Chapter 18: Massimo Alone

I went down alone, in yesterday's dress and the borrowed gray coat.

Santo's men had come out of the house and the grove without a sound.

Eleven of them stood in a half-circle around my brother with their hands at their sides.

Massimo stood in the middle of the gravel with his arms a little away from his body.

He had no gun, and no guard.

His collar was open, and he had not shaved.

"I came by myself," he said, when I stopped in front of him. "Tell them to look."

"They looked."

"They took my belt."

"Do you want it back?"

"I'd like to keep my trousers up while I talk to my sister."

Somebody behind me coughed into a sleeve, and Gaspare stepped out of the crowd, handed over the belt, and stepped back.

Massimo put it on with a stiff face.

"Is Nerina alive?"

"She's asleep upstairs."

"Is he?"

"He's asleep, and he's alive, and the man who shot him is not."

My brother nodded slowly.

"I heard about the shooting at five from a man at the Table," he said. "I thought it was you."

"Me?"

"I thought, she's dead. And I stood in the kitchen and I couldn't remember what I'd said to you last."

"You said I wasn't an Ardizzone."

"I know what I said."

His knees gave, and he sat down on the stone step under the iron bell.

I had never in my life seen him sit before he was asked.