Chapter 28: Across the River

Ugo laughed at him.

It was the last time anyone on the Hill heard him laugh.

"A ride," he said. "You'll put me in a field. Go on, nephew. In front of all of them. Show them what you are."

"I'm not putting you in a field."

"Then what?"

Lucio looked at me.

I opened the flip phone on the white cloth and typed.

I didn't send it to Ugo.

I read it out loud as I wrote it, slowly, without a single contraction.

"These are the rules. One. Your fare is paid. Two. You tell no one where you go. You will not know yourself until you are there."

Ugo stared at me.

"Three. No goodbyes. Four. Leave everything."

I looked up at him.

"Your phone. Your cards. Your trucks. Your name. Your ring."

His hand closed over the pinkie ring.

"Five. The ride leaves at four in the morning, from this table. Do not lie to me. I will know."

I closed the phone.

The older capo spoke without turning his chair back around.

"Do what she says, Ugo. It's more than you'd have given him."

Ugo looked at the backs of eight men.

He looked at the empty street where his own men had stood.

He looked at the driver with six pistols in a tablecloth.

Then he worked the pinkie ring off his finger and dropped it on the cloth in front of me.

It rolled and stopped against the bread basket.

"Good," I said. "Now sit down and wait."

He sat.

Lucio went back to the head of the table.

He didn't sit in the old Don's chair.

He stood behind it, with his hand on the back.

"We were going to vote tonight," he said to the backs of the capos. "So vote."

Nobody spoke.

Then the older capo stood up, turned his chair around to face the table again, and sat down in it facing the Don.

The man beside him did the same.

Then the next.

Eight chairs scraped around on Atwells Avenue, one after another, until every man at the table was looking at Lucio.

Nobody said a word.

Nobody had to.

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