'Vinnie says if you give your word, you will keep it.'
'Generally,' I said.
'Vinnie is not given to praise,' Fish said.
'So his regard for you is impressive.'
'Impresses the hell out of me,' I said.
'Vinnie also said you are inclined to be flippant.'
'Vinnie thinks flippant is the name of a dolphin,' I said.
Fish smiled as dryly as it was possible to smile and not be frowning. His teeth were remarkably white. I wondered if he had them bonded.
'I did in fact rephrase Vinnie's remark,' Fish said.
'I thought Marty Anaheim walked around with you,' I said.
Fish shook his head very slightly.
'Marty is my business associate,' Fish said.
'Vinnie has kindly agreed to be my bodyguard.'
'You and Broz never patched it up,' I said to Vinnie.
'Kid's in the way,' Vinnie said.
'Kid wasn't the best thing that ever happened to Joe,' I said.
'He knows that,' Vinnie said.
'But what's he gonna do.'
Fish seemed in no hurry. He sat perfectly still with his hands folded and waited for us to finish. He was wearing a gray three piece suit with a gentle glen plaid pattern. His shirt was blue with a white tab collar, and his tie was a gray and blue geometric.
While he waited he examined the sink in the corner, the big green file cabinet to the right of the window with the head shot of Paul Giacomin on top of it, the picture of Susan with Pearl on my desk.
'I have a problem,' he said.
I tilted back in my chair and waited. Behind me the September air, with only the smallest edge of fall inside the still summery softness, drifted in through the half-open window that overlooked the Boylston-Berkeley intersection.
'May I assume that this discussion is entirely confidential?'
Fish said.
'No,' I said.
Fish looked mildly surprised and glanced at Vinnie.
'He's just being a hard-on, Mr. Fish,' Vinnie said.
'He does that. Means he'll decide whether it's confidential after he hears it.
Go ahead and tell him.'
'I have been in business a long time,' Fish said, 'and I have learned prudence. I have learned that if you have associates you have to trust them.'
He spoke slowly, with pauses between words that required no pauses, so you never quite knew when he was through talking. I waited.
'But I have also learned never to trust them beyond the limits of their venality.'
'You go to Yale?' I said.
Again the driest of possible smiles.
'I have very little formal education,' he said.
'But I have always valued language and during a long period of incarceration when I was very much younger, I took it upon myself to master language.'
'Are you sure you're a bad guy?' I said.
'Yes,' Fish said.
'I am.'
I waited. Fish seemed to be thinking about something. Somewhere below me on Boylston Street I heard the boop beep of someone's car alarm remote.
'So, I have instituted a system of, ah, checks and balances in my organization. No single person is solely responsible for the management of money. Sometimes there are two, sometimes more than two, people who control a particular source of income and are responsible for its accounting. These people are generally not known to each other, or, two people are known to each other, but there may be a third or even a fourth who is unknown to the others, indeed, whose very existence is unknown to the others.'
'Labyrinthian,' I said.
