5. Chapter Five Carmelo
Chapter Five: Carmelo
The first time, I order the branzino and sit at table four and she serves me and I say eleven words and leave thirty percent.
The second time, I order the branzino again and she says, "Same as last time?
" and I say, "Yes," and that's twelve words across two visits.
The fact that she remembers my order means I made it into her memory bank.
I'm in her brain now. The big man who orders the branzino and sits at four and pays cash and doesn't talk.
The third time, table four is taken and that irritates me more then I care to admit.
A couple with a baby in a high chair, the baby smearing something orange across the tray.
I stand inside the door for three seconds.
Grace sees me from across the dining room and her eyes go to table four and then back to me and she holds up one finger and walks to table six, which is against the opposite wall, and pulls the chair out.
Not the one facing the wall. The one facing the door.
She remembered where I sit and she remembered which direction I face and she set the chair for me without being asked.
I sit down.
"Branzino?" she says.
"Yes."
"Coffee?"
"Yes."
"You could try something else, you know. Marco's pork shoulder is better than the branzino. Don't tell him I said that."
I look at her where she's standing with the notepad against her hip and her weight on her left foot and there's something on her face I haven't seen from across the street. Humor. Small and quick, there and gone. She's teasing me. The kind of teasing you test on a person to see if they'll hold it.
"The pork shoulder," I say.
She nods and walks away, and her finger taps the notepad once.
I eat the pork shoulder, and it is better than the branzino.
I leave thirty percent and when I go, she's at the POS with her back to me and she doesn't turn around but her hand is on the counter and her index finger taps twice, and I don't know if it's for me or if it's habit, and I think about it for the rest of the night.
The fourth time is a Tuesday lunch. Quieter than the dinner shifts.
Six tables occupied. She's working the floor alone because the friend is behind the bar, and the kitchen is running with just Marco and the kid.
I sit at four, which is available, and she brings coffee without me asking and her hand is close to mine when she sets the cup down. I can feel the heat off her fingers.
"Pork shoulder?" she says.
"Yes."
"You've found your thing."
"I have."
There’s a small shift in her posture, a half-second where her weight redistributes and she looks at me. The look is different from the service look, the professional look, the look that reads tables and timing and the kitchen's mood. This look is just for me.
She’s pondering what I’m about. Why I’m so quiet, reserved, withdrawn. Maybe she thinks I can’t hold a conversation, and the truth is… I can’t. Not about mundane things, anyway.
People always peg me as brawn, no brain, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I just let them believe it because who the fuck has time to convince anyone otherwise?
Then it's gone and she's walking to the kitchen and I'm sitting at table four with a cup of coffee I haven't touched. My hand is on the knife, my thumb on the handle and all I'm thinking about is the heat off her fingers and the fact that I haven't felt another person's body heat in ages.
She brings the pork shoulder. I eat. She works the floor.
Between tables, she passes me—not because she needs to, because table four is against the wall and there's no reason to walk past it to get anywhere in the dining room.
She passes me because she's choosing to pass me, almost like an orbit she wants to be pulled into.
She doesn't know she's doing it, or she knows and won't admit it. Either way, the third time she passes, she's carrying plates to table two and her arm brushes my shoulder on the way by.
She pauses.
One second. Her arm against my shoulder.
The plates are balanced on her left hand, and her right arm is the one that touched me.
Her jaw drops and she's standing close enough that I can see the texture of her sleeve, the tendon in her wrist and a freckle below her ear I've never noticed before.
She's frozen with her arm against my shoulder and neither of us is saying anything.
Two seconds.
She clears her throat and walks to table two, sets the plates down and doesn't look back at me, but I can see her shoulders heaving like she’s trying to catch her breath.
I don't pick my nails. I can still feel the spot where she made contact. Seconds pass before the feeling starts to fade and I pick up my fork and go back to the pork shoulder, only now it’s cold.
I eat it anyway.
On the way out, I leave the cash under the cup and walk to the door. I don't look at her because if I look at her right now I'm going to see the freckle below her ear. I need to not see the freckle because I have a job to do and the job is not about the freckle that I want to run my tongue over.
Shit… she’s got me fucked up and she doesn’t even know my name.
Delvecchio doesn't have my money.
I'm standing in the body shop at seven AM because the thirtieth came and went and Leone's phone didn't ring.
Three days late. I told this man what happens when the date passes.
He looked at the knife between his fingers and said he understood, and then he didn't do the thing he said he understood he needed to do, which means he's either stupid or suicidal or both.
The mechanic from last time isn't here. It's just Delvecchio, sitting on the same tool chest, except this time there's no sandwich and no casual posture. He's been waiting for me. He knows what three days late means.
"I have five," he says before I'm through the door. "I can get the rest by..."
"No."
"Carmelo. Listen, I just need..."
"You know my name now." That's a problem. Last time he didn't. Someone told him, which means someone is talking about me being in Philadelphia, which means the wrong ears might be hearing it.
"People talk," he says. "You're hard to miss."
"Who's talking?"
"Nobody. Guys at the book. They see a big guy doing collections in South Philly, they ask around."
"Who asked around?"
His face changes. He realizes the conversation isn't about the money anymore.
"Sal Petrone," he says. "Runs the card game on Federal. He wanted to know if the Bonaccorsos were expanding into Philly. I told him I didn't know."
"What did you tell him about me?"
