Chapter 6 - The Gathering of the Wolves
The private dining room of Verdan was lined with dark walnut paneling and illuminated by low, recessed chandeliers that cast long shadows across the linen.
Forty-two men sat around the massive mahogany table, their dark suits contrasting sharply with the bone-white porcelain and crystal stemware.
At the head of the table sat Emmett Sabatini, perfectly still, his hands resting flat upon the white cloth on either side of his empty plate.
To his immediate right sat Ignazio Sabatini, his seventy-two-year-old uncle, whose face was lined with deep trenches carved by fifty years of brutal street survival.
Ignazio wore an old-fashioned double-breasted suit with wide lapels, his silver hair slicked back tightly against his narrow skull.
He had not touched his ice water; he had not unfolded his linen napkin; he sat with his rheumy, hawkish eyes fixed directly on his nephew’s throat.
Across the table sat the capos from the West Side, the South Side logistics chiefs, and the men who managed the gambling dens along Cicero Avenue.
Between them lay leather folders containing the incorporation documents that would transfer their operations into legitimate freight and warehouse companies.
Ignazio tapped his heavy gold signet ring against the edge of the mahogany table, the dull clinking sound cutting through the nervous murmur of the room.
He rasped that Emmett had brought them here to eat French foam and sign away the territory their fathers had paid for with seven-millimeter slugs.
He said that a man who wore Italian silk and ate in rooms with two Michelin stars had forgotten what cold pavement felt like in December.
Emmett did not blink; he did not shift in his high-backed chair; his eyes remained steady, dark pools of quiet, dangerous composure.
He told his uncle that a man who stayed in the dirt until his knees rotted was not loyal; he was simply too lazy to build a roof over his family.
Several younger men around the table lowered their eyes, terrified by the sheer audacity of Emmett speaking to the elder patriarch in such a manner.
Ignazio leaned forward, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the table's edge.
He growled that before he put his signature on a single corporate document, he wanted to see what kind of backbone this kitchen had brought to the table.
He shouted toward the swinging kitchen doors that if Gideon Thacker sent out another plate of cold raw fish and flower petals, he would throw the table into the street.
Behind the swinging doors, the kitchen was frozen in terror.
Gideon stood by the pass, his hands shaking slightly as he arranged the heavy silver serving trays lined with white linen napkins.
Thalia pulled the iron door of the stone deck oven open with a heavy metallic clack.
A wave of fragrant, blistering heat rolled out into the room, carrying the deep, caramelized scent of toasted grain, wood smoke, and wild yeast.
On the glowing stone floor sat forty-two loaves of Saturday bread, their crusts blistered into deep mahogany crowns, split along the three score marks like blooming flowers.
The bread was singing—a distinct, crackling whisper produced as the cooling crust contracted against the soft, steaming crumb within.
Gideon leaned down, smelling the loaf closest to the door, his eyes widening in involuntary shock at the sheer perfection of the bake.
He looked at Thalia, who was leaning against the prep counter, her apron soaked in sweat, her right arm hanging trembling and exhausted at her side.
He did not utter a single critique.
He picked up a heavy bread knife with a serrated carbon-steel blade and sliced through the first loaf with a single, sweeping downward draw.
The crust shattered with a sound like autumn leaves under an iron wheel, revealing an interior that was open, glossy, honeycombed with irregular air pockets, and steaming with the scent of wild fruit.
Gideon turned to the four waiting waiters and ordered them to carry the bread into the dining room immediately, without butter, without oil, and without explanation.
The swinging doors opened, and the servers filed out in a silent, disciplined line, carrying the wooden baskets toward the mahogany table.
The instant the first basket crossed the threshold, the harsh voices in the dining room died away as though someone had cut an electric wire.
The smell hit the room before the baskets touched the linen.
It was not the smell of luxury or expensive culinary technique.
It was the smell of morning shifts at four o’clock, of damp woolen gloves drying on iron radiators, of Halsted Street before the expressways tore the neighborhoods apart.
Ignazio Sabatini froze, his nostrils flaring as the server set a basket directly between his hands.
He looked down at the three scored lines running across the dark, blistered crust, his old hands beginning to tremble with an uncontrollable tremor.
His jaw worked silently for several seconds, his mouth opening and closing as though he were trying to recall a language he had not spoken in half a century.
He reached out with his withered, spotted fingers and broke off a thick crust from the end of the loaf.
May you like
The crack of the crust sounded like a gunshot in the silent room.
Ignazio raised the bread to his lips, closed his rheumy eyes, and took a bite.
