The Pawn novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Last Row

The shop under the flat smelled of cold ovens and old flour, and I loved it before I had unlocked the second door.

It had two steel ovens, a marble counter gone yellow at the edges and a front window so dirty the street looked underwater.

I stood in the middle of the floor in my work apron with a bucket in one hand.

"Where do I start?" I said.

"The window," said Cosimo, from the stairs. "You've been looking at it for ten minutes."

"It's a good window."

"It's a filthy window."

"It's mine."

He smiled, a real one, with the whole scar through his eyebrow moving.

I had not known he could do it so easily.

I scrubbed glass until my arms ached and the sun came through in squares.

At nine the front door banged, and my uncle came in with a tray balanced on one palm and a white cloth over it.

"Nobody asked me," he said. "But I made them anyway."

He pulled back the cloth.

Cannoli, a dozen, the shells bubbled and brown, dusted with sugar.

"Zio."

"Eat. You look hungry."

I looked at Cosimo.

He had gone still, one hand on the counter.

"What?" my uncle said.

"Nothing," Cosimo said, and took one.

He bit through the shell, and his eyes closed.

"I owe your family four hundred thousand dollars of apology," he said, with his mouth full.

"Four hundred thousand," my uncle said. "In cannoli, that is..."

He counted on his fingers, gave up, and kissed me on both cheeks.

"I'll bring more tomorrow."

Rocco came in behind him, shaking snow from his coat, with a stack of mail.

"One for you," he said to me. "No return address."

I opened it at the counter.

It was a sheet of plain paper with one line in a hard, slanting hand.

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