"Bullshit," said Arnie Farmer.

"Whattaya mean, bullshit?" Jersey flared back.

"I mean I sent a whole damn army to France, a regular AEF f'Christ's sake, and not even half of 'em got back. That's what I mean bullshit. I mean boys like Sammy Shiv and Fat Angelo and Quick Tony went to France and never came back, that's what I mean bullshit." He tasted his wine, returning the angry glare from New Jersey over the rim of the glass. "So who've you got in England that's on top of it pretty good?"

"I got Danno Giliamo and his boys," Jersey replied through flattened lips.

Arnie Farmer raised his eyebrows in respectful receipt of this news and replied, "Okay so I'm surprised you sent Danno. I take it back the bullshit remark."

"Danno's a regular bulldog," Marinello put in. "Nobody'll say different to that—and listen—it's no dig at Danno that I'd like to see Nick Trigger take over the hit. Nick tells me that he talked this over with Danno— and Danno says it's okay with him. Listen, this is no time for hurt feelings. We've got to stop this boy, hard and fast. And the cost is getting out of hand, it's getting awful."

"Not even mentioning the contract purse," Pennsylvania added.

"I'd gladly pay it twice," Arnie Farmer Castiglione declared passionately "In fact…" He raised the wine glass to his lips and sipped delicately, then continued in a milder tone. "I'm for upping the ante to a cool million. That'd make the scramble for real, and we already lost more than that on account of this boy. Besides that he's making us look foolish. How long are we going to stay in business if…"

The speech ended on the uncompleted question. Silence descended and reigned for a long moment, then the New Jersey boss grunted and suggested, "Contract money is not the answer."

"Then just what the hell is?" Arnie Farmer demanded, his voice rising with emotion. "You can't cop a plea with this boy, you know."

The latter statement had reference to an older and more painful period in the life of the boss from Jersey, who had served three successive prison sentences on "copped pleas"—pleading guilty to a lesser crime to avoid prosecution of graver ones. He resented being reminded of these past indignities, and his angry face plainly showed it.

Marinello hurried into the breech. "We already got the answer," he declared softly. "We are doing the right things, make no mistake about that. It's just a matter of—"

"No, wait a minute. Who says we can't cop a plea with this Bolan?"

All eyes turned to Joe Staccio, the upstate New Yorker. Someone growled, "You nuts or something, Joe?"

"Maybe I am," Staccio calmly replied. "Then again, maybe I'm not. I'm just saying it ain't all that far out an idea. Maybe we been acting like old-time hoods about this thing. You know? And even the old-time hoods found out there was more than one way of getting out of a problem. You know what I mean?"

Augie Marinello was giving Staccio a thoughtful gaze. Castiglione's lips had curled into a snarl as the full implications of Staccio's suggestion registered. The man from Jersey was watching Marinello.

Castiglione sneered, "What do you want us to do, Joe? Throw up our hands and beg for mercy?"

"Now wait," Marinello said, as the noise level began to rise in the conference room. "Joe has brought up the question I'm sure all of us has thought about at one time or another. So now that it's in the open, let's talk about it. Maybe he's right and maybe we're going about this thing all wrong."

"I was just thinking about the days of the old man," Staccio quietly put in. He was referring to Salvatore Maranzano. "Everybody was shooting at everybody else, nobody knew who to trust. I mean those wars got out of hand too, you know. If Charley Lucky hadn't made his peace, and forgave and forgot and patched things over, then none of us would be sitting here right now. Right?"

"You're right, Joe," Marinello agreed.

Arnie Farmer drily observed, "Charley Lucky Luciano and Mack the bastard Bolan are not exactly the same two people."

"Yeah, you're right there, Arnie," Staccio replied. "But that's not the point, and it's not the right comparison. The point is, there's more than one way to end a war."

"We're getting hurt," the man from Jersey put in. "And bad. Nobody is going to deny that. We've got to get this thing over with, one way or another."

Marinello nodded and asked Staccio, "Just exactly what was you thinking about, Joe?"

"A deal," Staccio replied.

"What kind of a deal?"

"He forgives, we forgive. And we bury the hatchet."

Arnie Farmer exploded with, "What the hell has hegot to forgive?"

"We gotta be realistic, Arnie," the upstater explained. "This boy lost his whole family, and he figures their blood is on our hands. Now if we understand anything at all then we just got to understand a debt of blood. Right? So I say let's agree that one debt cancels out the other. Let's be realistic and see if we can't end this damned war."

Arnie Farmer fumed silently.

Marinello said, "Okay, let's say that both sides agree to bury the hatchet. Then what?"

Staccio shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't sat around and thought it out. But I think maybe Charley Lucky had the right idea, way back when."

"You mean we invite Bolan into the organization," Marinello said quietly.

Staccio again shrugged. "Why not? It worked before, it could work again. He'd be a hell of a good boy on our side of the fence. We could all respect him, right? Wouldn't that boy make one hell of an enforcer?"

Arnie Farmer rose jerkily to his feet and delicately fingered the fabric of his trousers. "I got a hole in my ass the size of a golf ball," he announced in a voice thick with emotion. "That bastard put it there, and I'll never sit down in peace again until—"

Staccio said coldly, "You're not the only one. We all got our reasons for hating that boy's guts. But that's not the point. We got to be realistic. Our whole thing is going to fall apart around us if we don't start using our heads instead of our hots. Now we got a crisis, just like with the old wars. We got a crisis and we got to face up to that!"

Castiglione shivered. "Cop a plea with Bolan," he muttered, "… never! I mean never!"

"Hey, hey, let's cool it off," Marinello suggested. "You've both made your point, now let's sit down and discuss it, eh."

Castiglione sat, but growled, "You try burying the hatchet with this Bolan, you're gonna tear our thing apart for sure. There's too many scars, Augie, entirely too much to try forgiving and forgetting."

"Okay, okay, let's just talk about it," Marinello urged.

The Pennsylvania boss said, "What if we just made Bolan thinkwe wanted to deal? Huh?"

"Don't you think he'd be smelling for that sort of thing anyway?" Staccio replied. "He's going to be suspicious as hell. I doubt if we could get him to listen even if we were a hundred percent sincere."

"So we're just wasting our time anyhow," Arnie Farmer commented. "Why are we wasting our time talking dumb ideas?"

"I got a boy," Pennsylvania said quietly. "He could get to Bolan."

"You mean Leo Pussy," Marinello replied thoughtfully.

"That's the boy. Sergio's nephew. He's running my Pittsfield action now. I think he—"

Staccio interrupted with, "That's the boy was with Bolan back when?"

"Yeah. I guess he could make the pitch if anyone could."

"What pitch?" Castiglione cried. "We ain't decided on no pitch!"

"I mean," Pennsylvania explained, "if we decide to go that way."

"Save us all a lot of time: I'm not deciding that way!"

Marinello said, "No harm in talking it over, huh Arnie? Let's think of it as flexibility, huh? Maybe we could have twothings going at once. Like Appaloosas and stevedores… you catch?" He winked again, while shielding his face from the view of Joe Staccio. "Like a horse race, eh?"