by Ed Falco
“I got a car,” Sonny said.
“You’ve got a car?”
“It’s the garage’s. They let me use it.”
“Where the hell’s it parked?”
“Few more blocks.”
“Why’d you park way up here if you knew I was—”
“Che cazzo!” Sonny opened his arms in a gesture that suggested amazement at Tom’s ignorance. “Because this is Luca Brasi’s territory,” he said. “Luca Brasi and the O’Rourkes and a bunch of crazy micks.”
“So what’s that to you?” Tom asked. He stepped in front of Sonny. “What’s it to a kid works in a garage whose territory this is?”
Sonny shoved Tom out of his way. It was not a gentle shove, but he was smiling. “It’s dangerous around here,” he said. “I’m not as reckless as you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he laughed, as if he had just surprised himself.
Tom said, “All right, look,” and he started walking up the block again. “I went to Juke’s Joint with some guys I know from the dorms. We were supposed to dance a little bit, have a couple of drinks, and head back. Then this doll asks me to dance, and next thing I know, I’m in bed with her. I didn’t know she was this Luca Brasi’s girlfriend. I swear.”
“Madon’!” Sonny pointed to a black Packard parked under a streetlamp. “That’s mine,” he said.
“You mean the garage’s.”
“Right,” Sonny said. “Get in and shut up.”
Inside the car, Tom threw his arms over the back of the bench seat and watched Sonny take off his fedora, place it on the seat beside him, and extract a key from his vest pocket. The long stick shift rising from the floorboards shook slightly as the car started. Sonny pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his jacket pocket, lit up, and then placed the cigarette in an ashtray built into the polished wood of the dashboard. A plume of smoke drifted into the windshield as Tom opened the glove box and found a box of Trojans. He said to Sonny, “They let you drive this on a Saturday night?”
Sonny pulled out onto the avenue without answering.
Tom was tired but wide-awake, and he guessed it would be a good while before he’d be doing any sleeping. Outside, the streets ticked by as Sonny headed downtown. Tom said, “You taking me back to the dorms?”
“My place,” Sonny said. “You can stay with me tonight.” He looked over at Tom. “You thought about this at all?” he said. “You got some idea what you’re going to do?”
“You mean if this Luca character finds out?”
“Yeah,” Sonny said. “That’s what I mean.”
Tom watched the streets hurry by. They were passing a line of tenements, the windows mostly dark above the glow of streetlamps. “How’s he going to find out?” he said, finally. “She won’t tell him.” Tom shook his head, as if dismissing the possibility that Luca could find out. “I think she’s a little crazy,” he said. “She was acting crazy all night.”
Sonny said, “You know this ain’t all about you, Tom. Luca finds out and comes after you, then Pop’s got to go after him. Then we got a war. And all ’cause you can’t keep your zipper closed.”
“Oh, please!” Tom shouted. “You’re lecturing me about keeping my zipper closed?”
Sonny knocked the cap off Tom’s head.
“She’s not going to tell him,” Tom said. “There won’t be any ramifications.”
“Ramifications,” Sonny mocked. “How do you know? How do you know she doesn’t want to make him jealous? Did you think about that? Maybe she’s trying to make him jealous.”
“That’s pretty crazy, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Sonny said, “but you just said she was crazy. Plus she’s a dame and dames are all nuts. ’Specially the Irish. The whole bunch of them are lunatics.”
Tom hesitated, and then spoke as if he had settled the question. “I don’t think she’ll tell him,” he said. “If she does, I’ll have no choice but to go to Pop.”
“What’s the difference if Luca kills you or Pop kills you?”
Tom said, “What else can I do?” Then he added, the thought just occurring to him, “Maybe I should get a gun.”
“And what? Blow your foot off with it?”
“You got an idea?”
“I don’t,” Sonny said, grinning. “It’s been nice knowing you, though, Tom. You been a good brother to me.” He leaned back and filled the car with his laughing.
“You’re funny,” Tom said. “Look. I’m betting she won’t tell him.”
