Chapter 13: A Word Nobody Should Know

Ettore held the brass key out to me on his open palm.

"It opens the safe my son just emptied," he said.

"There's nothing left in it."

"That is why I want you to have it."

"The captains should see that I gave it to the one who isn't running."

The night captain stood at the edge of the lawn with his hands hanging.

He stood braced for a dressing-down.

Ettore didn't tell him. He was studying the tire marks in the gravel.

"The feast is five weeks off," he said.

"Every captain at my table, and both gates open for the cooks and the band."

"That's the night she sold," I said.

"Then that is the night we use."

He folded my fingers over the key.

"The routes change before sunrise. The rota changes by noon."

"Your sister can only sell what she still knows."

"Massimo knows all of it."

"Massimo knows it as of tonight. After tonight, he knows a history lesson."

He leaned on his stick, and for the first time I saw how old he was.

"I have a son who walked out with my books," he said. "I need someone who can go to Brooklyn and be believed."

"Me."

"You, and the man who wants you."

I didn't sleep.

At six o'clock the lodge phone rang, and the gate captain's voice came through the house speaker.

A flatbed truck stood outside with its lights off.

The driver would speak to Don Ettore and nobody else.

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