Family Hour

Walking his Doberman down the sidewalk, Sam Oscarson paused before an immense, black, wrought iron gate.  A newcomer to the neighborhood, he was not yet accustomed to the sight of it.  It was a work of art, really, with loops and whorls and a sculpted iron vine woven through the interstices to block all view of the mansion beyond.  In the middle of this arrangement, halved along its centerline by a pair of mated doors, was an elaborate, imposing, capital letter M, the sole indication of its owner’s identity. 

Not that by now, much was necessary.  For this very same portal, set between the eight-foot, red brick walls with their distinctive slate capstones, had been a staple image on the evening news programs for weeks on end.  Ever since the announcement of a federal investigation into the ‘business’ activities of one Benito A. Manglione, alleged ringleader of the sixth-largest mafia family in America.  More widely known as Benny the Belly, due to a hearty appetite and its aftereffects, it was said that to address the chieftain by this sobriquet was ill-advised.  According to legend, he had once beaten a man to death with a rolled-up newspaper for precisely that transgression. 

Oscarson was daydreaming now, trying to picture the person capable of such an act, when the chuckles of people opposite drew his attention.  They were clustered around the Channel 5 Newsvan, fifteen or twenty gawkers, and he gradually realized that they were laughing at him.  Then he discovered to his horror that Xerxes had deposited a robust, spiral turd on the pristine cement.  Jerking the animal nearly airborne by its leash, he scurried across the street to join the others.  A fellow he recognized there as one of his new neighbors (Fred or Ed, he could never remember which), spoke up.

          “Boy, Sam, I’m sure glad it wasn’t my mutt took a dump on Benny the Belly’s doorstep.”

          “I couldn’t help it!” spluttered Oscarson.  “I—I didn’t know!”

          The Channel 5 reporter was weighing the merits of a doggie-poop angle when a midnight-blue Lincoln Town Car rounded the corner.   “That’s him!” shouted a voice.  “It’s the godfather!”  All heads swung in unison. 

The limousine rolled gracefully up to the gate, its hood dipping slightly as the front brakes took the load.  For a long moment nobody moved; the throng had become a still life of expectation.  Then the reporter sallied forth with his cameraman in tow, and the spell was broken.  

          The choreography at the Lincoln was more polished.  Three of its doors opened simultaneously; from the driver’s emerged a uniformed chauffeur, and from the passenger’s a tall, elegant young man in black from head to toe, with glistening, shoulder-length hair to match.  This latter was hailed with adoring cries of “Gino!” from women in the crowd; he acknowledged them with a toothy grin and a blown kiss that drew squeals of delight.  These were cut short, however—as was the advance of the herd—when the facing rear door discharged a misshapen golem in a worn tweed jacket.  The brute just kept on coming, straightening up at last to tower above his fellows like a goose among goslings.  Baleful orbs swept ominously beneath the beetled brow, as if determining which of these morsels to eat first. 

          Holding back with his neighbor, Oscarson heard a growl escape the dog.  At the same time, his own eyes widened in recognition.  “Hey,” he said.  “I think I know that guy!”

          “Sure you do,” said Fred or Ed.  “That’s Knuckles Malloy, the boxer.  Benny’s bodyguard.  Watch him do his thing, here; he’s the best.”

          As predicted, Knuckles did ‘his thing’—keeping the riffraff at bay—par excellence.  Even the newsman, armed with his phallic lance of a microphone, was loath to invade this ogre’s personal space.  Instead, he called past him to the fourth occupant of the car, now exiting the far rear door.  It was a barrel of a man, middle aged and squat, yet broad of shoulder and clearly powerful.  He wore a fedora, dark glasses, and a customed-tailored, camel hair suit. 

          “Are they going to indict you, Benny?  Is it true you’re leaving town?”

          The Don cocked his head as if to reply, then thought better of it.  Instead, he glowered at the gates as they opened before him, each with a different, dissonant peal, like alleycats in heat. Knuckles circled the limousine, the crowd edging forward in his wake.  Only when he stood at the boss’s elbow did the man deign to proceed.  But he’d taken only a single step when he paused to look down.  “Bleep,” he muttered.  “Cluckin’ bleep!”

