Page 29 of Forgotten Sacrifice

Someone cuts in front of us, and Vince slams on thebrakes, avoiding a crash by inches.

“Asshole!” I shout, throwing up my middle finger.

Vince reaches over and grabs my wrist, yanking my arm down. “Don’t start something I’ll have to finish,” he chastises.

“Maybe that asshole shouldn’t start somethinghecan’t finish,” I counter.

Vince shakes his head. “I’m not going to pop somebody in broad daylight on the streets of New York.”

“So you’d pop someone in broad daylight on the streets of Jersey?” I wonder.

“Just behave.” He contorts the upper half of his body to check the lane before merging.

“How is it you’re such a good driver, and you’ve only got one eye?” I’ve never noticed him using any kind of visual aid.

“A compliment from Luna. This is a first,” Vince says with laughter in his voice.

The man has a way of deflecting questions with humor. It’s a skill. An annoying skill, but a skill. “How?” I press.

“I have 20/20 in my right eye,” Vince answers.

“But don’t you have a huge blind spot on your left side?” I wonder.

“My visual field’s reduced by two-fifths; so yes, I do have a blind spot, but not ahugeone. I’m more careful than the average driver with two eyes,” he explains.

I close my left eye, trying to imagine seeing the world with only my right. “I don’t know how you do it.”

He lifts his shoulders. “Necessity has an amazing way of pushing a man past his preconceived limits.”

“You always have a joke or a maxim for every occasion.”

“Where do chess players shop for a bargain?” Vince asks.

“I don’t know?” I say, confused.

“The pawn shop.”

“I didn’t say they were good jokes,” I inform him, and he snorts a laugh. “Why aren’t you wearing a suit?” I eye Vince in his T-shirt, jeans, baseball cap, and sunglasses. He’s beingallhawtagain, and I don’t appreciate it. “Don’t you have an image to uphold?”

“That’s exactly why I’mnotwearing a suit. I’m not gonna broadcast to the New York families I’m in the city. Don’t go looking for trouble, because I guarantee you’ll find it.”

I grab a little notebook and pen from my purse and begin writing.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing down these pearls of wisdom. ‘Don’t go looking for trouble…’”

“Tu sei la definizione di guai,” he mutters.

I glance back over to him, his bicep flexed from holding the wheel. “What’s the tattoo on your arm?”

He keeps his right hand on the wheel, reaching over with his left to pull up his sleeve. It’s gruesome ink: a wolf bleeding out, with another dead wolf in its mouth. Underneath is the Italian phrase,Crepi il lupo.

“What does it mean?”

He drops his shirt sleeve, returning both hands to the wheel. “In Italian, to wish someone luck is to say, ‘In bocca al lupo,’ which means ‘in the mouth of the wolf.’”

“But you don’t believe in luck,” I point out.