R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

There was a round of applause. I smiled. I reached out and shook hands. I took a glass of beer that someone handed me. I felt good. I felt welcome.

‘Ernesto… shit, we gotta do something about your freakin’ name!’ Don Calligaris said. ‘Anyways, this is Matteo Rossi, and here we have Michael Luciano, no relation, and Joey Giacalone, you know, and this is his father Tony Jacks, and over there is Tony Provenzano, Tony Pro to you and me, and to his right you got Stefano Cagnotto, and next to him you got Angelo Cova, and the skinny fuck down the bottom is Don Alessandro’s kid, Giovanni. This crowd over here,’ he said, indicating the other side of the table. ‘Well, this sorry shower of saps and wasters is just some bunch of homeless fucks we picked up in the street.’

Don Calligaris laughed. He raised his hands and clenched his fists. ‘This is your family, legitimate in some cases, the rest of them a bunch of bastards!’

Calligaris sat down. He indicated a chair beside his and I took it. Someone passed me a bowl of bread slices, and before I knew it I was surrounded by plates of meatballs and salami, and other things I didn’t recognize.

They talked, these people, and their words were like one vast rush of noise in my ears. They spoke of ‘things’ they were taking care of, ‘things’ that needed taking care of, and at some point the girls were gone, the music went down low, and Tony Pro was leaning forward with everyone’s attention rapt and he was talking about someone I had heard of once before.

‘Cocksucker,’ he was saying. ‘Guy’s a freakin’ cocksucker. Hard bastard, I’ll give him that, but we don’t need him back now we got Fitzsimmons. Frank Fitzsimmons toes the line an awful lot more than Hoffa ever did, and seems to me we should keep it that way.’

Don Calligaris was shaking his head. ‘Sure, sure, sure, but what the fuck’re we gonna do, eh? Guy’s a name, a big fucking name. You can’t just whack someone like Jimmy Hoffa and expect to walk away with nothin’ more than dust on your shoes.’

‘Anyone can get whacked,’ Joey Giacalone said. ‘Kennedy said that… that anyone could whack the fucking president if he was determined enough.’

‘Sure, anyone can get whacked,’ Don Calligaris said, ‘but there’s whacking someone and whacking someone, and they ain’t necessarily the same fucking thing, are they?’

Another man further down the table, Stefano Cagnotto if I remember rightly, said, ‘So what’s the fucking difference… someone gets whacked, someone else gets whacked. You do it right, who gives a fuck who it is? It’s not who it is but how it’s done that matters.’

Tony Pro nodded his head. ‘He’s right, Fabio. It’s not who it is but who does it and how it’s done that matters… hey, Ernesto, whaddya reckon?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about,’ I said. I had heard the name Jimmy Hoffa before, but I was ignorant of his significance in this game.

Tony Pro laughed. ‘Hey, Fabio, where d’you get this kid? You go collect him from the farm?’

Calligaris laughed. He turned to me. ‘You heard of the Teamsters?’

I shook my head.

‘Labor organization sorta thing… unions and truckers and construction crews an’ all that sorta stuff. Hell, I heard the Teamsters even got a union for the hookers and the strippers.’

‘No shit?’ Tony Pro said. ‘Hell, ain’t we movin’ with the times.’

‘Anyways,’ Calligaris went on. ‘Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, they’re a big fucking organization, handle all the unions and the pension funds and all manner of shit.’ He turned to his left. ‘Hey, Matteo, you deal with this thing enough, what’s the word on the Teamsters?’

Matteo Rossi cleared his throat. ‘Organizes the unorganized, makes workers’ voices heard in the corridors of power, negotiates contracts that make the American dream a reality for millions, protects workers’ health and safety, and fights to keep jobs in North America.’

There was a ripple of applause amongst the crowd.

‘Seems to me,’ Tony Pro said, ‘that someone should look out for Jimmy fuckin’ Hoffa’s health and fuckin’ safety.’

The crew laughed. They talked some more, and then there was more food coming and the music got louder, and a girl with breasts the size of basketballs came out and showed the family how she could make the tassels on her nipples spin in two different directions at the same time.

We ate, we drank, and the name of Jimmy Hoffa was not mentioned again that night. Had I been aware of what would happen I would have asked questions, but I was new, it was not my place, and I didn’t wish to alienate myself from these people before I even got to know them.

It was three days later that I saw her.

Her name was Angelina Maria Tiacoli.

I saw her in a fruit market on Mott Street, a block over from Mulberry. She had on a summer print dress, over it a camelcolored overcoat and in her hand she carried a brown paper grocery bag loaded with oranges and lemons.

Her hair was rich and dark, her complexion olive and smooth, and her eyes, hell, her eyes were the color of warm creamy coffee. I held my breath when she looked at me and I looked away quickly. Ten Cent was with me and he told her ‘Hi Angel’, and the girl smiled and blushed a little and mouthed ‘Hi’ back.

I watched her go, watched her intently, and Ten Cent nudged me and told me to put my eyes back in my head.

‘Who is she?’ I asked.

‘Angel,’ he said. ‘Angelina Tiacoli. Sweet girl, sad story.’

I looked at Ten Cent. He shook his head. ‘Don’t be getting any fucked-up ideas, ya Cuban fruitcake. She’s strictly out of bounds.’

‘Out of bounds?’

Ten Cent shook his head. ‘Jesus, you ain’t fuckin’ listenin’ to me… I say she’s no go then she’s no go, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but just tell me who she is.’

‘You remember the other night at the Blue Flame?’

I nodded.

‘Guy down at the end, guy called Giovanni Alessandro?’

I didn’t remember, but then there had been so many people, so many names.

‘His father is Don Alessandro. Big boss. No fucking about. Don Alessandro has a brother… well, he had a brother called Louis. Louis was a mad fuck, a real mad fuck at the best of times, little left of center if you know what I mean. Anyways, he was married to some girl, a good Italian girl, and he went out on her, you know?’

‘Went out?’ I asked.

‘Christ, kid, you really is from the farm, ain’tcha? He went out… you know, he went and fucked some other broad. You know what that means?’

‘Yes, I know what that means.’

‘Lord God, the kid’s a fucking genius! Anyways, Don Alessandro’s brother goes and fucks some other broad and this broad has a kid… and the kid is Angelina. Everyone knows she ain’t exactly blood, but hell she’s a good kid and she’s sure as hell pretty, so Don Alessandro keeps her here around the family.’

‘And her mother?’

‘That’s the sad part. Her mother was some hooker or stripper from someplace, crazy junkie bitch, and she and Don Alessandro’s brother got to fighting one night when Angelina was about eight or nine years old, and they ended up shooting each other.

Don Alessandro had already told his brother not to see her any more, that he would make sure everything was taken care of for the kid if he just promised to stop fucking the hooker, but Louis Alessandro was a crazy bastard, and he went on seeing this junkie bitch for years, and then all hell broke loose and this pair of fruitcakes ended up whacking each other, and Angelina ends up losing her father and her birth mother, and she ain’t got nothin’ left but her dad’s wife who ain’t her real mother, you follow me?’