Vincent unwrapped two roasted pepperoni sandwiches to break his fast. Before he bit into the first one, he poured his father a jigger of olive oil, which the old man lifted in toast to his son before he drank it down. While Vincent demolished the pepperoni heroes his father spoke to him quietly.
“You have been my strong, sure son,” he said in the Agrigento dialect. “You were a lion.”
Vincent chewed and nodded with gratitude, wondering about the past tense.
“You have never sought reward for yourself but you have earned a vaster reward than your family can ever give to you.”
Biting into the sandwich, Vincent held up an admonishing hand, an action forced upon both of them by his modesty.
“You must be recognized before the world,” his father said. “You must be acknowledged. The world must see your father’s pride in his son. You have won the distinction of peace.”
Vincent realized that something was happening. His father was glowing with intentions. He took a much smaller, warier bite of the sandwich, chewing it more like a chipmunk than like a lion. “What’s goin’ on, Poppa?” he asked.
Don Corrado gazed at him with doting fondness. “You got that gout, you got that blood pressure, you got those kidneys, and you got to carry the cross of a daughter’s shame all because of the pride you have in your family,” he said. “You gave all of us everything you’ve got and still you give us more. Well, let me tell you this, Vincent. The left hand knows what the right hand did and it is now going to try to give back a little.”
Vincent became concerned. When his father got like this there was no way to head him off. He had his mind fixed on something and he was going to get it and there was nothing that could change that. “Poppa, listen,” he said, in a flash of panicked realization that if his father was easing him out then Charley Partanna would be Boss, and Vincent didn’t want anything good for Charley Partanna.
“You listen,” his father said. “You worked for us, you gave, and now we are going to show what gratitude can be. I have talked to the Commission and to some of the key people on the Grand Council. I have laid it on them what I want and they have gladly given me the right to offer you
the
job as the moderator in Vegas. You are going to supervise our three hotels there, but—most of all—you are going to be the
Principe Azzurro
and the
parlière
of the national sports book in this country. How about that, heh, Vincent? You are going to live in a $935,000 house right on the golf course with a big swimming pool and a lot of those chairs they lay down on, and you can take any four soldiers in the family you want with you.” He got to his feet and tottered toward his son with his arms outstretched. “You have made me happy, son,” he said, “because you have earned this.”
Intense relief went to every tired cell of Vincent’s body. God had removed him from his daughter’s shame. God had seen to it that he would be far away from all the hassles of New York and also protected from Maerose. He would have peace. He would be cutting the national sports book for two percent, the most profitable financial institution in the world. He could get Angelo to come out sometimes when he needed to keep up on what was going on at the laundry, and maybe Poppa would let him organize western Canada from there. But, holy Jesus, the corded and sensual wonder of the relief was that he wouldn’t have to pretend to suffer about Maerose anymore. He was free.
“That is a terrific opportunity for me, Poppa. I ain’t been feeling so hot. I think if I stayed in Brooklyn, I might slow down. I need the kind of light they got out there. I think I can really build the sports book. Who is gonna take over, Poppa? Charley?”
“One thing at a time,” his father said. “This is your day. We don’t think about anything or anybody until we get you settled in Vegas. I am going to give a banquet for you. Something nobody is going to forget for a long time.”
Vincent embraced his father. “The whole thing is, Poppa,” he said huskily, “that all my life, I can never get done thanking you. You made everything for us, two thousand people, you made everything for us. I don’t know what any of us would be if you hadn’t
thought of it first, even Ed—Angelo Partanna and Charley—all the people, all of us.”
When he stepped back his eyes were filled with tears.
“I owed it to all of you,” his father said, “because you have all loved honor.”
Cetrioli’s honking laughter drifted back to them from the bow of the ship. Seagulls dove for garbage in the thick water. Seventy-one thousand eight hundred and forty-three toilets flushed simultaneously into the bay.
Chapter Sixteen
Charley caught a ten
A.M.
flight out of La Guardia for LA that Saturday morning. He kissed Maerose goodbye an hour before, then he kissed her again because he couldn’t get used to her—the soft hardness and the hard softness and the delicious taste; then the goodbye feeling got so tremendous that he laid her on the rug just inside the front door and she came like a lunch whistle and cried.
