Читать интересную книгу Английский язык с Крестным Отцом - Илья Франк

He put it in the glove compartment with the stack of others. He was in a good humor.

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Slapping the spoiled little bitch around always made him feel good. It dissolved some of

the frustration (досада, расстройство /планов/, разочарование) he felt at being

treated so badly by the Corleones.

The first time he had marked her up, he'd been a little worried. She had gone right out

to Long Beach to complain to her mother and father and to show her black eye. He had

really sweated it out. But when she came back she had been surprisingly meek, the

dutiful little Italian wife. He had made it a point to be the perfect husband over the next

few weeks, treating her well in every way, being lovey and nice with her, banging her

every day, morning and night. Finally she had told him what had happened since she

thought he would never act that way again.

She had found her parents coolly unsympathetic and curiously amused. Her mother

had had a little sympathy and had even asked her father to speak to Carlo Rizzi. Her

father had refused. "She is my daughter," he had said, "but now she belongs to her

husband. He knows his duties. Even the King of Italy didn't dare to meddle with the

relationship of husband and wife. Go home and learn how to behave so that he will not

beat you."

Connie had said angrily to her father, "Did you ever hit your wife?" She was his

favorite and could speak to him so impudently. He had answered, "She never gave me

reason to beat her." And her mother had nodded and smiled.

She told them how her husband had taken the wedding present money and never told

her what he did with it. Her father had shrugged and said, "I would have done the same

if my wife had been as presumptuous (самонадеянный, дерзкий, нахальный

[prı’zΛmptju∂s]) as you."

And so she had returned home, a little bewildered, a little frightened. She had always

been her father's favorite and she could not understand his coldness now.

But the Don had not been so unsympathetic as he pretended. He made inquiries and

found out what Carlo Rizzi had done with the wedding present money. He had men

assigned to Carlo Rizzi's bookmaking operation who would report to Hagen everything

Rizzi did on the job. But the Don could not interfere. How expect a man to discharge his

husbandly duties to a wife whose family he feared? It was an impossible situation and

he dared not meddle. Then when Connie became pregnant he was convinced of the

wisdom of his decision and felt he never could interfere though Connie complained to

her mother about a few more beatings and the mother finally became concerned

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enough to mention it to the Don. Connie even hinted that she might want a divorce. For

the first time in her life the Don was angry with her. "He is the father of your child. What

can a child come to in this world if he has no father?" he said to Connie.

Learning all this, Carlo Rizzi grew confident. He was perfectly safe. In fact he bragged

(to brag – похваляться, хвастаться) to his two "writers" on the book, Sally Rags and

Coach, about how he bounced his wife around when she got snotty and saw their looks

of respect that he had the guts (имеет смелость, не боится; gut – кишка) to

manhandle (тащить, передвигать вручную; грубо обращаться, избивать) the

daughter of the great Don Corleone.

But Rizzi would not have felt so safe if he had known that when Sonny Corleone

learned of the beatings he had flown into a murderous rage and had been restrained

only by the sternest and most imperious command of the Don himself, a command that

even Sonny dared not disobey. Which was why Sonny avoided Rizzi, not trusting

himself to control his temper.

So feeling perfectly safe on this beautiful Sunday morning, Carlo Rizzi sped crosstown

on 96th Street to the East Side. He did not see Sonny's car coming the opposite way

toward his house.

Sonny Corleone had left the protection of the mall and spent the night with Lucy

Mancini in town. Now on the way home he was traveling with four bodyguards, two in

front and two behind. He didn't need guards right beside him, he could take care of a

single direct assault. The other men traveled in their own cars and had apartments on

either side of Lucy's apartment. It was safe to visit her as long as he didn't do it too often.

But now that he was in town he figured he would pick up his sister Connie and take her

out to Long Beach. He knew Carlo would be working at his book and the cheap bastard

wouldn't get her a car. So he'd give his sister a lift out.

