The Godmothers

by Camille Aubray

  “For God’s sake!” Petrina cried out. “Do you have any idea how worried we are back home? How on earth did you even get here?”

  “Some big kids from the fourth grade took me with them ’cause their brother drives a truck, and he dropped us off here. They said I could ride the Cyclone with them if I gave them my pocket money,” Mario explained. “But I wasn’t tall enough. So they left us here.”

  “Who’s ‘us’?” Petrina demanded.

  “My friends,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know where they went. I didn’t want to follow them anymore. We got candy and frozen custard, and we went on the Wonder Wheel, and then I got sick. I threw up in the bushes,” he said proudly, pointing in that direction.

  “You’re lucky I found you before Mama and Papa realized where you’ve been!” Petrina exclaimed. “You’d be in big trouble.”

  “Why?” Mario asked, his little mouth turning down. “I didn’t do anything bad.”

  Petrina sighed mightily, sitting beside him. “Do you know how many subways I took to get here, even though I had to study? Do you know how hot the subways are at this hour?”

  For the first time, Mario seemed apprehensive. “I can’t go on the subway,” he said. “I still feel sick.”

  “Too many sweets!” Petrina exclaimed.

  But Mario looked so woeful at the thought of the subway that Petrina said, “I’ll call home and tell them I took you for a walk. A walk is a good idea; it will make you feel better.”

  Mario tilted his small face up to her and said in a soft voice, “Thanks, Sis.” He leaned toward her and she bent down for his sticky kiss on her cheek.

  “Rotten little charmer,” she replied. “Come on, the boardwalk is this way, and the sea air will do you good. Take some little breaths like this . . .” She showed him how her dance teacher had taught her to carefully breathe, and Mario dutifully imitated it.

  When some color came back to his face, they stood up, and he put his small hand in hers. She called home, then found a fountain and got him a drink of water. They went along the boardwalk, past sandy beaches. It was the only part of this place she liked. The sea seemed to offer limitless possibilities, in contrast to the relentless crowds and noise of this gritty side of town.

  It must have been nearly two o’clock when Mario said, “I’m better now.”

  “Good,” Petrina said. “Let’s go home this way.”

  They were walking down Fifteenth Street when Mario suddenly announced, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mario,” she said in exasperation. Why couldn’t he have said so when they were closer to the rides? Now they were beyond the public washrooms, and even if they went back, she certainly wouldn’t let him go into the men’s alone. She hated the ladies’ rooms, too; they were all grubby. Petrina, with her long, fine bones and heightened sensitivity, couldn’t help having a natural delicacy; her brothers called her la principessa sul pisello: the princess who could feel even a pea under her mattress.

  She glanced about searchingly. She spotted a seafood restaurant with ornately curved windows and its name spelled out on a grand awning, Nuova Villa Tammaro. She’d never been inside; it looked like a serious, sit-down place that might have nice bathrooms, but perhaps it wasn’t a spot where you’d bring children.

  However, at this hour the lunch service would be nearly ended, so maybe they’d take kindly to a well-behaved little boy needing their washroom while she had a cup of coffee. She wiped his face with her handkerchief.

  Petrina pushed the front door open and peered into the fancy dining room. Indeed the tables were empty, except for just one, where a fat man sat with other men in suits, playing cards with the tense concentration of betting men and looking supremely sated after their lunch. One of them stood up now. He was thin and wiry and the most elegantly dressed, but his face was a bit pockmarked, and there was something odd about one of his eyes. He left the table and headed for the men’s room.

  A woman in a long white apron came out of the kitchen door at the back, spied Petrina and Mario immediately, and hurried over to shoo them out.

  “Get on, for your own good,” the woman whispered in a low, warning voice, closing the door firmly. Petrina knew that men who played cards so seriously could indeed be ill-tempered if intruded upon. So she stood on the sidewalk wondering if she should search for an empty bottle for Mario to pee in, or just let him do it against that wall in a shady alleyway.

  “Come on,” she said to him, watching uneasily as a car pulled up to the far curb and dislodged more well-dressed men heading determinedly for the restaurant.

