Bloodline (7 page)

Not unless you count the three men I killed before leaving home,
Nilo thought, but answered instead with a simple shake of his head.

“Well, plenty of time to learn,” Father Mario said. “I taught my brother Tommy; I can teach you.”

“Will you all leave the boy alone?” Aunt Anna said. “All this talk of fighting. It’s like living with gladiators. Stop talking. Eat, eat.”

After sitting with the family for a while, Nilo figured out the reason for their disappointment. Apparently, the Falcones’ other son, Tommy, who had been injured in the war, was expected home any day, and when they heard Nilo’s knock on the door they had hoped, although without real expectation, that Tommy had returned early in time for the holiday.

For his part, surrounded by the warmth of a family for perhaps the first time in his life, Nilo spoke of his boyhood in Sicily. He was amused to learn that Justina’s command of Italian was spotty, and Father Mario and the Falcone parents served as translators so the two young people knew what each other was talking about.

He did not tell them the real reason for his leaving home, commenting only that he thought it was time for him to get out into the world. When later in the dinner he found out that Tony Falcone was a New York policeman—which explained the gun hanging in the hallway—he knew he had acted wisely in keeping his secrets to himself.

After they had eaten and drunk wine and dark Italian coffee and then more wine, they all went inside to the living room, where Tony Falcone lit even more candles on the ceiling-high Christmas tree that took up half the room. When Nilo sat on the sofa, Justina shyly approached him and handed him a gift-wrapped box.

Her smile lit her face and his heart. “For you,” she said. “For Christmas. From all of us.”

“But … I have nothing for any of you.”

“You’re here. That’s gift enough for Italians. We’re big on family,” Father Mario said heartily.

“Open it, open it,” Justina insisted.

Nilo opened the box. Inside was a white shirt and a dark blue tie. It was the first dress shirt and tie he had ever owned.

“I don’t know what to say. You did not even know I was coming.” He looked around at all of them. His uncle Tony said, “We really bought it for Tommy. But we’ll get him another one.”

“Oh, Papa,” Justina said. “You take all the fun out of it.” She looked at Nilo for support, but he only shook his head.

“No,” he said. “It’s all fun.”

Near midnight, when Father Mario was getting ready to leave, Nilo asked if they knew a nearby hotel or place where he could rent a room, but his aunt and uncle would have none of it.

“I have money,” he insisted.

“Good,” Aunt Anna said. “Hang on to it; you’ll need it.”

“You have money,” said Tony, “but we have room. What kind of family are we if we turn you out into the street?”

“You can stay in Tommy’s room,” Justina said, and her father added, “And when Tommy gets home, then we’ll see how things work out.”

*   *   *

L
ATER,
N
ILO LAY IN
T
OMMY
F
ALCONE’S BED,
exulting in the silence. He had been aboard ship so long that the drone of the ship’s powerful engines was a constant, day and night, and the ear became so adapted to it that the mind eventually forgot to recognize it as noise. But here now, it was like being back in Sicily. The apartment was still, and from the street below, at this early morning hour, came not a sound. He could hear his own breathing, and that realization brought a smile to his face.

America, he had decided, was a wonderful country. His uncle was a simple policeman, but he lived like a king, wearing a suit, with a priest in the family, living in an apartment that had three bedrooms. No one in Sicily, save for the Mafia and the politicians, lived like that.

It is what I will do. I will become the best of Americans and I will be rich and honored like my uncle Tony.

He wanted to dwell on that, to roll around in his mind the thought of how well the New York Falcones lived, but he was very tired. And besides, it was difficult to think of anything else except Justina. The thought that she was now in her own room, lying in a bed only a scant few feet from him, almost made him ache with anticipation.

Maybe she is awake, too, thinking of me. Someday, someday …

He could not finish the thought; it would have been ungrateful to his uncle. He fell asleep and dreamed of her.

*   *   *

I
N EXPECTATION OF HIS SON’S RETURN
home, Tony Falcone had arranged with other detectives to cover his shifts so he was off for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s. Justina was also on vacation from school, so the two of them were free to act as Nilo’s guides to New York City.

