Tony had taken the round table out of the back of Satriale's and replaced it with a long one.
The long one had been brought in for the occasion — Brian had explained this to Vinnie at the counter as he poured the coffee Vinnie had ordered out of habit and was not going to drink — and it had room for the seven men who were going to sit at it and the eighth chair at the head for Tony. The chairs were the same folding chairs that came out at funerals and christenings. Brian had set the table with a small bowl of mints and two ceramic ashtrays.
Vinnie came in at two of two with the tie Elena had given him in November at a height that Carmela Soprano had told her once at a wake was the right height for a man in a sport coat to wear a tie on a Saturday afternoon.
Silvio was already there. Paulie behind him. Christopher behind Paulie. Two men Vinnie didn't know well — one was the salvage yard Carlo from Bayonne, the other a man named DiPietro who ran the construction local Vinnie's foreman had been quietly making peace with all spring. They nodded. He nodded.
Tony came through the back door at two on the nose. He did not have a coat. He had a cup of coffee Brian had handed him on the way through. He sat at the head of the table and the rest of them took the seats they had been standing behind.
"Thank you for coming."
That was the whole speech. Tony went into business.
"Richie Aprile left the area on Wednesday. He told nobody. He left no forwarding. The federal heat on him for the Beansie situation was about to bite. He's not coming back. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong and we're going to correct them politely until they stop being wrong."
A pause. Around the table, men nodded once in turn. Vinnie nodded once when the nod reached him.
"His business needs new hands. We're going to do it the easy way today because there isn't a hard way that doesn't get expensive. Paulie — the Boonton card game and the route on Pompton. Sil and I worked it out this morning."
"Thank you, T."
"Christopher — the strip mall in Lyndhurst. The two storefronts on Mulberry that were tribute to Richie. The shy operation on Kearny — you've been running it anyway since Easter, it's official."
"Thank you, T."
"DiPietro — the local — Richie had two stewards in the books that were his guys. They're not his guys anymore. Find me competent men to put in those slots by Friday. I don't care what their last names are."
"You got it, Tony."
"Carlo — the salvage on Avenue P. The fence operation on Communipaw that nobody's supposed to know is a fence operation. Run them clean. Anybody asks, they're new businesses."
"Got it."
Tony's eyes moved down the table.
"Marchetti."
"Tony."
"The Belleville stores — the ones on Market Street — those go back to you. Effective today."
"Thank you, Tony."
"And while I'm doing it I'm gonna do you a thing. The two blocks across the avenue from the Market Street ones, the Italian Affiliated Grocers' block and the auto-glass row — those were in dispute between Richie and a guy from Newark for two years, and they don't have to be in dispute anymore. They're yours."
A beat.
"Tony — that's — "
"Yes it is."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Tony looked at the rest of the room.
"Anybody got a question."
Nobody had a question.
"Then we got a quick toast and we go on with our Saturdays."
Brian had been hovering at the doorway between the back and the counter. He came in with a tray with eight small glasses and a bottle of coffee brandy he had not had to be asked to bring. He set the tray in the middle of the long table. Each man took a glass. The glasses got filled. Brian withdrew.
Tony stood.
"To quiet endings."
Around the table, eight voices murmured the words back.
"And to clean business."
"Clean business."
Glasses up. They drank. The brandy burned the back of Vinnie's throat the way coffee brandy burned, which was the kind of burn that meant you were warm.
Tony sat. The meeting was over.
The other men stood up in twos and threes and shook hands and went out. Christopher squeezed Vinnie's shoulder on the way past. Paulie said Hey kid, nice tie without looking at Vinnie's tie. Carlo from Bayonne shook Vinnie's hand with both of his. DiPietro the construction man pressed a card into Vinnie's palm that said his name and a phone number in raised black letters on a cream card. Within four minutes the back room had only Tony, Silvio, and Vinnie in it.
Tony refilled three glasses without offering.
"Marchetti."
"Tony."
"Sit down."
Vinnie sat down again across from him. Silvio took the chair to Tony's right where Silvio always sat when there were only three of them.
"You kept your head down through all that mess."
"I tried."
"You didn't try. You did. There's a difference. A guy who tries is a guy who comes to my table on a Tuesday with a long face and tells me he heard a thing and what does Tony want him to do about it. A guy who does is a guy who I don't see at all for three weeks because he's at his lot pouring concrete and at his hotel meeting in Edison and at his bank meeting in Elizabeth and the only place I see him is at this deli on a Tuesday morning where he is supposed to be."
"I'm grateful, Tony."
