Last Night in Twisted River

On that April Sunday in '54, father and son had had some difficulty finding the North End, and--even back then--it was easier to walk in the North End than it was to drive. (Both driving and parking the Pontiac Chieftain in that neighborhood had been a task--certainly not equal to transporting Injun Jane's body from the cookhouse to Constable Carl's kitchen, but a task nonetheless.) When they wove their way, on foot, to Hanover Street--passing once within view of the gold dome of the Sumner Tunnel Authority, which appeared to shine down on them like a new sun on a different planet--they saw two other restaurants (the Europeo and Mother Anna's) near Cross Street before they spotted Vicino di Napoli.

It was late afternoon-

-it had been a long drive from northern New Hampshire--but it was a warm, sunny day compared to the cold-morning light at Dead Woman Dam, where they'd left Angel's bluish body with Ketchum.

Here, the sidewalks teemed with families; people were actually talking--some of them shouting--to one another. (There--at Dead Woman Dam and in Twisted River, on the morning they left--they'd seen only the slain Indian dishwasher, the drowned boy, and Ketchum.) Here, from the moment they'd parked the Pontiac and started walking, Danny had been too excited to speak; he'd never seen such a place, except in the movies. (There were no movies to see in Twisted River; occasionally, Injun Jane had taken young Dan to Berlin to see one. The cook had said he would never go back to Berlin, "except in handcuffs.")

That April Sunday on Hanover Street, when they stopped walking outside Vicino di Napoli, Danny glanced at his father, who looked as if he'd been dragged to the North End in handcuffs--or else the cook felt doomed to be darkening the restaurant's door. Was a curse attached to the bearer of sad tidings? Dominic was wondering. What becomes of the man who brings bad news? One day, does something worse happen to him?

Young Dan could sense his dad's hesitation, but before either father or son could open the door, an old man opened it from inside the restaurant. "Come een-a, come een-a!" he said to them; he took Danny by the wrist, pulling him into the welcoming smell of the place. Dominic mutely followed them. At first glance, the cook could tell that the old man was not his despised father; the elderly gentleman looked nothing like Dominic, and he was too old to have been Gennaro Capodilupo.

He was, as he very much appeared to be, both the maitre d' and owner of Vicino di Napoli, and he had no memory of having met Annunziata Saetta, though he'd known Nunzi (without knowing it) and he knew plenty of Saettas--nor did the old man realize, on this particular Sunday, that it was Dominic's father, Gennaro Capodilupo, whom he'd fired; Gennaro, that pig, had been an overly flirtatious bus-boy at Vicino di Napoli. (The restaurant was where Nunzi and Dominic's philandering dad had met!) But the aged owner and maitre d' had heard of Annunziata Saetta; he'd heard of Rosina or "Rosie" Calogero, too. Scandals are the talk of neighborhoods, as young Dan and his dad would soon learn.

As for Vicino di Napoli, the dining room was not big, and the tables were small; there were red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, and two young women and a kid (about Angel's age) were arranging the place settings. There was a stainless-steel serving counter, beyond which Dominic could see a brick-lined pizza oven and an open kitchen, where two cooks were at work. Dominic was relieved that neither of the cooks was old enough to be his father.

"We're not quite ready to serve, but you can sit down--have-a something to drink, maybe," the old man said, smiling at Danny.

Dominic reached into an inside pocket of his jacket, where he felt Angelu Del Popolo's wallet--it was still damp. But he had barely taken the wallet out when the maitre d' backed away from him. "Are you a cop?" the old man asked. The cop word got the attention of the two cooks Dominic had spotted in the kitchen; they came cautiously out from behind the serving counter. The kid and the two women setting the tables stopped working and stared at Dominic, too.

"Cops don't usually work with their children," one of the cooks said to the old man. This cook was covered with flour--not just his apron but his hands and bare forearms were a dusty white. (The pizza chef, probably, Dominic thought.)

"I'm not a cop, I'm a cook," Dominic told them. The two younger men and the old one laughed with relief; the two women and the kid went back to work. "But I have something to show you," Dominic said. The cook was fishing around in Angel's wallet. He couldn't make up his mind what to show them first--the Boston transit pass with Angelu Del Popolo's name and date of birth, or the photograph of the pretty but plump woman. He chose the streetcar and subway pass with the dead boy's actual name, but before Dominic could decide which of the men to show the pass to, the old man saw the photo in the open wallet and grabbed the wallet out of Dominic's hands.

"Carmella!" the maitre d' cried.

"There was a boy," Dominic began, as the two cooks hovered over the picture under plastic in the wallet. "Maybe she's his mother."

Dominic got no further. The pizza chef hid his face in his hands, completely whitening both cheeks. "An-geh-LOO!" he wailed.

"No! No! No!" the old man sang, grabbing Dominic by both shoulders and shaking him.

The other cook (clearly the principal or first chef) held his heart, as if he'd been stabbed.

The pizza chef, as white-faced as a clown, lightly touched young Dan's hand with his flour-covered fingers. "What has happened to Angelu?" he asked the boy in such a gentle way that Dominic knew the man must have a child Daniel's age, or that he'd had one. Both cooks were about ten years older than Dominic.

"Angel drowned," Danny told them all.

"It was an accident," his father spoke up.

"Angelu was-a no fisherman!" the maitre d' lamented.

"It was a logging accident," Dominic explained. "There was a river drive, and the boy slipped under the logs."

The young women and the kid about Angel's age had bolted--Danny hadn't seen them leave. (It would turn out that they had fled no farther than the kitchen.)

"Angelu used to work here, after school," the old man was saying, to Danny. "His mama, Carmella--she works here now."

The other cook had stepped closer, holding out his hand to Dominic. "Antonio Molinari," the principal chef said, somberly shaking Dominic's hand.

"Dominic Baciagalupo," the cook replied. "I was the cook in the logging camp. This is my son, Daniel."

"Giuse Polcari," the old man said to young Dan with downcast eyes. "Nobody calls me Giuseppe. I also like just plain Joe." Pointing to the pizza chef, old Polcari said: "This is my son Paul."

"You can call me Dan or Danny," the boy told them. "Only my dad calls me Daniel."

Tony Molinari had gone to the door of the restaurant; he was watching the passersby on Hanover Street. "Here she comes!" he said. "I see Carmella!" The two cooks fled into their kitchen, leaving the bewildered Baciagalupos with old Polcari.

"You gotta tell her--I no can-a do it," Giuse (or just plain Joe) was saying. "I introduce you," the maitre d' said, pushing Dominic closer to the restaurant's door; Danny was holding his dad's hand. "Her husband drowned, too--they were a true-love story!" old Polcari was telling them. "But he was a fisherman--they drown a lot."