Read Online PART 35 by John Nicholas Iannuzzi - Free Book Online Page B

restaurant, watching Sal and the two others leaning toward one another in quiet conversation, seeing again the table of Sal’s boys near the front entrance, he thought of Don Vincenzo Tagliagambe. Don Vincenzo had not allowed Sandro into this restaurant often when he was alive, but Sandro could remember vividly Don Vincenzo sitting in that chair of authority where Sal was now sitting—somehow the title Don fit Vincenzo Tagliagambe better than it did Sal—and he could almost see himself early one evening years before, bursting furiously through the door. Two of Don Vincenzo’s boys, at the front table, rose to the ready the instant Sandro made his sudden move.
    â€œHello, Sandro,” Don Vincenzo had said loudly from the back of the room. The moving toward Sandro were stayed by their master’s voice. Sandro moved quickly to the back. Don Vincenzo sat at his table calmly eating his supper alone.
    â€œSit down, and don’t talk loud,” Don Vincenzo suggested. “I been expecting you.”
    â€œJesus Christ, Uncle Jim,” Sandro said, sitting down next to him. “Do you know what two of those meatheads you have working for you did this morning?”
    â€œYou mean about your girl friend?” Don Vincenzo spoke in a very precise English, so well controlled that it was not to be classified as broken English, merely colored, warmed with an accent.
    â€œThat’s exactly what I mean. Taking my girl out of my apartment and to a gynecologist! You told them to do it, didn’t you?”
    â€œOf course. You don’t think they usually go taking girls to doctors. We’re not running no Red Cross here. Joey, bring a plate for the young man.”
    â€œI’m not hungry.”
    â€œHave a drink, then.”
    â€œGoddamn it, Uncle Jim …”
    â€œNot loud. Don’t yell in here.” Don Vincenzo looked toward the front where the boys were sitting, watching. “They wouldn’t understand why a strange young kid can come in here and start being fresh to me.” Don Vincenzo smiled warmly. “They don’t know you’re my son.” There were still many in the neighborhood who knew Sandro as the child of Don Vincenzo’s early widowed sister, despite all of Jimmy Pearl’s efforts to keep the connection from possibly damaging his nephew. But what Don Vincenzo said his people didn’t know, they hastened to become ignorant about.
    â€œThen what the hell are you trying to do to your son ? The girl called me from the apartment, crying, upset. You shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t necessary.”
    â€œHow do you know? You going to be a lawyer or a doctor? I only had her go to the doctor, to see she was clean, that’s all. You want her living with you, okay. That’s your business. But I’m not going to let her give you something that’ll ruin your life.”
    â€œBut she’s not some bimbo off the street,” Sandro complained. “She’s a real nice girl, the Park Avenue type you want me to meet, and here you have two of these meatheads, one on each side, take her to the doctor.”
    â€œHey, he’s a high-class doctor, Park Avenue. I didn’t send her to no quack.”
    â€œBut you just don’t take nice girls to doctors to have them checked like a used car.”
    â€œI don’t? I already did.”
    â€œI know, that’s why I’m here. She’s crying and all upset, wondering what kind of person I am to do such a thing. She thinks I did it.”
    â€œYou tell her your father did it. She don’t have to know who I am. Tell her it’s all right, just a doctor, a real doctor, give her examination. What’s the difficulty? She’s clean, and now you know it, and you don’t got to worry no more. What’s so wrong with that?”
    Sando shook his head as much in exasperation as in frustration. “I’m old enough to have something to say