Pipe Burst Guest novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Second Set

In the cellar of her hotel Marisa learns her husband paid for his mistress's flat out of her own family trust, that the old captains owe an oath to her blood, and that his cousin already counts eleven of fourteen votes. She decides she needs a rival Don stranded in her hotel.

The cellar of the Hotel Arden smelled of wet stone and old wine.

Aurelio led me past the boiler to a wall of crates, moved four of them, and knocked twice on the brick behind.

A square of it swung out on a hinge.

Inside were nine green cloth ledgers, tied with kitchen string.

"Your father trusted paper," Aurelio said. "He said a computer can be made to forget, and a ledger can only be burned."

"Why didn't you give me these before?"

"Because you were married to the man who would burn them."

He said it gently, and it still landed hard.

I untied the first book on a crate and turned it to the lamp.

My father's handwriting ran down the columns, small and square.

I had kept the Brancato accounts for six years, so I knew the shape of the numbers before I understood them.

Money left the Fontanelli Trust every month on the fifth.

It went to a company called Harbor Linen, and from Harbor Linen to a second account, and from there to a third.

I flipped to the end and found the third account's name.

It was the lease on a two-bedroom apartment on Delancey Street.

"Who lives on Delancey?" I asked.

Aurelio took off his glasses and cleaned them on his cardigan.

"You know who lives there."

I did.

I had helped carry the boxes up the stairs myself, four years ago.

"Ines said the rent was cheap because her landlord liked her," I said.

"Her landlord is your trust."

"And the hotel charges I found?"

"Those are the same account," Aurelio said. "Cesare put the suite on the books as a client expense because you were the one who reviewed the books."

"He was using my own work to hide it."

"He was using you."

I sat down on a crate.

For a while neither of us said anything, and the boiler ticked behind us.

Then Aurelio set a plate of cold meatballs on my knee.

"Eat," he said. "Whatever comes next, you'll do it fed."

I ate three.

They were my father's recipe, and I had to stop once.

When I could talk again, I asked the question that mattered.

"Why would the captains follow me, Aurelio? Cesare has held the table for six years."

"Because of the oath," he said.

"Which oath?"

"Fourteen captains knelt to your father and swore to the Fontanelli blood, and to whoever keeps his daughter."

"They stood up for Cesare because he kept you."

"A man who throws his wife away in front of them has not kept her."

I thought about the table, and the way no one had looked at me when I spoke.

"They laughed at me on Sunday," I said.

"They laughed because Tullio laughed first."

"How many does he hold?"

Aurelio did not answer right away.

"Eleven of the fourteen," he said. "He's been counting since the week your father died."

"Then I can't win a vote."

"Not on loyalty alone, no."

"The Commission meets a week from Sunday, and the first item is whether the Brancato family still honors the Fontanelli oath."

"Cesare called it for Sunday?"

"Cesare doesn't know yet," Aurelio said. "I sent word an hour ago, in your name, to every captain."

I stared at him.

"You called a Commission in my name before I had even decided anything."

"You decided in the hospital corridor," he said. "I watched you do it on the camera feed."

My phone buzzed on the crate.

It was a message from Ines.

Home yet, sweetheart? Cesare says you left in a hurry. I'm so worried. Call me, I'll stay up.

I read it twice.

There was a heart at the end.

I put the phone face down on the ledger.

"She wants to know where I am," I said.

"Then don't tell her."

"I've been telling her everything for ten years."

"Then she knows enough," Aurelio said.

I stood up and tied the string around the ledger again, very slowly.

"Eleven captains want Cesare because they're afraid of Tullio," I said. "So I need someone they're more afraid of."

"And who is that?"

"The man who owns the river docks. Nico Varrone."

Aurelio put his glasses back on.

"Varrone arrives in Philadelphia on Tuesday for the truce talks with your husband," he said. "He will sit across from Cesare for one afternoon and then drive home."

"He won't drive home," I said.

I picked up the ledger.

"I need him in my hotel until the Commission."

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