Who is Lou Sciortino? (7 page)

“Sure, Frank! Everybody knows that!”

“Anyhow, Ceccarò, we need to do something for the fucking movie in Italy!”

“Sure, sure, Frank, I understand,” Ceccaroli says, then adds timidly, “And what do the people in Florence say?”

“Ceccarò,” Frank says angrily, “they buy and then they don't do shit!”

“Frank,” Ceccaroli hastens to say, “send me the cans with the trailer and I can start putting out a couple TV spots a day!”

“That's fine, but we need something … something…”

“More aggressive?” Ceccaroli suggests.

“Right,” Frank says. “Anyway, Ceccarò, I want you to organize a nice premiere in Rome with journalists and critics!”

“
You ken relex-a, Frank!
” Ceccaroli bursts out: it's a Freudian slip, his hands are shaking with anxiety. “I'll rent a multiplex, send out invitations, organize a nice dinner with you and Leonard—”

“Good, good, Ceccarò,” Frank interrupts. “Let's see, when's the best time to do it…” He leafs loudly through his diary. “
Cazzarola,
too many meetings, what a fucking life … Let's see…”

Ceccaroli's hands are shaking even more.

“So … I could be in Italy … Let's say … Tuesday of next week.”

“Tuesday? Of next week?”

“Is that too soon?”

“No!” Ceccaroli says, but even the receiver has started shaking. “No problem! In fact, it's a great idea! A sneak preview!… Journalists eat them up!”

“Good for them,” Frank says. “I'll have Miss Zimmermann call you. She's a ballbreaker but she's the only one here who knows what the fuck trailers are, shit like that! 'Bye, Ceccarò!”

“'Bye, Frank, and … thanks!” Ceccaroli says.

Frank puts down the phone, picks up a sheet of paper, writes on it, and then calls Jasmine on the intercom.

Jasmine—Jasmine Artiaco, a dyed blonde with a low-slung ass whom Frank puts up with only because she's Anthony Artiaco's daughter—arrives breathless.

“Call this number,” Frank says. “I want you to arrange a trip to Italy.”

“You're going to Italy?”

Frank looks at her.

Jasmine lowers her eyes to the notepad and starts to scribble.

“I've written it all down,” Frank continues. “Destination, timetable, date. The only thing missing is the number of people, but I'll tell you in a couple hours. Now get Leonard on the phone.”

“Leonard who?”

“Leonard … you know…” Frank says irritably.

“Leonard Trent?” Jasmine cries in excitement. “Who made
Tenors
and
Plastic Love?
”

“Chaz!” Frank cries.

Jasmine jumps. Chaz rushes in.

“She's wasting time,” Frank says, pointing to Jasmine with an absentminded gesture.

Chaz, who, unknown to Frank, fucked Jasmine during their early days at Starship Pictures, looks at Jasmine as if to say,
What can you do?

Jasmine runs out in a huff.

“UNCLE SAL CAME TO SEE YOU?!”

“Uncle Sal came to see you?! When was this?”

“Fifteen minutes ago, Tony … I already told you!”

Tony's talking to Nick, who came running straight to his house. Tony also spent a sleepless night, watching a TV auction where the presenter was getting really excited about some paintings by Cascella and Purificato.
Minchia,
Tony's got Cascellas and Purificatos in the living room, and even Carusos, just above the orange leather couch where he's stuck with Nick! But he doesn't get excited looking at them. He knows they're out of date.

“Cettina, Cettina, come here!” Tony shouts toward the bedroom. Cettina appears, half asleep, hair tousled, wearing a dressing gown like Aunt Carmela's.
Fuck,
Tony thinks,
I married a hooker!

“Did you hear?” Tony says, trying to dismiss the bitter thought from his mind. “Uncle Sal went to see Nick!”

“When?” Cettina asks in a tired voice.

“This morning, fuck me!” Tony replies irritably. Then, turning to Nick, “And what did Uncle Sal want?”

“I don't know, Tony,” Nick says. “I really don't know … He told me … he told me there was a robbery last night … here in the neighborhood…”

“A robbery! Here, in the neighborhood?!”

“Yes, a robbery,” Nick goes on. “Uncle Sal says … somebody from the neighborhood came into Uncle Mimmo's store, robbed … Uncle Mimmo and shot a sergeant.”

“Somebody from the neighborhood?” Tony says, eyes wide.

“Yes,” Nick says, bowing his head slightly.

“Impossible!” Tony says.

“Want me to make coffee, Tony?” Cettina says.

“Okay,” Tony says, “make coffee, but hey? Put some clothes on, will you?”

Cettina looks at him, alarmed, then looks at Nick with an expression of patient resignation and heads for the kitchen.

“Did you see the way she dresses?” Tony says.

Nick looks in embarrassment at the window and the view of the garden.

