"It's Eddie, not Ed," I grinned, "and if you've been trying to catch him so long, then you know what he's capable of, he finds out I'm defecting, get me? How can I get out without him knowing or coming after me?"

"Look. I give you not my word, because I don't think that would be good enough for you, but the word of the entire Boston Greater Metropolitan police force, that our contact inside is the best at what he does. He's the one that tipped us you might be willing to jump on the shop," he said as he stood back up and put his hands in his pockets.

I chuckled. "Kid, er, sorry. Officer, the saying is 'jump ship' not 'jump on the shop,' and I'm telling you, your insider has to have been made already. Heavy Sal doesn't have people checked out. He checks them out his own self, and he was a private dick in the seventies, before he decided to engage in extralegal-type activties. Nobody gets in that organization without him knowing every skeleton in their closet on a first name basis. They may think they do, but they don't. I won't be telling you kind gentlemen anything, unless you can guarantee me out under those circumstances."

He looked up at the mirror in the room -- which anyone that's watched any cop shows or flicks since 1960 knows is a window with his bosses on the other side where toughs like me can't see 'em. I was beginning to like the kid, he really was trying, and he was just his organization's version of me. A working stiff trying to impress the honchos.

The door opened and a couple of suits filed in, and introduced themselves, but I wasn't paying attention. Their names weren't as important to me as the kid's, and his was more out of curiosity now, and I could do without it. I think he'd given it to me already, but at the time, I didn't care as much as I would for rat-testicle soup.

"Mr. Palmieri --"

"Eddie," put in the kid. I was really starting to like him. I wonder if he plays golf?

With an annoyed-type look at the kid, the suit started again, "Eddie, then. Eddie, we really need this. Crawford wasn't just talking out his ass when he gave you word of all of us. We have over one hundred officers at different levels working on the Hadrian case at any one time. There's not a meatier main course for us. You will be removed as quickly as it can be arranged, and Hadrian, while he'll know you were gone, will not know how you did it, how we did it, and will never be able to point a triggerman at you. I swear on my mother's soul -- and yes, she's dead, died at 72 last year."

"What's his name?" I asked.

The other suit was the one that answered oh-so-intelligently, "What?"

"I said, 'What's his name?'" I repeated.

"Whose name?" asked Crawford (gotta remember that).

"The guy that'll be getting me out," I answered.

"He won't be using his real name while undercover, Eddie," said the first suit.

"Oh," I replied, "I know. But if you really have a guy in there already, one - you'll know his name and two - I gotta know who it was could beat Hadrian's background check."

The suits looked at each other and did that thing with the puffing out cheeks and rubbing a hand up over the face from the chin to the forehead and back over the hair. In unison. I wondered if they practiced that.

"Robin Carlotti."

The suits whipped around with angry faces to stare at my buddy Crawford as I grinned.

It was Papa's friend Sal.

"Yes, Mister Hadrian," I replied, "three A's, two B's and only one C last report card." I was rightfully proud of my achievement.

"What grade're you in now ...fifth? ...sixth?" he asked with a grin.

"Eighth," I answered, and fought the scowl at being called a little kid back. Wouldn't do to let Papa know I'd been rude to his friend.

"Eighth grade? Already?" he asked, and looked surprised. So it was just an honest mistake, after all. I was glad I'd hidden that scowl.

"Yessir. Last year before high school," I replied, all puff-chested and proud.

"Well. At your age, a young man has to start thinking about the important things. College is in your future, m'boy," he said with a big grin.

"You want I should go to college? I want to, but I don't think Papa makes enough. I mean, I shined his shoes for a week for enough to buy that comic book," I pointed at the four-color treasure through the window of the shop he'd stopped me outside of.

"Ah, but Eddie, do you know what a scholarship is?" he asked. "It's money from companies and even the government for kids what make good grades to go to college and continue their learning educations. And a young man can get a job. In fact, I'll tell you what. I'll help you out. You come to me with your next report card and show me you have nothing lower than a B, and I'll have some work for you. You can save up what you make from me, and with the better grades, get better scholarships and then you can get to go to college."

I didn't buy the comic. I went home and got a big gallon-pickle jar from Mama and put some masking tape on it, then wrote on it with a black marker, 'College,' and put my fifty-five cents in it. Any money I got after that from chores or even just finding it on the sidewalk went in that jar -- or the others that came after it. When Christmas break came, I went to find Mister Hadrian, and showed him my straight-A's report card. From that day on, just before my fourteenth birthday, I was in the employ of Salvatore Hadrian, Private Investigator.

I'd run and get cigars from the Tobaccanist. I'd get the morning and evening papers from the newsboy on the corner. I'd shine the shoes for the fellas waiting to see him in his office. I'd take a letter across town on the bicycle Sal bought for just such a purpose.

"Keep it," he'd say, "you've earned a bonus, you're a good worker."