“Well,” I said, shrugging, “I can fix you up with some bodyguards. But if the Outfit wants you, I’m afraid they’re going to get you. You know that. You know what you’re up against.”

“If they kill me,” he said, chin jutting, eyes slitting, “there’s a Ragen to take my place.”

“Your son Jim, Jr.”

He nodded curtly.

I didn’t think the boy had near the stones his old man had, but I said only, “And if Jim should go the way of all flesh, as well?”

“I have two more sons.”

Oh brother.

“Is it worth it, Jim?”

“Nobody has ever stood up to these dago sons of bitches. If I stand up to ’em, they’ll back down.”

“You really think so?”

“Let ’em run their competing wire service. They’ll never deliver the quality product I can, so they’ll never put me under. I caught ’em tapping my phones, pirating my news, and got a court order against ’em!”

Jesus, I thought. Does this guy really think the courts is where he can win against the Outfit?

But he was ranting on: “There’ll be some poor bastards operating handbooks out there, feelin’ they gotta pay for both services, letting themselves be shook down…but if they want to knuckle under to the Capone crowd, that’s up to them.”

Coming from most people, talk of standing up to the Outfit would go past suicidal into idiotic. But Ragen had coexisted with the Outfit for years; despite all the talk of “dagoes,” he’d been cordial with Guzik and thick with Dan Serritella, the longtime state senator and longertime Capone mob crony. Serritella even had business ties with Ragen, who had taken control of the horse-race wire service business in 1939, shortly before Moe Annenberg, his mentor, got sent up for tax evasion. Since then, the Outfit had been content to pay the price for Ragen’s service; but of late they’d been trying to buy in. Ragen had been resisting all offers, despite Guzik’s assurances that the little Irishman would be kept on as a partner.