“What the hell,” Frankie said. “Why not?”

Frankie had never seen so many Cadillacs in one place in his life as there were lined up in the garage of Classic Livery, Inc.

He thought there must be maybe a hundred of them, most of them black limousines. There were also a dozen Cadillac hearses, and that many or more flower cars. Plus a whole line of regular Cadillacs and Lincolns, and he saw the white Rolls-Royce Dominic had told him they had.

The floor of the garage was all wet. Frankie decided that they washed the limousines every day, and had probably just finished washing the cars that had been used.

He had never really thought about where the limousines at weddings and funerals had come from, but now he could understand that it must be a pretty good business to be in.

I wonder what they charge for a limousine at a funeral. Probably at least a hundred dollars. And they could probably use the same limousine for more than one funeral in a day. Maybe even more than two. Say a funeral at nine o’clock, and another at eleven, and then at say half past one, and one at say four o’clock.

That’s four hundred bucks a day per limousine!

Jesus Christ, somebody around here must be getting rich, even if they had to pay whatever the fuck it costs, thirty thousand bucks or whatever for a limousine. Four hundred bucks a day times five days is two fucking grand a fucking week! After fifteen weeks, you got your money for the limousine back, and all you have to do after that is pay the driver and the gas. How long will a limousine last? Two, three years at least…

Joey Fatalgio stopped the regular Cadillac he had parked around the corner from Meagan’s Bar, and pointed out the window.

“Through that door, Frankie, the one what says ‘No Admittance.’ You’ll understand that this fellow wants to talk to you alone.”

“Yeah, sure,” Frankie said.

“I’ll go park this and get a cup of coffee or something, and when you’re finished, I’ll take you back to Meagan’s. OK?”

“Fine,” Frankie said.

He got out of the car and walked to the door and knocked on it.

“Come in!” a voice said.

Frankie opened the door.

A large, olive-skinned man in a really classy suit was inside, leaning up against what looked like the garage manager’s desk.

He looked at Frankie, looked good, up and down, for a good fifteen seconds.

“No names, right?” he said. “You’re Mr. Smith and I’m Mr. Jones, right?”

“Right, Mr. Jones,” Frankie said.

Jones, my ass. This is Paulo Cassandro. I seen his picture in the papers just a couple of days ago. The cops arrested him for running some big-time whore ring, and bribing some fucking cop captain.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Smith,” Cassandro said.

“Don’t mention it, Mr. Jones.”

“Look, you’ll understand, Mr. Smith, that what you hear about something isn’t always what really happened,” Cassandro said. “I mean, I understand that you would be reluctant to talk about a job. But on the other hand, for one thing, nobody’s going to hear a thing that’s said in here but you and me, and from what I hear we’re in the same line of business, and for another, you’ll understand that, with what I’ve got riding on this, I have to be damned sure I’m not dealing with no amateur.”

“I know what you mean, Mr. Jones,” Frankie said.

“You want to check me, or the room, for a wire, I’ll understand, Mr. Smith. I’ll take no offense.”

Jesus Christ, I didn’t even think about some sonofabitch recording this!

“No need to do that,” Frankie said, feeling quite sophisticated about it. “I trust you.”

“That’s good. I appreciate that trust. In our line of work, trust is important. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me about the job you did on Atchison and Marcuzzi.”

And Frankie Foley did, in great detail. From time to time, Mr. Cassandro asked a question to clarify a point, but most of the time during Frankie’s recitation he just nodded his head in what Frankie chose to think was professional approval.

“In other words, you think it was a good, clean job, with no problems?”

“Yeah, I’d say that, Mr. Jones.”

“You wouldn’t take offense if I pointed out a couple of things to you? A couple of mistakes I think you made?”

“Not at all,” Frankie said.

“Well, the first mistake you made, you fucking slimeball, was thinking you’re a tough guy,” Paulo Cassandro said.

He pushed himself off the desk and walked to the door and opened it.

Joey and Dominic Fatalgio came into the office.

“Break the fingers on his left hand,” Paulo Cassandro ordered.

“What?” Frankie asked.

Joey wrapped his arms around Frankie, pinning his arms to his sides. Dominic pulled the fingers of Joey’s left hand back. Frankie screamed, and then a moment later screamed much louder as the joints and knuckles were either separated from their joints or the finger bones broken or both.

“Oh, please, Mr. Cassandro,” Frankie howled. “For Christ’s sake!”

“That was another mistake,” Paulo said, and punched Frankie in the face while holding a heavy cast-metal stapler in his hand.

“You never seen me in your life, you understand that, asshole?” Mr. Cassandro said.

Frankie now had his left hand under his right arm. When he opened his mouth to reply, he spit out two teeth. His whole arm seemed to be on fire. He wondered if he was going to faint.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“One of the mistakes you made, you pasty-faced Irish cocksucker, was going around saying untrue things, letting people think, telling people, that you were working for some Italian mob. For one thing, there is no mob, and if there was, there wouldn’t be no stupid fucking Irish shit-asses in it. The Italians in Philadelphia are law-abiding businessmen like me. You insulted me. Worse, you insulted my mother and my father when you started spreading bullshit like that around. You understand that, you fucking Mick?”

Frankie nodded his head to indicate that he was willing to grant the point Mr. Cassandro had just made.

Mr. Cassandro struck Mr. Foley again with the heavy cast-metal stapler, this time higher on the face, so that the skin above Mr. Foley’s eye was cut open, and he could no longer see out of his left eye.

“Say ‘Yes, sir,’ you fucking Mick scumbag!”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Foley said.

Mr. Cassandro, with surprising grace of movement, then kicked Mr. Foley in the genital area.

Mr. Foley fell to the floor screaming faintly, but in obvious agony.

Mr. Cassandro watched him contemptuously for a full minute.

“Stop whining, you Irish motherfucker,” he said conversationally, “and stand up, or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

With some difficulty, Mr. Foley regained his feet. He had great difficulty becoming erect, because of the pain in his groin, and because his entire right side now seemed to be shuddering with pain.

“Now I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen carefully, because I don’t want to have to repeat myself. You don’t even know shit about the law, so I’m going to educate you. You know what happens when you plead guilty to murder?”

Mr. Foley looked at Mr. Cassandro in utter confusion.

“Nine times out of ten, it don’t mean shit,” Mr. Cassandro said, “when you confess and plead guilty, which is what you’re going to do.”

That penetrated Mr. Foley’s wall of pain.

“Confess?” he asked.

“Right. Confess. What happens is your lawyer can usually come up with something that will make the jury feel sorry for you, so they won’t vote for the death penalty. Even if he can’t do that, the judge usually knocks down the chair to life without parole, and what that means is that you have to do maybe twenty years.”

“Why?” Mr. Foley asked, somewhat piteously.

“I told you. You dishonored the Italian people of Philadelphia. And if there was a mob, you would have dishonored them too. How would it be if it got around that a stupid Mick asshole like you was associated with the mob? If there was a mob.”