At 9:24, Mr. Pietro Cassandro pulled up before Ristorante Alfredo' s entrance at the wheel of a Lincoln that had been delivered to Classic Livery only the day before. On the way from his home, Mr. Vincenzo Savarese had been concerned that there was something wrong with the car. It smelled of something burning.

Mr. Cassandro had assured Mr. S. that there was no cause for concern, that he had personally checked the car out himself, that it was absolutely okay, and that what Mr. S. was smelling was the preservatives and paint and stuff that comes with a new car, and burns off after a few miles. Like stickers and oil, for example, on the muffler.

Mr. S. had seemed only partially satisfied with Pietro's explanation, and Pietro had decided that maybe he'd made a mistake in picking up Mr. S. in the car before he'd put some miles on it. He would never do so again. The next time Mr. S. was sent a new car, it would have, say, two hundred miles on it, and wouldn't smell of burning anything.

Mr. Gian-Carlo Rosselli got out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. Ristorante Alfredo didn't open until half-past eleven, and Pietro hoped that Ricco Baltazari had enough brains to have somebody waiting to open the door when Rosselli knocked on it. Mr. S. did not like to be kept waiting in a car when he wanted to go someplace, especially when the people knew he was coming.

Mr. Cassandro's concerns were put to rest when the door was opened by Ricco Baltazari himself before Rosselli reached it. Rosselli turned and looked up and down the street, and then nodded to Pietro, who got quickly out from behind the wheel and opened the door for Mr. S.

Mr. S. didn't say "thank you" the way he usually did, or even nod his head, but just walked quickly across the sidewalk and into the restaurant. Pietro was almost sure that was because he had business on his mind, and not because he was pissed that the car smelled, but he wasn't positive.

He wondered, as he got back behind the wheel, if he raced the engine, would that speed up the burn-the-crap-off process, so that the car wouldn't smell when Mr. S. came out.

He decided against doing so. What was likely to happen was that, sitting still, the smoke would just get more in the car than it would if he just let things take their natural way.

But then he decided that he could take a couple of laps around the block and burn it off that way. Mr. S. probably wasn't going to come out in the next couple of minutes, and if Rosselli looked out and saw the car wasn't there, he would think the cop on the beat had made him move the car.

Sometimes, the cops would leave you alone, let you sit at the curb, if there was somebody behind the wheel, but other times, they would be a pain in the ass and tell you to move on.

Pietro put the Lincoln in gear and drove off. At the first red light, he raced the engine. A cop gave him a strange look. Fuck him!

"Good morning, Mr. S.," Ricco Baltazari said as he carefully shook Mr. S.'s hand. "I got some nice fresh coffee, and I sent out for a little pastry."

"Just the coffee, thank you, Ricco," Mr. S. said, and then changed his mind. "What kind of pastry?"

"I sent out to the French place. I got croissants, and eclairs, and…"

"Maybe an eclair. Thank you very much," Mr. S. said.

"Would you like to go to the office? Or maybe a table?"

"This will do nicely," Mr. S. said and sat down at a table along the wall.

Gian-Carlo Rosselli looked as if he didn't know what he should do, and Mr. S. saw this.

"Sit down, Gian-Carlo, and have a pastry and some coffee. I want you to hear this."

"I'll get the stuff," Ricco said.

When he came back, Mr. S. asked after his family.

"Everybody's doing just fine, Mr. S."

Mr. Savarese nodded, then leaned forward and added cream and sugar to the cup of coffee Ricco had poured for him.

"There's a little business problem, Ricco," Mr. S. said.

"With the restaurant?" Ricco asked, concern evident in his voice. He glanced nervously at Gian-Carlo.

Mr. S. looked at him for a moment, expressionless, before replying and when he did it was not directly.

"I had a telephone call yesterday from a business associate in Baltimore," he said. "A man who has always been willing to help me, when I asked for a favor. Now he wants a favor from me."

"How can I help, Mr. S.?"

"His problem, he tells me, is that the feds, the Customs people, and the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs people have been making a nuisance of themselves at Friendship. You know Friendship? The airport in Baltimore?"

"I know it, Mr. S."

"He says that he don't think it will last, that what they're doing is fishing, not looking for something specific, but he has decided that it would be best if he didn't try to bring anything through Friendship for the next week or ten days. As a precaution, you understand."

"Certainly."

"And he asked me, would I do him the favor of handling his merchandise through Philadelphia. The point of origin is San Juan, Puerto Rico."

"We don't have anybody at the airport…"

"There are two reasons I told this man that I would be happy to help him," Mr. S. said. "The first being that I owe him, and when he asks: And the second being that I did not want it to get around, and it would if I told him, that at this moment, I don't have anybody at the airport."

"I understand."

"So what I want to know from you, Ricco, how are things going with your friend who works at the airport?"

"I had a telephone call at eight this morning, Mr. S. Our friend was up there last night and he had bad luck, and he signed four thousand dollars' worth of markers."

"You ever think, Ricco, that somebody's bad luck is almost always somebody else's good luck?"

"That's very true, Mr. S."

"So you have these markers?"

"No, sir. They're going to have a truck coming to Philadelphia today, this afternoon, and they'll bring the markers with them then."

"I think I would like to have them sooner than that. Do you think you could call them up and ask them, as a favor to you, if they could maybe put somebody in a car and get them down here right away?"

"Or we could send a car up there, Mr. S.," Gian-Carlo suggested.

"Let them, as a favor to Ricco, bring the markers here to the restaurant. Then, when they come, Ricco can call me, at the house, and say that he has the papers you were looking for, and you'll come pick them up, and take them, and also those photographs Joe Fierello took at the car lot, over to Paulo, and then Paulo can go have a talk with this cop."

"Right, Mr. S."

"Where would you say this cop would be, Ricco, in, say, three hours?"

"I don't know, Mr. S., to tell you the truth."

"You know where he is now? I thought I asked you to have that girl keep an eye on him."

"He's at her apartment now, Mr. S. But what you asked is where he' ll be at about noon. He may be there. He may go by his house, Tony told me he had to have new pipes put in, or he may just stay at Tony's apartment until it's time for him to go to work. I just have no way of telling."

"I understand. All right. The first thing you do is you get on the phone and ask them to please send the markers right away to here. Then, can you do this, you call this girl, and you tell her if she can to keep the cop in her apartment as long as she can, and if she can't, she's to call you the minute he leaves, and tell you where he's going. And I think it would be best if you made the calls from a pay phone someplace."

"I'll have to leave the keys to the restaurant with Gian-Carlo, otherwise you'd be locked in."

"There's nobody else here?"