“Yeah,” Sonny said, taking pity on him. He knocked the ash off his cigarette, took a drag, and spoke as he exhaled. “And if she does,” he said, “Pop’ll figure out a way to fix it. You’ll be in the doghouse for a while, but he’s not lettin’ Luca kill you.” After another moment, he added, “Of course, her brothers…,” and then he laughed his big laugh again.
“You having a good time?” Tom said. “Hotshot?”
“Sorry,” Sonny said, “but this is rich. Mr. Perfect’s not so perfect. Mr. Good Boy’s got a little bad in him. I’m enjoying this,” he said, and he reached over to rough up Tom’s hair.
Tom pushed his hand away. “Mama’s worried about you,” he said. “She found a fifty-dollar bill in the pocket of a pair of pants you brought her to wash.”
Sonny slammed the heel of his hand into the steering wheel. “That’s where it went! She say anything to Pop?”
“No. Not yet. But she’s worried about you.”
“What did she do with the money?”
“Gave it to me.”
Sonny looked at Tom.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said. “I’ve got it.”
“So what’s Mama worried about? I’m workin’. Tell her I saved the money.”
“Come on, Sonny. Mama’s not stupid. This is a fifty-dollar bill we’re talking about.”
“So if she’s worried, why don’t she ask me?”
Tom fell back in his seat, as if he were tired of even trying to talk to Sonny. He opened his window all the way and let the wind blow across his face. “Mama don’t ask you,” he said, “the same way she don’t ask Pop why now we own a whole building in the Bronx, when we used to live the six of us on Tenth Avenue in a two-bedroom apartment. Same reasons why she don’t ask him how come everybody that lives in the building happens to work for him, or why there’s always two guys on the front stoop watching everybody who walks or drives by.”
Sonny yawned and ran his fingers over a tangle of dark, curly hair that spilled down over his forehead almost to his eyes. “Hey,” he said. “The olive oil business is dangerous.”
“Sonny,” Tom said. “What are you doing with a fifty-dollar bill in your pocket? What are you doing in a double-breasted, pin-striped suit looking like a gangster? And why,” he asked, moving quickly to shove his hand under Sonny’s suit jacket and up toward his shoulder, “are you carrying a gun?”
“Hey, Tom,” Sonny said, pushing his hand away. “Tell me something. You think Mama really believes that Pop’s in the olive oil business?”
Tom didn’t answer. He watched Sonny and waited.
“I got the bean shooter with me,” Sonny said, “because my brother might have been in trouble and might have needed somebody to get him out of it.”
“Where do you even get a gun?” Tom said. “What’s going on with you, Sonny? Pop’ll kill you if you’re doing what it looks like you’re doing. What’s wrong with you?”
“Answer my question,” Sonny said. “I’m serious. You think Mama really believes Pop’s in the business of selling olive oil?”
“Pop is in the business of selling olive oil. Why? What business do you think he’s in?”
Sonny glanced at Tom as if to say Don’t talk like an idiot.
Tom said, “I don’t know what Mama believes. All I know is she asked me to talk to you about the money.”
“So tell her I saved it up from working at the garage.”
“Are you still working at the garage?”
“Yeah,”
Sonny said. “I’m working.”
“Jesus Christ, Sonny…” Tom rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. They were on Canal Street, the sidewalks on either side of them lined with empty vendor stands. Now everything was quiet, but in a few hours the street would be crowded with people in their Sunday finery out for a stroll on a fall afternoon. He said, “Sonny, listen to me. Mama spends her whole life worrying about Pop—but about her children, Sonny, she doesn’t have to worry. Are you hearing me, hotshot?” Tom raised his voice a little to make his point. “I’m in college. You’ve got a good job at the garage. Fredo, Michael, Connie, they’re still kids. Mama can sleep at night because she doesn’t have to worry about her children, the way she has to worry, every waking moment of her life, about Pop. Think, Sonny.” Tom held one of the lapels of Sonny’s jacket between his fingers. “How much you want to put Mama through? How much is this fancy-tailored suit worth to you?”
Sonny pulled onto the sidewalk in front of a garage. He looked sleepy and bored. “We’re here,” he said. “Go open the door for me, will you, pal?”
