Lucia was perched on top of an empty crate with one leg extended out, dress hitched up to her knee to avoid splatters of petrol. It was an unladylike pose, almost scandalous, but she didn't care and nobody would dare look at her for too long. She was leaned over a collection of bottles recycled from the Garrison as well as puddles of dirty rags that the younger Blinders had stolen from their mothers' kitchens.
Tommy, leaning against the wall beside his wife, breathing the same air saturated with petrol, admired her quick fingers filling each bottle with equal parts petrol and oil and shoving a rag halfway in with a stretch of twine securing it to the mouth of the bottle.
A long line of Blinders stood in line in front of them waiting to receive a pistol from Charlie and ammunition from Curly. Each man, dressed in pressed shirts under crisp suits, pulled off their caps to show their sharp haircuts. It was the mark of a real Blinder.
Tommy squatted down on his haunches to ask Lucia, "will this be enough men?"
"You're asking me?" A wide grin and mischievous eyes brightened her face, "Tommy Shelby, am I your wartime consigliere?" She carefully set the bottle she was working on down to the ground to hold his face. Her fingertips outlined the curve of his smile and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes before yanking him in for a kiss, unable to control herself.
Tommy wasn't Sicilian so giving Lucia the title of a consigliere didn't really hold any weight anywhere but between them. Growing up, Lucia had studied her father and his consigliere discuss plans of expansion further into Birmingham, of finding ways to prepare Luca to be the next capo of the Changretta regime, and of expanding their business overseas. A consigliere was the advisor, the right-hand man, the auxiliary brain. A good consigliere was able to navigate the family through wartime and peacetime alike, but Tommy didn't need help with his plans during peacetime. He needed her now, as his wartime advisor.
"But, to answer your question," she blinked away the loving doe-eyed stare that she'd been stuck in, "there's enough of 'em if we're counting Aberama's men. We have an advantage here in Small Heath. It's changed a lot since Luca left. He won't start with large-scale attacks. You should look out for single gunmen, snipers, incendiary men. He'll look to pick off the weakest of the bunch first."
"Hmm," Tommy mused but before he could pick her brain further, Lucia had scrambled to her feet and marched toward the line of men waiting for their designated weapons.
"Oy!" She jabbed her finger past Charlie and Curly at a blond haired man. "Not him," she growled before Charlie could hand over a pistol.
"What 'chu mean, love?" The blond man confidently retorted, dragged his hand over the slight disfiguration along his jawline, and pointed to his head. "Look at the hair."
She narrowed her eyes down at him. "You're a long way from Lambeth, dove. This isn't your fight."
The self-assurance on his face morphed into annoyance. "What the fuck you on about, you crazy broad?"
Before Tommy could intervene or any of the other men could throw a punch, Lucia brought the butt of her palm swiftly to the man's nose, properly breaking it. The man cupped his hands to catch the blood spouting from his nostrils, two Blinders grabbing hold of his arms and dragging him away for another beating and one-way ticket back to London.
"Words getting around," she shrugged to Tommy, wiping her hand in the folds of her skirts. "If they're coming down from London, you'll get these boys coming down from Liverpool next, and then Manchester. You better talk to Alfie before Luca does, Tom."
Guiding her by the small of her back, Tommy led her away from the crowds toward the farthest corner of Charlie's Yard. Beside the quiet rush of the Cut, a large structure stood with a rusted latch bolted to the wooden door. Lucia had always seen the building but had never dared peek through the high windows to look down inside. Tommy unlocked the latch and the door shuddered open.
"Fuckin' hell, Tom," Lucia whistled low, pirouetting around the room to soak it all in. There were large valves snaking along the wall meeting up at towering vats, dozens of bottles had already been filled and sealed. She turned to him with a wry grin. "This is why there's so much fuckin' gin around the house."
Tommy stood by the door, hands in his pockets, casual and suave as all hell. From the shelves lined with sealed bottles of gin behind him, he cracked one open and poured a small portion into a glass, extending it out for a taste.
"How long have you been planning this?" She asked, taking a pause before bringing the cup to her lips. "Hmm," Lucia quirked her head up in thought. "Where did you collect the junipers from?"
"I made arrangements with some Herefordshire farmers," was all he said.
Lucia focused her gaze at him, deep in thought, taking another sip. "Could be sweeter."
