Who is Lou Sciortino?

by Ottavio Cappellani

“Anyway, after a few days, this cop who’s in the porter’s lodge just inside the entrance to police headquarters goes out to stretch his legs and sees a guy sitting on an iron bench. The guy’s sitting still, with his legs crossed, and a newspaper next to him, like he’s going to read it, see what I’m saying? Only the guy don’t got no head, I mean, he really don’t got no head. At first the cop thinks he’s seeing things, he rubs his eyes, then he crosses the street and as soon as he’s crossed it he realizes he wasn’t seeing things: there’s a guy sitting on a bench with his legs crossed, and a newspaper next to him, and no head. He runs back into police headquarters, gives the alarm, and the cops all run out onto the square, the scientific guy arrives and under the newspaper there’s a piece of paper that says: HE LOST HIS HEAD SO WE KEPT IT. And that’s how Uncle Sal got respect and took the place of the guy who was there before him. Capish? That other guy couldn’t keep an eye on his picciotti, his foot soldiers, but Uncle Sal, fuck, yes. With him around, nobody gets out of line!”

  “Uncle … Uncle Sal?” Nick says, looking pale.

  “Uncle Sal,” Tony says, looking toward the kitchen. Then he shouts, “Hurry up, Cettina! How long does it take to make a fucking cup of coffee?”

  Cettina appears immediately in the living room, all dolled up in a black skirt and high heels, with a tray in her hand and a sulky expression on her face.

  “How many sugars, Nick?” she says.

  “Two, please,” Nick says.

  Tony smiles and takes his coffee without sugar. As Cettina sits, trying to pull her skirt down, he says, “So Uncle Sal came just to tell you there was a robbery?” Tony says it casually, but while he’s saying it he’s thinking, I’m sure Uncle Sal came to his house to tell him he’s a fucking snob.

  “He told me something else, too…”

  “Yeah?” Tony says, lighting his second menthol cigarette of the day.

  “He told me … everybody saw me at your barbecue last night … talking to Mindy…”

  Tony looks at Cettina, who looks back at Tony wide-eyed.

  “At the barbecue?” Tony says. “Last night?!”

  “Yes,” Nick says.

  Tony stands up, shakes his leg to straighten the crease in his pants, and takes a few steps around the room, thinking, Fuck, last night he calls him a snob in front of everybody, and this morning he goes and tells him what he tells him … Either Nick is done for … like the antique dealer … or Alfio … or else Uncle Sal has lost his shit!

  “Tell me, Nick, is there anything Uncle Sal needs to forgive you for?”

  “Me? No … I really don’t know…” says Nick, turning pale.

  Tony makes a face, like he’s saying, I’m looking away now, I’m listening … I don’t know … to the birds twittering in the garden, I’m distracted, I’m thinking my own thoughts, then I turn around, and you tell me if there’s anything you need to be forgiven for.

  “I really don’t know,” Nick continues, “I really don’t. I mean, I didn’t go to your barbecue last night … but I don’t think … Could it be … I don’t know … could it be Uncle Sal mistook me for somebody else?”

  “You know something, Nick?” Tony says, forgetting about the twittering birds or any desire he might have to understand what the fuck’s going on in front of Cettina. “You’re right. Uncle Sal mistook you for somebody else, he realized he made a mistake, and now he wants to forgive you … He always does that when he makes a mistake: first he forgives you, then he makes you part of the family.”

  “Part of the family?”

  “Sure, part of the family … Mindy, right?”

  “Mindy’s a nice girl, Nick,” Cettina says.

  “Too nice, if you ask me,” Tony says. “Cazzo, she’s like Aunt Carmela!”

  “Don’t talk like that, Tony!” Cettina says.

  “Why? Because Nick’s here?” Tony says. “But Nick’s gotta know about our family problems! Minchia, Uncle Sal’s worried … We already got one old maid, and people have started saying the Scali women aren’t the marrying kind. You know what that means, Nick?”

  Nick makes a face, like he doesn’t know what it means.

  “Fuck,” Tony continues, “if women aren’t the marrying kind, it means they don’t want a family, they weren’t brought up with any family feeling … But you know something, Nick? I’m really pleased Sal talked to you about Mindy. Valentina won’t like it, but at least we won’t have another Aunt Carmela in the family!”

  Nick makes a face, like someone who’s lost the thread.