He waited for the two men in front to go into the building and then followed them. He

saw the two men in back pull up behind his car and get out to watch the streets. He kept

his own eyes open. It was a million-to-one shot that the opposition even knew he was in

town but he was always careful. He had learned that in the 1930's war.

He never used elevators. They were death traps. He climbed the eight flights to

Connie's apartment, going fast. He knocked on her door. He had seen Carlo's car go by

and knew she would be alone. There was no answer. He knocked again and then he

heard his sister's voice, frightened, timid, asking, "Who is it?"

The fright in the voice stunned him. His kid sister had always been fresh and snotty,

tough as anybody in the family. What the hell had happened to her? He said, "It's

Sonny." The bolt inside slid back and the door opened and Connie was in his arms

sobbing. He was so surprised he just stood there. He pushed her away from him and

saw her swollen face and he understood what had happened.

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He pulled away from her to run down the stairs and go after her husband. Rage flamed

up in him, contorting his own face. Connie saw the rage and clung to him, not letting him

go, making him come into the apartment. She was weeping out of terror now. She knew

her older brother's temper and feared it. She had never complained to him about Carlo

for that reason. Now she made him come into the apartment with her.

"It was my fault," she said. "I started a fight with him and I tried to hit him so he hit me.

He really didn't try to hit me that hard. I walked into it."

Sonny's heavy Cupid face was under control. "You going to see the old man today?"

She didn't answer, so he added, "I thought you were, so I dropped over to give you a

lift. I was in the city anyway."

She shook her head. "I don't want them to see me this way. I'll come next week."

"OK," Sonny said. He picked up her kitchen phone and dialed a number. "I'm getting a

doctor to come over here and take a look at you and fix you up. In your condition you

have to be careful. How many months before you have the kid?"

"Two months," Connie said. "Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't."

Sonny laughed. His face was cruelly intent (полный решимости; пристальный;

погруженный во что-либо [ın'tent]) when he said, "Don't worry, I won't make your kid

an orphan before he's born." He left the apartment after kissing her lightly on her

uninjured cheek.

On East 112th Street a long line of cars were double-parked in front of a candy store

that was the headquarters of Carlo Rizzi's book. On the sidewalk in front of the store,

fathers played catch with small children they had taken for a Sunday morning ride and

to keep them company as they placed their bets (делали ставки). When they saw Carlo

Rizzi coming they stopped playing ball and bought their kids ice cream to keep them

quiet. Then they started studying the newspapers that gave the starting pitchers (pitcher

– подающий мяч; to pitch – бросать, кидать; /спорт./ подавать), trying to pick out

winning baseball bets for the day.

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Carlo went into the large room in the back of the store. His two "writers," a small wiry

man called Sally Rags and a big husky fellow called Coach, were already waiting for the

action to start. They had their huge, lined pads in front of them ready to write down bets.

On a wooden stand was a blackboard with the names of the sixteen big league baseball

teams chalked on it, paired to show who was playing against who. Against each pairing

was a blocked-out square to enter the odds.

Carlo asked Coach, "Is the store phone tapped (to tap the line – подслушивать

телефонный разговор; tap – пробка, затычка; кран; to tap – вставлять кран,

снабжать втулкой; вынимать пробку) today?"

Coach shook his head. "The tap is still off."

Carlo went to the wall phone and dialed a number. Sally Rags and Coach watched

him impassively as he jotted down the "line," the odds on all the baseball games for that

day. They watched him as he hung up the phone and walked over to the blackboard

and chalked up the odds against each game. Though Carlo did not know it, they had

already gotten the line and were checking his work. In the first week in his job Carlo had

made a mistake in transposing the odds onto the blackboard and had created that

dream of all gamblers, a "middle." That is, by betting the odds with him and then betting

against the same team with another bookmaker at the correct odds, the gambler could

not lose. The only one who could lose was Carlo's book. That mistake had caused a

six-thousand-dollar loss in the book for the week and confirmed the Don's judgment

about his son-in-law. He had given the word that all of Carlo's work was to be checked.

