"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."
Smith had been waiting half the night since receiving word from Remo and Chiun that they had delivered the disk. It was impatience on Smith's part that compelled him to stay long into the night, waiting for the hard disk to be installed and reach out through the telephone system via a hidden program he had installed in the disk.
The Boston Mafia would probably wait until tomorrow to install it, he concluded at last. He had been banking on the Mafia's basic psychology of distrust. They would typically check the disk as soon as it was back in their possession.
Smith dragged himself out of his comfortable chair, feeling his knees creak. He reached for his ancient briefcase.
The system beeped once, drawing Smith's gaze back to the dark screen. He sat down hard, his fingers coming up into the backglow of the single word floating in the electronic blackness.
Only now the word was "WORKING."
Smith's lips thinned in anticipation. He had been right, after all.
Then he got a screenful of silent letters. It was an alphanumeric program completion display. Smith tapped a key.
The word "LANSCII" appeared in large letters and Smith allowed himself a tight smile of satisfaction.
He worked swiftly, with assurance, knowing that the LANSCII disk had, once installed, immediately dialed his own computer, thus establishing a dedicated-line linkup.
Smith invoked the password. The Mafia disk had contained the password. It had not been changed.
Every bit and byte of data contained in the Mafia system-presumably a battery of linked PC's-was now at his disposal.
Raw columns of data and electronic spreadsheet programs began to scroll before his eyes.
The headings were varied: "GAMING," "VIGORISH," "CARTING," "BROADS." Smith stopped at "GAMING."
What he saw astonished him. According to the LANSCII files, the Boston Mafia had for over a week been predicting the winners of a wide array of sports events-even to the point of calling tie games. Their point spread was not consistently on the money, but their selections were utterly flawless.
"They cannot be fixing every sporting event in the nation," Smith muttered to his unhearing computer.
He moved on. There would be time to explore that aspect later. He paged his way to the bottom lines. Weekly the Boston LCN was generating a modest six figures of illicit taxfree income. This was unusual only in that its growth rate was virtually doubling from day to day.
"If this goes on . . ." Smith said, his voice trailing off. Smith found names and addresses of contacts in Boston and the Massachusetts state government. Payoff ledgers on crooked officials. Officers on the pad. The tentacles of the Mafia were insinuating themselves into the usual weak societal crevices.
Smith suddenly remembered that he had neglected to check the phone number of the line he had been connected to.
He engaged the back-trace program.
To his surprise, he got a non-working number, but a different one than had previously called in answer to the blackmail ad. The locale numbers were the same, however. North Quincy, Massachusetts. It was a significant clue. One Smith would return to later.
As he poked through the LANSCII data base, he came upon a new file being created hundreds of miles to the north.
As he watched, fascinated, duplicate letters were appearing before his eyes. A strange word completed itself:
'TERRAPINS.'
"What on earth?"