The Family Corleone (28 page)

In the basement, Luca was stretched out on a beat-up claw-foot chair next to the furnace. The stuffing in the seat and chair back was sticking out in white puffs where the animal-skin-patterned fabric was ripped in a jagged Z, and the claw on the rear right leg
was broken off so that the chair tilted awkwardly. Luca leaned back in the chair with his arms behind his head and his legs crossed. He was wearing dress slacks and an undershirt, and his shirt and jacket and tie were draped over a matching, equally dilapidated claw-foot chair to his right. Hooks Battaglia stood behind Luca with his hands thrust in his pockets, looking bored. Another guy with his hand in his pants scratching himself stood behind Hooks. Donnie nodded to Hooks.

“You micks,” Luca said, as Paulie and JoJo pushed Donnie in front of the chair. “You start a war with me, and then you walk around without bodyguards like you don’t have a care in the world. What’s wrong with you? You didn’t think I’d find this place?”

Donnie said, “Go fuck yourself, Luca.”

“See,” Luca said, and he looked behind him to Hooks. “See why I like this guy?” He pointed to Donnie. “He’s not scared of me,” he said, “and he’s not scared of dying. How can you not like a guy like that?”

Donnie said to Hooks, “I’d rather wind up dead than bootlickin’ for the likes of him.”

Hooks shook his head slightly, as if to warn Donnie off his belligerence.

Luca said, “So who do you want to bootlick for, Donnie? We all gotta bootlick for somebody.” He laughed and added, “ ’Cept me, of course.”

Donnie said, “What do you want, Luca? You going to kill me now?”

“I’d rather not kill you.” Luca looked behind him, at the furnace, and then above him, where a pair of big pipes ran along the ceiling. “I like you,” he said, turning his attention back to Donnie. “I’m sympathetic,” he added. “You had a nice thing going, you and the rest of the Irish, and then me and all the
scungilli
eaters—that’s what you call us sometimes, right?—me and the rest of the
scungilli
eaters come along and screw it up for you. You micks used to run the whole show. I understand how having us come in and kick your sorry drunk asses back into the gutter—I understand how that might get your goat. I’m sympathetic.”

“Isn’t that big of you, now?” Donnie said. “You’re all heart, Luca.”

“That’s the truth,” Luca said, and sat up straight in the wrecked chair. “I don’t want to kill you—not even after all you done to deserve it. I got Kelly to think of too. That’s a factor, me being with your sister.”

“You’re welcome to her,” Donnie said. “She’s all yours.”

“She is a whore,” Luca said, and then smiled when Donnie’s face darkened and he looked like he wanted to tear Luca’s heart out. “But even so, she’s my whore.”

“Rot in hell, Luca Brasi,” Donnie said. “You and all of yours.”

“Probably,” Luca said, and then shrugged off the curse. “You know what that bank stickup cost me?” he asked, a touch of anger coming into his voice for the first time. “And still, I really don’t want to kill you, Donnie, because, like I say, I’m sympathetic.” Luca paused dramatically and then threw up his hands. “But I gotta kill Willie,” he said. “He tried to kill me, he shot up a couple of my boys, he made a big noise about coming after me… Willie has to go.”

“So?” Donnie asked, “what are you doing with me, then?”

Luca twisted around to face Hooks. “See?” he said. “He’s smart. He understands: We knew where they were hiding out; we could’ve just picked up Willie and been done with it. In fact,” he said, and turned back to Donnie, “we know exactly where Willie is right now. He’s upstairs, in your apartment, on the first floor, apartment 1B. We watched him walk in about an hour ago.”

Donnie took a step closer to Luca. “Get to the point,” he said. “I’m bored.”

“Sure,” Luca said. He yawned and then stretched out again, as if he were relaxing in the sun somewhere rather than in a dank and shadowy basement. “All I’m asking you to do—and I give you my word I won’t touch a hair on your mick head—is go out there in the hall, call up the stairs, and tell Willie to come down to the basement. That’s it, Donnie. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”

Donnie laughed. “You want to make me betray my brother in return for my life.”

“That’s right,” Luca said, sitting up straight again. “That’s the deal.”

“Sure,” Donnie said. “Tell you what, instead: Why don’t you go home and fuck your whore of a mother, Luca?”

Luca motioned to Vinnie and JoJo standing side by side, leaning against the furnace. JoJo reached down to his feet and came up with a length of rope. Paulie joined the others in tying Donnie’s wrists and hanging him from the pipes so that he had to stand on his toes to keep from dangling in the air. Donnie looked to Hooks, who remained as motionless as a statue beside Luca.

