The Mezzogiorno Social Club

by Ercole Gaudioso

  No matter the weather, she turned on the ceiling fans that mixed the stink of stale cigarettes and stogies with whatever fresh air the front and back doors let in. So easy, those first hours of each day, horseshoes and steel wheels yet to begin hammering the street.

  She set up coffee, gulped half a cup, then got to sweeping and mopping and keeping sharp for a coin left on the tables that the last night’s card players may have kindly forgotten.

  On Sundays she opened the club, but only to start the sauce. By the time she and Laurio were at Mass, Philomena pictured the pot simmering and men visiting with boxes of pastries, or bottles and jars of wine, then sitting and speaking in whispers with Happy Carmine Tonno.

  Sometimes there had been talk that perhaps she should not have heard. Of that she remained uninterested, but of things not mentioned she stayed curious and alert. Like the black jacket.

  The one called The Ox, or Benny Carlucco, or Vito Red, but usually Vito, keyed her into the cellar office, cool and damp with its walls of sweating concrete, to clean and to get her pay from the safe next to the desk.

  Philomena never considered herself a lovely woman. No color in her wide face, she wore no skirts fashioned to decorate the shapely heft of her torso — Laurio was a big boy don’t forget, she often explained to a looking glass.

  Yet, on a bright day, high sun glaring off the concrete of the back alley, she followed Vito into the cellar, musty after days of rain that had ended that morning. Stepping on the floor crowded with tubs, barrels and bottles of the wine makers, she felt Vito touching her. Not with his hands, but with the horse eyes that usually avoided her.

  “You work hard, Signora. Perhaps a companion would care to visit with you for a dress one would not wear to clean for others.”

  “And who would do that?”

  “My generosity is not unknown.”

  “And then what?”

  “That is for us to see.” Vito grinned now.

  “Please, my pay.”

  “Yes,” Vito said, then sat behind the desk. “But please, Signora,” he said, spinning the safe’s dial. “Say nothing, but I have been contacted by representatives of the Vatican to locate a certain work of art brought here by one of their priests for the benefit of so many poor people, who, like you, show dedication to the Church and Our Lord.”

  Looking into Philomena’s face, he took the envelope with her pay and held it in his hand.

  “Saint Anthony will help you find it,” she said.

  “Signora, you knew the tailor, who had knowledge of the art, and perhaps you have gained some knowledge of it too.”

  “I have not.”

  “A handsome reward is likely for the good person who helps return it to its true owners.”

  “It is sad that I know nothing,” she said, but felt a sense that soon she would. “My pay please.”

  In Case the Zuccon’ Gets Back

  When Lucia left the neighborhood for Madison Square, jealousy, envy and tongues of gossip that reached Joe Petrosino’s ears, turned the thunder in his chest to acid.

  Still, wearing a new bow tie, new collar and bowler, and carrying a box of chocolates under his arm, he walked into the dress shop. He looked quickly to Enzo asleep, his head of curls like those of his aunt Rosina, so black against the scrubbed sheets he slept in.

  “A beautiful child,” he said, staring at the baby till Lucia stood from the work table to take the candy box from Joe’s hand.

  “The chocolates I love, Giuseppe.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said, his smile shy.

  “You are so good,” she said, smiling warmly, and kissing his cheek. “I have veal and peppers warming in the back. I’ll fix you some.”

  “No, no thank you. I came only to visit quickly.”

  “It is good that you visit. We have seen too little of you.”

  Joe felt tiny, stinging beads of sweat at the back of his neck. He took a handkerchief from his pocket. “I have hesitated to consider that you would accompany me to a dinner and to the opera, but now I have decided to ask you.” He felt his face wearing the smile of a child and he got rid of it with the help of the handkerchief.

  Lucia had been keeping her own warm smile, but now her face saddened, and her eyes went soft. She set the box of chocolates on the table. “You are kind, Giuseppe, but if I were to accompany you, I would allow you to think that my affection for you is as yours seems for me. I can have no interest in any man, not even one as fine as you.”

