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Underpromise; overdeliver.

Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 13

   Johnny Fontane sat in the huge recording studio and figured costs on a yellow pad. Musicians were filing in, all of them friends he had known since he was a kid singer with the bands. The conductor, top man in the business of pop accompaniment and a man who had been kind to him when things went sour, was giving each musician bundles of music and verbal instructions. His name was Eddie Neils. He had taken on this recording as a favor to Johnny, though his schedule was crowded.
   Nino Valenti was sitting at a piano fooling around nervously with the keys. He was also sipping from a huge glass of rye. Johnny didn’t mind that. He knew Nino sang just as well drunk as sober and what they were doing today wouldn’t require any real musicianship on Nino’s part.
   Eddie Neils had made special arrangements of some old Italian and Sicilian songs; and a special job on the duel-duet song that Nino and Johnny had sung at Connie Corleone’s wedding. Johnny was making the record primarily because he knew that the Don loved such songs and it would be a perfect Christmas gift for him. He also had a hunch that the record would sell in the high numbers, not a million, of course. And he had figured out that helping Nino was how the Don wanted his payoff. Nino was, after all, another one of the Don’s godchildren.
   Johnny put his clipboard and yellow pad on the folding chair beside him and got up to stand beside the piano. He said, “Hey, paisan,” and Nino glanced up and tried to smile. He looked a little sick. Johnny leaned over and rubbed his shoulder blades. “Relax, kid,” he said. “Do a good job today and I’ll fix you up with the best and most famous piece of ass in Hollywood.”
   Nino took a gulp of whiskey. “Who’s that, Lassie?”
   Johnny laughed. “No, Deanna Dunn. I guarantee the goods.”
   Nino was impressed but couldn’t help saying with pseudo-hopefulness, “You can’t get me Lassie?”
   The orchestra swung into the opening song of the medley. Johnny Fontane listened intently. Eddie Neils would play all the songs through in their special arrangements. Then would come the first take for the record. As Johnny listened he made mental notes on exactly how he would handle each phrase, how he would come into each song. He knew his voice wouldn’t last long, but Nino would be doing most of the singing, Johnny would be singing under him. Except of course in the duet-duel song. He would have to save himself for that.
   He pulled Nino to his feet and they both stood by their microphones. Nino flubbed the opening, flubbed it again. His face was beginning to get red with embarrassment. Johnny kidded him, “Hey, you stalling for overtime?”
   “I don’t feel natural without my mandolin,” Nino said.
   Johnny thought that over for a moment. “Hold that glass of booze in your hand,” he said.
   It seemed to do the trick. Nino kept drinking from the glass as he sang but he was doing fine. Johnny sang easily, not straining, his voice merely dancing around Nino’s main melody. There was no emotional satisfaction in this kind of singing but he was amazed at his own technical skill. Ten years of vocalizing had taught him something.
   When they came to the duet-duel song that ended the record, Johnny let his voice go and when they finished his vocal cords ached. The musicians had been carried away by the last song, a rare thing for these calloused veterans. They hammered down their instruments and stamped their feet in approval as applause. The drummer gave them a ruffle of drums.
   With stops and conferences they worked nearly four hours before they quit. Eddie Neils came over to Johnny and said quietly, “You sounded pretty good, kid. Maybe you’re ready to do a record. I have a new song that’s perfect for you.”
   Johnny shook his head. “Come on, Eddie, don’t kid me. Besides, in a couple of hours I’ll be too hoarse to even talk. Do you think we’ll have to fix up much of the stuff we did today?”
   Eddie said thoughtfully, “Nino will have to come into the studio tomorrow. He made some mistakes. But he’s much better than I thought he would be. As for your stuff, I’ll have the sound engineers fix anything I don’t like. OK?”
   “OK,” Johnny said. “When can I hear the pressing?”
   “Tomorrow night,” Eddie Neils said. “Your place?”
   “Yeah,” Johnny said. “Thanks, Eddie. See you tomorrow.” He took Nino by the arm and walked out of the studio. They went to his house instead of Ginny’s.
   By this time it was late afternoon. Nino was still more than half-drunk. Johnny told him to get under the shower and then take a snooze. They had to be at a big party at eleven that night.
   When Nino woke up, Johnny briefed him. “This party is a movie star Lonely Hearts Club,” he said. “These broads tonight are dames you’ve seen in the movies as glamour queens millions of guys would give their right arms to screw. And the only reason they’ll be at the party tonight is to find somebody to shack them up. Do yov know why? Because they are hungry for it, they are just a little old. And just like every dame, they want it with a little bit of class.”
   “What’s the matter with your voice?” Nino asked.
   Johnny had been speaking almost in a whisper. “Every time after I sing a little bit that happens. I won’t be able to sing for a month now. But I’ll get over the hoarseness in a couple of days.”
   Nino said thoughtfully, “Tough, huh?”
   Johnny shrugged. “Listen, Nino, don’t get too drunk tonight. You have to show these Hollywood broads that my paisan buddy ain’t weak in the poop. You gotta come across. Remember, some of these dames are very powerful in movies, they can get you work. It doesn’t hurt to be charming after you knock off a piece.”
   Nino was already pouring himself a drink. “I’m always charming,” he said. He drained the glass. Grinning, he asked, “No kidding, can you really get me close to Deanna Dunn?”
   “Don’t be so anxious,” Johnny said. “It’s not going to be like you think.”


* * *

   The Hollywood Movie Star Lonely Hearts Club (so called by the young juvenile leads whose attendance was mandatory) met every Friday night at the palatial, studio-owned home of Roy McElroy, press agent or rather public relations counsel for the Woltz International Film Corporation. Actually, though it was McElroy’s open house party, the idea had come from the practical brain of Jack Woltz himself. Some of his money-making movie stars were getting older now. Without the help of special lights and genius makeup men they looked their age. They were having problems. They had also become, to some extent, desensitized physically and mentally. They could no longer “fall in love.” They could no longer assume the role of hunted women. They had been made too imperious; by money, by fame, by their former beauty. Woltz gave his parties so that it would be easier for them to pick up lovers, one-night stands, who, if they had the stuff, could graduate into full-time bed partners and so work their way upward. Since the action sometimes degenerated into brawls or sexual excess that led to trouble with the police, Woltz decided to hold the parties in the house of the public relation counselor, who would be right there to fix things up, pay off newsmen and police officers and keep everything quiet.
   For certain virile young male actors on the studio payroll who had not yet achieved stardom or featured roles, attendance at the Friday night parties was not always pleasant duty. This was explained by the fact that a new film yet to be released by the studio would be shown at the party. In fact that was the excuse for the party itself. People would say, “Let’s go over to see what the new picture so and so made is like.” And so it was put in a professional context.
   Young female starlets were forbidden to attend the Friday night parties. Or rather discouraged. Most of them took the hint.
   Screenings of the new movies took place at midnight and Johnny and Nino arrived at eleven. Roy McElroy proved to be, at first sight, an enormously likable man, well-groomed, beautifully dressed. He greeted Johnny Fontane with a surprised cry of delight. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said with genuine astonishment.
   Johnny shook his hand. “I’m showing my country cousin the sights. Meet Nino.”
   McElroy shook hands with Nino and gazed at him appraisingly. “They’ll eat him up alive,” he said to Johnny. He led them to the rear patio.
   The rear patio was really a series of huge rooms whose glass doors had been opened to a garden and pool. There were almost a hundred people milling around, all with drinks in their hands. The patio lighting was artfully arranged to flatter feminine faces and skin. These were women Nino had seen on the darkened movie screens when he had been a teenager. They had played their part in his erotic dreams of adolescence. But seeing them now in the flesh was like seeing them in some horrible makeup. Nothing could hide the tiredness of their spirit and their flesh; time had eroded their godhead. They posed and moved as charmingly as he remembered but they were like wax fruit, they could not lubricate his glands. Nino took two drinks, wandered to a table where he could stand next to a nest of bottles. Johnny moved with him. They drank together until behind them came the magic voice of Deanna Dunn.
   Nino, like millions of other men, had that voice imprinted on his brain forever. Deanna Dunn had won two Academy Awards, had been in the biggest movie grosser made in Hollywood. On the screen she had a feline feminine charm that made her irresistible to all men. But the words she was saying had never been heard on the silver screen. “Johnny, you bastard, I had to go to my psychiatrist again because you gave me a one-night stand. How come you never came back for seconds?”
   Johnny kissed her on her proffered cheek. “You wore me out for a month,” he said. “I want you to meet my cousin Nino. A nice strong Italian boy. Maybe he can keep up with you.”
   Deanna Dunn turned to give Nino a cool look. “Does he like to watch previews?”
   Johnny laughed. “I don’t think he’s ever had the chance. Why don’t you break him in?”
   Nino had to take a big drink when he was alone with Deanna Dunn. He was trying to be nonchalant but it was hard. Deanna Dunn had the upturned nose, the clean-cut classical features of the Anglo-Saxon beauty. And he knew her so well. He had seen her alone in a bedroom, heartbroken, weeping over her dead flier husband who had left her with fatherless children. He had seen her angry, hurt, humiliated, yet with a shining dignity when a caddish Clark Gable had taken advantage of her, then left her for a sexpot. (Deanna Dunn never played sexpots in the movies.) He had seen her flushed with requited love, writhing in the embrace of the man she adored and he had seen her die beautifully at least a half dozen times. He had seen her and heard her and dreamed about her and yet he was not prepared for the first thing she said to him alone.
   “Johnny is one of the few men with balls in this town,” she said. “The rest are all fags and sick morons who couldn’t get it up with a broad if you pumped a truckload of Spanish fly into their scrotums.” She took Nino by the hand and led him into a corner of the room, out of traffic and out of competition.
   Then still coolly charming, she asked him about himself. He saw through her. He saw that she was playing the role of the rich society girl who is being kind to the stableboy or the chauffeur, but who in the movie would either discourage his amatory interest (if the part were played by Spencer Tracy), or throw up everything in her mad desire for him (if the part were played by Clark Gable). But it didn’t matter. He found himself telling her about how he and Johnny had grown up together in New York, about how he and Johnny had sung together on little club dates. He found her marvelously sympathetic and interested. Once she asked casually, “Do you know how Johnny made that bastard Jack Woltz give him the part?” Nino froze and shook his head. She didn’t pursue it.
   The time had come to see the preview of a new Woltz movie. Deanna Dunn led Nino, her warm hand imprisoning his, to an interior room of the mansion that had no windows but was furnished with about fifty small two-person couches scattered around in such a way as to give each one a little island of semiprivacy.
   Nino saw there was a small table beside the couch and on the table were an ice bowl, glasses and bottles of liquor plus a tray of cigarettes. He gave Deanna Dunn a cigarette, lit it and then mixed them both drinks. They didn’t speak to each other. After a few minutes the lights went out.
   He had been expecting something outrageous. After all, he had heard the legends of Hollywood depravity. But he was not quite prepared for Deanna Dunn’s voracious plummet on his sexual organ without even a courteous and friendly word of preparation. He kept sipping his drink and watching the movie, but not tasting, not seeing. He was excited in a way he had never been before but part of it was because this woman servicing him in the dark had been the object of his adolescent dreams.
   Yet in a way his masculinity was insulted. So when the world-famous Deanna Dunn was sated and had tidied him up, he very coolly fixed her a fresh drink in the darkness and lit her a fresh cigarette and said in the most relaxed voice imaginable, “This looks like a pretty good movie.”
   He felt her stiffen beside him on the couch. Could it be she was waiting for some sort of compliment? Nino poured his glass full from the nearest bottle his hand touched in the darkness. The hell with that. She’d treated him like a goddamn male whore. For some reason now he felt a cold anger at all these women. They watched the picture for another fifteen minutes. He leaned away from her so their bodies did not touch.
   Finally she said in a low harsh whisper, “Don’t be such a snotty punk, you liked it. You were as big as a house.”
   Nino sipped his drink and said in his natural off-hand manner, “That’s the way it always is. You should see it when I get excited.”
   She laughed a little and kept quiet for the rest of the picture. Finally it was over and the lights went on. Nino took a look around. He could see there had been a ball here in the darkness though oddly enough he hadn’t heard a thing. But some of the dames had that hard, shiny, brighteyed look of women who had just been worked over real good. They sauntered out of the projection room. Deanna Dunn left him immediately to go over and talk to an older man Nino recognized as a famous featured player, only now, seeing the guy in person, he realized that he was a fag. He sipped his drink thoughtfully.
   Johnny Fontane came up beside him and said, “Hi, old buddy, having a good time?”
   Nino grinned. “I don’t know. It’s different. Now when I go back to the old neighborhood I can say Deanna Dunn had me.”
   Johnny laughed. “She can be better than that if she-invites you home with her. Did she?”
   Nino shook his head. “I got too interested in the movie,” he said. But this time Johnny didn’t laugh.
   “Get serious, kid,” he said. “A dame like that cn do you a lot of good. And you used to boff anything. Man, sometimes I still get nightmares when I remember those ugly broads you used to bang.”
   Nino waved his glass drunkenly and said very loud, “Yeah, they were ugly but they were women.” Deanna Dunn, in the corner, turned her head to look at them. Nino waved his glass at her in greeting.
   Johnny Fontane sighed. “OK, you’re just a guinea peasant.”
   “And I ain’t gonna change,” Nino said with his charmingly drunken smile.
   Johnny understood him perfectly. He knew Nino was not as drunk as he pretended. He knew that Nino was only pretending so that he could say things which he felt were too rude to say to his new Hollywood padrone when sober. He put his arm around Nino’s neck and said affectionately, “You wise guy bum, you know you got an ironclad contract for a year and you can say and do anything you want and I can’t fire you.”
   “You can’t fire me?” Nino said with drunken cunning.
   “No,” Johnny said.
   “Then fuck you,” Nino said.
   For a moment Johnny was surprised into anger. He saw the careless grin on Nino’s face. But in the past few years he must have gotten smarter, or his own descent from stardom had made him more sensitive. In that moment he understood Nino, why his boyhood singing partner had never become successful, why he was trying to destroy any chance of success now. That Nino was reacting away from all the prices of success, that in some way he felt insulted by everything that was being done for him.
   Johnny took Nino by the arm and led him out of the house. Nino could barely walk now. Johnny was talking to him soothingly. “OK, kid, you just sing for me, I wants make dough on you. I won’t try to run your life. You do whatever you wants do. OK, paisan? All you gotta do is sing for me and earn me money now that I can’t sing anymore. You got that, old buddy?”
   Nino straightened up. “I’ll sing for you, Johnny,” he said, his voice slurring so that he could barely be understood. “I’m a better singer than you now. I was always a better singer than you, you know that?”
   Johnny stood there thinking; so that was it. He knew that when his voice was healthy Nino simply wasn’t in the same league with him, never had been in those years they had sung together as kids. He saw Nino was waiting for an answer, weaving drunkenly in the California moonlight. “Fuck you,” he said gently, and they both laughed together like the old days when they had both been equally young.


