"You said you wanted to see me," Palveri began after a second. "But you didn't say what about. What's up, Mr. Malone?"
"I've been looking around," Malone said in what he hoped was a grim, no-nonsense tone. "Checking things. You know."
"Checking?" Palveri said. "What's this about?"
Malone shrugged. He fished out a cigarette and lit it. "Castelnuovo in Chicago sent me down," he said. "I've been doing some checking around for him."
Palveri's eyes narrowed slightly. Malone puffed on the cigarette and tried to act cool. "You throwing names around to impress me?" the club owner said at last.
"I'm not throwing names around," Malone said grimly. "Castelnuovo wants me to look around, that's all."
"Castelnuovo's a big man in Chicago," Palveri said. "He wouldn't send a guy down without telling me about it."
"He did," Malone said. He thought back to the FBI files on Giacomo Castelnuovo, which took up a lot of space in Washington, even on microfilm. "You want proof?" he said. "He's got a scar over his ribs on the left side—got it from a bullet in '62. He wears a little black mustache because he thinks he looks like an old-time TV star, but he doesn't, much. He's got three or four girls on the string, but the only one he cares about is Carla Bragonzi. He—"
"O.K.," Palveri said. "O.K., O.K. You know him. You're not fooling, around. But how come he sends you down without telling me?"