It was left to Philly DeSimone to tell Joey his brother was dead.

Pretty much everyone in the organization already knew it, because the media had the story. But Joey, not a consumer of media, was still in the dark, and there was not exactly a throng of people racing to enlighten him.

It was probably fitting that Philly should have been the one to reveal Tony’s murder, since Philly had been the murderer. But, of course, Joey did not know that, which is why Philly continued to live.

Philly expected Joey to explode with anger at the news, since Joey could explode with anger when informed that it was going to rain. Anger was his default reaction to pretty much everything with any negative connotations at all. And in Joey’s line of work it could be an effective governing technique, at least when tempered by Tony’s clear, calm thinking.

But if Joey’s reaction to Philly’s news was to be irate, he was hiding it well. He was quiet for a while after hearing the news, maybe three minutes, but to Philly it seemed like three decades. Then, seemingly under control, he asked Philly to detail what he knew about it.

“Joey, you don’t want to hear this,” Philly said.

“Tell me or I will cut your heart out.” He said it calmly and in control.

So Philly told him the details. Not the ones he knew, of course, since he knew them all. Rather he told him the facts that had been made public, including the graphic description of Tony’s severed head sitting on top of the alley Dumpster.

“Come back in fifteen minutes,” Joey said.

So Philly left, and Joey used the fifteen minutes not to plot his revenge, but to do something no one who knew him would have considered him capable of.

He mourned.

His brother had been killed. Tony was two years younger than he was, and he literally could not remember a day without Tony being present. He loved and trusted Tony in a way he loved and trusted no one else in the world. And he relied on him as well. On some level they both knew that Tony was smarter, and that Joey could get away with being erratic and impulsive because Tony was there to rein him in.

And now Tony was gone, and Joey was alone.

So he allowed himself those fifteen minutes to mourn before he called Philly back in. “Do whatever you have to do to find out who did this,” Joey said.

“Come on, Joey, you know who did it.”

“You think this was Tartaro?” Joey asked.

“You’re damn right I do. Who else could it have been? Shawn gets hit, he blames us, and he takes out Tony. Who else could it have been?”

“Who killed Shawn?”

“I don’t know,” said Philly. “But it don’t matter. Tartaro thinks that we did, so he took his revenge. That’s all that matters.”

“Do we know for sure that none of our people hit Shawn?”

“Absolutely.”

“And Tartaro didn’t hit him; Shawn was his own man.”

“Maybe Shawn was disloyal.”

Joey shook his head in frustration. Philly didn’t understand what he was saying. Tony would have understood. It was distressing for Joey; he didn’t want to assume the position as the logical thinker in the organization, since he knew it was not a job he was well suited for.

“Doesn’t matter,” Joey said. “If Tartaro put the hit out on Shawn, then he wouldn’t have hit Tony for revenge. He would know we didn’t do it.”

“So what are you saying?” Philly asked. He was surprised and annoyed; he never expected clear thinking out of Joey, and certainly not after being told that his brother was dead.

“I’m saying that maybe there’s somebody else out there doing the killing.” Then, “Find out who it is, and bring him to me.”