BRUNO

I was raised mostly by my aunt and uncle. They’re dead, too. My mother, when she went out, it was to pick up something for dinner. My father had a little den and used it.

He was apparently a massive pain in the ass even before they crushed his legs. He got a little money out of that, but how much was compensation then? He hung around the house and listened to the radio and complained. He covered his legs with a blanket even in the summer, and I had to tuck it back in when it slipped off. He drank Old Sunnybrook, this rye that took the print off coasters. The label said, “Takes the wrinkles out of your face and makes your asshole smile.” No lie. Look it up.

My aunt told me when he died, “Your father just was never happy, you know? He just never figured out how to be happy.” We’re standing there at the grave site, and she tells me that.

I was fifteen years old. I felt like telling her, If we knew how to fix that, we’d all be in clover.

My aunt, the one that died, she was best friends with Lucia.

Tommy I knew from when he was a little little kid. He ran a paper-route scam from the time he was about eleven. He’d come by and collect twice for the same week, once from the father, once from the mother. He’d wait until one or the other was out.

My aunt had him figured out early, starting writing down his visits on a pad near the phone. The first time she caught him, she said, “I don’t think so, Tommy,” and he knew enough not to push it. The second time she took him by the hair and brought him inside and showed him the list. She said that at that point he said—his head all twisted around, she’s still got him by the hair, eleven years old—that it was his feeling, in a case like this, that the customer was always right.

One thing you had to say about Tommy: this was no lazy guy. This was a young man who could operate. You woke him 6:00 A.M. Christmas morning and put him down in East Dipstick with seven cents, and by noon the next day he had somebody by the balls.

When he wanted to piss me off, he called me Uncle Bruno. He’d go, So you think I should go easier on ’im, Uncle Bruno? You think I should be more patient?

I’d say, Hey, a cavone like you, you’re gonna do what you want, whatever I tell you.

Lot of people are curious as to what happened to Tommy Monteleone. Let me tell you: a lot of people.

The police, they’re like having Andy of Mayberry on the case. They come into the house: Did anybody threaten your son’s life recently? Okay, fine, and that’s the end of that. They look at this, they look at that, have a nice day, thank you very much.

Old man Monteleone still in his bathrobe; he lost the remote, so he’s poking the channel buttons on the TV from his chair with the other end of a broomstick.

One cop actually got interested in the show while the other one was talking to Lucia.

I told Lucia I was gonna find out what happened. She said, “You been a good friend a his all along, Bruno.”

That’s all true. Though as Tommy would say, So what?

Friendship’s friendship and a wonderful thing. But this is money we’re talking about. This is me.