Bound by Honor novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Two Old Men

Dinner that night had four people at it and no capos, and it was the strangest meal of my life.

Nonna had cooked.

There were meatballs the size of fists, a pan of baked pasta and a salad nobody touched.

Orazio sat at the head with his cane hooked on the chair back.

My father sat at his right, and I sat across from Dario, whose knee kept bumping mine under the table.

He did not apologize.

I did not move my leg.

"I will tell you the price of the date," I said, when the plates were half empty.

"There is a price?" Orazio asked, delighted.

"Three weeks, as you want. In return, I get the real books on the Red Hook docks. Every quarter for two years."

Orazio put down his fork.

"Sweetheart, those are family books."

"I'm joining the family."

"Silvio keeps them."

"Then Silvio can hand them to me."

My father cleared his throat.

"Bee," he said mildly. "Orazio."

"Carmine," said Orazio, and then he did something I had not seen him do at any other table.

He winked.

"Your daughter is bleeding me dry, you old thief."

"Easy, Razzo," my father said. "She gets it from her mother."

"She gets it from you, you cheap bastard."

They both laughed.

It was an old laugh, easy and rough, the laugh of two men who had said the same insult for thirty years.

I put my glass down.

Razzo.

I had never heard my father call anyone that.

He called men Mr. This and Mr. That.

He called Orazio Castellane "Don Orazio" every time he spoke of him in Chicago.

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