“I’d bought a newspaper just before your reception committee picked me up,” Simon remarked thoughtfully, “but it didn’t have that story. How did you hear it so quickly? Direct from the police, maybe?”
“You catch on fast,” Unciello said. “Sure, Inspector Buono’s one of my boys. He should of kept you locked up when he had you, and saved me this trouble.”
Simon nodded. He was not greatly surprised.
“I figured him for a bad egg,” he said. “But it’s nice to have you confirm it.”
“Buono’s a good boy,” Unciello said. “He knows where I am. That’s okay. But with you it’s different.” He leaned forward a little. His manner was very patient and earnest. “I like this place. Spent a lot of dough fixing it up. I’d hate that to be all wasted. But when a fellow like you says he could find it, it bothers me. I gotta know how you got it figured. So if maybe somebody slipped up somewhere, it can be taken care of. See what I mean?”
“You couldn’t be more lucid, Tony,” Simon reassured him. “And what do you think this information would be worth?”
Unciello chuckled, a soundless quaking of his wide belly. “Why, to you it’s worth plenty. You tell me all about it, and everything’s nice and friendly. But you don’t tell me, and the boys have to go to work on you. They do a mean job. You hold out for an hour, a day, two days — depending how tough you are. But in the end you talk, just the same, only you been hurt plenty first. To a fellow with your brains, that don’t make sense. So you tell me now, and we don’t have no nastiness.”
Simon appeared to consider this briefly, but the conclusion was obvious.
“You make everything delightfully simple,” he said. “So I’ll try to do the same. I said I could find you, and this proves it. I’m here now.”
“Only because my boys brought you here.”