“A guy comes up to him in a bar. Tells him he’s heard that Frankie has connections. Maybe tells him he wants to buy a gun.”
“That’s stretching, Payne,” Milham said. “You don’t think he’s going to sell the guns he used at the Inferno, do you? They’re probably at the bottom of the river.”
Matt met Washington’s eyes.
“Hay-zuz,” he said. “Wearing all his gold chains.”
It was a full thirty seconds before Washington spoke.
“I think Matthew may have something.”
“Hay-zus?” Milham asked.
“Detective Jesus Martinez,” Washington said. “Let me run this past Lieutenant Natali, maybe Captain Quaire, too. It would help if I could say the assigned detective had no objections.”
“Anything that works,” Milham said.
“I would suggest to you, Matthew, that while Mr. Foley presented a picture of complete composure in the Roundhouse, he may start to worry when he has had time to think things over. It is also possible that he may communicate with Mr. Atchison, or vice versa, which may make Mr. Atchison less confident than he was when we left him. In any event, there is nothing else that I can see that any of us can do today. I suggest we hang it up for the night.”
“I’ll see if I can get anything out of Helene,” Milham said. “And I’ll check with Homicide and see if anything new has come up.”
Every evening except Sunday, between 8:00 and 8:15 P.M. an automobile, most often a new Buick, stopped near the middle of the 1200 block of Ritner Street in South Philadelphia. A man carrying a small zipper bag would get out of the passenger seat, walk to the door of the residence occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Francis “Sonny” Boyle, and ring the bell.The door would be opened, the man would enter, and the door would be closed. Usually less than a minute later, the door would reopen, and the man, still carrying what appeared to be the same small zipper bag, would appear, descend the stairs, and get back in the car, which would then drive off.
There were, in fact, two bags. The bag the man carried into the house would more often than not be empty. The bag the man carried from the house would contain the records of Mr. Boyle’s business transactions of that day, and the cash proceeds therefrom, less Mr. Boyle’s commission.
Mr. Boyle was in the numbers business. His clientele would “buy a number,” that is select a number between 000 and 999. The standard purchase price was one dollar. If the number selected “came up,” that is, corresponded to the second comma-separated trio of numbers of activity on the New York Stock Exchange for that day, the lucky number holder received $500. For example, if 340,676,000 shares were traded on the stock exchange on one particular day, the winning number would be 676, and anyone who had purchased number 676 could exchange his receipt for his purchase for $500.
The operation of Mr. Boyle’s business was quite simple. Most of the sales were conducted through small retail businesses, candy stores, grocery stores, newspaper stands, and the like. Individual customers would buy a number and be given a receipt. The storekeepe
r would turn over his carbon copy of the number selected, and his cash receipts (less a ten percent commission for his trouble), to one of Mr. Boyle’s runners. The numbers runner would in turn pass the carbons and the receipts to Mr. Boyle, for which service he was paid five percent of total receipts. Mr. Boyle would prepare a list of numbers purchased from the carbons, and put the carbons and the cash, less ten percent for his commission, into the zipper bag for collection by the gentleman who called at his home each evening.
Sale of numbers was closed off at half past two in the afternoon. The New York Stock Exchange closed at three. By three-fifteen, the day’s transactions had been reported on radio and television, and Mr. Boyle was made aware which number had hit, if any. Or, far more commonly, that no number had been hit. Or, far less commonly, that two or three individuals had purchased numbers that had hit. Only once in Mr. Boyle’s experience (and he had been a runner before becoming a “numbers man” himself) had five individuals bought a number that had hit. He considered it far more probable that he would be struck by lightning than for it to happen that six individuals would select the same winning number.
But in any event, the laws of probability were not Mr. Boyle’s concern. All winning numbers were paid by his employers and did not come out of his pocket. When a number did hit, Mr. Boyle almost always had sufficient funds from that day’s receipts to pay it. If winnings exceeded receipts, a rare happenstance, he would make a telephone call and there would be enough cash in the zipper bag brought to his door to make payment, which was religiously made the next business day.
At 7:15 P.M. Mr. Boyle was sitting in his shirtsleeves at his kitchen table concluding the administration of the day’s business when he heard the doorbell ring.
He was idly curious, but did not allow it to disturb his concentration. His work was important, and he took pride in both his accuracy, his absolute honesty, both to his clients and to his employers, and his timeliness. He had failed only twice to be ready when the man with the bag appeared at his door. His wife, Helen, moreover, had strict orders that he was not to be disturbed when he was working unless the house was on fire.
The kitchen table was covered with carbons of numbers selected that day, which would be forwarded, and with stacks of money, folded in half, and kept together with rubber bands. The folded stacks of money—the day’s receipts—were predominantly dollar bills, but with the odd five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills assembled in their own stack. There were also three stacks of tens, crisp new bills, bound by paper strips bearing the logotype of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society, and marked “$500.”
These crisp new ten-dollar bills would be used to pay yesterday’s winners, those whose number had come up. This, Mr. Boyle believed, had a certain public relations aspect.
He could have, of course, paid the winners from the day’s receipts. There were a lot of people who would say money is money, it doesn’t matter where it comes from, so long as it can be spent. But Sonny believed that winners were happier to receive a stack of crisp new bills than they would be had he paid them with battered old currency, no telling where the hell it’s been. It made them feel better, and if they felt better, they would not only keep picking numbers, but would flash the wad of new bills around, very likely encouraging their friends and neighbors to put a buck, or a couple of bucks, on the numbers.
The swinging door from the dining room opened.
“Honey,” Helen said, to get his attention.
Sonny looked up at her with annoyance. She knew the rules.
“What?” he asked, less than politely.
“Mr. D’Angelo is here,” Helen said.
Marco D’Angelo was Mr. Boyle’s immediate supervisor. He normally drove the Buick which appeared ritualistically between 8:00 and 8:15 P.M., looking up and down the street as his assistant went into the Boyles’ residence.
As Sonny understood the hierarchy, Mr. D’Angelo worked directly for Mr. Pietro Cassandro. Mr. Pietro Cassandro was the younger brother of Mr. Paulo Cassandro, who was, as Sonny understood it, a made man, and who reported directly to Mr. Vincenzo Savarese, who was, so to speak, the Chairman of the Board.