And then the phone rings.
Antonia answers before the first trill dies down. “Paolo.” A prayer.
“It’s Saul.”
“Saul.” Antonia’s neck twinges. Her hips are connected to the top of her head by a live wire of pain.
“Sofia didn’t answer. Have you talked to her?”
“Saul, what is going on? Where is Paolo?”
“I don’t know,” says Saul. “I’m sorry. But, Antonia, I can’t reach Sofia. I’ve been calling all morning.”
Antonia’s boys are still asleep. She can feel them through the walls. Somewhere, something rumbles: thunder, or her own self. Antonia grips the phone. “Did you try downstairs?”
“I don’t want to worry Rosa and Joey unless I have to,” Saul says.
“Saul, why don’t you go home? Go check on her? Where are you?”
“Just keep them safe,” says Saul. “Just tell them how much I love them.”
“Saul, please,” says Antonia. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m not, Tonia. I promise.”
“Saul,” says Antonia. “Are you going to be okay?” She does not say, I promised Sofia.
“Everything will be fine,” says Saul. There is a click. He is gone.
Antonia hangs up the phone. The silence buzzes. It crackles. It slams.
No—the front door slams. “Antonia?” Paolo.
The first thing Antonia thinks when she sees Paolo is that he looks like shit. His eyes are bloodshot and his shirt is untucked and dirty. His face is stubbled in rough black patches and he looks unsteady on his feet. She crosses the kitchen in two steps and hugs him, wraps herself around him, and the second thing she thinks is thank you. “What happened to you?” she asks, which feels wildly insufficient. And then, “Saul just called. He doesn’t sound okay. We have to help him.”
“Did he tell you what happened?” asks Paolo.
“No,” says Antonia. “But he’s hurt. He won’t tell us who—”
“It was me,” says Paolo.
“You?”
“Sit down,” says Paolo. “I need to make some coffee.”
Antonia sits.
Paolo tells her that on Sunday morning he got a call. “Which is yesterday, I guess. I’m having trouble keeping track,” he says. It was Tommy Fianzo Jr. “He wanted me to meet him. I refused.” Paolo is pouring espresso grounds into the pot. He is tamping them down with careful fingers. “He said I would meet him if I knew what was good for me.” Paolo shrugs. “I agreed.” Paolo does not tell Antonia that part of him relished being the one who got the call, the one who would be in danger, the one with the information, for once, the power. But she knows.
“I met him at his office,” says Paolo. “He told me Saul’s been working for Eli Leibovich.”
“That’s impossible,” says Antonia.
“I know,” says Paolo. “That’s what I told him. But he insisted. He said Saul dropped a piece of paper as he was leaving their meeting the other day. It had details about the Fianzo dock operation written on it. Fianzo connected the dots. I didn’t believe him until he showed me the paper. You know how Saul does that strange thing with his A’s. It was his writing. And, Tonia, Leibovich has been after those docks for years. There’s no other answer.” The espresso is wailing on the stove. Paolo turns it off and pours it into two cups. He hands one to Antonia. “He told me they’re going to get rid of Saul. He’s been looking for an excuse.” Paolo clenches the kitchen counter. His knuckles are white. “He knows our sons’ names.”
“Of course he does,” says Antonia. “But he has to be lying.”
“He offered me a job. He said—if I take care of Saul—if I take care of Saul for them, they’ll take me on. Give me the promotion I never got here.” Paolo runs a hand through his hair in a very good imitation of Joey. “So I went to find Saul.”
“You hurt him?”
“I confronted him.”
“And he told you he didn’t do it.” Antonia says this loudly, but the truth is starting to whisper in through the windows.
“He admitted to all of it,” says Paolo. “He apologized. He said he’s been trying to think of a way out for months.”
“There’s no way out,” says Antonia. This is not happening. The walls contract and expand around her, the way walls always do when an old world is being exchanged for a new one.