Chapter 15: Read It Out Loud

Papa had the van keys in his hand before I turned around.

"Get in," he said.

He drove the old delivery van with PELLEGRINO on the side, in his robe and his good shoes.

He ran every red light on Fort Hamilton Parkway.

I called Leandro four times.

He didn't pick up.

"He's at the bakery," I said. "Sundays he's there at five. He brings his grandmother the cannoli for the grave."

"Then she's there too," Papa said, and drove faster.

18th Avenue was empty and gray.

Vittorio's car was up on the curb in front of the bakery with the driver's door open.

Behind it, two more black cars had just pulled in. Corsetti soldiers were climbing out of them.

"Davide called them," I said.

Papa didn't ask how I knew.

I was out of the van before it stopped.

The bakery smelled like burnt sugar and yeast. The front cases were empty. The lights were half on.

Nonna Iannone stood behind the counter in a hairnet, holding a cannoli in a paper wrapper.

She didn't scream. She pointed at the bead curtain.

I went through it.

The back room was hot from the ovens.

Leandro stood by the big oven at the far end, in his gray sweater, with flour on his hands and nothing in them.

Vittorio stood six feet from him with a gun pointed at his chest.

Three Iannone men had guns pointed at Vittorio.

And behind me, coming through the beads, four Corsetti soldiers had guns pointed at them.

Nobody moved.

"Noemi," Leandro said quietly. "Go back to the van."

"No."

I walked into the middle of the steel table, between Vittorio's gun and Leandro.

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