“I was hoping to avoid this,” Luca said. He got up with a groan from his crippled chair.

“Sure you were,” Donnie said. “It’s a cryin’ shame the ugly things this world makes you do, Luca, isn’t it?”

Luca nodded as if impressed with Donnie’s insight. He danced a little, like a boxer warming up, throwing rights and lefts at the air, before he neared Donnie and said, “You sure?”

Donnie sneered. “Get on with it. I’m bored.”

Luca’s first punch was a single, mean right to the stomach, which left Donnie dangling from the pipes and gasping for air. Luca watched him in silence until he could breathe normally again, giving him a chance to rethink his decision. When Donnie didn’t speak, he hit him again, a single blow, this time to the face, bloodying his mouth and nose. Again Luca waited, and when again Donnie didn’t speak, Luca went at him, dancing around him, throwing hard combinations of punches to Donnie’s ribs and stomach, his arms and his back, like a boxer working a heavy bag. When he finally stopped, with Donnie choking and spitting blood, he shook out his hands and laughed. “
Cazzo!
” he said, looking to Hooks. “He’s not gonna do it.”

Hooks shook his head, agreeing.

To Donnie, Luca said, “You’re not gonna call your brother, are you?”

Donnie tried to speak but couldn’t get out a coherent word. His lips and chin were bright red with blood.

“What?” Luca asked, stepping closer, and Donnie managed to sputter, “Fuck you, Luca Brasi.”

Luca said, “That’s what I thought. Okay. You know what, then?”
He went to the chair where his clothes were hanging. He wiped blood off his hands with a rag and put on his shirt. “I’ll leave you hanging here until someone finds you.” He pulled his tie through his collar and then put on his jacket and approached Donnie again. “You sure about this, Donnie?” he asked. “Because, you know, maybe, just for the hell of it, we’ll pick up Willie and ask him to give you up—and maybe he won’t be so loyal.”

Donnie managed a bloody smile in response.

“If that’s the way you want it…,” Luca said, fixing his tie. “We’ll leave you here hanging, and then in a few days, a few weeks, sometime soon, I’ll find you or Willie, and we’ll talk it over again.” He patted Donnie a couple of times on the ribs, and Donnie threw his head back in pain from the slight blows. “You know why I’m doing it this way?” Luca asked. “Because I like this. This is my idea of fun.” To Hooks, Luca said, “Let’s go,” and then he noticed Vinnie with his hands down his pants, scratching himself. “Vinnie,” he said. “Didn’t you get that taken care of yet?” To Donnie he said, “Kid’s got the clap.”

Hooks said, “Let’s go,” and motioned to the rest of the boys.

“Wait,” Luca said, watching Vinnie. To Paulie he said, “Give Vinnie your handkerchief.”

“It’s dirty,” Paulie said.

When Luca looked at him as if he was an idiot, Paulie pulled his handkerchief out of his pants pocket and handed it to Vinnie.

To Vinnie, Luca said, “Stick that down your pants and get it all good and messy with that gunk dripping out of your dick.”

Vinnie said, “What?”

Luca rolled his eyes, as if fed up with having to deal with idiots. To Donnie he said, “We’ll give you a little something else to remember us by while you’re hanging around.” To Vinnie he said, “When you’re done doing what I told you to do, blindfold him with the handkerchief.”

Hooks said, “Ah, for God’s sake, Luca.”

Luca laughed and said, “What? I think it’s funny,” and then he walked away, through the shadows, and out the basement door.

Sandra laughed out loud at Sonny’s story and then covered her eyes as if embarrassed by her laugh, which was loud and hearty, not the kind of laugh you’d expect from a little girl. Sonny liked the sound of it, and he laughed along with her until he looked up and saw Mrs. Columbo scowling at them, as if they were both behaving shamelessly. He nudged Sandra, who looked up to the window and waved to her grandmother, a little bit of defiance in the gesture that made Sonny break out in a wide grin. Mrs. Columbo, as always, was dressed in black, her round face carved out of wrinkles, a noticeable line of dark hair over her upper lip. What a difference between her and her granddaughter, who was wearing a bright-yellow dress, as if to celebrate the unusual warmth of the day. Sandra’s dark eyes had a sparkle to them when she laughed, and Sonny resolved to make her laugh more often.