“That’s it?” Tom said. “That’s all you got to say?”
Sonny laid his head atop the bench seat and closed his eyes. “Jeez, I’m tired.”
“You’re tired,” Tom repeated.
“Really,” Sonny said. “I’ve been up since forever.”
Tom watched Sonny and waited, until he realized, after a minute, that Sonny was falling asleep. “Mammalucc’!” he said. He gently grabbed a hunk of his brother’s hair and shook him.
“What is it?” Sonny asked without opening his eyes. “Did you get the garage yet?”
“You have a key for it?”
Sonny opened the glove box, pulled out a key, and handed it to Tom. He pointed to the car door.
“You’re welcome,” Tom said. He stepped out onto the street. They were on Mott, down the block from Sonny’s apartment. He thought about asking Sonny why he was keeping the car in a garage a block away from his apartment when he could just as easily park on the street outside his front door. He thought about it, decided against it, and went to open the garage.
3.
Sonny knocked once, opened the front door, and didn’t manage to get two steps into the chaos before Connie, screaming his name, leapt into his arms. Her bright yellow dress was scuffed and darkened where she must have gone down hard on her knees. Strands of silky dark hair, freed from the constraints of two bright-red bow-tie barrettes, whipped over her face. Behind Sonny, Tom closed the front door on an autumn breeze that picked up leaves and garbage off Arthur Avenue and swept them down Hughes and past the front steps of the Corleone home, where Fat Bobby Altieri and Johnny LaSala, a couple of ex-boxers from Brooklyn, stood atop the stoop smoking cigarettes and talking about the Giants. Connie wrapped her little girl’s skinny arms around Sonny’s neck and planted a loud, wet kiss on his cheek. Michael jumped up from the game of checkers he was playing with Paulie Gatto, and Fredo came tearing in from the kitchen, and then everyone in the apartment—and there was a crowd this Sunday afternoon—seemed all at once to recognize Sonny and Tom’s arrival as a roar of loud greetings was shouted through the rooms.
Upstairs, in a study at the head of a flight of wooden steps, Genco Abbandando rose from his seat in a tufted leather chair and closed the door. “Looks like Sonny and Tommy just showed up,” he said. Since anyone who wasn’t deaf would have heard both the boys’ names called out a dozen times, the announcement was unnecessary. Vito, in a straight-backed chair beside his desk, his black hair slicked back, tapped his fingers on his knees and said, “Let’s move this along. I want to see the boys.”
“Like I was sayin’,” Clemenza continued, “Mariposa’s gonna bust a blood vessel.” He took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose. “I got a little cold,” he said, waving the handkerchief at Vito as if offering proof. Clemenza was a heavy man with a round face and a rapidly retreating hairline. His stout body filled the leather chair beside Genco’s. Between them was a table with a bottle of anisette and two glasses.
Tessio, the fourth man in the room, was standing in front of a window seat that looked out across Hughes Avenue. “Emilio sent one of his boys to see me,” he said.
Clemenza said, “Me too.”
Vito looked surprised. “Emilio Barzini thinks we’re hijacking his whiskey?”
“No,” Genco said. “Emilio’s smarter than that. Mariposa thinks we’re ’jackin’ his whiskey, and Emilio thinks maybe we might know who is.”
Vito ran the backs of his fingers along his jaw. “How does a man so stupid,” he said, meaning Giuseppe Mariposa, “rise to such heights?”
“He’s got Emilio workin’ for him,” Tessio said. “That helps.”
Clemenza added, “He’s got the Barzini brothers, the Rosato brothers, Tomasino Cinquemani, Frankie Pentangeli—Madon’! His capos…” Clemenza waved his fingers, meaning Mariposa’s capos were tough guys.
Vito reached for the glass of yellow Strega on his desk. He took a sip and put the glass down. “This man,” he said, “he’s friends with the Chicago Outfit. He has the Tattaglia family in his pocket. He’s got politicians and business leaders behind him…” Vito opened his hands to his friends. “Why would I make such a man my enemy by stealing a few dollars from him?”
