Richie came in without an appointment at five past six.
Vinnie was at his desk in the back office of Marchetti Waste Management with the Newark RFP draft and a yellow pad and a sandwich he had been picking at for forty minutes. Conte had gone home at five. The two drivers who'd been in the yard with the trucks had gone home at five-thirty. The receptionist desk in the front had been empty since four because the receptionist had a kid in tee-ball.
The front door of the office had a bell.
The bell rang.
Vinnie heard the door close. Heard footsteps. Heard a second pair of footsteps that stayed at the door. Then a third pair, behind the second, which also stayed at the door.
A man's silhouette came up against the frosted glass of the inner office door. Vinnie set the pen down.
The door opened.
Richie Aprile stepped through it. He shut it behind him. He looked at Vinnie across the desk and he smiled with his mouth.
"Marchetti."
"Mr. Aprile."
"Working late."
"Some paperwork."
"Don't let me interrupt."
Richie walked into the room. Did not wait to be offered the chair. Pulled it out, sat down. Crossed one leg over the other at the knee. His hands rested flat on his thighs. The .38 was in the glovebox of the Cadillac in the lot, two hundred feet away through three doors and a window.
The system warmed.
[Threat Assessment: Aprile, R. Update — direct contact, off-territory, no escort visible to subject. Coalition recruitment pattern: confirmed.]
He acknowledged it and let it close.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Aprile."
"I was in the neighborhood."
"You drove out from Boonton to Jersey City to be in the neighborhood."
"I had a thing with a guy in Bayonne. Drove back through the long way." Richie's mouth did the small thing it did. "I wanted to see your place."
"This is my place."
"It's nice. Clean. The trucks look good in the yard." Richie nodded slowly, as if confirming a thing he had already decided. "Sal would be — Sal would be proud, what you've done with it."
"Thank you, Mr. Aprile."
"You can call me Richie."
"I appreciate that."
Vinnie did not call him Richie.
A beat.
"Marchetti."
"Yeah."
"You're a smart guy. I had a man tell me you were a smart guy. He said Vinnie Marchetti is the kid who sees three moves ahead because he can't help it. I said is that right. He said that's right." Richie's eyes did not move off Vinnie's face. "Is that right?"
"I run a waste hauling company, Mr. Aprile."
"You also pay tribute to Tony."
"Yes."
"How's that going."
The question was sitting in the room with both hands on its knees, just like Richie was. Vinnie did the thing he did when he was buying half a second — picked up the pen, capped it, set it down.
"Tony's been good to my family. He's been good to me. We have an arrangement."
"An arrangement."
"That's what I called it."
"That's a careful word."
"I'm a careful guy."
Richie sat with that for two beats.
Then he leaned forward an inch.
"Marchetti. I'm gonna talk to you like a man. Tony's not the boss his uncle was. Tony's not the man Jackie was. Tony's a guy who got handed a thing and he's been holding it like a guy who got handed a thing. There are people in this family — older people, people who built what Tony's living off of — who can see that. Junior can see that. Junior is in his house in Belleville and he's eating off a TV tray and he's still got phone calls coming in from men who remember when this family meant something." Richie's voice did not rise. The voice the whole time was the voice of a man explaining a thing to a man he liked. "There's gonna be a re-evaluation in this family. The smart guys are gonna know which way the wind is blowing when it starts blowing. The smart guys are gonna do well."
"That's — that's a lot of weather, Mr. Aprile."
Richie smiled with his mouth.
"You're funny."
"Not on purpose."
"What I'm saying, Marchetti — I'm saying a man with your operation, a man who's been clever the way you've been clever — you don't want to be holding the wrong end of a stick when the stick gets put down. You think about it."
"Mr. Aprile."
"Richie."
"Mr. Aprile. I run a waste hauling company. I pay my tribute on the first of the month. I built — I'm building — a construction company because the contracts are there. DiMeo family politics, the things that go on between men I have never been at a Sunday table with — that's above my pay grade. I'm small-time. I keep it small-time on purpose."
A pause.
"That's what you want me to take back to my friend."
"That's what I want you to know about me."
"That's a no, then."
"It's a I'm not in this conversation, Mr. Aprile."
Richie looked at him.
The look lasted longer than the look at Satriale's had lasted. Vinnie kept his face on Richie's the way a man keeps a foot on a brake on a hill.
Then Richie nodded once. Uncrossed his legs. Stood up.
"You're a polite kid, Marchetti."
"Thank you."
"Polite kids do well. Until they don't."
"I appreciate that."
"You think about it."
"I'll think about it, Mr. Aprile."
Richie went out the office door. Vinnie heard the second and third pairs of footsteps fall in behind the first pair. Heard the bell on the front door of the office. Heard the bell once more — they had paused for something in the front office, a moment of leaving — and then the door closed.
A car started in the lot. Pulled out. The sound of the tires fell down the street.
Vinnie stood up.
Walked to the inner office door. Opened it. Walked through the empty receptionist room. Locked the front door. Slid the deadbolt. Pulled the chain.
Walked back. Stood in the middle of the receptionist room with his hands at his sides.
His hands were not shaking when he held them out to look at them. He waited for the shake. The shake came a second later, fine and small, the way an aftershock comes after the room has stopped moving. He watched it for ten seconds. Watched it stop.
He went back to his desk.
Picked up the phone.
Dialed Tommy.
"Tommy."
"Yeah."
"Tomorrow morning. Satriale's. Nine. You're there too."
"With you?"
"Behind me. Two tables back. Reading a paper. Don't sit at my table. I don't want anybody thinking I needed company."
A pause.
"Done."
"And Tommy."
"Yeah."
"Tonight — between now and seven AM — anybody from Richie's people goes anywhere near anything that belongs to us, I want it on the phone in my kitchen by the time the kettle whistles."
"Done."
He hung up.
Sat in the desk chair.
Picked up the pen. Capped it. Set it down. Looked at the sandwich on the wax paper. Picked up the sandwich. Took a bite. Chewed.
It tasted like a sandwich.
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