The Godfather

The fright in the voice stunned him. His kid sister had always been fresh and snotty, tough as anybody in the family. What the hell had happened to her? He said, “It’s Sonny.” The bolt inside slid back and the door opened and Connie was in his arms sobbing. He was so surprised he just stood there. He pushed her away from him and saw her swollen face and he understood what had happened.

He pulled away from her to run down the stairs and go after her husband. Rage flamed up in him, contorting his own face. Connie saw the rage and clung to him, not letting him go, making him come into the apartment. She was weeping out of terror now. She knew her older brother’s temper and feared it. She had never complained to him about Carlo for that reason. Now she made him come into the apartment with her.

“It was my fault,” she said. “I started a fight with him and I tried to hit him so he hit me. He really didn’t try to hit me that hard. I walked into it.”

Sonny’s heavy Cupid face was under control. “You going to see the old man today?”

She didn’t answer, so he added, “I thought you were, so I dropped over to give you a lift. I was in the city anyway.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want them to see me this way. I’ll come next week.”

“OK,” Sonny said. He picked up her kitchen phone and dialed a number. “I’m getting a doctor to come over here and take a look at you and fix you up. In your condition you have to be careful. How many months before you have the kid?”

“Two months,” Connie said. “Sonny, please don’t do anything. Please don’t.”

Sonny laughed. His face was cruelly intent when he said, “Don’t worry, I won’t make your kid an orphan before he’s born.” He left the apartment after kissing her lightly on her uninjured cheek.

* * *

On East 112th Street a long line of cars were doubleparked in front of a candy store that was the headquarters of Carlo Rizzi’s book. On the sidewalk in front of the store, fathers played catch with small children they had taken for a Sunday morning ride and to keep them company as they placed their bets. When they saw Carlo Rizzi coming they stopped playing ball and bought their kids ice cream to keep them quiet. Then they started studying the newspapers that gave the starting pitchers, trying to pick out winning baseball bets for the day.

Carlo went into the large room in the back of the store. His two “writers,” a small wiry man called Sally Rags and a big husky fellow called Coach, were already waiting for the action to start. They had their huge, lined pads in front of them ready to write down bets. On a wooden stand was a blackboard with the names of the sixteen big league baseball teams chalked on it, paired to show who was playing against who. Against each pairing was a blocked-out square to enter the odds.

Carlo asked Coach, “Is the store phone tapped today?”

Coach shook his head. “The tap is still off.”

Carlo went to the wall phone and dialed a number. Sally Rags and Coach watched him impassively as he jotted down the “line,” the odds on all the baseball games for that day. They watched him as he hung up the phone and walked over to the blackboard and chalked up the odds against each game. Though Carlo did not know it, they had already gotten the line and were checking his work. In the first week in his job Carlo had made a mistake in transposing the odds onto the blackboard and had created that dream of all gamblers, a “middle.” That is, by betting the odds with him and then betting against the same team with another bookmaker at the correct. odds, the gambler could not lose. The only one who coud lose was Carlo’s book. That mistake had caused a six-thousand-dollar loss in the book for the week and confirmed the Don’s judgment about his son-in-law. He had given the word that all of Carlo’s work was to be checked.

Normally the highly placed members of the Corleone Family would never be concerned with such an operational detail. There was at least a five-layer insulation to their level. But since the book was being used as a testing ground for the son-in-law, it had been placed under the direct scrutiny of Tom Hagen, to whom a report was sent every day.

Now with the line posted, the gamblers were thronging into the back room of the candy store to jot down the odds on their newspapers next to the games printed there with probable pitchers. Some of them held their little children by the hand as they looked up at the blackboard. One guy who made big bets looked down at the little girl he was holding by the hand and said teasingly, “Who do you like today, Honey, Giants or the Pirates?” The little girl, fascinated by the colorful names, said, “Are Giants stronger than Pirates?” The father laughed.