Chapter 13: Say It Louder

The adviser put his hat back on and turned to go.

"I told Mr. Ferraro at three this morning," he said. "A man should hear that kind of news alone."

"You told him before me?" I said.

"I told him why he would lose. You I told why you would win. They are different conversations."

"What will he do?"

"What men do when the chair is going out from under them." He bowed to Daisy. "He will be at your gate before the sun is high."

Santo closed the gate behind him.

The bell rang again at seven.

On the monitor by the door, Giacomo stood on the wet sidewalk in his black coat, with white roses in both arms.

His two bodyguards leaned on the car behind him.

A woman walking a dog had stopped across the street to stare.

"I'll send him off," Santo said.

"No."

"Moira."

"I want him to say it where the street can hear," I said. "And you stay inside the gate. He doesn't get to tell anyone a Rinaldi made me do this."

Santo looked at me for a long moment.

"I'll be ten feet behind you," he said.

I gave Daisy to the housekeeper and walked out through the gate in Santo's shirt with my jeans pulled on under it.

The rain had thinned to a mist.

Giacomo held out the roses.

"Moira. Thank God."

I kept my hands at my sides.

"I was wrong," he said. "I've been wrong for a year. I'll say it to the whole Family. Let me come in and see her."

"Say what you were wrong about."

"You know what."

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