Who is Lou Sciortino? by Ottavio Cappellani Read Free Book Online Page A

weeks, or months.
    â€œThere may be somebody…” La Bruna interrupted. “He’s still a kid … but he’s smart … Do you know Frank Erra, of Erra Productions?”
    â€œNo, John, but if you tell me he’s somebody you can trust, I believe you.”
    â€œOkay, Lou, let me talk to the kid, I’ll call you back.”
    â€œOkay, John, talk to you later!” Don Lou said in conclusion. Then, turning to his men, “That’s enough fucking around for now!”
    *   *   *
    â€œChaz!” Frank Erra shouts again in Lou Sciortino’s former office. “What the hell is this?” (In one of Lou Sciortino’s former drawers he’s just found a knife.) “Jesus! Who can you trust? What were they doing with this knife?”
    *   *   *
    Frank Erra is short (not much more than five feet tall), fat, and bald, with a rubbery neck. Right now he’s wearing an elegant gray flannel suit too pale for a man of his bulk, but only six years before he was a waiter at the Sarago, a restaurant where every evening they sang Autunno, Maruzzella, Cristo è o paese d’o sole, and where the prominent customers were Vicienzo Arpaia, Carmine Quagliarulo, Benny Gravagnuolo, and, of course, John La Bruna. Later he became the manager, and that meant keeping the books. Frank was very careful about keeping the books. He had a healthy terror of the books not balancing, and that terror has taken him far. When everybody threw themselves into movies because there was a lot of money to be made, and you needed companies that spent a lot to launder it, Frank became the figurehead for the La Brunas’ company. Erra Productions had a beautiful, spacious office in Manhattan, with a huge white leather couch Frank used for banging young actresses who wanted to hit the big time. He didn’t have much influence, but he always managed to get them a walk-on.
    When they put him in charge of the Sciortinos’ Starship Pictures, Frank was really touched, the way his nephew Al had been the day Frank lovingly showed him how a gun was made. He was only a figurehead, his name meant less than nothing in New York. But they knew that, even if he didn’t count for shit, he was practically one of them. Madonna, they’d put him, not illustrious sons and nephews like Angelo La Bruna or Alphonse Quagliarulo, at the head of a business that took real balls. Frank would have liked to get to know one of these sons or nephews who’d been pushed aside to make way for him, and show him his office and sit him down there, at his desk, and say, “Don’t worry about it, kid, everybody in the family has his place according to his abilities, and that’s why I’m here and you’re doing something else, but if you want to come here and sit in this armchair behind this desk you can do it whenever you like, because Frank Erra is someone who knows the meaning of gratitude.”
    *   *   *
    Frank gets up from the desk and waddles to the door, the seat of his pants caught between his buttocks. “Chaz!” he calls again. “CHAZ! Come here!”
    Chaz is his bodyguard. But he’s also his confidant. Chaz listens to his stories and nods. When Chaz nods, it means his stories are okay. A good kid, Chaz. Doesn’t say much, just nods.
    â€œCome on in, Chaz. I got something to tell you.”
    Chaz comes in, sits down on the other side of the desk, rummages in his pockets, takes out the lighter, lights Frank’s Cohiba, then nods and listens in silence.
    â€œHe phoned me!” Frank says. “In person, capish, Chaz? ‘Frank,’ he said, ‘we’ve never spoken on the phone, but I know you’re a smart kid, Frank, because that’s what they all tell me.’ I was shitting my pants, Chaz, so I stammered, ‘But … who is this?’ And he said, ‘Who is this?’ and started