The phone in the study rang at twelve past eleven.
Vinnie had Newark RFP paperwork spread across the desk — the lawyer had marked it up in two colors and the foreman had marked it up in pencil and Vinnie had been marrying the two for an hour without making real progress — and he picked up the phone on the second ring because the second ring on his home line at eleven at night was never accidental.
"Vinnie."
"Tommy."
"Christopher got shot."
Vinnie's hand on the receiver tightened. He did not sit, and he did not stand. He stayed exactly the way he was, half-leaning over the desk with one palm on the lawyer's red ink.
"Where."
"Phone store on Route 9. Two punks came up on him in the parking lot. He killed one of them at the scene. The other ran. Christopher took at least three rounds. He's at Saint Barnabas, in surgery now, since maybe forty minutes ago."
"Conscious?"
"He was when they got him in the ambulance. Tony's there. Carmela's on her way."
"The dead one."
"They don't have a name yet. Young. Punk. Tommy gun stuck out of his belt. Sniffles type — that's what the EMT told Conte's guy."
Vinnie put the phone in the crook of his shoulder and capped the lawyer's pen and capped the foreman's pencil and stacked the paperwork in two neat piles he was not going to look at again tonight.
"Who else is on it."
"Silvio's at the deli. Paulie's coming in from Hoboken. Everybody who can be in a car is in a car."
"Get me Silvio."
"He's on the other line. Hang up. He'll call you."
He hung up. Crossed the study. Stood at the window. The lawn was dark. The phone rang fifty seconds later.
"Vincent."
"Sil. What do you need."
"Eyes. Ears. The other shooter took off on foot, then probably in a car. We don't know the car yet. He's somewhere within ten miles of that phone store unless somebody had a vehicle waiting and we don't think they did. Anybody in the family sees a kid walking alone tonight who looks like he just did something he shouldn't have, they call this number." Silvio gave him a pager. "Then they keep watching. They don't approach. They watch."
"Done."
"Vincent."
"Yeah."
"Tony is going to want to know who helped tonight."
"He'll know."
"He'll know because I'll tell him."
He hung up.
He went into the kitchen and picked up the wall phone and dialed Tommy.
"Twenty minutes ago you told me everybody we have is on it."
"Yeah."
"Now I'm telling you twice. Conte takes the routes east of the Hackensack. You take Newark. Paulie Bags — sorry, Paulie Conte's nephew, not the dead Paulie Bags — takes Kearny, Harrison, East Newark. Carlo at the auto body. Anybody who has a car keys in their pocket and a working radio gets a pager number and the words young, white, maybe wearing a jacket too thin for the weather, walking like he's late for something he doesn't want to be late for. Anyone sees him, they don't approach, they call. You call this number." He gave him Silvio's pager.
"Got it."
"And Tommy."
"Yeah."
"Send flowers to the hospital. Not a card. Just get well soon on the placard. Use the florist on Bergen, the after-hours guy."
"You sending them from you?"
"No name on the card. Just flowers."
A pause.
"Got it."
He hung up.
Stood at the kitchen window. Pulled the .38 out of his head — the glovebox, where it lived — and put it back. He was not going anywhere with a gun tonight. He was a desk in this operation. He had been a desk for fourteen months and this was the desk's night.
In his head, the boy in the phone-store parking lot stayed lit by fluorescents. He had known this was coming for half a year. The knowing did not subtract from the now of it. The kid the system was telling him about was Christopher Moltisanti — twenty-six years old, Hollywood dreams, Adriana — and the kid was bleeding out on a stretcher because two young men with Tommy guns had decided to make their name on the easiest target in the family.
He went back to the study. Looked at the RFP paperwork. Did not pick up either pen.
Tommy called at one-twenty.
"Conte's brother-in-law was driving home from his shift. Saw a brown Buick coming off the Pulaski Skyway toward East Newark, going fast for that hour. Didn't see the driver but the car wasn't right for the road — clean, no winter salt on it, like it'd been parked someplace until it had to move."
"License."
"Partial. New York plate. JZ-something."
He hung up. Picked up the other phone. Dialed Silvio's pager. Wrote on a corner of the RFP page: Brown Buick, NY plate JZ-?, off Pulaski toward East Newark, ~1:15 AM.
The phone rang back within a minute.
"Marchetti."
"Brown Buick. New York plate, JZ partial. Off the Pulaski toward East Newark at one-fifteen AM. My guy saw it. Didn't recognize the driver."
"Hold."
A muffled exchange in the background. Tony's voice. Silvio came back.
"Good. Tell your guy to drive that way back. Don't engage. Just look."
"He's a maintenance supervisor, Sil. He's not a guy."
"Tell him anyway."
He told Tommy. Tommy told Conte. Conte called his brother-in-law. The maintenance supervisor agreed to take the long way home a second time, which was the kind of small bravery that didn't get a citation.
Vinnie put the phone down. Went into the kitchen. Made coffee for the morning.
At two-forty Tommy called once more.
"Florist's on it. Flowers'll be at Saint Barnabas at eight when they open visiting."
"Good."
"You okay, Vinnie."
"I'm fine, Tommy."
A pause.
"That's what your father used to say."
"I know."
He hung up. Drove past Saint Barnabas at four AM with no plan to stop, took the loop in front of the emergency entrance once, saw the parking lot half-full of cars he did not need to know the make of, and drove home through the dark with both hands on the wheel and the radio off.
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