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Was one of them the girl who opened the door?
Are they all hookers?
They then came to a stairwell and took it up one flight.
Okay, now we’re on the first floor, street level again.
Walking down another passageway, Canidy briefly saw what looked like a bar—A lounge?—then some steps past that got a view of what looked like a lobby and the ten or so people in it.
Jesus! Those two Aryan teens sitting there could’ve been ripped from a recruitment poster for the SS!
The midget had then led Canidy around a corner and they finally arrived at the heavy metal door.
* * *
After the man knocked on it, he immediately opened the door without waiting for an answer.
Canidy could see that there was a somewhat cluttered office, and that a petite, full-figured dark-haired woman he guessed to be in her middle twenties stood before a large wooden desk. The casually dressed man behind the desk—he was about forty, muscular and rugged, with a warm face and thick brown hair—was handing her what Canidy decided was a small stack of cash. The man appeared to be showing genuine concern to the young woman. He spoke to her in Sicilian; Canidy couldn’t understand it, of course, but thought that he said it in a soothing tone.
“Grazie,” she replied softly, taking the cash and folding it, then slipping it inside the waistband of her skirt.
She nodded once and, head down, turned to leave.
Canidy saw that she, too, was attractive.
“Maria,” the midget cordially greeted her, as Canidy had just seen him do with the others, as she passed.
When she looked up and smiled meekly, Canidy saw that she had a hugely bruised right eye.
What the hell? Did she get beat up?
Maria put her head back down and went out the door, pulling it closed behind her.
Canidy saw the man look from the door to him.
“Welcome to the Hotel Michelangelo,” the man then said pleasantly, and in English, as he got to his feet.
Hotel? Canidy thought.
Canidy s
aw that on the desk before the man was his letter of introduction from Charley Lucky.
“Jimmy Palasota,” the man said, and offered his hand.
After hearing Palasota fluently speak Sicilian with what sounded like a native’s tongue, Canidy was surprised not only that he spoke any English at all but that he clearly was fluent in it, too.
“Dick Canidy,” he said, realizing he probably was being repetitive as his name was spelled out in the letter of introduction. “It’s a nice surprise to hear you speak English. I was afraid I was going to be flogging a dead horse trying to mime to get past the language barrier.”
Palasota smiled, and motioned for Canidy to take a seat in the chair.
“It will be good to speak and hear English again,” Palasota said as he sat back in his seat. He gestured at the midget, who now stood off in the corner, watching, and added, “Vito here says Antonio Buda brought you.”
Vito? I like “Shorty” better.
Canidy looked at the midget, who was keeping an eye on him while pulling out a cigarette and then lighting it.
But something tells me that you wouldn’t.
