Page 45 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
I lift the note and I don't need to read it twice.
Stay out of Riccari business.
My throat goes dry.
I can hear the clock that is not actually in this room tick anyway.
The coin under my tongue from months ago is back, bitter and metallic.
Nico takes the photo from my hand carefully, like it might bite.
He studies the edges before he looks at the image.
He notes the crop.
He notes the quality.
He notes what it sees and what it misses.
His jaw sets, then relaxes.
He slides the envelope back toward me as if it belongs to my side of the ledger until we decide otherwise.
“Inside,” he says quietly. “Lock the inner door.”
Nothing more happens for the remainder of the night.
But I know this is the beginning of something wicked.
8
NICO
Afew days later
Friday nights used to mean noise.
Tonight, I want quiet.
Not the kind you get from empty rooms, the kind you make by choosing the right room and the right people to keep the wrong ones out. I bring Elisa to the Riccari club on Mott, the door with no sign, the kind of carpet that remembers your shoes.
The doorman sees me and does not see me at the same time.
The host says my name without his mouth moving and leads us through a paneled corridor where the photographs are all in black and white and every man in them looks like he slept in a suit because he probably did.
The private room waits at the end, small and warm, a square with a window onto nothing anyone can use.
A table for two with linen you could fold into a ship.
Seven small candles in a straight line instead of one big one, which is how the old men liked it on the night that matters.
The air smells of citrus peel and olive oil warmed just enough to wake it.
“Subtle,” she says, a shrug in her voice and a smile in the corner of her mouth.
She touches the back of a chair as if testing whether it will hold a conversation. “Now we’re hiding in plain sight.”
“We are borrowing plain sight for the night,” I say. “It spends freely if you treat it well.”
