“Ferri?” echoed Leone. Roberto Ferri was a smuggler. “Since when do you hang with Ferri?”
“Since the Boss said to . . . You come on this business, make it up to us.”
“What can I do for your business?”
“My guy took a fall. I want you to take a fall.”
“For what? I’m just a counterfeiter.”
“You’re a lousy counterfeiter. But you’re still prominente. Guys know you’re not cafon. If this thing goes wrong, you’ll take the blame.”
“The cops won’t buy that. They know I’m only a counterfeiter.”
Salata pivoted his hand. The knuckles turned away from Leone’s cheek. The blade lined up with his eye. “Not for cops.”
“Van Dorns?”
Salata laughed. “You’ll wish it was Van Dorns.”
Harry Warren was waiting for Isaac Bell on the platform at Grand Central with news of another Secret Service arrest.
“Agent Lynch is having a banner week. Secret Service just pinched a guy passing the same queer upstate.”
“Salata’s?”
“Nope. A Ferri guy.”
“Who’s Ferri?”
“Runs a bunch of smugglers.”
Bell led the way out of the chaotic terminal, dodging work gangs and skirting gaping holes in the concourse floor. “Why’s a smuggler taking chances passing the queer?”
“Odd keeps piling up,” said Warren. “Like I said about Charlie Salata’s boy pinched in Pennsylvania.”
“Same paper?”
“Same queer, same paper.”
“What are the odds that Salata’s turned counterfeiter?”
“Same odds as a grizzly bear hosting a church supper. Anyhow, Agent Lynch told Helen the stuff was lame. The paper. No surprise they got caught. But the engraving was top-notch. Lynch thinks it was done by a guy named Ernesto Leone. Learned his trade in Italy and has trained a bunch of apprentices here.”
“Helen got a lot out of Lynch.”
“She’d given Lynch a description of Leone shopping on Printer’s Row, so I guess Lynch figured he owed her.”
“Did Lynch happen to tell Helen what the prisoners admit to?”
“That smitten he ain’t. Helen asked. He sent her packing.”
“Permanently?”
“’Fraid so. I don’t think we’ll get any more out of the Secret Service.”
The long-legged Bell set a fast pace across town to the office. Harry Warren trotted to keep up.
“You ever hear of this Ferri teaming with Salata?” Bell asked.