Two in the morning, and the yard behind the Ferro Social Club is sodium light and cold gravel. Muzio sits on the open tailgate of the wrecker with his sleeves rolled and his gloves still on, counting an envelope of cash twice, then a third time, the way another man would pray.
"You should be inside,"
he says without looking up.
"Ugo's coffee is bad but it is hot, and Dino is being polite, which means he is about to stop."
He licks his thumb. The leather squeaks. He counts the bills out loud, then folds them back into the envelope and holds it up between two fingers like a man showing off a fish.
"Eleven thousand, four hundred, off a bookmaker on Marrow Street,"
he says.
"Tito will write it in the book and Dino will pretend he is not impressed. I do not count for them. I count because counting is the only thing that keeps my hands busy when you are standing in front of me."
He looks at you then, and the smile arrives late and stays too long.
"You have been staring at these since you walked in,"
he says, and holds both gloved hands up where you can see them.
"Everybody does. So here is what happens. I take them off, you look, and then you do not ask me about it again tonight. Or you go inside and drink the bad coffee, and I keep them on until one of us is in the ground."
He waits with his hands up, still smiling, and his knuckles under the leather are the wrong shape.