* * *

   When Johnny Fontane got word about the shooting of Don Corleone he not only worried about his Godfather, but also wondered whether the financing for his movie was still alive. He had wanted to go to New York to pay his respects to his Godfather in the hospital but he had been told not to get any bad publicity, that was the last thing Don Corleone would want. So he waited. A week later a messenger came from Tom Hagen. The financing was still on but for only one picture at a time.
   Meanwhile Johnny let Nino go his own way in Hollywood and California, and Nino was doing all right with the young starlets. Sometimes Johnny called him up for a night out together but never leaned on him. When they talked about the Don getting shot, Nino said to Johnny, “You know, once I asked the Don for a job in his organization and he wouldn’t give it to me. I was tired of driving a truck and I wanted to make a lot of dough. You know what he told me? He says every man has only one destiny and that my destiny was to be an artist. Meaning that I couldn’t be a racket guy.”
   Johnny thought that one over. The Godfather must be just about the smartest guy in the world. He’d known immediately that Nino could never make a racket guy, would only get himself in trouble or get killed. Get killed with just one of his wisecracks. But how did the Don know that he would be an artist? Because, goddamn it, he figured that someday I’d help Nino. And how did he figure that? Because he would drop the word to me and I would try to show my gratitude. Of course he never asked me to do it. He just let me know it would make him happy if I did it. Johnny Fontane sighed. Now the Godfather was hurt, in trouble, and he could kiss the Academy Award good-bye with Woltz working against him and no help on his side. Only the Don had the personal contacts that could apply pressure and the Corleone Family had other things to think about. Johnny had offered to help, Hagen had given him a curt no.
   Johnny was busy getting his own picture going. The author of the book he had starred in had finished his new novel and came west on Johnny’s invitation, to talk it over without agents or studios getting into the act. The second book was perfect for what Johnny wanted. He wouldn’t have to sing, it had a good gutsy story with plenty of dames and sex and it had a part that Johnny instantly recognized as tailor-made for Nino. The character talked like Nino, acted like him, even looked like him. It was uncanny. All Nino would have to do would be to get up on the screen and be himself.
   Johnny worked fast. He found that he knew a lot more about production than he thought he did, but he hired an executive producer, a man who knew his stuff but had trouble finding work because of the blacklist. Johnny didn’t take advantage but gave the man a fair contract. “I expect you to save me more dough this way,” he told the man frankly.
   So he was surprised when the executive producer came to him and told him the union rep had to be taken care of to the tune of fifty thousand dollars. There were a lot of problems dealing with overtime and hiring and the fifty thousand dollars would be well spent. Johnny debated whether the executive producer was hustling him and then said, “Send the union guy to me.”
   The union guy was Billy Goff. Johnny said to him, “I thought the union stuff was fixed by my friends. I was told not to worry about it. At all.”
   Goff said, “Who told you that?”
   Johnny said, “You know goddamn well who told me. I won’t say his name but if he tells me something that’s it.”
   Goff said, “Things have changed. Your friend is in trouble and his word don’t go this far west anymore.”
   Johnny shrugged. “See me in a couple of days. OK?”
   Goff smiled. “Sure, Johnny,” he said. “But calling in New York ain’t going to help you.”
   But calling New York did help. Johnny spoke to Hagen at his office. Hagen told him bluntly not to pay. “Your Godfather will be sore as hell if you pay that bastard a dime,” he told Johnny. “It will make the Don lose respect and right now he can’t afford that.”
   “Can I talk to the Don?” Johnny asked. “Will you talk to him? I gotta get the picture rolling.”
   “Nobody can talk to the Don right now,” Hagen said. “He’s too sick. I’ll talk to Sonny about fixing things up. But I’ll make the decision on this. Don’t pay that smart bastard a dime. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”
   Annoyed, Johnny hung up. Union trouble could add a fortune to making the film and screw up the works generally. For a moment he debated slipping Goff the fifty grand on the quiet. After all, the Don telling him something and Hagen telling him something and giving him orders were two different things. But he decided to wait for a few days.
   By waiting he saved fifty thousand dollars. Two nights later, Goff was found shot to death in his home in Glendale. There was no more talk of union trouble. Johnny was a little shaken by the killing. It was the first time the long arm of the Don had struck such a lethal blow so close to him.
   As the weeks went by and he became busier and busier with getting the script ready, casting the movie and working out production details, Johnny Fontane forgot about his voice, his not being able to sing. Yet when the Academy Award nominations came out and he found himself one of the candidates, he was depressed because he was not asked to sing one of the songs nominated for the Oscar at the ceremony that would be televised nationally. But he shrugged it off and kept working. He had no hope of winning the Academy Award now that his Godfather was no longer able to put pressure on, but getting the nomination had some value.
   The record he and Nino had cut, the one of Italian songs, was selling much better than anything he had cut lately, but he knew that it was Nino’s success more than his. He resigned himself to never being able to again sing professionally.
   Once a week he had dinner with Ginny and the kids. No matter how hectic things got he never skipped that duty. But he didn’t sleep with Ginny. Meanwhile his second wife had finagled a Mexican divorce and so he was a bachelor again. Oddly enough he was not that frantic to bang starlets who would have been easy meat. He was too snobbish really. He was hurt that none of the young stars, the actresses who were still on top, ever gave him a tumble. But it was good to work hard. Most nights he would go home alone, put his old records on the player, have a drink and hum along with them for a few bars. He had been good, damn good. He hadn’t realized how good he was. Even aside from the special voice, which could have happened to anybody, he was good. He had been a real artist and never knew it, and never knew how much he loved it. He’d ruined his voice with booze and tobacco and broads just when he really knew what it was all about.
   Sometimes Nino came over for a drink and listened with him and Johnny would say to him scornfully, “You guinea bastard, you never sang like that in your life.” And Nino would give him that curiously charming smile and shake his head and say, “No, and I never will,” in a sympathetic voice, as if he knew what Johnny was thinking.
   Finally, a week before shooting the new picture, the Academy Award night rolled around. Johnny invited Nino to come along but Nino refused. Johnny said, “Buddy, I never asked you a favor, right? Do me a favor tonight and come with me. You’re the only guy who’ll really feel sorry for me if I don’t win.”
   For one moment Nino looked startled. Then he said, “Sure, old buddy, I can make it.” He paused for a moment and said, “if you don’t win, forget it. Just get as drunk as you can get and I’ll take care of you. Hell, I won’t even drink myself tonight. How about that for being a buddy?”
   “Man,” Johnny Fontane said, “that’s some buddy.”
   The Academy Award night came and Nino kept his promise. He came to Johnny’s house dead sober and they left for the presentation theater together. Nino wondered why Johnny hadn’t invited any of his girls or his ex-wives to the Award dinner. Especially Ginny. Didn’t he think Ginny would root for him? Nino wished he could have just one drink, it looked like a long bad night.
   Nino Valenti found the whole Academy Award affair a bore until the winner of the best male actor was announced. When he heard the words “Johnny Fontane,” he found himself jumping into the air and applauding. Johnny reached out a hand for him to shake and Nino shook it. He knew his buddy needed human contact with someone he trusted and Nino felt an enormous sadness that Johnny didn’t have anyone better than himself to touch in his moment of glory.
   What followed was an absolute nightmare. Jack Woltz’s picture had swept all the major awards and so the studio’s party was swamped with newspaper people and all the on-the-make hustlers; male and female. Nino kept his promise to remain sober, and he tried to watch over Johnny. But the women of the party kept pulling Johnny Fontane into bedrooms for a little chat and Johnny kept getting drunker and drunker.
   Meanwhile the woman who had won the award for the best actress was suffering the same fate but loving it more and handling it better. Nino turned her down, the only man at the party to do so.
   Finally somebody had a great idea. The public mating of the two winners, everybody else at the party to be spectators in the stands. The actress was stripped down and the other women started to undress Johnny Fontane. It was then that Nino, the only sober person there, grabbed the half-clothed Johnny and slung him over his shoulder and fought his way out of the house and to their car. As he drove Johnny home, Nino thought that if that was success, he didn’t want it.
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Capo di tutti capi


Underpromise; overdeliver.

Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Book Three

Chapter 14

   The Don was a real man at the age of twelve. Short, dark, slender, living in the strange Moorish-looking village of Corleone in Sicily, he had been born Vito Andolini, but when strange men came to kill the son of the man they had murdered, his mother sent the young boy to America to stay with friends. And in the new land he changed his name to Corleone to preserve some tie with his native village. It was one of the few gestures of sentiment he was ever to make.
   In Sicily at the turn of the century the Mafia was the second government, far more powerful than the official one in Rome. Vito Corleone’s father became involved in a feud with another villager who took his case to the Mafia. The father refused to knuckle under and in a public quarrel killed the local Mafia chief. A week later he himself was found dead, his body torn apart by lupara blasts. A month after the funeral Mafia gunmen came inquiring after the young boy, Vito. They had decided that he was too close to manhood, that he might try, to avenge the death of his father in the years to come. The twelve-year-old Vito was hidden by relatives and shipped to America. There he was boarded with the Abbandandos, whose son Genco was later to become Consigliere to his Don.
   Young Vito went to work in the Abbandando grocery store on Ninth Avenue in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. At the age of eighteen Vito married an Italian girl freshly arrived from Sicily, a girl of only sixteen but a skilled cook, a good housewife. They settled down in a tenement on Tenth Avenue, near 35th Street, only a few blocks from where Vito worked, and two years later were blessed with their first child, Santino, called by all his friends Sonny because of his devotion to his father.
   In the neighborhood lived a man called Fanucci. He was a heavy-set, fierce-looking Italian who wore expensive light-colored suits and a cream-colored fedora. This man was reputed to be of the “Black Hand,” an offshoot of the Mafia which extorted money from families and storekeepers by threat of physical violence. However, since most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood were violent themselves, Fanucci’s threats of bodily harm were effective only with elderly couples without male children to defend them. Some of the storekeepers paid him trifling sums as a matter of convenience. However, Fanucci was also a scavenger on fellow criminals, people who illegally sold Italian lottery or ran gambling games in their homes. The Abbandando grocery gave him a small tribute, this despite the protests of young Genco, who told his father he would settle the Fanucci hash. His father forbade him. Vito Corleone observed all this without feeling in any way involved.
   One day Fanucci was set upon by three young men who cut his throat from ear to ear, not deeply enough to kill him, but enough to frighten him and make him bleed a great deal. Vito saw Fanucci fleeing from his punishers, the circular slash flowing red. What he never forgot was Fanucci holding the cream-colored fedora under his chin to catch the dripping blood as he ran. As if he did not want his suit soiled or did not want to leave a shameful trail of carmine.
   But this attack proved a blessing in disguise for Fanucci. The three young men were not murderers, merely tough young boys determined to teach him a lesson and stop him from scavenging. Fannucci proved himself a murderer. A few weeks later the knife-wielder was shot to death and the families of the other two young men paid an indemnity to Fanucci to make him forswear his vengeance. After that the tributes became higher and Fanucci became a partner in the neighborhood gambling games. As for Vito Corleone, it was none of his affair. He forgot about it immediately.
   During World War I, when imported olive oil became scarce, Fanucci acquired a part-interest in the Abbandando grocery store by supplying it not only with oil, but imported Italian salami, hams and cheeses. He then moved a nephew into the store and Vito Corleone found himself out of a job.
   By this time, the second child, Frederioo, had arrived and Vito Corleone had four mouths to feed. Up to this time he had been a quiet, very contained young man who kept his thoughts to himself. The son of the grocery store owner, young Genco Abbandando, was his closest friend, and to the surprise of both of them, Vito reproached his friend for his father’s deed. Genco, flushed with shame, vowed to Vito that he would not have to worry about food. That he, Genco, would steal food from the grocery to supply his friend’s needs. This offer though was sternly refused by Vito as too shameful, a son stealing from his father.
   The young Vito, however, felt a cold anger for the dreaded Fanucci. He never showed this anger in any way but bided his time. He worked in the railroad for a few months and then, when the war ended, work became slow and he could earn only a few days’ pay a month. Also, most of the foremen were Irish and American and abused the workmen in the foulest language, which Vito always bore stone-faced as if he did not comprehend, though he understood English very well despite his accent.
   One evening as Vito was having supper with his family there was a knock on the window that led to the open sir shaft that separated them from the next building. When Vito pulled aside the curtain he saw to his astonishment one of the young men in the neighborhood, Peter Clemenza, leaning out from a window on the other side of the air shaft. He was extending a white-sheeted bundle.
   “Hey, paisan,” Clemenza said. “Hold these for me until I ask for them. Hurry up.” Automatically Vito reached over the empty space of the air shaft and took the bundle. Clemenza’s face was strained and urgent. He was in some sort of trouble and Vito’s helping action was instinctive. But when he untied the bundle in his kitchen, there were five oily guns staining the white cloth. He put them in his bedroom closet and waited. He learned that Clemenza had been taken away by the police. They must have been knocking on his door when he handed the guns over the air shaft.
   Vito never said a word to anyone and of course his terrified wife dared not open her lips even in gossip for fear her own husband would be sent to prison. Two days later Peter Clemenza reappeared in the neighborhood and asked Vito casually, “Do you have my goods still?”
   Vito nodded. He was in the habit of talking little. Clemenza came up to his tenement flat and was given a glass of wine while Vito dug the bundle out of his bedroom closet.
   Clemenza drank his wine, his heavy good-natured face alertly watching Vito. “Did you look inside?”
   Vito, his face impassive, shook his head. “I’m not interested in things that don’t concern me,” he said.
   They drank wine together the rest of the evening. They found each other congenial. Clemenza was a storyteller; Vito Corleone was a listener to storytellers. They became casual friends.
   A few days later Clemenza asked the wife of Vito Corleone if she would like a fine rug for her living room floor. He took Vito with him to help carry the rug.
   Clemenza led Vito to an apartment house with two marble pillars and a white marble stoop. He used a key to open the door and they were inside a plush apartment. Clemenza grunted, “Go on the other side of the room and help me roll it up.”
   The rug was a rich red wool. Vito Corleone was astonished by Clemenza’s generosity. Together they rolled the rug into a pile and Clemenza took one end while Vito took the other. They lifted it and started carrying it toward the door.
   At that moment the apartment bell rang. Clemenza immediately dropped the rug and strode to the window. He pulled the drape aside slightly and what he saw made him draw a gun from inside his jacket. It was only at that moment the astonished Vito Corleone realized that they were stealing the rug from some stranger’s apartment.
   The apartment bell rang again. Vito went up alongside Clemenza so that he too could see what was happening. At’ the door was a uniformed policeman. As they watched, the policeman gave the doorbell a final push, then shrugged and walked away down the marble steps and down the street.
   Clemenza grunted in a satisfied way and said, “Come on, let’s go.” He picked up his end of the rug and Vito picked up the other end. The policeman had barely turned the corner before they were edging out the heavy oaken door and into the street with the rug between them. Thirty minutes later they were cutting the rug to fit the living rooms of Vito Corleone’s apartment. They had enough left over for the bedroom. Clemenza was an expert workman and from the pockets of his wide, ill-fitting jacket (even then he liked to wear loose clothes though he was not so fat), he had the necessary carpet-cutting tools.
   Time went on, things did not improve. The Corleone family could not eat the beautiful rug. Very well, there was no work, his wife and children must starve. Vito took some parcels of food from his friend Genco while he thought things out. Finally he was approached by Clemenza and Tessio, another young tough of the neighborhood. They were men who thought well of him, the way he carried himself, and they knew he was desperate. They proposed to him that he become one of their gang which specialized in hijacking trucks of silk dresses after those trucks were loaded up at the factory on 31st Street. There was no risk. The truck drivers were sensible workingmen who at the sight of a gun flopped on the sidewalk like angels while the hijackers drove the truck away to be unloaded at a friend’s warehouse. Some of the merchandise would be sold to an Italian wholesaler, part of the loot would be sold door-to-door in the Italian neighborhoods– Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, Mulberry Street, and the Chelsea district in Manhattan– all to poor Italian families looking for a bargain, whose daughters could never be able to afford such fine apparel. Clemenza and Tessio needed Vito to drive since they knew he chauffeured the Abbandando grocery store delivery truck. In 1919, skilled automobile drivers were at a premium.
   Against his better judgment, Vito Corleone accepted their offer. The clinching argument was that he would clear at least a thousand dollars for his share of the job. But his young companions struck him as rash, the planning of the job haphazard, the distribution of the loot foolhardy. Their whole approach was too careless for his taste. But he thought them of good, sound character. Peter Clemenza, already burly, inspired a certain trust, and the lean saturnine Tessio inspired confidence.
   The job itself went off without a hitch. Vito Corleone felt no fear, much to his astonishment, when his two comrades flashed guns and made the driver get out of the silk truck. He was also impressed with the coolness of Clemenza and Tessio. They didn’t get excited but joked with the driver, told him if he was a good lad they’d send his wife a few dresses. Because Vito thought it stupid to peddle dresses himself and so gave his whole share of stock to the fence, he made only seven hundred dollars. But this was a considerable sum of money in 1919.
   The next day on the street, Vito Corleoue was stopped by the cream-suited, white-fedoraed Fanucci. Fanucci was a brutal-looking man and he had done nothing to disguise the circular scar that stretched in a white semicircle from ear to ear, looping under his chin. He had heavy black brows and coarse features which, when he smiled, were in some odd way amiable.
   He spoke with a very thick Sicilian accent. “Ah, young fellow,” he said to Vito. “People tell me you’re rich. You and your two friends. But don’t you think you’ve treated me a little shabbily? After all, this is my neighborhood and yon should let me wet my beak.” He used the Sicilian phrase of the Mafia, “Fari vagnari a pizzu.” Pizzu means the beak of any small bird such as a canary. The phrase itself was a demand for part of the loot.
   As was his habit, Vito Corleone did not answer. He understood the implication immediately and was waiting for a definite demand.
   Fanucci smiled at him, showing gold teeth and stretching his nooses-like scar tight around his face. He mopped his face with a handkerchief and unbuttoned his jacket for a moment as if to cool himself but really to show the gun he carried stuck in the waistband of his comfortably wide trousers. Then he sighed and said, “Give me five hundred dollars and I’ll forget the insult. After all, young people don’t know the courtesies due a man like myself.”
   Vito Corleone smiled at him and even as a young man still unblooded, there was something so chilling in his smile that Fanucci hesitated a moment before going on. “Otherwise the police will come to see you, your wife and children will be shamed and destitute. Of course if my information as to your gains is incorrect I’ll dip my beak just a little. But no less than three hundred dollars. And don’t try to deceive me.”
   For the first time Vito Corleone spoke. His voice was reasonable, showed no anger. It was courteous, as befitted a young man speaking to an older man of Fanucci’s eminence. He said softly, “My two friend have my share of the money, rll have to speak to them.”
   Fanucci was reassured. “You can tell your two friends that I expect them to let me wet my beak in the same manner. Don’t be afraid to tell them,” he added reassuringly. “Clemenza and I know each other well, he understands these things. Let yourself be guided by him. He has more experience in these matters.”
   Vito Corleone shrugged. He tried to look a little embarrassed. “Of course,” he said. “You understand this is all new to me. Thank you for speaking to me as a godfather.”
   Fanucci was impressed. “You’re a good fellow,” he said. He took Vito’s hand and clasped it in both of his hairy ones. “You have respect,” he said. “A fine thing in the young. Next time speak to me first, eh? Perhaps I can help you in your plans.”
   In later years Vito Corleone understood that what had made him act in such a perfect, tactical way with Fanucci was the death of his own hot-tempered father who had been killed by the Mafia in Sicily. But at that time all he felt was an icy rage that this man planned to rob him of the money he had risked his life and freedom to earn. He had not been afraid. Indeed he thought, at that moment, that Fanucci was a crazy fool. From what he had seen of Clemenza, that burly Sicilian would sooner give up his life than a penny of his loot. After all, Clemenza had been ready to kill a policeman merely to steal a rug. And the slender Tessio had the deadly air of a viper.
   But later that night, in Clemenza’s tenement apartment across the air shaft, Vito Corleone received another lesson in the education he had just begun. Clemenza cursed, Tessio scowled, but then both men started talking about whether Fanucci would be satisfied with two hundred dollars. Tessio thought he might.
   Clemenza was positive. “No, that scarface bastard must have found out what we made from the wholesaler who bought the dresses. Fanucci won’t take a dime less than three hundred dollars. We’ll have to pay.”
   Vito was astonished but was careful not to show his astonishment. “Why do we have to pay him? What can he do to the three of us? We’re stronger than him. We have guns. Why do we have to hand over the money we earned?”
   Clemenza explained patiently. “Fanucci has friends, real brutes. He has connections with the police. He’d like us to tell him our plans because he could set us up for the gyps and earn their gratitude. Then they would owe him a favor. That’s how he operates. And he has a license from Maranzalla himself to work this neighborhood.” Maranzalla was a gangster often in the newspapers, reputed to be the leader of a criminal ring specializing in extortion, gambling and armed robbery.
   Clemenza served wine that he had made himself. His wife, after putting a plate of salami, olives and a loaf of Italian bread on the table, went down to sit with her women cronies in front of the building, carrying her chair with her. She was a young Italian girl only a few years in the country and did not yet understand English.
   Vito Corleone sat with his two friends and drank wine. He had never used his intelligence before as he was using it now. He was surprised at how clearly he could think. He recalled everything he knew about Fanucci. He remembered the day the man had had his throat cut and had run down the street holding his fedora under his chin to catch the dripping blood. He remembered the murder of the man who had wield the knife and the other two having their sentences removed by paying an indemnity. And suddenly he was sure that Fanucci had no great connections, could not possibly have. Not a man who informed to the police. Not a man who allowed his vengeance to be bought off. A real Mafioso chief would have had the other two men killed also. No. Fanucci had got lucky and killed one man but had known he could not kill the other two after they were alerted. And so he had allowed himself to be paid. It was the personal brutal force of the man that allowed him to levy tribute on the shopkeepers, the gambling games that ran in the tenement apartments. But Vito Corleone knew of at least one gambling game that had never paid Fanucci tributes and nothing had ever happened to the men running it.
   And so it was Fanucci alone. Or Fanucci with some gunmen hired for special jobs on a strictly cash basis. Which left Vito Corleone with another decision. The course his own life must take.
   It was from this experience came his oft-repeated belief that every man has but one destiny. On that night he could have paid Fanucci the tribute and have become again a grocery clerk with perhaps his own grocery store in the years to come. But destiny had decided that he was to become a Don and had brought Fanucci to him to set him on his destined path.
