Chapter 27
“Yeah, well, don’t let it get around. How’re the wife and kid?”
“Aida’s good, and will you look at Nips?”
I stood patiently while he whipped out his wallet and prepared to display what lookedlike about a hundred photos, some of the woman he had married only the year before, but most of his son, first as a newborn, dressed in blue, his face scrunched with the indignity of a journey down the birth canal, then in a little cupid outfit for Valentine’s Day—what parents did to their kids—and finally in a little white suitfor his christening.
“That’s one fuck-all name you gave your kid, Romero”
“Anibale? Hey, it’s the name my folks gave me” He was used to being kidded about his very old-country name. “And if he’s lucky, it’ll keep him from gettin’ drafted.” He gazed down at a photo. “Ain’t he the spittin’ image of his old man?”