"Since the start of prohibition," he sauntered over to the large vats and carried a crate full of bottles to the tasting table, making note of her critique, "I've been sending single malt, scotch whiskey to Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia hidden in crates in car parts."
She laughed to herself, studying each corked bottle in the crate, "brilliant." Picking the one she wanted Tommy to uncork, Lucia waved the mouth of the bottle under her nose and recoiled approvingly at the aroma that smacked her in the face. "Yep," she pinched her nostrils to alleviate the burning from the alcohol, "that's good. Smells like your dad's recipe."
"Because it is his recipe."
Lucia took a tentative sip straight from the bottle and recoiled again with approval, slapping Tommy on the back to keep herself from coughing. "Do you remember," she began with a deep inhale, "when he didn't seal the mash up properly? The pot exploded and nearly scalded us to bits. The whole street smelt horrible for days!"
"He was so angry," Tommy laughed at the distant memory. It was on the long list of disappointing memories of his disappointing father. "He kept using that mash. It tasted horrible once it was done."
"It did!" She agreed emphatically. "We couldn't have been six or seven. What was he thinking?! Ma Mary was just as angry. I thought she'd tear his hide."
It was the first time Tommy had heard her refer to his mother as her own. "Take good care of Lucia, love," Mary Shelby had told him days before her death, "she's good for you." Tommy hadn't understood his mother's instruction and couldn't see how Lucia Changretta could be good for him. Just as fast as Lucia ran towards him, Tommy ran away from her to Greta to Lizzie to Grace to May. He hadn't wanted his life dictated by any Mincéirí prophecies. But now that he was older and much more broken, Tommy realized that life could have been easier if he had just listened.
Lucia's smile didn't falter under his stillness. "That was back when it was just me, you, and Arthur. John was too young."
"It's back to being just us again." He instinctively reached for his cigarette tin but remembered the petrol on his wife's skirts and the large vats of flammable alcohol mere steps away.
"So," Lucia stubbed the cork back into the bottle after a few more leisurely sips, "these are going to Boston then?"
Tommy nodded.
"I know just the man to call to sweeten the deal, so to speak."
"Which man is that?"
"I'll tell you once I've reached him," she answered with an impish grin.
Tommy looked down at her evenly, trying to ascertain what the mischief could possibly mean. With her, he could never tell if it was innocuous or not. Did she fuck this man or just know him? There was no way Tommy could interpret it. Either way, a dark twinge of possessiveness had already shadowed his face. So much so that Lucia could easily spot it.
"Oh, Tommy," she brought a warm hand to his cheek, voice dripping with exaggerated pity, "I've always forgotten you were the jealous one between us. It's usually masked so well behind that beautiful face." His facial features started to curl with annoyance and Lucia threw her head back in mirth. Getting under his skin continued to be a very satisfying victory even after thirty years of friendship. "When is your lady love arriving?"
"Christ, Luc, have you always been this annoying?"
She clapped his face fondly. "Best get used to it. You've agreed to a lifetime sentence with me."
"Her name is May Carleton. Been training our horses since Epsom. She's coming from the station by barge in an hour and you'll meet her just outside. Bring her in here, give her a taste of the gin. Tell her I'll meet her in the afternoon to look over the filly and sign paperwork."
"She's coming all the way here for paperwork? In the midst of a war? Should I carry her overnight bag before you two fuck or would you prefer to?"
Tommy groaned and poured himself another glass muttering, "you'll be the death of me" before taking the whiskey in one go.
"I just want to make sure she's well taken care of for you," Lucia bit the inside of her cheek to stifle her giggles, trying to appear as genuine and generous as possible. "What kind of wife would I be otherwise?"
After latching the lock securely to the door again, Tommy handed over the key and began toward the line of Blinders waiting to receive ammunition. Lee boys were perched on rooftops, rifles extended between their arms, on the lookout for Luca's men. Despite the impending doom looming overhead, Lucia had an extra skip in her step from her successful teasing and resumed her work filling bottles and plugging it with a rag. Luca would surely plan an ambush and she wanted to be ready.
