Chapter 13: Flowers for the Boy

The call came at six on Saturday morning, and it was a nurse.

"Mrs. Falzone? Emilio Costa listed you. He was hurt in the yard."

I was down the stairs in my nightdress before I understood I had hung up.

Tancredi was already in the foyer in his coat.

He had taken the same call on his own phone, and Remo had the Escalade running at the door.

Nobody asked me if I wanted to go.

Nobody told me to stay.

The hospital on Castleton Avenue had a corrections officer in a plastic chair outside the surgical ward.

The surgeon came out at half past eight, still in his cap.

"A blade, under the ribs on the left," he said. "It nicked the lung. He lost a lot of blood, but he's strong. He'll live."

I sat down on the floor of the corridor, because my legs had decided for me.

Tancredi crouched in front of me.

He did not touch me.

"Tell me what you need," he said.

"I need to see him."

"Then we'll wait until they let you."

The officer told us the rest without being asked.

It had happened at the start of yard time, three men, seven minutes, and nobody on the tier had seen a thing.

"Seven minutes," Tancredi said.

"Yes, sir."

"In a yard with cameras."

"They're being reviewed."

Tancredi looked at the man until the man found something to do with his clipboard.

At eleven they let me in for five minutes.

Emilio lay grey against the pillow with a tube in his nose and a cuff on his ankle, chained to the bed rail.

He opened one eye.

"Sabi."

"I'm here."

"Told you," he whispered. "Don't go home with him."

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