   When they finished the bottle of wine, Vito said cautiously to Clemenza and Tessio, “If you like, why not give me two hundred dollars each to pay to Fanucci? I guarantee he will accept that amount from me. Then leave everything in my hands. I’ll settle this problem to your satisfaction.”
   At once Clemenza’s eyes gleamed with suspicion. Vito said to him coldly, “I never lie to people I have accepted as my friends. Speak to Fanucci yourself tomorrow. Let him ask you for the money. But don’t pay him. And don’t in any way quarrel with him. Tell him you have to get the money and will give it to me to give him. Let him understand that you are willing to pay what he asks. Don’t bargain. I’ll quarrel over the price with him. There’s no point making him angry with us if he’s as dangerous a man as you say he is.”
   They left it at that. The next day Clemenza spoke with Fanucci to make sure that Vito was not making up the story. Then Clemenza came to Vito’s apartment and gave him the two hundred dollars. He peered at Vito Corleone and said, “Fanucci told me nothing below three hundred dollars, how will you make him take less?”
   Vito Corleone said reasonably, “Surely that’s no concern of yours. Just remember that I’ve done you a service.”
   Tessio came later. Tessio was more reserved than Clemenza, sharper, more clever but with less force. He sensed something amiss, something not quite right. He was a little worried. He said to Vito Corleone, “Watch yourself with that bastard of a Black Hand, he’s tricky as a priest. Do you want me to be here when you hand him the money, as a witness?”
   Vito Corleone shook his head. He didn’t even bother to answer. He merely said to Tessio, “Tell Fanucci I’ll pay him the money here, in my house at nine o’clock tonight. I’ll have to give him a glass of wine and talk, reason with him to take the lesser sum.”
   Tessio shook his head. “You won’t have much luck. Fanucci never retreats.”
   “I’ll reason with him,” Vito Corleone said. It was to become a famous phrase in the years to come. It was to become the warning rattle before a deadly strike. When he became a Don and asked opponents to sit down and reason with him, they understood it was the last chance to resolve an affair without bloodshed and murder.
   Vito Corleone told his wife to take the two children, Sonny and Fredo, down into the street after supper and on no account to let them come up to the house until he gave her permission. She was to sit on guard at the tenement door. He had some private business with Fanucci that could not be interrupted. He saw the look of fear on her face and was angry. He said to her quietly, “Do you think you’ve married a fool?” She didn’t answer. She did not answer because she was frightened, not of Fanucci now, but of her husband. He was changing visibly before her eyes, hour by hour, into a man who radiated some dangerous force. He had always been quiet, speaking little, but always gentle, always reasonable, which was extraordinary in a young Sicilian male. What she was seeing was the shedding of his protective coloration of a harmless nobody now that he was ready to start on his destiny. He had started late, he was twenty-five years old, but he was to start with a flourish.
   Vito Corleone had decided to murder Fanucci. By doing so he would have an extra seven hundred dollars in his bankroll. The three hundred dollars he himself would have to pay the Black Hand terrorist and the two hundred dollars from Tessio and the two hundred dollars from Clemenza. If he did not kill Fanucci, he would have to pay the man seven hundred dollars cold cash. Fanucci alive was not worth seven hundred dollars to him. He would not pay seven hundred dollars to keep Fanucci alive. If Fanucci needed seven hundred dollars for an operation to save his life, he would not give Fanucci seven hundred dollars for the surgeon. He owed Fanucci no personal debt of gratitude, they were not blood relatives, he did not love Fanucci. Why, then, should he give Fanucci seven hundred dollars?
   And it followed inevitably, that since Fanucci wished to take seven hundred dollars from him by force, why should he not kill Fanucci? Surely the world could do without such a person.
   There were of course some practical reasons. Fanucci might indeed have powerful friends who would seek vengeance. Fanucci himself was a dangerous man, not so easily killed. There were the police and the electric chair. But Vito Corleone had lived under a sentence of death since the murder of his father. As a boy of twelve he had fled his executioners and crossed the ocean into a strange land, taking a strange name. And years of quiet observation had convinced him that he had more intelligence and more courage than other men, though he had never had the opportunity to use that intelligence and courage.
   And yet he hesitated before taking the first step toward his destiny. He even packed the seven hundred dollars in a single fold of bills and put the money in a convenient sick pocket of his trousers. But he put the money in the left side of his trousers. In the right-hand pocket he put the gun Clemenza had given him to use in the hijacking of the silk truck.
   Fanucci came promptly at nine in the evening. Vito Corleone set out a jug of homemade wine that Clemenza had given him.
   Fanucci put his white fedora on the table beside the jug of wine. He loosened his broad multiflowered tie, its tomato stains camouflaged by the bright patterns. The summer night was hot, the gaslight feeble. It was very quiet in the apartment. But Vito Corleone was icy. To show his good faith he handed over the roll of bills and watched carefully as Fanucci, after counting it, took out a wide leather wallet and stuffed the money inside. Fanucci sipped his glass of wine and said, “You still owe me two hundred dollars.” His heavy-browed face was expressionless.
   Vito Corleone said in his cool reasonable voice, “I’m a little short, I’ve been out of work. Let me owe you the money for a few weeks.”
   This was a permissible gambit. Fanucci had the bulk of the money and would wait. He might even be persuaded to take nothing more or to wait a little longer. He chuckled over his wine and said, “Ah, you’re a sharp young fellow. How is it I’ve never noticed you before? You’re too quiet a chap for your own interest. I could find some work for you to do that would be very profitable.”
   Vito Corleone showed his interest with a polite nod and filled up the man’s glass from the purple jug. But Fanucci thought better of what he was going to say and rose from his chair and shook Vito’s hand. “Good night, young fellow,” he said. “No hard feelings, eh? If I can ever do you a service let me know. You’ve done a good job for yourself tonight.”
   Vito let Fanucci go down the stairs and out the building. The street was thronged with witnesses to show that he had left the Corleone home safely. Vito watched from the window. He saw Fanucci turn the corner toward 11th Avenue and knew he was headed toward his apartment, probably to put away his loot before coming out on the streets again. Perhaps to put away his gun. Vito Corleone left his apartment and ran up the stairs to the roof. He traveled over the square block of roofs and descended down the steps of an empty loft building fire escape that left him in the back yard. He kicked the back door open and went through the front door. Across the street was Fanucci’s tenement apartment house.
   The village of tenements extended only as far west as Tenth Avenue. Eleventh Avenue was mostly warehouses and lofts rented by firms who shipped by New York Central Railroad and wanted access to the freight yards that honeycombed the area from Eleventh Avenue to the Hudson River. Fanucci’s apartment house was one of the few left standing in this wilderness and was occupied mostly by bachelor trainmen, yard workers, and the cheapest prostitutes. These people did not sit in the street and gossip like honest Italians, they sat in beer taverns guzzling their pay. So Vito Corleone found it an easy matter to slip across the deserted Eleventh Avenue and into the vestibule of Fanucci’s apartment house. There he drew the gun he had never fired and waited for Fanucci.
   He watched through the glass door of the vestibule, knowing Fanucci would come down from Tenth Avenue. Clemenza had showed him the safety on the gun and he had triggered it empty. But as a young boy in Sicily at the early age of nine, he had often gone hunting with’his father, had often fired the heavy shotgun called the lupara. It was his skill with the lupara even as a small boy that had brought the sentence of death upon him by his father’s murderers.
   Now waiting in the darkened hallway, he saw the white blob of Fanucci crossing the street toward the doorway. Vito stepped back, shoulders pressed against the inner door that led to the stairs. He held his gun out to fire. His extended hand was only two paces from the outside door. The door swung in. Fanucci, white, broad, smelly, filled the square of light. Vito Corleone fired.
   The opened door let some of the sound escape into the street, the rest of the gun’s explosion shook the building. Fanucci was holding on to the sides of the door, trying to stand erect, trying to reach for his gun. The force of his struggle had torn the buttons off his jacket and made it swing loose. His gun was exposed but so was a spidery vein of red on the white shirtfront of his stomach. Very carefully, as if he were plunging a needle into a vein, Vito Corleone fired his second bullet into that red web.
   Fanucci fell to his knees, propping the door open. He let out a terrible groan, the groan of a man in great physical distress that was almost comical. He kept giving these groans; Vito remembered hearing at least three of them before he put the gun against Fanucci’s sweaty, suety cheek and fired into his brain. No more than five seconds had passed when Fanucci slumped into death, jamming the door open with his body.
   Very carefully Vito took the wide wallet out of the dead man’s jacket pocket and put it inside his shirt. Then he walked across the street into the loft building, through that into the yard and climbed the fire escape to the roof. From there he surveyed the street. Fanucci’s body was still lying in the doorway but there was no sign of any other person. Two windows had gone up in the tenement and he could see dark heads poked out but since he could not see their features they had certainly not seen his. And such men would not give information to the police. Fanucci might lie there until dawn or until a patrolman making the rounds stumbled on his body. No person in that house would deliberately expose himself to police suspicion or questioning. They would lock their doors and pretend they had heard nothing.
   He could take his time. He traveled over the rooftops to his own roof door and down to his own flat. He unlocked the door, went inside and then locked the door behind him. He rifled the dead man’s wallet. Besides the seven hundred dollars he had given Fanucci there were only some singles and a five-dollar note.
   Tucked inside the flap was an old five-dollar gold piece, probably a luck token. If Fanucci was a rich gangster, he certainly did not carry his wealth with him. This confirmed some of Vito’s suspicions.
   He knew he had to get rid of the wallet and the gun (knowing enough even then that he must leave the gold piece in the wallet). He went up on the roof again and traveled over a few ledges. He threw the wallet down one air shaft and then he emptied the gun of bullets and smashed its barrel against the roof ledge. The barrel wouldn’t break. He reversed it in his hand and smashed the butt against the side of a chimney. The butt split into two halves. He smashed it again and the pistol broke into barrel and handle, two separate pieces. He used a separate air shaft for each. They made no sound when they struck the earth five stories below, but sank into the soft hill of garbage that had accumulated there. In the morning more garbage would be thrown out of the windows and, with luck, would cover everything. Vito returned to his apartment.
   He was trembling a little but was absolutely under control. He changed his clothes and fearful that some blood might have splattered on them, he threw them into a metal tub his wife used for washing. He took lye and heavy brown laundry soap to soak the clothes and scrubbed them with the metal wash board beneath the sink. Then he scoured tub and sink with lye and soap. He found a bundle of newly washed clothes in the corner of the bedroom and mingled his own clothes with these. Then he put on a fresh shirt and trousers and went down to join his wife and children and neighbors in front of the tenement.
   All these precautions proved to be unnecessary. The police, after discovering the dead body at dawn, never questioned Vito Corleone. Indeed he was astonished that they never learned about Fanucci’s visit to his home on the night he was shot to death. He had counted on that for an alibi, Fanucci leaving the tenement alive. He only learned later that the police had been delighted with the murder of Fanucci and not too anxious to pursue his killers. They had assumed it was another gang execution, and had questioned hoodlums with records in the rackets and a history of strongarm. Since Vito had never been in trouble he never came into the picture.
   But if he had outwitted the police, his partners were another matter. Pete Clemenza and Tessio avoided him for the next week, for the next two weeks, then they came to call on him one evening. They came with obvious respect. Vito Corleone greeted them with impassive courtesy and served them wine.
   Clemenza spoke first. He said softly, “Nobody is collecting from the store owners on Ninth Avenue. Nobody is collecting from the card games and gambling in the neighborhood.”
   Vito Corleone gazed at both men steadily but did not reply. Tessio spoke. “We could take over Fanucci’s customers. They would pay us.”
   Vito Corleone shrugged. “Why come to me? I have no interest in such things.”
   Clemenza laughed. Even in his youth, before growing his enormous belly, he had a fat man’s laugh. He said now to Vito Corleone, “How about that gun I gave you for the truck job? Since you won’t need it any more you can give it back to me.”
   Very slowly and deliberately Vito Corleone took a wad of bills out of his side pocket and peeled off five tens. “Here, I’ll pay you. I threw the gun away after the truck job.” He smiled at the two men.
   At that time Vito Corleone did not know the effect of this smile. It was chilling because it attempted no menace. He smiled as if it was some private joke only he himself could appreciate. But since he smiled in that fashion only in affairs that were lethal, and since the joke was not really private and since his eyes did not smile, and since his outward character was usually so reasonable and quiet, the sudden unmasking of his true self was frightening.
   Clemenza shook his head. “I don’t want the money,” he said. Vito pocketed the bills. He waited. They all understood each other. They knew he had killed Fanucci and though they never spoke about it to anyone the whole neighborhood, within a few weeks, also knew. Vito Corleone was treated as a “man of respect” by everyone. But he made no attempt to take over the Fanucci rackets and tributes.
   What followed then was inevitable. One night Vito’s wife brought a neighbor, a widow, to the flat. The woman was Italian and of unimpeachable character. She worked hard to keep a home for her fatherless children. Her sixteen-year-old son brought home his pay envelope sealed, to hand over to her in the old-country style; her seventeen-year-old daughter, a dressmaker, did the same. The whole family sewed buttons on cards at night at slave labor piece rates. The woman’s name was Signora Colombo.
   Vito Corleone’s wife said, “The Signora has a favor to ask of you. She is having some trouble.”
   Vito Corleone expected to be asked for money, which he was ready to give. But it seemed that Mrs. Colombo owned a dog which her youngest son adored. The landlord had received complaints on the dog barking at night and had told Mrs. Colombo to get rid of it. She had pretended to do so: The landlord had found out that she had deceived him and had ordered her to vacate her apartment. She had promised this time to truly get rid of the dog and she had done so. But the landlord was so angry that he would not revoke his order. She had to get out or the police would be summoned to put her out. And her poor little boy had cried so when they had given the dog away to relatives who lived in Long Island. All for nothing, they would lose their home.
   Vito Corleone asked her gently, “Why do you ask me to help you?”
   Mrs. Colombo nodded toward his wife. “She told me to ask you.”
   He was surprised. His wife had never questioned him about the clothes he had washed the night he had murdered Fanucci. Had never asked him where all the money came from when he was not working. Even now her face was impassive. Vito said to Mrs. Colombo, “I can give you some money to help you move, is that what you want?”
   The woman shook her head, she was in tears. “All my friends are here, all the girls I grew up with in Italy. How can I move to another neighborhood with strangers? I want you to speak to the landlord to let me stay.”
   Vito nodded. “It’s done then. You won’t have to move. I’ll speak to him tomorrow morning.”
   His wife gave him a smile which he did not acknowledge, but he felt pleased. Mrs. Colombo looked a little uncertain. “You’re sure he’ll say yes, the landlord?” she asked.
   “Signor Roberto?” Vito said in a surprised voice. “Of course he will. He’s a good-hearted fellow. Once I explain how things are with you he’ll take pity on your misfortunes. Now don’t let it trouble you any more. Don’t get so upset. Guard your health, for the sake of your children.”
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Underpromise; overdeliver.

