Carmella Commands/Chapter 20
armella was pretending to study her lessons on the kitchen table when the telephone rang. For a week she had been waiting for it. A Peggy Dorr picture was at the Gaiety, and Dixon had promised. But so far he had sent no word.
She started for the instrument. But so, also, did Giuseppe, for the first time challenging her right to answer.
“It’s for me, I bet,” he cried.
“Joe! I’ll answer it,” screamed his sister.
There was a scuffle as he reached the instrument a second ahead, but he held his ground. Still confident that the call must be for her, Carmella waited, until she heard:
“Hello, Pete! Oh, that’s all right. Huh? Naw, nobody killed. Just my kid sister throwing a fit. Oh, she don’t count.”
He turned and grinned wickedly at his sister, and Carmella would gladly have killed him. Here, for the first time, she recognized him as a rival worth reckoning. Slowly she walked back to the kitchen, where the family was sitting.
Presently she heard Giuseppe, in the hall, chatting in a slang which she herself hardly followed. She heard him exclaim:
“Zat so!—Gee whiz!—Sure I do!—What for? Bootleggin’ for Mike, I bet.—Bailed yet?—Zat so?—Too cocky anyways!—Darn glad of it!—Sure he was! —Been helping Mike since before last Christmas.—Zat so!—Uh-huh!-—Well, s’long, Pete! Serves him right.—See y’at school tomorrow.”
The boy swaggered back into the kitchen, grinning.
“Well, what do you know about that?” he asked.
“What about what?” demanded Carmella. “What about Nicolo?”
“Pinched!” said her brother impressively.
“Yes-yes! I heard that. But when? What for? What for?”
Joe would have delayed answering, if he dared, to tantalize his sister. But his parents were listening too. So he swung his speech to Italian and went on:
“Pete didn’t know what for. Nicolo’s arrested. You ought to know what for; you know him best. They prob’ly caught him with a case of hooch or something. Do him good!”
Carmella walked quickly toward her brother and slapped his face with all the violence of recent emotions.
“Carmella Coletta!” cried her mother.
But Tommaso suddenly laughed, long and loud, like a boy whose voice is changing.
Both children, dismayed, turned toward him. Whatever battle they might have staged turned to bewildered truce at their father’s mirth. Maria gazed, uncomprehending. But not for years had she questioned anything that her lord and master did.
Tommaso was still chuckling heavily when the sound of the front-door bell saved them from any further comment. Giuseppe, being nearest, darted for the door, whereupon Carmella sat down in a premium chair, as prim and disinterested as a defeated candidate for office.
From the door she heard a deep voice using her name, and Giuseppe, his voice queer and uncertain, saying:
“Y-y-yes, s-sir, sh-she’s here all r-right. I’ll c-c-call her.”
“I’ll just come in,” said the heavy voice, followed by heavy footsteps.
And there, framed in the doorway, stood the perfect policeman in full uniform.
Six feet and over; a hundred and ninety pounds; wide, square shoulders; face heavily lined, but with a smile in every twitch of it; agile and happy; pleasant but firm. For months thereafter Policeman 437 was the image that Carmella pictured to herself playing opposite, in her daydreams of Hollywood.
“Par-r-don, folks!” he said. “But I’m after wanting to discourse with a girl named Kid Kate, or some such, and she’s a friend of Nicky Pieri, I have been told.”
“Cola!” said Tommaso, pointing to Carmella.
“I’m Kid Kate, if that’s what you want to know,” said Carmella.
She walked firmly toward the officer, though her heart was beating high. Lately she had learned that pugilists were taught to look each other squarely in the eye, and even the policeman’s practiced gaze almost fell before the intensity of her stare.
“Well, now, Kid Kate, y’re a friend of this Nicky boy, I do be hearing. Ain’t you now?”
“Tell the truth, Carmella!” screamed Maria, in Italian, and fell to weeping.
In that instant Carmella felt family mastery again. Her mother was frightened. Her new trick of understanding English, and of punishing Giuseppe, and of poise, was a bluff. She was scared by a uniform. Uniforms—hell! She had sassed them many a time. Even old Pat Cunningham’s.
“You bet your pet life I’m a friend of Nicolo, Mr. Cop,” she declared. “Now what have you got to say?”
Officer Dineen caught his breath. He had not expected to meet one so fully in command of herself.
