Chapter 8: The Sit-Down

The sit-down was held in the back room of a restaurant on Atwells Avenue with the blinds down and a round table set for eight.

I wore the charcoal jacket from the tailor.

Tullio sat at one side with his cane hooked on the chair, a glass of red wine in front of him he never touched.

Rosalia sat at his right, in black, taking notes in a small leather book.

"Whatever is said at this table," Tullio had told me in the car, "you say nothing. Not a word, not a look, until I speak your name."

"Even if they come for me?"

"Especially then."

Five old men filled the other chairs.

One had a white mustache, one wore a priest's collar under his cardigan, one was so fat the chair groaned.

The other two looked like retired bankers, which in a way they were.

They had run Providence since before I was born.

None of them looked at Rosalia, and I understood without being told that they were not going to.

Corrado Falco took the seat opposite Tullio, as relaxed as a man at his own christening.

He had a different suit on today, dark blue, and the gold ring caught the light every time he reached for the bread.

"Tullio," he said. "You look well."

"I look like an old man."

"Then well for an old man."

A few of the capos chuckled.

Waiters brought veal and a platter of fried calamari.

I ate what was put in front of me and kept my left hand flat on the white cloth, beside my plate.

The bandage on my knuckles had been changed that morning by a woman who'd also kissed my forehead and told me not to talk too much.

Nobody said anything about the bar.

For ten minutes they talked about trucks, a funeral, a priest who'd gone to prison.

Then the man with the white mustache looked at me for the first time.

"This is the mechanic," he said.

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