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* * *

   The landlord, Mr. Roberto, came to the neighborhood every day to check on the row of five tenements that he owned. He was a padrone, a man who sold Italian laborers just off the boat to the big corporations. With his profits he had bought the tenements one by one. An educated man from the North of Italy, he felt only contempt for these illiterate Southerners from Sicily and Naples, who swarmed like vermin through his buildings, who threw garbage down the air shafts, who let cockroaches and rats eat away his walls without lifting a hand to preserve his property. He was not a bad man, he was a good husband and father, but constant worry about his investments, about the money he earned, about the inevitable expenses that came with being a man of property had worn his nerves to a frazzle so that he was in a constant state of irritation. When Vito Corleone stopped him on the street to ask for a word, Mr. Roberto was brusque. Not rude, since any one of these Southerners might stick a knife into you if rubbed the wrong way, though this young man looked like a quiet fellow.
   “Signor Roberto,” said Vito Corleone, “the friend of my wife, a poor widow with no man to protect her, tells me that for some reason she has been ordered to move from her apartment in your building. She is in despair. She has no money, she has no friends except those that live here. I told her that I would speak to you, that you are a reasonable man who acted out of some misunderstanding. She has gotten rid of the animal that caused all the trouble and so why shouldn’t she stay? As one Italian to another, I ask you the favor.”
   Signor Roberto studied the young man in front of him. He saw a man of medium stature but strongly built, a peasant but not a bandit, though he so laughably dared to call himself an Italian. Roberto shrugged. “I have already rented the apartment to another family for higher rent,” he said. “I cannot disappoint them for the sake of your friend.”
   Vito Corleone nodded in agreeable understanding. “How much more a month?” he asked.
   “Five dollars,” Mr. Roberto said. This was a lie. The railway flat, four dark rooms, rented for twelve dollars a month to the widow and he had not been able to get more than that from the new tenant.


* * *

   Vito Corleone took a roll of bills out of his pocket and peeled off three tens. “Here is the six months’ increase in advance. You needn’t speak to her about it, she’s a proud woman. See me again in another six months. But of course you’ll let her keep her dog.”
   “Like hell,” Mr. Roberto said. “And who the hell are you to give me orders. Watch your manners or you’ll be out on your Sicilian ass in the street there.”
   Vito Corleone raised his hands in surprise. “I’m asking you a favor, only that. One never knows when one might need a friend, isn’t that true? Here, take this money as a sign of my goodwill and make your own decision. I wouldn’t dare to quarrel with it.” He thrust the money into Mr. Roberto’s hand. “Do me this little favor, just take the money and think things over. Tomorrow morning if you want to give me the money back by all means do so. If you want the woman out of your house, how can I stop you? It’s your property, after all. If you don’t want the dog in there, I can understand. I dislike animals myself.” He patted Mr. Roberto on the shoulder. “Do me this service, eh? I won’t forget it. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about me, they’ll tell you I’m a man who believes in showing his gratitude.”
   But of course Mr. Roberto had already begun to understand. That evening he made inquiries about Vito Corleone. He did not wait until the next morning. He knocked on the Corleone door that very night, apologizing for the lateness of the hour and accepted a glass of wine from Signora Corleone. He assured Vito Corleone that it had all been a dreadful misunderstanding, that of course Signora Colombo could remain in the flat, of course she could keep her dog. Who were those miserable tenants to complain about noise from a poor animal when they paid such a low rent? At the finish he threw the thirty dollars Vito Corleone had given him on the table and said in the most sincere fashion, “Your good heart in helping this poor widow has shamed me and I wish to show that I, too, have some Christian charity. Her rent will remain what it was.”
   All concerned played this comedy prettily. Vito poured wine, called for cakes, wrung Mr. Roberto’s hand and praised his warm heart. Mr. Roberto sighed and said that having made the acquaintance of such a man as Vito Corleone restored his faith in human nature. Finally they tore themselves away from each other. Mr. Roberto, his bones turned to jelly with fear at his narrow escape, caught the streetcar to his home in the Bronx and took to his bed. He did not reappear in his tenements for three days.


