“Is that fair?” Snitch wanted to know. “Mr. Garbugli? That I should have to keep paying her when she’s sharing another man’s bed and board?”
“It’s not fair, but it’s the law,” Vito Garbugli said. He was a very busy man and would not have given Snitch the right time of day (no one did) had it not been for a call from a police lieutenant named Alexander Bozzaris, who had done a favor in the past and who now wanted a favor done (as he put it) “for one of the squad’s trusted advisers.” Garbugli had gone next door to his partner Azzecca’s office and asked if he knew of anyone named Frank Delatore, and Azzecca had said, “That’s probably Snitch Delatore. Why?” Garbugli had then told him about the phone call from Bozzaris, and Azzecca had said, “Delatore’s a rat. You should have said no.” Whereupon Garbugli reminded his partner that a policy banker named Joe Dirigere had once donated seven thousand four hundred dollars to Bozzaris’ favorite charity, for which the lieutenant had been willing to return to the fellows a full day’s ribbons impounded in a raid, which work amounted to a lot of cold hard cash. Azzecca maintained that nobody had done anybody no favors, the transaction having been a simple act of commerce. But he allowed as how Snitch, though a rat, was not a particularly dangerous rat, so long as Garbugli told him nothing that could in any way be useful to the police. Garbugli shrugged and said, “He’s only coming here to talk about his wife, Counselor.”
Which Snitch had been doing for perhaps ten minutes now, complaining bitterly about her flagrant carryings-on with the Pokerino barker and continually asking, “Is it fair? Mr. Garbugli?”
“As long as she remains unmarried,” Garbugli said, “she’s entitled to the alimony payments awarded to her.”
“But she’s living with this big Texan,” Snitch protested.
“It wouldn’t matter if she was living with the Seven Dwarfs,” Garbugli said. “You’d still have to pay her.”
“I won’t pay,” Snitch said.
“In which case you’ll go to jail. And while you’re in jail, she’ll continue her arrangement with this here Pokerino barker. You want my advice? Pay.”
“It’s not fair,” Snitch said.
“My good friend,” Garbugli said, “there is much on this road of life that is unfair, but we must all carry our share of the goddamn burden.”
“Mr. Garbugli?” Snitch said.
“Yes?”
The telephone buzzed. “Excuse me,” Garbugli said, and lifted the receiver. “Vito Garbugli speaking,” he said. “What? Oh, certainly, I’ll be right in, Mario.” He rose swiftly and walked around his desk. “My partner. I’ll just be a moment,” he said, and went to the door separating his office from Azzecca’s. The door closed behind him. Snitch sat in the leather armchair thinking about how unfair it was. He sat that way for perhaps five minutes. He was beginning to think Garbugli would not return; that wasn’t fair either. The door to the outer office opened, and a long-legged, pretty redhead wearing a short beige skirt and a green blouse entered, walked quickly to Garbugli’s desk, put a yellow sheet of paper on it, swiveled, smiled at Snitch, walked to the door again, and went out. The office was silent. Snitch got up and walked to the windows. On the street below, decent men like himself were going their merry way without having to worry about paying alimony to a bitch who was living with a big Texan who rolled his own cigarettes. Seven Dwarfs, some sense of humor the counselor had. Snitch glanced at the yellow sheet of paper the girl had put on Garbugli’s desk. It looked very much like a telegram or something. Merely out of curiosity, Snitch began to read it:
Sure, Snitch thought, Ganooch sends telegrams all the way from Italy, and guys in the street go their merry way, while I have to pay alimony to somebody I hardly even met — I was only married to her, for Christ’s sake, for sixteen lousy months! He sat in the leather chair again. At the window, the air conditioner hummed serenely. In a little while, he fell asleep.
When Garbugli came back into the office, he found his client snoring. He also found the cable from Carmine Ganucci. He quickly stuffed it into his pocket, shook Snitch by the shoulder, and asked him if there was anything else he wished to discuss. Snitch had difficulty coming awake and for one terrifying moment relived a time in Chicago when he had been shaken from sleep in the middle of a February night and asked why he had such a big mouth. He had answered, “Who has a big mouth?” and someone in the dark had said, “You have a big mouth,” and Snitch had said, “Aw, come on, I do not.” He established his surroundings now, assured Garbugli he had nothing more to ask (but that he wasn’t ready to pay any alimony to no whore, neither), thanked the lawyer for his time, and left. At the desk outside, he bummed a cigarette from the redhead who had brought the cable in, and then went down to the street.
It was going to be a hot day.
He wondered if it was this hot in Italy. Probably not. He also wondered why it was ESSENTIAL AND URGENT that Carmine Ganucci RAISE FIFTY. Fifty what? Not measly dollars, that was for sure. Ganooch probably carried around ten times that amount just in case he had to tip a cabbie. Could it be fifty thousand? Was it essential and urgent that Ganooch raise fifty thousand by Saturday? That was a lot of money. People did not trip across fifty thousand dollars in the gutter every day. Nor did Ganooch’s trusted governess come around every day asking about various and sundry felonies perpetrated on a Tuesday night.
Something was in the wind.
Snitch sensed this with the same rising excitement he had known in Chicago on February 14, 1929. He could barely refrain from dancing a little buck and wing right there on Forty-fifth Street. Something was in the wind, all right, something really big. And Snitch knew just the party who would love to hear all about it.
If he hadn’t been temporarily broke, he’d have taken a taxi uptown.
In the office upstairs, Mario Azzecca and Vito Garbugli were conducting an intense examination. Or rather, Azzecca was conducting the examination; Garbugli mostly listened. Azzecca’s witness was Marie Pupattola, the long-legged, redheaded secretary who had brought the cable into his partner’s office and put it on his desk. Marie was a bit frightened by the intensity of Azzecca’s questions. Also, she had just got her period yesterday.
“Was he asleep when you came in here?” Azzecca asked.
“Gee, I don’t remember,” Marie said.
“Try to remember!” he said. “Was he asleep in that chair when you brought the cable in?”
“Now, now, Counselor,” Garbugli said.
“I don’t remember,” Marie said, knowing full well that Snitch had not been asleep because she had very definitely smiled at him, and she was not in the habit of smiling at people who were asleep.
“Were his eyes closed?”
“They could have been.”
“Were they closed, or were they open?”
“Sometimes,” Marie said, “when a person’s eyes are closed, they could also look open.”
“Did his look open or closed?”
“They looked closed,” she said, which was a lie because they had looked very open, especially when she’d smiled at him.
“Then do you think he was asleep?”
“He could have been asleep,” she said, “but gee, I don’t remember.”
“Do you think he saw this cable, Marie?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” Marie said. “Why would he have seen it?”