“Tell him to sit down,” said Tommaso.
“Gee whiz, Mr. Cop! I forgot my manners,” said Carmella. “Come in and sit down. Now what’s it all about?”
Officer Dineen spread his ample self in the premium chair, thereby causing Mrs. Coletta an instant’s worry. There was so much policeman and so little chair.
“Shoot, Mr. Cop!” said Carmella.
“Well, now, I’ll tell you,” began Mr. Dineen sociably. “It seems we have down at Central station a young lad named Nicolo, who lives opposite you here, and it seems it’s up to him to prove his char-ac-ter, for good or bad. And he’s given the names of Kid Kate Coletta and Mike Laudini. Now we know Mike, but he wasn’t home when I called. So I’ve come here. The Chief sent me up to see what you’d testify to in court, in case you get called.”
He grinned, and his grin was more effective than a lifelong friendship. It was this easy friendliness, and his skill in extracting facts from the reluctant, that had won him promotion to the detective staff.
“You mean you want me to tell you about Nicolo?” asked Carmella.
“Sure! Just that, if you want to. You ain’t on the witness stand now, you know. But if you want to tell me, it’ll maybe help Nicky about his bail and such-all.”
“Well, believe me, Mr. Officer,” began Carmella, “whatever you got him pinched for, he ain’t guilty. All he ever did was just work for another man. He’s the squarest, honestest, reliable-est kid there is south of City Hall. Whatever he says he didn’t do, he didn’t do it. Get me?”
“I get you, kid, and that’s good,” said Officer Dineen, nodding to reassure her. “And you’ll likely go on the witness stand and swear the same?”
“You bet I will. Why shouldn’t I? It’s God’s own truth.”
“No reason why not. But if they say he was helping Mike make hooch—what’d you say then?”
“What do you mean, helped make hooch? He never! All he did was help Mike⸺”
She saw the policeman’s eyes twinkle, and realized that she had been tricked into saying too much.
“That’s all right,” said Officer Dineen soothingly. “I ain’t looking up the hooch business. Just thought I’d⸺”
“Say!” interrupted Carmella. “What was Nick pinched for, anyway?”
“Robbing his employer,” said the officer. “Down to the Eclipse store. He’s been working in the delivery room Saturday afternoons. Made collections and kept ’em. Just plain stealing.”
Carmella stood, feet apart, like a boxer.
“What’s that, Mr. Cop? What’s that you say Nicolo did?”
“Stole money.”
“You lie!” she cried. “All cops are liars. You’re one.”
Mr. Dineen smiled tolerantly. He was used to outbreaks.
“He’s confessed,” was his answer.
“Confessed! Nick says he stole! He never did! He couldn’t! He wouldn’t.”
“All he did was to do it. He’s signed a confession.”
“No, no! He couldn’t! My God, Mr. Cop, he’s a bootlegger, yes! Sure he is. But stealing! No-no-no! Not Nicolo!”
“He gave you as a character witness. Want to help him? Like enough a girl like you with plenty of sob stuff could get him probation.”
Carmella was silent a moment. Then slowly she asked:
“He—Nicolo—stole—money?”
“Did, and admits it.”
“Sob for that guy?” the girl suddenly cried. “Sob for a thief? A cheap thief? All I said was about bootlegging. I thought that was all he did. I thought he was straight. But, God! If he stole, I’m off him. Off him! Off him! The little rat! The damned little rat!”
Officer Dineen rose and pretended to be ready to go.
“Then you’re off him?” he asked.
“Off him? Of course I’m off him. The rat! I thought he’d grow up to be an honest bootlegger. If he’s a crook, I’m off him. Tell him that from me.”
Officer Dineen, slightly dazed but with new wisdom, which would help him in some future case, left the house. Carmella showed him to the door, and returned to the living room, where Tommaso and Maria were eagerly waiting to be told the story.
Briefly, in Italian, Carmella outlined the case. Maria wrung her hands, but Tommaso merely smoked more heavily than usual, and watched his daughter.
Carmella started to turn to her schoolbooks, but suddenly jumped to her feet and ran for her hat.
“I’m going over to sleep with Mrs. Pieri,” she said. “She won’t miss Nicolo till late, but she’ll be awful then. I’ve gotta break the news to her. And I’ll stay all night. She’ll need me.”
Tommaso looked doubtful, but Maria smiled and nodded.