Including, of course, the Don's widow. Connie was so overcome with emotion that she

hugged and kissed her brother and Kay all during the evening. And even Carlo Rizzi

became sentimental, wringing Michael's hand and calling him Godfather at every

excuse – old country style. Michael himself had never been so affable, so outgoing.

Connie whispered to Kay, "I think Carlo and Mike are going to be real friends now.

Something like this always bring people together."

Kay squeezed her sister-in-law's arm. "I'm so glad," she said.

Chapter 30

Albert Neri sat in his Bronx apartment and carefully brushed the blue serge of his old

policeman's uniform. He unpinned the badge and set it on the table to be polished. The

regulation holster and gun were draped over a chair. This old routine of detail made him

happy in some strange way, one of the few times he had felt happy since his wife had

left him, nearly two years ago.

He had married Rita when she was a high school kid and he was a rookie policeman.

She was shy, dark-haired, from a straitlaced Italian family who never let her stay out

later than ten o'clock at night. Neri was completely in love with her, her innocence, her

Virtue, as well as her dark prettiness.

At first Rita Neri was fascinated by her husband. He was immensely strong and she

could see people were afraid of him because of that strength and his unbending attitude

toward what was right and wrong. He was rarely tactful. If he disagreed with a group's

attitude or an individual's opinion, he kept his mouth shut or brutally spoke his

contradiction. He never gave a polite agreement. He also had a true Sicilian temper and

his rages could be awesome. But he was never angry with his wife.

Neri in the space of five years became one of the most feared policemen on the New

York City force. Also one of the most honest. But he had his own ways of enforcing the

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law. He hated punks and when he saw a bunch of young rowdies making a disturbance

on a street corner at night, disturbing passersby, he took quick and decisive action. He

employed a physical strength that was truly extraordinary, which he himself did not fully

appreciate.

One night in Central Park West he jumped out of the patrol car and lined up six punks

in black silk jackets. His partner remained in the driver's seat, not wanting to get

involved, knowing Neri. The six boys, all in their late teens, had been stopping people

and asking them for cigarettes in a youthfully menacing way but not doing anyone any

real physical harm. They had also teased girls going by with a sexual gesture more

French than American.

Neri lined them up against the stone wall that closed off Central Park from Eighth

Avenue. It was twilight, but Neri carried his favorite weapon, a huge flashlight. He never

bothered drawing his gun; it was never necessary. His face when he was angry was so

brutally menacing, combined with his uniform, that the usual punks were cowed. These

were no exception.

Neri asked the first youth in the black silk jacket, "What's your name?" The kid

answered with an Irish name. Neri told him, "Get off the street. I see you again tonight,