“Now, you, Cettina—no offense—don’t know what the fuck’s going on here. But I tell you, at the barbecue, Mindy was making eyes at the americano.”
Making eyes! Fuck, she was eating him alive!
“And the americano was paying just as much attention to Mindy.”
Attention? He was giving her an X-ray and an ultrasound, too, for good measure.
“That’s why…” Tony says, “that’s why, although I know you don’t get it, your husband, being a genius, like I just said, can show you what’s going on.”
Cettina has no time to say, Don’t do anything idiotic, because Tony has already grabbed the telephone. “Signorina Niscemi,” he says, “pass me the americano.”
Cettina shakes her head. She’s not even listening to him when he says, “This is Tony, Signor Sciortino … Tony. You remember? Can I invite you to a barbecue Sunday night?”
Cettina is still staring into space when Tony comes back and sits down, with a big smile on his face.
What a fool he is sometimes.
“So,” Tony says, “Sunday night, the last big barbecue of the season! Let’s see if we can’t get a nice little Sicilian-American fraternization going here, and present Uncle Sal with a fait accompli!”
“Sure, and then Uncle Sal will make sure the americano disappears, and Nick has to marry Mindy because she’s pregnant…” Cettina says.
“No, my darling wife,” Tony says, “because we make sure Valentina goes off with Nick, and Uncle Sal can’t do a fucking thing about it because he doesn’t want to end up with a widowed niece! But right now I want you to get dressed and then you come back to the Arab tent.”
UNCLE SAL HAS ARRIVED AT THE EDEN POOL HALL
Uncle Sal has arrived at the Eden Pool Hall wearing a light gray worsted suit the tailor’s just sent him five months after it was ordered. Pavone wanted to make him something a little bit fruity, with gathered sleeves (“just the thing on a light-colored suit”). Uncle Sal let him do it, and when it was ready he looked at himself in the mirror and even liked the gathering at the shoulders. Then he imagined himself walking along Via Etnea dressed that way, and changed his mind.
But now, at the Eden Pool Hall, Uncle Sal’s in a very good mood. His new suit, he thinks, fits him like a glove. Sitting in his armchair on the mezzanine, he makes slow, sweeping movements with his arms the way sharp dressers do.
“Sure you don’t want me to go with you, boss?” Tuccio says.
“Certain,” Uncle Sal says, smiling.
Then, because he’s in such a good mood and feeling talkative, he adds, “Officially, this is a social visit, so I can’t show up with a picciotto.”
Tuccio, though, makes a face, like someone who can’t shrug off his doubts.
“Why the face?” Uncle Sal asks. When Uncle Sal’s got his own reasons to be in a good mood, he doesn’t like having them second-guessed.
“It’s just that … if you ask me … it’s just my opinion … old Sciortino has smelled a rat.”
“A rat? Fuck him, he can smell a fucking zoo!”
“Smell a zoo?”
“Wake up, Tuccio! You need a kick up your ass! We’re gonna fuck the grandson. Now the grandpa’s here we fuck him, too!”
“Yes, but why do you think the grandpa sent for you?”
“What do you want me to say? I think he’s planning to threaten me.”
“What? And you want to show up without picciotti?”
“Sure! I’m acting in good faith!” Uncle Sal says, making a conspiratorial face, like he’s saying, I’ve got it all worked out. “It’s like they say in Rome, You make a silent fart, only your ass is the wiser. If I show up with my picciotti it means I got something on my conscience. Instead of which, I show up like an old friend, and as soon as the guy threatens me I give him a surprised look, like this!”
Uncle Sal opens his mouth and arms wide and gives a surprised look.
* * *
In the suite at the Central Palace Hotel, where Don Lou is waiting for him with Pippino, Uncle Sal enters with his arms open wide and a smile on his face.
“Don Lou, Don Lou! What an immense pleasure this is for me, what a wonderful surprise!”
“Give me some more wine, my throat’s dry,” Don Lou says to Pippino.
