''Yes. Would you like to see a couple?"
"Of course. " You can - as soon as Ray is out of prison."
Tarry Ross was known to the Palumbo family as'Alfred The fewer people who knew his real name, the better; then his employers, the FBI, would never hear about his profitable extra work. The Palumbo family decided to help the Morolto family. Lazarov told them he wanted some information out of the FBI. The Palumbos said they would do it for half a million. Lazarov agreed, and Vinnie Cozzo from the Palumbo family met Ross.
"Make it quick, Cozzo," Ross said nervously.
"Did you ever hear ofthe Bendini firm in Memphis?" Cozzo asked.
"No." The rule was always to say no at first. And always make them wait: that way the price went up. Of course he'd heard of Bendini, Lambert& Locke.
Vinnie went on, 'There's someone down there named Mitchell McDeere, who works for this Bendini firm. We want to know if he's been talking to your people. We think he's selling information to the FBI. We just want to know if we're right, you know? That's all.
Ross listened with a straight face, though it wasn't easy. He knew everything about McDeere. He knew that McDeere had met Tarrance half a dozen times now. He knew that tomorrow McDeere was suddenly going to get a million dollars.
" I'll see what I can do," he said. "How much?"
"Two hundred thousand.
"In cash?" Ross said in amazement.
"Yeah. You can see we're real serious about this. Can you do it?