Chapter 4: No Gun, No Men

By five minutes to ten, half the household was standing on the gravel inside the gate.

Ettore stood in the middle with his walking stick. Massimo stood a step behind his right shoulder.

Eight men with rifles lined the wall.

Bianca had come down in a pale blue dress and stood beside me, close enough that our sleeves touched.

I had put on my gray jacket, the one I wore to take my exams.

I wanted to look like a doctor if I was going to be shot at.

Past the iron bars, the road was empty except for the gray car.

It sat where it had sat the other day, with the same dent over the rear wheel.

"If he's got any sense, he won't get out," Massimo said.

"If he's got any sense, he'll have called first," said one of the captains.

"He hasn't called," I said. "He'll get out at ten."

Nobody answered me. Somebody's watch ticked, and a bird shifted in the hedge.

At ten o'clock exactly, the driver's door opened.

A man stepped onto the road and closed the door behind him, and did not lock it.

He was tall and lean, in a charcoal suit with no tie.

His black hair was going gray at the temples, and he looked about thirty-three.

He had no gun that I could see.

He walked to the gate with his hands out from his sides and stopped a yard from the bars.

The rifles came up along the wall, all eight of them.

"Stand easy," Ettore said, not loudly.

The rifles stayed where they were. Ettore turned his head.

"I said stand easy."

They lowered by an inch, and it was enough.

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