Sitting in a red leather armchair, without looking up at Uncle Sal, Don Lou coughs, then grabs the glass of white wine and says, still turned to the Oleander, “You see this dickhead who just arrived? We should cut his throat open, then he’ll really smile, and seeing as how he’s such a sharp dresser, we should pull his tongue out and let it hang there like a tie, I’ll even put a nice Windsor knot in it with my own bare hands. But I’m an idiot, so I’ll talk to him.”
Uncle Sal feels like he’s been slapped in the face. He was expecting it but not so abruptly … He sits down very slowly, with a surprised look on his face.
“Don Lou … What is it? What happened? Tell me, tell me! You’re scaring me!”
“What the fuck is all this about you sending my grandson to sort out your business?”
Uncle Sal runs his fingers through his hair, then slams the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left. “Listen to me, Don Lou, listen … They been screwing everything up. That asshole Sonnino is busting my balls … and then Nicky … my future son-in-law … did that stupid thing at Uncle Mimmo’s! What was I supposed to do … what was I supposed to do? You understand, right? I couldn’t send one of my picciotti … I don’t trust them. I got the feeling one of them’s a rat … I was convinced your grandson was the only one … the only one! So he did it, and God bless him for it!”
“And what’s Frank Erra doing in Catania?”
“Who?”
“Frank Erra, that dickhead the La Brunas put in my grandson’s place.”
“Who?”
Don Lou looks up slowly at Pippino.
“Minchia! Frank Erra!” Uncle Sal says, slapping himself hard on the forehead. “Sure! The guy the La Brunas put in your grandson’s place … What’s he doing in Catania?”
“Listen, here’s the deal,” Don Lou says, still looking at the Oleander. “I’m on vacation here in Catania, so I’m taking a few days to look around, I’m going to the fair, I’m going to San Giovanni li Cuti, I’m going wherever the fuck I want. But if anything happens, I won’t ask any questions, I’m gonna … Well, do we understand each other?”
“You’re doing the right thing, Don Lou! You’re doing the right thing!”
“As far as I’m concerned, you can go!”
“About this Frank Erra, Don Lou,” Uncle Sal says, standing up. “You want I should put somebody on his tail? Eh?”
“I said, as far as I’m concerned, you can go.”
“Sure, sure!” Uncle Sal says, backing away. “Sure! Give everybody my best, then. We’re all fine. Ciao, Pippino! Sure thing!”
Don Lou gets up from the armchair with difficulty. Fuck, he thinks, maybe I’m the cell that needs eliminating! His joints are aching so much, he has to lean on Pippino’s shoulder.
“I’m going to lie down awhile,” he says. “That wine’s gone to my head.”
TODAY FRANK WAS HORRIFIED TO REALIZE
Today Frank was horrified to realize the whore wasn’t acting like a whore anymore, but a wife. Greta was sitting, not on the arm of the armchair, but in the armchair itself, with her legs crossed and her tits thrust forward, sprawling ass flat on the chair, quite relaxed, with a copy of Cosmopolitan in her hand and two pins in her hair. Frank remembered that whore Jenny Elemento, a lap dancer that Jack Gravagnuolo married, to everybody’s astonishment. “Boys,” Jack said to his best friends, “what can I do? Jenny kind of sneaked in and now there she is.”
“Get ready, we’re going out,” Frank said irritably to Greta.
Greta thought, He’s like this because he’s in love. All men are grumpy when they’re in love. Husbands, for example, are always grumpy!… That’s why, when it comes to husbands, you have to set limits! So she said,
“I got a headache, Frank.”
“What do you mean?” Frank said. “You were so keen to see the Bridge of the Sparrow and now you got a headache!”
“I know, Frank, but it’s not my fault if my head is splitting. Why don’t you go with Chaz, darling?”
Fuck, the whore called me darling! Frank thought, sitting down on the arm of the chair and stroking her head.
How much fucking lacquer did the bitch put on her hair?
“Your poor little head,” Frank said. “Why don’t we give it a nice pill, and make that horrible headache go away, eh?”
“Forget about it, Frank. Maybe I’m feeling a bit better already.”
Frank jumped away from the whore’s chair like he’d been burned.
“All right, then! Let’s go see the Sparrow!”
Greta looked at her nails, smoothed her eyebrows with the tip of the middle finger of her right hand, scraped the traces of lipstick from the corners of her mouth, sighed, and said, “Okay, Frank, let’s go.”