***
He had to ask Irene a couple of questions, and he knew she would have the answers, and whatever the answers were going to be, they were going to be good enough for him. He had lived alone all his life, fahcrissake, because he always put the job first. Well, he was putting the job, and the Prizzis, and their honor, second—sixteen lengths back. Something had gone out of whack inside him when he had lied to Vincent. He
knew
Irene had scammed the Prizzis. He knew it had to be Irene who had zotzed Louis Palo. He knew it had to be Irene who had set the whole thing up. He had lied to the Prizzis. He hadn’t clipped the woman and stuffed her in the trunk of the car with Marxie. There only had to be once when you got down to nitty like that, he told himself. He had changed. He didn’t seem to give a shit about what he
owed to the Prizzis. He couldn’t understand that. All he wanted now was that scamming woman. Maybe he was growing up. He was forty-two years old and Marxie Heller had called him Straight-Arrow Charley, the All-American Hood, like that was what a lot of people were calling him behind his back. Well, fuck that. He had done everything to deliver for the Prizzis and what the fuck was he—some kind of a cockamamie junior executive who hadn’t even seen Don Corrado for like two years. He had maybe eight hundred, nine hundred dollars in Switzerland to show for all that straight-arrow shit. Vincent must have fifteen million.
Irene
counted
with him. He didn’t want to do anything if he didn’t have Irene. Irene was the whole thing. That was it. So he would ask her a couple of questions and take whatever she handed back to him. Holy
shit
! What a business!
As soon as he got inside the airport building he went to a telephone.
“Irene? Charley.”
“Oh, Charley, thank God.”
“We need to sit down.”
“Where are you?”
“At the LA airport. Look, I’ll meet you at that restaurant. The spic place, outside?”
“When?”
“I’ll check in at the hotel and so on, then how about one o’clock?”
“I’ll pick you up at the hotel.”
“No! I mean, I just want it to be out in the sun when I see you. How do I get there?”
“Charley, it’s not easy to find.”
“Okay. I’ll take a cab.” He hung up.
***
When he got there he asked for the manager and the same spic waiter as before told him it was the manager’s day off. Charley gave him fifty dollars. “I’m
going to sit at that table,” he said, pointing at a table at the far end of the terrace that overlooked the ocean. “I don’t want anybody to sit near me, keep a fence of three empty tables between me and anybody else.”
The man grinned and shrugged. Charley sat down. Irene got there at ten minutes to one. She looked tremendous. She moved unhurriedly across the terrace wearing a smile and he didn’t care what else. They both did a funny thing, they extended their hands to be shaken.
As soon as she sat down the waiter came back and she talked in Puerto Rican, or whatever.
“You order the pineapple?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I been all shook up,” he said.
She sighed, puffing out her cheeks and blowing it out hard.
“Irene, let me tell you something. I know about you. I know you clipped Netturbino and I’m just as sure that you scammed us with Louis and your husband at Vegas.”
She lifted her head and the force of her serenity was narcotic. He could feel calm settling over him, which only happened when he was with her. Instinctively, he knew that the doctor in the magazine article had been wrong. This feeling had nothing to do with what he needed from his mother, it was entirely what he needed from this woman.
“I did the work on Netturbino, Charley,” she said. “But I had nothing to do with what Marxie and his partner did.”
“Nothing? Yeah? How come?”
“That’s not the business I’m in, and if I was into scamming, I wouldn’t have handled it that way.”
“You know something? Vincent Prizzi doesn’t even think Louis would have handled it that way, and he never thought Louis was very bright. Also, he says
that if there was only the two guys in it, they would be doing it the way Louis called it because there was no way your husband was going to run Louis.”
“Whatever they did, Charley, I had nothing to do with it.”
