“This is not a game that can last forever,cugino,” Nicodemo said to me. “Make a move.”
Nicodemo and I sat across from each other, playing chess at a table placed outside of the building we were staying in. Some of the men who worked the groves were doing the same thing we were, trying to catch the breeze, because there was no air conditioning. It felt better outside than it did inside.
Nunzio sat against the building, staring up at the sky, smoking. “A man who has no patience should not play a game that requires it,” he said.
“A man who likes his tongue keeps his mouth shut,” Nicodemo said.
I looked between the two men, but I didn’t give a fuck why one hated the other. It was a sign of respect in our business to be hated, and by many.
Adriano had a wet towel around his neck, looking through a metal bucket filled with ice and drinks. “This heat has me fucking starving,” he said. “Like after you go swimming. I’d give my left nut for some cold watermelon.”
I made my move, keeping my eyes on the board. “Tell me why you’re here, Nico,” I said.
Whenever I called him Nico, it was the equivalent of him calling mecugino. I wanted honesty, but on a different level. The terms brought us back to when we were kids, when he would spend summers with my family in Sicily.
He studied the board for a minute. “Giuseppe hid me when—” he made a move, a look coming over his face that made him seem more like the killer he was “—after my parents were killed.”
Nicodemo was just a kid—maybe five—when both of his parents were murdered. He was an orphan, and Tito Sala had intervened and found him a family. By the time I could remember going to Sicily every summer, Tito would bring Nicodemo and we would spend them together. I had no brothers or sisters, he was alone, so we kept each other busy.
“Ah,” I said, trumping his move. “Obligation.”
He made a move that beat mine. “You know me better. I am obligated to no man.” He looked me in the eye. “I like the family. Good people.”
“How did it get this far—with her?”
He took my meaning clear enough. Why didn’t he intervene before, or have Tito involve the Faustifamiglia.They were known to revere women. It spoke to their romantic side—the other side was ruthless. They didn’t believe in breaking something smaller than them. I tended to agree.
I also didn’t say her name, because some hunters blended in with the scenery.
“I was in Israel for the last two years. You are getting slow in your old age.” He grinned when he made another move that took my piece. “They did not know how to get in touch with me, and Tito has been more active than usual. Luca has a son only a few members of the family were aware of. It has been a busy time—after Marzio was killed, the Faustis have been at war from within.”
He studied the board for another minute and then studied my face, trying to read my next move. “Lothario is acting as the head, as you must know, and it is harder to reach him. He does not make himself as available as Marzio did. He is more selective about who he will help. There have been complaints. He is not his father.”
“No,” I said. “None of us are.”
“Infatti,”he said,“but if we appoint ourselves to such a high position, we must either meet the men we respect, or exceed their power. We must become them or better.”
Yeah, that was the fuckingtruthall right.
Tito came toward us, his oversized hat in his hands. He stopped next to the table, staring at it for a minute, and then gave me a narrow look. “Time waits for no man, not even you,” he said, and then he knocked my winning piece over with a flick of his bony finger.
He stormed off, the smell of medicine following him. I would always associate that smell with him.
“What the fuck is wrong with Dr. Salad—I mean, Sala?” Adriano stared after him. “I wonder if he can get me some watermelon?”
I picked my winning piece up, holding it in my hand, studying it. The pieces were crystal, the board black and white. The light of the moon went straight through it. When I looked up, Nicodemo was staring in the direction the good doctor had taken. Even though his attention was focused elsewhere, I knew he’d hear me when I spoke.
“If I had decided the information worth my death was worth sacrificing her life—”
“—this would be a one-player game,” he said, turning his eyes to mine. There was no emotion there, only the reality of the life we chose to live.Cuginior not, it would have been a war between us, and one of us would be dead. We chose our paths, and that was that. It was what it was, however it ended.
I nodded, agreeing. I’d kill any motherfucker who came afterminenow—Alcina Parisi. Including him, if he made the wrong move.
His grin came slow—some said it was the grin of a man who had just gotten vengeance. “What can I say? I like the ones who come out to play when the moon is full.”
Yeah, he would. Crazy motherfucker.
* * *
