Naked Came the Stranger

EXCERPT FROM "THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW," DECEMBER 7TH

Billy: It's hard to believe that Pearl Harbor was that long ago, Gilly.

Gilly: I was a child then, but I'll never forget it. Billy: Neither will I.

Gilly: And what you wonder about is whether we learned anything from it. When I say "we," of course, I mean mankind in general.

Billy: You certainly do wonder. The world seems to be in as much of a mess as ever.

Gilly: Yes, and not just nations, but people. We just don't seem to care about one another.

Billy: The whole bit is going on, all right. War, killing, violence, man's inhumanity to man.

Gilly: Yes.

Billy: Take organized crime. It's become an accepted part of everyday life.

Gilly: That's so true. The crime seems to be in getting caught, rather than in doing wrong.

Billy: Take the Cosa Nostra. It's everywhere.

Gilly: I wonder about that, though. You know, whether it's all true. All that melodramatic stuff about families. Billy: I believe it. Today's gangsters are organization men hiding behind business façades.

Gilly: Team men. Billy: Definitely.

Gilly: It's too bad we don't know one we could have on the show. Wouldn't that be fun?

Billy: If you'll pardon the pun, it might be a blast. Gilly: Oh, Billy.

Billy: No, you might get a real bang out of it.

Gilly: You're just too much today. Actually, Billy, a genuine gangster would probably be a very exciting person.

Billy: No doubt, but I think we should leave the gangsters to the crime committees. Let the government interview them.

Gilly: I suppose so. Anyway, we don't know any gangsters.

Billy: Don't be too sure. Like I said, they all have respectable fronts nowadays. For all we know, there might be one living in our own neighborhood.

Gilly: Mmmmm. Isn't that a marvelous thought? Billy: I thought it would get you.

Gilly: Mmmmm.



MARIO VELLA

Mario Vella eased the black Bonneville down the feeder road, mashed down on the accelerator, and spurted onto the Long Island Expressway. He liked the quick surge of power under his foot. That's where power should always be, he mused, under your foot, ready to be squeezed on or off with the slightest pressure.

He lifted his foot and the car slowed down to the legal limit. He would keep it that way for the next fifty-eight minutes, to the King's Neck turnoff. From there it was just twenty minutes on 25-A to the Dunes Motel and Gilly. He hoped she'd be on time. She always had some kind of excuse. Since the first time two weeks ago, she'd been arriving progressively later each time. He'd have to clamp down.

It was only 3:30 p.m. and he was out in front of the rush-hour traffic. His eyes flicked from the speedometer to the speed-limit sign at the Queens Boulevard exit. He had been commuting to King's Neck for two years now and he knew the speed limits as well as he knew the names of his children. But he was a careful man. That was his value to the Organization; he not only knew the system, he lived it. And one of the cardinal rules was: Don't break the little laws. That was for kids, not for professionals.

Mario Vella had succeeded where some of the best men in the Organization had failed. He had blended into his environment. To most of his neighbors he was Mario Vella, thirty-six, the darkly handsome owner of the highly successful Bella Mia Olive Oil Company and the equally affluent Fort Sorrento Construction Corporation in nearby Port Jefferson. He was also known to dabble in the entertainment field, most recently in the career of a fast-rising ballad singer, Johnny Alonga.

The young singer had waxed only one solid hit, "A Dying Love," but it had remained either on or reasonably near the top ten for eighteen months. Careers had been made on less. And Vella had produced the boy as a free entertainer at several local charity affairs and political dinners; he had even appeared twice for Vella at the King's Neck Country Club. Vella now was being flooded with invitations to become a board member of every worthwhile organization in sight. He could never be sure whether his popularity was attributable to Alonga or to his own ready checkbook. The Organization had helped. Whenever Vella lent his name to a fund-raising concern, journal ads poured in from construction and garment firms throughout the state.

There had been, of course, rumors of gangster associations, but they were hardly ever more than rumors. The newspaper that made the mistake of referring to him as a "friend of the underworld" – and that was eight years ago in another town – paid $45,000 for its error.

Next spring he was slated to be honored as Man of the Year by the Society for the Prevention of Rickets in Children. And in January he would assume office as president of the League to Preserve Italian-American Dignity (LPIAD). He had helped to found that one, and the Organization credited him with a master stroke. Two city newspapers had attempted to build circulation with investigations of the Organization, but a few LPIAD picket lines had discouraged the publishers. Television, always gutless, canceled a scheduled documentary. And now politicians came to Vella seeking advice.

