At Aldo's first workplace, the night man told me he had gone before noon. At the second, a dishwasher shook his head without stopping work. I reached his club near midnight and found the entrance chained from inside. His stool stood behind the glass, one leg propped on a folded scrap of cardboard. I struck the door with my palm. A man came through the dark vestibule and raised a finger to his lips. That small request frightened me more than a shout would have. I told him to open it.
He let me into the vestibule but kept the inner door closed. Aldo had been found in a passage behind the neighboring premises. A beating, he said. Dead before the physician arrived. I asked who had found him, where he had been taken, whether anyone had seen his attackers. The man answered the first two questions and shook his head at the third. I tried the inner door. He caught my wrist. 'His brother is in there.' I stopped pulling. The brother had a claim on that room I did not.
I went around to the passage. A pail stood by a drain, and someone had laid a broken crate against the wall. There was nothing there that could tell me whose hands had struck him. Two men smoking beside the alley mouth watched me search anyway. One said Aldo should have kept to carrying coats. I moved toward him before I had decided what I intended. His companion stepped between us. I stopped with my fists closed. They walked away together, leaving me with the knowledge that I had nearly added another beating to the night.
At dawn I told Paolo. He sat upright so quickly that he lost his breath. Ada reached for him, but he pushed the blanket aside and demanded his trousers. I should have stayed in the room. Instead I went downstairs to ask Celia for coffee, and when I returned he had his coat over his nightshirt. He said he needed air. By the time I reached the street behind him, he was limping toward three club men gathered at the corner. Across the avenue, other men were coming out of a parked automobile.
Somebody called Lanza's name. Paolo raised his arm and answered, though I could not hear the words over a passing truck. I caught his coat below the shoulders and turned him toward me. He struck my forearm with his open hand. 'Aldo got me out.' 'And you're going upstairs.' He tried to wrench away. A bottle broke against the curb behind us. I bent, lifted him around the hips, and carried him into the grocery entrance while his shoes scraped the door. The grocer swore at both of us and slammed his bolt.
Through the glass I saw the groups advance, stop, and spread apart as a delivery wagon forced between them. No one followed us inside. Paolo sagged against a sack of potatoes, furious and breathing badly. I held him until he could stand. 'You don't own me,' he said. I told him I knew. He asked why I had dragged him away, then. I could have spoken about his daughters. Instead I said I had already helped put him in danger once and would not watch him walk into more merely to spare my pride.
That afternoon the club stewards called me into a back room smelling of wet wool. One wanted me to state that Lanza had killed Aldo in retaliation for the escape. Another said there was no need to pretend we were simpletons. I told them Aldo had helped me bring Paolo out of a place held by Lanza's men. I could name that much. I could not name his killer. A steward pushed a chair toward me with his foot. 'You afraid to say it standing?' I remained where I was. Saying more would not bring Aldo back.
They sent me out without a seat or an agreement. In the corridor a porter who had once lent me his good gloves turned his face to the wall. Before evening, notices went to the clubs that the truce over floor access was suspended. Workers might be withdrawn from the next banquet, with each club deciding whether its men could safely enter. I carried that news to Paolo myself. He listened from his bed and asked whether they had named anyone for Aldo's death. I said no. He turned toward the window. Neither of us asked the other to call that an achievement.