Page 167

"No, sir. They're going to have a truck coming to Philadelphia today, this afternoon, and they'll bring the markers with them then."

"I think I would like to have them sooner than that. Do you think you could call them up and ask them, as a favor to you, if they could maybe put somebody in a car and get them down here right away?"

"Or we could send a car up there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo suggested.

"Let them, as a favor to Ricco, bring the markers here to the restaurant. Then, when they come, Ricco can call me, at the house, and say that he has the papers you were looking for, and you'll come pick them up, and take them, and also those photographs Joe Fierello took at the car lot, over to Paulo, and then Paulo can go have a talk with this cop."

"Right, Mr. S."

"Where would you say this cop would be, Ricco, in, say, three hours?"

"I don't know, Mr. S., to tell you the truth."

"You know where he is now? I thought I asked you to have that girl keep an eye on him."

"He's at her apartment now, Mr. S. But what you asked is where he' ll be at about noon. He may be there. He may go by his house, Tony told me he had to have new pipes put in, or he may just stay at Tony's apartment until it's time for him to go to work. I just have no way of telling."

"I understand. All right. The first thing you do is you get on the phone and ask them to please send the markers right away to here. Then, can you do this, you call this girl, and you tell her if she can to keep the cop in her apartment as long as she can, and if she can't, she's to call you the minute he leaves, and tell you where he's going. And I think it would be best if you made the calls from a pay phone someplace."

"I'll have to leave the keys to the restaurant with Gian-Carlo, otherwise you'd be locked in."

"There's nobody else here?"

"The fewer people around the better, I always say."

"And you're right. But I'll tell you what. We'll leave, and then you go find a pay phone and make the call, and when you find out something, you call the house and all you have to say is 'yes' or ' no.' You understand?"

"That would work nicely."

"And besides, if I stayed here, I'd eat all this pastry, it's very good, but it's not good for me, too much of it."

"I understand, Mr. S."

Gian-Carlo got up and walked to the door and pushed the curtain aside and looked for Pietro.

"He's not out there, Mr. S."

"He probably had to drive around the block," Mr. S. said. "He'll be there in a minute."

For the next three minutes, Gian-Carlo, at fifteen-second intervals, pushed the curta

in aside and looked out to see if Pietro and the Lincoln had returned.

Finally he had.

"He's out there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo said.

Mr. Savarese stood up.

"Thank you for the pastry, even if it wasn't good for me," he said, and shook Ricco's hand.

Then he walked out of the restaurant and quickly across the sidewalk and got into the Lincoln. As soon as Gian-Carlo had got in beside him in the front seat, Pietro drove off.

"I'll tell you, Pietro, if anything, it smells worse than before."

"As soon as I get a chance, Mr. S., I'll take it to the garage and swap it."

"Why don't you do that?" Mr. S. replied.