Page 15 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby

“Salvatore Marino,” she confirms, and something like pride threads through the syllables. “You know him?”

“I know who fed us when we pretended we were not hungry,” I say. “Your uncle had a way of letting a man believe he was doing him a favor by eating.” I look around and let the past stand up where it wants to. “Back table used to do more business on Sunday than Wall Street did all week.”

She snorts softly, not mocking, just acknowledging the ways of men who keep score with different ledgers.

“He says the same. He also says he only ever took sides with the dough.”

“That is why he lasted,” I say. “A man who feeds both ends of a dispute is a man no one wants to punish. They would be punishing themselves.”

She works in silence for a minute.

The saline runs clear.

The sting fades into a dull throb I tuck into the back of my throat.

I watch her mouth as she concentrates.

The upper lip is full and determined.

The lower is softer until she presses it flat to think, and then it becomes a line that could cut a man if he stands too close.

She has a habit of using humor to balance seriousness, like a tightrope walker carries a pole to steady the shake.

It makes me want to put my hands over hers and find out how much weight she will let me take.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, not looking up, a professional question, not an invitation to confess.

“I have had worse,” I say.

“That is not an answer,” she replies, and she lifts her gaze, a single precise look that reminds me of a capo testing whether you will give him what he asked for or what you want to give.

“Four,” I say, because it amused her earlier and because the amusement put warmth in a room that has not felt warm in a long time.

She shakes her head as if to sayyou men and your numbers.

She tapes the dressing down again, firm enough to hold, gentle enough not to insult.

When her fingers brush my skin, I feel the fine current that runs between two people who have not yet named what it is.

It goes through my ribs and settles in the place where a rosary lies inked under my shirt.

Fino alla fine, carved across the bone where the bullet did not find me tonight.

“You should sleep,” she says. “You lost blood and your body would like to remember being a house instead of a target.”

“I can manage,” I say. It's the reflex I learned as a boy surviving rooms where kindness was the opening bid to a game I did not want to play. “I will not stay long.”

“That is the first lie you have told me,” she says, not angry, simply annotating the story we are writing. “You will stay until I say the stitches can handle your pride.”

I smile at that because she has not weaponized my pride yet.

She speaks as if she has already won.

It's a smart way to negotiate with a man who is used to hearing yes.

“Do you always order your patients around after hours?” I ask.

“Only the ones who pretend sleep is optional,” she says, checking my pulse with two fingers the way you test a sauce with the back of a spoon when your guests are at the table. “Also the ones whowalk in the street like they are a bad decision wearing a good coat.”