Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

I waited in the hot stillness, and after a while he knocked softly, and I got up in the dark, and my hand, swinging out, struck the tumbler on the table by the bed and knocked it to the floor with a sound of brittle thunder that rocked the room. I waited until the reverberations had diminished and died and the soft knock was repeated, and then I crossed to the door and opened it.

The warm fog inside my skull pressed closely on my brain, and though my head didn’t ache exactly it felt very light and queer. The man in the hall looked at me and bowed in a peculiar, old-fashioned way from the waist and smiled politely.

“Excuse me for disturbing you at this hour,” he said, “but I must talk with you about a number of people. About Mrs. Willkins first of all, I think. May I come in?”

He was a little man with a long pointed nose and a pointed chin. He wore yellow pointed shoes.

I saw Marilla from my window. He was walking in the yard below with the same man in white who comes now and then to my room, and he sat for a while on a bench under a tree, and I could see him quite clearly. The queer thing is, there was no hate, no longer any hate, and I’m thinking that perhaps I will be allowed to walk in the yard soon, and that Marilla and I may meet and sit together under the tree and talk about these things that happened. It will be pleasant to talk with someone who knows and understands ...

Manville Moon had never seen Fausta frightened before. But Fausta had never run into the Mafia before, either ...

I have, on a variety of occasions, seen Fausta Moreni exhibit strong emotions. I have seen her joyful, angry, loving and jealous. But never before that day had I seen her afraid.

It was more than mere fear. Her face registered almost stark terror when I opened her office door unexpectedly and she looked up to see who was entering. When she saw my face, relief flooded her own, which was an indication of her state of mind. Normally, while I do not exactly repulse people, the sight of my face does not inspire abandoned joy. In my youth a set of brass knuckles gave it a bent nose and one drooping eyelid, and even people as fond of me as Fausta are inclined to flinch when I come upon them unexpectedly.

Before I could even get the door closed Fausta was around the desk and clinging to me like a child seeking protection from a bully. Because of her Latin impulsiveness, it was not unusual for her to throw herself into my arms on sight, but usually, after planting one quick kiss on my chin, she would back off, examine me from narrowed eyes and lightly slap my face, as though I had been the aggressor. This time she merely clung.

Taking her by the shoulders, I pushed her away far enough to look down into her face. It was a lovely face. Though you usually expect Italian women to be dark, Fausta has vivid blonde hair in striking contrast to her brown eyes and coffee-with-cream complexion. Add perfect features, a form which would give goose bumps to an octogenarian, and you will begin to understand I had quite a woman by the shoulders.

I said, “What gives, baby?”

“Manny,” she said. “Oh, Manny!” And she struggled to get back into my arms.

“Whoa!” I said, still holding her at arm’s length. “What’s all the excitement?”

She stopped struggling and just looked at me discouragedly. Then, with her shoulders sagging, she moved back to her desk. Opening a drawer, she removed a small sheet of paper and handed it to me.

The paper contained nothing but an India ink drawing of a black hand.

Examining the sheet on both sides without growing any wiser, I finally handed it back.

“Nice likeness, if you care for pictures of hands,” I said. “Is it supposed to mean something?”

Fausta collapsed in the chair behind her desk. “Just the Mafia,” she said tonelessly. “It is their way of announcing a death sentence.”

“The Mafia! That comic opera outfit?”

And I began to develop a slow burn. I knew something, though not a great deal, about the Mafia. I knew Sicilian bandits had originated it in the nineteenth century at an extortion racket, but when immigrants brought it to the United States it gradually underwent a change. Though its criminal members still often used it for extortion, it had spread to include thousands who were not criminals at all. Probably most of its members were law-abiding people, at least those who lived in America, but also most top racketeers of Italian descent belonged to the secret organization.

I also knew it operated under a ridiculous grammar-school sort of ritual which included blood oaths, passwords and idiotic warnings such as Fausta’s black hand.

I said, “Maybe you’d better tell me the whole story.”

It developed there was not much of a story to tell. The previous week two men had come into El Patio , Fausta’s supper club, asked the head waiter to see her and been ushered back to her office. Neither gave a name, and she could describe them only as both dark, probably Italian, both of average build and both as well-dressed. She guessed them to be respectively about twenty-five and thirty years old.

The older man did all the talking, Fausta said, and even he did very little. He simply announced that the Mafia from that day forward expected ten percent of El Patio’s net profit, and said he or his companion would stop by once a week to pick it up.

As the most popular supper club in town, El Patio’s net profit runs into nearly a quarter million a year. Hoping that the Mafia would settle for less than its original demand, Fausta placed only a hundred dollars in the envelope the younger man called for that morning. The result had been the black hand missive, which had come to her in a sealed envelope handed by some unidentified customer to one of her waiters.

“Why did you pay anything at all?” I asked. “Why didn’t you phone the police?”

“Report the Mafia, Manny? Then surely they would kill me.”

“They’re only men,” I said. “Not supernatural creatures. They fit into jail cells as easily as other men.”

“You do not understand,” she said hopelessly. “ No one can fight the Mafia. Do you not know that even the great Enrico Caruso all his life paid ten percent of his earnings to the Mafia?”

“I’ve read that,” I admitted. “But just because he was a sucker, you don’t have to be.”

At that moment the desk phone rang. Answering it, Fausta drew a deep breath and then just listened.

After a moment she said, “All right. Anything you say. This evening at seven.” And slowly hung up.

“The Mafia again?” I asked.

Numbly she nodded. “I have another chance. My fee is five hundred dollars a week. They say they estimate the club’s profit at five thousand, but it is not that high. They want to pick up the other four hundred for the first week at seven tonight.”

Looking at my watch, I saw it was nearly one. “That gives me six hours,” I said. “Get the envelope ready, and if you don’t hear from me, pay off when they come. I may be back and I may not.”

Coming around the desk, she laid frightened hand on my arm. “What are you going to do, Manny?”

“Just poke around,” I said.

“You will be killed, Manny. Please do not try to fight the Mafia.”

I said, “I won’t be killed, so stop jittering. Just do as I said.”

She made another attempt to stop me by throwing her arms around my neck, but I simply pushed her away and walked out. I even forgot to tell her the reason I had dropped by was to ask her to go night-clubbing that night.