The controller said slowly, “That new man, Hartz.”

“S’intende. He reports to me that my smart controller-vice-president has stolen from me and my brothers over the past three years over $300,000. What’s more, he brought me the proofs. If I turn the proofs over to the district attorney and the Internal Revenue, Mr. Controller, you’ll spend what is left of your life either in Sing Sing or the Danbury prison, depending on whether New York State or the federal government gets its hands on you first. You were going to say?”

“You might offer the condemned man a cigar.”

Importuna looked surprised. He extended the box of stogies.

“Not those, if you don’t mind,” the tall man said. “The Havanas you keep for your peers are more to my taste.”

“Your taste,” the tycoon said, smiling for the third time. “Oh, yes.” He picked up the antique Florentine dagger he used as a letter opener, and with it he nudged a tooled-leather humidor toward the other side of the table. The controller opened it, scooped out a handful of big fat fragrant green cigars, lit one, slipped the others carefully into his breast pocket, sat back, and puffed with enjoyment.

“I don’t know what you paid the man who smuggled these in from Cuba for you, Nino, but they’d be a bargain at triple the price. How can you keep polluting the atmosphere with those ghastly black pretzels of yours when you’ve got these to smoke? But what I was about to say, Nino,” he went on, “is that if you’ve called me up here this evening to talk about it, you’ve something other than policemen and income tax people in mind for me. That was clear from the start. Of course, I couldn’t be altogether sure. I mean, if I seemed a bit nervous, I’ll admit I was. But now I’m positive. Your so-called proofs are the lever with which you’re trying to shove me into a deal. You want something for your money, and I’ve apparently got it.”

“That,” Importuna said with the soft smile, his fourth, “is not the saying of the stupido I took you for.”