I Contadini (The Peasants)

by Lester S. Taube

  He ran his finger over the thin scar that extended from his right cheekbone down to the jaw. Three skilled plastic surgeons had made an effort over the years to repair it without one iota of success. When he had been younger, the scar served as a badge of honor to those who believed his story that it resulted from a hand-to-hand knife fight. Actually, the wound was incurred while fleeing one night after being interrupted ransacking a house and having run along the garage into a steel bar that protruded to hold one end of a clothesline.

  But now he was in a different world, of sleekly groomed executives with smooth faces and polished manners.

  He completed his toilet, then walked into his bedroom and began donning expertly tailored, conservative styled clothes.

  His wife, Ernestine, was outstanding at selecting the proper things to wear. He had been fortunate in his choice of a wife. But then, she had actually chosen him. The daughter of Emanuel Brochelli, the olive oil and tomato sauce distributor, could have picked from a dozen eligible young men, any of whom would have eagerly overlooked her short left leg resulting from an improperly set bone after a serious spill from a bicycle when she was nine years old, and, of course, the accompanying limp that tilted her body to that side when she walked. But she wasn’t a bad looking woman. A trifle matronly, a bit too heavy in the rump, but her graying hair was always neatly and fashionably set, and she selected her clothes with the same care as she did Carlo’s.

  When he opened the dresser drawer to take out his platinum wrist watch, he saw the dark bulk of a thirty-eight caliber revolver stowed away in the rear. As it did so often now, the sight of the weapon flushed up a flood of memories.

  He had been one of the new generation, the Italo-American boys. Born on the north side of Chicago, he never really realized until he was a gangling youth of twelve that most kids had parents actually born in the United States. Those kids, of course, weren’t Italians, for among the hundreds of families which comprised his world, not one could make that exalted claim. In fact, many children his sister’s age, eighteen years his senior, had immigrated with their parents. The old people could barely speak English, and nobody ever heard that language spoken in the home. To the members of his ghetto, they were not Americans, but Italians residing in America.

  Carlo grew up the same as every other boy in his neighborhood did. School was a waste of time, but the truant officer would raise hell with your father if you didn’t attend. He, in turn, would lay an open hand across your head so heavily that going to classes was the lesser of the two evils. Anything not nailed down was stolen. By twelve years old, he had sexual intercourse with half a dozen girls, four of them first cousins or aunts approximately his own age. In later years Carlo would chuckle to himself as he watched girl after girl walk down the aisle in gleaming white wedding dresses with demure, virginal smiles on their faces, accompanied by proud fathers filled with relief at having brought their darlings to this place with an intact hymen. It is true that at age thirteen and fourteen most of the girls locked their legs shut until a ring was placed on their finger, but in his world there wasn’t a youngster from ten to twelve who hadn’t experimented with some form of intercourse.

  He had come from a small family, only his father, mother, older sister and himself. His father owned a bicycle repair shop until the early nineteen twenties, then he became an automobile mechanic. He wasn’t an expert mechanic, but he was indeed a lucky one, for he never missed one day of work even during the Great Depression. Of course his salary barely kept body and soul together, but there was always enough to eat, shoes were promptly repaired when they developed holes, and a nickel or a dime was available for the collection plate in church.

  Carlo killed his first man when he was but thirteen years old. He did this to help his gang, a group of boys from his street aged ten to fourteen. They numbered about a dozen, and met after school each day to rove the neighborhood until supper. Every neighborhood in every section of town, no matter its ethnic character, contained its neighborhood gang.

  The killing of the man was an accident. One of the gang members spied a package on a table by an unlocked window. While the others grouped close to the building to shelter him, he pushed open the window and pulled it out. Package in hand, the boys melted into a nearby alley. In the midst of unwrapping the brown paper, a man charged around the corner. One boy shouted, “Watch out!” While the younger boys began to scatter, three of the older ones picked up rocks to hold off the intruder for a few seconds. Carlo’s was a freakish throw. His rock struck the man at the exact point on his skull where he had been wounded only a year earlier at Château-Thierry during the World War. A bone splinter was driven into the brain. The man fell heavily to the ground, jerking and threshing until the police arrived, alerted by a vender who saw the sprawled body a few minutes after he was struck. By the time an ambulance clanged up to take the injured man away, it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that the unfortunate victim was a temporary replacement for the local life insurance collector and had turned into the alley to relieve a chronically weak bladder. The man continued to jerk and thresh in the hospital for another fourteen hours before he died without once regaining consciousness.

  The neighborhood knew exactly who threw the fatal stone. Had Carlo been a bad boy, as his neighbors applied that term, his identity would have been swiftly passed on to the police. As it was, no one knew anything, and from experience the police were realistic enough to drop the dossier into file thirteen.

  Carlo killed his second man when he was eighteen years old, this time deliberately. Since leaving high school at age sixteen, he had worked as a Marker for a local horse betting parlor. It was not a glamorous job, but having shown an early aptitude for figures, a gainful one. His duty was to post the odds on the Tote Board in the betting room, and his clear, bold printing was frequently complimented. It was not as simple as it might sound. He had to copy swiftly from information sheets or, over the din of the room, from a Talker, and he had to place his numbers in the proper columns without dawdling or double-checking. In an equally clear, bold voice, he paraphrased the odds, the positions of the horses, and when the results came in, his voice grew strident as he named the winners.

