The depot's side door opened before Aldo finished knocking, and Paolo came toward us between two men. For a moment I thought we had arrived at his release. Then I saw that one man held his belt from behind and the other had his fingers locked around Paolo's upper arm. Paolo's shirt hung open at the throat. He saw me, tried to stop, and stumbled when they kept moving. Beyond them, a kitchen stretched beneath hanging pans and dusty lamps. Somebody inside called for the truck.
I stepped into the doorway before they could pull Paolo back. The nearer man recognized me from Lanza's yard. 'You again.' I said Paolo was leaving with me. He shoved Paolo against a preparation table and advanced. Aldo stayed outside, one hand on the door, his face gone pale. I had no agreement, no authority, and no reason to believe those men would hesitate because I had occasionally escorted important visitors. I put both palms against the advancing man's chest and held him away from Paolo.
He struck my arms aside. I went backward into a rack of baking sheets, which came down between us in a crashing silver heap. The second man tried to drag Paolo toward the rear of the kitchen. I caught Paolo's loose cuff and felt the cloth begin to tear. 'Can you walk?' I asked. He nodded, then folded over when he tried. Aldo came inside at last and pushed a wheeled flour bin across the path of the man returning from the fallen rack.
There was nothing graceful in what followed. I held Paolo upright while the other man pulled at him, and the three of us collided with a washroom door. It gave way under my shoulder. My heel slipped on the wet floor. Paolo fell against the basin, and I landed on one knee between him and his escort. The man reached over me. I caught his coat and pulled him off balance, not to hurt him but because I could not take another blow and keep hold of Paolo.
Aldo shouted from the kitchen that the outside passage was clear. His voice made the man above me turn. I shoved upward and got my back beneath Paolo's arm. We staggered through the washroom doorway together. The first man was climbing around the flour bin; he seized Aldo by the collar as we passed. Aldo twisted free, leaving a button in the man's hand. He knocked open a rear door with his hip and held it while I half carried Paolo across the threshold into daylight.
We came out beside empty produce crates. A delivery driver at the curb turned to stare. 'Get Lanza,' somebody shouted behind us, and the driver heard the name as plainly as I did. Aldo stood in the doorway long enough to keep the pursuer from closing on my back, then ran after us. Paolo's shoe dragged over the stones. I wanted to stop and examine him, but he whispered that he could manage another street. We crossed it slowly, three men trying very badly to look ordinary.
At a bakery I paid the proprietor to let Paolo sit near the oven while Aldo fetched a cab. Paolo's hands shook around a cup of water. I laid his recovered coat over his shoulders. 'They wanted me to say I agreed,' he said. I asked who had wanted it. He closed his eyes. 'Different men came in. Don't make me sort them now.' I left the question there. His being alive did not give me the right to fit everything he said into the explanation I wanted.
Aldo returned with a driver willing to take us east. Before we climbed in, he asked whether we should go to Paolo's club. It had a room upstairs and men who would welcome a chance to denounce Lanza. Paolo gripped my wrist. I gave the driver his daughters' address instead. That choice left the clubs without their rescued delegate to display and deprived Lanza of the man he had held. It also put our trouble at a household door where neither daughter had invited it.
Ada opened that door wearing her work hat. Celia came from the kitchen and moved a chair aside before asking anything. Together we lowered Paolo onto the narrow sofa. I told them he needed a doctor and that I would pay. Ada took off her hat without answering; Celia sent Aldo for the physician downstairs. I remained by the sofa, unable to offer an account that made my part smaller. Paolo caught my sleeve before I could retreat. 'Whatever bargain they made while I was gone,' he said, 'I won't endorse it.'