Though Polly and Johnny Dogs were dreading the arrival of Aberama Gold, Lucia was excited for it. Birdie Boswell had taught Lucia how to read palms and tea leaves and how to be wary of supernatural deities, but it was Aberama Gold that taught her to light fires and skin rabbits and understand the voice of trees. Running away from an arranged marriage hadn't been as horrible when she woke up each morning on rich earth and watched the leaves dancing overhead. It was much easier to learn Shelta when she could forget Italian.
Lucia was pulled from her memories when she felt a gentle nudge on her shoulder. She looked up to see Aberama Gold, Bonnie by his side with three other men, stride down toward Charlie's Yard with rifles propped up on their shoulders, through the smoke like conquering heroes, directing hungry eyes at every corner of the place until they came to a stop in front of Charlie.
"I like your yard, Mr. Strong." Aberama spoke with the certainty of a man who took what wanted no matter the price. "How much would you take for it?"
Charlie looked up from the hooks and chains he was about to hang a pig on for smoking. "It's not for sale."
"Not for sale?" Aberama repeated, shifting where he stood with a Cheshire grin. "Okay." It was a challenge.
Lucia watched from several paces back, where she had been told to stay, carefully studying the way Aberama approached the fire pit where Tommy and Arthur stood waiting.
"I just took a look around," Aberama's voice overtook the rattle of chains and the hissing from the fire. "I like this place. Fire for melting silver, canals to take it away. How much?"
"Nothing you see is for sale, Mr. Gold." Tommy pinched a cigarette to his lips while Arthur took another swig from his flask - Shelby whiskey most likely.
Aberama chuckled. "Oh, everything is for sale. Everything. You tell Mr. Strong I'm going to buy his yard."
"This yard has been in his family since they settled."
"But I have decided to make it part of our deal."
After a long moment, Tommy, a penny in his palm, called Charlie to join them at the fire pit. "We're going to spin a coin for your yard, Charlie. If it's heads, Abby here takes all of this...with my blessing. If it's tails -"
"No," Aberama put his hand up. He could tell Tommy would propose an unsatisfying bargain so he was looking to mitigate the risk. He knew Lucia since she was sixteen. She couldn't hurt a fly and she was dull to boot. "Where's your new bride? We'll let her decide."
Tommy turned his head back towards the corner where Lucia sat wiping bottles down so it wouldn't go up in flames later by a stray cigarette ember. "Luc," he called.
As Lucia stepped forward, covered in grease and stinking of petrol, Aberama smirked at the sight of her. "Pretty new bride or a dirty little cow?" he wondered out loud in Shelta, beaming proudly at his quip when Arthur and Tommy remained quiet and grim.
Feigning ignorance to what he had said, she took the coin from Tommy. It felt cold against her skin as she turned it between her fingers. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked softly, purposefully and painfully naïve.
"Heads, I get the yard." Aberama Gold's shoulders slumped with irritation as though he was surprised at himself for not anticipating her idiocy all along. "You decide the wager on tails."
"So," she started slowly, cocking her head to the side to understand his instructions better, "whatever I say goes if it lands on tails?"
"Yes, that's how it works," he drawled impatiently.
"Okay." Lucia's shoulders squared and a ferocity darkened under her knitted brows. "Tails, and my husband fucks your daughter, Mr. Gold." Wheezing laughter peppered among the Blinders. Even Tommy cracked a smile. "He'll have Esmerelda, of course. I remember her. She's the eldest and the prettiest."
"I preferred you better as the lovesick fool, Luci." Aberama sneered, catching the coin she tossed across the pit, and reluctantly eyed Tommy, waiting for an objection but Tommy did not protest to the arrangement. Hiding his anger well under the broad rim of his hat, Aberama rotated the coin and considered whether the yard was worth the risk of his daughter's dignity. It wasn't. "Tommy Shelby OBE, no wager today."
"Ought to set a wager to get this fool a new hat," Lucia muttered in Shelta. It was loud enough for Aberama Gold to hear and it came as no surprise. He had taught her the language after all.
"With this penny," he held it up, looking between Tommy and his cow of a wife. "I will buy a flower to put on your grave...when the time comes. Whichever one of you falls first."
"And before that time," Tommy stepped between Lucia and Aberama, "please don't again disrespect my friends or their valued property."
When the rest of the men gathered around hastily adjusted tables throwing back bottles of beer and rum, Lucia pulled Tommy aside. Her eyes were wide with disbelief. "When did you get an OBE?"
