‘They are looking for you,’ the guy who looks like Elvis at the wedding place told me.
‘Who’s “they”?’ I said, filled with deep foreboding.
‘Both lots. The Feds intend to deport you, but they thought it was the next day that you got out. And you been disappeared for two days; so you missed each other. And the other “they” is Joe and Co, for doing a runner on them.’
The wedding guy, who’s Sicilian, wouldn’t tell me where Maria lived. But he’d take a message. ‘I’ll have to lock you in my cellar to await the verdict from The Family.’ There wasn’t much choice in the matter: he was twice my size and got a Berretta M9 on me, so in I went.
There’s this big hook on the wall, with a lot of dark stains under it, so I’m getting a tad nervous about this. Anyway, I get sick of waiting for folk to tell me what they’re gonna do to me. So I was out of there – useless stupid lock, and I’m having a pizza and watching TV in the dressing room back of the wedding chapel when he gets back, with Maria.
‘I call myself Giuliana,’ she introduced herself. ‘Maria is my middle name’ I don’t use it very often.’
‘Just for fake weddings?’
‘No, not fake’ she told me, with a big smile. ‘We are legally married. It wasn’t evident at the time, but I’m now six months pregnant.’
‘You’re right,’ I looked all up and down her. ‘It didn’t show then, but it sure does now. Triplets?’
She sat herself down, and helped herself to my pizza, and my Colorado Grand Valley Riesling, straight out the bottle. Refined, huh?
‘It is necessary for me to be married at the time of birth, to avoid family shame.’ I had this huge-and-demure smile from her again. ‘Papa’s intention is that you’re to be knocked off, immediately after my baby’s born. They drew lots to see who the lucky hit-guy would be.’
That was a bit of a bummer. ‘When? At the shower party? Baptism present for you?’
She took umbrage at that – or became arrabiata, as the Italians say.
‘It’s not like I can run away and marry the father,’ she told me. ‘Primo, because he’s German; e secondo, because he’s been deceased since Papa found out about him. And… well, you can’t even guess at all the ins and outs of families like ours.’
Naturally, she was soon in touch with Joe 132; or Mio Caro Papa, as she called him.
‘You-a my-a Caro Papa as well,’ I called into the phone she was holding.
‘Call him that again if you want your tongue ripping out, you Limey little shit.’ That was my loving wife being touchy and not very feely with me. Oh, yes: she’s about a foot taller than me – did I mention that? Well, she is. I really look up to her.
If I look straight forward, though, the view is pretty good.
***
Joe 132’s a bit mollified now, finding my disappearance from the pen was non-voluntary. Especially seeing as I turned up here; black, blue, bleeding, and looking for The Family, instead of doing the expected runner. Or snitching to the Feds. So he called off his pack. A bit reluctant, some of them – loads of kudos and shekels to be had from doing a Joe-Job.
‘Plus the pleasure of terminating a Limey,’ says Uncle Luigi, cleaning his fingernails with his stiletto.
***
Now, this minute. I’m married still. I’m Numero Uno in The Organisation.
‘Well, number one hundred and uno,’ Giuliana tells me. ‘But you’re an inside, sort-of family member, because married-in half-counts.’
They call me The Book. I pretty much knew the finances from the three years I was inside; so, when I turned up here, I could pull the books together better than anyone.
So, still this minute. I have total loyalty to Joe 132. He’s The Gaffer. He likes it when I call him that.
‘A frigging Limey,’ he mock-complains. ‘Married to-a mia bambina – mia Juji.’
He still moans about blue balls and stronzone. No, you don’t want to know about them – or you do? Okay, they found he had testicular cancer while he was in there. It was that first day in the prison yard, when he picked me up, and I gave him the kicking in the baldies. The prison doc discovered it. So Joe feels like it’d be bad faith to have me terminated for it.
‘I’d be okay with ripping your dick off, though,’ he told me when Juji and I went visiting one time.
Except Giuliana Maria is against both ideas these days.
We adore our little boy – Juliano Tranquillo. Don’t ask about that, either; names are a family thing. He’s the only male first-born child for four generations. I get the credit for being the father: there’s no mention of the German guy. Naturally, I have to bring JT up. You should hear his accent – it wanders from Pimlico to Palermo and back to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, where we have an amazing home with its own hot springs. Of course, he’s not actually saying a lot – not at that age. But he’ll have a little sister to practise on before long.
Joe 132’s out next week. He knows all about JT, of course. But we’re a mite nervous about how he’ll react to the prospect of a second grandchild. He is certain to notice a hugely swollen centre section to Giuliana; assuming he doesn’t know already.
I was specifically forbidden to lay a finger on his beloved daughter a year ago, and the trouble is – there’s been an awful lot of laying-on of fingers practically every day since.
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