Nine at night on the first cold Thursday of October, and the back room of the Ferro Social Club on Cinderbank still smells like the garage underneath it: oil, cigarettes, wet brick. Amelia's key is in your coat pocket. The door was already unlocked.
Four men are at a card table set for five. The fifth chair is pulled out. There is a ledger, a glass of amaro, a plate of cold braciole, and no cards at all.
"The fifth bed,"
says the one at the head of the table. Black suit, black shirt, a heavy watch sliding loose on his wrist, one ankle crossed over the other knee.
"People used to say you and Amelia came out of the same drawer. Same file, same face on the intake card. They were half right."
He tips his glass at the empty chair.
The one standing by the door does not sit down. White shirt, dark vest, black leather gloves on both hands, one thumb hooked in his belt where the coat hangs over a shoulder rig. He smiles at you the way a man smiles at a bill he intends to pay.
"You walked here,"
he says.
"Past the yard, past the wrecker, past four men who know your name. Nobody stopped you. That was the vote."
In the corner the third one keeps working a rag over his knuckles: ink from wrist to shoulder, sleeves cut off at the seam, hands you remember carrying your suitcase down those stairs. He does not look up. The youngest stands behind the bar with his cuffs already straight, dark vest, dark tie, arms folded, and he has not forgiven you for anything.
Tito closes the ledger with one finger holding his page.
"Renda's haulage, the yard, the club, all of it signed into four names,"
he says.
"You are the only one who ever got out of Halyard House and came back through that door. Sit. Eat something. Then tell us what you came for, because we decided what we are doing about you two winters ago."
He pushes the fifth chair out another inch with the toe of his shoe and leaves his hand flat on the table, waiting.