Mario Vella jabbed at the button with his manicured finger and opened the driver's window. It was a warm day for November and his eyes had been smarting from the cigarette smoke in the sealed car. He pushed the buttons on the car radio, pushed them until the car was filled with the syrupy sounds of Johnny Alonga singing "A Dying Love." He listened for a few seconds, then changed stations again. The song still made him want to puke. It reminded him of Donna Marie. They had been married for ten years. Ten years of rotting waste, studding Man O' War to a milk cow.

He'd had that same thought earlier in the day. He had awakened at six thinking about Gilly. He reached over to the night table, lit the cigarette, lay on his back, motionless, staring up at the absurd sky-blue canopy that Donna Marie had insisted on having custom made. He tried to keep his thoughts on Gilly, but Donna Marie was stirring at his side. He imagined Gilly kneeling in front of him, her honey blonde hair bobbing at her shoulders. He could visualize the severely tailored white blouse unbuttoned to the bottom button and half-draped over her firm upper arms. He could see her cupping her erect, compact breasts in her hands, gently massaging the pink nipples with her index fingers. Her breasts seemed a creamy contrast to the fading tan. Her brief pale green skirt was pulled upward against the strain of her body, exposing an eyeful of nylon-sheathed thigh.

He saw himself standing, his clothes thrown to the side. He saw her wriggling closer and playfully massaging the inner part of his legs with her breasts, up and down and up then down again. Gently. She never came all the way up, always stopping just a little short. The suspense surging within him always turned to agonized impatience. She would look up at him with that smile. "Are you still afraid of me, Mario? Do you still want me to go away?" He leaned over and pinched her ear lobes, delicately, lovingly, and then carefully guided her unresisting head up, up — "Mario!"

Donna Marie's voice had slashed through his dream. He jackknifed into a sitting position and turned to face his wife.

"Your cigarette," she said. "You dropped your cigarette on the bed. Do you want us to burn to death in our own house? Look, you've burned a hole in the comforter. My father gave that to us. A hundred and fifty dollars it cost, all the way from Italy. It's ruined. What will we tell him?"

He shrugged his shoulders, a half-hearted gesture of apology. He poured a glass of water from the night table onto the smoldering satin comforter. Secretly he was pleased. He had always hated the comforter, an unreasonably faithful embroidery reproduction of sunset over the Bay of Naples. It was just like his father-in-law Septimo. Vintage wop.

He reached over and pulled Donna Marie to him, the hunger for Gilly still racing in his blood, hoping that this time it might be different. As always, Donna Marie was submissive. She had been raised to submit to her husband, whoever he might be, unquestioningly, sick or well, night or day. Men are that way, her mother had explained. It was a wife's duty to give, not to expect, at least in the bedroom. Her long black hair, lustrous from a lifetime routine of one hundred brush strokes a night, streamed across the pillow behind her head. Mario snaked his hand under the hem of her short flannel nightie and flattened it palm down on the broad expanse of her belly. There was not the slightest quiver of movement in return. He moved his hand upward, over a soft bulge of fat, to her great flaccid breasts. God, he wondered, do all Italian girls get this swollen after three children? He pulled his hand away and Donna Marie automatically rolled over on her back, hiked her nightie up and spread her legs. She waited patiently. He did it, hating both her and himself.

As he rolled away, she sat up and asked: "Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? I'm making lasagna and broccoli with garlic. You know you like that, Mario. But you have to tell me now – the broccoli is no good heated over."

Just like Donna. All the while he was doing it, she was planning out her goddam lasagna and broccoli with garlic.

"Maybe you could bring Louie and Danny home with you," she went on. "It's been a long time since you brought anyone home with you and you know how they like lasagna. And the kids love to see them. You know that."

Fat chance, he had thought, as he glanced at his wafer-thin platinum watch. It was 7:00 a.m. That meant it was 6:00 a.m. in Chicago and if Louie and Danny were doing their job they were in Chicago right then. If they were on schedule, in a half hour Louie would be slowly strangling the life from some fink stoolie with a piece of piano wire and Danny would be flicking him with a knife for kicks. It was a funny thing about Danny and that knife.

"Are Danny and Louie still in the undertaking business?" Donna Marie asked.

