Vinnie was at Satriale's at five of three on a Thursday because Silvio had told him on the phone Wednesday morning that he should be.
The deli was the deli. The kid behind the case was the kid behind the case. The two old guys at the front counter were arguing about a different horse than they had been arguing about in May. Brian was at the slicer doing a thing with the slicer Vinnie had stopped watching the technique of months ago because the technique was always the same.
Tony was at the round table at the back.
Alone.
He had a coffee that had a skin on it. He had a folded Star-Ledger that had not been opened. He had a plate of biscotti the kid had set down without being asked and Tony had not touched. He was sitting in the chair he always sat in but he was sitting in it the way a man sits in a chair he is occupying rather than the way a man sits in a chair he owns.
Silvio was at the front near the door, on the phone, with his glasses on, doing the administrative thing he did when he wanted Vinnie to know he was choosing not to be at the back table.
Vinnie got a coffee. Did not get a sandwich. Brought the coffee to the back table.
"Tony."
"Marchetti."
"Sit."
Tony did not say sit. Tony did not say sit because Tony was not making decisions about chairs today. Vinnie sat anyway, in the chair across from him, the one Silvio normally sat in.
Tony watched the coffee come down to the table.
"How are you, Tony."
"How am I."
"How are you."
Tony took half a beat. He picked up his own coffee, looked at the skin on it, set it back down without drinking.
"I'm here."
"All right."
"What do you need."
"Two things. Quick. The bid on East Ward in Newark — the city wants my paper countersigned by a DiMeo legal name on the construction side. The lawyer says it has to be either you or Sil. Sil wasn't available this morning. I wanted to do it in person rather than by fax."
He pulled the folder out of the inside of his jacket. Slid it across the table.
Tony pulled it to himself. Opened it. Looked at the page. Took a pen out of his shirt pocket. Signed the line. Closed the folder. Slid it back.
"What's the other thing."
"Hotel chain is asking for a guaranty on the fleet replacement clause. I'm not signing it but the lawyer wants me to put the question to you. It'd be a personal guaranty from me, against the partnership's portion of the cash flow."
"Tell the lawyer no."
"All right."
"Tell the lawyer the hotel chain can go fuck themselves on a personal guaranty."
"All right."
"Tell the lawyer to use those words."
"He won't use those words."
"Tell him to use the cleaned-up version of those words."
"All right."
Tony picked the coffee up again. Drank a quarter of it this time. Set it back down. Picked up a piece of biscotti. Did not eat it. Set it back on the plate.
He did not say anything for a beat.
"You're a good kid, Marchetti."
"Thank you, Tony."
"I'm — I'm not great this month."
"I know, Tony."
"Don't know. Just — go run your thing. Run your thing the way you've been running it. Don't make me make decisions I don't have to make this month. You hear what I'm saying."
"I hear what you're saying."
"Sil'll handle anything that has to be handled. Don't come to me with the small ones."
"I won't."
"And — Marchetti."
"Yeah, Tony."
"When you do come to me — if you have to come to me — come to me with something I can solve. Don't come to me with something you want me to feel about."
"All right."
Tony nodded once.
That was the conversation.
Vinnie stood up. Picked up the folder. Buttoned his coat. Did not extend a hand to shake because Tony's hands were on the table flat and Tony was looking past Vinnie at the front of the deli where Silvio was on the phone with the glasses on and the administrative shoulders. He nodded once. Tony nodded once back.
He walked the length of the deli. Silvio came off the phone as Vinnie reached the door.
"Marchetti."
"Sil."
Silvio took Vinnie's elbow with his left hand. Took him two steps to the right, into the alcove next to the door where Brian kept the napkin dispensers and the boxes of plastic forks. Out of sight of the back of the room.
"He talk to you."
"He talked."
"He sign your paper."
"He signed."
"Good."
"Sil."
"Yeah."
"He's not okay."
"I know he's not okay. That's not new information." Silvio's hand on Vinnie's elbow softened a quarter inch. "Marchetti. You ever lose a friend."
"I've lost some."
"You ever lose one because of a thing you did that you had to do."
Vinnie did not answer.
"Then you don't know yet. He'll come back to the room. He'll be a different man when he comes back. The man he was is not the man he's going to be. That's the part nobody tells you about the life. The killings you order don't stay with you. The ones you have to do yourself, to a man who was at your kitchen table eating your wife's macaroni at Christmas for thirty years — those ones stay. Those ones rearrange the furniture in your head. He's rearranging." Silvio took his hand off Vinnie's elbow. "Give him three months. Don't go to him with anything that needs feeling. He's used up on feeling for a while."
"All right."
"And Marchetti."
"Yeah."
"While he's rearranging — you run cleaner than you've ever run. Cleaner than you can stand to run. If the federal car across from your office is still there tomorrow, you make sure the federal car has the most boring three days of its life. Boring. That's the word."
"I have the word taped to the dashboard."
"Good kid."
He patted Vinnie's elbow. Went back to the phone, which had not rung again, which he picked up anyway and pretended to be talking on. Vinnie went out.
On the way out he looked at the wall to the right of the door where the photographs were.
Eight photographs. Years of them. A picture of Sal Marchetti and three other men from a 1981 christening had been there since 1982 and would be there until somebody died who needed his picture put up over the top of one of the others. A picture of Tony and Silvio and Paulie at the bar at the original Vesuvio in 1996, the night Artie's mother turned seventy. A picture of Christopher at sixteen on the front fender of a Pontiac that no longer existed. A picture of Jackie Aprile Sr. at his fiftieth that the bunting around the corner of had been allowed to fade.
And in the bottom row, at the right side, a picture of Salvatore Bonpensiero in a Hawaiian shirt at a beach in 1991 holding a drink with a paper umbrella in it, with the kind of grin a man only had at thirty-six and never had again.
Nobody had taken it down.
Vinnie stood in front of the wall for ten seconds.
Then he reached out and tilted the picture frame a quarter inch counterclockwise on the small nail it hung from, because the frame had been a quarter inch crooked. He stepped back. The frame was straight. The picture was a picture of a man at a beach in 1991.
He went out the front of the deli.
The bell did its sound.
Tommy was at the curb in the older Cadillac.
"How was Sil."
"Sil was fine."
"How was T."
"T was Tony."
"Yeah."
"Tommy."
"Yeah."
"Drive me to the lot. Stop at the Italian bakery on the way."
"The bread."
"Two loaves."
"Why two."
"One for the foreman."
"And the other one."
"The other one stays in the kitchen."
The Cadillac pulled out from the curb.
Across Garrison Avenue the gray Buick that had been the gray Buick for the last three days was where the gray Buick had been the last three days. Vinnie did not look at it. The Cadillac drove past.
He watched the deli go small in the side mirror. The photograph of Pussy on the wall stayed where it was, by the door, in the bottom row, at the right side, where it had been for nine years and where nobody at Satriale's Pork Store was going to be the one to take it down.
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― DECREE ―
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