Chapter 14: Taken in Cuffs

I ran down the hill with the phone still in my hand.

Corrado and Teo were in the kitchen, eating bread standing up.

"Police," I said. "The warehouse."

Corrado dropped the bread.

He took the keys to the grocery van off the hook by the pantry door, and nobody in the kitchen said a word.

Teo drove.

He took every red light on the Pulaski Skyway and cried the whole way, swearing in Italian.

I sat in the passenger seat and did not cry at all.

I was counting.

Cosima had said noon, and it was a quarter to ten.

She had given me two hours to get scared and come back to the library with my hands out.

The Ironbound street was full of blue lights.

Two patrol cars sat across the warehouse door, and a van was backed up to the loading dock.

Officers were carrying out the ring ropes and the corner posts.

They carried out the scales, the cash box, the cage door off its hinges.

The fighters stood in a row along the opposite wall, in coats thrown over their kit, watching.

Nobody was saying anything.

"Stay in the van," Corrado said.

"No."

I got out.

The door of the warehouse opened and Tancredi came through it with his hands cuffed behind him.

A detective had him by the elbow.

His sweater was torn at the collar, and there was a red mark on his cheek.

He saw me across the street.

He shook his head once, very slightly.

*Don't.*

I crossed the street anyway.

An officer put his arm out.

"Ma'am, step back."

"What's the charge?"

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