"It was a favor from the King," he casually shrugged.
"A favor from the King? His Majesty the King? Our King? King fuckin' George awarded you the OBE?" The words sounded so foreign yet so familiar on her tongue. It pays to have friends in high places.
Tommy nodded again and broke out into a wide grin at her fluster.
She snaked a hand into his coat to pinch his side, matching his grin. "You cheeky bastard."
"May Carleton?" Lucia strolled leisurely forward to the barge, hands stuffed into the pockets of her skirts, and squinted against the afternoon sun peeking through the dusty clouds.
May stepped off the barge with shaky knees and looked around for Tommy. She hadn't come all the way to London to see anyone else. "Yes?"
Lucia looked her up and down. She turned her nose up at the fine furs lining the woman's coat, the expensive hat poised over brown tendrils of hair that perfectly fluttered in the breeze over a square jaw. Only mildly amused, Lucia couldn't help a contained snort. "Follow me, please." Turning on her heel, she briskly began toward the distillery leaving May to hurry along. "Tommy sends his regards. He'll see you in a bit to sign your paperwork and square away payment," she casually threw over her shoulder.
"I don't think I caught your name." May clutched her purse and cautiously looked around at the rough parts of Charlie's Yard where bonfires were left in blackened ash and wooden beams were discarded along the shallows of the Cut.
"Lucia." She unlocked the shuddering door and gestured May inside. "Shelby."
May took a pause from peering into the building and wheeled around. "Tommy's sister?" she asked warily.
"His wife. Take a seat." Lucia gestured to the tasting table at the far end of the room and picked up the crate of whiskey and gin that Tommy had shown her earlier. "My husband wanted your opinion on some of his ventures." She poured out a portion of whiskey and then gin.
May cautiously sat down, eyeing the exits, ready to block a punch if it was thrown. She watched Lucia fill two glasses in front of her and settle in the seat opposite, only a flimsy wooden table separating them.
"Did you sleep with my husband, Mrs. Carleton?"
Fidgeting with the purse still gripped tightly between gloved fingers, May couldn't answer through dry lips.
"Oh dear," Lucia laughed, straightening in her seat, suddenly less imposing and hostile, "don't be afraid! I don't blame you. In fact, I understand. Tommy is..." she looked around to search for the word. "He's exciting. You look into his eyes and you see eternity and you see hell, but all you can do is wish you could attend every funeral for the person he could have been and used to be. I've known him all my life. I know every scar on his body, every inch of his soul, and every bit of pain he felt I felt it too." Lucia reached across the table and nudged the gin towards May first.
"It's too sweet," May said after a taste, still refusing to look fully at Mrs. Shelby.
"What a woman you are," Lucia briefly admired. "How unlucky for you though. Meeting not one but both of his wives and never getting a shot for yourself. But, quite literally, that's probably an entry-level requirement for marrying Thomas Shelby; getting shot, I mean," she clarified with a chortle. "Have you been shot, Mrs Carleton? Or stabbed?"
May shook her head, releasing a white knuckled grip on her purse to chase the gin down with whiskey. "No, I haven't been shot. I train horses."
"And Tommy tells me you're very good. He said you took one of his horses to Epsom."
"Grace's Secret, yes."
"Ah, yes," Lucia nodded. "That's the one. I distinctly remember thinking how Tommy was never good with names when I first heard Grace's Secret. What have you decided to name the newest filly?"
"Dangerous."
"A nod after my husband, I presume?" She crossed her arms across her chest, focusing wholly on May now instead of the wide valves running along the walls. "I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable, Mrs. Carleton."
"No, not all." It was a bold-faced lie but May had faltered under Lucia's pointed gaze. "Have you and Tommy been married long? There was no news of it in the papers."
Pouring a splash of gin to see for herself whether it was too sweet or not, Lucia took a moment before answering. She looked up with kinder eyes and a warmer smile than before though it was still an unnerving sight for May who had been properly flummoxed since the start of the whole conversation. "I've loved Tommy since he..." Lucia floundered and attempted to start again, "We haven't been married long. A few weeks. Ever since my brother, who we're currently at war with, mind you, threw me into the Cut. Tommy saved me," she said softly and looked down at the driblets of gin that soaked into the wood tabletop. "Tommy has saved me many times in my life. He's a good man, but there's no changing him. That's what his first wife wanted to do. Change him - to rein in his ambition and his purpose like one of his horses. But there's no changing the wild thing that claws out of him, May. Not many women could come along for the ride."