  During his two years of work in the betting room, the only unusual incidents that took place were the periodic raids, known well in advance, during which the Tote Boards were erased, covered with travel posters, and round tables carried in to be circled by the lines of chairs. The raids always took place promptly on time, the score or more men playing cards at the tables dutifully charged for having pennies and nickels in the game. The small fines were paid by the parlor, the Tote Boards were uncovered, brought up to date, the tables removed, and beer passed around to the regulars for the inconvenience of having to wait until after the raid to bet.

  It was on a cold, windy December afternoon that three men broke into the parlor, coat collars turned up, hat brims pulled low, revolvers in their hands. One of the three had been betting there periodically for a number of months, so the clerk in the grocery store, through which the customers passed to enter the parlor, did not press the warning button. Worst of all, Benito, the guard stationed at the door, did not become suspicious when the man he recognized positioned his face close to the peek slot to conceal his comrades from view.

  Although the cold weather kept several of the regulars home that day, business was still brisk. Almost two thousand dollars were taken from the Pay Man, and about three hundred from the customers.

  Nobody attempted to interfere with the holdup men. Benito’s gun was lifted from its holster, and a sawed off shotgun removed from the Pay Man’s cage. In less than three minutes, the three men left.

  Enzio Giordano, the owner, was contacted immediately at his office by the Pay Man. He was at the parlor in fifteen minutes with new funds. Each customer was asked to name his loss and refunded by Giordano on the spot. A case of whisky was brought in, sandwiches were prepared by the grocery clerk, and the customers invited to tank up
.

  At the close of business, when all but the employees had gone, the smile on Giordano’s face vanished. He held a meeting of the five men working in the parlor to review all the details of the holdup. Then each employee was given a bonus of five dollars and told to forget the incident.

  During the following week Giordano spent more time at the parlor than was usual, until one day he took Carlo off to one side and quietly told him to wait behind after the rest had gone. Alone in the room, he opened two bottles of beer and passed one across to Carlo.

  “Carlo,” he said, puffing on a twisted Italian rope cigar. “You are a good worker.” He found it difficult to express himself properly in English, so he switched to Italian. “We have found the animales who stole our money. One of them sang a little tune.” He puffed harder on the cigar and looked heavily at the young man. “I brought you into my business two years ago because you are a good boy,” he hesitated for the slightest time to empathize his point, “even though there was an incident.” He tilted his head slightly. “In an alley.”

  Carlo said nothing, but sat up properly and respectfully.

  “I was wondering,” said Giordano carefully, “whether you were disturbed by what happened in the alley.”

  Carlo knew at once what was coming. “I did not mind,” he replied without hesitation or equivocation.

  “Bene, bene,” said Giordano, nodding his head with satisfaction. “What do you think should be done to a trusted one who gave help to the animales who held us up? A sucker of blood who fouled the hand of a friend?”

  Carlo was positive of his position now. “He should be severely punished.”

  “Good, good. Do you know of whom I speak?”

  “No.”

  “Thomas, the Pay Man. The bird that sang gave his name.” He leaned nearer, his cigar smoke enveloping them both, his eyes closed to narrow slits. “I would like you to punish him. Will you take care of that for me? As a friend.”

  Carlo did not even wonder why his throat was not dry. “I will need a gun,” he said, gazing openly at Giordano, his voice as calm as if he was discussing the day’s work.

  “I have one in my car.”

  “Very well.”

  Giordano waited for him to say more, but Carlo remained silent. He leaned closer again. “How much would you want to do this small favor for me?”

  “I will let you decide that.”

  A smile of pleasure lit up Giordano’s face. He clasped Carlo on the shoulder. “Bene, bene. We will go out to the car now.”

  Killing Thomas was a messy job, although it all started well. He followed the middle-aged Pay Man for a few days, learned his habit of stopping off after work at a neighborhood bar to play dominoes with a few cronies, then, after a beer or two, going directly home to a small apartment in a tall, weathered building. He was married to a slab sided woman with big shoulders and long arms, and they had a feeble-minded son of twenty-two who was kept under lock and key in his room.

  Carlo had to be especially cautious when walking near the home of Thomas. Italian neighborhoods are clannish, every apartment house having an observer or two watching each move on the street. With rooms of paper-thin walls, and with the old ones sitting at windows most of the day scrutinizing all that occurred in their little worlds, nothing is sacred or secret.

  There was one gap in all those scores of eyes. From the bar to the nearby corner was a distance of perhaps forty feet. Only one apartment house, situated across the street, had a direct view of this area. In addition, from the lighted front of the bar to the street light on the corner, most of this forty feet was in shadow. Carlo waited there.

  Thomas came out of the bar in good humor; he had won the last two domino games. He started walking to the corner, the pupils of his eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. The December night was cold, although the wind had slackened.

