Chapter 13: Heartbeat

Mickey opened the shop at nine and didn't look at the window across the street.

He glanced at it constantly before noon.

Vin was there every time.

Same chair, same coat, a different paper cup.

At ten he raised the cup an inch.

Mickey turned the OPEN sign around so hard it swung on its string.

"He's waving," Aoife said from the counter.

"He's drinking coffee."

"He's drinking coffee AT you."

"Don't you have class?"

"At one. I have time to watch this."

On Tuesday afternoon an old man came in with a cardboard box under his arm.

Mickey knew him.

He owned the butcher shop on Grand Avenue, with the wolf's head carved over the door.

Mickey's dad had rekeyed that shop every year for fifteen years.

Then the old man had stopped calling, the same week as everyone else.

He set the box on the counter.

Inside was a cash drawer with a lock somebody had wrecked with a flathead.

"Can you fix that?" he said.

"Yes."

"How much?"

"Sixty, with the new lock."

The old man nodded and didn't leave.

He stood there turning his hat in his hands.

"Vincenzo Bianchi came to my shop yesterday," he said.

Mickey's hands stopped on the drawer.

"He stood at my counter in front of my sons and my customers."

"He said his Family lied about your father. He said he lied about your father, himself, at the Table."

"He said your father never stole a thing in his life."

Aoife put down her pen.

"He asked me nothing," the old man said. "He said it and he left."

"I've known that boy since his christening. I never once heard him say he was wrong."

He put three twenties on the counter.

"I'll pick it up Friday. Tell your sister I like the key on the plywood."

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