"Oh, I get it. Guess you gotta let Tollini off the hook, huh?"
"No chance. He don't know about this. And who's gonna tell him? You? Do that and you'll never eat pasta in this town again."
"Don't he gotta install it?" asked Nicky Kix.
This thought gave Don Carmine pause. "Yeah, but he don't have to know what it is."
"What about the Jap? There was a guy with him."
"He look like a fed?"
"No, he looked like a hood."
Don Carmine's disarrayed eyebrows bristled and squirmed in slow thought.
"I wonder who's tryin' to muscle in?" he muttered.
"Search me," admitted Nicky Kix, trying to look innocent. "Maybe it's Don Fiavorante. Gonna make a move on you."
This caused Don Carmine's bristly eyebrows to descend like relays closing.
"If it was, why'd he give back the hard-on disk?" wondered Don Carmine.
"Search me."
"Well; whoever it was, he was makin' a feudal gesture. Completely feudal. We got the disk and we got Boston. Nothin' can stop us now. We're makin' dough hand over fist."
"I am glad to hear this, Don Carmine," said a smooth-as-suntan-oil voice from the slowly opening door.
"Who's that?" growled Don Carmine, starting.
When his eyebrows had jumped up he could see clearly Don Fiavorante Pubescio's well-tanned features beaming at him.
"Don Fiavorante!" Carmine Imbruglia said brightly, his mood changing from suspicion to forced pleasure. He came out of his seat, wiping sweat off his hairy palms.
"So good to see you, Fuggin," said Don Fiavorante, reaching out to embrace his sottocapo.
Carmine Imbruglia returned the embrace, noting the two hulking Pubescio soldiers standing just outside the door. "They don't call me that up here. Up here I'm Cadillac."
"You were always the kidder, Fuggin," said Don Fiavorante. "I like this about you. I always have."
"Yeah, yeah. What can I do for you?"
"I am seeing my rent money come in like it was flowing from a tap, and I say to myself, this Don Carmine, he is one bright boy. I must see his sports book for myself."
"Didn't you get my fax?"
"Perhaps. I do not understand these machines. Many times the machine rings. I get the little light. I hear the loud beeps, but all that rolls out is blank paper."
"Wrong faxes. We get them too. There oughta be a law."
"Tell me, Don Carmine. Your sports book is outperforming Vegas. How do you pick your winners so perfectly?"
"Come on, I'll show you," Don Carmine said, urging Don Fiavorante away from the sealed hard disk with lifted hands that took care not to touch his don. "I got a brilliant new way to pick the winning teams. It's fuggin' phenomenal. Works on the ponies, on football, baseball, anything you want. It's based on a well-known law of human nature nobody but me has caught on to."
They were walking along a curving well-carpeted corridor.
"You use computers?" asked Don Fiavorante.
"Naw. Computers can't do that stuff. Believe me, I tried. First week I had one, I kept typin' in questions like 'Jets or Steelers?' All I got was error this and error that. The fuggin' computer musta thought I was talkin' baseball or somethin'."
"These machines, they are overrated," said Don Fiavorante.
They came at last to a door marked "ODDS MAKERS."
"Watch this," said Don Carmine, throwing the door open. He thrust his bullet head in, startling a quintet of unshaven swarthy-faced men seated around a big-screen TV. They were watching a hockey game.
"Who's playin'?" Don Carmine asked.
"It's the Bruins against the Canadiens," said one swarthy man in a strangely accented voice.
"Who you guys think is gonna win?" asked Don Carmine.
The quintet huddled. When their heads reemerged, the spokesman said, "The Bruins. Clearly."
"Everybody agree on that?" Don Carmine asked.
"Yes."
"Absolutely. "
"Of course."
"Great," said Don Carmine happily. "Thanks." He shut the door.
"The Canadiens," said Don Carmine Imbruglia confidently, "are gonna massacre them Broons."
"You are certain?"
"Absolutely," said Don Carmine. He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the closed door. "You see those guys back there? Palestinians, every one of 'em. They're never right. All you gotta do is ask 'em who'll win and then go with the other team. If they don't agree, that means it'll be a tie. I tell you, it's foolproof. Fuggin' foolproof!"
Don Fiavorante Pubescio placed both hands on the thick shoulders of Don Carmine Imbruglia and in his warmest voice said, "Don Carmine, you are a genius."
Don Carmine puffed out his barrel chest. His tiny eyes twinkled like proud stars.
"I know you will go far in Boston," added the don.
"Thanks, Don Fiavorante."
"And because I know great things lie before you, I am increasing your rent ten percent."
"Ten fuggin' percent!" howled Don Carmine.
"Retroactive to last Tuesday. With interest accrued."
"But . . . but . . . but . . ." sputtered Don Carmine, his face turning crimson. "What'd I ever do to you? I do everything you say. I give you no problems. Not one."
Don Fiavorante Pubescio held up a beringed hand.
"Do not consider this modest increase as a painful thing," he said broadly. "Look upon it as incentive. Let it spur you to new heights. You will make more money and so will I. None of us will lose."
"It's gonna fuggin' spur me into an early grave, is what it's gonna do," Don Carmine complained.
Don Fiavorante's genteel expression darkened. "It pains me to hear such ingratitude from one whose markers I carry without complaint. I would dislike having to call in those markers."
"Okay, okay," said Don Carmine through set teeth. "I'll try to look at it that way. But you gotta let me get on my feet a little more. The rent on this dump is killin me."
After Don Fiavorante had left, Don Carmine Imbruglia stood with his hands dangling down his sides. His fingers hung low enough to almost brush his kneecaps.
When the crimson tinge of his wide face slowly seeped away, Don Carmine growled, "Get that Tony. We gotta make more fuggin' money. Piles of it."
"We need somethin' big," Don Carmine was explaining to a frightened Tony Tollini, who had been hauled from his bed in the dead of night.
"But, Don Carmine, you have everything locked up in this state."
"There's gotta be somethin' we overlooked. Somethin' big. We need a big score. I could knock over banks, but the ones that ain't shut up are carrying our money. We'd be robbing ourselves. These ain't the old days, when you could launder
dough through the front door and carry the safe out through the back. Nowadays you hit a bank and it's liable to go under. There's no percentage in it anymore."
Tony Tollini's beady eyes narrowed.
"Come on," Don Carmine urged.
"Well," he said, "there are the Terrapins."
Don Carmine looked stung. "Bowling? Are you talkin' bowling?"
"No, Terrapins. Not Candlepins."
"Never heard of it."
"It's the biggest business operation in this state," Tony explained. "In any state. It's responsible for over a billion dollars a year in fees, licensing, video, movies, toys, and other revenue."
"How come I never heard of this thing?"
"They're global," said Tony Tollini.
"I don't know from fuggin' global," snarled Don Carmine. "I'm from Brooklyn. Come on. You can tell me about it while you're puttin' in a new hard-on disk. I picked up a real nice one on sale. That's the one great thing about this stupid state. Every day's a fuggin' fire sale."
Chapter 27
In his office at Folcroft Sanitarium, Dr. Harold W. Smith watched the dark computer screen as it displayed a single word in phosphor green letters.
The word was "WAITING."