  Petrina and Mario retreated into the alleyway. But while she was still searching for a spot where Mario could clandestinely go, the sleepy afternoon hum was shattered by a sudden, shockingly brutal sound that came from inside the restaurant.

  Rat-tat-tat—tat-tat! Petrina grabbed Mario and flung him, then herself, on the ground against the wall. She hugged Mario beneath her and kept her head down. They heard somebody scream, and then the front door of the restaurant was banged open.

  Petrina raised her head cautiously for a quick look. She wasn’t sure how many men came barreling out, but it struck her that now they all had their hats pulled down low to hide their faces. They moved quickly into the waiting car and sped off.

  Still holding tightly to Mario, Petrina prayed that no more gunmen would come out. She waited. From a nearby garage, another car, which looked more like a tank, slowly pulled up to the restaurant’s curb. Petrina held her breath, but the driver just waited there. She would later read in the newspapers that this car was made of armored steel, and its windows were of inch-thick plate glass; but it was of no use to its owner—Joe “the Boss” Masseria—who had just been murdered here with five bullets, while his driver had gone off to fetch the auto.

  When Petrina heard police sirens wailing, this galvanized her into action. She stood up quickly and yanked Mario by the arm.

  “Let’s go!” she cried. “We’ve got to get out of here, now!”

  Mario understood her tone of voice more than the situation, and he obeyed her without a peep, but his little legs could hardly keep up with her long stride. At one point, Petrina was so frightened that she simply picked him up and slung him under her arm.

  It wasn’t until they reached the subway that she saw that he’d wet his pants.

  “Oh, Mario, poor baby!” she said, and she tied her sweater around his hips. “Come on, we’ve got to get you home, quickly, quickly!”

  When they reached their elegant house on a quiet, leafy street in Greenwich Village, it looked like the safest haven on earth. Petrina smuggled Mario in through the side door and across the kitchen, past Stella the cook, who shook her fist at them but looked enormously relieved. Petrina, with her finger to her lips, guided Mario stealthily upstairs, then bathed him and put him into fresh clothes, combed his hair, and said severely, “We’re both going to have to lie about today, which is not a good thing. But nobody must know we were at Coney Island, so don’t you dare tell your friends what we saw! We’ll tell the family that I took you to the park for the afternoon. I mean it, Mario. Do you understand what happens to stool pigeons?”

  Mario nodded mutely, still barely comprehending the situation but taking the message to heart, looking very sober. “I have to go back to my school tonight,” Petrina said in a softer tone. “I have to take my test. But I’ll be home again soon. All right, Mario?”

  “Okay,” he whispered trustfully.

  It wasn’t until the next day, after she’d gone back to Barnard and after she’d taken her exam, that Petrina saw the big headlines on the newsstand:

  Racket Chief Slain By Gangster Gunfire

  Reprisals Imminent

  * * *

  Weeks later, clutching her diploma tightly in her hand as the crowd applauded, Petrina scanned the audience hopefully, looking for a sign that her parents had had a change of heart. But she knew better. Nobody from her family had c
ome to see her graduate; her mother had made it clear that this was impossible. In fact, Petrina had barely obtained permission to be here herself—even though she was graduating magna cum laude and had made the dean’s list every semester.

  So she joined the line of lovely young girls in their caps and gowns, who were all soon surrounded by proud parents and family. Petrina smiled and nodded and hugged and kissed her friends, saying goodbye to her favorite classmates.

  “Mother, you remember Petrina, don’t you?” one bubbly blond girl said to her bubbly blond parent. “Petrina danced next to me at our Greek Games recital in our Isadora Duncan tunics. You said she was the only one who looked like a real goddess, with those wonderful long legs!” The girl took Petrina’s arm and propelled her to meet a family of bankers and bridge players. With one eye on the clock, Petrina chatted and fended off the questions that everyone was asking everybody else—which parties was she going to tonight, and where was she planning on spending the summer. Maine? Cape Cod? Connecticut? The Hamptons?

