Chapter 4: The Bleachers

On Wednesday morning the Don of the Cavallaro family sat on my bleachers in a black suit.

He'd come in at eight without a word and taken the top row.

The big driver stood by the door with his arms folded.

The thin man in glasses sat two rows down with his ledger, doing math.

The parents had moved to the other end of the bleachers.

The kids had not.

At the ten o'clock break, six eight-year-olds climbed up and sat in a dripping half circle around his shoes.

I watched from the deck and didn't save him.

"Who are you?" one girl said.

"Santo."

"That's a weird name."

"It means saint."

The girls looked at each other. One of them snorted.

"Are you her boyfriend?"

"No."

"Are you her husband?"

"No."

"Then who are you?"

Santo looked down at me on the deck.

"Her brother."

The girl studied him with her goggles pushed up on her forehead.

"You don't look like a brother."

"What does a brother look like?"

"Mine picks his nose."

"I've stopped," Santo said.

Joanie blew her whistle so hard a pigeon left the rafters.

"Break's over, you vultures! In!"

The kids shrieked and jumped back in.

Santo brushed the wet off his trousers where a small hand had patted his knee.

I climbed up and sat one row below him with my clipboard.

"You can't sit here every day," I said.

"Why not?"

"You're scaring the parents."

"I'm sitting still."

"That's what's scaring them."

He almost smiled.

"I talked to my lawyer about the bid," he said.

"And?"

"The city takes money. Whoever puts up the most for repairs and a ten-year lease, wins. I'll match Tullio's number and add ten percent."

"No."

"It's a bid, Roz. Not a gift."

"It's Cavallaro money."

"It's money."

"It's container money. It's the money your father paid for my braces with, and you told the whole school about it."

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