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of any séance. That night I was so anxious that it took me longer than usual to relax enough to play my part.
           Acting on a nod from Maggiori, the bruiser (as opposed to the monster, who I guess manned only the front door) turned out the electrical lights. The room went dark. It was a few seconds before people began focusing on the feeble light emanating from the cranberry candle lamp in the middle of the table.
           Deciding what the heck and that the sooner I got it over with the better, I cleared my throat and spoke in my best, most velvety spiritualistic voice. “Everyone please join hands.”
           Thus it was that I found myself holding hands with two of the most evil men I’d ever met. Jinx’s hands were rough and sweaty. Maggiori’s were as soft as a woman’s. I suppressed a shudder as I imagined him as a big black spider in the center of a web, directing people to do his malevolent wishes without ever dirtying his own hands.
           In an attempt to shake off my sense of impending doom, I began my usual banter. “In order for the spirits to break through from the Other Side and communicate with us, we must maintain absolute silence. No one must speak.”
           What hogwash. But it worked really well that evening. For the first time in my entire eleven-year career as a medium, honest-to-goodness silence descended upon one of my séances. Gee, those people were much more obedient than most of my clients. I suppose the threat of being shot to death does that to a person, you know, makes him behave.
           That thought took some of my satisfaction out of the success of my command. I tried not to let it bother me.
           I’d been told, via Stacy through her mother, that Vicenzo Maggiori wanted to get in touch with his dead uncle who’d been a big gangster in New York City. The man’s name was Carmine “The Hand” Bennadutto. I don’t know why they called him “The Hand,” and, frankly, I don’t want to. I figured the nickname had something to do with his criminous career.
           Therefore, I’d gone to the Pasadena Public Library and looked through old issues of the New York Times in search of information relating to Mr. Bennadutto. After all, if I aimed to trick a vicious gangster (Maggiori) into believing I’d called another vicious gangster (Bennadutto) from the dead, I’d better know what Rolly was talking about.
           Carmine Bennadutto had been born in Sicily in 1879, had moved to the U.S.A. in 1908, and had risen to a position of great celebrity in certain New York circles—not the kinds of circles in which I personally whirled. His gang was known to supply a section of New York City with liquor. He’d been gunned down in an Italian Restaurant on Mulberry Street in New York City in October of 1920, apparently the victim of a rival gang faction that wanted to take over his territory. There had been a picture of the murder scene, which I regretted looking at afterwards.
           So then I read about the rival gang faction. During my research, I gleaned a whole lot of interesting information about the different gangs extant in New York City at the time, and none of it made me view Maggiori’s séance with sanguinity. Or maybe sanguinity isn’t the right word since it makes me think of blood.
           At any rate, I didn’t want to conduct the darned séance, but I, stupid to a fault, had agreed to it. So I was stuck, and I aimed to do as good a job as I could, if only not to irritate Vicenzo Maggiori, whose reaction to irritation might prove painful, or worse, to my humble self.
           Approximately ten minutes into my act (it usually only takes about five minutes, but I was really nervous), I began to exhibit symptoms of falling into a trance. I’d started moaning and groaning a trifle, and allowing my head to droop, and that sort of thing.
           In case you’ve wondered, I never had any truck