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I’m fine, I swear. Where we headed?” he said with a
smile.
    Tennutti held his lieutenant’s gaze for a moment longer.
    “I’ll tell you in the car. Let’s move.” He looked back at Darby. “Where’s
your hat at anyway?”
    Darby’s hand reached up and touched his head by reflex. For a split
second, a vision flashed before his eyes of his old hat falling from his head
and drifting away as he stared down into an endless black abyss. The moment
passed with a shiver.
    “I dunno,” was all he replied.
    A moment later, Darby and Tennutti entered the High-Hat’s underground
garage under the gaze of a dozen armed guards. As was Tennutti’s custom, his
driver entered the car first, while Big Joe remained a discreet distance away.
Darby pressed the starter and the car roared to life. In this armed camp, there
was little chance of the vehicle being booby-trapped, but Tennutti was a man
who preferred safe to sorry.
    The armor-plated limousine purred like a kitten. Tennutti stepped into
the back, closed the door and the car roared away into the night.
    Tennutti leaned forward and growled the address into the limousine’s
speaking tube. Through the bulletproof glass that separated him from even his
driver, Tennutti could see Clyde Darby nod his understanding. Big Joe settled
back into the deep leather seat and lit a fresh cigar. Soon the books would be
back in his hands and the Red Panda could do what he liked to Morton Nye, for
all the good it would do him. As soon as he had those books…
    Tennutti’s eyes settled on the seat next to him and he bit through his
cigar in surprise. Sitting next to him in the back of his limousine were the
very books and ledgers he was on his way to recover. A complete record of
rackets, money laundering, hidden accounts, legitimate businesses – a
career retrospective of brutal crime and intimidation packaged up neatly for
the prosecutors.
    Big Joe stammered in shock. He yelled for Darby, not thinking to use
the speaking tube. There was, atop the pile, a thin green ledger Tennutti did
not recognize. He tore it open and saw the fine, spindly hand of his trusted
bookkeeper, detailing in full the keys needed to interpret the code in which
the books were written, together with a full confession for the role that Nye
had played in the crimes.
    Big Joe gaped wild-eyed at the ledger in his hand. He turned quickly to
the last page of the book. There, staring back at him, written in a bold hand
were the words Courtesy of the Red Panda! And underneath, a second hand had added the postscript –And the Flying Squirrel xoxo.
    Joe Tennutti snarled with rage. Why would those masked freaks have done
this? Why gather up this pile of evidence and then leave it to be discovered in
his own car? Were they simply trying to prove that they could get to him? Did
they expect to be paid off for their trouble? And how did they even get into
his car? In the armed camp that was the High-Hat Club, the only person who
could open the doors of the limousine with impunity was…
    …His driver, Clyde Darby.
    Tennutti looked up with a start and realized that his car was far off
its planned route. Darby was headed somewhere else, driving calmly,
unconcerned.
    “Darby!” Tennutti screamed, pounding on the soundproof glass. “Darby!”
    Big Joe quickly realized his folly and pulled the speaking tube from
its hanger. But before he could even open his mouth to fill the tube with
expletives, he heard a strange hissing sound coming back at him. Gas! The
sealed rear chamber of the limousine was filling with a translucent white gas
that had started to flow through the tube from the front of the car. Tennutti’s
head swam. His arms flailed for the handle to open the door, the window…
anything to clear the air and give him time to escape, but neither would budge.
Tennutti felt himself slumping forward… forward… down…
    An hour later, two uniformed police officers were walking towards their
prowl car, preparing to leave for