Carmella Commands
they stuff the graft they get in their left hip pockets. The right-hand pocket for graft would be a terrible social error, countess. Get me, kid?”
Carmella gazed steadily at the screen, and kept silent.
To Nicolo, this was a new form of retort. He was not used to companions who did not chatter.
Bewildered, he blundered on:
“Gotta carry the gat on your right hip, ain’t you? That’s why.”
Low hisses from nearby spectators made him realize that he had carried the conversation too far. Several turned in their seats and glared at him.
It annoyed Nicolo to discover, when he and Carmella argued at the theater, that he was always the one who achieved this rebuke. She seemed to have an instinct about the stopping point.
He slumped in his seat, while Carmella gazed steadily ahead, and gently tittered as a comedy scene was flashed.
Having missed the continuity, Nicolo sat sullen and watched Carmella, ignoring the picture. How come that she knew so much, this kid? How come that she always put him in the wrong and made him feel miserable over nothing at all?
The same thing happened whenever they went to the movies together—whenever they went anywhere, in fact. Even so simple a thing as drinking coca-cola in Rafiaeli’s drug store invariably revealed new airs in
[137]