"Yes," he said. "But they can't come tonight. A very very rich man died in Chicago and they had to fly there to make arrangements for the body. I won't be home myself, not until late. I have to take Johnny over to the studio to make a record." Then, an afterthought. "I may even stay over in town if it gets too late."

Donna shrugged, moved to her bottle-littered vanity table and began to pin her hair into a bun. She looked over her shoulder, her face impassive.

"By the way, Gillian Blake called last night. She said she wanted to speak to you, that it was very personal. What in the world could she want to talk to you personal about?"

Mario didn't like that. Gilly should have the brains not to call him at home. She had never done it before. Why now?

"She probably wants to get Johnny on that show of hers," he said. "They all do."

"And something else," Donna Marie said. "My father called you last night. Twice. The second time he sounded mad. You haven't been doing anything to upset him?"

"No." Mario answered carefully. "He's impatient because the new oil shipments haven't come through. I'll call him today if I get the time."

Now, heading east on the Expressway, Mario Vella wondered about Septimo. He had called all over for him that morning and hadn't been able to reach him. But that wasn't what worried him. It was something he sensed, a difference in the voices. Mario had used all the proper codes, but everyone had answered in a strangely short way. He'd called all the New York operations – Galaxy Liquors, Deuce Lathing, Tornedo Linen Supply, Septimo Construction over in Whitestone, even the four restaurants. At every outlet, the same answer. No one knew where he was. Even Seraphina, his mother-in-law, she didn't know. And all of them seemed distant on the phone. Yes and no, that was all.

Septimo Caggiano was very important in Mario Vella's life. It might have been different if Mario's own father had lived. His father, Onofrio Vellaturce, wanted for two murders in Naples, had jumped ship in Hoboken and settled down to life in America. The Organization welcomed him like a long-lost brother, and inside of twenty years he'd headed the largest Organization family in the New York area. From a castlelike home on the Palisades, Onofrio ruled everything in sight – docks, produce, trucking, terminals, narcotics, gambling, labor unions and politicians. And in Brooklyn, Sicilian-born Septimo Caggiano began to worry that Onofrio might begin to lust after his organization. They set up a union, a union scaled by the marriage of Donna Marie and Mario.

Mario, the son of an Organization leader, understood what was expected of him. Two kingdoms were to be joined. Donna Marie – doe-eyed, dark-haired, plump – had a peasant's taste in clothing, running to sequins and ornate embroidery. She would cook, bear children and keep a house as well as its secrets. Onofrio had told him to overlook the girl's bad points. There were always girl friends, he had said with a wink; and, as long as they were kept at a distance, they would bring no shame to the family name. One must never overlook, his father had said, the peculiar Sicilian ideas about honor.

The two young people had had a total of three dates, all of them well chaperoned. They were married at Salve Regina Church in Brooklyn. The reception in the grand ballroom at the Hotel Commodore was a convention of politicians, monsignors and Organization luminaries from both coasts and most of the states in between. And that night Mario dimmed the light in the bridal suite and learned that he had married a sexual zombie. One week after this depressing discovery, while honeymooning in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Mario received a phone call telling of his father's sudden death. His father had apparently dozed off behind the wheel of his Fleetwood in Jersey City. And for some reason he had selected that night to give Louie, his bodyguard-chauffeur, some time off. The car had plunged through the guard rail just south of the Park Street viaduct and spilled down the cliff onto Hoboken, exploding in a ball of flames.

A meeting of the board was held. Septimo took over the joint Organization with his father's old friend, Gino Viccardi, as underboss. It was agreed that Mario should start at the bottom. He would have to be blooded. If all went well, Gino would retire in eight years and Mario would take his place as underboss. And some day, when old Septimo decided to step aside, Mario would be expected to fill his shoes. He had done as he was told. He had been blooded in Cicero, Illinois, and he would never forget that first kill. He had met the rebellious union reformer behind the Giaconda and blown off the back of his skull with two .45-caliber slugs.

Though Mario had always used a gun, he got no pleasure out of killing. It was a job that had to be done. And a gun was the quickest way to do the job. Men like Louie and Danny liked to make death last. They used piano wire and knives. Louie was an expert at loosening the wire just before his victim passed out, then tightening it again, then repeating the cycle. Danny could probe his knife in just short of a vital spot and then twist it out for still another jab. They liked what they did; maybe that's why they were still doing it. But ten years had passed and Mario no longer had to do the dirty work. He had no criminal record, and now he was the underboss of the combined Organization. Gillian Blake. He savored the name as he repeated it. Class, just like Gilly herself. She was a thoroughbred. Class. The way she floated into a room. The way she dressed. The way she talked. The way she ate.