          “He’s found your present,” quipped Fred or Ed.  Oscarson saw that a number of faces had turned his way, and trotted off with the dog. 

The neighbor addressed a nearby woman.  “The godfather never curses, you know.”   

          “Really?  Why is that?”

“A personal code of ethics.  He’ll wrap a guy up in chains and throw him in the Hudson, but he won’t abide profanity.  Go figure.”              

“Gino!” cried the reporter.  “Is it true that you’ve gotten an offer from Hollywood?”

The father’s sullen glare eclipsed the young man’s grin.  Then the entourage passed through the gate, and the doors swung to behind them with an emphatic, jailhouse clang.

*   *   *

Benny the Belly strode across the plush white carpet, a crappy imprint left with every other step.  Donna Maria drew hands to her cheeks when she noticed, but wisely held her tongue; she could see at a glance that her husband was fuming.

          “Leavin’ a-town,” he grumbled, the ghost of a Sicilian accent creeping in, as it did only when he was angry.  “It’s a–common knowledge.  Ev-erybody knows!”  He paused before a man in the blue velvet armchair.  “How is a-that, Peter?  How come ev-ery swingin’ salami knows-a my plans?”

          Edelstein, the family consigliere—the only person present without a lush black mane (his own hair was auburn)—was unshaken.  His sole response to the elevated volume was to pluck an invisible speck of lint from pleated trousers.  “It seems that the ship of state has sprung another leak,” he noted drily.  “It is most unfortunate.”  Eyeing each other in the doorway, Frenchy and Mitch, the ever-present pair of toughs, marveled again at the Jew’s cojones.  Nobody else would have dared to use such tones when the godfather was visibly upset.

          Manglione hovered a moment longer, then stormed away, shaking his head.  “They know ev-erything I do, ev-erything I say—”  Gino strolled in at that moment, munching on an apple.  The Don took one look at him and slapped him across the face.  The apple went flying.  “And a-you!” his father roared.  “How many times I gotta tell you, huh?  I’m not a-bleepin’ John Gotti!  I don’t want-a no publicity!  What’s this cluck I hear about you bein’ in a movie?”

          “It’s only a bit part!” said Gino, fingers pressed to his cheek.

          His father turned eight shades of purple.  “A bit part?” he bellowed.  “How ‘bout I make a-some parts outta you?”  The hand went up again and the young man braced for impact, but the Don relented in mid-wallop, and embraced his son instead.

          “Gino, Gino,” he said, almost sobbing now.  “Look at how they got me.  I threaten my own boy.  I’m sorry, Gino.”  He stepped back and shook a finger.  “But I don’ wanma no movies!”

          His son adopted a sickly grin.  “No movies, Pop.”

          The Don patted the unmarked cheek.  “That’s a good boy.  Now go tell your brother Anthony to meet me in the kitchen.  I got matters to discuss with him.”  Gino nodded and slunk for the hallway.  Watching him out, his father discovered the maid on her hands and knees, scrubbing at his Hansel-and-Grettle dung-trail with a bucket and sponge.  “Cluck,” he spat.  “Bleepin’ cluck!”  He began hopping on one foot as he struggled with the offending shoe.  Frenchy and Mitch crept forward to catch him if he fell—which seemed increasingly likely as he covered more ground with each successive hop, like a pogo-stick rider out of control.  Finally the wingtip was in his hand, and he winged it furiously at the nearest window.  Glass shattered, bells rang, and all bleep broke loose as soldiers responded from every corner of the compound.

*   *   *

Benny the Belly sat on a chair by the kitchen table, his face ensconced in Donna Maria’s ample bosom.  She stroked the hair on the nape of his neck with practiced movements, humming a song whose name she did not even know; a melody that her mother had taught her in the misty distance of childhood.  She well understood how to soothe the savage beast, her Benito; it was a skill she’d acquired early on in their relationship, at first to be endearing, then to be essential, and finally, to enable them all to survive: herself, her husband, and their precious bambini.  Grown now, the three of them, into fine young adults.  Gino and Anthony, so close in years and yet different as night and day, and Jacqueline, or Jackie, or even Jack, as she preferred to be called, not the beauty she had once envisioned, perhaps, but still quite—handsome, she supposed was the word.