* * *

   Vito Corleone was now a “man of respect” in the neighborhood. He was reputed to be a member of the Mafia of Sicily. One day a man who ran card games in a furnished room came to him and voluntarily paid him twenty dollars each week for his “friendship.” He had only to visit the game once or twice a week to let the players understand they were under his protection.
   Store owners who had problems with young hoodlums asked him to intercede. He did so and was properly rewarded. Soon he had the enormous income for that time and place of one hundred dollars a week. Since Clemenza and Tessio were his friends, his allies, he had to give them each part of the money, but this he did without being asked. Finally he decided to go into the olive oil, importing business with his boyhood chum, Genco Abbandundo. Genco would handle the business, the importing of the olive oil from Italy, the buying at the proper price, the storing in his father’s warehouse. Genco had the experience for this part of the business. Clemenza and Tessio would be the salesmen. They would go to every Italian grocery store in Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then the Bronx, to persuade store owners to stock Genco Pura olive oil. (With typical modesty, Vito Corleone refused to name the brand after himself.) Vito of course would be the head of the firm since he was supplying most of the capital. He also would be called in on special cases, where store owners resisted the sales talks of Clemenza and Tessio. Then Vito Corleone would use his own formidable powers of persuasion.
   For the next few years Vito Corleone lived that completely satisfying life of a small businessman wholly devoted to building up his commercial enterprise in a dynamic, expanding economy. He was a devoted father and husband but so busy he could spare his family little of his time. As Genco Pura olive oil grew to become the bestselling imported Italian oil in America, his organization mushroomed. Like any good salesman he came to understand the benefits of undercutting his rivals in price, barring them from distribution outlets by persuading store owners to stock less of their brands. Like any good businessman he aimed at holding a monopoly by forcing his rivals to abandon the field or by merging with his own company. However, since he had started off relatively helpless, economically, since he did not believe in advertising, relying on word of mouth and since if truth be told, his olive oil was no better than his competitors’, he could not use the common strangleholds of legitimate businessmen. He had to rely on the force of his own personality and his reputation as a “man of respect.”
   Even as a young man, Vito Corleone became known as a “man of reasonableness.” He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to be irresistible. He always made certain that the other fellow got his share of profit. Nobody lost. He did this, of course, by obvious means. Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly. There were some oil wholesalers is Brooklyn, men of fiery temper, headstrong, not amenable to reason, who refused to see, to recognize, the vision of Vito Corleone, even after he had explained everything to them with the utmost patience and detail. With these men Vito Corleone threw up his hands is despair and sent Tessio to Brooklyn to set up a headquarters and solve the problem. Warehouses were burned, truckloads of olive-green oil were dumped to form lakes in the cobbled waterfront streets. One rash man, an arrogant Milanese with more faith in the police than a saint has in Christ, actually went to the authorities with a complaint against his fellow Italians, breaking the ten-century-old law, of omerta. But before the matter could progress any further the wholesaler disappeared, never to be seen again, leaving behind, deserted, his devoted wife and three children, who, God be thanked, were fully grown and capable of taking over his business and coming to terms with the Genco Pura oil company.
   But great men are not born great, they grow great, and so it was with Vito Corleone. When prohibition came to pass and alcohol forbidden to be sold, Vito Corleone made the final step from a quite ordinary, somewhat ruthless businessman to a great Don in the world of criminal enterprise. It did not happen in a day, it did not happen in a year, but by the end of the Prohibition period and the start of the Great Depression, Vito Corleone had become the Godfather, the Don, Don Corleone.
   It started casually enough. By this time the Genco Pura Oil Company had a fleet of six delivery trucks. Through Clemenza, Vito Corleone was approached by a group of Italian bootleggers who smuggled alcohol and whiskey in from Canada. They needed trucks and deliverymen to distribute their produce over New York City. They needed deliverymen who were reliable, discreet and of a certain determination and force. They were willing to pay Vito Corleone for his trucks and for his men. The fee was so enormous that Vito Corleone cut back drastically on his oil business to use the trucks almost exclusively for the service of the bootlegger-smugglers. This despite the fact that these gentlemen had accompanied their offer with a silky threat. But even then Vito Carleone was so mature a man that he did not take insult at a threat or become angry and refuse a profitable offer because of it. He evaluated the threat, found it lacking in conviction, and lowered his opinion of his new partners because they had been so stupid to use threats where none were needed. This was useful information to be pondered at its proper time.
   Again he prospered. But, more important, he acquired knowledge and contacts and experience. And he piled up good deeds as a banker piles up securities. For in the following years it became clear that Vito Corleone was not only a man of talent but, in his way, a genius.
   He made himself the protector of the Italian families who set themselves up as small speakeasies in their homes, selling whiskey at fifteen cents a glass to bachelor laborers. He became godfather t Mrs. Colombo’s youngest son when the lad made his confirmation and gave a handsome present of a twenty-dollar gold piece. Meanwhile, since it was inevitable that some of his trucks be stopped by the police, Genco Abbandando hired a fine lawyer with many contacts in the Police Department and the judiciary. A system of payoffs was set up and soon the Corleone organization had a sizable “sheet,” the list of officials entitled to a monthly sum. When the lawyer tried to keep this list down, apologizing for the expense, Vito Corleone reassured him. “No; no,” he said. “Get everyone on it even if they can’t help us right now. I believe in friendship and I am willing to show my friendship first.”
   As time went by the Corleone empire became larger, more trucks were added, the “sheet” grew longer. Also the men working directly for Tessio and Clemenza grew in number. The whole thing was becoming unwieldy. Finally Vito Corleone worked out a system of organization. He gave Clemenza and Tessio each the title of Caporegime, or captain, and the men who worked beneath them the rank of soldier. He named Genco Abbandando his counselor, or Consigliere. He put layers of insulation between himself and any operational act. When he gave an order it was to Genco or to one of the caporegimes alone. Rarely did he have a witness to any order he gave any particular one of them. Then he split Tessio’s group and made it responsible for Brooklyn. He also split Tessio off from Clemenza and made it clear over the years that he did not want the two men to associate even socially except when absolutely necessary. He explained this to the more intelligent Tessio, who caught his drift immediately, though Vito explained it as a security measure against the law. Tessio understood that Vito did not want his two caporegimes to have any opportunity to conspire against him and he also understood there was no ill will involved, merely a tactical precaution. In return Vito gave Tessio a free hand in Brooklyn while he kept Clemenza’s Bronx life very much under his thumb. Clemenza was the braver, more reckless, the crueler man despite his outward jollity, and needed a tighter rein.
   The Great Depression increased the power of Vito Corleone. And indeed it was about that time he came to be called Don Corleone. Everywhere in the city, honest men begged for honest work in vain. Proud men demeaned themselves and their families to accept official charity from a contemptuous officialdom. But the men of Don Corleone walked the streets with their heads held high, their pockets stuffed with silver and paper money. With no fear of losing their jobs. And even Don Corleone, that mgt modest of men, could not help feeling a sense of pride. He was taking care of his world, his people. He had not failed those who depended on him and gave him the sweat of their brows, risked their freedom and their lives in his service. And when an employee of his was arrested and sent to prison by some mischance, that unfortunate man’s family received a living allowance; and not a miserly, beggarly, begrudging pittance but the same amount the man earned when free.
   This of course was not pure Christian charity. Not his best friends would have called Don Corleone a saint from heaven. There was some self-interest in this generosity. An employee sent to prison knew he had only to keep his mouth shut and his wife and children would be cared for. He knew that if he did not inform to the police a warm welcome would be his when he left prison. There would be a party waiting in his home, the best of food, homemade ravioli, wine, pastries, with all his friends and relatives gathered to rejoice in his freedom. And sometime during the night the Consigliere, Genco Abbandando, or perhaps even the Don himself, would drop by to pay his respects to such a stalwart, take a glass of wine in his honor, and leave a handsome present of money so that he could enjoy a week or two of leisure with his family before returning to his daily toil. Such was the infinite sympathy and understanding of Don Corleone.
   It was at this time that the Don got the idea that he ran his world far better than his enemies ran the greater world which continually obstructed his path. And this feeling was nurtured by the poor people of the neighborhood who constantly came to him for help. To get on the home relief, to get a young boy a job or out of jail, to borrow a small sum of money desperately needed, to intervene with landlords who against all reason demanded rent from jobless tenants.
   Don Vito Corleone helped them all. Not only that, he helped them with goodwill, with encouraging words to take the bitter sting out of the charity he gave them. It was only natural then that when these Italians were puzzled and confused on who to vote for to represent them in the state legislature, in the city offices, in the Congress, they should ask the advice of their friend Don Corleone, their Godfather. And so he became a political power to be consulted by practical party chiefs. He consolidated this power with a far-seeing statesmanlike intelligence; by helping brilliant boys from poor Italian families through college, boys who would later become lawyers, assistant district attorneys, and even judges. He planned for the future of his empire with all the foresight of a great national leader.
   The repeal of Prohibition dealt this empire a crippling blow but again he had taken his precautions. In 1933 he sent emissaries to the man who controlled all the gambling activities of Manhattan, the crap games on the docks, the shylocking that went with it as hot dogs go with baseball games, the bookmaking on sports and horses, the illicit gambling houses that ran poker games, the policy or numbers racket of Harlem. This man’s name was Salvatore Maranzano and he was one of the acknowledged pezzonovante,.90 calibers, or big shots of the New York underworld. The Corleone emissaries proposed to Maranzano an equal partnership beneficial to both parties. Vito Corleone with his organization, his police and political contacts, could give the Maranzano operations a stout umbrella and the new strength to expand into Brooklyn and the Bronx. But Maranzano was a short-sighted man and spurned the Corleone offer with contempt. The great Al Capone was Maranzano’s friend and he had his own organization, his own men, plus a huge war chest. He would not brook this upstart whose reputation was more that of a Parliamentary debater than a true Mafioso. Maranzano’s refusal touched off the great war of 1933 which was to change the whole structure of the underworld in New York City.
   At first glance it seemed an uneven match. Salvatore Maranzano had a powerful organization with strong enforcers. He had a friendship with Capone in Chicago and could call on help in that quarter. He also had a good relationship with the Tattaglia Family, which controlled prostitution in the city and what there was of the thin drug traffic at that time. He also had political contacts with powerful business leaders who used his enforcers to terrorize the Jewish unionists in the garment center and the Italian anarchist syndicates in the building trades.
   Against this, Don Corleone could throw two small but superbly organized regimes led by Clemenza and Tessio. His political and police contacts were negated by the business leaders who would support Maranzano. But in his favor was the enemy’s lack of intelligence about his organization. The underworld did not know the true strength of his soldiers and even were deceived that Tessio in Brooklyn was a separate and independent operation.
   And yet despite all this, it was an unequal battle until Vito Corleone evened out the odds with one master stroke.
   Maranzano sent a call to Capone for his two best gunmen to come to New York to eliminate the upstart. The Corleone Family had friends and intelligence in Chicago who relayed the news that the two gunmen were arriving by train. Vito Corleone dispatched Luca Brasi to take care of them with instructions that would liberate the strange man’s most savage instincts.
   Brasi and his people, four of them, received the Chicago hoods at the railroad station. One of Brasi’s men procured and drove a taxicab for the purpose and the station porter carrying the bags led the Capone men to this cab. When they got in, Brasi and another of his men crowded in after them, guns ready, and made the two Chicago boys lie on the floor. The cab drove to a warehouse near the docks that Brasi had prepared for them.
   The two Capone men were bound hand and foot and small bath towels were stuffed into their mouths to keep them from crying out.
   Then Brasi took an ax from its place against the wall and started hacking at one of the Capone men. He chopped the man’s feet off, then the legs at the knees, then the thighs where they joined the torso. Brasi was an extremely powerfull man but it took him many swings to accomplish his purpose. By that time of course the victim had given up the ghost and the floor of the warehouse was slippery with the hacked fragments of his flesh and the gouting of his blood. When Brasi turned to his second victim he found further effort unnecessary. The second Capone gunman out of sheer terror had, impossibly, swallowed the bath towel in his mouth and suffocated. The bath towel was found in the man’s stomach when the police performed their autopsy to determine the cause of death.
   A few days later in Chicago the Capones received a message from Vito Corleone. It was to this effect: “You know now how I deal with enemies. Why does a Neapolitan interfere in a quarrel between two Sicilians? If you wish me to consider you as a friend I owe you a service which I will pay on demand. A man like yourself must know how much more profitable it is to have a friend who, instead of calling on you for help, takes care of his own affairs and stands ever ready to help you in some future time of trouble. If you do not wish my friendship, so be it. But then I must tell you that the climate in this city is damp; unhealthy for Neapolitans, and you are advised never to visit it.”
   The arrogance of this letter was a calculated one. The Don held the Capones in small esteem as stupid, obvious cutthroats. His intelligence informed him that Capone had forfeited all political influence because of his public arrogance and the flaunting of his criminal wealth. The Don knew, in fact was positive, that without political influence, without the camouflage of society, Capone’s world, and others like it, could be easily destroyed. He knew Capone was on the path to destruction. He also knew that Capone’s influence did not extend beyond the boundaries of Chicago, terrible and all-pervading as that influence there might be.
   The tactic was successful. Not so much because of its ferocity but because of the chilling swiftness, the quickness of the Don’s reaction. If his intelligence was so good, any further moves would be fraught with danger. It was better, far wiser, to accept the offer of friendship with its implied payoff. The Capones, sent back word that they would not interfere.
   The odds were now equal. And Vito Corleone had earned an enormous amount of “respect” throughout the United States underworld with his humiliation of the Capones. For six months he out-generaled Maranzano. He raided the crap games under that man’s protection, located his biggest policy banker in Harlem and had him relieved of a day’s play not only in money but in records. He engaged his enemies on all fronts. Even in the garment centers he sent Clemenza and his men to fight on the side of the unionists against the enforcers on the payroll of Maranzano and the owners of the dress firms. And on all fronts his superior intelligence and organization made him the victor. Clemenza’s jolly ferocity, which Corleone employed judiciously, also helped turn the tide of battle. And then Don Corleone sent the held-back reserve of the Tessio regime after Maranzano himself.
   By this time Maranzano had dispatched emissaries suing for a peace. Vito Corleone refused to see them, put them off on one pretext or another. The Maranzano soldiers were deserting their leader, not wishing to die in a losing cause. Bookmakers and shylocks were paying the Corleone organization their protection money. The war was all but over.
   And then finally on New Year’s Eve of 1933. Tessio got inside the defenses of Maranzano himself. The Maranzano lieutenants were anxious for a deal and agreed to lead their chief to the slaughter. They told him that a meeting had been arranged in a Brooklyn restaurant with Corleone and they accompanied Maranzano as his bodyguards. They left hum sitting at a checkered table, morosely munching a piece of bread, and fled the restaurant as Tessio and four of his men entered. The execution was swift and sure. Maranzano, his mouth full of half-chewed bread, was riddled with bullets. The war was over.
