from, a man provides a home, food on the table, and takes care of his children. What he does outside the home is his business. The wife understands.”
“Well, I wish you luck,” Sally says. “I hope you find a rich older woman like that.”
“I intend to,” he says solemnly, staring at her with such intensity that she begins to get antsy.
“Well,” she says, “let’s get down to business.” She slides a sealed white envelope from the top drawer of her desk and hands it to him. “You know what’s in that, Tony?”
He nods soberly. “More than I make in a month for lifting garbage.”
“You better believe it,” Sally says. “So don’t lose it or take off for Las Vegas. A receipt isn’t necessary.”
Her sarcasm floats right over those crisp, black curls. “A receipt?” he says, puzzled. “Mario didn’t say anything about a receipt.”
She wonders if this boy has all his marbles. “Forget it,” she says. “Just a joke. Nice talking to you, Tony.”
“Maybe some night we could have dinner,” he says, more of a statement than a question. “I know a restaurant down on Mulberry Street. Not expensive, but the food is delizioso. Would you like to have dinner with me?”
She realizes that if Terry Mulloy had made the same proposal, she’d have told him to stuff it. “Sure,” she says to Anthony Ricci. “Why not?”
After he’s gone, she questions why she didn’t cut him off at the knees. Not, she decides, because he’s so beautiful and dumb. But he’s Mario Corsini’s cousin, and she has a presentiment that he might, someday, be of use to her. She has never forgotten that on the morning Vic Angelo was murdered, Ricci didn’t get to work until noon.
She calls Mario, leaves a message, and he calls back in twenty minutes.
“I delivered the mail to Tony,” she tells him.
“Okay,” he says. “You got anything else for me?”
“Yeah,” she says, and gives him the name of the smaller food processing company involved in the merger being engineered by Pistol amp; Burns.
“A good one?” Corsini asks.
“I’m in it,” Sally says. “You suit yourself.”
“It better be good,” he says. “You know what’s riding on it.”
“You scare the pants off me,” she says scornfully.
“I’d like to,” he says, and she hangs up.
Timothy Cone and Jeremy Bigelow are “eating street” again. They’re sauntering down through the financial district toward the Battery, stopping at carts and vans to pick up calzone, chicken wings in soy sauce, raw carrots, chocolate-chip cookies, gelato, and much, much more.
“I never want to work a case with you again,” the SEC investigator says. “Every time we eat like this, I gain five pounds and my wife tells me she can’t sleep because my stomach keeps rumbling all night.”
“I got a cast-iron gut,” Cone brags. “But nothing compared to my cat. That monster can chew nails and spit tacks.”
“Lucky for him. How did you make out with those Trimbley and Diggs trading records I gave you?”
“I made out like a thief,” Timothy says. “I found the leak.”
Jeremy stops on the sidewalk, turns, stares at him. “You’re kidding,” he says.
“Scout’s honor,” Cone says, and for the third time he describes how Sally Steiner is digging through trash from Bechtold Printing and finding smeared proofs of confidential financial documents.
He tells Bigelow nothing about the Mario Corsini connection.
Twiggs had succumbed to hysterical guffaws after hearing the story, and Joe D’Amato had been amused, but the SEC man is infuriated.
“Son of a bitch,” he says angrily. “I should have caught those nine-thousand-share trades. How did you break it?”
“A lot of luck.”
“You told Pistol and Burns?”
“Oh, sure. Twiggs called me this morning. They’ve canned Bechtold and are switching to another commercial printer until they can put in a desktop printing system. Listen, Jerry, you better tell Snellig Firsten Holbrook.”
“Yeah,” the other man says worriedly. “I’ll do that. You think the printer was in on it?”
“Nah,” Cone says, “I think he’s clean. He’s just careless with his garbage, that’s all.”
“My God,” Bigelow says, trying to wipe drips of gelato from his lapel, “do you realize what this means? We’ll have to get hold of Bechtold’s customer list-get a subpoena if we have to-and alert all his Wall Street customers about what’s going on.”
That’s exactly what Cone wanted him to say. This guy is brainy, but not the hardest man in the world to manipulate.
“Yeah,” he says sympathetically, “a lot of work. Maybe an easier way to handle it would be for you to pay a visit to Frederick Bechtold. Come on strong. Tell him what’s been going down, and if he doesn’t get rid of Steiner Waste Control and put in an incinerator or pulverizer, you’re going to report him to every Wall Street customer he’s got. He’ll believe you because he’ll already have the bad news from Pistol and Burns.”