Chapter 20: I Name Myself

He came out of the smoke with the dog in his arms and his left sleeve on fire.

Two firemen beat the flames out with their coats.

He knelt on the wet sidewalk and set the dog down, and she shook herself and sneezed.

Then he looked up at me with his face black and his eyebrows singed.

"She was under the desk," he said, and coughed. "She wouldn't come."

I got down on the pavement and put my arms around both of them.

Behind us, Sabatini's front wall fell into the street.

At noon, the Grand Avenue club was full.

Eleven captains sat at the walnut table.

The old adviser sat at the foot with his sealed folder.

In a chair by the wall sat the boss of the other family, with his coat folded over one knee.

He had come to see the vote.

I walked in with the ring on my thumb and the dog at my heel.

I carried the brass bowl against my hip.

Cesare came one pace behind me with his arm in a white bandage.

He still smelled of smoke.

I had not let him change his shirt.

The white-haired captain spoke first, from his seat.

"Renata. It is the twenty-first day. You have a husband for us?"

"No."

A murmur ran around the table.

At the wall, the boss of the other family smiled into his hand.

"Then the seat goes to a vote," said one of the captains who had not spoken before. "That's what we agreed."

"It's what you agreed," I said. "Not my father."

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