Chapter 16: The Codes

The driver stopped walking.

He and Gianni had shared a bench outside a hundred restaurants.

They had split a thousand sandwiches waiting for Renzo and me.

Now they stood six feet apart on my gravel and looked at each other.

"Don't make this hard, Lombardo," the driver said.

"I'm not making it anything."

Behind the driver, the other two soldiers spread out a little.

Then I heard the sound behind me.

It was the crew.

The forklift had gone quiet.

In its place came boots on gravel, a lot of them, from the pier and the containers and the gate shed.

The foreman came first with his cargo hook hanging loose from one hand.

His wife came down off the forklift with a tire iron.

The big shy kid in the Carhartt jacket had a crowbar this time.

He looked like he wanted to apologize for it.

By the time they stopped, there were sixteen of them in a half circle around the three Lincolns.

The soldiers looked at the crew.

The crew looked back.

One of the soldiers moved his hand toward his jacket, and the foreman shook his head at him very slowly.

The hand stopped.

I came down the steps of the trailer.

Gianni didn't move out of my way.

I put my hand flat between his shoulder blades.

"Gianni."

"No."

"I'm going to go," I said. "But not like this."

He turned his head just enough to look at me.

"Talia."

"Nobody gets hurt in my yard over Renzo's temper," I said. "Not one of ours. Not one of his."

I stepped around him.

I walked up to the driver.

He was twice my size, and he looked at the ground.

"Tell me the truth," I said. "Did he say bring her, or did he say make her come?"

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