8
By the time Frank got down to the dining room, the fighting had already started. Ugo Ruocco’s guards had done their job and gotten reinforcements to meet the mob in the street outside. The remaining dinner customers were screaming in terror as Antonio and Lorenzo frantically tried to herd them into the kitchen so they could escape out the back into the alley. Joe had followed Frank down the stairs, and he hurried off to help.
“Turn out the lights!” Mrs. Ruocco was yelling to no one in particular as she reached up to turn off the nearest gas lamp.
Realizing he’d be wasting his time and endangering his life for no reason if he tried to intervene in the melee outside, Frank started turning off the gas jets in the front of the room.
“The door!” Mrs. Ruocco cried as someone slammed against the front window. “Lock it!”
Frank hurried over and shoved home the bolt. “I’ll pull the shades, too,” he said. He didn’t add that it was a safety precaution. If they smashed in the windows, the shades would keep the glass from flying too far and injuring someone inside.
“What’s happening?” a woman cried from the shadow of the stairway. Frank looked over to see Maria Ruocco holding the bundled baby. Her eyes were wide with terror.
“They’ve come to kill us,” Valentina informed her hysterically as she emerged from the kitchen. “All because of that damn baby!”
“Valentina!” Mrs. Ruocco chastened shrilly.
“I don’t care! I hate that baby! We should throw it out there and let them have it so they’ll leave us alone!”
Something thudded against the front window, and Valentina screamed. Joe came out of the kitchen, his brothers close behind him.
“Turn off the rest of the lights,” Mrs. Ruocco shouted as glass shattered on the doorstep.
Valentina screamed again and this time she didn’t stop.
Mrs. Ruocco strode over to her, lifted a hand, and slapped her soundly across the face, silencing her instantly. Frank winced, but he was too glad to have her quiet to worry much about it.
“Mama,” Joe said, throwing an arm around Valentina and pulling her close. “We need to get out of here.”
“We cannot leave our home!” Mrs. Ruocco replied, outraged.
“Joe’s right, Mrs. Ruocco,” Frank said. “They might set the place on fire.”
Valentina made a sound like she was going to scream again, but Joe tightened his grip, silencing her.
“Maria and the children should leave,” Lorenzo said sensibly. “Maria, you take Valentina and the baby out the back and over to Mrs. Pizzuto’s.”
“I will not leave,” Mrs. Ruocco informed him.
“Did I say you should go?” he countered. “Come on, Maria. Hurry before somebody thinks about going around to the back.”
“Mama?” Maria asked uncertainly.
“Go,” Mrs. Ruocco said. “You cannot help here.”
Valentina was already hurrying toward the kitchen, and Maria followed her with obvious reluctance.
“One of you men, go with them and make sure they get there safely,” Frank added. Lorenzo went after them.
“You are police,” Mrs. Ruocco reminded him with a scornful glance. “Why you no do something?”
“I sent Officer Donatelli to Police Headquarters. They’ll be here soon.”
She snorted in disgust.
“Come away from the windows, Mama,” Joe said, taking her arm and trying to get her to move.
She shook him off. “I tell you turn off lights!”
Joe and Antonio finished the task, and soon they stood in shadowy darkness, relieved only by the flickering reflections from the torches outside.
“Mama, you should leave, too,” Antonio said, the fear thick in his voice. “Come on, I’ll take you.”
“Go, if you are afraid,” she said. “I will stay.”
“We should’ve let that Irish woman take the baby,”
Antonio said, looking toward the front of the restaurant where the shadows of the men outside danced across the shaded window. “Do you know what they’re saying about us in the newspapers?”
“I no care what they say,” Mrs. Ruocco cried. “Do you have no pride?”
“I have pride for my family, but that baby is not our family,” Antonio argued, his voice quivering with terror. “Why should we die for somebody else’s bastard?”
“Shut up, Antonio,” Joe said. “We aren’t going to die.”
“He said they’d set the place on fire!” Antonio cried, gesturing toward Frank.
“Then run away with the other baby,” Joe said in disgust.
“This is all your fault!” Antonio was shouting now. “You were the one who said I should marry that bitch!”
“You tell him that?” Mrs. Ruocco demanded in surprise.
“The baby!” Joe threw up his hands in frustration. “What else could he do?”
“He could do nothing!” Mrs. Ruocco informed him. “He is boy!”
“I’m not a boy, Mama!” Antonio protested. “I’m a man!”
Something struck the front door, shaking it in its frame and startling Mrs. Ruocco into crying out.
“Mama, Antonio is right. You must get out of here,” Joe said, moving toward her.
Frank had already stepped between her and the door. He picked up a chair, ready to swing it as a greeting to intruders. “Take your mother out the back,” he shouted at Joe.
They heard a door slam behind them and the sound of running feet. Someone burst through the door from the kitchen.
“Maria is safe,” Lorenzo reported. “What’s happening?”
“Take Mama away,” Joe said as the front door shook again under the assault of someone trying very hard to break it down. “Quick!”
“No!” Mrs. Ruocco cried, slapping away Joe’s hands when he tried to push her toward his brother. “I stay!”
“Get her under a table then!” Frank shouted as the front door shuddered one last time before bursting open. He didn’t see what happened to her because he was too busy swinging the chair at the first body through the door. It landed with a satisfactory thud, driving the fellow backward into the bodies behind him. Since the mob kept surging forward, no one could retreat or even stop, and the bodies pouring through the doorway all started falling over each other like dominoes.
Frank raised the chair and brought it down again on the first man to struggle to his feet. It shattered in his hands, so he shook loose one of the legs and started swinging. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep the rioters at bay with a chair leg, but fortunately, he finally heard the blast of a police whistle outside, followed by a chorus of echoing bleats that signaled the arrival of the cops.
“Get out of here before I lock you all up!” Frank shouted to the writhing mass of men lodged in the restaurant doorway. He could hear the satisfying sound of locust clubs striking flesh and bone and the howls of pain from the rioters in the street. Someone else had picked up another piece of the broken chair and was helping him beat back the in-vaders. For what seemed a long time, none of them were able to move because the crowd outside was blocking their escape. But suddenly, as if a cork had been pulled from a bottle, the mob fell away and those stuck in the doorway scrambled or dove or crawled outside to the relative safety of the street. Frank followed, still swinging his club to encourage them on their way. The street was already clearing except for those lying senseless on the cobblestones or being thrown into the paddy wagons.
Gino came running over to Frank. “Is everybody all right?”
“I think so,” Frank said, a little winded from his exer-tions. “Maria took Valentina and the baby to a neighbor’s.
The old woman wouldn’t leave, and the boys are still inside, but nobody got any farther than the front
