“I’ll have the same salad and the regular, ordinary American strip,” Stone said. “Medium rare.” He closed the menu before he could see the price of Kobe beef, which, allegedly, came from Japanese cattle that had been massaged daily by geishas, or something.

“Would you like some wine?” the waiter asked. The question was directed at Giraldi.

“Yeah,” Giraldi replied. “You got a Far Niente cabernet, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What year?”

“The 2000.”

“We’ll have that, and decant it, will you?”

Stone knew that bottle was going to go for close to two hundred dollars. “You come here a lot, Joe?”

“Whenever somebody wants to hear about the Mafia.” He sipped his Scotch. “Shoot.”

“Okay,” Stone said, taking a long draw on his Knob Creek, “my client was into a bookie called Carlo; you know him?”

“Yeah, his real name is John Quigley; he ain’t even Italian, but he passes. For some reason, his clients are more willing to pay if they think he’s Italian. He works out of a candy store on Second Avenue, downtown.”

“Who’s his boss?”

“A capo named Gianni Pardo, who’s known as Johnny Pop.”

“I can imagine why.”

“Right.”

“Who’s his boss?”

“He reports to another capo, Santino Gianelli, known as Sammy Tools. He was a master burglar and safecracker before Carmine moved him up the ladder.”

“Speaking of the ladder, who does Sammy Tools report to?”

“To Carmine or his consigliere, depending.”

“Depending on what?”

“If it’s to do with methods, to the consigliere; if it’s money, to Carmine.”

“Who’s the consigliere?”

“Carmine’s bastard son, Salvatore Stampano, known among the cognoscenti as Little Carmine.”

Their dinner came and went, and Stone continued to plumb the depths of Joe Giraldi’s mob knowledge. The check came, and Stone put two other cops’ names on the credit card receipt, since the tab looked more like dinner for five or six.

At the door, Stone shook Giraldi’s hand and thanked him. “Joe, you want to make five hundred bucks, quick?”

“How?”

“Serve Carmine Dattila for me.”

Giraldi laughed heartily. “Listen, right now Carmine doesn’t know who I am, and I want to keep it that way. I’ll tell you where to find him, though.”

“Where?”

“At the La Boheme coffeehouse on Mulberry Street. Carmine spends his days there, making decisions and issuing orders. We’ve tried a dozen times to bug it, but they always figure it out. There’s an office upstairs we’ve never been able to get into.”

“Thanks, Joe.” Stone trudged home, dreading his next move. He was going to have to serve Carmine Dattila himself.

6

The following day Stone met Dino at P. J. Clarke’s for lunch.

The place was mobbed with advertising guys, lawyers and secretaries, but they had held a table for Dino.

“I hear you met with Joe Giraldi,” Dino said. They sat down and ordered cheeseburgers.