   The Maranzano empire was incorporated into the Corleone operation. Don Corleone set up a system of tribute, allowing all incumbents to remain in their bookmaking and policy number spots. As a bonus he had a foothold in the unions of the garment center which in later years was to prove extremely important. And now that he had settled his business affairs the Don found trouble at home.
   Santino Corleone, Sonny, was sixteen years old and grown to an astonishing six feet with broad shoulders and a heavy face that was sensual but by no means effeminate. But where Fredo was a quiet boy, and Michael, of course, a toddler, Santino was constantly in trouble. He got into fights, did badly in school and, finally, Clemenza, who was the boy’s godfather and had a duty to speak, came to Don Corleone one evening and informed him that his son had taken part in an armed robbery, a stupid affair which could have gone very badly. Sonny was obvidusly the ringleader, the two other boys in the robbery his followers.
   It was one of the very few times that Vito Corleone lost his temper. Tom Hagen had been living in his home for three years and he asked Clemenza if the orphan boy had been involved. Clemenza shook his head. Don Corleone had a car sent to bring Santino to his offices in the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company.
   For the first time, the Don met defeat. Alone with his son, he gave full vent to his rage, cursing the hulking Sonny in Sicilian dialect, a language so much more satisfying than any other for expressing rage. He ended up with a question. “What gave you the right to commit such an act? What made you wish to commit such an act?”
   Sonny stood there, angry, refusing to answer. The Don said with contempt, “And so stupid. What did you earn for that night’s work? Fifty dollars each? Twenty dollars? You risked your life for twenty dollars, eh?”
   As if he had not heard these last words, Sonny said defiantly, “I saw you kill Fanucci.”
   The Don said, “Ahhh” and sank back in his chair. He waited.
   Sonny said, “When Fanucci left the building, Mama said I could go up the house. I saw you go up the roof and I followed you. I saw everything you did. I stayed up there and I saw you throw away the wallet and the gun.”
   The Don sighed. “Well, then I can’t talk to you about how you should behave. Don’t you want to finish school, don’t you want to be a lawyer? Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks.”
   Sonny grinned at him and said slyly, “I want to enter the family business.” When he saw that the Don’s face remained impassive, that he did not laugh at the joke, he added hastily, “I can learn how to sell olive oil.”
   Still the Don did not answer. Finally he shrugged. “Every man has one destiny,” he said. He did not add that the witnessing of Fanucci’s murder had decided that of his son. He merely turned away and added quietly, “Come in tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Genco will show you what to do.”
   But Genco Abbandando, with that shrewd insight that a Consigliere must have, realized the true wish of the Don and used Sonny mostly as a bodyguard for his father, a position in which he could also learn the subtleties of being a Don. And it brought out a professorial instinct in the Don himself, who often gave lectures on how to succeed for the benefit of his eldest son.
   Besides his oft-repeated theory that a man has but one destiny, the Don constantly reproved Sonny for that young man’s outbursts of temper. The Don considered a use of threats the most foolish kind of exposure; the unleashing of anger without forethought as the most dangerous indulgence. No one had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable. And so he tried to teach Sonny his own disciplines. He claimed that there was no greater natural advantage in life than having an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your virtues.
   The caporegime, Clemenza, took, Sonny in hand and taught him how to shoot and to wield a garrot. Sonny had no taste for the Italian rope, he was too Americanized. He preferred the simple, direct, impersonal Anglo-Saxon gun, which saddened Clemenza. But Sonny became a constant and welcome companion to his father, driving his car, helping him in little details. For the next two years he seemed like the usual son entering his father’s business, not too bright, not too eager, content to hold down a soft job.
   Meanwhile his boyhood chum and semiadopted brother Tom Hagen was going to college. Fredo was still in high school; Michael, the youngest brother, was in grammar school, and baby sister Connie was a toddling girl of four. The family had long since moved to an apartment house in the Bronx. Don Corleone was considering buying a house in Long Island, but he wanted to fit this in with other plans he was formulating.
   Vito Corleone was a man with vision. All the great cities of America were being torn by underworld strife. Guerrilla wars by the dozen flared up, ambitious hoodlums trying to carve themselves a bit of empire; men like Corleone himself were trying to keep their borders and rackets secure. Don Corleone saw that the newspapers and government agencies were using these killings to get stricter and stricter laws, to use harsher police methods. He foresaw that public indignation might even lead to a suspension of democratic procedures which could be fatal to him and his people. His own empire, internally, was secure. He decided to bring peace to all the warring factions in New York City and then in the nation.
   He had no illusions about the dangerousness of his mission. He spent the first year meeting with different chiefs of gangs in New York, laying the groundwork, sounding them out, proposing spheres of influence that would be honored by a loosely bound confederated council. But there were too many factions, too many special interests that conflicted. Agreement was impossible. Like other great rulers and lawgivers in history Don Corteone decided that order and peace were impossible until the number of reigning states had been reduced to a manageable number.
   There were five or six “Families” too powerful to eliminate. But the rest, the neighborhood Black Hand terrorists, the free-lance shylocks, the strong-arm bookmakers operating without the proper, that is to say paid, protection of the legal authorities, would have to go. And so he mounted what was in effect a colonial war against these people and threw all the resources of the Corleone organization against them.
   The pacification of the New York area took three years and had some unexpected rewards. At first it took the form of bad luck. A group of mad-dog Irish stickup artists the Don had marked for extermination almost carried the day with sheer Emerald Isle elan. By chance, and with suicidal bravery, one of these Irish gunmen pierced the Don’s protective cordon and put a shot into his chest. The assassin was immediately riddled with bullets but the damage was done.
   However this gave Sanrtino Corleone his chance. With his father out of action, Sonny took command of a troop, his own regime, with the rank of caporegime, and like a young, untrumpeted Napoleon, showed a genius for city warfare. He also showed a merciless ruthlessness, the lack of which had been Don Corleone’s only fault as a conqueror.
   From 1935 to 1937 Sonny Corleond made a reputation as the most cunning and relentless executioner the underworld had yet known. Yet for sheer terror even he was eclipsed by the awesome man named Luca Brasi.
   It was Brasi who went after the rest of the Irish gunmen and single-handedly wiped them out. It was Brasi, operating alone when one of the six powerful families tried to interfere and become the protector of the independents, who assassinated the head of the family as a warning. Shortly after, the Don recovered from his wound and made peace with that particular family.
   By 1937 peace and harmony reigned in New York City except for minor incidents, minor misunderstandings which were, of course, sometimes fatal.
   As the rulers of ancient cities always kept an anxious eye on the barbarian tribes roving around their walls, so Don Corleone kept an eye on the affairs of the world outside his world. He noted the coming of Hitler, the fall of Spain, Germany’s strong-arming of Britain at Munich. Unblinkered by that outside world, he saw clearly the coming global war and he understood the implications. His own world would be more impregnable than before. Not only that, fortunes could be made in time of war by alert, foresighted folk. But to do so peace must reign in his domain while war raged in the world outside.
   Don Corleone carried his message through the United States. He conferred with compatriots in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, and Boston. He was the underworld apostle of peace and, by,1939, more successful than any Pope, he had achieved a working agreement amongst the most powerful underworld organizations in the country. Like the Constitution of the United States this agreement respected fully the internal authority of each member in his state or city. The agreement veered only spheres of influence and an agreement to enforce peace in the underworld.
   And so when World War II broke out in 1939, when the United States, joined the conflict in 1941, the world of Don Vito Corleone was at peace, in order, fully prepared to reap the golden harvest on equal terms with all the other industries of a booming America. The Corleone Family had a hand in supplying black-market OPA food stamps, gasoline stamps, even travel priorities. It could help get war contracts and then help get black-market materials for those garment center clothing firms who were not given enough raw material because they did not have government contracts. He could even get all the young men in his organization, those eligible for Army draft, excused from fighting in the foreign war. He did this with the aid of doctors. who advised what drugs had to be taken before physical examination, or by placing the men in draft-exempt positions in the war industries.
   And so the Don could take pride in his rule. His world was safe for those who had sworn loyalty to him; other men who believed in law and order were dying by the millions. The only fly in the ointment was that his own son, Michael Corleone, refused to be helped, insisted on volunteering to serve his own country. And to the Don’s astonishment, so did a few of his other young men in the organization. One of the men, trying to explain this to his caporegime, said, “This country has been good to me.” Upon this story being relayed to the Don he said angrily to the caporegime, “I have been good to him.” It might have gone badly for these people but, as he had excused his son Michael, so must he excuse other young men who so misunderstood their duty to their Don and to themselves.
   At the end of World War II Don Corleone knew that again his world would have to change its ways, that it would have to fit itself more snugly into the ways of the other, larger world. He believed he could do this with no loss of profit.
   There was reason for this belief in his own experience. What had put him on the right track were two personal affairs. Early in his career the then-young Nazorine, only a baker’s helper planning to get married, had come to him for assistance. He and his future bride, a good Italian girl, had saved their money and had paid the enormous sum of three hundred dollars to a wholesaler of furniture recommended to them. This wholesaler had let them pick out everything they wanted to furnish their tenement apartment. A fine sturdy bedroom set with two bureaus and lamps. Also the living room set of heavy stuffed sofa and stuffed armchairs, all covered with rich gold-threaded fabric. Nazorine and his fiancee had spent a happy day picking out what they wanted from the huge warehouse crowded with furniture. The wholesaler took their money, their three hundred dollars wrung from the sweat of their blood, and pocketed it and promised the furniture to be delivered within the week to the already rented flat.
   The very next week however, the firm had gone into bankruptcy. The great warehouse stocked with furniture had been sealed shut and attached for payment of creditors. The wholesaler had disappeared to give other creditors time to unleash their anger on the empty air. Nazorine, one of these, went to his lawyer, who told him nothing could be done until the case was settled in court and all creditors satisfied. This might take three years and Nazorine would be lucky to get back ten cents on the dollar.
   Vito Corleone listened to this story with amused disbelief. It was not possible that the law could allow such thievery. The wholesaler owned his own palatial home, an estate in Long Island, a luxurious automobile, and was seeding his children to college. How could he keep the three hundred dollars of the poor baker Nazorine and not give him the furniture he had paid for? But, to make sure, Vito Corleone had Genco Abbandando check it out with the lawyers who represented the Genco Pura company.
   They verified the story of Nazorine. The wholesaler had all his personal wealth in his wife’s name. His furniture business was incorporated and he was not personally liable. True, he had shown bad faith by taking the money of Nazorine when he knew he was going to file bankruptcy but this was a common practice. Under law there was nothing to be done.
   Of course the matter was easily adjusted. Don Corleone sent his Consigliere, Genco Abbandando, to speak to the wholesaler, and as was to be expected, that wide-awake businessman caught the drift immediately and arranged for Nazorine to get his furniture. But it was an interesting lesson for the young Vito Corleone.
   The second incident had more far-reaching repercussions. In 1939, Don Corleone had decided to move his family out of the city. Like any other parent he wanted his children to go to better schools and mix with better companions. For his own personal reasons he wanted the anonymity of suburban life where his reputation was not known. He bought the mall property in Long Beach, which at that time had only four newly built houses but with plenty of room for more. Sonny was formally engaged to Sandra and would soon marry, one of the houses would be for him. One of the houses was for the Don. Another was for Genco Abbandando and his family. The other was kept vacant at the time.
   A week after the mall was occupied, a group of three workmen came in all innocence with their truck. They claimed to be furnace inspectors for the town of Long Beach. One of the Don’s young bodyguards let the men in and led them to the furnace in the basement. The Don, his wife and Sonny were in the garden taking their ease and enjoying the salty sea air.
   Much to the Don’s annoyance he was summoned into the house by his bodyguard. The three workmen, all big burly fellows, were grouped around the furnace. They had taken it apart, it was strewn around the cement basement floor. Their leader, an authoritative man, said to the Don in a gruff voice, “Your furnace is in lousy shape. If you want us to fix it and put it together again, it’ll cost you one hundred fifty dollars for labor and parts and then we’ll pass you for county inspection.” He took out a red paper label. “We stamp this seal on it, see, then nobody from the county bothers you again.”
   The Don was amused. It had been a boring, quiet week in which he had had to neglect his business to take care of such family details moving to a new house entailed. In more broken English than his usual slight accent he asked, “If I don’t pay you, what happens to my furnace?”
   The leader of the three men shrugged. “We just leave the furnace the way it is now.” He gestured at the metal parts strewn over the floor.
   The Don said meekly, “Wait, I’ll get you your money.” Then he went out into the garden and said to Sonny, “Listen, there’s some men working on the furnace, I don’t understand what they want. Go in and take care of the matter.” It was not simply a joke; he was considering making his son his underboss. This was one of the tests a business executive had to pass.
   Sonny’s solution did not altogether please his father. It was too direct, too lacking in Sicilian subtleness. He was the Club, not the Rapier. For as soon as Sonny heard the leader’s demand he held the three men at gunpoint and had them thoroughly bastinadoed by the bodyguards. Then he made them put the furnace together again and tidy up the basement. He searched them and found that they actually were employed by a house-improvement firm with headquarters in Suffolk County. He learned the name of the man who owned the firm. Then he kicked the three men to their truck. “Don’t let me see you in Long Beach again,” he told them. “I’ll have your balls hanging from your ears.”
   It was typical of the young Santino, before he became older and crueler, that he extended his protection to the community he lived in. Sonny paid a personal call to the home-improvement firm owner and told him not to send any of his men into the Long Beach area ever again. As soon as the Corleone Family set up their usual business liaison with the local police force they were informed of all such complaints and all crimes by professional criminals. In less than a year Long Beach became the most crime-free town of its size in the United States. Professional stickup artists and strong-arms received one warning not to ply their trade in the town. They were allowed one offense. When they committed a second they simply disappeared. The flimflam home-improvement gyp artists, the door-to-door con men were politely warned that they were not welcome in Long Beach. Those confident con men who disregarded the warning were beaten within an inch of their lives. Resident young punks who had no respect for law and proper authority were advised in the most fatherly fashion to run away from home. Long Beach became a model city.
   What impressed the Don was the legal validity of these sales swindles. Clearly there was a place for a man of his talents in that other world which had been closed to him as an honest youth. He took appropriate steps to enter that world.
   And so he lived happily on the mall in Long Beach, consolidating and enlarging his empire, until after the war was over, the Turk Sollozzo broke the peace and plunged the Don’s world into its own war, and brought him to his hospital bed.
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Book Four