* * *
A short bald guy dressed in white, and a tall well-built broad who looks like some kind of nympho whore: one of the paparazzi stationed on Via Crociferi is sure these types who’ve just appeared at the top of the Alessi steps are who he’s waiting for. So he snaps his first pictures, just as Greta is straightening her big tits because the iron whalebone in her bra is pinching her. He’s followed by a whole volley of flashes and clicks.
Damn you, Ceccaroli! Frank thinks. He must have looked in the Catania yellow pages under Weddings!
Then, for some reason, Frank feels moved. The whole situation: the elegant way he’s dressed, the high-class whore by his side, the bodyguard—even Bobby De Niro hasn’t got one of those! And he remembers the Sarago, when Carmine Quagliarulo called James Filogamo, the mechanic who had a really good camera, and got him to come over to the restaurant where he, Frank, was manager, and Carmine took photos of the strippers. He said the strippers were crazy about the flashes, it made them feel they were part of the jet set all of a sudden, and when they gave you head after that, they really put their heart and soul into it. Carmine didn’t give a fuck about the film. “Forget the photos, the only thing that matters is the flash, to them it’s like coming for a guy!” But James put in film all the same, and the next day the whores really busted Carmine’s balls because they wanted to see their photos in the paper, so Carmine phoned the publicity department of the New York Daily News, where he advertised his chain of laundries, and made arrangements that they’d publish a paragraph. Even he, Frank, appeared in some of those photos, holding a tray of sea bass, or standing waiting while Carmine was busy between some hooker’s legs. One time, they even took him to the nightclub and took a photo where he, Frank, was sitting on a little couch, pouring champagne into Carmine’s glass, only Carmine was climbing all over Linda, a newcomer from San Giorgio a Cremano, and it looked like Frank was pouring the glass for himself.
And now, Frank thinks, this is happening to me?
Trying hard not to be overcome with emotion, Frank does what he used to do when he was a kid, he thinks about something nasty.
What kind of fucking bridge is this Bridge of the Sparrow anyway, it isn’t a bridge, just some kind of corridor hung in the air, more like a sewer, you can’t even cross it, you just stand under it and think, Great, now I’ve seen it, what the fuck am I doing here?
“Look at that!” he says to Greta, still smiling at the photographers. “That’s where Zeffirelli shot one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie!”
Greta wants to smile happily, and in fact she does smile happily, but it seems to her she’s not smiling completely happily. Cameron told her once that when you’re there, in the middle of things, when you’ve stopped aimlessly orbiting the world and the world starts revolving radiantly around you, sometimes it get you down and everything seems strange and distant. Even your man, even your parents.
Greta is looking at Frank, who’s looking at the bridge that isn’t a bridge, and feels there’s something wrong. Of course, she’s looking at Frank’s profile, and in every human being’s profile there’s always something wrong. Hasn’t it ever happened to you to look from close up at the profile of someone you care about? There’s always a feeling of strangeness, like, Is this the profile of the person I love? Then of course you look at them from the front again and everything goes back to normal.
So Greta glances away from Frank’s profile and looks back only when he turns to face her. But damn, there’s still something wrong with this picture. Frank’s left hand is on his forehead.
Then Greta says the kind of things you say when you don’t know what to say: “It’s wonderful, Frank!” or “Nice!” or some other crap like that.
Frank puts his hand on her right breast and squeezes it, then clutches her bra, whispers, “Oh, my God!” and kneels, right there in public! Greta thinks, Oh, my God, what’s he doing? Right here, in front of everybody! Then she hasn’t got time to think anything anymore, because she’s falling, slowly, dragged down by Frank’s fingers clutching the whalebone of her bra. There’s something coming out of Frank’s forehead, something spurting, like a cuckoo out of a cuckoo clock, but more like a fountain.
Greta wants to go aaahh with her mouth, puts her hand on her hair, feels something brush against her nose, turns and sees Chaz, his face completely covered in blood, also falling slowly.
Greta’s on the ground now. Just before she faints, she realizes that Chaz has only one eye.
