Read Online PART 35 by John Nicholas Iannuzzi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Nicholas Iannuzzi
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than English. Traces of Spanish spiced Little Italy now, as Puerto Ricans reflected the insertion of a new bottom rung on the New York social ladder.
As he walked, Sandro saw the provisions stores with cheeses and prosciutti hanging in the window, the pasticcerias with their trays of cannoli and pasticciotti and the strong aroma of espresso and anise wafting out. After he finished his business, he thought, he might go see Mama, whom dynamite could not dislodge from the old neighborhood, and have some beautiful food.
Sandro walked down two steps and opened the front door of the Two Steps Down Inn. As he entered, several men, sitting at a table near the front door, studied him. They were rough-looking men, and they looked at Sandro roughly. Their eyes slowly returned to their conversation, conscious of Sandro but not looking at him. In the rear, at a side table, half-hidden by a divider screen, he saw Sal Angeletti sitting, facing the front door. At Salâs back was the rear wall. This was the seat Don Vincenzo always occupied when he was alive. It was now Salâs as heir to Don Vincenzoâs power.
Sal looked up as Sandro entered, squinted, looked doubtful a moment, finally smiled and waved to him. Sandro waved back, making his way toward the rear. The eyes of one of the men at the front, a huge, hulking man, slid from Sandro to Sal. He was satisfied that the intruder was no threat, and the conversation at his table relaxed again.
âSandro, hello,â said Sal as Sandro approached. There were two other men sitting at the table with him. One looked like a businessman, definitely not someone who was part of Salâs power structure. The other was one of Salâs âboys,â perhaps the âgood fellowâ to whom the businessman went for help in some unorthodox difficulty. âIâll be finished here in a minute, okay, Sandro? Joey, get a drink for the counselor,â Sal called to the waiter, who moved gingerly toward Sandro to show him to a table.
In another age, an age more pioneering, demanding, rawer, when nothing was fed into a computer, and when bugs were only insects and had not invaded the electronic world, when Little Italy was bursting with the energy of men bold enough to come to a strange land where they would be considered âwops,â something akin to monkeys, who spoke the âdivilâsâ tongue and who never took charity, the Two Steps Down Inn was the hangout for the toughs, the hotheads, the ones later to be known by romantic, melodramatic titles.
Nowadays, old-timers meet there, but now they meet to drink wine and eat steak sandwiches and talk, and watch television depict how it was not, and to listen to stories of the past, and to remember. It borders on the ludicrous to look at these old-timers, walking slowly with age, grayed and stooped and benign, taking pills, and to think that these are the men whose names are bandied about by the news media and in the Congress, that these are the men of the fabled Mafia. That old man who limps with gout and who canât hear and has trouble digesting a steak sandwich is a man known in some officially compiled dossier as a vicious killer. The tall man whose hands shake, who looks like anybodyâs grandfather, if your grandfatherâs hands shake, is supposed to be a kingpin racketeer. To anyone who had not heard of the infamous reputations of some of the customers of the Two Steps Down Inn, the restaurant would seem a reunion of the Italian Club, Class of â05, happy, harmless old men, reminiscing, chatting, not really interested in pillaging New York this week. Of course, there were younger men in the restaurant, but they were not infamous, not notoriousânot yet. And perhaps they never would be. Some of these Young Turks were impatient and hungry, lacking in respect for the elders of the family, and as a result they were filling the jails quickly.
As Sandro sat alone in the cool, dimly lighted
As he walked, Sandro saw the provisions stores with cheeses and prosciutti hanging in the window, the pasticcerias with their trays of cannoli and pasticciotti and the strong aroma of espresso and anise wafting out. After he finished his business, he thought, he might go see Mama, whom dynamite could not dislodge from the old neighborhood, and have some beautiful food.
Sandro walked down two steps and opened the front door of the Two Steps Down Inn. As he entered, several men, sitting at a table near the front door, studied him. They were rough-looking men, and they looked at Sandro roughly. Their eyes slowly returned to their conversation, conscious of Sandro but not looking at him. In the rear, at a side table, half-hidden by a divider screen, he saw Sal Angeletti sitting, facing the front door. At Salâs back was the rear wall. This was the seat Don Vincenzo always occupied when he was alive. It was now Salâs as heir to Don Vincenzoâs power.
Sal looked up as Sandro entered, squinted, looked doubtful a moment, finally smiled and waved to him. Sandro waved back, making his way toward the rear. The eyes of one of the men at the front, a huge, hulking man, slid from Sandro to Sal. He was satisfied that the intruder was no threat, and the conversation at his table relaxed again.
âSandro, hello,â said Sal as Sandro approached. There were two other men sitting at the table with him. One looked like a businessman, definitely not someone who was part of Salâs power structure. The other was one of Salâs âboys,â perhaps the âgood fellowâ to whom the businessman went for help in some unorthodox difficulty. âIâll be finished here in a minute, okay, Sandro? Joey, get a drink for the counselor,â Sal called to the waiter, who moved gingerly toward Sandro to show him to a table.
In another age, an age more pioneering, demanding, rawer, when nothing was fed into a computer, and when bugs were only insects and had not invaded the electronic world, when Little Italy was bursting with the energy of men bold enough to come to a strange land where they would be considered âwops,â something akin to monkeys, who spoke the âdivilâsâ tongue and who never took charity, the Two Steps Down Inn was the hangout for the toughs, the hotheads, the ones later to be known by romantic, melodramatic titles.
Nowadays, old-timers meet there, but now they meet to drink wine and eat steak sandwiches and talk, and watch television depict how it was not, and to listen to stories of the past, and to remember. It borders on the ludicrous to look at these old-timers, walking slowly with age, grayed and stooped and benign, taking pills, and to think that these are the men whose names are bandied about by the news media and in the Congress, that these are the men of the fabled Mafia. That old man who limps with gout and who canât hear and has trouble digesting a steak sandwich is a man known in some officially compiled dossier as a vicious killer. The tall man whose hands shake, who looks like anybodyâs grandfather, if your grandfatherâs hands shake, is supposed to be a kingpin racketeer. To anyone who had not heard of the infamous reputations of some of the customers of the Two Steps Down Inn, the restaurant would seem a reunion of the Italian Club, Class of â05, happy, harmless old men, reminiscing, chatting, not really interested in pillaging New York this week. Of course, there were younger men in the restaurant, but they were not infamous, not notoriousânot yet. And perhaps they never would be. Some of these Young Turks were impatient and hungry, lacking in respect for the elders of the family, and as a result they were filling the jails quickly.
As Sandro sat alone in the cool, dimly lighted
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