Chapter 11: Sunday Dinner

"Get out of my way," Mickey said.

Shawn stepped aside.

Mickey walked out into the cold, and didn't look back at the face-down photo on the shelf.

Vin was standing beside the car.

He'd gotten out when the door opened.

"Are you hurt?" he said.

"No."

"What did he say?"

"He said Pietro paid him to fix the clock. He said the drum was empty when he opened it."

"Do you believe him?"

"I don't know yet."

Mickey got in the back seat.

Vin got in beside him and looked at him for a long moment.

Mickey looked out the window at Belmont Avenue.

He didn't ask Vin on Belmont.

He didn't ask on the Eisenhower, or in the long driveway in River Forest, or in the front hall with Nonna taking their coats.

He wanted to see Vin's face when he answered.

And he wanted somebody else in the room when he did.

He'd learned that at the Table. People tell the truth differently in front of their grandmother.

Sunday dinner at the Bianchi house was at four.

It was the first one Mickey had been to.

Nonna's two old sisters came in from Elmwood Park, tiny women in black, each with a covered dish.

The driver sat at the end of the table in a sweater, not a suit.

Aoife sat beside Mickey with her bandaged hand on the tablecloth.

Pietro's chair was empty.

Nobody said why.

Nonna served gravy over rigatoni, then meatballs, then braciole tied with white string.

One of the sisters pinched Mickey's cheek and asked when he was due.

"March," he said. "Wolves are fast."

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