Chapter 8: Cards with the Old Capo

Livia's POV

The oldest capo in the Family lived in a brick house in Paramus with a ramp on the front steps.

I brought six loaves.

Valerio drove me for two of them.

"That's more than a fare," I told him in the car.

"I'm also hungry," he said.

A nurse let us in and pointed to a dim front room.

An old man sat at a card table with an oxygen tank beside his chair.

He had a deeply lined face and a cane across his knees.

"So you're Aurelio's middle one," he said. "Sit."

"I brought bread."

"Put it down. Not on the cards." He sniffed. "Fennel."

"My grandmother's."

"I knew your grandmother. She never gave anybody that recipe."

"She gave it to me."

"Then she liked you." He pushed a deck across the table. "Gin rummy."

"You win, I swear at the table. You lose, you take your bread and go."

I looked at Valerio, who was leaning in the doorway.

"Don't look at him," the old man said. "He's no use. He plays like a boy scout."

We played.

He dealt fast, and his thumb moved over the top card in a way I noticed in the second hand.

By the fourth hand I was sure of it.

He was dealing from the bottom.

I study probability, and I know there is only one jack of hearts in a deck.

"You've played it twice," I said, and laid down my cards.

The nurse stopped in the doorway.

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