          The fat man fell back like a junkie who’d gotten his fix.  “Momma mia,” he cooed, drawing her hand to his lips (but checking first for a clearing in the minefield of platinum and jewels). 

          “Eat some fruit and cheese,” she said, “and I’ll get you a nice glass of Chianti.”

          “No, no.  No wine for me.  My head must be clear for the meeting.”

          “When are they coming, Benito?  And how many?  I have only so much food in the house—”

          “No food.  Give ‘em espresso.  It is only my capos, and Peter.  And Anthony.”  He turned now to the second occupant of the table, a quiet young man with gloomy eyes, who was plucking grapes from a bunch on the platter and peeling each one before consumption.  Much as he hated this behavior, today the Don let it pass without comment.  He leaned forward to rest elbows on the checkerboard tablecloth. 

“I wanted to talk to you, my son, because I have come to a decision.  I have thought long and hard about this thing, and it has not been easy for me.  Sometimes a man in my situation has to twist and turn in ways he did not expect to meet his obligations.  Ways that are not natural for him.  Ways that cause him pain.  Anyway, here’s the scoop.  I have decided that I want you, and not your brother Gino, to become the next underboss of the family.”

His son gave a shudder.  The grape that was headed for his mouth won a reprieve, and ended up on the linen napkin.  After a moment to compose himself, he looked up at his father.  “Thank you, Papa,” he said carefully, “for this great honor.  The underboss is a position second only to to the one that you hold yourself.  Because of this fact, and because of the respect that I have for you, and for the organization, I feel that I must speak openly.  I think that…  That it would be wrong for me to accept this honor.  You see, for someone like me, for someone with my sensibilities, the duties of the underboss are…  I just don’t think that I could—”   

The Don held up a hand.  “Don’t talk,” he said.  “Listen.”  He reached across the table to pat his son’s arm, couldn’t make it that far, and drew back with a sigh. 

          “It’s like this.  Ever since Louie Peaches went up for that personal problem that he has with—children, I been thinkin’ about what I should do.  Normally, the job of the underboss would go to my oldest boy, now that he’s of age, but Gino, much as I love him, he just ain’t cut out to handle authority.  And as for my capos, they don’t…they ain’t…  I can’t trust ‘em, is what I’m tryin’ to say.  Not to take Louie’s place, anyhow.  So that leaves you.”

          “But, Papa, I’m really not the sort of—”

          “You don’ wanna have nothin’ to do with the family business.  I understand that.  You’ve made that clear to me all along.  And part of me don’t want it either.  You’re a smart boy, Anthony.  A good boy.  A God-fearing boy.  Better than your brother.”  His gaze veered off at nothing, then came back again.  “Better than me.  But there’s nobody else I can turn to, my son.  It’s gotta be you.  I know you can do this job, that you will do this job well.”  He thumped a palm to his chest.  “I feel it in my heart.”

          The son was still reeling when two women came in from the pantry.  Jackie wore the usual carpenters’ jeans, one size too large, and a loose-fitting flannel shirt that obscured the hourglass figure she’d inherited from her mother.  Her hair was cut short, and coiffed not unlike her sibling’s at the table.  Don Maglione stared at the brownish fuzz on her upper lip, trying to determine if she’d dyed it again.  The companion was about her height but older, in a tennis skirt and snug knit top that highlighted a buff physique.  

          “Hi, Papa.  This is my friend Elizabeth.”  The girls exchanged looks and coy little grins.

Benny considered them a moment before pivoting to the island where Donna Maria was slicing vegetables.  “Oh, I’ve already met Lizzie, dear,” she said sweetly, then returned to her cucumbers.  He pivoted back.  “A pleasure, there—uh—Lizzie.”

“Well, we’re off to the gym,” said his daughter, leading her friend across the kitchen.

“Watch it,” warned the Don. 

The swinging door flew open as Knuckles came through it like a freight train.  “Dey’s here, boss,” he announced, hooking a thumb the size of a banana over his shoulder.

          The godfather popped a grape into his mouth.  “That’s our cue, kid,” he said.  “It’s showtime.”

