Intersection
opening excerpt
Dressed in a tight-fitting black suit, Rosario Cino, flanked by his son Mario and his nephew Charlie, also in black suits, exited the cool of All Souls Church and stepped into a rank wall of unseasonably warm and humid air. They and a handful of friends and relatives had just sat through the funeral of Guido Tutolo, a former bookie, loan shark, and paisan—and last of the old gang, as Rosario had said repeatedly to his son and nephew, neither of whom seemed torn up abut the death, their connection to Guido limited, their youthfulness of course looking forward.
Wincing from the heat, Rosario slid his fedora over his silver hair. Head and shoulders taller than his son and his nephew, he stood out even more from them crowned in a fedora. Nothing new. He had stood out his entire life, as a gangly immigrant teenager and a towering young man; and now, in his quasi-patrician dotage, proud of the fact that—straight-backed and steady—he still stood out. Moments later, forehead pimpled with sweat, he removed his fedora and fanned himself with it.
“Jesus,” he gasped. “This is terrible. Didn’t even get this hot in Sicily when I was there last summer.”
“They said it would be a scorcher,” Mario noted, squinting as they approached the chrome blaze of Charlie’s immaculately restored S.S. Camaro.
“Mario better sit in the back,” Charlie said, perhaps unnecessarily, as he opened the passenger door. Rosario couldn’t get his big legs into the back seat even if he tried.
“Don’t drive too fast, Charlie,” Mario said. “My vertigo’s acting up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a slanted smile.
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