Cressi examined it and smiled before placing it in the box. “What about some banking papers that are also missing?”

“They’re not here,” I said. “But I’ll get them for you.”

Cressi slammed the butt of his gun on the table, the noise so loud I thought the monster had gone off. Caroline inhaled a gasp at the sound of it. “Don’t dick with me, Vic.”

“I don’t have it here. I swear.”

“Where is it?”

“I’ll get it for you,” I said, not wanting to tell them anything about Morris.

“Go on, Peter,” said Calvi, staring hard at me through the smoke of his cigar.

“A three-by-five card with certain alphanumeric strands, whatever the fuck that is.”

“Also someplace else,” I said.

Cressi glared at me. “What about this key it says here?”

I reached for my wallet, took out the key that had opened the breakfront drawer at the Poole house, and handed it over. Cressi examined it for a moment.

“How the fuck I know it’s the right key?”

“It’s the right key,” I said.

“Is that it?” said Calvi.

Cressi nodded and put the list back in his jacket.

“It’s very important, Vic, now that we’re partners,” said Calvi, “to keep this party happy. It’s not so cheap making a move like we’ve made here. You just can’t bluff your way through. Even with a cookie baker like Raffaello, you have to be ready for war, and war’s expensive. This party’s been our patron and we keep our patron happy. You’ll get the rest of that stuff for us after the meeting.”

“No problem.”

“Good,” said Calvi. “I think, Vic, you and me, we’re going to do just fine together. You and me, Vic, we have a future.”

“That’s encouraging,” I said. I was referring to the fact that I might actually have a future outside the range of Cressi’s gun, but Calvi smiled as if he were a recruiting sergeant and I had just enlisted.

“You want a cigar?” said Calvi, patting at his jacket pocket.

“No, thank you,” I said as kindly as I could.

“Now we wait,” said Calvi.

“Where’s yous liquor?” said Cressi. “We was looking all over for it.”

“I don’t have any,” I said. “Just a couple beers in the fridge.”

“We already done the beers,” said Cressi. He turned to Calvi. “You want I should maybe hit up a state store?”

“Just shut up and wait,” said Calvi.

Cressi twisted his neck as if trying to fracture a vertebrae and then leaned back in silence.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked.

“It’s need to know,” said Calvi. “You think you need to know?”

I shook my head.

“You’re right about that,” said Cressi.

And so we sat at the table, the four of us, Calvi leaning on his elbows, his head in his hands, sucking on his stogie, Cressi, Caroline, and I asphyxiating on the foul secondhand smoke, none of us talking. The cat licked its fur atop the cushion. Every now and then Calvi sighed, an old man’s sigh, like he was sitting by the television, waiting to be called to the nursing home’s evening program rather than waiting to set up a meeting to take control of the Philly mob. I could feel the tension in Caroline as she sat beside me, but she was as quiet as the rest of us. I laid a comforting hand on her knee and gave her a smile. The silence was interrupted only by Calvi’s sighs, the scrape of a chair as we shifted our positions, contented clicks rising from the throat of Sam the cat, the occasional rumble from Cressi’s digestive tract.

Our situation was as bleak as Veritas. Someone had paid Calvi to kill Jacqueline and Edward and, now, to get the contents of the box. Who? Who else had even known that I might have it? Nat had learned we were digging. Had he told someone? Was that the reason he was missing? Was that the reason he was murdered, too, because he knew about the box and someone was determined that no one would ever know? Whom had he told about our nocturnal excavations? Harrington, the last Poole? Kingsley Shaw? Brother Bobby? Which was Calvi’s patron, ordering Calvi to kill Reddmans for fun and profit while building up his war chest? And why did the patron care about a box buried in the earth many years ago by Faith Reddman Shaw? Unless it wasn’t buried by Faith Reddman Shaw. And whoever it was, this patron had also paid to kill Caroline, or else why would Cressi have been searching for her, and once the bastards killed Caroline they would have no choice, really, but to kill me too. I was the man who knew too much. Which was ironic, really, considering my academic career.

A peculiar sound erupted from Cressi’s stomach. “I must have eaten something,” said Cressi with a weak smile.

“It’s hot down there,” said Calvi, and I thought for a moment he was referring to Cressi’s stomach but he was off on a tangent of his own. “Hot as hell but hotter. And muggy, so there’s nothing to do but sweat. What did that snake think I was going to do, learn canasta? What am I, an old lady? You know when they eat dinner down there? Four o’clock. Christ, up here I was finishing lunch at Tosca’s around four o’clock and waiting for the night to begin. At four o’clock down there they’re lining up for the early birds. They’re serving early birds till as late as six, but they line up at four. And lime green jackets. Explain to me, Vic, sweating in a restaurant line in lime green jackets.”

“I understand Phoenix has a dry heat,” I said.

“White belts, white shoes, what the hell am I supposed to do down there? Golf? I tried golf, bought a set of clubs. Pings. I liked the sound of it. Ping. Went to the course, swung, the ball went sideways. Sideways. I almost killed a priest. What the hell am I doing playing golf? I went fishing once, one of them big boats. Threw up the whole way out and the whole way back. The only thing I caught was a guy on the deck behind me when a burst of wind sent the puke right into his face. That was good for a laugh, sure, but that was it for fishing. You know, I been in this business all my life. Started as a kid running errands for Bruno when he was still an underboss. You stay alive in this business, you do a few stints in the shack, your hair turns gray, you’re entitled. Up here I was respected. I was feared. Down there I was a kid again, surrounded by old men with colostomy bags on their hips and old ladies looking to get laid. I was getting high school ass up here, down there ladies ten years older than me, nothing more than bags of bones held together by tumors, they’re eyeing me like I’m a side of venison. They got walkers and the itch and they want to cook for me. Pasta? Sauce Bolognese? Good Italian blood sausage? Shit no. Kreplach and kishke and brust. You ever have something called gefilte fish?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What’s with that fish jelly that jiggles on the plate? Whatever it is, it ain’t blood sausage. I hate it down there. It’s hell all right, hot and steamy and the sinners they wear lime green jackets and white belts and eat pompano every night at four o’clock and play canasta and talk about hurricanes and bet on the dogs. ‘Welcome to Florida,’ the sign says, but it should say ‘Abandon hope all of yous who fly down here.’ What the hell made Raffaello think he could send me there to sweat and die?”

“So that’s why you came back?” I said.

“That’s right,” said Calvi. “That and the money. You sure you don’t want a cigar?”

I shook my head.

“Never understood why you’d drop a fin for a cigar when you could buy a perfectly good smoke for thirty-five cents.”

“You got me,” I said.

“I’ll be right back,” said Calvi, placing the cigar on the table so the end with the ash hung over the edge. He stood and hitched up his pants. “I gotta pinch a loaf.”

He ambled through the living room mess and into the bathroom. The cat followed, sneaking between his legs just as Calvi shut the door on himself. As soon as we heard the first of his loud moans, the bell to my apartment rang.

“That must be them,” said Cressi. “Can I just buzz them up?”