The Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth

He looks around, sees I have a booth to myself and walks over. Very polite. Bows. I nod. He says something in a foreign lingo. I point to the spare chair. He sits down and orders a coffee. Only he doesn’t pronounce it kauphy, he says kaffay. The waiter’s Italian, so that’s fine by him. Only I reckon this guy is probably French. Why? He just looked French. So, being polite, I greeted him. In French.
    Do I speak French? Is the Chief Rabbi Jewish? Well, all right, a little French. So I says to him, ‘Bonjewer, Mon-sewer.’ Just trying to be a good New Yorker.
    Well, this Frenchie goes crazy. He launches into a torrent of French that is way above my head. And he’s distressed, nearly in tears. Reaches into his pocket and brings out a letter, very important-looking, with wax over the flap and a kind of seal. Waves it in my face.
    Now at this point I am still trying to be nice to a visitor in distress. The temptation is to finish the ice-cream, throw down a dime and get out of there. But instead I think, what the hell, let’s try and help this guy because he seems to have had a worse day than I have, and that is saying something. So I call over Papa Fellini and ask if he speaks French. No chance. Italian or English only and even the English with a Sicilian accent. Then I think: who speaks French around here?
    Now you guys would have shrugged and walked out, right? And you’d have missed something. But I’m Cholly Bloom, the sixth-sense man. And what stands just one block away at Twenty-sixth and Fifth? Delmonico’s. And who runs Delmonico’s? Why, Charlie Delmonico. And where does the Delmonico family come from? All right, Switzerland, but over there they speak all the languages and even though Charlie was born in the States I figure he probably has a little French.
    So I wheel the Frenchie out of there and ten minutes later we are outside the most famous restaurant in the whole of the United States. You guys ever been in there? No? Well, it’s something else. Polished mahogany, plum velvet, solid brass table lamps, seriously elegant. And expensive. More than I can afford. And up comes Charlie D. himself and he knows it. But that’s the mark of a great restaurateur, right? Perfect manners, even to a tramp off the street. He bows and asks in what manner he can help. I explain that I have come across this Frenchie over from Paris and that he has a major problem with a letter but I cannot understand what it is.
    Well, Mr D. makes a polite enquiry of the Frenchman, in French, and the guy is at it again, going like a Gatling gun and producing his letter. I can’t follow a word so I look around. Five tables away is Bet-a-Million Gates going through the menu from the date to the toothpick. Just beyond him is Diamond Jim Brady early-dining with Lillian Russell who has a decolletage to sink the SS Majestic . By the by, you know how Diamond Jim eats? I’d been told it but I never believed it; last night I saw it for real. He plants himself in his chair, measures an exact five inches, no more and no less, between his stomach and the table. Then he moves no more, but eats until his belly touches the table.
    By this time Charlie D. has finished. He explains to me the Frenchie is a Mon-sewer Armand Dufour, a lawyer from Paris, who has come to New York on a mission of crucial importance. He has to deliver a letter from a dying woman to a certain Mr Erik Muhlheim who may or may not be a resident of New York. He has tried every avenue and come up with a blank. At that point, so do I. Never heard of anybody of that name.
    But Charlie is stroking his beard like he is thinking hard, then he says to me: ‘Mr Bloom’ - real formal - ‘have you heard of the E.M. Corporation?’
    Now, I ask you, is the Pope Catholic? Of course I’ve heard of it. Incredibly rich, amazingly powerful and totally secretive. More shares of more pies quoted on the Stock Exchange than anyone barring J. Pierpont Morgan and no-one is richer than J.P. So, not