Section 3, Through p. 106 Summary

This section deals with Charlie's protracted efforts to pay Rinaldo Cantabile the $450 Rinaldo claims he owes him. Of course, Bellow seldom creates anything simple, so what should be a simple gesture of handing the hoodlum a check becomes a daylong adventure filled with suspense and many delightful diversions. To understand Rinaldo, one must understand something of his lineage. He represents the current generation of what was once a mid-level Chicago crime family that, owing to the folly of a recent ancestor, has fallen into condition of permanent humiliation. Back in the 1940s, Rinaldo's cousin, Ralph "Moochy" Cantabile, who was a Chicago cop, lost his gun to a couple of teenage punks. The kids made him crawl, eat filth off the floor and perform other humiliating acts before a crowd in a gangster bar. Moochy hunted the kids down and...