"Nothing. Just that you collected a debt. That's it."
I look at him for a long time. He's sweating through his shirt and his hands are gripping the edge of the tool chest… he knows that the next thirty seconds of his life depend entirely on whether I believe him.
Good news for him… I believe him. Delvecchio is a degenerate bookie, not a strategist. He doesn't have the imagination for a play.
I pull the knife. His eyes go wide and his hands come up.
"The five," I say. "Now."
He gets the money. I take it and I take two of his fingers.
The index and middle on his left hand, the same webbing where I put the blade last time.
He screams, but the shop is closed and the street is empty and the scream doesn't carry past the roll-up door.
I wrap his hand in his own shirt and tell him the remaining has a new deadline, and if he misses it, I'm taking the hand.
"And Delvecchio."
He's on his knees, cradling his hand, tears and snot on his face.
"If Sal Petrone or anyone else asks about me, you don't know my name. You don't know who I work for. You don't know anything. If I find out different, I'll come back, and this conversation will be the one you'll wish we were having."
He nod and I leave. The blood on the knife goes in the drain at the apartment. Thirty-two thousand goes under the bed with the rest.
I call Leone.
"Delvecchio, he’s short but I got five. He'll pay."
"Good. Anything else?"
"He's talking. Small time, local bookies. They're asking who I am and whether we're expanding into Philly."
Leone is quiet for three seconds. "Are we?"
He's been thinking about this. I'm already here, already operational, already building a footprint through collections and contacts. The Bonaccorsos don't have territory in Philadelphia. Leone is asking me if we should.
"Maybe," I say.
"Think about it. We'll talk when you're done with the girl."
The call ends. I wash my hands and go to the window. Grace's morning shift starts in twenty minutes. I've been watching her for three weeks and going to the restaurant for two and tonight I'm going back and I need to think about something that isn't her for the next twelve hours.
The only problem is that I can't.
Danila shows up the next afternoon.
He comes in carrying a duffel bag, wearing a dark coat with fur around the hood and dark wash jeans with a hole in them. Blood he poorly cleaned spreading over his collarbone. I don't ask, because I don't give a shit. He drops the bag by the door and sighs at the state of my apartment.
"I need food," he says. "You have nothing in this apartment."
"There's your Thai place."
"Sick of Thai. I want something else."
"Pizza. Passyunk."
He goes out and comes back twenty minutes later with a box and two bottles of water.
We eat standing at the counter because the only chairs face the window.
Danila noticed this the first time he was here.
He notices it again now, his mouth twisting up as he rolls his eyes and grabs another slice.
My eyes drop to his hands. The star tattoo between his thumb and index finger, faded but clear.
Gold rings on three fingers catching the overhead light.
Angular jaw. Expensive clothes that aren’t gaudy or flashy.
He showed me that tattoo in the backyard of a house in Queens where we were both pretending to be kids who didn't kill people. Vor v Zakone. He was twenty-three when he got it. He's thirty-five now. The star has been part of his hand for so long I forget it's there until I look.
"I went to the restaurant," I say.
He stops chewing. "You went inside."
"Four times."
"And?"
"She was my server."
He puts the pizza down and leans against the counter, crossing his arms. Patient. He's always been patient with me, since before either of us knew what we were becoming. He knows whatever I'm about to say is going to come out in pieces and he'll have to assemble it himself.
"What's she like?" he says.
I think about Grace bringing coffee without being asked. The chair facing the door. The freckle below her ear. Her arm against my shoulder, two seconds of contact that burned through every boundary I set.
"She serves well."
He snorts but doesn't press. "The Marinos. You been watching them?"
"Check-in call should be within the week. Paul makes it from the back of the house."
"When are you moving?"
"Day after the call. Longest window."
Danila pulls his phone and scrolls. "Reports go to a handler, not the Silent directly. A layer between. Handler follows up within seventy-two hours of a missed report. If the handler can't reach them, the network sends someone. Five to six days from the missed report, tops."
"Five days."
"At most." He pockets the phone. "There's something else. My people picked up chatter about the placement network tightening protocols. The Harrisons' restructuring is making the Silent's middle management nervous. Handlers are checking assets more frequently. Some are pulling placements."
"Pulling them where?"
"Relocating. New cities, new identities, new families. If the handler assigned to the Marinos gets nervous before you move, they could relocate Grace."
The knife is in my hand. I don't remember pulling it.
"How likely?" I ask.
"I don't know. I'm hearing fragments. But the window is narrower than you think. If you're going to move, move soon."
"After the check-in."
"After the check-in," he agrees. He picks up his duffel. "I have to go. Business. I'll be gone ten days, maybe more. Things are moving and I need to be present."
"The restructuring."
"Among other things." He stops at the door, his gold rings catching the hallway light. "She's going to hate you. You know that."
"I know."
"And you're doing it anyway."
"Yes."
He nods. "If you need me, call." He leaves. His footsteps go down the stairs, unhurried, and the building goes quiet.
The placement network is tightening protocols.
They could relocate Grace. The window just narrowed from comfortable to urgent, and I'm standing in a shit apartment with a knife in my hand and blood on my boots and the woman I came here for is three hundred feet away pouring coffee and tapping her finger on plates and she has no idea how close she is to disappearing again.
Not happening. Not while I'm breathing.
I go to the window and watch her work and think about timelines.