* * *
Nuccio laughs, rolling up the car window. The rifle is between his legs, still smoking. Bruno Parrinello is also laughing as he starts the beat-up Mercedes that’s been in an accident, and with a squeal of tires drives up the hill toward Via Garibaldi. In less than a minute they’re on Piazza di San Cristoforo. Taking a tight bend into a dark, open garage, they scrape the other side of the car (the one that has been intact). The garage door shuts behind them. Nuccio and Bruno get out through one door and they and two other men climb into a dirty white van full of vegetables. The van sets off, its engine sputtering. It stops in front of a parked truck selling hot dogs and french fries. The driver holds out his hand.
The guy in the truck passes him a couple of hot dogs and cans of beer.
DON LOU’S JAGUAR MOVES SILENTLY
Don Lou’s Jaguar moves silently along the cobbled streets of the historic center of Catania through crowds of noisy young people. The car turns into a narrow street and all at once the young people disappear. On a corner, set in the stone, a few yards from the ground, a little shrine with a photo and fresh flowers and the words FRANCESCO SPAMPINATO 1967–1985. The name of the neighborhood is San Berillo.
There are many little shrines here, between Via Pistone, Via delle Finanze, and Piazza delle Belle. Showdowns between pimps, there’s no escaping it. The windows of the Jaguar are closed, and the air-conditioning and the air freshener keep out the all-pervasive stench of piss. The hookers work in little rooms connecting directly with the street, without running water, and all liquids are thrown out into the street in buckets. Two black girls with big asses, wearing just bras and panties, sway on their heels, leaning forward like they’ve got backaches. They’ve got scarred faces: tribal scars or acid, there’s no escaping it.
They turn a corner and … fuck, look how many there are!
Hookers in every doorway on a street a couple hundred yards long. A Moroccan in a caftan is pushing a supermarket cart loaded with beer and coffee thermoses, a cassette vendor is standing on a corner with watchful eyes and his foot up against the wall.
A black hooker (who must weigh a good two hundred and twenty pounds and has black moles as big as flies all over her face) runs back into her room and shuts herself in, closing the door with a triple lock, safety chains clanging. She must be late with her payments if she’s got to lock herself in as soon as a car appears.
The only whore with white skin is sitting in a red nylon slip on a wooden chair reading an out-of-date romance m
agazine. Next to her dirty feet in a pair of worn slippers is a plastic tray with the remains of a chicken. The hooker is cleaning her teeth with the little finger of her right hand. She watches the Jaguar drive by, with an air of defiance.
Pippino slowly turns left, crosses Via San Giuliano, carries on along Via Casa del Mutilato, and comes out onto Piazza Teatro Massimo, with the opera house on his right. He draws up in front of the Palace of Finance, a monument of fascist architecture in stark contrast to the baroque opera house on the other side of the square.
* * *
Pippino quickly gets out of the car, buttons up his jacket, then goes around the car and opens the door for grandfather and grandson. They start walking, Pippino in his brown suit, Don Lou and Lou in dark gray. Pippino walks in front, head bowed.
The door is open. Pippino goes in.
The picciotti are sitting around on chairs on the second-floor landing. They’re wearing dark suits because it’s Sunday, and also because they’ve been waiting for the americani.
For quite a while now, the picciotti have been bringing their cards to the landing and playing briscola. In the old days there was a constant stream of picciotti on mopeds, going back and forth between here and San Berillo, collecting the cash from the hookers’ rooms.
But one day Sonnino, after slapping around a hooker who was wearing a Padre Pio medallion between her tits, suddenly smelled the same scent of violets he used to smell in his mother’s room, his mother being a woman who was very devoted to the same saint and miraculously escaped death after a serious illness. Since that day, things have changed. His hookers stopped working as hookers. Now they’re usherettes in movie theaters, or waitresses in discos and pubs. And all the picciotti have to do now is listen to complaints. Dozens of hookers from all over the province come here to complain. They were all planning to put a little something aside so they could buy an apartment in their home village, open a bank account, and find a husband. Now, suddenly, they find themselves in ordinary jobs. Having to deal with the savings and loan. “What the fuck’s a savings and loan?” “They ask here for ‘place of residence,’ what the fuck should I write?”
Who is Lou Sciortino? Page 13
