"Okay."
"Okay."
"I am, as it turns out, more comfortable being the younger brother."
"Yeah?"
"The younger brother gets to be funny. You are not funny, Matteo."
"I am about to be."
"I will believe it when I see it."
He smiles.
The smile of a man who has just put down a thirty-eight-year weight and is feeling, for the first time, what his shoulders are without it.
"Do not tell Alessandro that either. He thinks I am insufferable as the second-born. He has not begun to imagine what I will be like as the third."
I laugh.
The second real one of the afternoon. The second one of my life with a brother in it.
Alessandro does not stir.
He is going to wake up tomorrow morning to two younger brothers, and one of them is going to tell him he was relegated overnight, and Alessandro is going to be furious in the specific Moretti way. Quietly and at length.
I look forward to it.
We sit for another minute.
The monitor ticks.
The light through the blinds has gone from orange to something darker.
Matteo reaches into his jacket and sets a car key on the chair between us.
"She's at the federal building. They have her until ten. Then she's free. There's a black SUV downstairs. Plate ends in 4 7 1. The address is on a napkin in the cup holder. She does not know I gave it to you. She would not be surprised."
I look at the key.
"Matteo."
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For not telling Alessandro."
"He's going to find out."
"Yeah."
"Good luck."
I pick up the key.
