Sunburn by Laurence Shames Page A

when?"
    "You know goddam well since when," his father told him. "Since a year or so ago, when I cut that deal wit' Emilio Carbone. We keep the International, the Fabrettis get the locals."
    Gino chewed his lower lip, looked down at his lap. He knew there was something he shouldn't say, and he knew he was about to say it. "That wasn't a deal, Pop, that was a giveaway."
    The son braced himself to get smacked. A crack like that, in the old days it would have earned him a brisk backhand across the cheek, not hard enough to leave a mark, not hard enough to really hurt, but placed artfully so that the eye would tear, and in that involuntary squirt would be a ritual and necessary surrender. But now Vincente didn't hit him, didn't even visibly rile, just frowned and said, extremely slowly, "Gino. Big man. Putz. Now ya tell your father what's a deal and what ain't a deal?"
    In some peculiar way Gino was infuriated, humiliated not to get belted. My dad can lick your dad. The childhood taunt had for him become the first article of a lifelong creed; it shook him to his roots, made him quail inside, when his father declined to kick ass. He pushed his thick chin forward and egged the old man on. "A deal, Pop, is ya give somethin', ya get somethin'. Fuck we get for givin' up the locals?"
    Vincente's mouth was slack, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes looked waxy. His voice was soft, it sounded like someone dancing on sand. "A little peace a mind," he said.
    There was a pause. For Gino, the answer might as well have been Chinese; for Joey, silent in the background, hardly breathing, it seemed no more than obvious; and it was strange but natural that the two brothers' understandings were so different. A father didn't really teach his sons; his life threw lessons in the air like scraps to gulls, and different mouths latched onto different morsels.
    After a moment Gino went on the attack again. "So Cholly Ponte, he tells me he's already payin' tribute ta New Yawk, ta the Fabrettis, he doesn't have to pay double."
    "He's right," Vincente said.
    "Maybe," said Gino. "But what I'm thinkin', this deal you made wit' Carbone, it died wit' Carbone."
    Vincente shook his head, and the sinews in his stringy neck rose and fell on either side. "The deal's between the families."
    Gino waved away that notion. "Messina, that geek, I don't see what it's got ta do with him."
    Vincente had nothing to add. He sat there very still.
    "Listen, Pop," said Gino. "Here's what I wanna do, and I want ya ta back me on it. I wanna go ta Ponte, tell 'im things are back the way they were, he pays us again."
    The Godfather put his hands flat in front of him and leaned a little closer to his son. He cocked his head; the angle put his eyes in shadow. "Gino, you fucking deaf? The deal stands. Leave it alone."
    Gino sucked his gums. He looked down at his lap, watched his meaty fist flex and unflex against his thigh, felt his palm grow slick with oily sweat, but he was taken by surprise when his hand flew up in the air and came down hard, made a bruising, stinging sound against the cool stone of the desk. When he spoke, outrage and helplessness were wrestling to a strangled stalemate in his throat, his voice was pinched and shrill. "Pop, you're lettin' people walk all over us, they're losin' respect, you're lettin' 'em take what's ours—"
    Vincente raised a single finger and spoke in a voice that seemed to rumble up from underground. "Ours?" he said. "Gino, listen a me. Ya live long enough, an' if there's anything left ta run, maybe someday you'll be running things. But that day ain't heah yet. So do like I tell ya. Stay outa Miami. Keep outa Cholly Ponte's way. And fuhget about that fuckin' union. Ya got that, Gino?"
    Gino didn't answer. He sat there hangdog, brooding, taking weird solace from the pins and needles in his smarting hand; the sting was some evidence of action, proof of contact, some rub against his father's strength. He wrapped that aching hand around his glass