Page 25

First, there’s his daughter’s wedding in Positano. His bad knee, the one he hurt in soccer. The way he winces when I say soccer. “You’ve gone native in the States, eh?”

I lift a shoulder. “Seemed like the thing to do.”

Then he yammers on about the disgrace of Milanese traffic, the insult of the new port fees. I answer in the right places while I watch his hands. Not tapping on the table, not fidgeting in the least.

Either he thinks he’s gotten away with what he’s doing, or he thinks there’s nothing wrong with it. Not a nervous bone in his body.

“My sister asks after you,” he says over the veal, offhand, watching me back. “Allegra was wounded to learn of the wedding from a newspaper. You know how she holds things.”

“I know she flirts with me every time I’m in town.”

“Two weeks, though.” He shakes his head in wonder, savoring a scandal he can touch. “You used to move slower than the church, Lupo. A conference, a courthouse, an American, and boom, married.”

I let the silence answer.

“Allegra read the announcement four times at my table,” he adds, gentle as a stiletto going in. “She kept saying the doctor’s name to hear it.”

“Your point, Matteo?”

“I’m making conversation between old friends.” He spreads his hands, all innocence and gold rings. “Weddings make Allegra sentimental.” Then he has the balls to smirk at me. “You remember how she is about things she considers hers.”

“Which I am not.”

“Mm.” He smiles into his glass. “Families drift. It grieves me. Our fathers never let business drift into the personal.”

“Our fathers shot two of each other’s cousins.”

“And made peace after, like gentlemen.” He lifts the glass an inch in salute. “That’s life, Lupo.”

He is dancing around the issue. Playing in my face.

“Speaking of life, how do you feel about ending it?”

That gets a lifted brow. “How do you mean?”

“Your freight exits my lanes by the end of the month. All of it, every code, every broker. If you’re going to send out fake drugs, you will do it with someone else’s help. Not mine.”

Matteo’s ringed fingers pause on the stem. “Go on.”

He doesn’t deny it. I can’t tell if that’s strategy or stupidity. “In return, I purchase your stake in the terminal venture at last year’s valuation, plus an additional ten percent. Payment is in cash, and no one will be reported to authorities. Everyone remains wealthy and can breathe easy.”

Matteo turns his wineglass by the stem, admiring the legs against the candle. “Strange offer among friends.”

“It’s the last friendly one you’ll get from me.”

“Family deserves reflection, not strange offers.” He tastes the wine again and takes his time approving it. “I’ll consider it.”

“Consider this while you’re at it,” I say. “Six crates out of lane eight are sitting in my warehouse with labels that say methotrexate but are filled with chalk inside that says Brancati. I don’t have to make any offer at all, strange or not. This is generosity I am offering you because of our history. Take the offer, Matteo.”

“Counterfeit drugs?” His eyebrows perform their concern. “Terrible business. Dangerous business.” He clicks his tongue, and his words come out aghast, and are anything but. “A name as clean as Sartorre, exposed on its own lanes. Imagine the questions. People go to prison over such things.”

A guided tour of the knife he believes he’s holding.

“Matteo,” I say it quietly. “You know my daughter. You sat in my mother’s kitchen the month Sarah was diagnosed, and you wept into your espresso when you heard the news. My mother held your hand while you did it. And now your people press chalk into her medicine’s name and ship it to other people’s sick children. How the fuck do you live with yourself?”

For one breath, something human almost surfaces in his face. Then the grim smile recovers its footing.

“Sentiment. It was always your father’s weakness too.” He folds his napkin with a surgeon’s precision and rises. “Thank you for the Barolo. I’ll get back to you.”