“No one’s gonna kill you on my watch,” I agree after a moment. “So come on.”
We make it up two flights of stairs without them collapsing on us, and at the top, Ferraro is waiting, wearing what I assume is the best suit he owns these days. It’s pretty tight around the waist, and I don’t think he’d be able to get the jacket buttoned up if he tried. But the look on his face is sheer excitement.
He practically shoves me aside to get to the Clemenza, grabbing at his hands.
“You’re here! Come in, come in—everyone came.”
I yank Caligula back by the shoulder when he tries to walk straight into the apartment. “What the hell do I keep saying? Stay. Behind. Me.” Then I grab Ferraro as well. “You make sure no one’s carrying?”
The old man glares, but he nods. “Of course.” And I guess an old hand like Ferraro would at least know how to do that right.
I push open the door cautiously and see ten or eleven men waiting. Most of them have at least twenty years on me. A couple are younger—a guy in his early thirties with a scar slashed across his jaw, and a kid around Caligula’s age who keeps glancing at one of the older men. A relative, probably.
I step inside, and every eye trains on me. I raise a hand to motion Caligula forward. “Come on in, Don Clemenza,” I drawl.
He brushes past me, chin lifted. His hands are clasped behind his back. It looks commanding. Regal, even. But his fingers are gripping each other so hard the knuckles are white.
Ferraro follows him in, and I’m left to shut the door behind us all.
I might as well leave that door open for all the protection it offers. Safe house? This place is a death trap. I wouldn’t besurprised if the floor suddenly gave out. Single-pane windows, no reinforcement. The deadbolt on the door is sparkling new—Ferraro’s work, I bet—but the door frame is made of wood so old and cracked it would only take one kick to knock it in.
All the men stood up when Caligula entered—those who weren’t standing already, because most of the chairs in the room are just as old as everything else in here, and the one sofa looks like it’s lost all its springs.
A bottle of olive oil and a fresh loaf of bread have been placed on a tray on top of the coffee table in the middle of the room. I’m pretty sure I know what they’re for.
And I don’t like it.
The Clemenza takes all this in and then looks around at the men. “Thank you for coming,” he says, and then takes the only seat in the place that looks like it might not collapse. The rest of them sit or slouch against the walls. “I know some of you,” he goes on, “but not all of you. Perhaps we could start with introductions. My name is Caligula Clemenza. My father was Cesario—” He glances my way as he says the name, but I just stare back at him. “—and Louis Clemenza was my grandfather. As far as I’m aware, I’m the last direct descendant of my grandfather, which means I am the heir to the Family.”
“You don’t gotta prove that to us,” one of the old guys says. “We know who you are. Just glad to see you alive.”
“What’s your name?” Caligula asks.
“Mike Giordano. Big Mike. I used to work in your uncle Pat’s crew.”
Caligula turns to the nervy kid standing next to him. “And you?”
“Mike Giordano Junior. He’s my dad.” He thumbs at Big Mike. “Um. I never worked for the Family before, but I’m—I’m real interested.”
He goes around the room, asking each person’s name, repeating it back, and nodding as they explain their previous positions in the chain of command. None of them were particularly high up, and none of them seem to have much to offer except loyalty. But loyalty is important. I know that.
The Clemenza does too.
But something is happening to the Clemenza as he moves through the introductions. Each man who says his name, who explains what he did for the Family, who looks at Caligula with that desperate hope—it’s feeding him. I can see it. The color coming back into his face. His shoulders settling. His voice gaining ground, losing that careful, testing quality. By the sixth or seventh introduction, he’s sounding almost…
Like himself.
These losers and antiques are giving him back to himself, and I should be glad about that. I set this up, for Christ’s sake. So I don’t know why watching it makes something hot and hard unfurl in my belly, makes me want to remind them all that he doesn’t belong to them.
He’smine.
He’s about three-quarters through the introductions when footsteps sound on the stairs outside. I’m in front of Caligula with my gun aimed at the door before Ferraro even gets there.
Three sharp knocks sound. “Hey!” hisses a voice from outside. “Open up, will you? I’m here for the meeting.”
Ferraro, doing something smart for once, looks through the peephole. When he turns back, his lips are curled with disgust. “It’s that traitor, Scags,” he hisses. “He was with your grandfather the night he was murdered. He betrayed the Old Don.”
“Let him in,” Caligula says.
