Chapter 4: Brunch with the Wives

By Saturday morning, Nico had made good on the first half of his threat.

My cards were dead.

I found that out at the vet's, standing at the counter with the dog in my arms while the girl at the register tried my card three times.

"Declined," she said, and looked ashamed for me.

Cesare paid for the dog's pills with a twenty from his coat.

When we got back to Taylor Street, a yellow sticker was on the restaurant door.

CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE CITY.

A man from the health department stood on the sidewalk with a clipboard, not looking at anyone.

Cesare read the sticker, folded it into his pocket, and said nothing at all.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's a door, Renata. I've been locked out of better."

"He did it because of me."

"He did it because he thought you'd come running to stop him."

"Then he doesn't know me yet," I said.

I made one call that morning, to the oldest of the captains' wives.

She had been my mother's best friend, and she had held my hand at my mother's funeral when I was nine.

Every Saturday at noon, the wives met for brunch in the private room of a hotel on Michigan Avenue.

Nico's cousins' wives were always there.

I had sat in that room a hundred times, smiling, and I had never once spoken.

"Come," the old woman said on the phone. "I'll save you a chair."

At noon I walked in with my phone in my hand.

Thirteen women sat around a long table under a chandelier, with eggs and mimosas and a silver coffee pot.

The talking stopped, and one woman's fork went down on a plate.

"Don't get up," I said.

I walked to the end of the table, where the room's big screen was set up for the hotel's slideshows.

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