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side. The B side was the off-key tune played by his parents and his brother. Joe Black, getting older and sent out only on special cases, nevertheless made his living in the same way as he always did. Joseph, after making several nonattempts at college, settled into a life of drug use, rehab and street scams, living off of a series of girlfriends and the cash that Rose slipped him from time to time behind her husband’s back. The idea that the A and B sides of his life could ever come together in any sensible way never occurred to Chris. Both tunes played in his head, the one sweet, the other bitter.

    On the drive from the hospital back to the city, as Chris watched the sun rise behind the Manhattan skyline, he called Joseph and asked him to find out as much as he could about Jimmy Barsonetti: where he lived, where he hung out, who were his friends, his enemies, did he have a routine, what were his vices. No longer tired, after parking the car in a garage near his apartment, Chris bought coffee at a deli and walked to Washington Square Park, which was empty at this early hour except for the usual assortment of the lost and the homeless. It occurred to him that the park’s old-fashioned green benches had become icons of change in his life. He chose one near Stanford White’s famous arch, and sat to sip his coffee and think. He had no doubt that his handsome and devious younger brother, who had been roaming the city at night since he was seventeen, would accomplish his mission. Armed with this information, Chris would find a way to kill Barsonetti on his own, without Anthony DiGiglio’s help. Junior Boy would keep his end of the bargain, but Chris would not be in his debt, as he would be if the don set the killing up. Chris would lose his soul, but not to DiGiglio. And he would have his son.
    When he finished his coffee, Chris left the park and began walking up Fifth Avenue. The thought of failure had occurred to him, but did not faze him. He knew how to handle a gun and he was not afraid to die. No one took more precautions beforehand nor acted more decisively when the moment came than Joe Black Massi, and his blood ran strong in Chris’ veins. Barsonetti would be overconfident, complacent in his power, and Chris would find a way to put a bullet in his head and walk away unseen.
    The morning broke full and fair and clean as Chris, letting his mind wander, in no hurry to return to his tiny, airless apartment, joined the city’s throng. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, he stopped for a second, recalling the spring day, only seven years ago, when he held his six-year-old son’s hand and walked him into a church in Jersey for his first communion. Without thinking, Chris ascended the famous cathedral’s long gray steps and entered its vaulted chamber, cool and hushed after the heat and noise of the city. He was surprised at the number of people kneeling and sitting in pews, lighting candles and genuflecting as they passed the altar. To his immediate right was a holy water font. He reflexively dipped his fingers into it, and felt the cool water penetrate his being. He did not make the sign of the cross as he had a thousand times when he was a boy. There was no prayer in the catechism in aid of murder, no patron saint of assassins.
    Turning, he exited the church and began the long walk downtown.

4.
    Chris had inherited his father’s eyes: coal black pupils surrounded by deep brown irises embedded with tiny flecks of a mesmerizing dark green. Set in a field of clearest white, they were eyes both guarded and vigilantly watchful, the eyes of the Sicilian peasant who is by nature wary of strangers and fiercely mistrustful of official authority. Softened by long lashes, framed by a graceful brow above and planed cheekbones below, they stamped his visage with the feral pride of the hawk or the eagle. His dusky complexion also came from his Sicilian father, but the glinting color in his eyes, his straight nose – still slightly