Sonny checked his wristwatch and said, “Cork’s gonna pick me up in a minute.” He glanced at the window, and when he saw that Mrs. Columbo wasn’t in sight, he touched Sandra’s hair, which he had been wanting to do since he first came to meet her and sit on the stoop with her. Sandra smiled at him before she looked up to the window nervously, and then took his hand, squeezed it, and pushed it away.

“Talk to your grandmother,” Sonny said. “See if she’ll let me take you out to dinner.”

Sandra said, “She won’t let me get in a car with you, Sonny. She wouldn’t let me get in a car with any boy,” she added, “but you”—she pointed at Sonny playfully—“you have a reputation.”

“What reputation?” Sonny said. “I’m an angel, I swear. Ask my mother!”

“It was your mother who warned me about you!”

“No,” Sonny said. “Really?”

“Really.”

“
Madon’!
My own mother!”

When Sandra laughed again, Mrs. Columbo reappeared in the window. “Sandra!” she shouted down to the street. “
Basta!
”

“What?” Sandra shouted back.

Sonny, surprised to hear the touch of anger in Sandra’s voice, stood up and said, “I have to be going anyway,” and then he looked up to Mrs. Columbo and said, “I’m going now, Mrs. Columbo. Thank you for letting me visit with Sandra.
Grazie
.” When Mrs. Columbo nodded to him, he said to Sandra, “Work on her. Tell her we’ll go with another couple, and I’ll have you back by ten.”

“Sonny,” Sandra said, “she has a fit just ’cause I’m talking to you on the steps. She won’t let me get in your car and go to dinner with you.”

“Work on her,” Sonny repeated.

Sandra pointed down the block to a corner store with a window that faced the street. It was a candy store/soda shop, with a booth in the window where people could sit and drink their sodas. “Maybe I can get her to let you take me there,” she said, “where she can still see us from the window.”

“There?” Sonny said, looking at the corner store.

“I’ll see.” Sandra yelled up to her grandmother, politely, in Italian, “I’m coming right up,” and gave Sonny a parting smile before disappearing into the building.

Sonny waved to Mrs. Columbo and then walked down the block and took a seat on another stoop to wait for Cork. Above him, a little girl was leaning on a windowsill and singing “Body and Soul” as if she were twenty years older and on stage at the El Morocco. Across the street an attractive woman, much older than Sonny, was hanging laundry on a clothesline strung from the top of her fire escape. Sonny tried to catch her eye—he
knew
she had noticed him—but she went about her business without once looking down to the street and then disappeared through her window. He straightened his jacket, rested his elbows on his knees, and found himself thinking again about the previous night, when his father had asked about Tom. Vito wanted to know if Sonny was aware of Tom’s fooling around, going to clubs in Harlem and picking up tramps. Sonny had lied, said he knew nothing about it, and Vito had looked at him with a mix of worry and anger, a look that stuck with Sonny and was coming back to him
now, as he waited for Cork to take him to their next job. Sonny had seen worry and anger in Vito before, but there was something else in his expression, something that looked like fear—and that bothered Sonny most of all, that touch of fear in his father’s eyes. What would it be like, Sonny wondered, if Vito found out about him? Sonny himself felt something like fear at the prospect—and then he angrily pushed the feeling aside. His father was a gangster! This was something everybody in the world knew, and what? Sonny was supposed to bust his ass all day with the rest of the
giamopes
for a couple of lousy bucks? For how long? Years? “
Che cazzo!
” he said out loud, and then looked up to see Cork parked at the curb and grinning at him.

“
Che cazzo
yourself,” Cork said as he leaned across the seat and threw open the door for Sonny.

Sonny got in the car, laughing at the sound of an Italian curse on Cork’s lips.

“What do you hear, what do you say?” Cork flipped the glove box open, revealing a couple of shiny new snub-nose .38s. He took one, slipped it into his jacket pocket, and pulled out onto the street.

Sonny took the other one and looked it over. “Nico get these from Vinnie?”

“Like you said,” Cork answered. “Don’t you trust Nico?”

“Sure,” Sonny said, “just checking.”

“Jaysus!” Cork yelled, and he flung himself back in his seat as if he’d just been hit with a bolt of lightning. “I’m glad to be getting my arse out of that bakery! Eileen’s been on the rag for days.”

“Yeah?” Sonny said. “About what?”

“What do I know?” Cork said. “This, that, and the next thing. I ate a cupcake without asking—like I only been doin’ all my bleedin’ life—and isn’t she screamin’ at me like I’m sending her to the poorhouse? Mother of God, Sonny! I’m takin’ one of those expensive bottles of wine for myself. I deserve it.”