Chapter 5: Terms

The two men by the alley door put their hands inside their jackets.

Santiago didn't move. He picked a biscotto off the plate and looked at it.

"I wouldn't," he said. "There are four of mine on Taylor Street, and your waiter served me first, so it's very awkward for everyone."

Gino's face went dark red. "How did you get in here?"

"Through the front. It was open." Santiago broke the biscotto in half. "You should lock it. Anyone could walk in. A nurse, even."

The old man at the end of the table laughed once, out loud, then coughed to cover it.

Gino turned on him. The old man picked up his racing form again.

I looked at Santiago. "Were you following me?"

"I was following him." He tipped his head at Gino. "You came in after. I didn't expect the show."

"Get out," Gino said. "Both of you. Before I forget my father wants peace with your family."

Santiago took his cane off the chair and got up slowly.

It cost him.

I saw it at the corners of his mouth.

"Your father does want peace," he agreed. "That's why I'm still having coffee."

He came to the door and stopped beside me.

"I'd like ten minutes," he said. "Somewhere without a back room."

Peg took us to a pancake house on Roosevelt.

Santiago rode in the back seat of her Buick with his bad leg across the whole bench.

His black car followed us with two men in it.

"You're the cartel," Peg said into the rearview mirror.

"Some of it."

"You kept my girl in a cellar."

"My family did. Under my roof. Yes."

Peg looked at him a long time at a red light.

"You're going to buy me a short stack," she said, "and sit where I can see you."

"Yes, ma'am."

She sat at the counter with her back to the pie case and watched us over her coffee.

Santiago and I took a booth.

He ordered black coffee. I ordered eggs, again, because I could.

"You were at the restaurant to watch Gino," I said. "Why?"

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