  “Is that not difficult to say?” If Joe had allowed a second, he would not have spoken. But disappointment and embarrassment triggered his tongue.

  “What do you mean?” Lucia asked, not with a challenge.

  “I am sorry. I had no intention ...”

  “I have done nothing scandalous.”

  Joe believed her. His gaze froze on her gaze, both of them confused, it seemed, needing something to understand. Perhaps she hadn’t read his intentions. He gathered words to complete his offer, explain the honor, but honor became muddled, words stumbled and fell.

  The phone rang, Lucia ignored it to speak words of well wishes that Joe wouldn’t remember, his concentration scattered by the ringing telephone and the kiss on his cheek turning cool so quickly.

  ***

  Looking back on that day, Joe realized that he and Strachi had been wooing the same woman and, from thousands of miles away, the Camorrista, his power, money, and the house in Madison Square, had overcome the good senses of the good woman.

  Benny Bats had told Joe of no strong arm, no threats, nothing but intentions as good as Strachi could provide.

  “He says he wants to keep her comfortable, safe, and away from the candy store romeos.”

  “He told this to you? Or The Ox told you?”

  “He did. Strachi.”

  So that was that. Lucia belonged to Strachi, and Joe could not let himself long for her, visit with her, or interview her without one of his men to lean on.

  ***

  Walking down from the squad room with Charlie Corrao, Joe said: “I remind you that Strachi still manages control.”

  “Of his money interests.”

  “His interest in the widow.”

  “And she?”

  “Our friend Benny says she is happy in the house, and will stay happy until he gets back.”

  “And then?”

  “Who can say?”

  Crossing Mulberry Street, Corrao asked: “He’s getting back for sure?”

  “We will see,” Joe said, shrugging, staring at something far away.

  “And Benny stays reliable?”

  “Until it suits him not to be. He has become successful. Money, cars, women.”

  “The widow is one of the women?”

  “Benny’s eye is for the sister, Rosina. A good woman, loyal to the widow and the baby boy. She worries that the widow cannot manage the baby and worries that she cannot manage the widow.”

  The men climbed into a beat-up department car, Corrao in the driver’s seat.

  “Will she resist what we ask?” Corrao asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t know how much one influences the other. But Rosina has been cooperative with me.”

  Corrao drove through darkening streets. Little Italy into Chinatown, into the French Quarter, then past Jews with beards, black hats and coats. North through Little Germany to Park Avenue streets orderly and quiet.

  Nearly dark, they parked on Madison Avenue behind a line of hansoms, then walked into Twenty-fourth, Joe under his latest deep derby, and the tall Corrao carrying his hat as if to show off a fresh haircut.

  They entered the gate to the brownstone’s front yard, Rosina in the window, Lucia at the open door.

  “Giuseppe, it is good to see you,” she called, smiling.

  “Good evening, it is good to see you.”

  “And this is Detective Corrao, who spoke with us on the telephone?”

  “Yes, I am Corrao and I again apologize to disturb your evening.”<
br />
  “Come, we have coffee, and we enjoy visitors,” Lucia said, holding the door. “I will take your hat, Detective Corrao. I know Joe likes to keep his, even in the presence of ladies.”

  “It is something that police seem to do,” Corrao said.

  “Police with baldness, or all of you?”

  Joe had never before heard Lucia wag a darted tongue. Joe looked away from her, let go the hurt, took off his hat.

  “A fine home,” Corrao said, stepping into the front parlor. “So nice, everything.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Lucia said.

  Rosina sat the men at a small table near the window, a pot of coffee, a bottle of anisette, and an electric lamp with soft light.

  “The boy is asleep?” Joe asked.

  “Yes,” Rosina said, smiling. “He fell asleep on my shoulder and I took him to his room. He has his own room now. You must visit when he is awake and see how he is grown.”

