it would have, say, two hundred miles on it, and wouldn’t smell of burning anything.
Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli got out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. Ristorante Alfredo didn’t open until half-past eleven, and Pietro hoped that Ricco Baltazari had enough brains to have somebody waiting to open the door when Rosselli knocked on it. Mr. S. did not like to be kept waiting in a car when he wanted to go someplace, especially when the people knew he was coming.
Mr. Cassandro’s concerns were put to rest when the door was opened by Ricco Baltazari himself before Rosselli reached it. Rosselli turned and looked up and down the street, and then nodded to Pietro, who got quickly out from behind the wheel and opened the door for Mr. S.
Mr. S. didn’t say “thank you” the way he usually did, or even nod his head, but just walked quickly across the sidewalk and into the restaurant. Pietro was almost sure that was because he had business on his mind, and not because he was pissed that the car smelled, but he wasn’t positive.
He wondered, as he got back behind the wheel, if he raced the engine, would that speed up the burn-the-crap-off process, so that the car wouldn’t smell when Mr. S. came out.
He decided against doing so. What was likely to happen was that, sitting still, the smoke would just get more in the car than it would if he just let things take their natural way.
But then he decided that he could take a couple of laps around the block and burn it off that way. Mr. S. probably wasn’t going to come out in the next couple of minutes, and if Rosselli looked out and saw the car wasn’t there, he would think the cop on the beat had made him move the car.
Sometimes, the cops would leave you alone, let you sit at the curb, if there was somebody behind the wheel, but other times, they would be a pain in the ass and tell you to move on.
Pietro put the Lincoln in gear and drove off. At the first red light, he raced the engine. A cop gave him a strange look. Fuck him!
“Good morning, Mr. S.,” Ricco Baltazari said as he carefully shook Mr. S.’s hand. “I got some nice fresh coffee, and I sent out for a little pastry.”
“Just the coffee, thank you, Ricco,” Mr. S. said, and then changed his mind. “What kind of pastry?”
“I sent out to the French place. I got croissants, and eclairs, and . . .”
“Maybe an eclair. Thank you very much,” Mr. S. said.
“Would you like to go to the office? Or maybe a table?”
“This will do nicely,” Mr. S. said and sat down at a table along the wall.
Gian-Carlo Rosselli looked as if he didn’t know what he should do, and Mr. S. saw this.
“Sit down, Gian-Carlo, and have a pastry and some coffee. I want you to hear this.”
“I’ll get the stuff,” Ricco said.
When he came back, Mr. S. asked after his family.
“Everybody’s doing just fine, Mr. S.”
Mr. Savarese nodded, then leaned forward and added cream and sugar to the cup of coffee Ricco had poured for him.
“There’s a little business problem, Ricco,” Mr. S. said.
“With the restaurant?” Ricco asked, concern evident in his voice. He glanced nervously at Gian-Carlo.
Mr. S. looked at him for a moment, expressionless, before replying and when he did it was not directly.
“I had a telephone call yesterday from a business associate in Baltimore,” he said. “A man who has always been willing to help me, when I asked for a favor. Now he wants a favor from me.”
“How can I help, Mr. S.?”
“His problem, he tells me, is that the feds, the Customs people, and the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs people have been making a nuisance of themselves at Friendship. You know Friendship? The airport in Baltimore?”
“I know it, Mr. S.”
“He says that he don’t think it will last, that what they’re doing is fishing, not looking for something specific, but he has decided that it would be best if he didn’t try to bring anything through Friendship for the next week or ten days. As a precaution, you understand. ”
“Certainly.”
“And he asked me, would I do him the favor of handling his merchandise through Philadelphia. The point of origin is San Juan, Puerto Rico.”
“We don’t have anybody at the airport. . . .”
“There are two reasons I told this man that I would be happy to