Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
Шрифт:
learned that Clemenza had been taken away by the police. They must have been
knocking on his door when he handed the guns over the air shaft.
Мультиязыковой проект Ильи Франка www.franklang.ru
Vito never said a word to anyone and of course his terrified wife dared not open her
lips even in gossip for fear her own husband would be sent to prison. Two days later
Peter Clemenza reappeared in the neighborhood and asked Vito casually, "Do you
have my goods still?"
Vito nodded. He was in the habit of talking little.
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Clemenza came up to his tenement flat and was given a glass of wine while Vito dug
the bundle out of his bedroom closet.
Clemenza drank his wine, his heavy good-natured face alertly watching Vito. "Did you
look inside?"
Vito, his face impassive, shook his head. "I'm not interested in things that don't
concern me," he said.
They drank wine together the rest of the evening. They found each other congenial.
Clemenza was a storyteller; Vito Corleone was a listener to storytellers. They became
casual friends.
A few days later Clemenza asked the wife of Vito Corleone if she would like a fine rug
for her living room floor. He took Vito with him to help carry the rug. Clemenza led Vito
to an apartment house with two marble pillars and a white marble stoop (крыльцо
ступенями; открытая веранда). He used a key to open the door and they were inside
a plush apartment. Clemenza grunted, "Go on the other side of the room and help me
roll it up."
The rug was a rich red wool. Vito Corleone was astonished by Clemenza's generosity.
Together they rolled the rug into a pile and Clemenza took one end while Vito took the
other. They lifted it and started carrying it toward the door.
At that moment the apartment bell rang. Clemenza immediately dropped the rug and
strode to the window. He pulled the drape aside slightly and what he saw made him
draw a gun from inside his jacket. It was only at that moment the astonished Vito
Corleone realized that they were stealing the rug from some stranger's apartment.
The apartment bell rang again. Vito went up alongside Clemenza so that he too could
see what was happening. At the door was a uniformed policeman. As they watched, the
policeman gave the doorbell a final push, then shrugged and walked away down the
marble steps and down the street.
Clemenza grunted in a satisfied way and said, "Come on, let's go." He picked up his
end of the rug and Vito picked up the other end. The policeman had barely turned the
comer before they were edging out the heavy oaken door and into the street with the
rug between them. Thirty minutes later they were cutting the rug to fit the living room of
Мультиязыковой
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Vito Corleone's apartment. They had enough left over for the bedroom. Clemenza was
an expert workman and from the pockets of his wide, ill-fitting jacket (even then he liked
to wear loose clothes though he was not so fat), he had the necessary carpet-cutting
tools.
Time went on, things did not improve. The Corleone family could not eat the beautiful
rug. Very well, there was no work, his wife and children must starve. Vito took some
parcels of food from his friend Genco while he thought things out. Finally he was
approached by Clemenza and Tessio, another young tough of the neighborhood. They
were men who thought well of him, the way he carried himself, and they knew he was
desperate. They proposed to him that he become one of their gang which specialized in
hijacking (to hijack – грабить) trucks of silk dresses after those trucks were loaded up at
the factory on 31st Street. There was no risk. The truck drivers were sensible
workingmen who at the sight of a gun flopped (быстренько спрыгнули; to flop –
шлепнуться, плюхнуться) on the sidewalk like angels while the hijackers drove the
truck away to be unloaded at a friend's warehouse. Some of the merchandise would be
sold to an Italian wholesaler (оптовый торговец), part of the loot (добыча,
награбленное) would be sold door-to-door in the Italian neighborhoods – Arthur
Avenue in the Bronx, Mulberry Street, and the Chelsea district in Manhattan – all to poor
Italian families looking for a bargain, whose daughters could never be able to afford
such fine apparel (наряд, одеяние [‘pжrl]). Clemenza and Tessio needed Vito to
drive since they knew he chauffeured the Abbandando grocery store delivery truck. In
1919, skilled automobile drivers were at a premium (в большом почете, в большом
спросе).
Against his better judgment, Vito Corleone accepted their offer. The clinching
(решающий; clinch – зажим, скоба; заклепка; to clinch – прибивать гвоздем, загибая