  “You will hear if he cries?” Joe asked.

  “We hear,” Lucia said. “His cries are for my breast, though I believe he would prefer his aunt’s.” Lucia stood and stepped to the stairs, climbed the first three or four and stayed there, her head cocked to better listen.

  “You must excuse what she says at times,” Rosina said softly. “Her thoughts are often not clear.”

  “She is not improved since the last time you and I spoke?”

  “Some days it seems so, but I worry. She says little about it, but she is bitter to suspect she suffers as our mother suffered. And puzzled that your visits have stopped.”

  “It is difficult to visit,” Joe said.

  “As I have told her.”

  “You remain loyal.”

  “She is my sister.”

  “The business is good?”

  “The customers are pleasant and treat us respectfully. But if the business were more successful, it would perhaps bring peace to her mind. She allows it now to fill with the fear of being tossed to the street.”

  “And this keeps her in need of Strachi.”

  “In need to hide her true feelings from him. She fears his return.”

  “It is why we are here.”

  “He is to return?”

  “It is not unlikely, and we must be prepared. She has heard from him?”

  “He sends letters which she does not read.”

  “There are addresses?”

  “The envelopes are blank. Benito Carlucco brings them.”

  Lucia headed back to her chair, stepping quickly. “We hear if he cries, still we listen carefully,” she said, smiling through a long sigh.

  “I am afraid we have little time to enjoy this visit,” Joe said, “and we must discuss a matter of official importance.”

  Corrao took an envelope from an inside pocket, set it on the table and flattened a palm on it. “We have photography of an item of business at your old shop.”

  He opened the envelope and slid the photo into the lamplight. “Please look at it.” It was a work order of the old tailor shop, blank, but written across it: To never again write knife letters.

  “I don’t know what this means,” Lucia said, looking to Rosina, then to the men.

  “I am sorry to say that we obtained this from a murdered man,” Joe said, “and it is important to learn all we can of it. The man was Occhi.”

  “Of the stable?” Lucia asked.

  “We think he was responsible for the death of your husband.”

  “For a painting that no one has seen?” Lucia asked.

  “What do you know of a painting?” Corrao asked. “Someone has asked of it?”

  “First Benny Carlucco, companion to Don Strachi,” Lucia said, “and then Peppone of the newspaper. I had nothing to tell them, I know nothing of it.”

  Rosina said: “It seems so long ago that Occhi was killed. Do you agree, Giuseppe?”

  “Some months, yes. We have hesitated to trouble you, but now it would help to know how anyone came to possess what has been photographed.”

  “It’s been some time since the forms were ordered,” Lucia said.

  Rosina picked up the photo. “Sister, did we not give Don Cesare a blank order sheet because we had no cards of business?”

  “Yes?” Lucia asked.

  “You must remember. It was when he asked for a card and you suggested work order to serve as well.”

  “And you gave it?” Corrao said.

  “Yes.”

  “I cannot recall that,” Lucia said, firing a dark eye at Rosina.

  Corrao looked to Rosina. “When was that visit, Signorina?”

  “In the spring.”

  “Before Signore Burgundi’s disappearance?”

  “No, later. I arrived on the day he became missing. I never knew him.”

  “Have your coffee,” Lucia said. “It will be cold.”

  Corrao poured anisette into his coffee. “Information such as you provide allows further understanding.” He sipped the coffee. “Is there anything else?”

  “Rosina has told you more than I am able to,” Lucia said quickly, avoiding a hardness in Joe’s eyes. “If we think of anything that may be important to you, we will call.”

  She stood; they all stood. Rosina walked the men to the door, and watched them walk off. She returned to Lucia standing at the table, anger in her eyes. “I have become comfortable in this house,” she said. “Maybe you have not?”

  “It is comfortable here.”

  Lucia motioned at high ceilings with plaster and oak embellishments, tall windows with curtains and drapes, at teak and cherry wood floors.