"And you could?"
"Yes. His first wife may have taken one bullet for him, but I've taken two. With one hand Tommy ruined my life just to build it back up around me with the other. With one hand he nearly puts a bullet in my head, and with the other he pulls me out from the Cut like John the Baptist."
The fear fell from May's face and, suddenly, she felt very sad for Mrs. Shelby. Earn Tommy, she most certainly did. May recognized the pain in Lucia's eyes, years of suffering clouded into mist behind the idea of deserving something, anything from it all. Tommy was the prize, the endgame, the coup de grâce. May Carleton had indeed missed her shot and she was beginning to feel gratitude for the woman who had generously taken the shot before her.
Saying their goodbyes, May took Lucia's hand in hers with a quick squeeze and comforting smile. "Good luck with your war."
"Thank you," Lucia answered with geniality and curiously watched May disappear with a Blinder. How strange, she thought to herself.
Charlie's Yard was abandoned when Lucia had locked the distillery and pocketed the key. The only proofs of former life were toppled chairs, empty bottles strewn across a mismatch of tables, and cigarette butts littered by her feet. There was no sight of Aberama either. As she meandered through the yard, around empty rifle crates and puddles, Lucia caught sight of Polly, cigarette in hand, staring out towards the hill John's body had been burned weeks earlier.
"You alright, Pol?" She approached with discretion.
Without the hassle of moving, Polly answered. "Arthur told me you broke a lad's nose this morning. How could you tell he was from Lambeth?"
"Those New Cut boys," she looked down at the butt of her palm and spotted dried flecks of blood on her fate lines. Birdie had taught her about palm reading too. "They're too stubborn to see doctors. When they break a bone they let it set how it heals and it fucks up their face."
"You're getting sharp, girl, just like our Mary swore you would."
"Yeah? What else did she say about me?"
Polly, with a sideways look, cracked a smile. "Mary had more to say about you than her own children. She was given a gift that even I don't have. She could see the future in a much clearer way than anyone else I've met. Whatever it was, you have become exactly what she said would: clever, resilient, sensible. Tommy looks down at the world from his lofty ambitions. You, you see it from the ground. You keep him from floating off up to," her fingers fluttered up into the sky, sending a curled trail of pale-blue smoke with it, "God knows where."
"I," Lucia slowly began, "I have been meaning to talk to you about some plans for expansion for when this is all over."
Polly scoffed, sending another curl of smoke rippling between her lips. "Brave of you to assume we'll get out of this alive."
"What if we expanded out past Small Heath and Bordesley? Out to Nechells and Aston, Newtown and Ladywood. Fuckin' Harborne, even. We do it like the Italians have done in America, we make businesses and families pay for our protection."
"We can't charge our own people!"
"No, not the people already within our territory. We expand out, make them pay us for protection, and soon we'll have all of Birmingham with some extra cash in our vaults. Might save on costs to extort the coppers if we have the people and businesses under our thumb. Our Tommy, with his lofty ambitions, will have more pocket change to buy out the larger politicians when the time comes."
Polly pulled at her cigarette and considered it. "Have you told him this?"
Lucia shook her head. "He's been busy with the war and the gin. And the horses. If only he was born Sicilian, he would have been capo dei capi. The don of all dons." She tacked on to the end, "I've no fuckin' idea how he manages it all."
"He won't have to anymore, he has you."
"I'm not an enforcer. I can't burn down restaurants and beat people to a pulp. That's Arthur and John." Her voice dropped. "Was John."
"I'm not asking you to do that either," Polly flicked the cigarette into the water with finality, turning to square with Lucia. "Women can glide through this life under the guise of being good and moral and innocent, mothers and homemakers. You're too established in this world to fall into that." She was starting to sound like a protective mother figure again. "Women like you and me, we have our mind. We have strings attached to our men and we know when to pull and when to be still. You are Tommy's greatest strength, and he's beginning to see it too. Pull on those strings when it feels right."
The long day ended in the quiet of Tommy's office. Lucia poked her head through the door to see her husband sitting behind his desk, head buried in his hands, tied loosened and jacket hanging half off the corner of his chair.
