THE VOICE THAT HE COULD NOT HEAR

The woman inside the bag was talking to a man who could not hear her and she knew it.

That was what frightened me most. Agent Hayes had not asked for Dante to listen. She had asked for me to repeat. She had built her trap around the one fact that only a few people in Chicago knew. The Don could not hear his own enemies. He needed a pair of ears and a pair of hands and she had just taken both and placed them in the same hallway.

Dante looked at my face he had not heard a single word but he could read the shape of my fear. He lifted his hands and signed a question what is she saying.

I did not want to answer my hands felt stiff and clumsy. But the green light kept glowing and the static kept breathing and I understood that I had a choice to make in that hallway. I could lie with my hands and lose him or I could tell him everything and perhaps keep him.

I signed it all, i signed that she had greeted him,i signed that she had said she was glad I made it home safely. I signed that she had called this house my home.

The voice continued while I signed. It was calm and almost warm. It said that Elena Rossi was a very talented young woman. It said that a talented young woman should not be wasted on a man who bought people. It said that the community center had been recorded from the moment I walked in and that every word I said to Dante afterward had been recorded too.

I translated that as well, my hands shook so badly that I had to stop twice and begin again.

The voice said that she had a recording of me crying in the arms of the Don. It said the recording began with the words I should have told you and ended with the words I got a message warning me about him. It said that if she cut the middle out the file would sound like a woman reporting to a federal agent from inside the Moretti family.

She said she would send it to Victor Moretti by morning.

I stopped signing. I could not make my hands continue. The hallway had become very small and very cold.

Dante read what I had not finished. He did not need the last words. His face went still in the way it had gone still at the club before he ordered Frankie out of the room. But this time the stillness was not pointed at me. It was pointed at the little green light.

He lifted his hands slowly. He signed for me to answer her.

I looked at him in shock. I signed a question. I asked what I should say.

He signed that I should tell her the truth. He signed that I should say that I had not agreed to wear anything. He signed that I should say the Don knew about the recording and was not afraid of it. He signed that I should ask what she wanted.

I stepped closer to the bag. My voice came out thin and scratchy. I said agent Hayes this is Elena. I said I never agreed to work with you. I said Dante knows everything. I said the recording will not frighten anyone because I told him the truth myself.

Static filled the hall for three seconds. Then she laughed softly.

She said that was very brave. She said it was also very foolish. She said that the truth was not what mattered. What mattered was what people believed when they heard a recording in the dark. She said that Victor Moretti already doubted me. She said a man who doubts will always choose the version that confirms his fear.

Then she told me what she wanted.

She wanted me at the diner on Halsted Street at noon tomorrow. She wanted me alone. She wanted me to bring one page. She wanted me to write down the name of every informant that Dante had ever signed to me in that back room.

I signed it to Dante word for word. When I reached the part about the names his face changed. A line appeared between his eyebrows. He signed one sentence very slowly.

I have not signed you a single name yet.

I stared at him and realized he was right. In that room on the first night he had discussed shipments and a warehouse and the theft by Frankie. No informant had been named. I had no list to give.

Which meant Hayes was not asking for information I already had. She was asking me to learn it. She wanted me to go inside the walls of this house and bring back the names myself.

I signed that to Dante and I watched the understanding move through him like cold water. Hayes did not want a confession. She wanted a spy. And the recording was the leash.

He took the bag from my hand. He did not crush it this time. He placed it carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket as if it were something precious. Then he signed for me to follow him.

We walked down the long hallway and turned a corner and entered a room that I had not seen. It was a private office with walls of dark wood and a desk the size of a small boat. A single lamp burned on the desk. Behind it a window looked out onto the black lawn where the guards stood like statues.

Enzo was waiting inside. With him was a thin young man in a grey sweater who held a laptop against his chest. His name was Pietro and he was the family technician. He looked at the little device in the bag the way a doctor looks at a wound.

Dante set the bag on the desk. He signed for Pietro to find the source. Pietro nodded and took out a small screwdriver and a pair of tweezers. For ten minutes no one spoke. The only sound was the tiny click of metal on plastic.

Then Pietro looked up with a pale face. He said the device had not only been recording. It had been tracking. He said the signal had followed me from the community center in the car and into the estate. He said that was how she knew I was home.

I felt sick. I asked how the signal could follow me when I had not carried the device. Dante had carried it in his pocket after that.

Pietro hesitated. He looked at Dante. He looked at me. Then he turned the bag over and pointed to a second tiny object stuck to the plastic with a bit of clear tape.

It was a button. A small black coat button.

I looked down at my coat and my stomach dropped. The second button on my coat was missing. I had not noticed. I had been too busy being afraid to see that someone had taken part of me and replaced it with something that listened.

Dante reached out and gently turned the lapel of my coat. A thread dangled where the button had been. He looked at it and then at me. He signed that Hayes must have done it when she pulled me close at the community center. She had pressed a transmitter into the stitching while pretending to give me advice.

I wanted to be angry at her. I wanted to feel something clean and simple. But what I felt was the long familiar shame of a woman who had once again been used by people who stood too close to her.

Before I could sign anything Victor Moretti walked into the room. He did not knock. Two men followed him and both of them kept their hands near their jackets. Victor looked at the bag on the desk and the thread on my coat and the tools in the hands of Pietro. His face hardened.

He spoke in Italian again. He said he had heard enough. He said a woman wearing a federal listening device inside the Moretti Estate was not a guest. She was a breach.

Dante turned to him without hurry. He lifted his hands. I interpreted because that was the work I had agreed to do. He signed that the woman was not a breach. He signed that she was a target. He signed that Hayes had selected her precisely because she was the only person who could make the Don speak.

Victor said that was exactly why she should be removed. He said a man cannot be blackmailed through a woman he does not keep.

The room went quiet. I stood between the two men with my hands hanging at my sides and I felt the whole house hold its breath.

Then Dante did something that made even Victor step back. He walked to the desk and opened a drawer and took out a thick folded paper. He slid it across the polished wood toward me with two fingers. On the front in neat black print were the words Exclusive Interpretation Agreement.

He signed one sentence and I translated it aloud in a voice that did not sound like mine.

She signs tonight. She is under my protection. Anyone who touches her touches me.

Victor stared at the contract. Then at me. Then he leaned very close and whispered in Italian so softly that only I could hear.

He said my nephew has not spoken in ten years and the first time anyone has made him want to is today.

I did not know what he meant. I opened my mouth to ask.

But Dante had already placed a pen in my hand and the lamp had begun to flicker.