  He sensed rather than saw a patch of the dark detach itself from the wall and step towards him. He was not alarmed. He thought he imagined it.

  A moment later a bullet hit his head. It pierced the skin, entered part way into the skull, then turned and ricocheted off the wall. The figure fired again. The bullet bored through Thomas’ neck directly to the side of the carotid artery and exited on the opposite side of the spine. Shocked beyond comprehension, the Pay Man staggered back and fell to the pavement. Carlo leaned forward, placed the muzzle of the nickel plated revolver to the side of Thomas’ temple, and pulled the trigger. The bullet sped through his head and came out of his eye. Thomas groaned from the pain. He began crawling towards the curb. Carlo fired at his back. For the first time the Pay Man screamed as the slug tore apart one of his lungs. The scream was cut short as a flood of blood gushed from his mouth. Thomas started to choke. Carlo, still cool but disgusted with the results, grabbed Thomas by the hair, drew back his head, and thrust the muzzle of the revolver into his ear. He fired his last round. Thomas’ body rose as if it had been seared by a hot wire, then he fell back stone dead.

  The length of time for the execution; fourteen seconds.

  At the last shot, Carlo began running. He passed the bar as the door opened to disgorge several curious customers. Two or three saw the figure hurrying away, but none saw his face. A woman in the apartment house across the street also saw the murderer. She described him to the police as being not very tall, quite slim, and dark faced. This was not precisely like Carlo, for to those looking down through a glass window from the heights of the fourth floor, people tend to appear more distant and therefore smaller.

  The following morning Carlo reported to work as usual. He expressed the same degree of surprise as the other employees at the sight of the new Pay Man. He performed his duties on the Tote Board as usual, joked with the customers as usual, and uttered the same ahs and awes as the others at the news later in the day that Thomas had been murdered.

  The notification that a police visit was imminent was phoned in late in the afternoon. In a few minutes the parlor was transformed into a social club where men played cards. Two detectives walked in. They were not on Giordano’s payroll, so they were ignored. They asked questions of all present about Thomas’ job there as bookkeeper, but met only amazement at the thought of the friendly little nobody meeting such an untimely and violent death. Carlo, when queried, said he hadn’t even known Thomas’ last name until reading the newspapers that very morning. Within the half hour, the detectives left.

  Giordano did not visit the parlor until the next day. During a quiet moment he asked Carlo to remain behind after work. When they were alone, Giordano thumped Carlo’s shoulder briskly. “Bene, bene,” he exclaimed with gusto. “Molto bene. You blew that bastardo apart. You made a sieve of him.” He thumped him again. “The news is out what will happen to anyone who steals the property of Enzio Giordano. There will be no more animales coming through that door.” He drew out an envelope. “For our friendship.”

  There was more talk and pounding on the shoulder before they left the parlor. Carlo was surprised that Giordano held open the door for him. When he got home, he went into the bathroom, locked the door, and counted the money. He caught his breath at the sum of five hundred dollars. That was about forty-two weeks of work.

  A couple of days later, Carlo phoned Giordano and asked to meet with him. The parlor owner was there that very afternoon. From the courtesy over the phone, the quickness to respond to his request, and the friendly smile on Giordano’s face, Carlo knew that he now had a new status. It took but a short time to figure it out. Giordano thought that Carlo had blown Thomas apart in a fury, not realizing that five shots were needed to finish off a messy murder.

  “Signor Giordano,” said Carlo, with all due politeness and respect. “I have wanted for many years to attend a school for accounting. Your wonderful gift has opened these doors for me. I would be grateful if you would find another Marker.”

  Giordano’s smiling face relaxed. Since receiving the phone call, he had thought that Carlo was dissatisfied with the amount received and want
ed more. But he was also disappointed at losing a man who could be of such value if unfortunate incidents again occurred.

  “It is a good thing to have an education, Carlo,” he said. “But as a friend, I will be sorry to see you go.”

  “Thank you, Signor. However, if ever you require a demonstration of our friendship again, please call me at once.”

  A sincere, knowing smile now crossed Giordano’s lips.

  In two weeks a new man had been trained. Carlo was given a bonus of a month’s pay and a silver plated wristwatch as his parting gifts. The very next day he registered at The University of Chicago, majoring in accounting.

  Carlo did extremely well in college. Figures entered his eye and adhered to his brain like steel filings to a magnet.

  A few months after leaving the parlor, Giordano sent a message asking to meet him at a nearby cafe. There Carlo was greeted with warmth, a cold beer was ordered for him, and in time Giordano explained that another animale was making his life difficult. Would his dear friend, Carlo, help rid him of this problem?

  That evening Carlo bought a surplus World War forty-five caliber automatic pistol from one of his old gang. A few nights later he cornered his victim as he walked from the driveway of his garage to the front door of his house. The first shot from the powerful forty-five brought instant death. As the man dropped like a slaughtered horse, Carlo turned to flee, then checked himself, turned back, and emptied the pistol into the head of the corpse. At the third shot, the skull cracked open like a ripe melon.