  “Somebody just has to mention your name and Valentina goes all red, like she just got slapped in the face!” Tony says. He goes up to Nick, smiling, and pinches his cheeks. “Nicky, Nicky, you’re a real good kid … innocent, but a good kid … Fuck, it’s getting late! Let’s go, I’ll see you to the door.”

  “Thanks for the coffee, Cettina,” Nick says, standing up.

  “Don’t mention it, Nick,” Cettina says, pulling her skirt down again.

  Tony would like to put his arm around Nick’s shoulders, but, seeing that Nick is quite a bit taller, he decides he’ll just squeeze his left forearm as they walk to the door. When they get there, Tony squeezes harder. Nick turns.

  “Nick,” Tony says. “You know, don’t laugh at this, but I’ve gotten fond of you … Is there anything you want to tell me? I’m here for you!”

  “Nothing, Tony, believe me,” Nick says. “Nothing important.”

  “Okay,” Tony says, giving him a pat on the right cheek. “You go on home.”

  FRANK TWIDDLES HIS THUMBS AND LOOKS AT THEM

  Frank twiddles his thumbs and looks at them, thinking aloud to Chaz. “You know what’s crazy? Somebody like me who pays taxes can’t go to Sicily when he wants to! I gotta justify myself to the fucking FBI!”

  “We need something, Frank,” Chaz says. “Just one thing, then the lawyer can say, ‘Erra went to Sicily for this, that, and the other, and you know what the FBI did? They followed him, they wasted public money persecuting an honest Italian-American citizen just because of his heritage!’”

  “Madonna!” Frank says. “These fucking Cuban cigars! Look how yellow my fingers are! Yes, Chaz, but it’s got to be something plausible, otherwise the average American gets pissed off. You gotta give the average American a serious reason, not serious to you, serious to him. Because otherwise he starts to go hmmm, and when the average American goes hmmm, it means you’ve pissed him off. If you don’t want to make him suspicious, either you’re going somewhere on business or you’re going to get laid! Fuck, you ever see them in the morning? You ever see one of those assholes putting his fishing rod in his car, or his tennis rackets? Bye-bye, have a nice match today, right? A nice match, my ass! They’re going to get some pussy!”

  “You’re right, Frank, you’re right…” Chaz nods. Then he takes a magazine from the table and starts leafing through it.

  Fuck it, I could ask Greta … Frank thinks. If I feel like getting blackmailed by the bitch all the rest of my fucking days. Frank rubs his hands and looks at Chaz. “Chaz, listen…”

  “What, Frank?”

  “Listen, Chaz…”

  “I’m listening, Frank.”

  “Did you ever … did you ever kill a woman?”

  Chaz nods, still leafing through the magazine.

  Frank looks at him. He doesn’t know what to say. “You killed a woman?”

  Chaz raises his eyes from the magazine and looks at Frank with a face that says, Sure I did, so what?

  “Nothing, nothing,” Frank says. “Just curious.”

  Chaz nods, and keeps on leafing through the magazine.

  Frank thinks, Fuck it, if I ask Greta to do me a favor and then get Chaz to kill her, they’ll be all over me!

  The intercom buzzes.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Trent is here,” Jasmine squawks.

  “Send him in!”

  Chaz looks at Frank. Frank winks at him. Chaz is on the alert. The door bursts open, and
Leonard Trent appears, wearing a blue suit, blue shirt, and blue tie. He stands in the doorway. He looks at Frank. He looks at Chaz. He opens his arms wide.

  “For once a fucking producer with a bodyguard,” he says. “Shit! I’ll sit here, with my back turned to the bodyguard. But you’d better look at me!

  “For once,” he continues, walking to the chair, “Starship gives me a premiere! You know I’m the one who put this show on the road, don’t you? You know who had the idea of going into the fucking construction? Me. No one but me. And you know what the fucking Sciortinos did? They didn’t even say thank you, not even so much as thank you!”

  He sits down, crosses his legs, and says nothing.

  Frank looks at him.

  Chaz looks at him.

  Leonard looks at both of them.

  “You’re Frank, aren’t you?” he says. “Erra, right? Good. Frank Erra, I’ve already realized you’re not like that cocksucker Lou Sciortino. Just think, he used to phone me in the morning and ask, ‘Leonard, when are you going to show me the new concept?’ I’d have the concept right there, on the white wrought-iron table next to the pool, but you know what I’d tell him? ‘I’m working on it,’ just like that … But you, with this premiere thing, you know what you did? You touched me, Frank, you really touched me…”

  Chaz looks at Frank, with a look on his face that says, Should I shoot the backslapping motherfucker now?