Why hadn't he plowed her when they first met for lunch? He could have, he was sure. There had been women in Cicero, in Jacksonville, in a dozen other towns where he had paused to kill on contract. He knew he appealed to women. His black hair was frosted at the temples but he kept himself in shape. His taste in clothing was expensive but not flashy – Sulka shirts, Brooks Brothers suits, rep ties. They had met at the studio to discuss the possibility of having Johnny on the Billy & Gilly Show. Her husband, Bill was his name, had left them – had said there was a squash match at the Racquet Club. It wasn't until that moment that he had figured Gilly for a score.

"Why don't we have lunch, Mr. Vella?" she had said. She had been wearing a sack dress, and only two parts of her touched the material. Sure, he had answered.

She had suggested Michael's Pub. She had ordered a martini, specifying the gin, telling the waiter "just a breath of vermouth." Class. He stuck with a tall Scotch and water and she stuck with martinis, three of them. She knew exactly what she wanted and she made certain that she got it. After lunch he suggested that he drive her home. She had said that would certainly be preferable to the Long Island Rail Road.

It had been Gilly who suggested the tour on the way home – she had asked him to drive north to Oldfield so she could see the winter sun set on the Sound. "If we watched from our own cliffs," she had said, "people would think we were lovers." They parked at the road's end. She sat staring down at the water and his body ached to possess her, to tear off her clothes and crush her to him, to explore the smoothness of her body with his hands and mouth, to hear her….

But it was she who made the first move. Her arms were about his neck and her face was against his. "Poor Mario," she had said, "you want me so much." Her lips brushed his and her warm tongue darted into his mouth.

He stared at her, fighting it. And then he had said, "It's late. We better get home."

She had laughed at that. "I like you, Mario. There's something about you, something menacing, and that's intriguing. And you're afraid of me and I think I like that too. But chase away your ghosts, Mario, I may not like you forever."

Why hadn't he accepted her invitation then? God knows he wanted her. And she was right about that other thing, about being afraid. But not of her. Afraid of old Septimo and his Sicilian family honor. How could he tell her about a $500,000 Organization investment predicated upon his keeping his nose clean?

Twice that week he had called her. Twice they had met for drinks at the Dunes Motel. Each time it was the same. She fascinated him, stirred him. Each time he had driven her home untouched, unable to quell the instinct that had kept him alive when better men had died. Then she had worn that sack dress to a lunch at Peacock Alley. And it was then, over coffee, with her small, firm chin resting above her folded hands, that she said - "I'm not going to see you any more, Mario. You're beginning to bore me."

His first reaction was boiling anger. He had thrown the money on the table. He had said "So long, bitch," and walked out. He had walked and walked and he could not erase that final smile on her face. It was a Mona Lisa smile and Mario suddenly understood why the Mona Lisa smiled. It was because she was unattainable. It was because men were crazy to hold her breasts and suck the sweetness from her mouth, and it was an impossibility. It was impossible because then she would be just another woman with a silly smile.

But Gilly could be attained. He called the studio that afternoon. He called the studio four times before noon the next day. Each time a fag bastard had answered that Mrs. Blake was too busy to come to the phone. He waited for her later at the studio entrance, but she was with her husband and he had ducked into an alleyway. That same afternoon he had ignored a legitimate tip and the feds had raided one of the Organization's best cutting plants in the Bronx, nailing three men and six kilos of pure heroin. He had broken two appointments with Septimo the following day. And then, when he had given up, she was on the phone. Had he been calling her? she asked. Would she meet him for a drink on Tuesday night at the Dunes? he asked. A drink? she had asked. No, he had said, for more than a drink. She promised to be there and then the line went dead. Later he thought about it – had he said anything on the phone that could harm him?

Mario nosed the Bonneville down the steep cliff road leading to the Dunes. Even Septimo didn't know about this one. Charlie Friars, a Smithtown politician who got rich approving zoning changes for builders doing business with his insurance agency, had gotten a severe case of the shorts while building the Dunes, a modern motel-cocktail lounge complex. At Charlie's request, Mario had paid the unpaid bills and now had a hidden half ownership. It wasn't likely he would run into any of Septimo's bird dogs, not here. Organization men didn't get the red carpet treatment at the Dunes, and they naturally favored the mob-owned places. Gillian was already at the bar. Mario sucked in his breath and stood for a moment at the door, licking her with his eyes. She was talking to the bartender. Her slim legs were crossed at the knees and a lit cigarette was in her hand. The martini in front of her was untouched and moisture still frosted the outside of the glass. Good, she had just arrived. He was momentarily irked that he had not spotted her car outside. It was second nature to check a building before entering, even your own home, and he had forgotten.

