The word sits in the room the way a body sits in a chair after the life leaves it. Present. Heavy. Wrong.
"Confessions," I repeat.
"Like church confessions. Typed up. Summaries. What people said in the confessional. Names, sins, details. Business details. Things men say to their priest when they think nobody's listening."
The room is quiet. The overhead lamp hums. Enzo hasn't moved. His notebook is still closed.
Confessional intelligence.
Someone is harvesting what men say during confession and selling it to the Ferrantes. Someone with access to a confessional. Someone who hears the most private disclosures of powerful men and converts those disclosures into operational intelligence for a rival Camorra clan.
A priest.
"The bar in Forcella," I say. "Via Vicaria Vecchia. How long has it been operating as a drop?"
"Years. I don't know exactly. Before I started driving. The barman told me once that the envelopes have been coming since before the current Ferrante capo took over. Years."
Years.
I stand. Push the chair back. Walk to Enzo. We step into the hallway. The door closes behind us.
"The confessional angle," I say. "How many churches operate in territories where our people confess?"
"Several. But there's only one where the senior men go. The captain-level confessions. The ones with strategic value."
He doesn't need to say the name. I know which church. I know because I confess there myself. Because my father confessed there. Because the Sorrentino family has maintained a relationship with that parish for over a decade.
Santa Maria della Sanità.
Father Domenico Ferraro.
"No," I say.
Enzo says nothing.
"That's Valentina's uncle."
"I know."
"He baptized children in my family. He heard my father's last confession before the stroke. He absolved me six weeks ago."
"I know."
I press my back against the hallway wall. The concrete is cold through my shirt. The stairwell below is quiet. Enzo's menare silent. The building settles around us with the sounds old structures make at night, the small adjustments of steel and concrete responding to temperature.
"Verify it," I say. "Before I act on the word of a man with a broken nose, I want verification. Financial records. Communication patterns. Anything that connects Domenico Ferraro to the Ferrante intelligence chain. I want the bar in Forcella surveilled. I want the pickup man identified and followed. I want the chain mapped from the confessional to the Ferrante leadership, every link, every handoff, every payment."
"How long?"
"As long as it takes to be certain. Days, not weeks."
Enzo opens his notebook. Writes. Closes it.
"The courier," he says. "What do you want done?"
"Hold him. Comfortable. No more damage. He cooperates, he walks. Eventually."
Enzo nods. I turn toward the stairs.