The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

"To the dry cleaners, and then I got some stuff to do."

He decided to walk. He had found a place to park the goddamned Buick, and if he took it now, sure as Christ made little apples, there would be no parking place for blocks when he came back.

Vito dropped the clothes off at the Martinizer place on South Broad Street and then headed for Terry's Bar amp; Grill. Then he changed his mind. He wasn't in the mood for Terry's. It was a neighborhood joint, and Vito was still in a Flamingo Hotel amp; Casino mood.

He stepped off the curb and looked down South Broad in the direction of the navy yard until he could flag a cab. He got in and told the driver to take him to the Warwick Hotel. There was usually some gash in the nightclub in the Warwick, provided you had the moneyand he did-to spring for expensive drinks.

The cab dropped him off at the Warwick right outside the bar. The hotel bar is on the right side of the building, off the lobby. The nightclub is a large area on the left side of the building, past the desk and the drugstore. Vito decided he would check out the hotel bar, maybe there would be something interesting in there, and then go to the nightclub.

He found a seat at the bar, ordered a Johnnie Walker on the rocks, and laid one of the fifty-dollar bills on the bar to pay for it.

****

Francesco Guttermo, who was seated at a small table near the door to the street in the Warwick Bar, leaned forward in his chair, then motioned for Ricco Baltazari to move his head closer, so that others would not hear what he had to say.

"The guy what just come in, at the end of the bar, he's got a gun," Mr. Guttermo, who was known as "Frankie the Gut," said. The appellation had been his since high school, when even then he had been portly with a large stomach.

Mr. Baltazari, who was listed in the records of the City of Philadelphia as the owner of Ristorante Alfredo, one of Center City's best Italian restaurants (northern Italian cuisine, no spaghetti with marinara sauce or crap like that), was expensively and rather tastefully dressed. He nodded his head to signify that he had understood what Frankie the Gut had said, and then relaxed back into his chair, taking the opportunity to let his hand graze across the knee of the young woman beside him.

She was a rather spectacularly bosomed blonde, whose name was Antoinette, but who preferred to be called "Tony." She slapped his hand, but didn't seem to be offended.

After a moment Mr. Baltazari turned his head just far enough to be able to look at the man with the gun, his backside and, in the bar's mirror, his face.

Then he leaned forward again toward Mr. Guttermo, who moved to meet him.

"He's probably a cop," Mr. Baltazari said.

"He paid for the drink with a fifty from a wad," Mr. Guttermo said.

"Maybe he hit his number," Mr. Baltazari said with a smile. "Maybe that's your fifty he's blowing."

It was generally believed by, among others, the Intelligence Unit and the Chief Inspector's Vice Squad of the Philadelphia Police Department that Mr. Guttermo, who had no other visible means of support, was engaged in the operation of a Numbers Book.

"You don't think he's interested in us?" Frankie the Gut asked.

"We're not doing anything wrong," Mr. Baltazari said. "Why should he be interested in us? You're a worrier, Frankie."

"You say so," Frankie the Gut replied.

"All we're doing is having a couple of drinks, right, Tony?" Mr. Baltazari said, touching her knee again.

"You said it, baby," Tony replied.

But Mr. Baltazari, who hadn't gotten where he was by being careless, nevertheless kept an eye on the guy with a gun who was probably a cop, and when the guy finished his drink and picked up his change and walked out of the bar, a slight frown of concern crossed his face.

"Go see where he went, Tony," he said.

"Huh?"

"You heard me. Go see where that guy went."

Tony got up and walked out of the bar into the hotel lobby.

"What are you thinking, Ricco?" Frankie the Gut asked. "That cops don't buy drinks with fifties?"

"Some cops don't," Mr. Baltazari said.

Tony came back and sat down and turned to face Mr. Baltazari.