Chapter 8: Glass in Her Hair

Nunzio shot back twice from behind the car door, and then the dark car was gone.

Orazio did not get off me until it was quiet.

Then he rolled onto his knees and ran both his hands over my arms, my ribs and my belly, quickly.

"Are you hit?"

"No."

"Does anything hurt?"

"My pride," I said, and my voice shook so badly it came out as a squeak.

Glass lay across the pavement.

It glittered in my hair when I moved my head.

"Get her in the car," Orazio said to Nunzio, and his voice was ice.

"Then call the other four tonight."

"I want every one of them to hear that the table's peace was broken before the ink dried."

"Boss, your back."

"I know."

I turned my head, and saw the back of his white shirt.

It was striped with red.

He had taken every shard of the sign for me.

Gwen was in the kitchen when we came through the door, still in her pajamas with the Slugger in both hands.

Her face went gray.

"Is that blood?"

"It's his," I said. "Boil water. Get the tweezers from my bag, and the rubbing alcohol."

"Tabby."

"Gwen, I wash hair for a living. I can pick glass out of a man."

She went.

"Sit," I said to Orazio.

"I'll go upstairs."

"You'll sit in that chair, in the light, and you'll take off the shirt."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he sat and began to unbutton his vest with fingers that were not quite steady.

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