"Hello, miss," he said. "Are you lonely?"

"I thought you might keep me waiting forever," she said.

He cupped her hand in his and she squeezed. Later they sat opposite each other at a small candlelit table, staring into each other's eyes, holding long wordless conversations. They didn't touch the filets. Mario felt the electricity when their fingers touched.

"How much longer are you going to make me wait, Mario?"

He took her hand and they moved out the door and down the carpeted corridor. The room door was ajar. Giant orange crysanthemums glowed like a sunset from a vase on the coffee table. Next to the bed two bottles of Pinay '61 were chilling in a glistening wine cooler heaped with crushed ice. Charlie had thought of everything.

He turned then to face Gilly. She kicked her shoes off and stood in front of him, her arms outstretched. He reached for her and folded her into his arms. Their lips met, hard and fierce at first, gradually relaxing into a soft, sucking pucker. Her head came barely to his shoulders. Without breaking the kiss, he reached down and pulled her up, his arms circling her legs just below the round of her hips. They stayed this way for moments, and then, scooping her into his arms, he gently carried her to the bed.

They lay side by side, still clothed. His hands played up over her breasts and she shuddered. Then he felt a shock as her knee, gently but insistently, pressed up into his groin. Her hands stayed behind his neck, her fingernails softly tracing up and down the nape. He turned her yielding head and, taking the lobe of her ear in his mouth, he sucked it between his lips, licked it with his tongue. Then he moved his head higher, pressing his tongue into her ear. She gripped him tightly, her knee working against his crotch, her body moving now in an undulating rhythm.

"Wait with me a second," he murmured, kissing her softly on the lips again.

He rose from the bed and crossed the room. He undressed quickly and turned to face her. She came to him and, as he reached out, she pirouetted on her toes and came into his arms backwards. His hands clasped her breasts. She looked up at him over her shoulder.

"Unzip me," she said. "Please."

He slowly pulled the zipper down to its nesting place in the round of her back and, with a quick movement, she stepped out of the dress. She stooped, snatched up the dress, dropped it on a chair. Then, her hands clasped childlike behind her back, she turned to face him.

She was wearing no bra and her firm small breasts stood erect, her little pink nipples already hard from desire, pink-white peaks rising from the residue of her tan. So much like the dream, so close to, the dream. She had the supple body of a long-distance swimmer, so slim, so frail compared to what Mario had known.

"Come, Mario," she said, "come with me."

She took his hand and almost shyly led him to the bed. She snuggled to him as he moved his lips and tongue along the hollow of her shoulder and neck. He circled her nipples with his tongue, never touching until impatiently she thrust them into his mouth. Their fever mounted and their bodies moved together as he unsheathed her from her panties.

"Now," she gasped, "now."

It was a plea and a command, and he obeyed. It was almost over before it started. Her willingness, her desire, had caused him to explode almost as soon as they joined. He leaned heavily on his hands, praying for strength. Her hips kept moving and she stared up at him, her eyes clouding. Was it disappointment? And then, almost as it disappeared, he felt his manhood growing again inside her and he smiled down at her.

"What's the matter, Gilly?" he said. "Didn't you know about Italian lovers?"

"Shhh," she said.

A few moments later he felt her climax, and again, and a third time before he exploded again and collapsed into her arms, kissing her hands, her breasts, her neck, her cars, her mouth. He felt her going to sleep and he let her go and the last thing she said was - "You're not afraid of me any more, are you, Mario?"

He woke to a cold feeling on his feet. Gilly, her hair bobbing freely, was splashing champagne against his feet. Her breasts were suspended seductively as she bent toward his toes.

"That's good champagne," he said. "It's made for drinking."

"Is it?"

Her pink tongue darted over his feet. One by one she caught his toes in her mouth and gently sucked on them.

"Champagne lollypops," she said.

