Chapter 14: Church Ground

The shot went off before I understood the gun was pointed at Rocco.

Rocco turned his shoulder and took me down behind the rail with him.

The bullet hit the stone above the altar and chips of it rained on my hair.

Bianca screamed once and dropped beside us.

A second shot came from the back of the chapel, flat and loud.

When I got my head up, the stout man was folded over the end of the third pew with both hands at his thigh.

His gun lay in the aisle.

At the doors, Sandro stood with his arm still out straight.

"Down," Sandro shouted. "Everybody stay down."

Nobody listened.

Two hundred people went for the doors at once, in silk and good wool, with the women carrying their shoes.

Aldo's ten men did not know whose side they were on.

They stood along the walls with their hands half inside their jackets and watched the room empty.

Rocco got up and pulled me with him.

He held my elbow so hard I would find the marks later.

"Are you hit?"

"No. Are you?"

"No."

He looked down the aisle.

Aldo had not moved.

He stood where he had risen, a hand on the pew in front of him, and he was staring at the man he had paid.

"That was not mine," Aldo said.

He said it to the room, and to Rocco, and I thought for a moment he meant it.

Then he saw the faces and understood that nobody in that chapel was going to believe him.

Rocco went toward him down the aisle.

He did not hurry, and his right hand hung loose, and I saw the men along the wall go still.

The young priest stepped out of the sanctuary and into his path.

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