Pagliacci

  

 

Pagliacci. Clowns.  Ruggero Leoncavallo's greatest Opera. It as running for a record 20th night at the Chicago Orpheus with Pepi Grandi as the lead Tenor.  Not since the great Caruso had such crowds been seen.

Tonight however Pepi was a little subdued.  In his dressing room before the curtain lifted he had found a set of kippers.  A warning.  A threat.  Pepi would soon be sleeping with the fishes.  He had seen too much.  He knew too much. He had tried to leave the past behind him but it seemed unsuccessfully.

Pepi sang his heart out and the audience lapped it up. Many were in tears when he reached the climax of the second act.  However suddenly Pepi had to wipe the sweat from his brow.  In the presidential box the sinister figure of Dino Coulatti appeared.   Dino ran the local protection and gambling rackets, his presence here tonight was unexpected.  Dino was usually known to frequent the dog racing tracks, thinking opera pretentious nonsense.  His presence here tonight was obviously intended to agitate Pepi the clown, it succeeded. As did other familiar though unwelcome faces Pepi spotted in the crowd.  It seemed as if every criminal element in the neighbourhood were congregating here tonight in anticipation.

Out of the corner of his eye Pepi saw another sinister figure waiting in the wings.  Lieutenant Paddy Murphy.  Local poker faced cop.  Second generation Irish with unbounded enmity towards Italio-mafioso hoodlums.  Pepi clearly was to be taken into custody immediatly after the curtain dropped. Hence the sudden convergence of so many Mafioso here tonight.  They would do anything to stop Pepi squealing to the pigs.  It had all happened by accident.  Dino Coulatti's Henchmen had grabbed and killed Silky Seymour, the corrupt union official.  Pepi had been coming out of the stage door and had seen them bundle silky into a car.  Silky was never seen alive again although rumour had it he was now part of the foundations of the new railway bridge.

The climax of the opera came and Pepi received a standing ovation!

However suddenly the lights went out and the flash and bang of a shot rang out, soon followed by the screams of the audience and the wail of police sirens.  Those who had applauded Pepi now raced for the exits, their primal urge merely to save their own lives.

The police were waiting on the street in force, they arrested every face known to them.  Dino Coulatti and all of his men were handcuffed and lined up against the wall.  They saw an ambulance arrive, several minutes later a body was brought out on a stretcher obscured by a white sheet, but by the sleve and hand dangling down they saw it was a man in clown costume, it was Pepi.

Dino Coulatti looked very smug as he saw the body taken to the ambulance, the one witness against him was dead, but it was not wise to look so smug in front of Lieutenant Murphy.  Several weeks before a low level mafia operator had confessed all he knew to Murphy, after having fallen down the stairs at police HQ twenty seven times in half an hour.  The confession prevented fall twenty eight from happening.

Lieutenant Murphy walked over to the line of handcuffed men, truncheon in his hand.  He landed Coulatti a blow in the stomach that knocked him to his knees.  He did not look so smug now, but Murphy did.

Another police officer, one on the Coulatti payroll helped Dino to his feet saying 'I'm sorry Mr Coulatti, accidents will happen!'.  Murphy then waved dismissively with his hand 'Take the scum to the cells!'

Meanwhile the blood spattered body of Pepi Grandi was taken to the morgue and laid on a slab.  The fine opera singer, still dressed as a clown now lay on a cold slab, the white sheet still over him.

Lieutenant Muprhy walked in and pulled the sheet unceremoniously off him. 

A moment later the clown's eyes flickered, then opened, looking up at the Lieutenant then down at his blood splattered shirt.  Pig's blood looked real but made a terrible mess.

The Lieutenant grinned.  ''Now fatso, your testimony better be worth it, or next time..........'

The clown nodded.  Next time it would not be pig's blood.