She splashed the champagne on his legs and followed it with her tongue. As she moved up, her breasts rubbed against his feet and then his legs, and finally his thighs. He groaned, let her continue and, when he could stand it no more, reached for her. This time it was slow, measured and sure and they climaxed together, ending with their arms entwined and their lips pressed together. And again sleep came. Mario slept for fifteen minutes. When he awoke, Gilly was dressed and standing by the bed.

"Goodbye, Mario," she said.

"What are you talking?" he said.

"Just goodbye, that's all," she said. "And you might think of me every time you screw that cow."

Before he could get to his feet, she was gone. On her face, that smile again. Bitch! Mario rubbed the sleep from his eyes, stepped into his trousers, cursed her again. Why? He had been better than any three men, better than that whore had ever seen. He walked out to his car. Tomorrow he would have her again. Tomorrow, he knew, he had to have her again. Tomorrow the phone would ring and she would come crawling, begging for the chance to lick the champagne from his toes. They were all alike finally. Cows or whores, whores or cows. And whatever he thought at that moment, he knew Gilly was no cow.

Sliding the key into the starter, he glanced up at the rear-view mirror. He found himself staring directly into Louie's eyes. He swung around swiftly and looked into the back seat. Louie and Danny were both there. Both were wearing overcoats with the collars turned up around the neck. Danny's hand was wrapped around the Beretta, its silencer gleaming wickedly in the courtesy light.

"What the hell you guys doing here?" Mario said.

"You're supposed to be in Chicago."

"Septimo canceled the trip," Louie said. "He's waiting for us at the top of the cliff."

Mario tumbled the odds. Septimo hadn't come out here to scold him. Mario's two best contract men would never hold a gun on him, not unless the old man had given direct orders. And having done this, they could not hope to live unless Mario himself were dead. Mario couldn't believe it. But there it was. Septimo wanted to kill him, his own son-in-law. As he reached for the emergency brake, he remembered the built-in panel. Three upward taps on the brake and the panel would slide and a loaded.38 would drop into his hand.

"It ain't there," Louie said. "Remember, I'm the one had it put in for you."

The road widened on the cliff side into a small parking area at the top. A frail wooden fence bordered the two-hundred-foot drop. It was quite a spot, Charlie had told him, great for cheap lovers. He nosed the car against the fence and stopped. Septimo stood beside a rented car.

"I've been waiting for you, Mario," he said. "You're scum, like your father. Only you done worse. You dishonor my daughter. You dishonor the name Caggiano."

Septimo pressed his lips to his hand and then pressed the hand to Mario's face. "Bacce del morte," he said and turned away. Louie stood outside the car, covering him with the gun. Danny reached over, turned on the radio full blast and got out. Danny returned and dumped three bulging plastic bags in the front seat. Mario could smell the gasoline.

The two killers pushed the car slowly toward the fence, and Mario was frozen with fear. Septimo applied his butane cigarette lighter to a sheet of newspaper and, as the car rolled by, he tossed the flaming paper through the window. The explosion came as the car went over the edge and tumbled twice. Then it struck the rocks below.



EXCERPT FROM "THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW," DECEMBER 16TH

Gilly: Well, it's time to deck the halls and do the Christmas shopping, dear.

Billy: Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la.

Gilly: You've got a lovely voice, dear, but let's keep this a conversation show.

Billy: Okay, so I'm no Johnny Alonga, but I think I carry a tune rather well.

Gilly: Speaking of Johnny Alonga, I'm just heartsick over what happened to his manager, that nice Mario Vella. Billy: 1 know. And the police said it wasn't a suicide or an accident. So it had to be….

Gilly: Never mind, I think that's just too morbid for words. Anyway, let's get back to Christmas shopping. Billy: That's something else I'd rather not contemplate. Gilly: I know. We seem to be doing our best to keep the commerciality in Christmas.

Billy: Yes, all you need for a merry Christmas is money. Gilly: Ummm. Money. Why is it that you never have it when you need it most?

Billy: Probably because you always need it. I mean, if it's not Christmas presents, it's the old faithfuls – the telephone bill, the mortgage, the fuel bill, and all the rest.

Gilly: That's part of the joy of being a home owner. It's the emergencies that hurt.

Billy: You sound worried, dear. Don't tell me you've gone and run up a gambling debt, or spent the milk money on demon rum?

Gilly: Oh, you're so silly. No, I'm just speaking figuratively. It's simply that money can be a problem. Billy: Yes, but you know what they say. It can't buy happiness.

Gilly: Perhaps not, but there are times when it can quell anxiety.