Chapter 20: Three Captains

Luca's POV

I left Gemma at the door of the Albano club with her ledgers and went around to the side entrance by myself.

She had asked me to.

"Stand behind my chair and say nothing," she had told me, "but get there early."

I understood what she meant.

The men at the table would decide on the way in whether to listen to her.

Somebody had to give them a reason.

I had not forgotten what the man at the car said.

Her mother had been inside since five, and nobody had told us why.

I meant to learn what she was doing there before Gemma walked in.

The side hall smelled of old cigars and floor wax.

The first captain came through it at ten to eight, alone, leaning on a cane with a silver head.

I had been told his name when I was a boy, and I'd forgotten it, because everyone had called him the old stonemason.

I stood in his way.

"Don Amadori's boy," he said, and squinted. "They said you were dying."

"They said so."

"You look better than I do." He tapped my chest with the cane. "Your father carried me out of a bar fight in Red Hook once. What do you want?"

"A seat when my wife speaks."

"She's the Rossetti girl?"

"She is."

"She's a girl who counts?"

"She counts better than anyone I know."

He grunted.

"I'll listen," he said. "I won't promise more."

"That's all I'm asking."

He went on down the hall, and I heard the cane tapping until the door shut.

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