A lie.
“Roberto.”
“No,” he says sharply. “I’m alive because I know when paper stops being useful.”
“Paper is useful now.”
“Not to me.”
“I can protect you.”
Another laugh. “Can you?”
I can pay him. I can hide him for a day, perhaps two, if I involve Rory. I can move information. I can threaten him badly enough to sound larger than I am.
But protection belongs to people with men, roads, guns, doctors, judges, priests.
Protection belongs to Alessandro.
“I can make it worth the risk,” I say.
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
I name a number. The clerk looks at me as if I have suddenly become more interesting. Roberto lets in a short breath.
“I talk once,” he says. “Not to police. Not to council. To your people. Recorded. Then I disappear.”
“My people?”
“Irish. Not Vitale.”
Smart man. “Where?”
“Tomorrow. Noon. I’ll call this phone.”
“Bring the receipt copy.”
“No.”
“Bring it, or there is no money.”
“You think you can dictate terms?”
“Yes.”
He exhales hard. “Fine.”
The line dies.
* * *
The return to the chapel takes longer because the motorbike remains a hateful device and because my mind has already moved ahead.
I need Rory. A message through old channels, not Vitale-monitored lines. There is a woman in the village who sells imported cigarettes and still owes my father a favor from 2019, though she believes I don’t know that. She can send word to an Irish number. The Irish number can reach Rory. Rory can position men for tomorrow without exposing me.
