Chapter 18: The Night Before

"How your father really died," Bianca said again, softly, to Cesare.

"He had a heart attack," Cesare said.

"That is what I told you."

"You were there."

"I was in the next room."

She folded her hands.

"Ask where Ruggero Lombardi was the night before. Ask the night nurse who sat at the end of the hall."

Nobody in the room spoke.

"He came to the hospital at two in the morning," Bianca said.

"He shut the door of your father's room and stayed an hour. Your father was dead by the next night."

I felt Cesare go rigid under my hands.

"Is it true?" he asked me.

"I don't know," I said.

It was the plainest answer I had.

I had heard nothing from Ruggero about a hospital, and I would not lie for him in front of my son.

Cesare stepped away and looked at the woman on the sofa for a long time.

"The price on Lombardi comes down tonight," he said to the second son. "Tell every man. Anyone who touches him answers to me."

"Cesare!" Bianca said.

"He comes here. He sits in this house and tells me to my face what he said to my father."

Cesare's voice was flat.

"You go to your room. Tonight and tomorrow nobody leaves this house."

"I'm carrying your brother."

"You're carrying a jar of beets."

The second son took her by the elbow.

She went without another word, upright, and the door of her suite shut behind her.

Cesare turned to me with his eyes wet and furious.

"Noon tomorrow," he said. "In the study. Him, you, me."

He stopped.

"If he lies, I'll know. If he doesn't, I don't know what I'll do."

"I know," I said.

"Mom."

"I know, baby."

He went out, and I stood in the sitting room with my hands empty.

Ruggero came to the east wing at midnight.

The second son brought him up the back stairs and left without a word.

I stood in the door of my old room in a nightgown with my hair down.

He had changed his shirt.

His left hand was bare at his side.

"Cesare called off the price," I said.

"I heard."

"Tomorrow he'll ask you about the hospital."