Vincent goes home and immediately calls Angelo and tells him to call Mikey about the package. A few minutes later, Angelo calls back with the confirmation.
“Hey, Mikey is on his way with the package and will be back around five, like you asked. Do you want to meet then?”
“Yeah, I will explain everything to you. There is nothing to worry about as long as you do everything I say, so calm everybody down.”
Vincent hangs up and then calls Valerie at work. He tells her that something has come up, so they won’t be able to meet later. She’s disappointed, but she takes it in stride—he disappoints her often.
His mother walks in as he hangs up. All she has to do is look at him to know something is up.
“Ma, can you call Rina and ask her to come over?”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Trust me, Ma, you’ll know everything when she gets here, and I need you to be here with her. Please call her and ask her to come over now.”
Teri frowns, but calls Rina at the store. Rina promises to come over soon. In the meantime, Teri goes into the kitchen, sits down with a cup of coffee, and waits with Vincent.
About twenty minutes later, Rina knocks on the door. Papa Tony stands behind her. Vincent is dismayed at the sight of the old man. This is gonna be harder than I thought.
“What is this all about?” Tony asks.
“Hey, Papa Tony, I wasn’t expecting you, but now that you’re here, it’s probably just as well. Can you and Rina take a seat?”
Vincent paces while they take their places on the couch.
“Okay,” Vincent begins, “From the top: I was just called in to see Carmine. He asked for my help because of my closeness to Paulie. Anyway, he told me everything.”
At this, Rina’s eyes open wide and Papa Tony releases a heavy sigh.
“Yeah, I was shocked, as you can imagine,” says Vincent.
“You,” he says to Tony and Rina, “never told me any of this and it would have been helpful if you did, but so be it—only now it’s become a major problem. Carmine doesn’t want anyone else to know that Paulie is his son, and more importantly, he does not want anyone to know that his son is an FBI agent. I don’t know how we’ll be able to keep it a secret, but no one in the Outfit can learn about this. It would be a huge problem for Carmine and maybe cause a war within the Outfit.”
Tony looks crestfallen. Rina begins to weep. All this because they chose to deny Paulie his right to know who his father was. Now it is all coming back to haunt them.
“I’ve made up my mind to see Carmine,” Rina says, looking directly at her father.
Tony starts to speak, but she interrupts.
“He needs to know everything. I want this to be resolved.”
“Good,” says Vincent, giving Rina a hug, “because he wants to see you. This is not going away, believe me, so we need to figure out how to protect Paulie.”
“We’ll find a way,” Tony says.
Vincent nods. “I believe Carmine won’t do anything that might hurt his son. I really believe that. If you could have seen him, you would believe that, too. It’s a good thing that Paulie is in Los Angeles playing his FBI game out there.”
The phone rings. Teri goes to answer it in the kitchen. “It’s that girl,” she says, calling to Vincent.
“Not now, Ma,” Vincent replies.
“She says it’s important!” Teri shoots back.
“Ma!” Vincent rejoins, walking into the kitchen.
“Take it in my room,” she says firmly. “Do what I say.”
Vincent looks at his mother, confused. He goes to her bedroom and closes the door. He picks up the phone.
“I got it, Ma!” He puts the phone to his ear and hears a click.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, dummy. I overheard your mother say it’s that girl, what the fuck?”
“Paulie?”