Normally the highly placed members of the Corleone Family would never be

concerned with such an operational detail. There was at least a five-layer insulation to

their level. But since the book was being used as a testing ground for the son-in-law, it

had been placed under the direct scrutiny of Tom Hagen, to whom a report was sent

every day.

Now with the line posted, the gamblers were thronging into the back room of the

candy store to jot down the odds on their newspapers next to the games printed there

with probable pitchers. Some of them held their little children by the hand as they looked

up at the blackboard. One guy who made big bets looked down at the little girl he was

holding by the hand and said teasingly, "Who do you like today, Honey, Giants or the

Pirates?" The little girl, fascinated by the colorful names, said, "Are Giants stronger than

Pirates?" The father laughed.

A line began to form in front of the two writers. When a writer filled one of his sheets

he tore it off, wrapped the money he had collected in it and handed it to Carlo. Carlo

went out the back exit of the room and up a flight of steps to an apartment which

housed the candy store owner's family. He called in the bets to his central exchange

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and put the money in a small wall safe that was hidden by an extended window drape.

Then he went back down into the candy store after having first burned the bet sheet and

flushed (to flush – спускать; бить струей) its ashes down the toilet bowl.

None of the Sunday games started before two P.M. because of the blue laws, so after

the first crowd of bettors, family men who had to get their bets in and rush home to take

their families to the beach, came the trickling (trickle – струйка) of bachelor gamblers or

the die-hards (die-hard – твердолобый человек; консерватор) who condemned their

families to Sundays in the hot city apartments. These bachelor bettors were the big

gamblers, they bet heavier and came back around four o'clock to bet the second games

of doubleheaders (две игры, следующие непосредственно друг за другом). They

were the ones who made Carlo's Sundays a full-time day with overtime, though some

married men called in from the beach to try and recoup (компенсировать, возмещать

[rı'ku:p]) their losses.

By one-thirty the betting had trickled off so that Carlo and Sally Rags could go out and

sit on the stoop (крыльцо со ступенями; открытая веранда) beside the candy store

and get some fresh air. They watched the stickball (stickball – a form of baseball played

in the streets, on playgrounds, etc., in which a rubber ball and a broomstick or the like

are used in place of a baseball and bat) game the kids were having. A police car went

by. They ignored it. This book had very heavy protection at the precinct and couldn't be

touched on a local level. A raid would have to be ordered from the very top and even

then a warning would come through in plenty of time.

Coach came out and sat beside them. They gossiped a while about baseball and

women. Carlo said laughingly, "I had to bat (бить палкой, битой; bat – бита; дубина,

било /для льна/) my wife around again today, teach her who's boss."

Coach said casually, "She's knocked up pretty big now, ain't she?"

"Ahh, I just slapped her face a few times," Carlo said.

"I didn't hurt her." He brooded for a moment. "She thinks she can boss me around, I

don't stand for that (не потерплю этого)."

There were still a few bettors hanging around shooting the breeze (to shoot the

breeze – трепаться, болтать /сленг/; breeze – легкий ветерок; новость, слух), talking

baseball, some of them sitting on the steps above the two writers and Carlo. Suddenly

the kids playing stickball in the street scattered. A car came screeching (to screech –

скрипеть, визжать) up the block and to a halt in front of the candy store. It stopped so

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abruptly that the tires screamed and before it had stopped, almost, a man came hurtling

out (to hurtle – пролетать, нестись со свистом; сильно бросать) of the driver's seat,

moving so fast that everybody was paralyzed. The man was Sonny Corleone.

His heavy Cupid-featured face with its thick, curved mouth was an ugly mask of fury.

In a split second he was at the stoop and had grabbed Carlo Rizzi by the throat. He

pulled Carlo away from the others, trying to drag him into the street, but Carlo wrapped

his huge muscular arms around the iron railings of the stoop and hung on. He cringed

(to cringe – съеживаться /от страха/) away, trying to hide his head and face in the