Chapter 16: Pier Nine

Paola reported to Aldo on Wednesday, and this time I wrote what she said.

We sat in my kitchen, the three of us, with the ledger on the table.

Paola had cried herself out in Rocco's study the night before, and she looked ten years older.

"He will not believe a lie that's too big," she said.

"Then give him a small one," I said. "Tell him the old capo is wavering."

"He'll pay the seven before Friday if he thinks that."

"In person?"

"Aldo never sends envelopes. He hands them over himself. He says a man should see whose money he's taking."

Rocco leaned against the counter with his arms folded.

"You're asking me to put you at Pier Nine at midnight."

"I'm asking you to let me watch."

"No."

"Rocco." I kept my voice level. "Seven men on your council took his money."

"The only thing that moves them is being seen taking it."

"By the old man who carried your grandfather's coffin."

He said nothing for a while.

Then he said, "You stay behind me. You stay behind Sandro. When I say go, you go."

"When I say go," I said, "you'll know."

Thursday night the harbor smelled of diesel and wet rope.

We sat in the dark of a shipping office across from the Corsetti building, five of us.

Rocco, Sandro, me, and two Brandolini capos who had stood by him.

In the back of the room, wrapped in a blanket in a folding chair, sat the old man with his cane.

He had agreed on the telephone in a single sentence.

"I would like to see it with my own eyes," he had said, "so I can stop wondering."

At a quarter to midnight, cars came down the dock one at a time.

I counted them through a gap in the blinds.

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