Chapter 21: Two Pages, Two Hands

Nobody at the table moved.

The revolver lay on my father's ledger, and its barrel pointed at the chair.

"Benny," the chair said evenly. "You brought a weapon to the Commission table."

"I brought a vote," Benny said. "The weapon is a courtesy."

The two men at the door had their hands inside their coats.

The Dons had come with no guns, because the table's rule was older than any of us.

I looked at the old man in the brown coat.

He was crying without a sound.

"Sir," I said. "Your daughter is twenty-four, and her name is on a paper in my bag, and she's in the Bay Ridge church hall with a plate of eggs."

"Shut her up," Benny said.

"Teo's men took her from the flat above the body shop last night," I said. "She's safe. Benny can't touch her."

The old man's head came up.

For a moment nobody breathed.

Then he turned to the chair, and his voice came out cracked and loud.

"I signed Aldo Bellandi's page," he said. "It named the boy. The Landolfi boy."

Benny's smile slid.

"The page in the ledger is the real one," the old man said. "Mine is the second name, under the chair's. The other page I never saw in my life."

"He's confused," Benny said.

"I swore a lie today because he told me what he'd do to my girl," the old man said. "I'm done."

He pushed past the table to the wall and sat down on the floor.

Benny's hand moved toward the revolver.

"Wait," I said. "There's more."

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