The Fortunate Pilgrim - Mario Puzo [98]
For Piero Santini the moment was terrible. It was like those few times he let his trucks be used to haul whisky and did not see them for days at a time, did not know where they were, what was happening to them. He suffered now almost as much. But it could not be helped; this was America. He nodded assent, but said, “Don’t be back too late, eh, tomorrow is work.”
Lucia Santa beamed as the young couple left. Victorious, she cracked walnuts and fed the working Salvatore and Lena greasy, knotty morsels. She filled Piero Santini’s wineglass, placed a platter of iced cream puffs next to the elbow of Signora Santini. Larry and his wife, Louisa, came up to join them for a coffee that was steaming black and oily with anisette. Piero Santini and Lucia Santa exchanged sly, satisfied glances, gossiped with the newborn familiarity of those about to become relatives. But not an hour had passed when there was the clatter of heels on the stairway, and in came Caterina, alone, wild-eyed, with a tear-stained face, to seat herself at the table without a word.
Consternation. Santini swore, Lucia Santa clasped her hands in prayer. What had happened? Had that animale of a Gino raped her in the streets, or in the movie house itself? Had he brought her up to the roof? What! In God’s name! At first, Caterina did not answer but finally she whispered that she had left Gino in the movies; he was watching a picture she did not want to see. Nothing had happened.
Who believed her? No one. Gone was the cozy friendliness, the good cheer. Air and speech turned cold. But what in the sacred name of Jesus Christ could possibly have happened? Ah, the clever young, what evils they perpetrated, no matter how unfavorable the circumstances. But no coaxing of Caterina would make her reveal the mystery, and finally, bewildered, the Santinis took their leave.
The family of Angeluzzi-Corbo—Lucia Santa, Vinnie, Larry and Louisa, the stern-faced Sal and Lena—waited, grouped around the table like judges, for the appearance of the criminal. At last Gino, hungry as a wolf from his four hours in the movies, leaped up the stairs, dashed through the door, and almost skidded to a halt when the force of all those accusing eyes struck him.
Lucia Santa rose but wavered; she was raging, yet helpless. Of what was he guilty? She began on safe ground. “Animale, bestia, what did you do to that poor girl in the movies?”
Gino, wide-eyed with surprise, said, “Nothing.”
His innocence was so plain that Lucia Santa assumed he was crazy, that he did not know right from wrong.
She controlled herself. She asked patiently, quietly, “Why did Caterina leave you there alone?”
Gino shrugged. “She said she was going to the ladies’ room. She took her coat. When she didn’t come back I figured she didn’t like me, so I figured the hell with it, and I saw the movie. Ma, if she didn’t like me, what’s the sense of you and her father making her go with me? She acted funny all the time—wouldn’t even talk.”
Larry shook his head pityingly at the whole affair. He said to his mother jokingly, “See, Ma, if it was me, we would have a truck in the family by now.” Louisa sniffed and Vinnie said to Gino kindly, “You dope, she’s supposed to be stuck on you.”
Now to most of the family it was a joke. But Lucia Santa, the only one who saw to the core of the matter, became truly angry. She seriously considered opening up Gino’s head a little more with the Tackeril, for surely he was as mad as his father.
How like an idiot saint he had said the girl didn’t likehim; without a flicker of rancor, not a bit of hurt masculine pride. What was Caterina, then, to this proud son of hers? Shit? The daughter of a wealthy man who could assure his future and his bread; comely, with strong legs and breasts, far above this wastrel, this good-for-nothing, this fodder for the electric chair; and he didn’t care? It was