Chapter 6: The Thing Anthony Did Not Expect
Anthony Caruso was brought to the house at two in the morning.
He came without resistance, which told Nora something.
A man who believed he had done nothing wrong would have argued at the door.
A man who believed he had covered his tracks would have demanded a lawyer.
Anthony walked in quietly, sat down in the chair he was directed to, and folded his hands on the table like a man who had decided that the performance was over.
Gabriel sat across from him.
Nora sat to the side.
She had been told she could wait in another room.
She had stayed.
"Twenty-two years," Gabriel said.
Anthony looked at him.
"I know."
"My father's funeral."
"I know, Gabe."
"Don't."
Anthony's hands tightened slightly on the table.
"He came to me six weeks ago," Anthony said.
"Marco.
He told me what he'd found.
About the accounts, about the transfers.
He said you were already planning to move against him.
That it was only a matter of time."
"And you believed him."
"I believed he was scared.
I thought if I told him you knew, he'd come to you himself.
Try to fix it."
"Instead he tried to kjll me and frame my sister."
Anthony's face didn't change.
But something behind it did — something that had been holding a particular shape for a long time finally let go.
"I didn't know what he was planning," Anthony said.
"I swear to you.
I told him you knew about the money.
That's all I did."
"That's all." Gabriel repeated it without inflection.
"I didn't know about tonight.
I didn't know about the dr*g.
I didn't know about Sofia."
"But you sat at that table and you watched me pick up that glass."
Anthony said nothing.
"You watched me pick it up, Anthony.
And you said nothing."
"I didn't know—"
"You didn't know.
But you were relieved." Gabriel's voice was very quiet.
"I saw your face when the girl said the name.
You were relieved.
Which means some part of you knew something was wrong tonight and you decided that whatever it was, it was better for you if it happened."
The kitchen clock ticked.
Anthony looked down at his folded hands.
"I owe you more than I can repay," he said.
"Yes."
"I know that doesn't—"
"It doesn't." Gabriel stood.
"I want every account number.
Every name Marco gave you.
Every conversation, every location, every date.
You're going to write it down tonight.
All of it."
"And then?"
"And then we're done."
Anthony looked up.
"Done."
"Twenty-two years.
Done." Gabriel said it the way you say something that has already happened, not something you are deciding.
"You can go home after.
You won't be touched.
But you will never sit at my table again."
Anthony stood slowly.
He looked older than he had at the restaurant.
The suit that had looked expensive under the Northstar's chandeliers looked merely heavy now, in a kitchen at two in the morning.
He looked at Nora.
"You have good eyes," he said.
Nora didn't answer.
He looked back at Gabriel.
Something passed between them — not forgiveness, not hatred.
Something more complicated and more final than either.
"I'll write it down," Anthony said.
He sat back down.
Someone brought paper.
He picked up the pen.
And Gabriel walked out of the room because watching was the one thing he couldn't do.
Nora found him in the hallway, his back against the wall, looking at the ceiling.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"No."
"Do you want me to go?"
He looked at her.
"Do you want to go?"
She thought about it honestly.
Her feet hurt.
Her uniform smelled like the restaurant.
She had been afraid, then less afraid, then something she didn't have a word for yet.
"Not particularly," she said.
He nodded once.
Like that settled something.
May you like
Down the hall, the pen moved across the paper.
And outside, Chicago went on doing what Chicago does — indifferent, enormous, full of people keeping secrets in lit rooms while the rest of the city slept.
