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I make a beeline for the next arch down. The dining room is lined by arches like this all the way down its left side. They open into the hallway—so if I go through the next one down, I might be able to come up from behind him and—
Fuck! The hall is jammed with people again. I can see a group of men moving toward the ballroom, flanked by women and a waiter or two, but they’re too far away now to make out faces.
I take another second to try to chill the fuck out before pushing through the kitchen’s swinging doors. I tell myself I’m crazy. He wouldn’t be here. Not in a million years—for so many reasons. The fact that I’m seeing him, that my brain has got him showing up where I am, even though I know that he’s in Red Hook right now…
I don’t want to think about what that shit means, so I shoulder through the kitchen doors, where I almost collide with a big dude—like, giant-sized. He frowns at me. I’m wearing black pants, a white dress shirt, and a black bowtie—the clothes Alesso’s uncle makes us wear for these gigs—so even with the train robber bandana, I don’t think it’s hard to guess what I’m doing in the kitchen.
He gives me a nod, murmurs something into an earpiece, and passes through the doors.
As soon as he’s gone, my friend Leo steps around a support column—done in gray tile, just like the rest of this space—and bugs his eyes out at me.
“Dude, he’s here.”
“Uhh, huh?”
Leo’s eyes pop open wider—one is blue, and one is brown—and he waves his arms. “Roberto Arnoldi just got here and Lamberto is in here somewhere, too. That was Roberto’s guy asking me to bring up dinner for him. He’s in one of the libraries. He thought I was Luigi because—” Leo tugs on his jacket, which has Alesso’s uncle Luigi’s nametag. He laughs, sounding slightly deranged. “Do you want to take it up there?”
“What, you don’t?”
“Shit, no!”
“You scared to go up there?”
“Nah, man, I’m not scared.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Leo shrugs. “I don’t know man.”
I shake my head again and glance around for the plate. “Well, where is it?”
“I haven’t made it yet.”
I hesitate. If Roberto recognized me, that could be bad, but…I pull the bandana up over my face more.
“Would you recognize me, Leo, if you saw me around?”
“I’d think you were Zorro.”
What is with these guys? “Zorrto wears an eye mask.”
Leo shrugs, and I groan. “Make the plate. I’ll take it up there.”
I was probably a foot shorter when I had my run-in with Roberto. It’ll be fine.
Leo spazzes as he fixes the plate—really more a platter—and I try to talk him down without laughing at him. By the time I’m headed out of the kitchen, Alesso is coming back in.
“He’s taking food to Roberto Arnoldi,” Leo tells Alesso.
“What?” His mouth lolls open. “We’re sending Luca?”
“Only the best.” I shove through the doors before Alesso’s surprise makes me second guess my mission.
I’m supposed to take the staff elevator at the end of the hall to the twentieth floor, where, two doors down from the elevator, there’s a large library. That’s where Roberto and his posse are.
The platter I’m holding is covered and heated. I feel weird as I ride the staff elevator up with the thing. Like a caterer, I think with an eye roll at myself. I’m a weekend caterer, and so the fuck what? I’ve never minded before. I clench my jaw as I eye myself in the elevator’s mirror wall.
Fuck Roberto Arnoldi. Even if he recognizes me, so what? I’m taking one for the team. Leo wasn’t gonna do it. Alesso’s brother Tony—who’s become one of Arnoldi’s minions—would lose his shit if he found out Alesso did it.
I can handle this shit. I’ve got on the bandana. It’s true my eyes are what my mom calls “crystalline” blue and that’s unusual in this circle, but a library like this might be dark. Anyway, I’m not the only person in Manhattan with pale blue eyes.
I steel myself as I step out of the elevator and blink around the twentieth floor hall. It’s dark as shit in here, with crazy-high ceilings, open flame wall lamps, and décor that’s almost goth looking: long, velvet curtains, a sculpture of a stallion on its hind legs, marble floors.
I catch the unmistakable scent of pricey cigars—the kind these people used to stand outside my dad’s shoe store and smoke when I was a kid, before I knew who any of them were. For a second, that aroma takes me back. And now I’ve got a nervous feeling—like I’m a kid who’s gone wandering where he shouldn’t.
The hall feels still, but I hear men’s voices from a little ways away. Something clinks, like a liquor bottle on the rim of a glass, like champagne flutes for a toast. And then I’m there, I’m standing in the library’s doorway.