“But you know, Nick,” Tony continues, crossing his legs to reveal the cardinal-red socks under the cuffs of his purple pants, “you know what happens to somebody in this neighborhood who does a robbery and shoots a sergeant? I mean: to you it may seem normal, I don't know, like on TV, in
Baretta,
a guy wakes up in the morning, puts on his jumpsuit, takes his gun from the gun drawer …
Minchia,
you ever notice something? In those TV shows, they never lock that fucking drawer. There are guns in there, and gold bracelets and necklaces, and wads as thick as this in gold money clips, it makes you think, if some deadbeat nigger has got so much money and so many gold things in that fucking gun drawer, what does he gotta do another robbery for? But the
babbasunazzo
goes out, takes a look around the neighborhood, finds a liquor store, goes in, whacks a couple of cops and the store owner, who's black like him, grabs the money, and takes off, singing like Michael Jackson! Fuck, somebody like that in Catania, they'd shoot the guy as soon as he went out the door!”

Nick is still looking toward the window.

“You see that fucking barbecue, Nick?” Tony says. “Nice, huh? It's just like one I saw in an issue of
Cosmopolitan.
You know how long it took me to get a permit to build it, Nick?”

Nick makes a face that says,
How long?

“
Minchia,
three years! And I'm a member of the Scali family,
capish,
Nick? There's a whole bureaucracy here … You want to rob somebody in Catania, first you gotta find out if they're paying protection, because if they're paying protection you can't rob them, or else what's the point in paying protection? So you gotta put yourself on the list … I mean, if you gotta do a robbery, you gotta rob the people who don't pay protection, that way the others see those people got robbed and they start paying protection,
capish?
The organization tells you which stores you can rob and which you can't and, to avoid two people showing up at the same store to do the same robbery, the organization has to make up a fucking
schedule
 … It's not like America here, Nick, we got no free trade!”

Tony lights one of his menthol cigarettes (he smokes exactly three a day), then continues. “Anyhow, once you got permission to do your robbery, you know, I mean
you know,
that sergeants don't get whacked, because if you whack a sergeant the cops get really pissed off … they never get pissed off except if some cop gets whacked, but a sergeant, can you imagine, fuck!

“When Alfio … you know who Alfio is? No, you wouldn't know, you weren't living here then … Anyhow, there was this guy Alfio who does a robbery, all authorized, papers in order. During the robbery a cop comes in, right? Now, when something like that happens, everybody knows what you gotta do is say, ‘I'm sorry, Mr. Policeman, it's true I was doing a robbery, I understand you gotta arrest me, I know it's your job, let's just try to cooperate and no one gets hurt, here's my gun, and here am I.' And the gun, Nick, is
always
unloaded, if you want to do a robbery in this neighborhood, you know, it's a rule that the gun
isn't loaded,
I mean,
cazzo,
it's a fucking rule, that way nobody fucks things up for anybody else.
Capito?
The guy does a few days in jail, and then they let him go because the jail on Piazza Lanza is overcrowded, so what are they going to do, keep people inside who do robberies with unloaded guns? The only place you can do a robbery with a loaded gun is a bank, but that's a whole 'nother story, because the protection thing's a whole lot more complicated. But if you're talking about stores, forget about loaded guns and forget about dead sergeants.
Capito?
”

“What about Alfio?” Nick says.

“Oh, yes … Alfio … So, Alfio goes to do his robbery, his gun's not loaded, right? He robs a hardware store. The guy in the store's an idiot, he thinks to himself,
I sell hardware, what the fuck can they do to me, they can burn my store down, but the store isn't mine, I rent it, and hardware doesn't burn.
You see what a dickhead he was? Anyway, what happens is, during the robbery, in walks this cop. Up to now everything's fine, the dipshit hardware guy's smiling, which is fine, let him laugh, then slip the bomb up his ass … Alfio gives the cop the gun, you following me? Then suddenly … who the fuck knows what went through Alfio's head, million-dollar question … suddenly he just loses it, picks up a fucking hoe, and goes and smashes the head of that poor cop, who's only doing his duty.
Capito?
The cop already put his gun back in his holster, he was just about to slap on the cuffs. Everybody in the neighborhood knew Alfio, he was a professional, that was how he made his living, he wasn't your usual misfit, he was all square with the bureaucracy, and suddenly he just goes crazy.”

“And then?” Nick says.

“Then … then Alfio takes off. The other cop, who stayed in the car, sees something strange happening: Alfio taking off, he's never seen anything like that, he starts the car, but then he's stuck in traffic, so he gets out of the car, but by this time Alfio's gone. Let me tell you, it was a mess. Newspapers, TV reporters, street demonstrations against protection, the police pissed off, and Alfio gone.
Capito?
”

Nick nods.

“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.”