Chapter 17: The Shop Window

It was Sandro on the phone, and he spoke before I was even awake.

"Donna, the shop. Come."

We drove to Harlem Avenue in the first light.

There was a police car at the curb with its lights off.

An officer stood on the pavement and would not look at Rocco.

The front window was gone.

Glass lay across the sidewalk in a bright, flat drift, and the bell above my door hung at an angle.

I stepped through the frame and felt it crunch under my shoes.

Inside, every bolt of cloth had been slit from end to end.

Silk, wool and the bridal satin I had ordered in July hung off the shelves in ribbons.

The dress forms were on their sides.

Someone had taken a hammer to the big fitting mirror.

Pieces of it lay across the floor, and my face looked up from every one.

I stood in the middle of it and did not make a sound.

Rocco stood behind me and did not touch me.

"The flat?" I said.

"They didn't go up the stairs," Sandro said. "They didn't have time. My men were across the street."

"Your men."

"Two of them," he said. "They're at Mercy. One has a broken jaw. One has a knife wound in his arm."

I turned around.

"Which ones?"

"The older guard and the younger one," Sandro said.

I had let out the older guard's coat in the spring, when his wife was expecting.

I looked at Rocco.

His face had gone smooth and flat, which I had learned was the worst of him.

He walked to my cutting table, and I saw what he was looking at.

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