“No. I don’t want to hear about you getting married so soon after …”
“Your father’s been dead almost …”
“I don’t want tohear it!” Carella shouted, and whirled on his sister. “And I don’t want to hear about you marrying the man who …”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Angela asked.
“Oh no,” he said. “Oh no, you don’t.”
“Have you lost your …?”
“Never mind what’s wrong withme! What’s wrong with you? Have you both forgotten Papa already? How can you sit here inhis house …”
“Papa is dead, Steve.”
“Oh, is he? Gee, no kidding. What do you think this is about here? What are we talking about here? What are you both planning to do if not spit on Papa’s …”
“Don’t youdare!” his mother said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mom, stop behaving like a schoolgirl. And you stop encouraging her!” he shouted, whirling on Angela. “You want to marry that jackass, at least have the decency to leave her out of it.”
Angela was shaking her head.
“Sure, shake your head,” he said. “I’m wrong, right? She meets a Wop fresh off the boat …”
“Not in my house,” his mother said. “Never use that word in my house.”
“Oh, forgive me, what is he? A Yankee Doodle Dandy?”
“I think that lion scrambled your brains,” Angela said.
“And never mind the fuckinglion!” he shouted.
“Not in myhouse!” his mother said, and slapped him.
He looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sure.”
Angela suddenly began crying.
“All we wanted was your blessing,” she said.
“Well, you didn’t get it,” he said. “If you can both forget Papa so easily, I can’t. Goodnight, Mom. Thanks for the wine.”
He turned and was starting for the door when his mother said, “I’m not a schoolgirl, Steve.”
He continued going for the door.
“I love him and I’m going to marry him,” she said.
His hand was on the doorknob.
“Whether you like it or not,” she said.
“Goodnight,” he said again, and opened the door, and walked out into the fiercely falling snow.
THE TAPE RECORDER was going.
Tigo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Nor did hewant to be hearing what he was hearing. He wanted to get this conversation back to the reason he was wearing a wire to begin with. He wanted Wiggy to start talking about December twenty-third.
He wondered suddenly if this was all bullshit Wiggy was giving him here. Did Wiggy maybeknow he was wired? Was he maybe making up a good story so the fuzz would get off the scent? It sure was a peculiar story he was telling here. Almost made Tigo forget why he was here. Almost made Tigo sorry he had finally found the man.
“You really think all this is true, huh?” he asked. “Cause to me …”
“Man, I was lookin straight into they computer! I seed all this stuff with my own eyes!”
“It just sounds, you know, like science-fiction, you know?” Tigo said. “This file named Mothah you can’t open cause you need a password, an all this money floatin aroun, and these dope deals here an there, and these people causin trouble all over the world, an tryin’a fuck us right here in Diamon’back, I mean, man, it sounds like suppin you’d see in amovie, you know what I’m sayin, man?”
“It’d make agood movie, that’s for damn sure,” Wiggy said, “but it’strue, man! I got it from theycomputer!”
“That don’t mean it couldn’t of been garbage in there,” Tigo said, and shrugged.
“The point is, whut we gonna do about it, Tigo? I mean, these guys are messin with ourpeople!”
Tigo had never particularly felt that any of these people they sold dope to were necessarilyrelated to him in any way. MaybeWiggy thought of they customers as his “people” but Tigo didn’t share the sentiment. To tell the truth, if they was money to be made recycling dope here in the hood, Tigo didn’t carewho sold them the dope to begin with or where the proceeds of the sale were going. In fact, the only thing he wanted to do right this minute was talk about what he’d come here to talk about so he could go back to the police and collect his reward. He planned to retire from the dope business—
