28

Later that Sunday morning, two of Gennaro Fustino’s people met the light plane with Charley in it, and took him to Gennaro’s house in the elegant garden district of New Orleans where he sat down to a family-style lunch with Gennaro, Natale Esposito, and Gennaro’s wife, Birdie, who was Don Corrado’s little sister. She was a very jolly, fat lady in her early sixties who never actually sat with them but kept bringing more and more food to the table. She was certainly a lot better-looking than her brother, Charley thought, then he had a pang of disloyalty.

The meal started with chinulille, small fried ravioli stuffed with a mixture of sweetened and spiced ricotta cheese and egg yolk. Gennaro, a Calabrese who was famous for owning 117 pairs of shoes, piled it on about how Calabrese food was so much better than Sicilian food, to the point where Charley decided he had to be kidding. Charley (and practically everybody else in the world, Charley thought) preferred his ravioli stuffed with salami the Sicilian way, but he didn’t say anything. They had tonno bollito, boiled fresh tuna with oil, garlic, pickles, and green salad. It was good, but spada a ghiotta, a nice swordfish cooked in oil with onions, celery, tomatoes, and olives, was better. Pop had told him that Calabrese people knew absolutely nothing about food. At least the baked layered pastry called sammartina was Sicilian, Mrs. Fustino owed her heritage that much. Charley got out an envelope and a pencil and wrote down the recipe as Mrs. Fustino gave it to him with delight and her husband looked on with amused contempt.

After lunch the men went into the parlor. Gennaro was very hospitable. His operation in terms of square miles was the biggest territory in the country and, pound for pound, he made it pay off in big numbers. He was a powerful man and a good friend to the Prizzis as well as a steady franchisee and a relative. He offered Charley one of his houses, well back in the Mississippi state bayou country about seventy miles away, or an apartment out on St. Charles. Charley said he thought it might be better to be right in New Orleans, in a downtown hotel, where he could get messages and send out his laundry.

“The only messages you’re gonna get are from me or Angelo, right? And we got a staff of three out in the bayou. You can have the real Cajun cooking or Italian. They don’t care.”

“I can’t get used to the country, Gennaro. It’s noisy. The bugs sing, the birds make a racket, and it’s hard to figure out where things are coming from when they’re coming at you.”

“I can set you up with people—a cook, like, and cleaning people out on St. Charles.”

“I’d only have to talk to them, Gennaro.”

“I know what you mean. Good. I’ll put you in a nice, clean hotel in the Quarter. It’s noisy, but it’s the right kind of noise. You want a little company?”

“Broads?”

“Sure.”

“I already got my hands full.”

“Angelo said you’ll be here a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“What name you traveling under?”

“Frank Arriminata. And hey, Gennaro, I wanna thank you for making room for me here.”

“You are always welcome in my house, Charley. But you didn’t just land here because I like you, you’re here for a reason.”

“Yeah?”

“You remember George F. Mallon, the reform guy who hustles Jesus wholesale and who is running for mayor of New York?”

“Yeah.”

“Angelo sent a man down here Friday, Al Melvini, you know him.”

“The Plumber?”

“He gave me the message from your father, then he went back. George F. Mallon’s son is coming down here to go to a big church convention next weekend. Don Corrado has some plans for him. Corrado wants to make sure Mallon is knocked out of the race before Election Day. We got the son’s hotel here, the New Iberia, and when he checks in he’s gonna get room number eight-twenty-seven, which is at the end of a hall, away from traffic. Angelo wants us to give him a little surprise there.”

“How does he want him set up?”

“Seed him with a coupla ounces of smack. Plant a gun on him—we got just the piece for you. We’ll provide a stand-up broad and you’ll handle all the details.”

“When?”

“Next Sunday afternoon. In the meantime enjoy yourself, and if you need anything just call.”