*   *   *  

          While the oils by Turner on the dining room wall were reproductions, the watercolor was an original.  It had come into the Don’s possession due to  a gambling debt incurred by a certain business magnate who, thinking at first to stiff the chieftan of his ill-gotten gains, was persuaded otherwise in a darkened parking lot. 

Further features of note in the room were a crystal chandelier, and a mahogany dinner table with a capacity of sixteen.  Four men sat clustered at one end of this, ill at ease on the Queen Anne chairs.  Two of them sported dark suits, one a cardigan sweater and chinos, and the fourth—a white haired fellow with bushy, retro sideburns—was decked out in a calfskin vest over a red shirt with pearl buttons, like he’d stepped off the set of Bonanza.  Edelstein fussed with the Venetian blinds while Frenchy and Mitch, both chewing gum, bracketed the arch to the living room.  Nearer by sat the boxer, in his usual tweed jacket with the green suede elbow patches, struggling determinedly to steer a tiny silver ball through a red-plastic travel maze.  He’d been at this quest for months now without success, but it never seemed to lose its fascination for him.

          All four capos acknowledged the entrance of father and son, either with deferential

nod’s, a mock salute, or, in the case of a rat-like specimen with matching pinkie rings, by a tilt of the head and a spread of the arms, as if greeting a long-lost uncle.

          “This is too formal here,” declared the godfather.  “Let’s go into the livin’ room.”  As an afterthought he asked, “Is it safe to talk now, Peter?”

          “Absolutely, Ben.  The engineer swept the entire domicile this morning.  We’re as clean as a whistle.”

          “That’s good.  Ain’t that good, Anthony?” he said, clapping the boy on the back.  “That they can do these marvelous things?”  His son seemed less than enthused.

*   *   *

The captains shared the two leather sofas with Malloy, whose weight drew a protest from indignant springs.  Anthony was heading to join them when his father caught an elbow and steered him instead to a  blue velvet armchair.  He himself took its twin, while Edelstein leaned against the fireplace mantel. 

          The Don cleared his throat.  “First off,” he said, “I want to thank you boys for comin’ out on such short notice.  I prefer to hold our meetin’s downtown at Ritzy’s Steak House, but this one is too important to be overheard by the wrong set o’ ears.”  Cupping a mighty fist in the opposite hand, he began to massage it absently.  

“So anyway, here’s the scoop.  The organization’s been havin’ some tough times lately, which is no news to any o’ you.  But I ain’t been sittin’ around here like some kinda dummy, waitin’ to see what shakes out.  Me and Peter, we done a lot o’ head scratchin’ lately, tryin’ to find us a solution.”  Eyes roved to Edelstein, who was examining his cuticles impassively.

          “The upshot is, I’ve made some decisions.  This is gonna affect us all in the future, and that’s why I called you guys in today.”  The fat man paused to take a deep breath, and roll his head around in a great circle that drew audible cracking noises from his neck.  The rest of the room was deathly still.

          “Alright.  As you know, the family is a couple a months now without a underboss.  I have decided to give my younger son that position.”  There was a note of surprise among the captains; Little Nicky (the rodent) exchanged a glance with white haired Farinelli, who allowed him the tiniest shrug.

“Anthony is studyin’ to be an accountant, and this knowledge will be very useful to the organization.  Ain’t that right, Peter?” 

          “Absolutely, Ben.  There could scarcely be a more pertinent field of expertise.”  A grunt of contempt escaped the Mongoose, an acne-scarred captain with a finger in his ear, but both men chose to ignore it.  For his part, Anthony seemed fixated on the carpet between his Nikes.

          “I have also decided—and I got no warm and fuzzy about this, lemme tell ya, but it’s gotta be done—I have also decided to relocate the family operations outside o’ New York City.  I think we can all agree that things have gotten so hot aroun’ this place that doin’ business here is near impossible.  So, we’re gonna move.  But we ain’t goin’ to none of them cities in the Midwest that was proposed.  Me and Peter—and Anthony—we talked it over between us, and we agreed that the best thing to do is to head north.  Way north.  As in Canada.” 

