The Unbalanced Account
Eva Serrano found the extra place setting because numbers were more dependable than waiters. Table nine had been booked for three. Four water glasses stood beneath the little brass lamp.
She removed one before Rosa could see it and begin an investigation involving the entire kitchen. It was Thursday, the restaurant was full, and Eva had already explained twice that a supplier credit was not money available for a new coffee machine. At twenty-eight she had acquired the reputation of a woman who said no beautifully. She would have preferred someone else to acquire the bills.
The men arrived after ten. Eva recognized Matteo Vitale from the harbor charity photographs that always placed him half a step behind his older cousin Carlo. Matteo managed transport for the Vitale businesses. Some were legitimate. In Bellacosta, that qualification was usually spoken with a lowered voice.
He was thirty-five, broad shouldered, and less handsome in photographs than beneath Rosa’s lamps. The discovery annoyed Eva. A useful observation concerned the unpaid catering invoice in her hand. The shape of his mouth had no accounting value.
Rosa touched her elbow. “Take him this. Twenty-four meals, four hundred and eighty euros. The drivers ate every olive.”
Eva carried invoice R184 to table nine. Carlo sat facing the door. A gray-haired stranger had placed a narrow envelope beside his plate. Matteo sat between them with his coat still on.
“Catering,” Eva said. “The invoice, not a philosophical suggestion.”
Matteo looked up. For a moment his solemn face changed. “I was hoping for a philosophical suggestion.”
“Pay before the end of the month.”
She put the original beside him. As she separated the carbon duplicate, Carlo slid the envelope across the linen to the stranger. Something solid struck the table inside it. Eva saw no contents. She had worked around cash long enough to know the difference between seeing money and hearing a suggestive noise.
Carlo laid two fingers on her duplicate. “Leave both.”
“The office needs its copy.”
His smile was small. “We like privacy.”
“And I like a balanced ledger. Neither requires both sheets.”
She expected Matteo to laugh. Instead he rose, taking his cousin’s hand off the paper with an ease that made the gesture more alarming.
“Eva’s working,” he said.
Her first name in his mouth should not have warmed anything. The staff wore name badges. Still, she noticed that he had noticed.
Carlo watched her take the duplicate. She returned to the office, wrote table nine on the back because Rosa would ask who had received the bill, and filed it beneath Thursday. The invoice recorded a real delivery of real food. Whatever had crossed the table belonged to another account entirely.
At eleven, when she went through the side door with the rubbish, the gray-haired stranger waited beside her bicycle.
“You kept something.”
Eva held the bin lid. The courtyard smelled of wet stone and orange peel. Behind her the kitchen extractor roared; no one inside would hear an ordinary voice.
“The restaurant’s invoice copy.”
“Then we’ll have a little conversation tomorrow.”
He did not touch her. He moved aside so she could reach her bicycle, which frightened her more than a theatrical threat would have done. He knew where she would return.
She wheeled the bicycle inside and locked the door. Her fingers missed the bolt twice. When Matteo appeared at the kitchen entrance, she lifted a hand before he could speak.
“If you tell me it was nothing, I will throw this entire bag of onions at you.”
He looked at her trembling hand, then at the locked door. “It wasn’t nothing.”
At last, an entry she could trust.
Terms Of Engagement
Rosa sent everyone else home through the front. She stood beside Eva in the office while Matteo explained that the stranger was Enzo, a broker Carlo used when he did not want his own staff involved.
“Involved in what?” Eva asked.
“I don’t know what was in tonight’s envelope.”
“Very carefully answered.”
“Yes.” He accepted the rebuke. “I arrange shipments. Some declarations were false. I knew they were false.”
Rosa folded her arms. “You can leave my restaurant.”
“I will. First I need to say what Carlo believes. He thinks Eva came to the table deliberately, because of me. He saw me stop him taking the paper.”
Eva stared at the old calculator on her desk. Its seven key stuck in damp weather. A minute ago that had been among the largest problems in her life.
“What do you suggest?”
“I tell him you and I have been seeing each other quietly. That you brought the bill because you wanted to speak to me. An engagement would explain why I defended you, and why you know nothing about his business.”
“Wouldn’t that give him another reason to use me?”
Matteo’s silence mattered more than a quick assurance. “It might. It could buy tonight. It won’t make you safe.”
Eva pulled a receipt toward her and drew a line down its middle. “Then stop presenting it like a solution. It’s a delay. What happens after the delay?”
“An independent lawyer. Protection arranged through people my family doesn’t employ. I have a name. You should check it yourself.”
He gave her Nadia Costa’s public office number. Rosa fetched her own telephone and searched the regional bar directory. Nadia existed. Her practice listed criminal defense and witness representation, which was not proof of virtue, but was a beginning that did not require Matteo’s word.
Eva called the emergency number. Nadia answered herself. She spoke to Eva alone while Matteo and Rosa waited in the kitchen. No, she could not guarantee safety. Yes, a direct threat should be documented. No, Eva should not go anywhere merely because a frightened man told her to. They arranged an appointment at nine; if anything changed tonight, Eva would call the police and Nadia.
When Eva returned, Matteo had placed his car keys on the table, well away from his hands.
“I won’t drive you unless you ask.”
“Rosa’s sister is collecting us. You can tell your cousin we are engaged until nine tomorrow morning. After that I decide again. No ring. No touching for an audience. No turning up at my flat.”
“All right.”
“And if you think of another relevant fact, tell me before it becomes a surprise.”
His gaze held hers. “All right.”
Rosa’s sister arrived in a dented blue hatchback. Before leaving, Eva watched Matteo make the call on speaker. He said she was his fiancée, that their relationship had been private, that the restaurant copy belonged to Rosa’s accounts. Carlo congratulated him with a warmth Eva distrusted immediately.
Before leaving the office, she photographed the duplicate for her own record. The paper remained in Rosa’s office overnight; she would collect it with Rosa before seeing Nadia. Her phone vibrated as they reached the lit avenue.
Unknown number. A photograph of table nine, taken before the men arrived.
Under it: Keep the engagement. Bring the copy.