  “Would you want to lose this to Petrosino and his police?”

  “Petrosino would not.”

  “Giuseppe Petrosino is dead to us,” Lucia said. “He is only a policeman and has little place in these fine surroundings.”

  “He is not dead to me or to your son. He sends gifts to the boy which we accept. He is not dead to your Strachi, whose return you fear, yet find it necessary to keep information from the only man who can keep him away from us.”

  “Petrosino has not visited us without police purpose.”

  “Is it not difficult for him to visit a home owned by a Camorrista who saw to the murder of your husband?”

  “Again with that?”

  “Yes, again with that.”

  “Did you not hear him say that it was the stableman who killed Enzo?”

  “You claim your head is not clear, yet it seems clear to defend Strachi and denounce Petrosino.”

  “The winds have changed and have made for us a home.” Lucia gestured again with her arms, as if to hug the room. “Would you want to lose it?”

  “I would be comfortable anywhere,” Rosina said.

  “But would you choose to lose this?”

  “I would not care.”

  “Then maybe that is why you have spoken too much.”

  Rosina stepped away. “I must go to the bed.”

  “Yes, and sleep well with the encouragement you have given the police.”

  “I will clean the table in the morning.”

  Lucia’s breath quickened. She stepped quickly to end this moment. She placed a hand under Rosina’s arm and walked her slowly up the stairs.

  “I am unhappy if you are unhappy,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, my sister. I have promised not to leave you.”

  Rosina turned toward her room and whispered, not meant for Lucia to hear: “If I am unhappy it does not matter.”

  ***

  Lucia feared losing this house and the security she’d come to cherish, but she feared losing Rosina too. Rosina remained dedicated and available to hold and hug her nephew, quiet his cries, kiss his cheek, his curls and hands and feet, sing as she danced with him in her arms, make him laugh and give so much of the spirit that the two sisters once shared. Lucia had lost her share of spirit, often tried to regain it, but failed, and failed to even cry over it.

  In the middle of many nights, she dwelled, as she did now, i
n the hush of the house, its ticking clocks, a horse clopping by, or a quiet conversation passing by. During these hours, as she traveled the floors, her thoughts sometimes became pleasant. That they would not remain so, that she was suffering as her mother had suffered, she no longer doubted.

  Rosina was right. The house belonged to Cesare Strachi and only he could lose it. She had read his first letter, a promise of distant love (that touched her not at all), and passionate embraces upon his return (that touched her with dread).

  She had asked Benny on the day he’d delivered that letter: “Is he soon to manage passage back to America?”

  “You would know before I did.”

  “I would know?”

  “He would tell you.”

  “In a letter?”

  “Is there another way?”

  She’d tossed the letters that followed, still sealed, into drawers around the house, certain that if she did not read of his return, there would be no return, but considered that at some time she must read them and answer them with the same careful words of her note that had manipulated him before.

  There had been gifts too, one of them a bracelet of gold and diamonds that she took from the box, then stashed it with some of the letters in some forgotten drawer.

  She switched on the light and looked into baby Enzo’s room. Except for a scatter of toys and mechanical trains, it had stayed sparse until an American had come some days before.

  He needed a shave, smelled of liquor and horses. A cigarette crimped in his lips bounced as he talked. “Delivery for Lucy.”

  The sisters looked at each other, looked to the man and out the window to his helper and the truck at the curb.

  “A crib and drawers and a chair, dolly,” the man said. “Kid’s stuff.”

  “We do not want it,” Lucia said, as if afraid of it.

  “We can’t leave without it stays here. Where you want it, dolly?”

  The furniture looked nicer now than when the men lugged it up the stairs. But when Benny Bats visited and Rosina showed him to the room, Lucia followed quietly and startled them when she said: “I suppose Don Cesare could not have chosen this furniture. Was it you, Benito? Or one of the others?”

  “I know only what Rosina told me,” Benny said.

  “Oh, I did not know you two enjoy friendship.”