The Family(69)

“Good.” Joey chuckles. “It’s been good for Rosa, for us, to have you so close. There’s been a lot of good lately. Sofia—you might have complicated feelings about it, Saul, and trust me, I understand, but Sofia has been a real asset for us.” Joey pauses. “Does she seem happy to you?”

Saul thinks of Sofia, coming in late, leaving early. The flush of her cheeks when she tells him how she told off Mario Bruno, the new guy who thought since she was a woman she wouldn’t notice him sneaking bottles of wine out of their delivery last week. You should have seen his face. I just went over and said, “Is there something wrong with those?” He put the bottles back so fast it was like they had grown teeth. I thought he’d never get his jaw off the ground.

“She seems happy,” says Saul. A little relief. This doesn’t seem like it is leading to a conversation about the ways Saul has betrayed all of them.

“That’s good,” says Joey. “That’s better for all of us.” Sofia’s work is a problem Joey has solved. He regards the situation with detached satisfaction. He has had many arguments with Rosa, who cannot believe her daughter is letting herself be degraded—first by the dinners, and then by the shipments, surrounded by gangsters and guns, Joey, what are you thinking? These outbursts are followed by hours of silence, the dinner plates slammed on the table, the stony yes, of course in response to his I think I know what I’m doing here.

“I agree,” says Saul. He sits back, leaning carefully against the dusty, wheezing old armchair. He sips his espresso and tells himself he will learn what he needs to know when he needs to know it. He tries to calm his heart.

“So listen,” Joey says. “Things have not been going so well.”

Saul does not react, or thinks he does not react. “How so, boss?”

“Well, I’m not alone here. You’ve seen how things are going. Ever since the war we’ve been flailing a little, Saul. You’ve seen this. It is not Prohibition anymore. The days of champagne fountains and rivers of cash are over. There is more and more competition—Eli Leibovich, as I’m sure you know, would love nothing more than to edge us out of Red Hook. And he’s getting more powerful, you know, he might be able to do it.” Joey pauses. Saul shivers. Eli has promised him he does not want that. “And as you know,” continues Joey, “we have extra expenses. The Fianzos have not, well. They have not lowered the rate of their percentage. That’s an obligation we have.” Joey looks down into his half-empty coffee cup, and Saul, on the edge of his seat, cannot tell whether he is being strung along like catgut on a violin or whether he is witnessing a genuine moment of vulnerability. “We have not quite found our stride,” says Joey. “And I still command a certain respect. But that is increasingly not enough.”

Saul leans forward and his chair creaks sadly in protest. “How can I help?”

Joey smiles, cat eyes sparkling, and leans forward in his own chair. “How would you feel about getting a promotion?”

Saul is silent. He wonders wryly how many people are offered as many jobs as he has been offered in his lifetime; how many of those offers, like these, weren’t really offers, but incomprehensible moves in a life-size game of chess. “A promotion,” he says, tasting it, buying himself some time.

“We need a change,” says Joey. “I’m not stepping down, but I am looking for someone to take on some of my responsibilities. To share in the work, but also to shake up some of the old ways. If Sofia was my son, well. It might be different.”

“And you want me to help?” asks Saul.

“I want you to be my number two,” says Joey. “Officially. I want you to take some of my meetings, handle some of my conflicts, come up with some ideas for me. The monthly Fianzo meeting, to start—you’ve been coming along with me, you can do that yourself. I’ll manage some of the big-scale things—and Sofia’s work, I imagine it would be uncomfortable for you to do that, so I’ll do it.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed we’ve spent a lot of time together lately. In some ways, you’re already doing the job. But appearances mean a lot in this business.” Joey is silent. He drains the espresso and puts the cup and saucer back on the table next to him. Then he interlaces his fingers and sighs, and Saul realizes that Joey looks tired, that in the curve of his spine and the heaviness of his facial features there is a profound exhaustion. “You’re a more powerful tool than you realize, Saul. You disturb what people consider to be the natural order of things. I didn’t always think that was the right strategy, but a lot has changed.”

It would feel strange to say thank you, so Saul says nothing.

There is a thick silence between them. Saul doesn’t know how to react.

“What do you think?” Joey asks.

Saul thinks. He thinks of Julia, running to hug him when he gets home, the voracity of her own desires the only thing she can comprehend or act on. He thinks of Sofia, opening her eyes in the morning and smiling at him, the clear light of her laugh, the magma of her rage. He thinks of his mother, whose name was never included on any of the death camp lists, whose house was leveled in the early years of the war, whom no one ever heard from again, and whom Saul has been unable to mourn, the way you are able to mourn someone who is gone, and so instead, whose absence Saul feels like a searing flame, a wrenching thing, a knot in his stomach, his heart, his head, constant. He thinks of the war that destroyed him and dumped him on a foreign shore. He was looking for family when he told Eli he’d join him. But he betrayed a family to do it.