Chapter 16: Two Laughers

Outside Gallo's the street was cold and wet and full of men who didn't know where to look.

Two of them stood by the curb under the streetlight, smoking.

I knew their faces.

They had laughed hardest at the first toast.

One was thin with a pencil mustache, and the other wore a camel coat and a pinky ring.

Gaspare walked straight up to them with his sling and his gap-toothed grin.

"Gentlemen," he said.

"Gaspare." The thin one flicked his ash. "Quite a show in there."

"It was."

"Women's talk," said the one in the camel coat. "Tommaso will fix it."

Gaspare nodded slowly.

Then he put his good hand flat on the man's chest and shoved him against the brick wall.

It wasn't hard, but it was very fast, and the cigarette dropped.

"I laughed at that toast," Gaspare said.

"We all did," said the man in the camel coat.

"I laughed because I was told to laugh. You laughed because you thought she was a joke."

Nobody answered.

"Do you know what the joke was? Tommaso was telling us to kill her."

He leaned in.

"We all laughed, and she sat there in a green dress and ate her veal."

The thin one dropped his eyes.

"I didn't know what he said," he mumbled. "I only had a little Italian."

"Me too," said Gaspare softly. "That's the point."

He let go of the coat.

"You'll apologize to my boss's wife," he said, "or you'll walk home and think about it for a very long time."

The two men looked at me.

The thin one took off his hat.

"Signora," he said, awkwardly, in English. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," said the other.

I nodded.

I wasn't sure I could trust my voice.

Cesare put his hand at the small of my back.

I felt him take a long breath beside me.

In the car I turned to Gaspare in the front seat.

"What did he say at the door?" I asked. "Tommaso. The last thing. I only got the first word."

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