For two busy days, the three of them traveled around their neighborhood and the rest of the city, showing Nilo the landmarks, the Statue of Liberty, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Madison Square Garden, Central Park, even a tour of Tony’s police precinct. Aunt Anna was dutifully invited to join them on their outings but regularly refused. She seemed always to have something to do, either in the kitchen or at the neighborhood parish.

They were two days of wonderment for Nilo. He had known the United States was big, but until he saw the buildings of New York City he had not realized just how big it was or just how far he had come from his little hometown in Sicily. He also savored the opportunity to be near Justina—in fact, often wishing that Uncle Tony might find something else to do so the two young people could spend some time alone, but that clearly was not to be. Still, they were two wonderful days.

On the third day, Tommy Falcone returned home.

*   *   *

F
ROM WHAT HE HAD BEEN TOLD
about Tommy’s wounds, Nilo had expected some kind of crippled war veteran, but the young man he met looked the picture of health. He was a little older than Nilo and a little bigger, and like everyone else in the family he seemed sincerely happy to meet a relative from the old country. While neighbors kept streaming into the Falcone apartment to welcome Tommy home from the war, his American cousin always took pains to make sure that Nilo was not left out and was always included as part of the Falcone family.

This is what it must be like to have an older brother,
Nilo thought.
And it would be hard to find a better one.

Or a better family than the Falcones, for that matter. While they celebrated Tommy’s return home, they never forgot Nilo, the guest in their house.

After a couple of days rest, Tommy took over the tour-guide duties from his father and Justina, and while they had shown Nilo the tourist attractions, Tommy promised to show the young Sicilian “the real city.” He walked Nilo around lower Manhattan and pointed out the railroad yards where as a young boy he stole coal, the piers where the neighborhood kids would go to smoke cigarettes and not be found out, and where they would cool off by illegally swimming in the polluted river.

Not too far from the Falcones’ apartment, he showed Nilo a neighborhood that even to the foreigner’s eye was clearly a decrepit, dangerous slum.

“People live here?”

“And die,” Tommy answered. “This is the Five Points. For a hundred years, the worst spot in the city. When my father was a rookie cop, he used to patrol here.”

“Rookie?” Nilo said.

“Young. A beginner. Like you. You’re a rookie American,” Tommy said with a grin. “Everything here was crooked. There were almost three hundred saloons and more whorehouses and dance halls than that. The whole place was run by the most vicious gangs in New York.”

“And now?”

“Now it looks a little better. From what I hear, the mobs around here are dying out because there’s not that much business for them. But I still wouldn’t want to live here.” He looked around. “When we were kids, we used to come over, just to watch the weird drunks and women and just the general filth.”

He stopped and pointed to an empty lot down the block. “There used to be a brewery there. It made beer once and then they closed it down, I guess because it was too filthy. So they made it into a tenement, and the police said that they figure five thousand people were killed inside the building over the years. The cops used to have to go in forty or fifty strong or they’d never come out alive. When they got ready to tear it down, they forced everybody out of the building. Some of the kids who came out had never been out of the building before. They were afraid of the sunlight ’cause they’d never seen the sun.”

“You are making a joke with me, aren’t you?”

“No, Nilo, I’m not. That’s the way it was. Things are better now. They get better all the time.”

“I hope so,” Nilo said grimly. “You make living in America sound like being in hell.”

They wandered together over to Father Mario’s church in Greenwich Village and found the young priest in a large basement recreation room that had been outfitted with a boxing ring. Stripped to an undershirt and priestly black pants, he was in the ring, a heavily muscled formidable figure wearing boxing gloves and showing a half-dozen awkward looking young teenagers the way to move around the ring.

“Hey, Tommy,” he called out. “Nilo.” He beckoned them forward to the boxing ring and told the boys, “This is my kid brother, Tommy. He used to be a punk just like all of you. And the good-looking one’s my cousin, Nilo.”

He looked down from the ring and grinned. “What say, Tommy? You remember anything I taught you?”

“How could I forget? You pounded it into my head hard enough.”

