The Pawn novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Nobody Comes

The white-haired capo opened the restaurant door, and the cold came in off Taylor Street.

He did not look back.

The next man stood and followed him, and then a third, and a fourth.

They went out one by one, in their good suits, and nobody said a word.

A man took his coat from the rack.

Another stopped beside Pellegrino's chair, looked down at him with real contempt, and left without speaking.

I counted them, because I could not stop counting.

Thirteen chairs on the Pellegrino side, and then eleven, and then four.

By the time the last of them reached the door, the pistol had come down to Pellegrino's side.

His hand hung loose around it.

He looked very small in the head chair, in his good gray suit, with the candles guttering on the table.

"Sit down," he said to the empty room. "I haven't dismissed you."

No one came back.

Lucio walked the length of the table.

He stopped beside his father and held out his hand, palm up.

"Give it to me, Papa."

"You have no right."

"I have the only right left." His voice was quiet. "Give it to me."

For a long moment I thought the old man would raise it.

Then he laid the pistol in his son's palm, carefully, handle first.

Lucio emptied it and set the bullets in a neat row on the tablecloth.

Then he turned and went down on one knee in front of Cosimo and me.

"I shot you at the altar," he said to Cosimo.

"I did it for the wrong reason, and I would not do it for any reason now. Do what you like with me."

Cosimo looked down at him.

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