“Zoppo? It means cripple, or gimp.”
“How about ‘barcollante’?”
“That means staggering.”
“And ‘ubriconte, ubricone,’ something like that . . . ”
“Oh, you probably mean ‘ubriacone.’ That means a drunk; a sot.”
Packy snapped his fingers, tucked a cigar in Dave’s pocket, and went inside. I find this gimp and a drunk waiter and I’ve got it solved, he thought to himself.
It took Packy another week of asking around to find the Monteduros, as they weren’t on any policeman’s list of suspects for anything, but find them, he did. He had them both locked up. They never said anything, not even the one going through “the horrors,” convulsing and screaming as the alcohol left his system. Without anyone talking, the police let them go: the waiter first, and then, a week later, the gimp.
When he got home, Torreo went into the house and found Rafaele lying on his bed, mouth and eyes open, bottles scattered around the floor. Torreo put his hands on his brother’s shoulders to shake him, but he was cold to the touch. When Torreo pulled the body close to him to warm him, Rafaele’s head dropped back, and Torreo held him there for a long time, crying the last tears of his life.
CHAPTER 9
BUFFALO, 1920
After getting locked up, Torreo lost the job in the brewery. It took a lot of his savings to bury his brother. Many a day he would sit on the front porch, or in the cafe, drinking coffee and eating only when Frankie or the others urged him. Nobody bothered him, and the outlaws stayed away from the cafe. Frankie found him a job loading trucks at a fruit and vegetable company on Niagara, and when an opening came up for a driver, he got it, the boss figuring the big man could load and unload himself, saving him money on a helper. Nobody would ever try to pilfer anything with this guy around.
One day, in winter, Torreo sat in the cafe on Jersey Street thinking of his family. It was quiet, and there was only one other customer. Torreo saw the burly man in a black suit with a round head and short bristles of hair, looking at Torreo and smiling. He was short, with no neck and no necktie, smoking a cigarette. He nodded at Torreo, and he nodded back.
“You’re the truck driver, aren’t you?” the man said.
Torreo nodded.
“I have a small business myself and could use a man who can drive a truck.”
“I already have a job,” he answered, looking out the window.
“This wouldn’t interfere. The work is at night, and not very often right now.” Looking at Torreo’s arms, he said, “You can lift a barrel, no problem, yes?”
Torreo breathed and said nothing.
“You used to work for the Tedeschi, in the brewery, before this
Prohibition foolishness started. You still know these people, yes?”
“You are a bootlegger?”
The burly man tilted his head to the side and crushed out his cigarette. “I am trying to make my way in this country as a businessman, trying to get enough money to go someplace warmer than Buffalo.”
They both gazed out the window at the snow piling up. The only sound was the scraping of Frankie’s shovel on the pavement, pushing the snow off the sidewalk.
“My name is Torreo Monteduro.”
The burly man rose, went over to his table, and shook hands. “Vincente Tutulomundo.”
CHAPTER 10
BUFFALO, 1923
Eileen Brogan was sitting at her dressing table, crying. It was the third time that she had made a Novena to Our Lady, but every month, the bleeding came and went as usual. She looked up at the statue of Mary with the rosary draped over her shoulders, and at the blotchy, red face that stared back in the mirror. I look horrible, she thought, sniffling and wiping her face with a handkerchief. At least the pimples have gone away, she thought, grabbing the fine lacquered hairbrush that Bridy had given her for her wedding, and brushing her hair back, now parted in the middle and trimmed to the bottom of her ears in the popular shorter style. With a final sniffle, she stood up and tugged her dress farther down her hips, wondering if she should lose some more weight. She looked at the cover of the McClure’s magazine on her dresser, and saw the picture of the two girls in bathing suits at Atlantic City. Why, those wee slips of a thing, how could they ever carry a child? Yet, it seemed to be the way all the women in the advertisements looked nowadays, and the girls who all the young boys stared after. Not my Joe, though, she reassured herself. He’s my true love, and faithful as the day is long. Maybe Gibson Girls aren’t on the Coca-Cola ads anymore, their hair wound in elaborate designs on top, or in the Grecian style at the back of her head, like she had had it until Joe got back from the Army, but what of it?
Walking back to the kitchen, she spied the calendar, which silently kept track of her childlessness. Next to it, hanging on the wall, was the telephone. It was how she stayed in touch with Bridy and the other girls she had known in the First Ward since moving to their flat on the West Side. She thought of calling one of them, but left the phone alone. She thought of having one of the oatmeal cookies she had made, but smoothed down her dress and vowed to lose more weight. She looked at the phone again and picked it up, this time to call the doctor she had gone to in South Buffalo, Dr. Ryan on McKinley Parkway. Maybe he could help. She blushed and smiled, thinking God knows she and Joe were doing everything they knew. The priest had said to pray and trust in God, and the Lord would bring children if it was His will. It couldn’t be wrong, though, to lend Him a hand. Mrs. Santora over on Garner had gotten pregnant again, and she was a woman in her late thirties with children ten and twelve years old. She thought it was some pills the doctor had given her.
Eileen picked up the receiver and dialed Seneca 4611, a number she knew by heart. Marvelous, this direct dial they now had, she thought, wondering if the old ones back home would ever be able to get a telephone.
“Yes, hello. I’d like to make an appointment with Dr. Ryan. Yes, I’ve been seen by him before. The day after tomorrow? Can it be early? Yes, nine o’clock would be grand,” she answered, thinking she’d leave early after Joe went to work, and get there and back before he came home for lunch. “Yes, I’ll have the two dollars,” and she wondered how much the pills cost that Mrs. Santora had bought. Hanging up, she exhaled with relief and wondered if she’d have time to see Bridy or some of the other girls along Fulton Street after her visit to the doctor.
CHAPTER 11
BUFFALO, 1925
Joe had noticed. Eileen had lost a good eight pounds, and he slid his hands up and down her, twice sometimes, after a hug and a kiss before he went to work. With that, she cut out even having a glass of beer when they went out and stayed with the seltzer water. She lost another five pounds when she began taking walks in the morning after he left. Where Joe said, “You look like the girls in the movies,” Bridy said, “You’re fallin’ away to nothing,” and Eileen smiled, then walked a few more blocks before she caught the streetcar back from her visits to the Ward.
After making the ninth Saturday Novena on a spring day, she checked the calendar. Could it be? she thought. I haven’t bled in . . . yes, thirty-two days. Joe’s out there with the rowers, no telephone about. I’ve got to call Bridy. So excited that it took her twice to get the number right, Eileen told her friend the news.
“You’ve got to see the doctor to be sure, Eileen.”
“It’s Saturday, do you think he’d see me today?”
“I dunno, can he tell if you’re pregnant this early?”
The sound of the word pregnant sent thrills through Eileen. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said, desperate to be sure.
When she hung up with Bridy,