attorneys and tended to subject them to strip searches and all manner of hassles.
“ACLU?” the guard asked.
“Certainly not,” answered Kitteredge, who believed that the term civil liberties was possibly oxymoronic and, in any case, a bad idea.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Peppers.”
“Peppers?”
“Peppers.”
“You don’t look like a paisan,” the guard observed as he pawed through the vegetables.
“Nor do I feel like one,” Kitteredge said.
A senior guard behind a glass booth leaned out, tapped his associate on the shoulder, pointed at a clipboard in his other hand, and said, “He’s here to see Don Merolla.”
The younger guard flushed, hurriedly put the peppers back in the bag, and escorted Kitteredge down a hallway, saying, “Sorry about that. Uh, I have a brother-in-law who’s Italian.”
They walked down a long narrow corridor to a metal door. The guard knocked and a heavyset guy with silver hair opened the door, looked Kitteredge over, and handed the guard a twenty-dollar bill. The guard left.
“You this banker?” the guy asked.
“I’m Ethan Kitteredge.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Come on in.”
If Ethan Kitteredge had ever seen an Italian social club, he would have known that this large room in the middle of a maximum-security prison was indistinguishable from one.
The converted recreation room had a fully equipped kitchen in the northeast corner. Two large pots bubbled on the stove and a stooped old man gently stirred the contents of a saucepan. Kitteredge noticed to his horror that a complete cutlery set went along with the several cutting boards and the chopping block, at which a tall young man was wielding a cleaver on what looked to be a large piece of veal.
A long table with metal folding chairs occupied the center of the room.
In the southern half of the room, a dozen or so men were playing gin at three folding card tables, while another three or four were sitting in easy chairs or on a big sofa and watching two large-screen color televisions.
The silver-haired convict noticed Kitteredge’s odd stare and explained, “The ‘General Hospital’ guys were fighting with the ‘Guiding Light’ guys. On Sundays, it’s the Giants and the Patriots. It was easier to have two TVs. Wait right here.”
Kitteredge watched him walk over to the old man stirring the sauce and whisper in his ear. The old man set his spoon down on the stove and shuffled over to Kitteredge.
Kitteredge was shocked at how frail Dominic Merolla appeared. He was thin and stooped, and what little hair he had left was cotton white. Liver spots marked his olive skin and his blue eyes were rheumy. He wore a plaid wool shirt, baggy khaki trousers, and old slippers.
“Did you bring the peppers?” he asked.
Kitteredge held up the paper bag. Merolla’s hand shook as he reached out. He opened the bag, took a pepper, gently squeezed it, sniffed it, and handed it to the silver-haired man. He seemed satisfied.
“You know my grandson?” he asked.
Kitteredge nodded. “Very well.”
“He’s a good kid,” Merolla said.
Merolla faltered as he made his way over to the long table and sat down. The silver-haired man gestured for Kitteredge to sit down.
Merolla said, “It’s Sunday. We cook a big meal. I wanted you here and gone before the families arrive.”
“This shouldn’t take long.”
“I hate you pricks,” Merolla said. The silver-haired man set a glass of heavy red wine next to Merolla, who swallowed some wine and continued. “Do you know what I’m here for? Two guys steal my money; I have them killed. The police shoot thieves, they get medals. Dominic Merolla gets twenty to life. You old-money Yankees think you’re safer because Dominic Merolla is in prison. Now there’s no gambling, no loan-sharking, no vice in New England, huh?”
Kitteredge vaguely remembered that two brothers had been gunned down while eating pasta in a Federal Hill restaurant. As he recalled, the newspaper photos were rather bloody.
“I’m seventy-eight years old,” Merolla said. “What do they think I could do on the outside I can’t do on the inside? Chase broads? If I could still do that, I could get a broad in here, no problem. I eat, I sleep, I watch TV, I cook. I take care of business.”
“I came-”
Merolla interrupted. “I hate you pricks because you’re hypocrites. I buy you all, then you go on television and call me a danger to society. Accuse me of bribery. Okay, I’m the briber. I’m here. Look around the room. Do you see the bribees? No. Do you know where you’ll see them? At your cocktail parties and charity galas. On your boat. Yeah, I know all about you, you prick.”
Kitteredge understood why Merolla had insisted he come personally-to stand in for the old WASP establishment and take a beating. Kitteredge leaned back in his chair.
Merolla went on. “I knew your father before you and his father before him. All pricks. Your grandfather and my father did business. I can remember walking downtown with my father and seeing your grandfather walking with his family… and your grandfather walked past my father like he wasn’t there.
“Your grandfather hid money all over New England. He hid bootlegging money, gambling money, smuggling money. Then he wouldn’t even look down his nose at my father. So I’m glad you came today to ask for your favor, so I could say no to your face. I have to check my sauce.”
Merolla tottered to the kitchen. The young man at the chopping block had cut up the yellow peppers. Merolla inspected the peppers and stirred them into the sauce.
Kitteredge got up and stood next to him at the stove.
“I’m not asking for a favor so much as-”
“Doing business,” Merolla said. “You’re the same prick your father was.”
Merolla dipped the spoon in the pan and tasted the sauce.
“When I started, we had the numbers,” he said, “and it was illegal. Now you have the lottery. We had booze. Now you can buy booze at the drugstore. We had the bookies. That’s still illegal, but the same newspaper that calls me a criminal prints the point spreads. We made dirty movies. Now you can go to Loew’s, see dirty movies. Dope? Now Hollywood actors joke about cocaine on the television and everybody laughs. But Dominic Merolla is locked up, so everything must be okay. You-”
Kitteredge said, “I’ve heard enough of your self-serving, self-pitying diatribe, Mr. Merolla. You cannot create corruption and then curse it. You are a murderer, a usurer, an extortionist, and a whoremaster. While it may be true that you simply take advantage of human frailties, it’s also true that you and your ilk prey upon this society like carrion birds, except that you don’t even have the decency to wait for your vice-wounded victims to die.
“A sterner society would stand you all up against a wall and shoot you, and were I asked to serve on such a firing squad, I would do so cheerfully and then take myself out for a very good lunch and eat it in good appetite.
“As for the relationship between our families, it is a sad reality that earthly exigencies sometimes force one to handle excrement, but one is expected to wash one’s hands afterward. I’m glad my grandfather snubbed you, Mr. Merolla. I only regret such standards have lapsed and that we seem to be living in a society that embraces filth. Personally, I am sick to my stomach that I have to do business with you.
“You may not have comprehended this unfortunately long-winded soliloquy of mine, Mr. Merolla, so let me put it in words you might understand: Fuck you.”
During the seemingly interminable silence that followed, Kitteredge listened to the desultory sounds of the televisions droning what he assumed to be a football match. He wondered whether he had just botched the negotiation. It would have been better to have sent Ed Levine, who was much better at this sort of thing.
Merolla resumed stirring the sauce and said, “You’re a prick, like your whole family. What do you want?”
“An introduction to Carmine Bascaglia.”
