It's the most she's given me. Not information. Not the Marchetti secret. But a piece of the framework. A glimpse at the architecture of a woman who built herself from scratch and can't stop checking the foundation for breakage.
I don't push. I sit in my chair, and she lies in her bed and we share the silence like two people splitting a meal neither of them wanted to order.
Morning comes in through the curtains. Grey, then pale blue, then the washed-out white of an overcast sky. I haven't slept. My neck is stiff, my right knee aches from being bent at the same angle for six hours, and the vinyl chair has left a pattern on the back of my arm that's going to take an hour to fade.
Charlotte is in the bathroom. I hear the shower running, and the sound of it is so domestic that it makes my chest tight in a way I don't like and choose not to examine. I use the time to check the perimeter. Parking lot clear. Three new vehicles since last night, all civilian. No one sitting in them. No one watching the building.
I pull out the first burner and call Emilio.
He picks up on half a ring. "You alive?"
"Obviously."
"How's the girl?"
"Showering."
"At the same motel? Same room?" His voice climbs half an octave.
"Don't."
"I'm just asking a logistical question, brother."
"You're not. And she's an asset under protection."
"Right. An asset. Is that what we're calling women you personally ensure the safety of, even when we have a perfectly good guard rotation you could have pinged instead?”
"Emilio."
"I'm just saying. Leone didn't call her an asset when he briefed Aurelio this morning."
I go still. "He briefed Aurelio?"
"Had to. The old man woke up to three bodies in his service corridor and his head of quiet operations missing along with a female witness. He was not, shall we say, in a collaborative mood."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that he threw a decanter at the wall. Not at anyone, just at the wall, which is honestly restraint for a man who once shot a bookkeeper in the foot for a rounding error. Leone talkedhim down. Told him you were running a covert operation to identify the second mole, sanctioned by him, off the books for security reasons."
"Is Aurelio buying it?"
"Aurelio is tolerating it. There's a difference. He gave Leone a week to produce results before he starts making his own decisions about how to handle the situation. And you know that his decisions tend to involve less conversation and more cells."
"A week?"
"Starting this morning. So you've got, what, six and a half days left? Plenty of time. Take a nap. See the sights. Honestly, if you’re not here for when Aurelio burns shit to the ground, that’s fine. Keep the girl safe. We’ve got this shit on lock."
"What's the situation on the ground?"
The humor drops out of his voice. "Castillo’s hit a supply depot near the docks last night. Separate from your thing. Carmelo ran cleanup, but it was messy. Three dead, two of ours, one civilian. Made the news. Aurelio's shifting resources east, which means the compound is running thin. Castillo is getting bolder, or dumber, or both."
"And the nightclub?"
"What about it?"
"You mentioned a bartender. Last week. Someone who was hearing things."
Emilio is quiet for a second. "Yeah. Savannah. She works the waterfront club, the one Aurelio uses for political meetings. She told one of our guys that she overheard a conversation she wasn't supposed to. Something about schedules. Delivery routes." He pauses. "I was going to follow up, but then you decided to play thug turns house daddy, and I've been a little busy."