  Frank, though, is thinking, The little shit wants me to ask him about his fucking concept. I’ll ask him … you’re fucking right I’ll ask him!

  “You got a new concept to show me, Leonard?”

  “I didn’t bring it in, Frank. You know, I hate people who walk around with a pile of papers. But if you want, I can give you the basic pitch.”

  “Pitch me, Leonard,” Frank says, looking at Chaz, who turns away in disgust.

  “Okay, Frank, so there’s this guy who’s an architect. But he’s not just any architect. He builds Gothic skyscrapers, huge Gothic skyscrapers covered with Gothic statues and things, monsters, lions, eagles—you know, Gothic shit. What do Gothic skyscrapers have to do with anything? you ask. It’s to show you the character’s psychology. Imagine you go to a party and they introduce you to somebody and he says ‘How do you do? I make Gothic skyscrapers,’ you’d be all like this, right? You’d be curious about the character’s psychology.”

  Frank nods.

  Chaz looks on in disgust.

  “Exactly, you’re all like this, because you’re wondering, What sort of psychology are we dealing with with this motherfucker? And that’s the reaction I want to provoke in the audience. To do that, I film all these construction sites with all these Gothic statues around, and the guy walking at night, walking among the statues…”

  Frank makes a gesture with his hand, like, Get on with it.

  “Right. Now, because he needs statues for his skyscrapers, he’s got this smuggling thing going on with ancient statues, Egyptian, Persian, Indian, Oriental, whatever the fuck. Cut to one of these illegal yards, where they’re wrapping up statues, talking Indian, some exotic fucking language. Right now he’s got to go to Cairo to negotiate for a new consignment of these archaeological finds. But the FBI’s got him under surveillance.”

  “Fucking bacons!” Frank says, and turns to Chaz with a smile, like he’s trying to interest him in the story.

  Chaz looks on in disgust.

  “They got him under surveillance because … because … I still gotta figure that one out.”

  “They always find a reason,” Chaz says, just to please Frank.

  “There you go. Anyway, he’s gotta go to Cairo and he doesn’t want to make the FBI suspicious. So what does he do? you ask.”

  “What does he do?” Chaz asks, again to please Frank.

  “He starts going after a pop star. He’s very rich, lots of dough, he gets invited to a party, and there’s this famous pop star there. J-Lo. Let’s call her J-Lo … He sees this fantastic ass and he goes after her. He’s got the Egyptian looks, the dark clothes, the Arab mustache, he’s catnip for the pop stars. He wears those really soft moccasins the pop stars like. So he invites her to his penthouse apartment for dinner, on the top floor of a Gothic skyscraper. And of course she goes … Spicy food … full of all that Oriental crap … bedroom worthy of a young fucking Omar Sharif … Except that once they’re in the bedroom he starts to slap her around. At first J-Lo—she takes offense. Then she falls madly in love with him…”

  “What a whore!” Chaz says, starting to enjoy this.

  “Obviously, after he makes her fall in love with him, Omar refuses to take her calls. J-Lo cries and cries and the secretaries just keep slamming down the phone. Then, after letting her stew for a week, he calls her. At first she doesn’t even answer, she’s sure it’s one of those trainers who are always trying to cheer her up, one of those guys who make you do bends to dispel the love toxins, crap like that. But the phone keeps ringing and she can’t stand it anymore, so finally she answers, and it’s him, inviting her to dinner in the most fashionable restaurant in New York.

  “So … soft lights, Italian wine, duck à l’orange, candles, deluxe flatware, and Omar laughing, sitting on top of the world. J-Lo thinks he’s happy because of her, but in fact he’s laughing because a couple of hours earlier he called Vanity Fair and all the other fucking magazines and told them where to catch Jennifer Lopez with her new boyfriend. Omar goes on about Cairo, the casbah, and J-Lo’s looking at him spellbound, her eyes full of passion and love, ‘When will you take me there?’ she asks him, and he says, ‘I’ll take you there soon, right now I have a lot of things to do here in New York and I can’t just let them slide,’ and he gives her a ring. Jennifer starts crying with joy, she’s standing up to hug him … (imagine … the close-up of J-Lo’s ass) when this tide of photographers and flashes descends on their table. Instinctively, she loses her temper, but then she sees him, with that mustache, and a sly smile, and she doesn’t get it, J-Lo doesn’t get it. He whispers, ‘You can’t keep love a secret,’ or some such crap, and then Jennifer takes off her shoes, jumps on the table, and says to the photographers, ‘I asked him if he’s taking me to Cairo and he said yes, even though he’s got a lot of things to do here in New York and can’t just let them slide, isn’t he a sweetheart?’”

