"Tollini," a baritone voice growled. "The boss wants to see you."
Tony Tollini froze. He looked to his right. There was a man towering over him with a jutting jaw like a bestubbled iron plow.
He looked left. The man to his left was shorter, but infinitely wider. Tony Tollini could not remember ever seeing a man so wide in his life. He looked like a wall jammed into a sharkskin suit.
"Boss?" Tony croaked, his mustache drooping in defeat. "You mean the CEO of IDC, don't you? Please say that's what you mean. Even if its not true."
"I mean our boss," said the human wall. "And he ain't happy."
Tony Tollini left his keys in the door of his car. He had no choice. Fingers like cold chisels were guiding him by the elbows, somehow managing to simultaneously grind his funny bone in such a way it felt like champagne got in his marrow.
He tried to cry for help. Only he could not. There were cold chisel fingers squeezing his lips into something resembling a chamois bag opening with the drawstring mouth pulled tight.
Tony Tollini was escorted to the open trunk of a black Chrysler Imperial. He took the hint. He even helped pull the lid closed. It was almost a relief. No one would massacre him in the trunk. He hoped.
When Wendy Wilkerson piloted her Volvo out of the IDC parking lot, she looked both ways, thinking that she had missed Tony Tollini. All she saw, however, was a long black Chrysler Imperial slithering into traffic.
Thinking Tony had gone on ahead, she drove north to the Chinese restaurant up the road.
When after twenty minutes Tony Tollini did not show, she became uneasy and sped home, where she ate reheated Chinese and lay awake all night staring at the shadowy ceiling.
Tony Tollini did not sleep that night. He was hauled out of the Imperial's trunk in a shadow-smeared alley and taken to a black walnut alcove where sat Don Fiavorante Pubescio.
"Uncle Fiavorante," Tony sputtered, forcing a weak smile. "Great to see you again. Really great. Really."
His outstretched hand was ignored.
"Sit," said Don Fiavorante.
Tony sat. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he folded them as if in church. The saints on the walls made it seem appropriate somehow.
Don Fiavorante began speaking, using the hushed, authoritative tones of a priest hearing confession. "I have had a call from my friend Don Carmine. You remember Don Carmine?"
"We've, never met, actually," Tony admitted sheepishly.
"I have told you of him. He is the business associate of mine for whom you did a certain thing."
"It wasn't my fault!" Tony said quickly. "The disk crashed. He must have-"
Don Fiavorante raised an immaculately manicured hand for silence.
"Have some tea. It is ginseng," said Don Fiavorante as tea was served by a silent waiter. "Much easier on the stomach than espresso."
"You have sent your people to my friend Carmine. None of them could do anything with this machine of yours. Not one. "
"I tried to tell him that we needed to take the system into a clean room, have it checked over by media recovery specialists. But he refused to listen."
"My friend Carmine is funny that way. He does not wish that other people know his business. This is understandable."
Tony Tollini relaxed. "Then I'm not in trouble?"
"But someone has removed his property."
"What?"
"A Japanese gentleman. He came, he saw, and he took. He promised to return with a new part."
"What part?"
"This wily Japanese called it a record. But from what Carmine described to me, it was the hard disk over which there is so much trouble. This was yesterday. Yesterday, and this Japanese gentleman promised to return yesterday. No Japanese gentleman yesterday. No Japanese gentleman today. Don Carmine is very upset. He called me. He asked me, 'Don Fiavorante, my friend, how can I pay you rent when I have no financial records? All is on the stolen disk.' "
Don Fiavorante shrugged as if it were a small matter.
" I told Don Carmine that I would give him, how you say, grace on his rent. He pays me next Friday and I ask only that he pay double."
"Double?" Tony gulped. He took a hit of the ginseng tea.
"That is what my friend Carmine said. He does not like to pay double. He prefers to have his records so he can pay me on time. Without these records, he does not know who owes him and when. It is bad business not to know these things."
"I never saw the guy again!" Tony protested, "I thought he was still up there, doing good work."
Don Fiavorante Pubescio leaned across the black walnut table, which bore a faint scar of an old bullet furrow. "This is what you want me to tell Don Carmine? That you never saw this Japanese again?"
Tears were starting to race down Tony Tollini's pale cheeks.
"No. No. Give me another day. Please, Uncle Fiavorante."
Don Fiavorante eased back in his chair. " I tell you what," he said, pursing his lips. " I think you are not, how you say, complicit in the stealing of this disk. I think this Jap was a crook. So I will make you a proposition."
"Anything," Tony said tearfully.
"Go to Boston. Meet with Carmine, who is a friend of mine. You will work for him, help him get on his feet. You know many things. He needs help." Don Fiavorante tapped his temple. "He is not smart, like us."
"But I have a job. At IDC."
"Where they treat you like a buffone. No, you go to Boston. You make Carmine happy. If he is happy, I will be happy. If both of us remain happy, your continued happiness is assured."
"He won't kill me, will he?"
"A very good question. You are very bright to ask that question. I will ask my friend Carmine."
Don Fiavorante snapped his fingers and a telephone was brought to the alcove and set before him. Picking up the shiny receiver, he dialed a number.
"Carmine!" he said, after a brief pause. "How are you? Good, good. Yes, he is here. I have spoken to him. He knows nothing about the unfortunate theft, and I believe him. What can I say? He is my wife's sister's son. I have told him he must work with you now, but he has a question. He wants to know if you intend to, how you say, kill him."
Don Fiavorante listened. Finally he said, "Good, I will tell my nephew."