Neeco Gabrini was so nervous he could hear his own heartbeat.  They were going to be there soon.  His own son; his own flesh and blood was going to enter his modest home for the very first time.  Cassius said he was a hateful man.  Cassius said he was bitter and angry that he was not told when he was younger, and he did not want to meet him.  But now they were coming.  They were on their way.  Neeco didn’t know how to feel.

He had been hoping and praying for this day for so long that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it would mean to him to have Salvatore Luciano in his life.  Until five days ago, he didn’t even know Sal’s name.  How was he to know?  Jacqueline had gone back to the States, and he had no idea how to contact her, or her husband, or anybody else.  And his father told him to leave it be.

When Jackie told him she was pregnant, and that Benny was ordering her to go back to him, his life as he knew it ended that day.  Nothing was ever the same again.  He was in prison before his son was even born.

Bruce, a villager and Neeco’s best friend, a little person who had been on the lookout for the convoy, ran into the house.  His short, bowlegs didn’t allow him to run terribly fast, but he ran as fast as he could.  He was as excited as Neeco.  “He’s driving up now, Neeco,” Bruce said.  “He’s driving up now!”

Neeco hurried to the mirror against the wall in the living room, rubbed down his thick, salt-and-pepper hair, straightened the tie on his cheap suit, and then hurried out of his cottage to meet his new son.

 

Outside, as the convoy pulled up, Sal didn’t know how to feel, either  This was so different for him that he almost felt as if he was some school kid going to the principal’s office, and he didn’t like the feeling.

“I’m too old for this shit,” he said out loud as the cars stopped in front of the small cottage.

Everybody in the car knew what he meant.  Especially Tommy, who nodded his head.  “You alright?” he asked him.

“Hell no,” Sal said.  “I don’t want this.  I don’t want any parts of this.”

“It’s going to be difficult,” Gemma said.  “I just can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

“You’ve got both of your parents,” Sal said.  “Parents who love you and care about you.  I don’t know what that is.”

“Oh, Sal,” Grace said, heartfelt, and reached out and touched Sal.

Tommy leaned forward too.  “It’s going to be tough.  Especially if it’s true and this character is your old man.  But . . .”

Sal waited for more.  “But what?” he asked.

“But you’ve got to face it head on.  Tell the truth about how you feel.  Leave nothing on the table.  And then move on with your life, Sal.  You don’t owe these people shit.”

Cassius looked back when Tommy said that.  He’d always been told that Tommy was the nice one.  He didn’t understand why people could even think such a thing.  Tommy, in his view, was a bastard.

But if Sal thought he was in a state just driving up to the cottage, his state completely changed when the door of the cottage opened and Neeco Gabrini, the man professing to be his father, walked out.

When he saw the man walk out of that small cottage, his heart fell through his shoes.  So did Tommy’s, and Grace’s, and Gemma’s.  They all stared at him and then looked at Sal.

“He’s the spitting image of you, Sal,” Gemma said.  “That man could be your twin!”

Sal saw it too.  That was why he was suddenly so shaken.  He looked just like that stranger in front of him.  Just like him!  That child murderer was his father, and there could be no doubt about it.

Tommy leaned forward and squeezed Sal’s arm.  “You need more time?” he asked him.  He was almost as shaken as Sal was.

But Sal shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “What good is that going to do?  Like you said, I’ve got to face this demon.  I’ve got to put this shit to bed.”  Sal exhaled.  “I’m ready.”

“He’s not a bad person, Sal,” Cassius said.  “Neeco is my best child.”

Sal frowned.  “You sound like a fucking idiot,” he said.  “Your best child is a child murderer?  You sound like a fool!”

Gemma touched Sal’s hand.  He could dislike the grandfather.  There was something about him that Gemma didn’t like, either.  But he still was his grandfather.

But Sal didn’t see it that way.  All he saw was an opportunist.  A man who was probably the reason Tommy’s father, and Reno’s old man, turned out the way they were.  And they both were bad men.  Neither one of them, if you asked Sal, had any redeeming qualities whatsoever.  He put the grandfather in that category too.

“Let’s do this,” Sal said, as if he was preparing himself for battle, and all of the Gabrinis began pouring out of the car.

Security was extra tight, as the men in all six other vehicles were already out and on guard.   But there was nobody around that hole in the wall place that they could see, except for a man who looked like Sal, and another man who appeared to be what they would call a midget.

And when Sal and Tommy and their wives and Cassius got out of the fourth vehicle, it was Neeco’s time to be shocked.  At first, when he saw Tommy get out of the car, he thought maybe he was Salvatore Luciano.  There was, after all, a family resemblance.  But Salvatore had been described as a bulldog kind of man.  This man, Neeco thought, was tall and elegant and great looking in the extreme.  He was anything but bulldoggish.

And then Sal got out.

When Sal got out, that was when Neeco’s heart dropped.  He was looking at his son for the first time in his life, and there was no way it could be a mistake.  The second one was his Salvatore.  The second one was his son!

He fought like hell to keep from breaking down into tears.  And when they began walking toward him, he found himself leaning toward little Bruce, his neighbor and best friend, for support.

“That’s him?” Bruce asked.

Neeco nodded.

“Geez, Neek.  That man looks a lot like you!”  Then Bruce looked at his friend.  “Doesn’t he?”

He did.  A blind man could see that.  And Neeco didn’t have the ability, at that shocked moment, to even respond.

Sal and Gemma walked in front, while Tommy and Grace and Cassius pulled up the rear.  But everybody’s eyes were on Sal.  How would he respond to all of this, Tommy wondered?  How was this going to affect his kid brother?

When they all arrived, Bruce elbowed Neeco, who suddenly didn’t seem to know what to do. “Oh!  Hello,” Neeco said.

Was this joker for real, Sal asked, acting all simple and innocent?  Gemma was wondering the same thing.

“Hello,” Sal responded dryly.  If this was an act, as Sal suspected it was, he wasn’t participating.

But seeing the man who more than likely was his real father standing not three feet in front of him was crazy.  It did things to a man’s mind.  It made Sal feel as if his whole life had been some kind of game.  Some kind of twisted, perverted lie.

“You look real good,” Neeco said.  Then he looked at Gemma.  “You, too, ma’am.”

Gemma didn’t know what to say.  This man had killed children!  How do you be cordial to a monster?  But because she defended them every day in her job as a criminal defense attorney, she knew how to play the game.  “Thank you,” she said, and even managed to smile.

That made Neeco feel better.  Nobody else in that group would even try to smile.  Then he looked beyond Sal and Gemma.  “You must be Thomas,” he said.

“Yes,” Tommy responded.

“Hi, Thomas,” Neeco said with a smile.

Tommy found him a little odd himself.  Maybe all those years in prison had softened his brain.  In America, child killers were brutalized in prison.  Maybe it was just as bad in Italy, too.  “Hi,” Tommy responded.

Neeco looked at Grace, and smiled.  “This must be your beautiful wife, Thomas,” he said.

If he was expecting an introduction, he wasn’t getting one from Tommy.  He didn’t want his wife’s name on this man’s lips.

“Invite them inside, Neeco,” Cassius said.  “It may not be safe out here.”

“Oh!” said Neeco.  “Right.  Come on in, please.”  And Neeco, followed by his small friend and Cassius, made their way into the cottage.  Sal and Gemma, and Tommy and Grace, followed suit.