The priest beckoned him up to the ring. “Well, come on, then. Let’s give these kids an exhibition.” He kicked a pair of boxing gloves from the ring in his brother’s direction.

“I don’t know,” Tommy said.

“Afraid?” The priest was grinning.

“I just don’t want all those young guys to find out what a sissy their priest really is,” Tommy answered.

Father Mario turned away and faced the teenagers, who were clustered in a corner of the ring. When he did, Tommy slipped off his heavy coat, pulled on the boxing gloves, and nodded for Nilo to tie the laces.

Nilo heard Mario talking to the boys. “My brother here was a big war hero. When the Germans found out he was coming to Europe, they all started throwing their guns away and surrendering. But some of them were too slow, and he managed to kill ten thousand of them with his bare hands before they declared the armistice. But I guess he left all his fight over there. Or somewhere else.”

By the time Father Mario finished his sarcastic speech, Tommy was in the ring. He stepped behind the priest and touched him on the shoulder. When the priest turned, Tommy tapped him on the nose and with a big grin said, “Bang. You’re dead.”

Nilo watched in growing wonder as the two brothers lit into each other. The teenagers stepped out onto the ring apron to get out of their way. Tommy was taller and faster than Mario, but the stocky priest was clearly more skilled. He just kept boring ahead, flicking away Tommy’s left jab with a slap of a glove, or taking the punches on his shoulders. Inside close, he worked over Tommy’s midsection with flurries of punches that drew a pained grunt from Tommy each time one landed cleanly.

It looked as if they were killing each other, and Nilo glanced toward the teenagers, hoping one of them would jump into the ring and break up the fight. But no one moved, and finally Nilo, while feeling very much the outsider, clambered up onto the ring apron to get ready to try to separate the fighters. Mario was hurting Tommy. Nilo’s hand closed over the knife in his pocket. If he had to, he would use it to scare the priest off.

But before he could make a move, Tommy yelled, “Enough, enough, you maniac,” and both fighters dropped their guards, tossed their arms about each other in warm hugs, and began laughing aloud.

They’re laughing,
Nilo thought.
Back home, a fight like this, even between brothers, would start a blood feud that could last for generations. And these two crazies are laughing about it.

“You’re still pretty fast,” the priest told his brother. “But you’re out of shape.”

“And you still move like a truck,” Tommy said. Rubbing his jaw, he added, “And hit like one.”

Mario grinned and then hugged his brother again. “I’m glad you’re home, Tommy.”

“You have a peculiar way of showing it.” He paused a moment and leaned closer to his brother so he could speak softly. “We’re going to go get a beer. You want to come with us?”

Mario shook his head. “I’d better not,” he said. “The collar and all, you know. A lot of the parish thinks I’m punch-drunk already. Find me in a tavern swilling beer and that’d be the last straw. But go ahead. Have a good time. I’ll see you at dinner Sunday.” He nodded toward Nilo, then turned back to the younger fighters.

“I taught him all he knows,” Nilo heard him say. “And if you do what I say, you’ll be that good and even better. Now all of you get back here in the ring.”

*   *   *

W
HEN THEY WALKED AWAY
from the church, Tommy coughed and Nilo saw him grimace in pain and clutch his right side. That was where Tommy had been wounded, the family had told him.

“Are you all right?” Nilo asked.

“Yeah. Just a little sore. A beer will help.”

“Your brother should not have hit you that way.”

Tommy laughed. “He didn’t hit me at all. He was pulling all his punches. If he had hit me all out, just once, he would’ve killed me. We were just putting on a show to impress those kids.”

Nilo did not mention that he had been among those who were impressed.

A few blocks away from the Falcone apartment, Tommy led the way into a small, neat corner tavern. In Sicily, Nilo had never been in a tavern. He was too young, and besides, taverns were not common. Most Italians preferred to drink at home, and only occasionally did someone drink too much wine at an inn or a restaurant or social club. But Nilo had visited many with the other sailors when his cargo ship had stopped in port, and he had developed a liking for beer. Even though the weather was cold, a beer would taste good right now, he decided.