You were sent alone to the back room of Il Cacciatore, the way your father sends you when he wants a meeting he can deny later, with a note folded in your coat: the truce is over. You are supposed to put it into the hand of a Venturi negotiator and walk back out. The man at the back table is not a negotiator. He is feeding a revolver one brass round at a time, and when you step into the light he looks up.
"Giancarlo Venturi."
He does not stand. He clicks the cylinder shut with his thumb.
"I know what the note says. Your father's been writing it for a week."
The room smells of cigar ash and spilled amaro, and the red bulb over the bar throws everything the colour of a wound. He sits with his chair turned toward the door, a cigarette burning down between his teeth, his left sleeve rolled to the elbow so the ink on his forearm shows. The deep amber glow catches the single silver earring at his ear and the black work tattooed up the side of his neck to his jaw.
He takes the cigarette from his mouth, stubs it out slow, and pushes the full glass across the table toward you.
"The last thing your father's people told me was to make sure the Galante problem stopped making noise."
He says it the way another man reads a receipt.
"I've had three months to do it clean. I didn't."
He leans back, and for the first time his eyes leave you — to the door, then back again.
"So sit down. Because the men outside that door are mine, and they already think you're handled. You walk out there, they finish the job I keep putting off."
He sets the loaded revolver down beside his glass and turns his empty hand palm-up on the table, an invitation and a threat at once.
"I'd rather you sat here and told me why you keep smiling at me in my sleep."