“Valuable dirty pictures.”

“That’s what I figured. Where’s the gorilla?”

“Soaking his balls in ice, and they should fall off.”

“Looks like he caught you a good one.”

“Comes with the job.”

“Couldn’t you get your arm off quick enough?”

“I was scared he’d eat it.”

“I didn’t think you’d get out of that alley.”

“I notice you didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”

“I thought the film was more important.”

“You were right.”

“I know it.”

“You want a job?”

“Yeah.”

“When can you start?”

“Now.”

“Okay, hustle down to the Carnegie Deli. Find a guy named Ed Levine, big, tall guy, curly black hair. Tell him you’re from me. Give him the film. He asks why I didn’t come, tell him I’m wounded and getting drunk. You got that?”

“Easy.”

“Yeah, also easy to find the fat guy and sell the film back to him, but don’t do it, because I’ll find you and-”

“I know.”

“Meet me back here two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

“What for?”

“For your education, my son.”

So Neal Carey went to work for Friends of the Family, Not full-time, of course, and not even very often. But an agency like Friends often had a need to get quietly into small places and quickly out of them.

2

Anyone who grew up in or near Providence, Rhode Island, knew the old bank building. Its gray stones had held in safety the treasure of piggy banks, the birthday presents from fond uncles, the weekly paychecks and stock dividends of the thrifty working-class New Englanders since rum, slaves, and guns had made the town more than just a farm market. Later, the bank housed the profits from the textile mills of southern New England, from the slate quarries of Pawtucket, and from the fishing fleets of Galilee and Jerusalem, at the mouth of Narragansett Bay.