          “Canada?” blurted the Mongoose—but he floundered then in search of words, and the godfather continued.

          “Peter, explain to these gentlemen what we been brainstormin’ about.”  Heads

swiveled to the fireplace, where Edelstein was shooting a pair of starched white cuffs.

“We feel, the Don and I—and Anthony—that the province of Quebec offers us a wide range of opportunities.  While several organizations already operate there, these are small and relatively unsophisticated, and ought to be co-opted wth little resistance.”  He responded to the blank stares with a clarification.  “Taken over.  By us.” 

           “So what’s the action gonna be?” asked Little Nicky.  “Gaming?  Numbers?”

Edelstein shook his head.  “We don’t think the gambling racket would be very lucrative there, actually.”

          “Then it’s Coca Cola, right Peter?” Farinelli ventured with a sly grin.

           “No, Jimmy.  We don’t intend to involve ourselves in the drug trade at all in Canada.

The Don feels—and both Anthony and I concur—that dealing with the Colombians has been one of our principal headaches here in New York.  We’re leaving drugs behind entirely.”

          Pasquale leapt in with his own specialty.  “Prostitution will be a part of the mix, I

assume—”

          “I’m afraid it will not.”

          “Now, wait a minute,” rumbled the Mongoose.  “No gambling, no hookers, no blow—what the hell we got left here?”

          The Don bristled at the expletive, but kept his cool.  “Go on, Peter.  Tell them what our business will involve.”

          Adjusting an already perfect Windsor knot, the consigliere said, “There are several key industries deemed ripe for penetration.  Maple sugar is highly profitable, for example, and should yield easily to the slightest pressure.  As will the timber trade, and certain key commodities, such as pike and chub—”

          “What’s a ‘chub’?” asked Farinellli.

          The Don leaned onto his knees.  “A bleep-in’ fish.”

           “Wait a minute!” boomed the Mongoose.  “Sugar!  Fish!  What the hell you babblin’ about, Benny?  It sounds like you’re goin’ soft in the head!  We don’t know nothin’ about that stuff!”  His nose began to twitch like a rabbit’s.  “And it smells like sh*t in here—”

          “Shut the cluck up!” cried Anthony, rocketing from his chair.  “When you talk to my

father—to us—you talk with respect, you hear me?”

          They were all taken aback by this outburst—none more so than the Mongoose, who shriveled like a stuck balloon.  But he recovered quickly enough, pulling himself upright and wiping the doubt from his face with the poise of a lifelong thug.  Locking eyes with the younger Manglione, he summoned up some menace of his own.  “I think I missed the ‘or else’ part of that, junior,” he snarled, glancing right and left for support.  Then it felt like an anvil had dropped on his shoulder, and he looked up at the scowling puss of Knuckles, looming over him like the monster in a Japanese horror film.

“You want I should break sumpin’, boss?” Malloy asked calmly. 

          “No, thank you, Sherman,” said the Don.  “You can let go of him now.”

           The Mongoose slapped a hand to his shoulder, trying to massage some life back into it.  The fat man arose as his son sat down again.  “Look,” said the Don, commencing to pace before the coffee table.  It was made from an inch-thick slab of aqua-tinted glass atop an enormous piece of driftwood.  “I don’t like this turn of events any more than you guys.  New York is my turf, my stompin’ ground.  I grew up here.  But we gotta face facts.  This place is poison for us now.  The feds are breathin’ down our necks.  They’re watchin’ me, they’re watchin’ my children, they’re watchin’ you guys.  There’s nowhere left to hide.”

          His voice took on a manic edge.  “It just keeps gettin’ worse.  In the old days, things were normal.  They made sense.  Everybody knew what they were supposed to do.  Sure, there was cops and robbers—but we all got along.  We respected each other.  It was…orderly.  Then, out of the blue, the world gets stood on its cluckin’ head.  Joe Valachi starts shootin’ his mouth off, and after that it’s Serpico and Guiliani and bleepin’ RICO laws, and before you know it, there’s a bug in every can! 

