Chapter 11: Forty Men

The yard on the south docks smelled of diesel and river water.

It was six in the morning, and the sky over the cranes was gray.

Forty men stood in the cold between the containers and the warehouse door.

They were dockworkers in canvas jackets, with their hands in their pockets and their breath showing.

None of them was working.

A box truck sat in front of the warehouse with its back open.

Two men in good coats were loading crates into it.

I knew the coats.

I had seen them on Thursday, behind two phones.

"Those are the week's crates," Cesare said beside me, low. "Orsini cargo."

He nodded at the truck.

"They mean to drive it to the other family's yard before the Table meets again."

"Nico told them to."

"Nico told them to take what he could carry."

"Why aren't the men stopping them?"

"Because they don't know whose yard it is."

He was right.

I could see it on the faces in front of me.

They had worked for my father.

They had worked for Nico for fourteen months.

They had heard about the Table and the letter, and they did not know which of us to believe.

"Stay here," Cesare said.

"No."

He looked at me.

"You've waited at the curb for me since Thursday," I said.

I held his eyes.

"Today you stand behind me."

His mouth moved, almost a smile.

He stepped back half a pace.

I walked across the yard.

I could hear my heels on the wet concrete, and then I could hear nothing else.

My father's ring was on my thumb, too big for any other finger.

I held my hand up so the red stone caught the light.

The men in front of me parted, one by one, and let me through.

The two cousins stopped loading.

The taller one, the one who had held the phone, set a crate down on the tailgate.

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