"Is May back to London," she teased, "or will you be meeting her at a hotel tonight?"
"Who is the man?"
"What?" Lucia nearly laughed, coming up behind the desk. "You're still on about that?"
He looked up, exhausted, and desperate for her not to take the piss out of him. "Who's the man, Luc?"
Lucia walked into his extended arms and let him wrap himself around her. Her fingers carded through the soft tufts of hair until he looked youthful and boyish. "Antonio Lombardo. Consigliere to Capone."
"And how do you know him?"
"Oh, I've fucked him a couple of times."
With a groan, Tommy began to unwind his arms and fall back into the chair but Lucia tripped over her own laughter trying to console him.
"Oh, my darling," she pulled his arms back in place around her waist, "I'm sorry! Luca wasn't the only one who tried to make me a match with a man in America. Noni did too when I first went to Sicily. With her grandson, Antonio Lombardo. Unlike my brother, Noni had good sense to recommend a man my age."
"Alright," he consented, satisfied with the answer. His jealousy was pacified. "What's the benefit of going through Chicago instead of the New York families?"
"They don't involve themselves in the business of the other families - think themselves too important. Magaddino works out of Buffalo so he isn't using his own ports to ship weapons to Luca. He's using ports owned by the New York families. A little favor between families strengthens ties. We can get the same ties to Chicago if I make one phone call. Stop the whiskey shipments to Boston. Lombardo and Capone will get us access to ports along the east coast. Charleston, Norfolk, Baltimore - they have a major railway going out west." Lucia held her husband's face. "Chicago is a wasteland. They don't abide by the rules of warfare like the rest of the American families. Tom, if we have Chicago in our back pockets, we - Why are you smiling?"
"Who are you?"
"I'm not your wife right now," Lucia said with a grin and noted the glimmer in his eyes. "I'm your consigliere. Your advisor. Let me be the other side of your brain. You don't have to do this alone anymore."
Tommy nodded. "Stop the shipments to Boston then?"
"Yes, but keep it delivering to Nova Scotia. Magaddino doesn't go that far east. Charleston, Norfolk, Baltimore," she repeated. "We can't go too far south or we'll lose money. Those people make their own moonshine and our tastes differ too much."
Tommy leaned back. After a moment of consideration he agreed. What she said would be done. He fumbled with the paperwork on his desk, took up a pen to resume work but threw it down seconds later.
"If I had listened to you, years ago," he posed, "do you think we still would have found each other?"
"Of course not. This is the only road we can walk together." Lucia leaned against his desk, ankles crossed. "I miss the person you were with Greta. That person wouldn't have been right for me, but I loved seeing you so happy. Poor Greta Jurossi. She was so good for you."
"I don't think she would have been good for the man I am now."
"Well, you wouldn't be the man you are now if she was still alive."
"And Grace?" Tommy watched carefully while Lucia composed herself, stammering and settling with a sheepish smile.
She scrubbed her hand along her face. There was a lot she was prepared to say about Grace but that was the dead mother of his child. "I couldn't say. I barely knew her. All I know is that you are too ambitious for legitimate business." Your skills would have been wasted with Grace, is what Lucia wanted to say. "You're going to do great things, Tommy Shelby. And now you've finally found a woman that's not going to stand in your way." Leaning over to press a kiss to his temple, Lucia adjusted his coat on the back of the chair, made assurances that she would schedule a call with Capone, and disappeared out of his office.
Long after the door had shut and the sound of her footsteps had receded from the stairs, Tommy stared at where she once stood, his face propped up against a loose fist. Of the list of words he had collected over the years to describe her, 'generous' could now be added to it. Generous with her love, her forgiveness, her time and her thoughts. She was generous to miss Greta and to not speak badly of Grace - Lucia, after all, had been the first to see through Grace's act but, despite the warnings, Tommy fell in love with the traditrice anyways.
When he turned off the lamp on his desk and stepped out from his office, Tommy knew what he would see when he went up the stairs. He would see Lucia holding his son, both of them fast asleep under warm covers. And Tommy resolved then that he would apologize for his previous errors in judgement as many times as she would like to hear. It wasn't generous but it was a start.
Preview for chapter 13:
"I'm a woman of my word." Lucia pinched his jaw between her fingers and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "Now we're even. Mazal tov, Alfie."