"That's why you're getting more territory. You don't make problems and you make money. You think those two go together because that's the way the world is. Most guys, the two of them go opposite ways. They make problems because they make money or they don't make money so they make problems. You're the rare kind." Tony took a sip of the brandy. "You're going to do well, Vinnie."
"Thank you, Tony."
"I want you and I want Sil and I want DiPietro from the local to sit down on Tuesday and talk through the Newark RFP and how you're gonna win it. Sil's been doing this stuff with the city for fifteen years. He'll save you a million dollars of headache. He's also going to want to put a young guy of his on the project. The guy's name is Vito. Vito's smart and he can handle the paper. He'll work for you, but he'll also be Sil's eyes on the construction side, because that's a side I want eyes on."
"Of course."
"Don't say of course like I'm doing you a favor."
"You are doing me a favor."
"I am, but I don't need you to say it that way." Tony grinned the small grin. "You're getting better at this, Marchetti."
"I have good teachers."
"Don't get cute either."
"Yes, Tony."
Silvio took his glasses off. Set them on the table. The administrative day was over.
"Tony's right about the rare kind, kid. I been doing this for a long time. The guys who last are the guys who do the boring thing for fifteen years in a row. That's all. That's the whole secret. I've watched five capos go to prison and three more end up under a turnpike on-ramp because they thought boring was a thing other men did. Boring. That's the word. Tape it to your dashboard."
"It's on my dashboard."
"Good."
The system warmed.
Vinnie acknowledged it. He had been ignoring it for an hour and it had patiently waited and now, in the quiet of three glasses on a back table at Satriale's on a Saturday afternoon, it laid out what it had wanted to say.
[Level Up: 8 → 9. Function unlocked: Enhanced Stat Display (Basic). Cost: 10 SP per detailed query. Frequency: 5 per week. Note: ranks and tracks all seven core attributes by trend.]
He closed it without reading it twice.
The new function would sit in its drawer alongside the others. He had not asked Tony Soprano to tell him he was the rare kind, and he had not asked Silvio to put the word boring on his dashboard, and he was not going to need a function in his head to tell him what either of those statements were worth.
Tony pushed back from the table.
"All right. Saturday afternoon. Carmela wants me home by four. Marchetti — you got somebody to spend a Saturday with?"
"I'm working on it."
"Work harder."
"Yes, Tony."
"Get out of here."
He stood up. Buttoned his jacket. Said Sil once on the way out. Was gone.
Silvio looked at Vinnie across the table.
"Vincent."
"Sil."
"Tape it to your dashboard."
"It's already there."
"Good kid."
He stood up. Went out through the front.
Vinnie sat in the back room of Satriale's for one more minute. Brian came in and started clearing the glasses without saying anything. Vinnie stood up. Buttoned his coat. Slipped a folded fifty into the breast pocket of Brian's apron the way he had once slipped folded hundreds into Artie Bucco's apron and was not going to slip into anybody's apron any longer than this. Brian acknowledged it without looking up.
"Brian."
"Marchetti."
"That's the last time."
"You don't have to."
"I know I don't have to."
He went out.
Tommy was at the curb. The Cadillac was running. The Star-Ledger was on the dash. Vinnie got in the back. Closed the door.
"Tommy."
"Vinnie."
"Bloomfield."
"The bakery."
"The bakery. One loaf of the bread."
"Just the loaf?"
"Just the loaf. And then Hoboken. We're not stopping at Hoboken. We're picking up at her building and then we're driving. I don't care where. The shore. Up to the Palisades. Wherever the radio gets quiet."
"What about Augustino's."
"Augustino's is on a piece of paper somewhere."
A beat.
"Got it."
The Cadillac pulled out from Satriale's into the avenue. The light at the corner turned green as they reached it, which it did not always do. Vinnie watched the deli get smaller in the side mirror, leaned his head against the seat back, and picked up the car phone.
He dialed.
"Elena Moretti."
"It's me."
"Hi."
"Are you in your office."
"For another forty minutes."
"I'm forty minutes away. Bring a coat."
"Where are we going."
"I'll know when we get there."
A pause.
"All right, Vincent."
He set the phone in the cradle.
Tommy caught his eye in the rearview. Tommy did not say anything. The Cadillac drove north on the Pulaski Skyway in the May afternoon light, and the city across the river caught the sun on the upper floors of the buildings the way it did at this hour, and Vinnie watched it without thinking about it the way a man watched a thing he was going to keep watching for a long time.
Reading more than one of my novels? Good news — one Patreon, all of them.
patreon.com/TheFinex5
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰
― DECREE ―
More chapters reign FREE upon unwrittenrealm.com.
The throne acknowledges.
▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰▰