Chapter 5: What the Old Man Kept

The key fit the old green safe in the counting room behind the club, the one nobody was allowed to open.

Ilario stood in the doorway with his back to me and his eyes on the hall.

Nunzio slept on a cot in the corner, where Ilario had put him at dawn with a blanket and a bucket in case he was sick.

I turned the key, and the door swung open with a soft clunk.

Inside were three things.

A black ledger as thick as my wrist, a stack of cash in bank bands, and a cream envelope with my name on it.

I opened the envelope first.

My grandfather's letter was only half a page long.

He had written it with a hand that shook, in the plain words he used when he wanted to be understood the first time.

"Marta. You are slow the way a good lock is slow. Nobody picks you in a hurry."

"Ettore will come first, because he can't wait. Don't answer him fast."

"Read the black book to the end. Trust it more than you trust faces."

"I did one thing without asking you. You will hate me for it, and you will hate him. Wait for the Mass before you decide."

"Eat something. Nonno."

I read the last word three times and put the letter against my chest.

"What does it say?" Ilario asked, without turning around.

"It says to eat something."

His shoulders moved once, and it could have been a laugh.

I sat at the counting table and opened the ledger.

The words swam the way they always did, and I put my finger under each line and read it out loud to myself.