“I understand you’ve been having troubles,” he said.
Manelli nodded. “Now, you see, Mr. Malone?” he said. “You tell me you don’t know what’s happening, but you know I got troubles. How come, Mr. Malone? How come?”
“Because you have got troubles,” Malone said. “But I have nothing to do with them.” He hesitated, thought of adding: “Yet,” and decided against it.
“Now, Mr. Malone,” Manelli said. “You know better than that.”
“I do?” Malone said.
Manelli sighed, took another swallow of his drink and dragged deeply on the cigar. “Let’s take a for-instance,” he said. “Now, you understand my business is advertising, Mr. Malone?”
“It’s in your blood,” Malone said, involuntarily.
“Right,” Manelli said. “But I think about things. I like to figure things out. In a sort of a theoretical way, like a for-instance. Understand?”
“What sort of theoretical story are you going to tell me?” Malone said.
Manelli leaned back in his chair. “Let’s take, for instance, some numbers runners who had some trouble the other day, got beat up and money taken from them. Maybe you read about it in the papers.”