Tessio added, “He’s personal friends with Capone. They go way back.”
Clemenza said, “Frank Nitti’s running Chicago now.”
“Nitti thinks he’s running Chicago,” Genco said. “Ricca’s the one’s calling the shots since Capone’s in the big house.”
Vito sighed loudly and the three men in front of him were instantly quiet. At forty-one Vito still retained much of his youth: his dark hair and muscular chest and arms, his olive skin that remained unmarred by lines and wrinkles. Though roughly the same age as Clemenza and Genco, Vito looked younger than both—and much younger than Tessio, who had been born looking like an old man. “Genco,” he said. “Consigliere. Is it possible he’s this stupido? Or”—Vito punctuated his question with a shrug—“or is he up to something else?”
Genco considered the possibility. A slender man with a nose like a beak, he always looked at least a little nervous. He had a constant case of agita and was forever plopping two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and drinking it down like a whiskey shooter. “Giuseppe’s not too stupid he can’t read the writing on the wall,” he said. “He knows Prohibition’s on the way out, and I think this thing with LaConti, I think it’s about setting himself up to be the one calling the shots when the Volstead Act’s repealed. But we got to keep in mind, the business with LaConti’s not over—”
“LaConti’s already dead,” Clemenza interrupted. “He just don’t know it yet.”
Genco said, “He’s not dead yet. Rosario LaConti’s not a man to be underestimated.”
Tessio shook his head, as if he were deeply sorry about what he had to say. “He’s good as dead.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Most of his men have already gone over to Mariposa.”
“LaConti’s not dead till he’s dead!” Genco barked. “And if that happens, look out! Once Prohibition’s done, we’ll all be under Joe’s thumb. He’ll be calling the shots, carving up what’s left of the pie so that he’s sure to get the biggest piece. Mariposa’s will be the strongest of the families, anywhere—New York, wherever.”
“ ’Cept Sicily,” Clemenza said.
Genco ignored him. “But, like I say, LaConti’s not dead yet—and until Joe takes care of him, that’s got to be his first concern.” Genco pointed at Tessio. “He thinks you’re hijackin’ his shipments, or you are,” he said to Clemenza, “or we are,” he said to Vito. “He’s not looking to start something with us, though. Not at least till he’s through with LaConti. But he wants this stealing over with.”
Vito opened a desk drawer, took out a box of De Nobili cigars, and unwrapped one. To Clemenza he said, “You agree with Genco?”
Clemenza folded his hands over his belly. “Mariposa’s got no respect for us.”
“He’s got no respect for nobody,” Tessio said.
“To Joe, we’re a bunch of finocch’s.” Clemenza wiggled uncomfortably in his chair and his face flushed slightly. “We’re like the Irish hoods he’s been puttin’ out of business—small-time nobodies. I don’t think he cares if he starts something with us. He’s got all the button men and torpedoes he needs.”
“I don’t disagree,” Genco said, and he finished off his anisette. “Mariposa’s stupid. He has no respect. With all of this, I agree. But his capos are not stupid. They’ll see to it he takes care of the LaConti business first. Until that’s over, these hijackings are small change, nothing more.”
Vito lit his cigar and turned to Tessio. Downstairs, one of the women shouted something in Italian and one of the men shouted back, and then the house was filled with laughter.
Tessio stubbed out his cigarette in a black ashtray beside him on the window seat. “Joe don’t know who’s ’jackin’ his shipments. He’s shakin’ his fist at us, and then he’s gonna wait and see what happens.”
Genco, on the edge of shouting, said, “Vito. He’s sending us a message: If we’re stealing from him, we’d better stop. If we’re not, we’d better find out who is and put an end to it—for the sake of our own health. His capos know we’re not stupid enough to steal a few dollars, but they figure they concentrate on the business with LaConti and they get us to do this little bit of dirty work for them and take care of this problem. That way they don’t have to be bothered—and you can bet it’s the Barzinis who figured out to play it this way.” He found a cigar in his coat pocket and tore the wrapping off it. “Vito,” he said. “Listen to your consigliere.”