          “And as if that ain’t enough, we got John a-cluckin’ Gotti, struttin’ around town in his a-bleepin’ Armani suits, posin’ like a-Madonna for the Daily News!”  He was starting to sweat now, and drew a hankie from his pocket to blot his brow.  Anthony looked over worriedly at Edelstein, who made a slight motion as if to say: It’s alright.

          “Everything’s going to bleep in a hand a-basket!  My underboss, he’s a-chasin’ little boys aroun’ da park!  My daughter, she’s a-more macho than-a my two sons!  My wife, she’s a-playin’ footsie with some-a cretino she think I don’ know about, and a-me, Benito Alphonse Manglione—a man of honor!—I gotta flee my own a-cluckin’ home like some a-two-bit, snot-nosed—”

“ROBBIE NOYES HERE FOR GREENCLEAN, THE ONLY CLEANER WITH THE POWER OF REAL LIME FOR THOSE HARD-TO-HANDLE HOUSEHOLD CHORES…” 

Oblivious to the gathering, Gino had sauntered in from the foyer wearing headphones, and switched on the big screen TV, which happened to be blaring out a commercial which his father especialy detested.  Don Manglione swung to the sound in slow motion, his face darkening as the pitchman yelled some more.  Gino saw what was happening then and stabbed with the remote, missing in his panic with every infrared salvo.

The godfather quivered in place like a pot of pasta on the boil.  Gesturing at the screen with a meaty finger, he spoke to Frenchy and Mitch.  “See that guy?  You go get him and you bring him here.”  The hoods exchanged a befuddled look, then left the room together.  

Gino lunged for the cable box.  “Wait!” his father thundered, and he skidded to a halt. 

“I wanna watch the end of it.”  And his voice had become gentler now; almost…serene.

*   *   *

And so it was that in the coming days, preparations were made for the end of an era.  After contributing for more a century to the economic and cultural wellbeing of The Big Apple (or, as some would have it, draining off its lifeblood like a leech or a tick), the Famiglia Manglione was at long last folding up its tents, and stealing away like a thief in the night.  A neurosurgeon from Cleveland had entered into a contract to buy the house.  All eight bedrooms, ten baths, and 15,600 square feet of it, including the pink marble crèche custom-carved in Florence.  Donna Maria had wanted to take that with them, but the Don had explained that, what with finances the way they were, fat chance.  The family had in turn acquired a charming country estate, well removed from the hustle and bustle of Quebec City proper (or, as some would have it, an abandoned pig farm in the middle of nowhere).

          When the date of departure finally arrived, the godfather found himself traipsing alone through the empty hallways, bidding goodbye to a friend who had served him well.  Not ordinarily a sentimental man, he discovered that his ‘allergies’ seemed to be causing him more than a little discomfort this particular morning.  It was in this melancholy humor that he entered Anthony’s now deserted bedroom, recalling the high-school banners and model airplanes that had once held sway within its walls.  Across the hall in Gino’s room, he pictured a stylish teenager forever posing before the mirror, his bureau-top cluttered with hairspray and cologne.  As for Jacqueline, he mused as he spun the knob, it had been all about Barbie dolls and frilly pink party dresses—except that it hadn’t.  It’d been about Tonka trucks and G. I. Joe’s and staying up late for the Friday Night Fights, and here she was now, his princess, putting a lip-lock on the muscle-bound paramour.  He made an about-face and closed the door behind him, feeling suddenly light-headed, like when he’d gone under for his appendectomy…

          “Benito?  Are you up there?”  It was Donna Maria, wife and slut, who had made of him a cuckold; but even this knowledge could not erase the magic in her voice, nor the devotion he felt, now as ever, to the mother of their saintly children.  “Come on down, Benito!  We are almost ready to leave!”

“Yes, my sweet,” he heard himself call, descending the stairs for a final time.  The door stood open before him, and beyond it was a bustle of activity: people with furniture, people with suitcases— 

“Excuse me, boss.”  Frenchy St. Claire, his most loyal minion, awaited beside the newel post.  

          “I’m in kind of a hurry, Frenchy—”

          “I know, boss, I know,” he said, beaming.  “But—we got him!” 

          “Huh?  Got who?  Who you got?”

          “The guy from the commercial!  Mr. Greenclean!  We got him in the kitchen!”