  “Shit! Apart from being a whore, she’s a real bitch!” Chaz says.

  “Shut up, Chaz,” Frank says. “I like this concept, I like it a lot…”

  SCALI’S AMARETTI

  SCALI’S AMARETTI: the brass sign stands out against the volcanic stone of the building on Corso Italia, a small twenties building, with a stone base and a full complement of pediments and capitals and masks. Inside, an oak parquet floor, and mahogany counters with the amaretti beautifully displayed in pyramids on large silver platters.

  Behind the counter opposite the entrance, Signorina Niscemi (the forty-seven-year-old sister of Cosimo Niscemi, Uncle Sal’s childhood friend who died of a heart attack a while ago, leaving his sister Vittoria on her own, until she was charitably taken on by Uncle Sal as salesclerk, secretary, manageress, administrator, and figurehead of Scali’s Amaretti) sticks out her chest and fixes herself up because she’s just seen Uncle Sal open the front door, which is made of glass and brass.

  Uncle Sal strides in, making the parquet floor creak.

  “Are they here?” he says.

  “No, commendatore,” Signorina Nescimi says, “but they’re definitely coming.”

  Uncle Sal looks worried. He walks to the counter on the left, then climbs the mahogany staircase that leads to the second floor. At the top, he stops in front of the first door on the left, opens it, and goes in.

  Like a sergeant’s flashlight, the light from the corridor reveals a couple of cans of beer on the floor. Uncle Sal goes quickly to the window and opens it wide. The room stinks of alcohol and smoke, and he can’t help covering his mouth with his handkerchief. The desk is a mess: on the right, six partly eaten amaretti line
d up in a row; on the left, a heap of beer cans, more amaretti, and empty gin bottles. Uncle Sal grabs the wastepaper basket and throws in the amaretti, bottles, and cans.

  “The room’s a mess,” he hears someone say behind his back, while he’s still bending over the basket. He stands up and sees Lou Sciortino in the doorway. Minchia, the way he dresses! Uncle Sal thinks, and for a moment he sees his own youth … Abby Lane, Xavier Cugat with that little dog of his, a dog for a faggot, Marino Barreto with his yellow shirt and shiny gray suits, just like the one Lou’s wearing right now.

  “It’s a little … bit of a mess, I’m sorry, Don Scali…” Lou says.

  “Minchia,” Uncle Sal says, “I’m not surprised you got food poisoning!”

  Lou looks around in silence. He knows Uncle Sal would like him to say, Thank you, Don Scali, for taking me to the hospital, but he doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “You sure gave us a fright,” Uncle Sal says. “First you go all white, and then you faint in public.”

  Lou takes off his jacket, rolls up the sleeves of his yellow shirt to the elbow, walks to his chair, sits down, and puts his feet up on the desk.

  Uncle Sal looks at the black patent-leather shoes planted there in front of his eyes. Then he pulls up his pants in order not to ruin their immaculate crease, and sits down on one of the two chairs in front of the desk. He crosses his hands on his stomach and rocks a little, then says, “This chair ain’t all that solid, Lou, better not rock.”

  Lou opens a drawer in the desk and takes out a bottle of gin. “A drink?” he says.

  “A drop, Lou, just a drop…” Uncle Sal says, looking at the glass with a disgusted expression. “You know the respect I got for your grandfather. It’s a point of honor with me that you feel fine here, Lou!”

  “I’m fine, Don Scali, don’t worry.”

  “Good!” Uncle Sal says. “Good!” Then he looks around. “But now there are some new eventualities…”

  Lou makes a face, like he’s saying, Eventualities, what the fuck is that?

  “I mean, something’s happened…” Uncle Sal says, stroking the crease in his pants. “While you were unconscious in the hospital, it was like fucking Afghanistan here, flashing lights, sirens, TV news … What the fuck’s going on? I asked Tuccio. Tuccio goes off to find out and when he comes back he’s looking really grim like he’s been to a funeral. You know what happened? A robbery at Uncle Mimmo’s! They killed a sergeant!”