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If it’s heavy-duty work, you could bribe the CIA or one of the new Mafia families. They could lend you a hand.”
    â€œThat’s not the kind of hand I need.”
    â€œThen what is it?” Holden asked, tiring of all that food on the table. The unobstructed depth of the restaurant was killing him. He’d come to a ghost city. Would the waiters disappear if he pricked them with a needle? Were they animated balloons from one of the workshops downstairs? A product of Phipps Enterprises?
    â€œI’m ninety-two, Holden. I’d like a companion.”
    Holden looked at the old man’s eyes. “If it’s funny stuff, I’m not into that. I have a fiancée, even if I can’t reach her at the moment.” Holden stood up. “I think I’ll say good-bye … and you can have your check back.”
    â€œSit down.”
    â€œI like it better when I stand. I can watch all the murals.”
    â€œSit down.”
    Holden sat.
    â€œI’m sick of philanthropy … I want to get back into the life.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œYou know. That’s why I need you. I can’t go charging around all by myself.”
    â€œThen hire a nurse with a pair of guns.… Mr. Phipps, you’re a little crazy. The life. The life . You want to handle cocaine? Be my guest. All you have to do is buy a little airfield and you’re in business.”
    â€œI’m not interested in cocaine. I was thinking of funny paper.”
    â€œOh, that’s a lovely idea. Funny paper, when you’ve got billions of the real thing. No wonder Judith Church ran away. You’re into scary projects … and why are you telling me all this? Are you so sure I’m not wearing a wire? I could be a rat for some federal prosecutor, waiting in line for the witness protection program. I could sink you, Mr. Phipps.”
    â€œHolden, I have dinner twice a month with the attorney general.”
    â€œAll right, so you’re bulletproof, but why me?”
    â€œI trust you.”
    â€œWe’ve never met. Are you telling me I have an honest smile, some shit like that?”
    â€œI’ve known you since you were a boy.”
    â€œStop that,” Holden said. “I wouldn’t forget a billionaire.”
    â€œI never really introduced myself to you. That would have been indiscreet. We had ice-cream sodas several times.”
    â€œWhere and when?”
    â€œJacobi’s on Kissena Boulevard … I’d say nineteen sixty or ’sixty-two.”
    Holden felt a murderous beat in his forehead. “My father always took me there. It was out of the way. He’d drive me in his company car … between assignments for Aladdin Furs. He was Bruno Schatz’s chauffeur.”
    â€œSometimes Schatz lent your father out to me.”
    â€œThat’s impossible,” Holden said. “My dad was under wraps. Schatz had to find him a new name and everything. He was an outlaw.”
    â€œYou misunderstood. He didn’t hurt anyone for me. Your father was my collection agent. And we’d meet at Jacobi’s from time to time. I was fond of him … and his wife. A black woman.”
    â€œMrs. Howard. They lived together. But they were never married.”
    â€œI wasn’t being technical about it,” Phipps said. “And we talked, you and I … at Jacobi’s.”
    â€œWhat about?”
    â€œBaseball, I think. Johnny Mize. And James Bond. You liked Double O Seven.”
    â€œThen it couldn’t have been nineteen sixty. That was before Doctor No .”
    A hollow appeared between the old man’s eyes. “Didn’t I say ’sixty or ’sixty-two?”
    They were silent for a moment, stuck in some little war game of years and ice-cream parlors. Holden still couldn’t remember an old man asking him questions about Johnny Mize. But Holden Sr. might have talked to Phipps