          Abruptly the clouds parted, and sunshine shone on the mobster’s countenance for the very first time that day.  “You know, I forgot all about that.”  Slipping an arm around his henchman, he changed direction for the rear of the house.  “You’re the best, Frenchy, I mean it.  You always do just what I tell ya, huh?”

*   *   *

Robbie Noyes, failed magician and screen actor, and current frontman for a line of over-priced cleaning products, occupied one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs.  A scarlet bandana was cinched around his mouth, his ankles were duct-taped to the chair legs, and his wrists were handcuffed behind him.  He looked older and heavier than he appeared on TV.  At the table with him was Mitch, perusing the Daily News as he munched on a bagel with cream cheese and lox. 

          The godfather examined his pie-eyed visitor like a specimen in a petri dish.  “I guess you’re wonderin’ what you’re doin’ here.  Well, I’ll tell you.  You’re here because you annoy me, that’s why.  You come on to the television yellin’ your head off, always yellin’.  Yellin’ out your name.”  He touched fingers to his breast.  “I’m supposed to care what your name is?  You’re nobody!  You’re an announcer!  Sellin’ snake oil to the ol’ biddies!” 

The Don came as close as he ever did to a smile.  “But I tell you what, Mr. Greenclean.  Today is your lucky day.  I’m in a good mood.  So you and me, we gonna make us a little deal right now.  I’m gonna let you walk out of here in one whole piece, and in return for that, you’re gonna promise me to keep your voice down on those ads you do, and stop tellin’ everybody what your stupid name is.  O.K.?  Sound reasonable?  We got us a deal?”  He leaned over to pat the man’s head as he mumbled something through the rag.  The Don turned to Frenchy.  “Take it off.  He’s tryin’ to talk to me.”  Frenchy untied the cloth, at which point the pitchman began doing what he did best: yelling.   

“I know you!  You’re Benny the Belly, that crook the feds are after!  Well you listen to me, Belly, and you listen good!  I’m not one of these lowlife goombahs you can shove around whenever you feel like it!  I’m a celebrity!  I’m famous!  I’ve got connections!  You’re gonna rue the day you pulled this stunt, Jack.  When I’m finished with you, you’ll be lucky to—to—”  But his visitor fell silent now, for he had seen something that stopped him dead in his tracks.  Something terrible. 

The godfather’s face was changing.  The eyes bulging out like inflatable bladders, the jaw jutting oddly sideways and the lips squirming independently of one another, like a pair of snakes stapled to his flesh.  And the whole of it was shifting colors like a psychedelic light show: now red, now blue, now snowy white and quaking—like Aetna on the brink of eruption. 

“What did you call me?” asked the face, but it wasn’t the Don speaking now, it was Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

“Hey, pal, I didn’t mean anything!  I was making a joke!  Ha ha!  That’s what I do!  I make jokes!  You can take a joke, right pal?  Right buddy?”        

“Give me that paper, Mitch.”  The soldier stood up from the table and handed it to his boss.  Then he retreated slowly toward the sink.

          Finally, thought the godfather.  Finally there was a problem that he knew how to deal with, something straightforward he could handle like a man.  “The deal is off,” he informed the announcer.  “And now I’m gonna teach you a lesson about respect.” 

          When it started, even Frenchy had to turn away.

*   *   *

          There were three news vans in attendance this time, and a multitude of bystanders.  When the caravan got rolling, a cheer went up from the crowd.  Sam Oscarson saw a movement in the window of the Town Car, and imagined the gangster to be waving farewell.  Actually, it was the oversized mitt of Knuckles Malloy, flipping them the bird through the tinted glass.  “I’m a little sad he’s leaving,” he confided to his neighbor.  “It was kind of exciting having him around.”

          “You can say that again,” said Fred or Ed, thinking, this guy with the Weimaraner didn’t have a clue.  Try shagging the Don’s wife for the past six months.  Talk about excitement!  What he couldn’t know himself, of course, was that the real excitement was yet to come.  In only about ten minutes time, in fact, when, heading to the deli for a six-pack of sympathy, he would slide behind the wheel of his cherry-red Elantra, and turn the key.

This story appears here for the first time.

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