He had not been planning to be at Satriale's on Friday.
But Tommy had to deliver something to Carlo and Carlo had to drop something with Conte and the something with Conte was a piece of paper that the lawyer wanted Vinnie to look at by Monday, so Vinnie had ridden along, and at quarter past three in the afternoon he had ended up at Satriale's with a coffee he did not want and a chair he had not chosen at the round table in the back. The deli was half full. The two old guys at the front counter were having a quiet argument about a horse.
Silvio came in at three-thirty.
"Marchetti."
"Sil."
Silvio took the chair across from Vinnie. Set his hat on the empty chair beside him. He had been wearing hats this spring. He had not been wearing hats last spring. Vinnie filed it.
"You eating?"
"Coffee."
"Brian," Silvio said toward the counter, "two of the sliced sopressata on bread."
"Sil."
"Eat, Marchetti. You're getting thin. Carmela mentioned it."
"Carmela's never seen me thin."
"Carmela's a woman. She sees what she sees."
The bell on the door did its sound.
Silvio's eyes lifted, then went back to the table.
Vinnie turned his head a quarter inch.
Richie Aprile had come in. He was holding the door for someone behind him. The someone behind him was a woman in a leopard-print coat and a long scarf that wrapped twice around her neck. She had on a beaded bag and small round sunglasses she had not taken off and there was a faint string of wood beads at her wrist. She was forty-five. She was tired in a particular way that women who had spent fifteen years in a particular kind of place became tired. She was — Vinnie did the recognition the way you did the recognition of a face you had only ever seen on a television — Janice Soprano. Tony's older sister. The one who had been gone to Seattle since the late seventies. The one who had recently begun calling herself by a name that was not Janice and would, by the end of the summer, be calling herself Janice again.
Her hand was on Richie's arm.
It was on his arm in the specific way that a woman's hand was on a man's arm when the woman wanted everybody who knew the man to know whose arm she had her hand on. The arm was the public part of the sentence. The whole sentence was longer.
Silvio's eyes did not lift again.
"Don't look up."
"I'm not looking up."
"Don't look up at all."
Brian set the sandwiches on the table. Walked away.
Richie steered Janice toward the booth at the side of the deli. She let herself be steered. She slid in across from him. She took the sunglasses off and set them on the table. She looked around the room the way a person looked around a room when she was reminding it that she was a Soprano in it. Her eyes touched Silvio's table — touched Silvio for a half beat too short to be a hello and a half beat too long to be an accident, and touched Vinnie not at all — and went on past to the meat counter. She picked up the menu Brian had set in front of her. Did not open it.
"That's a thing now," Vinnie said.
"It's been a thing."
"How long."
"Six weeks."
"Tony."
"Tony knows. Tony has known for six weeks."
"And."
"And Tony's been on the heavy bag in the basement for six weeks." Silvio cut his sandwich in half with a butter knife. Pushed half toward Vinnie. "Eat. I'm not going to ask you again, you make me feel like an old aunt."
Vinnie ate.
Brian, who was beautiful in the way a sixty-year-old man who had been a butcher his whole life could be beautiful, brought two glasses of water to the booth where Janice and Richie were sitting. Set them down. Did not ask what they wanted. Walked away. Brian did the same minimum at the side booth that he did at every booth that contained a man whose business was the kind of business he didn't ask after.
The bell rang again.
Tony.
He came in with Christopher behind him. Christopher was walking better — three weeks at the hospital and a week at home and you could see he was on the other side of the painkillers. Tony saw the side booth. Did not change pace. Did not look. Went straight to Silvio's table. Took the chair Silvio had set his hat on. Silvio picked the hat up. Set it on the booth seat next to Silvio's hip.
"Vincent."
"Tony."
Tony's eyes did not go to the side booth.
"Marchetti, you eatin' or hidin' behind that?"
"Eating."
"Eat faster. Christopher, sit."
Christopher sat at the open chair next to Vinnie.
The conversation that followed at the table was about absolutely nothing related to the side booth. They talked about the construction lot. They talked about a piece of equipment Christopher's father-in-law could maybe get them a deal on. They talked about a parking ticket Christopher had gotten in Lyndhurst and was annoyed about. Janice's voice carried over once or twice from the side booth — a laugh in the back of her nose at something Richie had said. Tony's face did not move at the sound of the laugh. His eyes did not lift. His jaw worked exactly one time, just below the ear, and went still.
At ten past four Tony stood up. Put his coat on. Did not turn his head toward the side booth on the way out the door.
Christopher squeezed Vinnie's shoulder on the way out and said something low and friendly that Vinnie did not entirely catch.
Silvio waited until the bell on the door stopped vibrating.
"Marchetti."
"Yeah."
"Go home."
"All right."
"And Marchetti."
"Yeah."
"Don't be at this deli for a couple weeks. Send Tommy if you have paper. Send Conte's brother-in-law if you need to be seen here. You don't need to be seen here."
Vinnie nodded. Stood up. Put his coat on. The side booth did not register him on the way out. Janice was talking. Richie was laughing the laugh Richie laughed when he was being agreed with.
In the Cadillac he sat for a second with his hand on the door handle before he closed the door.
The system warmed.
He did not ask it anything. It warmed because he had been looking at Janice Soprano for ninety seconds and the system had been looking with him.
He let it have the cost. He thought the word.
[Query: Aprile/Soprano (J.) — relationship trajectory. Cost: 25 SP. Confirm? Confirmed.]
A pause.
[Outcome: Violent termination within sixty days. Locus: domestic. Catalyst: subject (J.) acting alone. Recommended posture: zero involvement.]
The pennies came up the back of his throat the way they had the first time he had pulled this trick at this table looking at a different man. He let them.
The Cadillac was at the curb with Tommy at the wheel.
He closed the door.
"Tommy."
"Yeah."
"How long until the bank meeting Friday."
"Six days."
"Move it to Wednesday."
"Vinnie, they got us scheduled — "
"I don't care about scheduled. Tell the banker we have new information. Pull it forward by two days."
"Done."
He sat back. Closed his eyes for one long blink. Opened them.
The Cadillac pulled away from Satriale's. He did not look at the door.
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