Thinner

He called a New York number instead, paging to the back of his address book to find it. Richard Ginelli's name had bobbed uneasily up and down in his mind since the very begi

Just in case.

'Three Brothers,' the voice on the other end said. 'Specials tonight include veal marsala and our own version of fettuccine Alfredo.'

'My name is William Halleck, and I would like to speak to Mr Ginelli, if he's available.'

After a moment of considering silence, the voice said: 'Halleck.'

'Yes.'

The phone clunked down. Faintly Billy could hear pots and pans crashing and bashing together. Someone was swearing in Italian. Someone else was laughing. Like everything else in his life these days, it all seemed very far away.

At last the phone was picked up.

'William!' It occurred to Billy again that Ginelli Was the only person in the world who called him that. 'How are you doing, paisan?'

'I've lost some weight.'

'Well, that's good,' Ginelli said. 'You were too big, William, I gotta say that, too big. How much you lose?'

'Twenty pounds.'

'Hey! Congratulations! And your heart thanks you, too. Hard to lose weight, isn't it? Don't tell me, I know. Fucking calories stick right on there. Micks like you, they hang over the front of your belt. Dagos like me, you discover one day you're ripping out the seat of your pants every time you bend over to tie your shoes.'

'It actually wasn't hard at all.'

'Well, you come on in to the Brothers, William. I'm go

'I might just take you up on that,' Billy said, smiling a little. He could see himself in the mirror on his study wall, and there seemed to be too many teeth in his smile. Too many teeth, too close to the front of his mouth. He stopped smiling.

'Yeah, well, I really mean it. I miss you. It's been too long. And life's short, paisan. I mean, life is short, am I right?'

'Yeah, I guess it is.'

Ginelli's voice dropped a notch. 'I heard you had some trouble out there in Co

'How did you hear that?' Billy said, frankly startled. There had been a squib about the accident in the Fairview Reporter -decorous, no names mentioned – and that was all. Nothing in the New York papers.

'I keep my ear to the ground,' Ginelli replied. Because keeping your ear to the ground is really what it's all about, Billy thought, and shivered.

'I have some problems with that,' Billy said now, picking his words carefully. 'They are of an … extralegal nature. The woman -you know about the woman?'

'Yeah. I heard she was a Gyp.'

'A Gypsy, yes. She had a husband. He has … made some trouble for me.'

'What's his name?'

'Lemke, I believe. I'm going to try to handle this myself, but I wondered … if I can't . . .'

'Sure, sure, sure. You give me a call. Maybe I can do something, maybe I can't. Maybe I'll decide I don't want to. I mean, friends are always friends and business is always business, do you know what I mean?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Sometimes friends and business mix, but sometimes they don't, am I right?'

'Yes.'

'Is this guy trying to hit on you?'

Billy hesitated. 'I'd just as soon not say too much right now, Richard. It's pretty peculiar. But, yeah, he's hitting on me. He's hitting on me pretty hard.'

'Well, shit, William, we ought to talk now!'

The concern in Ginelli's voice was clear and immediate. Billy felt tears prick warmly at his eyelids and pushed the heel of his hand roughly up one cheek.

'I appreciate that – I really do. But I want to try to handle it myself, first. I'm not even entirely sure what I'd want you to do.'

'If you want to call, William, I'm around. Okay?'

'Okay. And thanks.' He hesitated. 'Tell me something, Richard – are you superstitious?'

'Me? You ask an old wop like me if I'm superstitious? Growing up in a family where my mother and grandmother and all my aunts went around hail-Marying and praying to every saint you ever heard of and another bunch you didn't ever hear of and covering up the mirrors when someone died and poking the sign of the evil eye at crows and black cats that crossed their path? Me? You ask me a question like that?'

'Yeah,' Billy said, smiling a little in spite of himself. 'I ask you a question like that.'

Richard Ginelli's voice came back, flat, hard, and totally devoid of humor. 'I believe in only two things, William. Guns and money, that's what I believe in. And you can quote me. Superstitious? Not me, paisan. You are thinking of some other dago.'

'That's good,' Billy said, and his own smile widened. It was the first real smile to sit on his face in almost a month, and it felt good – it felt damned good.

That evening, just after Heidi had come in, Penschley called.

'Your Gypsies have led us a merry chase,' he said. 'You've piled up damn near ten thousand dollars in charges already, Bill. Time to drop it?'

'Tell me what you've got first,' Billy said. His hands were sweating.

Penschley began to speak in his dry elder-statesman voice.

The Gypsy band had first gone to Greeno, a Co

'What seems to have happened is this,' Penschley said. 'There was a town fellow, sort of a bully, who lost ten bucks playing quarters on the wheel of chance. Told the operator it was rigged and that he would get even. Two days later he spotted the Gypsy coming out of a Nite Owl store. There were words between them, and then there was a fight in the parking lot. There were a couple of witnesses from out of town who say the town fellow provoked the fight. There were a couple more from in town who claim the Gypsy started it. Anyway, it was the Gypsy who got arrested. When he jumped bail, the local cops were delighted. Saved them the cost of a court case and got the Gypsies out of town.'

'That's usually how it works, isn't it?' Billy asked. His face was suddenly hot and burning. lie was somehow quite sure that the man who had been arrested in Attleboro was the same young man who had been juggling the bowling pins on the Fairview town common.

'Yes, pretty much,' Penschley agreed. 'The Gypsies know the scoop; once the fellow is gone, the local cops are happy. There's no APB, no manhunt. It's like getting a fleck of dirt in your eye. That fleck of dirt is all one can think about. Then the eye waters and washes it out. And once its gone and the pain stops, one doesn't care where that fleck of dirt went, does one?'

'A fleck of dirt,' Billy said. 'Is that what he was?'

'To the Attleboro police, that's exactly what he was. Do you want the rest of this now, Bill, or shall we moralize on the plight of various minority groups for a bit first?'

'Give me the rest, please.'

'The Gypsies stopped again in Lincoln, Mass. They lasted just about three days before getting the boot.'

'The same group every time? You're sure?'

'Yes. Always the same vehicles. There's a list here., with registrations – mostly Texas and Delaware tags. You want the list?'

'Eventually. Not now. Go on.'

There wasn't much more. The Gypsies had shown up in Revere, just north of Boston, had stayed ten days, and moved on of their own accord. Four days in Portsmouth, New Hampshire … and then they had simply dropped out of sight.

'We can pick up their scent again, if you want,' Penschley said. 'We're less than a week behind now. There are three first-class investigators from Barton Detective Services on this, and they think the Gypsies are almost certainly somewhere in Maine by now. They've paralleled 1-95 all the way up the coast from Co