Chapter 8: Four Hundred Thousand

I woke up alone on his study floor with his jacket over me.

The clock on the laptop read 0:52:10.

I dressed fast and fixed my hair in the window glass.

Then I picked up the desk phone and dialed the number every bookkeeper knew by heart.

Teo came in just as the line connected.

He stopped in the doorway, in a fresh shirt, with two cups of coffee.

He did not say anything.

"Good morning, ladies," I said, and I put the call on speaker.

Nine women answered, one after another.

"Good morning, Mrs. Landolfi."

"We were worried, honey."

"Say the word, and we'll move."

Teo set the cups down very slowly.

"Release all nine," I said. "To the Commission, in the order on the list. Not one dollar anywhere else."

"Done," said the first voice.

"Done," said the second.

By the ninth, the numbers on the laptop had stopped.

I looked at my husband.

"That was my side," I said. "Mr. Landolfi."

He looked at me for a long moment, and the scar over his eye was perfectly still.

"No names," he said quietly. "I remember."

"Good."

I left him standing there with the coffee going cold.

On Sunday the Family sat down to dinner in the brownstone.

Twenty people ate at the long table, captains and their wives, and the Commission's eldest wife in her plum silk at Teo's right hand.

Sheridan sat across from me, in cream wool, without the pearls.

Benny stood before the soup was cleared.

He tapped his glass with a fork.

"A matter of honor," he said. "I'd prefer to do this in private. But the widows' fund is four hundred thousand dollars short."

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