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Irish and American and abused the workmen in the foulest language, which Vito always

bore stone-faced as if he did not comprehend, though he understood English very well

despite his accent.

One evening as Vito was having supper with his family there was a knock on the

window that led to the open air shaft (шахта; проход) that separated them from the next

building. When Vito pulled aside the curtain he saw to his astonishment one of the

young men in the neighborhood, Peter Clemenza, leaning out from a window on the

other side of the air shaft. He was extending a white-sheeted bundle.

"Hey, paisan," Clemenza said. "Hold these for me until I ask for them. Hurry up."

Automatically Vito reached over the empty space of the air shaft and took the bundle.

Clemenza's face was strained and urgent. He was in some sort of trouble and Vito's

helping action was instinctive. But when he untied the bundle in his kitchen, there were

five oily guns staining the white cloth. He put them in his bedroom closet and waited. He

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.

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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 со

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

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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