“You think Louis Palo would sit in his car at night out behind a place like Presto Ciglione’s? You think he would have pushed it right up to the night before Jack Ramen was due to get back to the casino? You think he would have taken an easy split on that kind of money with your husband, just like Marxie was some made man or something? If he
did
sit in that car waiting for somebody, the only one he woulda let get near him was your husband because maybe your husband was bringing more money—but what money? They had scored the money. Louis would have zipped your husband and he would have been on his way to Reno or San Francisco by the time he was hit in that parking lot.”
“I don’t know what they did,” she said with effortless calm.
“The gun was under the dashboard. Louis was so suspicious that he checked his engine for a bomb every time before he started the car, even if he was going out for an ice cream cone. That’s how he was built. But he would have let you walk up to the car and get in.”
She let him see the pain in her eyes, but she kept looking at him, then, slowly, as if she were taking an oath on the head of a child, she shook her head slowly, three times, then murmured in a voice so low that he could only read her lips, “No.”
“I have to ask you, Irene. I can’t live with myself unless we talk about this.”
“I understand you,” she said. “I haven’t slept much because I saw how much of your life is tied to the Prizzis’ honor. Some insurance company will pay for the scammed money, but you are the one who feels
violated by what Louis and Marxie did. You say to yourself that the Prizzis trust you, and only you, to get the money back, and whether you get it back or not, you have to deal with whoever betrayed the Prizzis.”
“Jesus,” Charley said, “seven hundred and twenty-two dollars is a lot of money.”
“They got half back.”
“Three hundred and sixty is
still
a lot of money!”
“You can’t stop
every
body from shaking the money tree! People scam the people with the money.”
“Yeah,” Charley said hoarsely, “something like that. But I didn’t tell them what happened to the money. I covered for you. I lied, and to me—and to the Prizzis—that is the same as if I was in on it.”
“You didn’t cover for me, Charley. No matter how you’ve got that stuck inside your head, you didn’t cover for me because I had nothing to do with it.” She wasn’t vehement. She didn’t go wild with impatience and frustration. She was calm. She was true all the way, but Charley was wound up.
“I walked away with my father after the sit-down with Vincent Prizzi and, like I was crazy or guilty or something, I asked him if he thought Vincent thought
I
had copped the other half of that money. I’ll never forget the look that came into my father’s eyes.” He lifted his hands helplessly.
“Are we going to get married?” she asked quietly.
He stared at her. “Jesus, what a question!” he said. All the hardness left his face. The doubts were gone. “You mean that?” he said. “After everything I been dumping on you?”
“Oh, Charley!”
“All right! That’s it! That settles everything. The Prizzis have to believe me because I believe you.”
Gratitude to God, to Charley, to her mother, who had taught her the wastefulness of arrogance, and to Marxie, who had taught her how to lie, poured into her, exalting her. She thought that this might be the
only important minute of her life. Her eyes filled with tears and she smiled.
Charley blew his nose loudly.
“Look, Irene. My father knows how I feel about you—so maybe he thinks the same way I thought. But he’s a wise man. He didn’t try to stop Nature. He said, bring her to New York, live with her, but since the family knows she is a worker—you can’t marry her. After all, you know what I mean. They can’t have a hit woman hanging around with the women in the family.”
“Come on, Charley! The women in the family have to hang around with the men in it, and they do worse things than clean, fast hits every day.”
“Certainly. Sure. Of course. But you can see how Pop was just staying ahead of them. He says to me, I can’t marry you. But my father was with only one woman all his life until my mother died. One woman. I don’t have to draw any maps for my father.”
“Are you sure, Charley? It won’t get you in deeper with yourself?”
“It’s none of the Prizzis’ business,” Charley said. “You are going to have Maerose as your family friend anyway and when you have her it’s like you got an army. Come on, we’re going to Mexico. We’ll buy clothes there. We’re going to get married.”
***
It didn’t work out exactly that way. Irene was sure she wasn’t going to get married for the first
real
time in her life in a bunch of pick-up clothes from some beachside boutique, so they went back to her house and before there was even any thought about packing clothes, they were in the bed where Irene had made it with Louis Palo and where she used to make it with Marxie and it was so tremendous that they kept putting the packing off, until it was a quarter to seven.