Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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on the huge brick oven. He peeked into the oven at a pie baking there. The cheese had
not yet started to bubble. When he turned back to the counter that enabled him to serve
people in the street, there was a young, tough-looking man standing there. The man
said, "Gimme a slice."
The pizza counterman took his wooden shovel and scooped one of the cold slices into
the oven to warm it up. The customer, instead of waiting outside, decided to come
through the door and be served. The store was empty now. The counterman opened
the oven and took out the hot slice and served it on a paper plate. But the customer,
instead of giving the money for it, was staring at him intently.
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"I hear you got a great tattoo on your chest," the customer said. "I can see the top of it
over your shirt, how about letting me see the rest of it?"
The counterman froze. He seemed to be paralyzed.
"Open your shirt," the customer said.
The counterman shook his head. "I got no tattoo," he said in heavily accented English.
"That's the man who works at night."
The customer laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh, harsh, strained.
"Come on, unbutton your shirt, let me see."
The counterman started backing toward the rear of the store, aiming to edge around the
huge oven. But the customer raised his hand above the counter. There was a gun in it.
He fired. The bullet caught the counterman in the chest and hurled him against the oven.
The customer
fired into his body again and the counterman slumped to the floor. The customer came
around the serving shelf, reached down and ripped the buttons off the shirt. The chest
was covered with blood, but the tattoo was visible, the intertwined lovers and the knife
transfixing them. The counterman raised one of his arms feebly as if to protect himself.
The gunman said, "Fabrizzio, Michael Corleone sends you his regards." He extended
the gun so that it was only a few inches from the counterman's skull and pulled the
trigger. Then he walked out of the store. At the curb a car was waiting for him with its
door open. He jumped in and the car sped off.
Rocco Lampone answered the phone installed on one of the iron pillars of the gate.
He heard someone saying, "Your package is ready," and the click as the caller hung up.
Rocco got into his car and drove out of the mall. He crossed the Jones Beach
Causeway, the same causeway on which Sonny Corleone had been killed, and drove
out to the railroad station of Wantagh. He parked his car there. Another car was waiting
for him with two men in it. They drove to a motel ten minutes farther out on Sunrise
Highway and turned into its courtyard. Rocco Lampone, leaving his two men in the car,
went to one of the little chalet-type bungalows. One kick sent its door flying off its hinges
and Rocco sprang into the room.
Phillip Tattaglia, seventy years old and naked as a baby, stood over a bed on which
lay a young girl. Phillip Tattaglia's thick head of hair was jet black, but the plumage of
his crotch was steel gray. His body had the soft plumpness of a bird. Rocco pumped
four bullets into him, all in the belly. Then he turned and ran back to the car. The two
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men dropped him off in the Wantagh station. He picked up his car and drove back to the
mall. He went in to see Michael Corleone for a moment and then came out and took up
his position at the gate.
Albert Neri, alone in his apartment, finished getting his uniform ready. Slowly he put it
on, trousers, shirt, tie and jacket, holster and gunbelt. He had turned in his gun when he
was suspended from the force, but, through some administrative oversight they had not
made him give up his shield. Clemenza had supplied him with a new .38 Police Special
that could not be traced. Neri broke it down, oiled it, checked the hammer, put it
together again, clicked the trigger. He loaded the cylinders and was set to go.
He put the policeman's cap in a heavy paper bag and then put a civilian overcoat on
to cover his uniform. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes before the car would be
waiting for him downstairs. He spent the fifteen minutes checking himself in the mirror.
There was no question. He looked like a real cop.
The car was waiting with two of Rocco Lampone's men in front. Neri got into the back
seat. As the car started downtown, after they had left the neighborhood of his apartment,
he shrugged off the civilian overcoat and left it on the floor of the car. He ripped open
the paper bag and put the police officer's cap on his head.
At 55th Street and Fifth Avenue the car pulled over to the curb and Neri got out. He
started walking down the avenue. He had a queer feeling being back in uniform,
patrolling the streets as he had done so many times. There were crowds of people. He