“Nothing, nothing.”

“I keep my bargains,” Importuna said. “Do you doubt my word?”

“Certainly not-”

“And you may keep your controllership and the vice-presidency. You pull this off and I may even raise your salary, give you stock. But I warn you, Mr. Big Shot.”

“About what, Nino?”

“No more borrowings from Superba Foods, Ultima Mining, the others. Little borrowings that add up so fast to so much. Capito?”

“Of course. Naturally.”

“And no more magic tricks with the books. Hartz will be checking you.”

“Nino, I give you my word-”

“And don’t offer Hartz a cut of your thievings to give me false reports-there will be someone you don’t know double-checking him. Not that I give nine damns in hell whether you rot in jail or not, caro. But how would it look for the wife of Nino Importuna? Her own father. Excuse me.” He picked up one of the battery of telephones on the Florentine table, the one that was discreetly buzzing. “Yes, Peter.”

“Mr. E just got in from Australia,” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. E? He’s here? In the apartment?”

“Waiting.”

“Good, Peter! I want to see him right away.”

Importuna hung up and waved his right hand to his visitor in dismissal. He appeared no more self-conscious about the hand in waving it a few feet from the tall man than when he had kept it in sight on his chin during their long conversation. The hand possessed only four fingers; where the index and middle fingers should have been there was a single finger of double thickness, a sort of digital Siamese twin.

It was curiously flexible.

“Ciao, suocero,” the nine-fingered multimillionaire said gently.

CONCEPTION

Under normal conditions the ovum lies in the uterus for about 24 hours, waiting.

If fertilization takes place, then, instead of passing through the uterus into the world of waste, the organism-now a zygote-attaches itself to the uterus wall and sets about its built-in program of growth.