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he’s so excited about this fuck of a car? He wasn’t the one who cried all those tears.
    “You have to ride in the rear, sweetheart,” Carmine says to her, opening the back door.
    Betty flashes an irritated smile. “The TV screens are in the front headrests, I read it in the brochure.”
    Carmine looks heavenward. “Sure, darling, that’s why you have to ride in the rear. You want to go the whole way with your head screwed on backwards?”
    Betty slams the door hard.
    Turi Pirrotta gazes at her radiantly.
    Enjoying the scene from the top of the stairs, he smiles at his wife Wanda and goes back in the house smiling and smoothing down his thin white hair which lately he has begun to wear a bit longer in the back.

     
     
    Yesterday afternoon, in fact, because the Supreme Being is just and knows how to reward a good father, Turi Pirrotta had received a pizzino , a message of the sort mobsters send, written by hand on Alfio Turrisi’s letterhead. (What a gas this Mister Turrisi is, what with his letterhead bearing a crest worthy of the Juventus soccer club.)
    The guy Turrisi sent with the message was dressed identically with the late-model Elvis Presley, in white pants and a jacket with fringe, and white boots with metal studs, so that Fernando, who works as Pirrotta’s doorman for Villa Wanda, got nervous that someone wanted to blow Pirrotta away and thought this was the killer in disguise.
    Pirrotta, instead, had understood immediately that this guy was Pietro, the one who parked his sandwich truck, the “Pietroburger,” in Piazza Europa and who every once in a while did some business for that cocksucker Turrisi.
    The message said:

    My dear and esteemed Signor Pirrotta,
    My sincere apologies for interrupting you in your worthy domestic tranquillity blessed by the Lord and the Sacred Bonds of the Family. I trust I explain myself.
    Let us hope this finds you in good health and prosperity.
    With this note, I would like to convey that any unfinished business matters between us do not, not even for an instant, diminish the respect I feel for you as a man of experience, a man who knows the ways of the world in Sicily.
    That caveat accepted, I would like, should you agree, to illustrate the following to you and to your Esteemed Wife, to whom I bow in honor.
    Having caught a glimpse—in a public place, on the stage of
Palazzo Biscari at an event in which you also deservedly took part—of your distinguished offspring, I would very much like (with your permission, of course) to pay tribute to her aesthetic qualities (inherited, certainly from her Lady Mother) and above all to her style, magnanimity, and farsightedness, biological inheritance from her most worthy Father.
    With all due respect I hope that it will be possible to meet (not alone, of course, needless to say) Lady Elisabetta (never was a name so apt) for lunch at a date to be established, with the exclusive aim of exchanging views on some theatrical business in which I am engaged, as you know, in London.
    Considering the views of Lady Elisabetta in these matters to be of the utmost value, she being an esteemed voice of youth culture, I pray you, and the most honorable Lady Mother, to grant me the privilege of this meeting, certain that dialogue between generations and civilizations is the basic foundation on which all reciprocal prosperity between peoples and Families is built.
    I trust I explain myself.
    Hoping you will be so kind as to let me know,
    Bowing deeply once again to your Lady Wife, I remain humbly and most cordially yours,
     
    Alfio Turrisi

    Turi Pirrotta, bent over double with laughter, had handed the letter to his Lady Wife, not to say Lady Mother of the Lady Daughter, and Wanda had snapped, “What the hell do you think you have to laugh about, you animal, you peasant, you ape! This Turrisi, now, there’s a gentleman!”
    Pirrotta had to step out into the garden to catch a breath of air and settle his cough. Style, magnanimity, and even