as you’re getting an A in Spanish, try a lady down there named Conchita Cruz. She doesn’t speak much English, but she’s a friend of your grandfather’s.” He started to give her the number.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“You said A. I took notes.” A white lie, but he did remember her saying it.
“Nonno Fausto and Miss Conchita got married.”
“ Married ?”
“Married.”
Geraci looked at his reflection in the phone booth glass and barely recognized himself. “Married.” He jabbed his room key absently into the coin return. His father had married a Mexican. Hard to imagine his old pals back in Cleveland accepting that one. “So, what, I got a new mother now? When did that happen?”
“When he got back from his vacation in Italy. Life is short , he kept saying. They’re so cute together.”
“They can’t understand a word the other one’s saying.”
“There’s always the language of love.” This cracked her up. “I’m sorry, Daddy. It’s absolutely bonkers, you’re right, but they’re happy.”
Hearing his daughter laugh at love provoked a little pang in his gut, but he let it go.
“Call your grandpa at home. Tell him to write down the number of the phone booth at that diner he goes to all the time, whaddayacallit’s.”
“Lester’s.”
“That’s the one. Lester’s. I’ll call him at home, at noon his time tomorrow. He can give me the number of the pay phone, and I’ll call him back on it.”
He gave her three of the phone booth numbers he’d just written down and a complicated schedule of when he’d be checking them. “If I don’t answer, don’t worry. I’m just tied up.”
She started crying again, and he waited that out, too, before they said good-bye.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” SAID FAUSTO GERACI. “I’LL come get you.”
Nick burst out laughing. As if he were a boy who’d been picked up for shoplifting. “That’s not going to work, Dad. For one thing, if there’s anyone keeping an eye—”
“Anywhere in this country, I can be there in three days. I don’t count Alaska or Hawaii, only the real America.”
His father was still bitter that the move to make Sicily America’s forty-ninth state fell apart, only to have Alaska and Hawaii sneak in just ten years later.
“I need you to set me up with some people in Cleveland you really trust.”
“I don’t trust nobody, nothing. I’ll come get you. Cleveland I can get to in two days. That’s all the farther you got, Cleveland?”
“What about Mikey Z?”
“That Polack? He’s so lazy, you’d be lucky to get him out of bed in two days.”
Mike Zielinsky, a Teamster official, had been a friend of Fausto’s since childhood. His son was a Cleveland city councilman now. Mikey Z would know the right people to call.
“Just call him for me, huh?”
“Two days. And don’t give me it won’t work. Who’s gonna follow me I don’t want following me, eh? How is that possible?”
“It’s possible, Dad.” But he had to admit, unless the person following him was the reigning champion at Le Mans, not likely. In certain circles, his father, Fausto the Driver, was a legend: a retired Teamster who’d driven at least two million miles professionally, many of them very fast, sometimes with passengers whose business he stayed out of, all without ever getting a ticket or in an accident (the exception being a few that weren’t really accidents).
“C’mon, where you at, hotshot? Everything’s gonna work out great. Geraci and son.”
Jair-AH-chee, rather than Juh-RAY-see, another of the old man’s running complaints.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Nick said.
“Yeah, well,” Fausto said. “You gonna talk or you gonna tell me where you at?”
FORTY-SEVEN HOURS LATER, FAUSTO GERACI WHIPPED his Olds Starfire into the HoJo parking lot. It was two-toned, red and white, with leather seats and power everything. He’d had the black Rocket 88 it replaced for ten years.
“You made good
“You’re kidding, right?”
“You said A. I took notes.” A white lie, but he did remember her saying it.
“Nonno Fausto and Miss Conchita got married.”
“ Married ?”
“Married.”
Geraci looked at his reflection in the phone booth glass and barely recognized himself. “Married.” He jabbed his room key absently into the coin return. His father had married a Mexican. Hard to imagine his old pals back in Cleveland accepting that one. “So, what, I got a new mother now? When did that happen?”
“When he got back from his vacation in Italy. Life is short , he kept saying. They’re so cute together.”
“They can’t understand a word the other one’s saying.”
“There’s always the language of love.” This cracked her up. “I’m sorry, Daddy. It’s absolutely bonkers, you’re right, but they’re happy.”
Hearing his daughter laugh at love provoked a little pang in his gut, but he let it go.
“Call your grandpa at home. Tell him to write down the number of the phone booth at that diner he goes to all the time, whaddayacallit’s.”
“Lester’s.”
“That’s the one. Lester’s. I’ll call him at home, at noon his time tomorrow. He can give me the number of the pay phone, and I’ll call him back on it.”
He gave her three of the phone booth numbers he’d just written down and a complicated schedule of when he’d be checking them. “If I don’t answer, don’t worry. I’m just tied up.”
She started crying again, and he waited that out, too, before they said good-bye.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” SAID FAUSTO GERACI. “I’LL come get you.”
Nick burst out laughing. As if he were a boy who’d been picked up for shoplifting. “That’s not going to work, Dad. For one thing, if there’s anyone keeping an eye—”
“Anywhere in this country, I can be there in three days. I don’t count Alaska or Hawaii, only the real America.”
His father was still bitter that the move to make Sicily America’s forty-ninth state fell apart, only to have Alaska and Hawaii sneak in just ten years later.
“I need you to set me up with some people in Cleveland you really trust.”
“I don’t trust nobody, nothing. I’ll come get you. Cleveland I can get to in two days. That’s all the farther you got, Cleveland?”
“What about Mikey Z?”
“That Polack? He’s so lazy, you’d be lucky to get him out of bed in two days.”
Mike Zielinsky, a Teamster official, had been a friend of Fausto’s since childhood. His son was a Cleveland city councilman now. Mikey Z would know the right people to call.
“Just call him for me, huh?”
“Two days. And don’t give me it won’t work. Who’s gonna follow me I don’t want following me, eh? How is that possible?”
“It’s possible, Dad.” But he had to admit, unless the person following him was the reigning champion at Le Mans, not likely. In certain circles, his father, Fausto the Driver, was a legend: a retired Teamster who’d driven at least two million miles professionally, many of them very fast, sometimes with passengers whose business he stayed out of, all without ever getting a ticket or in an accident (the exception being a few that weren’t really accidents).
“C’mon, where you at, hotshot? Everything’s gonna work out great. Geraci and son.”
Jair-AH-chee, rather than Juh-RAY-see, another of the old man’s running complaints.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Nick said.
“Yeah, well,” Fausto said. “You gonna talk or you gonna tell me where you at?”
FORTY-SEVEN HOURS LATER, FAUSTO GERACI WHIPPED his Olds Starfire into the HoJo parking lot. It was two-toned, red and white, with leather seats and power everything. He’d had the black Rocket 88 it replaced for ten years.
“You made good
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