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“What does that mean?”

“This is important to me.”

“What does that come out to in round figures? And for what?”

“Phil, you’re hurting my feelings. You know that I pay good. I thought we were friends.”

“What do you want from me, Joey?”

“I want you to ask a few quick, discreet questions.”

“Ask who a few quick, discreet questions?”

“Look, Phil, are you going to help me out on this or not?”

“I told you, Joey, I’m up to my ass in work. Whether I can help you depends on what you want me to do, and how much it’s worth to you.”

“Let me put it to you this way, Phil. You come to my office in the next hour, and let me explain what I want you to do for me, and that’ll be worth two hundred to me, whether or not you can help me out.”

“Two-fifty, Joey,” Phil said.

“Jesus. And I thought we were friends,” Joey Fiorello said, obviously pissed. “Okay. Two-fifty. I’ll be expecting you. Thank you, Phil.”

The line went dead in his ear.

“What was that all about?” Irene asked.

“I don’t have a goddamn clue,” Phil said as he swung his feet out of bed.

The warm smile on Joey Fiorello’s face when Phil Chason walked into his office at Fiorello’s Fine Cars forty-five minutes later, was, Phil thought, about as phony as a three-dollar bill.

I wonder why he didn’t tell me to go fuck myself when I held him up for two-fifty? And he must need me; otherwise, he would have.

“Thank you for coming, Phil,” Joey said. “I appreciate it.”

“So what’s up?”

“Can I have Helene get you a cup of coffee? Or a Danish? And a Danish?”

“Yeah. Thank you. You said this was important, so I came right away without my breakfast.”

“I appreciate that,” Joey said and raised his voice: “Helene!”

The magnificently bosomed Helene put her head in the door.

“Honey, would you get Mr. Chason a cup of coffee and a Danish, please?”

“Be happy to. If there’s any Danish left.”

“If there’s no Danish left, honey, send one of my so-called salesmen after some.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Fiorello,” Helene said.

Joey reached into his pocket and peeled five fifty-dollar bills off a wad held together with a gold paper clip and handed them to Phil.

“If I can’t get you a Danish, the least I can do is pay what I owe you,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you,” Phil said. “Like the man said, money may not be everything, but it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place.”