Chapter 4: May 1936

Anjelica Di Angelo

The second thing that happened in the spring of 1936, also started at the dairy. I was reconciling the April accounts ready for the following Monday’s board meeting. We had kept the dairy going as a separate concern from both the farm and the crop dusting businesses, so it could be sold off easier if we needed to. Anything over a dollar plus the clean-up costs were pure profit. But the dairy was going so well, especially with the new Milk Bar, that we kept it going, with just Joe, Granny Harris and myself as secretary, on the board. The telephone on my desk rang, so I answered. It was Suzanne in Reception saying I had a visitor. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I asked her who it was. The answer came back, “A Mister di Angelo is here to see you.”

The only di Angelo I knew was my late husband Gianni, who I understood was killed in 1929 in Canada, murdered with his only brother by rival bootleggers. I asked Suzanne to send him up to my office. I got up out of my chair and met him at the doorway. I couldn’t believe it! It was my Gianni, raised as if from the dead.

I pulled him into the office and, before I could stop him, he kissed me on the lips. It was like all the kisses I remembered, hot and passionate, and the last six years just melted away and I felt in my twenties again and still married to this man. Eventually he stopped his kissing and I was able to breathe.

“What happened to you, Gianni, your sister-in-law told me you and Georgio were shot dead in Canada?”

“We were all shot in a double by a rival group of runners who thought we was muscling into their business, including my brother, cousins and a friend of my brother’s, Alberto Bianchi, a drifter from back east. They was all dead, me badly wounded and left for dead. I had a criminal record from before we married and faced a long jail term, so I swapped my papers with Alberto. I got five years instead of twenty.”

“So when did you get out?” I asked.

“Two years ago.”

“Two years ago? Why didn’t you come looking for me?”

“I’m lookin’ now, ain’t I?” he retorted, “I never knew where you was until your cousin Connie came into my club last week.”

“Connie? My Connie?”

“Yeah, large as life, came in with a party of girls from where she works. Done up real nice she was.”

“Your club, is that where you work?”

“It’s my night club, I’m the boss. Doin’ real well too. Gotta nice apartment above it, too. Connie told me about the kid, Joey, so I got the second bedroom all done up nice for him.”

“How did you manage to get a night club, you were in prison, right?”

“Yeah, but I kept my nose clean, told the cops I was just an outta work hired hand, knew nobody, knows nothing about the organisation. So when I gets out I’m in with the bosses, one of the trusted few, so I get a good job managing a speakeasy that’s suddenly a goldmine when Prohibition gets lifted, so I’m doin’ so well the organisation lets me buy a 50-50 partnership, which means we are sittin’ pretty, sweetheart. So when Connie tells me where you are, I think, great, I’ll come and fetch you and my kid and bring you home. You’ll love it babe, we’re set up for life and going places”

“But you were dead, everyone said so, and I have a life here now, Joey’s just started school and loves it here in the countryside. It’s all he’s ever known. And Gianni, I’m ... I’m married.”

“Sure you are, you’re married to me. And if you like the countryside I’m a family man now so I can get us a place in the country. I go by the name ‘Johnny’ now, Johnny Bianchi, the Di Angelo name was too hot. Hey, I don’t blame you for what you did to get by honey, shackin’ up with a hick farmer, you was all alone here. That was my fault, the smuggling went wrong and you was left holding the baby, really left holding the baby, my baby boy. But now I’m back and we belong together in the eyes of God. That marriage here in Hicksville don’ amount to a hill of beans, our marriage is the only one that counts. Besides, I want my kid back. When can I see him?”