“You know what I’m gonna do for you?” He paused briefly to give emphasis to his words. Then, with a grand sweep of his hand, he laid out his blueprint to get into the little girl’s head:
“I’ll get Mary Despano to take Olympia to Coney Island this weekend. Maybe after she goes on a few rides and has some ice cream, she’ll open up for Mary and tell her what’s bothering her.”
Mary Despano, a saintly forty-hve-year-old widow, lived alone in a tenement at the corner of Union and Henry Streets in the center of Brooklyn’s Little Italy. Her husband and son were victims of the great flu epidemic of 1917 and since then Mary had worn nothing but black mourning dresses.
Children adored Mary and many of them made her their confidante. They could tell her things about their personal lives and their weightiest problems that they didn’t dare discuss with their own mothers.
That Sunday Mary took Olympia to the famed summer playground on the Brooklyn shore where, after a round of rides, and hot dogs, french fries, frozen custard and cotton candy, the little girl’s tongue loosened.
After depositing Olympia safely at home, Mary Despano sought out Yale and told him what had been causing Nick’s daughter so much unhappiness and nightmares. Frankie shouted a litany of epithets and slammed his hand against the dining room wall with such force that the picture frames rattled and a crack was left in the plaster.
After Mary departed, Yale phoned the restaurant and asked Nick to have his wife prepare dinner for the following Sunday.
“I want to eat with you and Maria. And be sure to ask your brother George over, too. That is very important. But the children will not eat with us. Mary will take Olympia and your two sons to Coney Island for another treat.”
Nick’s apartment was located in a brownstone on Clinton Street, not more than eight blocks from the restaurant. Nick greeted Frankie Yale at the door and ushered him into the living room where Coulovos’ wife, Maria, and brother were already seated.
After a period of small talk, Mrs. Colouvos excused herself to prepare dinner. Twenty minutes later she brought the roast leg of lamb and all its trimmings to the table, and summoned Yale, her husband, and brother-in-law into the dining room.
The conversation was simple and unencumbered during the meal. After she cleared the dinner dishes, Nick’s wife served the traditional Turkish coffee, the Greek after-dinner delicacy, baklava, and little jiggers of ouzo.
Until this moment, none of the Colouvoses seemed to have an idea of why Frankie Yale had arranged this get-together. Then Yale took the last sip of his ouzo and turned to his host.
“Nick,” Yale began, with a grim face. “I have very bad news about Olympia. The reason she has nightmares is because…”
Frankie’s words trailed off. But only momentarily. His eyes were afire now and he could no longer hold back the stunning secret about Nick’s daughter’s problem that Mary Despano had unearthed.
“…Listen closely, Nick,” Yale began anew. “I have very bad news for you about Olympia…”
Again Frankie hesitated as he spoke. He was measuring his words and seemed to want to deliver the message he had for Nick in precise language.
“Frankie,” Nick blurted after so much anticipation, “what are you trying to say?”
“Okay, my friend, I will stop beating around the bush,” Yale rasped. “I’m going to tell you what I found out…”
Yale turned and glared at Nick’s brother George, little Olympia’s uncle.
“This man,” Frankie said through tightly clenched teeth, pointing a finger straight at the now-startled George Colouvos, “has been screwing your daughter—and that is why she has been having nightmares and been so depressed—”
Nick’s face suddenly became a dark mask as he turned and glared at his brother in total shock and disbelief.
George sat bolt upright in his chair at the table, stupefied and speechless.
Before Nick could utter a word, Yale continued to relate what Mary Despano had learned from Olympia.
“This thing has been going on for two months—ever since your brother’s ship went into drydock for repairs and he came to visit you. Olympia told Mary how George lured her to the cellar with the promise of giving her chocolates. He did vile things with her. Then after he had satisfied himself with her he warned Olympia that he would kill her if she told anyone what he was doing to her.”
Nick again turned and glared at his brother in disbelief. George Colouvos became terrified. He leaped out of his chair and started to run for the door. He froze in his tracks when Yale yelled, “Sit down, you disgraziato degenerato bastard!”
George obeyed, went back to his chair on trembling legs, and seated himself. He broke out in a cold sweat as he waited for Frankie Yale’s next command.
His eyes popped wide open as Frankie opened his jacket and unlimbered a .45-caliber revolver from his hip holster.
Frankie cocked the trigger and aimed the barrel at George’s head. “You should not be so impolite when somebody is talking,” he snarled.
George sat back in his chair at the dining room table and submitted to the rest of Frankie Yale’s narrative about Olympia’s agonizing experiences.
Nick and Maria were utterly devastated as Frankie went into the most sordid details of their daughter’s abuse by her uncle, of his threat to kill her if she ever told anyone about what he was doing to her, and of how fright drove her to withdraw into a shell of fear and confusion.
When he finished Yale turned to Nick and placed the gun on the table before him.
“More than anything in this world, Nick,” Yale said in a slow, measured tone, I want to kill this degenerate bastard brother of yours. But I am not selfish. I do not want to deprive you of that honor.”
Nick gazed disbelievingly at Yale.
“…You want…me to…kill…my…my brother…?” he stammered.
Yale’s eyes narrowed to slits as he glared at Nick.
“I know you are a gentle, mild-mannered man, my friend. But I have not gone to all this trouble to find out what is bothering Olympia only to have your brother escape the punishment he deserves—from the only person who should give it to him. And that person is you!”
Nick’s hand moved slowly toward the gun on the table. All the while George Colouvos, cringing in his chair, let his eyes follow his brother’s movements.
As Nick palmed the gun, George suddenly cried out plaintively in Greek:
“Adelphi, mou…oyi!”
The plea, “Brother of mine…no!,” went unheeded.
Nick Colouvos, now as revenge-bent as Frankie Yale instructed him to be, aimed the .45 at his brother’s sweating temple.
George pleaded again. “Please, Nick…I couldn’t help myself. I’m a sick man…”
