Chapter 5 - The Room Behind the Wine Cellar
The first thing Gabriel asked when Salvatore returned was whether he was in trouble.
Salvatore stood in the breakfast room still wearing cemetery mud on his shoes.
“For what?”
“I broke something.”
Gabriel pointed.
On the floor lay pieces of a porcelain horse worth eleven thousand dollars.
Rosa hovered nearby.
“He accidentally knocked it over.”
Salvatore looked at the shattered sculpture.
Then at the terrified boy.
“It was ugly.”
Gabriel blinked.
Rosa covered a smile.
Salvatore removed his coat.
“Anything else?”
Gabriel stared at him.
“You’re not mad?”
“It was a horse.”
“It looked expensive.”
“It was.”
The boy’s face fell.
“So I’m in trouble.”
Salvatore sat across from him.
“When I was your age, I broke my father’s car window.”
“On accident?”
“No. I threw a brick through it.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened.
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t let me go fishing.”
For the first time, Gabriel smiled.
Tiny.
Gone almost immediately.
But Salvatore saw Elena in it so clearly he had to look down.
Dr. Kaplan’s examination had shown malnutrition, mild anemia, bruises in various stages of healing, and a healing fracture in Gabriel’s left wrist.
The fracture was three months old.
Never treated.
Salvatore had spent the hour afterward alone in his office because if another human being had been near him, he might have killed somebody just to exhaust the rage.
Now he asked, “Did somebody hurt your wrist?”
Gabriel stopped smiling.
“No.”
“Gabriel.”
“I fell.”
Salvatore recognized the lie because he had used the same one as a boy.
“Where?”
“At Saint Catherine’s.”
“You told me your mother died there. Was it a hospital?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“A church place.”
“Shelter?”
“Kind of.”
“What happened there?”
The child’s shoulders tightened.
Salvatore changed direction.
“You don’t have to tell me today.”
Gabriel studied him as if waiting for punishment hidden behind kindness.
Salvatore understood something then.
Trust would not come because he had money.
It would come because he kept promises.
One promise at a time.
Carmine entered.
“Boss.”
The tone changed everything.
“What?”
“We found Saint Catherine’s.”
Salvatore stood.
“Where?”
“Bronx. Former convent. Officially a women’s transitional shelter.”
“Officially?”
Carmine placed photographs on the table.
The building had burned two nights earlier.
Gabriel’s face drained of color.
Salvatore noticed immediately.
“What happened?”
Gabriel pushed away from the table.
“I don’t know.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Salvatore crouched.
“Look at me.”
Gabriel refused.
“Did the fire start before or after you left?”
The boy’s breathing became shallow.
Salvatore waited.
Finally:
“After.”
“How long after?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hours?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Did you see who started it?”
Silence.
Then another nod.
Carmine shut the doors.
Salvatore spoke softly.
“Who?”
Gabriel looked toward the hallway.
As though somebody might already be listening.
“A man came to see Mom before she died.”
“What man?”
“I never knew his name.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall. White hair. Scar here.”
He touched his left cheek.
Carmine’s face changed.
Salvatore saw it.
“You know him.”
Carmine nodded.
“Martin Vale.”
Salvatore stood.
Vale had spent twenty years doing the kind of jobs nobody admitted existed.
He had once worked directly for Dominic.
“Continue,” Salvatore said.
Gabriel hugged himself.
“He asked Mom where something was.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Carmine cursed.
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed.
“What ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Elena say?”
“She said Salvatore would get it.”
“Did she have it?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Then why did Vale come back?”
“He thought she lied.”
“Did he hurt her?”
Gabriel did not answer.
His silence answered anyway.
Salvatore’s voice lowered.
“What happened to your wrist?”
Gabriel’s eyes filled.
“He twisted it because I tried to stop him.”
Salvatore turned away.
The movement was slow.
Controlled.
Carmine had seen Salvatore angry.
This was beyond anger.
“Find Vale.”
“We’re already looking.”
“Alive.”
Carmine hesitated.
“Boss?”
“I want him alive when I ask what he did to her.”
Gabriel spoke.
“He’s dead.”
Both men turned.
“How do you know?” Carmine asked.
“I saw him die.”
Salvatore froze.
Gabriel’s voice became distant.
“After Mom died, Mrs. Alvarez took me out the basement door. She said we had to leave before the white-haired man came back.”
“And?”
“We hid behind garbage bins.”
Gabriel stared at nothing.
“Another car arrived. The white-haired man came outside. Somebody shot him.”
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Then the shelter burned.”
Salvatore looked at Carmine.
Somebody was erasing evidence.
Elena.
Vale.
The shelter.
“And the ledger?” Salvatore asked.
Gabriel looked down.
“My mom said it proved everything.”
“Everything about what?”
“She said if people learned what was inside, your family would destroy itself.”
Salvatore slowly sat.
“Did she tell you where it was?”
Gabriel nodded.
Carmine stepped closer.
“Where?”
The child glanced toward the marble floor.
Then toward Salvatore.
“She said it was in your house.”
Salvatore’s expression sharpened.
“My house?”
“She put it here a long time ago.”
“Where?”
Gabriel repeated the exact words his mother had taught him.
“Under the angel who never prays, behind the wall that drinks wine.”
Salvatore stared at him.
Carmine muttered, “What the hell does that mean?”
Salvatore already knew.
He stood.
“The wine cellar.”
Twenty minutes later, they were underground.
The Moretti cellar had been built by Salvatore’s grandfather during Prohibition. Stone walls. Oak racks. Bottles older than most countries.
At the far end stood a marble statue.
An angel.
Its hands hung at its sides.
Never praying.
Behind it was a stone wall lined with wine.
Carmine pulled bottles from the rack.
Salvatore ran his fingers along the mortar.
One stone shifted.
Behind it was a metal door.
A room none of them knew existed.
Inside sat a single desk.
A tape recorder.
And fourteen black ledgers.
Salvatore lifted the first.
On the cover Elena had written:
If you are reading this, Dominic has already killed someone to keep you from finding it.
Then a sound came from behind them.
A gun being cocked.
Carmine turned.
Vincent stood in the doorway.
Weapon raised.
May you like
His face was wet with tears.
“I’m sorry, Sal.”
