Chapter 22: By Choice

I pulled out the head chair and sat down in it.

It was heavier than it looked, and the leather had gone smooth under forty years of other people's elbows.

"The rule says I sit here until the captains vote," I said. "So vote."

The gray-haired captain stood first.

"Aye," he said, and he put his hand flat on the white cloth.

The man beside him stood, and then the whole left side of the table, one after another.

Each of them laid a hand on the cloth.

The Hoboken captain said it with tears in his eyes and a flour smudge on his sleeve.

He did not hide either.

Agnese said nothing and rapped her cane once for each vote.

When the count reached eleven, there was one man left sitting.

It was the Brooklyn captain.

He sat with his thick hands on his knees and his eyes down, and the whole room waited.

He had voted against me twice, and a text on his own phone from a man in California had said why.

"Captain," I said.

He stood up slowly.

"My marker's paid," he said. "I don't owe your brother. I don't owe anybody now."

"I'd like to know what I owe you."

"A vote."

"I'm not good at this." He cleared his throat.

"I was bought, and I knew it. I thought I'd get out before anyone looked."

"You're looking now."

"Aye," he said, rough. "I vote aye. And I'd like to go on being in this room."

"Sit down," I said. "You're in it."

He sat, and I heard him breathe out.

"Twelve of twelve," the gray-haired captain said.

"The keeper of the keys is the head of the table. Mrs. Greco, the name is yours to carry or to drop."

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