Resolutely Tony knocked on the blank panel that served as the door to the Neighborhood Improvement Association. It opened quickly and the blue-jawed tower of bone and muscle asked, "Yeah?"
"I'm here to see the don."
"Who're you?"
"His nephew, Tony."
"One sec." The guard called back. "Boss, you gotta nephew named Tony?"
A distant voice croaked back, "Sure, sure. Show him in."
Tony was practically hauled inside and marched between two men into the dim black walnut alcove. A figure sat hunched in the gloom. Tony squinted in an attempt to make him out. The figure looked up querulously.
He frowned, "You ain't my nephew, Tony."
"You aren't Don Fiavorante," Tony blurted, staring at the waxy yellow face before him.
No Numbers Tollini realized he had said the wrong thing when the two guards threw him to the floor and pulled his clothes apart. One came up with the Beretta. The other hauled him back to his feet and sat him down so hard in the chair facing the strange old man that Tony felt a bone break somewhere. He thought it was his coccyx.
The old man-he looked like an anorexic corpse-dug a pale shriveled talon into a stained paper bag and extracted a single greasy fried pepper, which he began to chew methodically.
"I don't know you," he said, his voice a dry rattle.
"Cadillac sent me."
"I don't know that name."
"Cadillac Carmine, the don of Boston."
The old man stopped chewing. One eye narrowed in slow thought. The other fixed Tony with watery wariness.
"We ain't talkin' about Fuggin Imbruglia, are we?"
"He calls himself Cadillac."
"He would. How'd that assassino get to be in charge of Boston?"
"Uncle Fiavorante gave him the territory," said Tony, figuring only the truth would save him now.
The old man resumed his chewing. "Fiavorante, he is your uncle?"
"Yes. "
The old man waved a well-chewed pepper in the direction of the Beretta, held loosely in a guard's hand. "You come to see your uncle with a cold piece in your belt?" he asked.
Tony said nothing. The other watery eye opened to match its mate. "I see things very clearly now. Can you handle a shovel?"
"Why?" asked Tony.
"Because somebody's got to dig the grave."
"Not Uncle Fiavorante?" Tony asked in horror, momentarily forgetting his mission.
"Naw, we already planted him. I was thinking of giving you the adjoining plot. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
No Numbers Tollini leaned forward across the scarred walnut table, not noticing the fresh gouge that was the rusty brown of dried blood.
He decided to play his trump card. "Listen. I'm a very, very good friend of Don Carmine's," he confided, trying to sound like Robert De Niro.
"And I got a very, very big vendetta against that rotten Fuggin," returned the old man.
"I'm a made guy, I'll have you know," Tony added, lowering his voice to a sinister growl. "They call me No Numbers. No Numbers Tollini. Maybe you heard of me."
"If I ain't made you, you ain't made. I wouldn't have a guy in my outfit calling himself No Numbers. What kind of name is that?"
"I can get you computers," Tony said quickly. "All you want. I can make your operation as successful as Carmine's. More successful. I swear."
"Fuggin' Carmine couldn't operate a laundry."
"He's getting rich up in Boston," Tony pleaded. "I can make you rich too. Give me a chance to show you, and I'll have you interfacing with every node of your heirarchy. You'll be completely on-line, networked, integrated and paperless. That means no incriminating backup disks."
"What is this you're talkin'? I've been out of action a few years, yeah, but people don't talk like this now, do they?"
"Not that I heard, Don Pietro," said a guard from behind Tony.
Don Pietro Scubisci reached for another fried pepper. His watery eyes narrowed.
"Tell you what I'm gonna do for you," he offered.
"Anything," Tony said, wiping sweat off his mustache.
"I give you back your gun, and I let you shoot yourself in the mouth."
Tony paled. He gripped the table edge. "Why?"
"On account of you talk too much."
Tony blinked. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you do it this way, I don't make you dig your own grave first," explained Don Pietro. "None of my guys gotta take the rap for whacking you out, and you don't die all sweaty and out of breath. Get me?"
"That's an absurd offer!" Tony Tollini said in protest.
Don Pietro shrugged. "It's the best one you're gonna get."
Tony Tollini stared at the old don as a fried pepper like a bright green grasshopper disappeared into his mouth. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He couldn't comprehend how a simple pilot program, the most brilliant in IDC history, could bring him to this terrible crossroads in his life.