The bell over Morrelli's door had a cheerful ring, and Aldo Morrelli hated it on collection day, because it rang the same for everybody.
Three men came in out of the March rain. Coats dark, hats low, and the one in front carrying a Louisville bat the way other men carry an umbrella, like it was nothing personal. Behind them, at the curb, a black 1932 Ford idled with its new V8 humming, and in the Ford a fourth man sat reading a newspaper with a Thompson across his knees, patient as weather.
The man with the bat did not look at the shelves. He looked at Aldo, and he smiled the way a priest smiles, and he said, "Mr. Morrelli. The Old Man sends his regards, and he asks after the store."
Under the counter, wrapped in oilcloth, lay the lupara Aldo's father had carried off the boat from Sicily, both barrels short enough to fit a flour sack. Aldo's hand did not move toward it. A man does not reach for Sicily over an envelope.
He took the envelope from the register drawer, fat and white and already sealed, and he slid it across the counter with two fingers, the way you feed something you respect.
"Tell the Old Man the store is well," Aldo said.
Outside, the Ford pulled away into the rain, and the bell over the door rang cheerful again, and somewhere up the avenue a shopkeeper who had not paid was learning what the envelope was for.
Mafia Honor is an original 1930s fiction series by Merci Web Design Studio. All names are invented.