  She smiled and went into the changing room, to toss off her cap and gown, and smooth her dress and hair. Then she sidled her way out of the room, but not before one of the girls called out, “Petrina, you’re not leaving already, are you?”

  Petrina whirled around, caught in the act. “I have to find Richard,” she said truthfully.

  “Woo-ooo! Tall, rich, and handsome!” her friends said approvingly.

  Petrina hurried off to the front gate, where her boyfriend—he was actually her secret fiancé—was waiting for her, leaning against his baby-blue sports car. It crossed her mind that he looked just like a magazine ad for what a young Princeton graduate should be, dressed in spring flannels, with his well-trimmed sandy hair, and his hazel eyes so calm and confident. When he saw her, he held the passenger door open for her, then he jumped behind the wheel.

  As they headed downtown, he offered her a cigarette. Petrina held hers out the window between puffs, careful not to let the smoke blow onto her hair and dress.

  “I told my parents you couldn’t make it to the country club dance tonight,” Richard said. “They’re at the Plaza right now. Sure you don’t want to stop in and have a drink? I want to show you off to all their friends before we head out to Westchester.”

  He stroked her hair, admiring the many hues of brown shining in the sunlight. “You’re like a beautiful violin,” he said softly.

  Petrina laid her cheek on his hand. “Sweet man. Wish I could go with you. But I promised my folks I’d go to a party downtown with their friends. I’m late already.”

  “I know, baby. You and your mysterious family event. Sure you won’t even let me drive you downtown?”

  The thought of letting Richard see an old-fashioned ceremony like the opening of a restaurant filled her with dread. These weren’t really friends of her parents. More like business associates. It would be too embarrassing. So Petrina smiled her most winning smile, loving Richard for his wholehearted and earnest enthusiasm, but said gently, “Not today, my love.”

  “Listen, baby, are we on for next week?” Richard asked seriously now, taking her hand in his and kissing her palm in that slow, deliberate way that made her shiver with delight. She nodded. “Are you sure it’s the way you want it?” he asked tenderly.

  “Yes,” she said softly. Elopement, to her, sounded quiet and dignified.

  “Good,” he said. “I know a minister in Westport who’ll marry us without a fuss, and then we’ll honeymoon in Vermont. When we come back to my folks in Rye, and it’s all a fait accompli, our parents can throw whatever parties they want. But they won’t be able to run—or ruin—our wedding!” He squeezed her hand and held it, even though he was driving.

  They fell silent until they reached the opulent Plaza Hotel, with its beautiful fountain in front.

  “I love you, Petrina,” Richard said as he pulled over to let her out. He kissed her.

  “I love you, too, Richard,” she said, and they embraced once more before she left.

  * * *

  “You’re late,” her mother said severely when Petrina slipped into the banquet room of the restaurant, which was festooned with paper lanterns and streamers for its grand opening. A band was playing in a corner, and the room was filled to capacity.

  “There are so many people here, I’m sure they didn’t miss me!” Petrina pleaded.

  “You can’t count on that. People are touchy, and such resentments last forever. Especially now. These are dangerous times. Bosses being killed by their own capos! Young Turks with their disrespectful ideas! The bloodshed isn’t over yet, you mark my words. So, we must, at all costs, avoid insulting anyone,” Tessa admonished her daughter.

  Petrina had already noted that her parents, who always looked dignified, were dressed especially well tonight—her father impeccable in his well-tailored wool suit, her mother regal in a pale blue satin dress. She wished they’d dressed up like this for her graduation today. Perhaps they might have, if it weren’t for this “business” event. But her parents always acted oddly about Petrina’s scholastic achievements. Each time she received an accolade, they’d be momentarily proud, then wary and resentful, treating it like just another shameful act of rebellion by their willful daughter, which must therefore never be mentioned again.

  Petrina brooded over this as she returned from the punch bowl to give her mother a drink. Imagine if Mom knew what Richard and I were planning to do! Petrina smiled to herself, enjoying her secret. Her parents had met Richard only once, for tea at the Plaza. Richard thought they were “just great,” having completely missed the mistrustful expression in her parents’ eyes. But that was enough for Petrina; she knew better than to bring him home again and appear “serious.” She’d have to make her escape with Richard next week, as planned, before her parents got the bright idea of finding her some other husband from the neighborhood.

