The Family Corleone by Ed Falco Read Free Book Online Page B

Mott Street, where a three-quarter moon peeking out from a hole in the clouds lit up the cobblestone street and rows of apartment buildings with brick facades and black-iron fire escapes. The windows were all dark, and the sky was overcast, threatening rain. On the corner of Mott and Grand, a pool of light gathered under a lamppost. Sonny walked toward the light, and when he saw that he was alone on the street, he ducked into a maze of alleys and followed them across Mulberry to Baxter, where Cork was waiting behind the wheel of a black Nash with bug-eye headlights and wide running boards.
    Cork drove off slowly as soon as Sonny slid into the front seat. “Sonny Corleone,” he said, pronouncing Sonny’s last name like a native Italian, having fun with it. “Day’s been dull as a dishrag. What about you?” He was dressed the same as Sonny, his hair straight and sandy blond, locks of it spilling out from the borders of his cap.
    “Same thing,” Sonny said. “You nervous?”
    “Little bit,” Cork said, “but we don’t need to announce that to the others, do we, now?”
    “What do I look like?” Sonny shoved Cork and then pointed upthe street, to the corner, where the Romeros, Vinnie and Angelo, were on the bottom steps of a rough stone stoop.
    Cork pulled the car over and then took off again as soon as the boys jumped in the back. Vinnie and Angelo were twins, and Sonny had to look closely to figure out who was who. Vinnie wore his hair cut close to the scalp, which made him look tougher than Angelo, whose hair was always carefully combed and neatly parted. With their caps on, the only way Sonny could distinguish between them was the few strands of loose hair falling over Angelo’s forehead.
    “Jaysus,” Cork said, glancing into the backseat. “I’ve known you two birds all my life, and I’ll be damned if I can tell you apart dressed like that.”
    Vinnie said, “I’m the smart one,” and Angelo said, “I’m the good-looking one,” and then they both laughed. Vinnie said, “Did Nico get the choppers?”
    “Yeah.” Sonny took his cap off, pressed his hair flat, and then struggled to get the cap over it and in place. “They cost us a lot of dough.”
    “Worth it,” Vinnie said.
    “Hey, you drove right past the alley!” Sonny had been looking into the backseat. He spun around and shoved Cork.
    “Where?” Cork said. “And quit shoving, ya fuckin’ jelly bean.”
    “Before the laundry,” Sonny said. He pointed to the plate-glass window of Chick’s Laundry. “What are you, blind?”
    “Blind, your ass,” Cork said. “I was preoccupied.”
    “
Stugots
…” Sonny shoved Cork again, making him laugh.
    Cork put the Nash in reverse and backed it into the alley. He cut the engine and turned off the lights.
    Angelo said, “Where are they?” just as a crooked alley door popped opened and Nico Angelopoulos stepped onto the littered pavement, between lines of overstuffed garbage pails, followed by Stevie Dwyer. Nico was a full inch shorter than Sonny, but still taller than the rest. He was thin, with a track runner’s wiry body. Stevie was short and bulky. They were both lugging black duffel bags with canvas straps slung over their shoulders. From the way the boys were moving, the bags looked heavy.
    Nico squeezed into the front seat beween Cork and Sonny. “Wait till you see these things.”
    Stevie had put his bag down on the floorboards and was in the process of opening it. “We’d better pray these tommy guns aren’t a heap of garbage.”
    “A heap of garbage?” Cork said.
    “We didn’t test-fire them. I told this dumb Greek—”
    “Ah, shut it,” Nico said to Stevie. To Sonny he said, “What were we supposed to do, start throwing lead in my bedroom while the folks are downstairs listening to Arthur Godfrey?”
    “That’d wake up the neighbors,” Vinnie said.
    “They’d better not be rejects,” Stevie said. “Otherwise we might as well stick ’em up our arses.”
    Nico