The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [51]
She put on clothes over her nightgown, asking him, her voice shaking, “Frank, what is it? You were so good all day, what is it now?”
The blue eyes were opaque, the harsh face calm. He repeated again, “Everyone out of this house.” He moved close to her and pushed her down the corridor of rooms toward the door.
Larry and the Panettiere burst into the apartment and came between them. The father grabbed Larry by the throat and pushed him against the wall, shouting, “Just because you gave me a dollar today you think you can interfere?” He threw a handful of change at his stepson.
Larry was watchful, alert. He said carefully, “Pop, I come to help. The cops are coming. You gotta quiet down.” A siren suddenly wailed. The father ran to the front room to look out the window.
In the street below he could see his three small children huddled in overcoats, surrounding Octavia, and Octavia pointing up toward him as the police came out of the car. He saw the two policemen running into the tenement. He became very quiet and went back down the corridor of rooms to the kitchen and said to them all in a very reasonable tone, “The police have clubs. No one can stand against the police. Not even God can stand against clubs.” He sat on a kitchen chair.
The two burly policemen, both Irish and tall, came into the open apartment cautiously and calmly. Larry took them aside and spoke to them in a low voice. The father watched them all. Then Larry came over and sat by his father. There were tears of anxiety in his eyes. He said, “Listen to me, Pop. There’s an ambulance coming. You’re sick, see? Now don’t make any trouble. For Mom and the kids.”
Frank Corbo gave him a violent push. Immediately the two policemen came forward, but the mother was ahead of them. “No, wait, wait,” she said.
She went to her husband and spoke quietly, as if the Panettiere and the policemen could not hear. Octavia and the children had come out of the cold of the street and stood on the other side of the room watching them. The mother said, “Frank, go to the hospital. They will make you well. What will the children feel when they see the police beat you and drag you down the stairs? Frank, Frank, be reasonable. I’ll come to see you every day. In a week, two weeks, you’ll be well. Come now.”
The father rose. As he did so, two white-jacketed interns came over the top of the stairway and into the open door of the apartment. The father stood by the table, head down, brooding. Then he raised his head and said briskly, “Everyone must have coffee. I’ll make it myself.” The two white jackets started toward him, but the mother moved across their path. Larry went beside her. The mother said to the interns and policemen, “Humor him, please. He will go if you humor him. But if you use force he will be an animal.”
While the coffee was perking, the father began to shave at the kitchen faucet. The interns were tense and alert. The policemen stood ready with nightsticks. The father finished quickly and set cups of coffee on the table. The children and Octavia were on the far side of the table. While they drank to please him, he made his wife fetch him a clean shirt. Then he surveyed them all with a sardonic gleam in his eyes.
“Figlio de puttana,” he began. “Evil men. I know you two policemen. At night, late, you go into the bakery and drink whisky. That’s how you work? And you, Panettiere. You make whisky in your back room against the law. Oh, I see you all at night when everyone sleeps. I see everything. At night I’m everywhere. I see the sins of the world. Monsters—fiends—murderers—sons and daughters of whores—I know you all. You think you can overcome me?” He was shouting rapidly, incoherently, and he gave the kitchen table a push, knocking