They Wrecked Her Shop He Found Her novel · Chapter 3 of 3
Chapter 3: Two Doors Down
At the hospital, Joe's hand is splinted. Lucia goes to Vito's club alone and lays the still of Tony on the bar. Vito laughs and offers to "forgive the debt" if she signs the shop over.
They splinted my father's wrist at eight in the morning and told him not to use the hand for six weeks.
He said he hadn't used it in six years, so it would be a nice vacation.
The nurse laughed. I didn't.
I got him settled in his chair by the window with the flannel on and the medal on its chain around his neck.
"Where are you going," he said.
"To get the window boarded."
"Lucia."
"I'll be back before lunch."
He looked at me the way he does. He's never once been able to stop me and he's never once stopped trying.
"Don't go to Rush Street," he said.
I kissed the top of his head.
The club is called Belladonna and it's two doors down from a steakhouse on Rush.
I'd never been inside. I'd walked past it a hundred times and looked at the door the way you look at a dog behind a fence.
I went at eleven in the morning because at eleven in the morning there's nobody in a club but the staff.
The door man was in a black jacket and he looked me over from the shoes up.
"Closed."
"I'm here to see Mr. Lazzaro."
"He's not here."
I took the folded still out of my bag and held it up where he could see it.
It's a bad photo. Grainy, gray, a man's face turned toward a streetlight.
Tony's face.
The door man looked at it for a long time.
Then he stepped aside.
The inside of Belladonna is red. Red booths, red carpet, a long bar with a brass rail worn down to the yellow.
It smelled like lemons and cold smoke.
Vito Lazzaro sat at the end of the bar in a camel coat with his rings on both hands and a coffee in front of him.
He was bigger than I remembered. Tanned, silver hair slicked back, a laugh that started low in his chest.
"Lucia Morelli," he said. "Sit down."
I didn't sit down.
I laid the still on the bar in front of him and put my finger on Tony's face.
"That's your driver."
He picked it up. He looked at it the way you look at a menu.
"That's Tony."
"He was in my shop at four in the morning."
"Tony does errands."
"He put my father on the floor."
Vito set the photo down and turned his coffee cup a quarter turn on its saucer.
"Your father fell," he said.
"My father has a splinted wrist and two broken ribs."
"That's a shame. Joe's a good man." He picked up his coffee. "He was a good man when he borrowed a hundred and eighty thousand dollars from me in 2019 and stopped paying in 2023."
"He stopped paying because you kept raising what he owed."
"I kept raising what he owed because he kept being late."
"Twenty-three payments," I said. "My father wrote down every one."
Something moved behind Vito's eyes. It was there and then it wasn't.
"That's an interesting thing for him to have."
"It is."
He laughed. It was a real laugh, warm, the kind that makes you want to be in on the joke.
"Lucia. You're Joe's girl, all right. You came down here with a picture and a notebook and no lawyer."
"I didn't come here for a lawyer."
"No. You came here to make me stop."
He set the cup down and folded his hands on the bar and looked at me with something that was almost fond.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "Because I liked your mother."
I stood very still.
"Give me the shop," he said.
"What?"
"The building. The lease, the name, the machines, the whole thing. Sign it over to me by Friday."
"You want my shop."
"I want the shop," he said, "and in exchange I forgive the debt. All of it. The hundred and eighty, the interest, everything your father signed. Joe walks away clean. Nobody comes back to Taylor Street. Nobody touches your father again. Ever."
"That's not a trade. That's a takeover."
"It's a handshake between friends."
"You wrecked my window."
"I did not wreck your window."
"Your driver did."
"My driver had the night off."
I picked the still up off the bar and put it back in my bag.
"I'm not signing my father's shop over to you."
Vito looked past me at the door man and made a small motion with two fingers.
The door man walked to the front and turned the lock.
The red room got very quiet.
Vito reached under the bar and brought out a single sheet of paper.
He laid it on the bar and smoothed it flat with the side of his hand.
I could read it upside down. It was a deed transfer. Somebody had already typed my name at the bottom.
"I had this drawn up last week," he said. "Before your window. I was going to be polite about it."
"You call this polite."
"I call this the last time I ask."
He pushed the paper down the bar until it stopped against my hand.
"Sign it tonight," he said, "or the next visit is Joe's other hand."
I looked at the paper and then at him.
He drank his coffee.
"Tony will drive you home," he said. "You look tired."
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