文档介绍：1
For Anthony Cleri
Book One
Chapter 01
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
BALZAC
Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice;
vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.
The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if
to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold
with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera
sensed but did not yet understand.
"You acted like the worst kind of degenerates," the judge said harshly. Yes, yes, thought
Amerigo Bonasera. Animals. Animals. The two young men, glossy hair crew cut,
scrubbed clean-cut posed into humble contrition, bowed their heads in
submission.
The judge went on. "You acted like wild beasts in a jungle and you are fortunate you did
not sexually molest that poor girl or I'd put you behind bars for twenty years." The judge
paused, his eyes beneath impressively thick brows flickered slyly toward the sallow-faced
Amerigo Bonasera, then lowered to a stack of probation reports before him. He frowned
and shrugged as if convinced against his own natural desire. He spoke again.
"But because of your youth, your clean records, because of your fine families, and
because the law in its majesty does not seek vengeance, I hereby sentence you to three
years' confinement to the penitentiary. Sentence to be suspended."
Only forty years of professional mourning kept the overwhelming frustration and hatred
from showing on Amerigo Bonasera's face. His beautiful young daughter was still in the
hospital with her broken jaw wired together; and now these two animales went free? It had
all been a farce. He watched the happy parents cluster around their darling sons. Oh, they
were all happy now, they were smiling now.
The black bile, sourly bitter, rose in Bonasera's throat, overflowed through tig