Silvio met him at the door.
That was its own statement. The Bing on a Friday afternoon was usually one bartender, two old guys at the bar, three dancers on rotation, and Silvio in his office across the hall pretending to do paperwork. Silvio at the door meant something had happened that morning that Silvio wanted Vinnie to know before he walked up the hall.
"Marchetti."
"Sil."
"Inside. Minute."
Vinnie followed him into the back office. Silvio shut the door. Took his glasses off. Glasses off meant the conversation was off whatever paper it might otherwise have been on.
"Richie gave T a jacket this morning."
"A jacket."
"Rocco DiMeo's old leather jacket. The one Rocco wore — the long one, with the wide collar, the one in the picture at his wake. Richie came in here at ten o'clock, garment bag, the whole presentation. Tony, my brother. This should belong to you."
A beat.
"He hung it on the chair."
"Tony?"
"Tony. Richie left it on him. Tony didn't try it on. Hung it over the back of the chair. Talked about the meat truck order. Like it wasn't there."
Vinnie watched Silvio's face. Silvio watched his.
The transmigrator in him had a name for this — gestural mismatch — but the Marchetti in him knew it the way a hand knows a hot stove. A jacket was not a jacket. Rocco DiMeo had been a DiMeo capo when Tony was sweeping floors at his uncle's club. Rocco had died with the jacket on, on a night that men of a certain generation could still picture down to the lamppost. Bringing that jacket out of a closet and laying it on Tony was a sentence with three meanings. I knew Rocco. I'm older than your story. I'm offering you the past as if I'm the one who gets to give it.
"Who saw it?"
"Christopher. Paulie. Pussy. Brian, behind the bar. Two of the girls."
"Beansie?"
"Beansie's at the pizzeria. He'll hear by sundown."
Vinnie nodded once. Looked at the wall above Silvio's head, where the framed photograph of the '74 Frank Sinatra benefit hung between two cardboard liquor distributor calendars.
"Tony's mood."
"You don't want to walk into it. He's in the back booth. Pretend you came for a drink. Don't bring up the jacket, don't compliment the leather, don't ask if anyone got new clothes today."
"Understood."
Silvio put his glasses back on. The conversation went back on the books.
"You wanted me for something?"
"Twenty-eighth. Joint pickup at Bayonne. Containers off the Liberian flag. Three trucks — two yours, one Pussy's. He'll come find you Tuesday at the deli, work out the timing."
"All right."
"Be at Satriale's at one. He'll find you."
"All right."
He went out the office, up the hall, past Christopher leaning against the jukebox with a Heineken, past Brian at the bar polishing the same glass he'd been polishing when Vinnie came in. Tony in the back booth. The jacket on the chair beside him like a body. Vinnie nodded as he passed. Tony's eyes lifted. Tony's chin came up a quarter inch and went back down. A man could read whole pages out of a quarter inch.
Vinnie kept walking.
Sunday afternoon he had Tommy pull the Cadillac into the Soprano drive at twenty past two.
He carried the case himself — twelve bottles of Brunello in a wooden crate from a Tuscan importer in the East Village who had known Vinnie's lawyer's father. The receipt was in the lawyer's drawer. The bottles were from a vineyard that had filed papers in Siena in 1971 and not had a bad year since. Tommy stayed at the wheel.
Carmela opened the door.
"Vincent."
"Mrs. Soprano. Just dropping something off for the partnership."
She looked at the crate. The corner of her mouth did the thing it did when she was deciding whether to be charmed or annoyed and landed on charmed. She held the door wider.
"Anthony. Vincent's here."
Tony was in the kitchen in a track suit eating a peach over the sink. He took the case from Vinnie's hands and set it on the counter and pried up a corner of the crate to look at a label and made the small face he made when something pleased him in a way he had not decided whether to admit.
"This is a lot of wine, Vinnie."
"Case price, off-season. The importer was happy to move it."
"You don't bring twelve bottles to thank somebody."
"You don't drink one bottle at a time, Mr. Soprano."
"Tony."
"Tony."
Tony grinned the smaller grin and took the peach pit and dropped it in the disposal and ran the water. Wiped his hands on the dishtowel.
"For the partnership."
"For the partnership."
Carmela was at the kitchen doorway watching this exchange with her arms folded, and she gave Vinnie the small forgiving look she had given him on a different afternoon when he had brought a different bottle.
"At least someone has manners."
"Ma."
"I'm not starting, Anthony."
She turned back to whatever she had been doing in the dining room. Tony shook his head and the grin stayed in the corner of his mouth.
"You want a glass."
"I won't impose. Tommy's at the curb."
"Tommy's a big boy. Sit down for ten minutes. Don't be a stranger."
Vinnie sat. Tony pulled a bottle from the crate. Pulled the cork standing at the counter. Poured two glasses. Slid one across.
They talked about the Newark RFP. About how the foreman's knee was doing after a Tuesday in the cold. About a route in the Ironbound that was due for re-tariffing. About absolutely nothing related to leather. The wine was very good. Tony said so twice. The second time he said it he was looking at the bottle and not at Vinnie, which was how the wine and the not-jacket sat on the same table without either of them having to lift it.
When Vinnie stood to leave Tony walked him to the front door himself.
"You hear from Silvio about the twenty-eighth?"
"He told me an hour ago."
"Good. Bayonne's a pain in the ass. Get there early, don't let the longshore guys hold you up on paper."
"Will do."
"Vinnie."
"Yeah."
"This was nice."
"It's just wine, Mr. — Tony."
"It's just wine."
He went out past Carmela who waved from the dining room and got in the back of the Cadillac and Tommy pulled out of the drive without a word.
Down the street Vinnie watched the trees go by.
"Tommy."
"Yeah."
"Pull over by the corner."
Tommy pulled to the curb. Vinnie took out the small black notebook he kept in his inside pocket and the pen and wrote two lines.
Bayonne 1/28. Pussy assigned. Compartmentalize.
Capped the pen. Put the book away.
"Drive."
The Cadillac pulled back into the road. Tommy lit a cigarette with the window cracked an inch. Vinnie watched the lawns. North Caldwell on a Sunday afternoon looked like a brochure, which was the entire point of North Caldwell.
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