Uncle Willy frowned at him across the cup. “Are you nuts? I’m not going to make a move for a year. What I learned, I learned the hard way, but I got a few things that stuck with me and one is—one important one is—you flash it, they nab you. You want a collar, just start living high and throwing it around.” His voice was low, little more than a whisper. “And that’s my word to you, Skip. Look poor and talk poor and ride poor. A Cadillac will get you the jug as sure as the sun rises.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Skip took a plate out of the cupboard, dumped the eggs on it, took bread from the toaster and buttered it. He ate standing up at the sink as usual. “Suppose the law never hears about it? Suppose Stolz can’t afford to let on what’s happened?”

“That’ll be even worse,” Uncle Willy whispered. “That chance, that Stolz is hiding tax dough, is what made me take the job away from you and give it to Big Tom. Big Tom can protect himself. If the heat’s too bad he’ll make a deal. He’ll sell it back to Stolz himself, for a cut, of course. Now how would you and Eddie ever have handled that?”

“You talk like Stolz is the bugger-man,” Skip jeered, but a memory jumped into his mind: the big man with granite fists who had stood outside Mr. Salvatorre’s door in the Solano Sea.

The man with the granite fists was one of Stolz’s little helpers. He could crush you like a marshmallow with one wallop. Under the repose, the cumbersome politeness, lay a well of savagery. You saw it in his cold and measuring stare.

Skip looked at Uncle Willy; a nervous smile flitted across his face. Willy didn’t see. He was staring into his coffee.

“What are you going to use for an alibi?” Skip wondered.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At six-thirty Uncle Willy was dressed in a blue suit, a pale blue shirt, red bow tie; and his black shoes shone like Mr. Chilworth’s front windows. Skip, too, had on the outfit he usually wore to go out, slacks and the leather jacket. He had scrubbed, his hair was combed neatly, and a faint dusting of talcum subdued the bruise along his jaw. Uncle Willy came out of the bathroom drying his hands. He was smiling foxily. “I’ve really got a good one this time.”

“You really have,” Skip agreed. “Who’s this bird who’s going to pick you up?”

“Name of Mitchell, he said over the phone. The meeting’s out on West Larchmont. My God,” Uncle Willy said wonderingly, “just think! I’ll be sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous telling the folks my drinking problems when Big Tom is pulling that job.”