Carmella Commands
You don’t own the uplifters. You forgot them. But I’ll squeal to them. And they’ll get you. You know what’ll happen if they pick you for one of their grandstand plays. Even your own private judge wouldn’t dare turn ’em down.”
Mr. Laudini wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief.
“Say, kid,” he demanded, “where the hell did you get all that stuff? You don’t know a damned thing, anyway.”
“Try me!” jeered Carmella.
“Who’d I ever sell a drop to, then?”
“My dad and Mr. Barrington, for two folks. Want the dates?”
Mike shook his head sadly, the victim of circum- stance.
“What do you want me to do for the kid?” he asked.
“Get him a real lawyer. Get him a soft judge. Get him probation. Get him anything but the hoosegow. And then get him to beat it away from here.”
“All right! You win,” he said weakly. “I’ll do it.”
Mike Laudini kept his word, as he always did. This was the quality which made him a trusted leader in Little Italy’s affairs It was the quality on which Carmella had counted.
And so it happened that on the same day Nicolo Pieri was put on probation, with instructions to go elsewhere forever, Richard Dixon became a partner of Tommaso Coletta in the contracting business.
[250]
