Carmella Commands/Chapter 15
hat’s the matter, dad?” Carmella cried. “Need an official interpreter today?”
She laughed happily, but Tommaso’s mood was stern. The unknown worried him. For answer he pointed to the business agent, who had been talking with a companion. Dixon noted with satisfaction that Tommaso’s men were all at work.
Carmella walked sturdily to the agent.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m the English end of Coletta and Company,” she said. “And any straight or crooked work you’ve got on hand can be delivered to me, here and now. See?”
“Well, say, kid, you don’t have to start with your feet spread out like a sea-going admiral. All the matter is, your old man has got to have a bond.”
“Who says so?”
“Why—uh!—I say so.”
“And who in the holy hell are you, you moth-eaten shrimp?”
The agent flushed. He was slightly pockmarked, and below the average in size.
“Say,” he answered, “are you trying to get me into an argument?”
“No! You don’t know enough to argue. I’m trying to get you into a fight.”
“But your old man⸺”
“Forget my old man. I can lick you on brains, and my dad can lick you with his fists. If I say the word, he’ll hand you to the undertaker, everything else but embalmed. Believe me, he can fight. Now what’s the big kick all about? Is work here any business of yours, and if it is, what do I tell the cops?”
“Well, for gawd’s sake! What kind of a nice little kid are you?” began the agent. “I was going to give you a doll next Christmas, but now⸺”
“Now you know you were trying to swing a bluff on a man you thought was a poor ignitz dago. Now you know he’s got friends. Two of my uncles are captains in the police department, and two of my cousins are champions of the world in their class. I can get all four here in a couple of hours. Now, do you beat it quick, or do I set my dad on you and call the coroner?”
Dixon, beside Carmella, was grinning. John Barrington had come close, and gazed in awe at the girl. Even Mr. Barrington had come within hearing distance. The agent hesitated, and Dixon slightly curled his right fist. The agent wilted.
“F’r the love of gawd, they’re breeding wild-cats now,” he said to his companion, as they walked to their machine.
Dixon followed them, strolling casually. As they got into the machine he said:
“Been near a year now since I had a real good fight. I was hoping you had more guts, so’s to make it a match. From now on, mister, you’re away from here. See?”
The agent scowled heavily, and made no reply.
Carmella turned to her father.
“That’s that!” she said, in Italian. “Now if you keep your gang at work you’ll save some money. And Mr. Barrington here will save some time.”
Tommaso whirled on the three sets of workers, who were already bending to their shovels.
John Barrington came closer to Carmella.
“Gee, Miss Carmella,” he said, “you’re great! How’d you dare talk that way?”
“He’s just a bluffer,” said Carmella. “You’ve got to talk to him like that.”
John, three years her senior, but slender and hesitant, like one whose decisions had always been made for him, gazed in continued admiration.
“But how,” he persisted, “can you tell a bluffer from the real thing?”
“Mostly you just know it. Feel it, you know. I don’t know how.”
She returned his gaze, perplexed by his sudden interest. He went on:
“You know, Miss Carmella, that time you came to the house, I liked you.”
“That’s good!” she answered frankly. “I thought you acted bored.”
“All the boys act bored,” he said. “That’s the way you have to act if you are anybody. But I wasn’t—not a bit. You’re—you’re—well, sort of different, you know. Will you come for luncheon again some day?”
Carmella laughed, more in surprise than in amusement.
“That’s up to your mother and my folks, whether they’d let me if she asked me.”
“Wouldn’t you like to come, if mother asks you?”
“I’d have to see about that if it happened, kiddo! Looks to me like your dad wants you.”
Dixon approached from the direction of the machine, in which Mr. Barrington was already seated.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but your father wants you, John. Didn’t you hear me honking for you?”
“I did not, Dixon,” said the boy, and Carmella’s quick ears heard the difference in his tone from his hesitating talk with her. She glanced at Dixon, and noted a slight flush under the bronze of his face. And in this subtle change of a boy’s voice she recognized another step in her education.
You commanded, it seemed, those whom you knew you could command. The trick seemed to consist in knowing whom. In her heart she felt that she knew better than did John. Dixon turned to Tommaso, standing near, and asked:“Is the kid going home? She—home?” He pointed to Carmella.
“Not by a damn sight!” said the girl, speaking first. “I’m staying here with dad. If that man comes back, or anything else happens⸺”
Her sentence trailed into silence, while Tommaso stood, perplexed.
“Better let her stay here, at least today,” said Dixon. “She’ll learn more in things like this than in a year of school.”
“Si?” said Tommaso, understanding the idea if not the words. “You think—yes?”
“You bet!” said Dixon. “Let her stay.”
“Sure I’ll stay, dad, if you want me,” said Carmella, in Italian. “I’m your official interpreter, you know. Maybe something else will happen.”
“Va bene!” said Tommaso.
Carmella shuffled a jazz step in the dirt, in involuntary celebration of a wish come true.
Down in the partly excavated cellar of the bungalow nearest the main road, where the busses were to run, Salvatore exclaimed to his fellow workman Angelo:
“How does la piccola padrona boss the world!”
“La piccola padrona she is,” said Angelino. “She is the little boss, and God help me if I ever cross her path.”
Carmella, meanwhile, induced her father to walk
La piccola padrona
with her to the rival excavations down the road. She wanted to know the comparative standing of the two projects before she began to set a pace for Tommaso.
And Dixon, leading John back to the Barrington car, listened intently as father began to question son.
As he left Carmella, the boy had called back:
“Remember, mother’s going to ask you to luncheon again.”
Carmella had smiled and waved an idle hand.
In the machine Mr. Barrington began gruffly:
“Didn’t you hear Dixon honk? What were you saying to that dago kid?”
“Nothing in particular,” said John, adopting his lifelong defensive rôle.
“Well, you kept me waiting till I’ve probably missed a ten thousand dollar appointment. If you come with me again, you stick to me. See?”
“Yes, sir!” said John dutifully.
“Drive fast, Dixon,” commanded Mr. Barrington.
They rode in silence, but two men were thinking. Mr. Barrington’s thoughts were timid wishes.
“By God!” he thought. “She’s a kid. If my kids could only have her gumption. If,”—he started in his seat at the abruptness of the thought—“if my boy John would—would—like her! My God!”
He rode on, dazed with the thought.
Meanwhile the chauffeur was thinking. And the substance of his thought could be summed up in the one phrase:
“What the hell! She’s only a kid.”
John, in his corner, was practicing boredom by thinking his father rather a bore.