Page 41

Standing up, I brush the wrinkles from my suit coat. I came to test the waters. That was all I really wanted. I hold my hand out toward him. "Been a pleasure."

He takes my hand, shaking it. "Pleasure's been all mine. If you decide to handle your little problem, I'd be happy to offer—"

I cut him off before he can finish what he's saying. I don't want anything from him. "Don't worry about it."

He looks surprised. "You're certain?"

"Handling it will benefit everyone. We'll simply call it a parting gift."

The surprise on his face only deepens at those words. "Oh? Going somewhere after all?"

I half-shrug. "I'm getting too old for it all."

"Nonsense, Vitale… you're still young. Get to be my age and then we'll talk."

I don't respond to that. There's no point. Nodding my goodbye, I turn to walk out, finding the young guy lingering in the hallway right outside. He trails me, a few steps behind, following me to the front door of the house.

He locks it up the moment I step outside. I can hear the clanging as he secures the door, keeping anyone from being able to come in. Genova always was more paranoid than the others. More locks. More security.

It's probably why he lives alone, why he has never been married.

He doesn't trust anyone enough to lie beside him when he's sleeping.

Stepping off the porch, I head to my car, but my footsteps stall as I approach. The muscles in my body grow tense, on alert. A few feet away, I pause, hands in the pockets of my black pants, clutching my keys.

Someone is perched on the hood of my car.

Not just any someone, either.

Lorenzo.

Unbelievable.

He sits there, relaxed, right foot propped up on the corner of the front bumper, his arms resting on his knee. He's peeling an orange, pulling it apart and tossing his scraps right into the street.

My eyes scan the neighborhood, looking for any black sedans that might account for the cars I encountered last night, but the street is quiet, nothing out of the ordinary. He seems to be alone.

Huh.

"Littering's illegal, you know."

He glances my way when I say that, raising his eyebrows. "Assaulting men in alleys is illegal, too… or so I've heard."

"It is, but the trick is to be careful. The cops in this city are always looking for a reason to take us down. One dropped receipt on the sidewalk can earn someone like us ten days in lockup."

"You spend many days in lockup?"

"No," I say. "I'm careful."

He laughs, turning back to his orange, and peels another piece, again tossing the scraps into the street. He's not worried, not a bit. Fearless. "Ah, life's too short to always be cautious, Ignazio. Sometimes you've got to put yourself out there and take risks."

"True, but you have to be smart about what kind of risks you take."

He pops a wedge of the orange in his mouth, chewing slowly as he regards me. I don't know why he's here or what he wants, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get a straight answer out of him about it if I ask. He's playing some sort of game, a game I have no desire to play, but he's going to force me to, anyway.

"You've got balls," I tell him. "It takes them, to be sitting out here, in front of this house, in broad daylight."

"Oh, you mean old man Genova's place?" Lorenzo motions toward the brick mansion. "He's not going to do anything to me."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because he swore it himself," he says. "Had a meeting with the five families late last night. Or well, the four that are left." He shoots a look my way that tells me he knows exactly what happened to number five. "It was… enlightening, I guess you could call it. Temperamental bunch. Burn down one silly little building and they get their panties all twisted, but I managed to straighten them out… for now."

The hair on the back of my neck bristles at the casual way he says that.

A meeting with the families?

I'm not sure what to make of it.

I'm not sure if I believe it.

Genova certainly didn't mention it when suggesting I kill the guy.

"Come on, Lorenzo… we both know that's not all you've done."

"What makes you say that?"

"The streets talk."

He ponders that for a moment, continuing to eat his orange, dripping juice all over the hood of my car. I want to snatch a hold of him and rip him off of it, slam his face against the mess and make him lick it up, but I'd also like to go home today. And even though I can't see any recognizable cars around us, I'm not entirely convinced he's out here alone.

Is he really that brazen?

"How'd you get here?" I ask curiously.

"Friend dropped me off."

"Friend," I muse. "You got a lot of those? Friends?"

"I've got ten of them," he says. "Eleven, if we're counting you."

"We're not."

"Ten, then."

"And you're sure one of them isn't Fat Joe?"

His response is immediate. "The rapper?"

"The man in the alley."

His eyes seek me out when I say that. He's still sitting casually, like he's not bothered at all, but there's something in his eyes now, a deep kind of suspicion, like he knows I'm on the tip of an accusation. "You got something you're trying to get at here, Ignazio? Never thought you'd be one to beat around the bush. Just spit it out."

"You had someone shoot up my father's deli."

He shakes his head. "Wasn't me."

I take a step toward him, reacting on instinct, but I manage to stop myself before doing something. His denial grates at me, though, burrowing under my skin. It's cowardice. Ridiculous. If you're going to attack a man so personally, the least you can do is take credit for the act.

"So I guess none of it was you, huh? Ray's men being picked off, one-by-one?"

"Nope."

"Not even the men who died at Cobalt? The ones who burned alive that night? Still not your fault?"