Sofia's Tune by Cindy Thomson

words.
    Come back. Mulberry Street holds the secrets you seek.
    He spun around, but of course too late. No one seemed to be following him. Someone did not think of him as an outsider. This mysterious ally was enough to merit a return trip.
    Before he went home he stopped by the Fourteenth to see if Mac was there. Antonio had no work for tonight, but it would not hurt to inquire. The man had been generous with him.
    “Tony, there you are! I was hoping you’d come by.”
    Antonio sighed. It was hopeless trying to get Mac to address him by his proper name. “Got some work for me, then?”
    “Ah, no. My regular is back. But wait here a minute. I have to go check on the seamstress. Dolly isn’t happy with her hems. Don’t go anywhere, lad. I have news.” He closed the door when he left.
    As Antonio waited in the dark office, moisture ran down the collar of his Mackintosh and landed on his shoes. He did not have the energy to wipe it off. The tension he’d worked up going over to the Bend had pilfered the pluck he normally tried to exhibit while at the theater. It would not do to have Mac and others think he was anything other than confident. No one here knew about the grief Antonio had endured. It had been all he could manage to muster up enough courage to tell the nun, and that had exhausted him.
    He glanced around the small office. The room was nearly concealed in a hallway painted black, and with the door shut it felt like a dungeon. Such a dim workspace for a man like Mac, whose happy-come-what-may attitude beamed like a lighthouse beacon most days. Mac seemed to like Antonio. Hopefully he’d find at least a partial job for him tonight. While Antonio did have work this Sunday, the church did not pay as much as the theater. If only he could get a steady position.
    He drew in a breath to calm himself and noted the smells of oil face paints and paper-mâché props, which nearly turned his stomach. He longed to be wearing tails and a white tie while sitting behind a gleaming piano in a concert hall. He pictured a place decked out with red velvet seats. Gold gilded chandeliers dripping from the ceiling like cake frosting. The longer he stayed in vaudeville, the less likely he would find himself in such a place. He needed to save as much as possible to move on to what he was truly called to do.
    Mac’s voice boomed from the hall. “Tony, you say? He’s not our regular. I don’t know where he’s working now.”
    Antonio jumped up and gripped the doorknob. The door was stuck. He jiggled it while Luigi looked at him, tilting his head left and right. “Come on,” he muttered. The door would not budge. Mac was loud, but Antonio couldn’t tell what was happening. Putting his ear against the door, he could make out other, lower voices, but not what they were saying.
    A few moments later the knob rattled. “Who’s been mucking aboot with this door? Tony?”
    “I can’t get it open either.”
    “Stand back!”
    Antonio pulled Luigi toward the shelves on the far wall just as Mac burst in.
    “I tell ya, I’m gonna sack the superintendent. Are you all right?”
    “We’re fine, but who was that out there?”
    “I don’t know, son, but something tells me you don’t want to meet them.”
    “You told them I wasn’t here.”
    “You can thank me for that.”
    Luigi sniffed at the scent they’d left under an exit door.
    “Did they say anything else? Did they say what they wanted?”
    “Yeah. ‘We’ll find him, old man. Tell him the next time you see him that his Papà had our money and now his son must pay.’”
    Antonio held up his palms. “Listen, Mac, I don’t know what they were talking about. My father owed no one. They probably have the wrong man. Did they hurt you?”
    “I am not hurt, but I think it’s best you go along home, Tony. For your own sake, and for ours.”
    “I…uh, I will. Of course. Tell me, were they Italian?”
    “They were. Glad they didn’t see you. If you’d come charging out