  Her father, Gianni, now joined them. “Dance with me, Papa?” Petrina said breathlessly, then noticed that two other men were with him. They looked up from their cigars and smiled.

  “Mr. Costello, Mr. Luciano, this is my eldest child,” her father said in a formal tone.

  Petrina stifled a gasp. Of course she knew the name of Lucky Luciano, for, even though he was only in his mid-thirties, he’d managed to become both a fearsome gangster and yet the toast of New York society. Slender and nattily dressed, he had an undeniable magnetism, despite the fact that his face was a bit pockmarked, with a scar on his chin, and one eye was half-closed, reminding Petrina of battle-scarred alley cats.

  But something in the way he moved his head made her realize that this was, in fact, the slender man she’d glimpsed playing cards at that table in the Coney Island restaurant—the one who’d ducked into the men’s room just before Joe “the Boss” Masseria was shot dead by mysterious gunmen.

  And now, as Lucky Luciano smiled at her, she glanced at him fearfully and wondered, Does he recognize me? But if he did, he didn’t seem to care.

  The other man, Frank Costello, was a bit older. Although she did not know him, she’d overheard her parents discussing him at home in hushed voices, when they thought their children weren’t listening. Mr. Costello was what they called a “big earner.” From bootlegging to slot machines, he had a Midas touch. Both Mr. Luciano and Mr. Costello were proudly dressed in expensive clothes, known to be good customers of Wanamaker’s department store.

  And, until recently, these two men had answered to that gangster, Joe “the Boss” Masseria. But because they’d now taken over his operations, it was believed that they, among others, were behind that brazen Coney Island shooting of their Big Boss, thus igniting “the War,” a spate of murders that was now threatening to blow the town apart.

  Petrina had never uttered a word of what she’d seen at Coney Island to anyone, yet she could still hear the shattering sound of the gunfire from that day.

  “Your daughter wants to dance, Gianni,” Mr. Costello said genially in a strange, raspy voice. “May I
have the honor?”

  Petrina saw the faintest flicker of hesitation in her father’s eyes as he said, “Of course.”

  Costello led her out to the dance floor and handled her gently, moving with surprising grace. “So, Petrina, where ya been today?” he asked astutely. “I didn’t see you at the ribbon-cutting here earlier, now, did I? You, I would have remembered.”

  Petrina did not dare lie to a man like this. “I—I graduated from college today.” She gulped. He stopped dancing and pulled back to stare at her admiringly.

  “Did you? Good for you! You meet all those boys from Yale and Harvard?” he asked as they resumed dancing. She nodded shyly. “It’s good to be brought up nice,” he said approvingly. “Me? I was brought up like a mushroom,” he added plaintively. After a pause, he said, “Your father’s a good man. And you’re a good girl, I can see that. Say, who are those two young bucks staring at us? How the hell old are they, to stare at you like that?”

  “They’re my brothers. Johnny’s nineteen; Frankie is seventeen,” she said, embarrassed.

  “Ah! They’re watching out for you. Good, that’s what brothers should do,” he said sagely. The music ended and he commented, “You’re a good dancer, College Girl.” As he led her back to her father he added, “Don’t let anybody break your heart.”

  * * *

  When Petrina and her family returned to the oasis of their town house in Greenwich Village that night, she gave a sigh of relief that this huge day was over. Little Mario had remained at home and was already tucked away in his own bed, but he wasn’t asleep. He heard her footsteps in the hallway and he popped up, coming to his doorway to say, “Hi, Petrina. You look beautiful,” before he yawned and went back to bed.

  “I guess he’s all right, then,” Petrina murmured. Not long after the shooting, she’d had to explain to Mario about the murder, because the older boys, Johnny and Frankie, had enthusiastically discussed the Coney Island slaying of Joe the Boss, and Mario, overhearing them, had already been putting two and two together.