Chapter 15

   In the New Hampshire village, every foreign phenomenon was properly noticed by housewives peering from windows, storekeepers lounging behind their doors. And so when the black automobile bearing New York license plates stopped in front of the Adams’ home, every citizen knew about it in a matter of minutes.
   Kay Adams, really a small-town girl despite her college education, was also peering from her bedroom window. She had been studying for her exams and preparing to go downstairs for lunch when she spotted the car coming up the street, and for some reason she was not surprised when it rolled to a halt in front of her lawn. Two men got out, big burly men who looked like gangsters in the movies to her eyes, and she flew down the stairs to be the first at the door. She was sure they came from Michael or his family and she didn’t want them talking to her father and mother without any introduction. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of any of Mike’s friends, she thought; it was just that her mother and father were old-fashioned New England Yankees and wouldn’t understand her even knowing such people.
   She got to the door just as the bell rang and she called to her mother, “I’ll get it.” She opened the door and the two big men stood there. One reached inside his breast pocket like a gangster reaching for a gun and the move so surprised Kay that she let out a little gasp but the man had taken out a small leather case which he flapped open to show an identification card. “I’m Detective John Phillips from the New York Police Department,” he said. He motioned to the other man, a dark-complexioned man with very thick, very black eyebrows. “This is my partner, Detective Siriani. Are you Miss Kay Adams?”
   Kay nodded. Phillips said, “May we come in and talk to you for a few minutes. It’s about Michael Corleone.”
   She stood aside to let them in. At that moment her father appeared in the small side hall that led to his study. “Kay, what is it?” he asked.
   Her father was a gray-haired, slender, distinguished-looking man who not only was the pastor of the town Baptist church but had a reputation in religious circles as a scholar. Kay really didn’t know her father well, he puzzled her, but she knew he loved her even if he gave the impression he found her uninteresting as a person. Though they had never been close, she trusted him. So she said simply, “These men are detectives from New York. They want to ask me questions about a boy I know.”
   Mr. Adams didn’t seem surprised. “Why don’t we go into my study?” he said.
   Detective Phillips said gently, “We’d rather talk to your daughter alone, Mr. Adams.”
   Mr. Adams said courteously, “That depends on Kay, I think. My dear, would-you rather speak to these gentlemen alone or would you prefer to have me present? Or perhaps your mother?”
   Kay shook her head. “I’ll talk to them alone.”
   Mr. Adams said to Phillips, “You can use my study. Will you stay for lunch?” The two men shook their heads. Kay led them into the study.
   They rested uncomfortably on the edge of the couch as she sat in her father’s big leather chair. Detective Phillips opened the conversation by saying, “Miss Adams, have you seen or heard from Michael Corleone at any time in the last three weeks?” The one question was enough to warn her. Three weeks ago she had read the Boston newspapers with their headlines about the killing of a New York police captain and a narcotics smuggler named Virgil Sollozzo. The newspaper had said it was part of the gang war involving the Corleone Family.
   Kay shook her head. “No, the last time I saw him he was going to see his father in the hospital. That was perhaps a month ago.”
   The other detective said in a harsh voice, “We know all about that meeting. Have you seen or heard from him since then?”
   “No,” Kay said.
   Detective Phillips said in a polite voice, “If you do have contact with him we’d like you to let us know. It’s very important we get to talk to Michael Corleone. I must warn you that if you do have contact with him you may be getting involved in a very dangerous situation. If you help him in any way, you may get yourself in very serious trouble.”
   Kay sat up very straight in the chair. “Why shouldn’t I help him?” she asked. “We’re going to be married, married people help each other.”
   It was Detective Siriani who answered her. “If you help, you may be an accessory to murder. We’re looking for your boy friend because he killed a police captain in New York plus an informer the police officer was contacting. We know Michael Corleone is the person who did the shooting.”
   Kay laughed. Her laughter was so unaffected, so incredulous, that the officers were impressed. “Mike wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “He never had anything to do with his family. When we went to his sister’s wedding it was obvious that he was treated as an outsider, almost as much as I was. If he’s hiding now it’s just so that he won’t get any publicity, so his name won’t be dragged through all this. Mike is not a gangster. I know him better than you or anybody else can know him. He is too nice a man to do anything as despicable as murder. He is the most law-abiding person I know, and I’ve never known him to lie.”
   Detective Phillips asked gentiy, “How long have you known him?”
   “Over a year,” Kay said and was surprised when the two men smiled.
   “I think there are a few things you should know,” Detective Phillips said. “On the night he left you, he went to the hospital. When he came out he got into an argument with a police captain who had come to the hospital on official business. He assaulted that police officer but got the worst of it. In fact he got a broken jaw and lost some teeth. His friends took him out to the Corleone Family houses at Long Beach. The following night the police captain he had the fight with was gunned down and Michael Corleone disappeared. Vanished. We have our contacts, our informers. They all point the finger at Michael Corleone but we have no evidence for a court of law. The waiter who witnessed the shooting doesn’t recognize a picture of Mike but he may recognize him in person. And we have Sollozzo’s driver, who refuses to talk, but we might make him talk if we have Michael Corleone in our hands. So we have all our people looking for him, the FBI is looking for him, everybody is looking for him. So far, no luck, so we thought you might be able to give us a lead.”
   Kay said coldly, “I don’t believe a word of it.” But she felt a bit sick knowing the part about Mike getting his jaw broken must be true. Not that that would make Mike commit murder.
   “Will you let us know if Mike contacts you?” Phillips asked.
   Kay shook her head. The other detective, Siriani, said roughly, “We know you two have been shacking up together. We have the hotel records and witnesses. If we let that information slip to the newspapers your father and mother would feel pretty lousy. Real respectable people like them wouldn’t think much of a daughter shacking up with a gangster. If you don’t come clean right now I’ll call your old man in here and give it to him straight.”
   Kay looked at him with astonishment. Then she got up and went to the door of the study and opened it. She could see her father standing at the living-room window, sucking at his pipe. She called out, “Dad, can you join us?” He turned, smiled at her, and walked to the study. When he came through the door he put his arm around his daughter’s waist and faced the detectives and said, “Yes, gentlemen?”
   When they didn’t answer, Kay said coolly to Detective Siriani, “Give it to him straight, officer.”
   Siriani flushed. “Mr. Adams, I’m telling you this for your daughter’s good. She is mixed up with a hoodlum we have reason to believe committed a murder on a police officer. I’m just telling her she can get into serious trouble unless she cooperates with us. But she doesn’t seem to realize how serious this whole matter is. Maybe you can talk to her.”
   “That is quite incredible,” Mr. Adams said politely.
   Siriani jutted his jaw. “Your daughter and Michael Corleone have been going out together for over a year. They have stayed overnight in hotels together registered as man and wife. Michael Corleone is wanted for questioning in the murder of a police officer. Your daughter refuses to give us any information that may help us. Those are the facts. You can call them incredible but I can back everything up.”
   “I don’t doubt your word, sir,” Mr. Adams said gently. “What I find incredible is that my daughter could be in serious trouble. Unless you’re suggesting that she is a”– here his face became one of scholarly doubt– “a ‘moll,’ I believe it’s called.”
   Kay looked at her father in astonishment. She knew he was being playful in his donnish way and she was surprised that he could take the whole affair so lightly.
   Mr. Adams said firmly, “However, rest assured that if the young man shows his face here I shall immediately report his presence to the authorities. As will my daughter. Now, if you will forgive us, our lunch is growing cold.”
   He ushered the men out of the house with every courtesy and closed the door on their backs gently but firmly. He took Kay by the arm and led her toward the kitchen far in the rear of the house, “Come, my dear, your mother is waiting lunch for us.”
   By the time they reached the kitchen, Kay was weeping silently, out of relief from strain, at her father’s unquestioning affection. In the kitchen her mother took no notice of her weeping, and Kay realized that her father must have told her about the two detectives. She sat down at her place and her mother served her silently. When all three were at the table her father said grace with bowed head.
   Mrs. Adams was a short stout woman always neatly dressed, hair always set. Kay had never seen her in disarray. Her mother too had always been a little disinterested in her, holding her at arm’s length. And she did so now. “Kay, stop being so dramatic. I’m sure it’s all a great deal of fuss about nothing at all. After all, the boy was a Dartmouth boy, he couldn’t possibly be mixed up in anything so sordid.”
   Kay looked up in surprise. “How did you know Mike went to Dartmouth?”
   Her mother said complacently, “You young people are so mysterious, you think you’re so clever. We’ve known about him all along, but of course we couldn’t bring it up until you did.”
   “But how did you know?” Kay asked. She still couldn’t face her father now that he knew about her and Mike sleeping together. So she didn’t see the smile on his face when he said, “We opened your mail, of course.”
   Kay was horrified and angry. Now she could face him. What he had done was more shameful than her own sin. She could never believe it of him. “Father, you didn’t, you couldn’t have.”
   Mr. Adams smiled at her. “I debated which was the greater sin, opening your mail, or going in ignorance of some hazard my only child might be incurring. The choice was simple, and virtuous.”
   Mrs. Adams said between mouthfuls of boiled chicken, “After all, my dear, you are terribly innocent for your age. We had to be aware. And you never spoke about him.”
   For the first time Kay was grateful that Michael was never affectionate in his letters. She was grateful that her parents hadn’t seen some of her letters. “I never told you about him because I thought you’d be horrified about his family.”
   “We were,” Mr. Adams said cheerfully. “By the way, has Michael gotten in touch with you?”
   Kay shook her head. “I don’t believe he’s guilty of anything.”
   She saw her parents exchange a glance over the table. Then Mr. Adams said gently, “If he’s not guilty and he’s vanished, then perhaps something else happened to him.”
   At first Kay didn’t understand. Then she got up from the table and ran to her room.


* * *

   Three days later Kay Adams got out of a taxi in front of the Corleone mall in Long Beach. She had phoned, she was expected. Tom Hagen met her at the door and she was disappointed that it was him. She knew he would tell her nothing.
   In the living room he gave her a drink. She had seen a couple of other men lounging around the house but not Sonny. She asked Tom Hagen directly, “Do you know where Mike is? Do you know where I can get in touch with him?”
   Hagen said smoothly, “We know he’s all right but we don’t know where he is right now. When he heard about that captain being shot he was afraid they’d accuse him. So he just decided to disappear. He told me he’d get in touch in a few months.”
   The story was not only false but meant to be seen through, he was giving her that much. “Did that captain really break his jaw?” Kay asked.
   “I’m afraid that’s true,” Tom said. “But Mike was never a vindictive man. I’m sure that had nothing to do with what happened.”
   Kay opened her purse and took out a letter. “Will you deliver this to him if he gets in touch with you?”
   Hagen shook his head. “If I accepted that letter. and you told a court of law I accepted that letter, it might be interpreted as my having knowledge of his whereabouts. Why don’t you just wait a bit? I’m sure Mike will get in touch.”
   She finished her drink and got up to leave. Hagen escorted her to the hall but as he opened the door, a woman came in from outside. A short, stout woman dressed in black. Kay recognized her as Michael’s mother. She held out her hand and said, “How are you, Mrs. Corleone?”
   The woman’s small black eyes darted at her for a moment, then the wrinkled, leathery, olive skinned face broke into a small curt smile of greeting that was yet in some curious way truly friendly. “Ah, you Mikey’s little girl,” Mrs. Corleone said. She had a heavy Italian accent, Kay could barely understand her. “You eat something?” Kay said no, meaning she didn’t want anything to eat, but Mrs. Corleone turned furiously on Tom Hagen and berated him in Italian ending with, “You don’t even give this poor girl coffee, you disgrazia.” She took Kay by the hand, the old woman’s hand surprisingly warm and alive, and led her into the kitchen. “You have coffee and eat something, then somebody drive you home. A nice girl like you, I don’t want you to take the train.” She made Kay sit down and bustled around the kitchen, tearing off her coat and hat and draping them over a chair. In a few seconds there was bread and cheese and salami on the table and coffee perking on the stove.
   Kay said timidly, “I came to ask about Mike, I haven’t heard from him. Mr. Hagen said nobody knows where he is, that he’ll turn up in a little while.”
   Hagen spoke quickly, “That’s all we can tell her now, Ma.”
   Mrs. Corleone gave him a look of withering contempt. “Now you gonna tell me what to do? My husband don’t tell me what to do, God have mercy on him.” She crossed herself.
   “Is Mr. Corleone all right?” Kay asked.
   “Fine,” Mrs. Corleone said. “Fine. He’s getting old, he’s getting foolish to let something like that happen.” She tapped her head disrespectfully. She poured the coffee and forced Kay to eat some bread and cheese.
   After they drank their coffee Mrs. Corleone took one of Kay’s hands in her two brown ones. She said quietly, “Mikey no gonna write you, you no gonna hear from Mikey. He hide two– three years. Maybe more, maybe much more. You go home to your family and find a nice young fellow and get married.”
   Kay took the letter out of her purse. “Will you send this to him?”
   The old lady took the letter and patted Kay on the cheek. “Sure, sure,” she said. Hagen started to protest and she screamed at him in Italian. Then she led Kay to the door. There she kissed her on the cheek very quickly and said, “You forget about Mikey, he no the man for you anymore.”
   There was a car waiting for her with two men up front. They drove her all the way to her hotel in New York never saying a word. Neither did Kay. She was trying to get used to the fact that the young man she had loved was a coldblooded murderer. And that she had been told by the most unimpeachable source: his mother.
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Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
mob
Apple iPhone 6s
Book Four

Chapter 15

   In the New Hampshire village, every foreign phenomenon was properly noticed by housewives peering from windows, storekeepers lounging behind their doors. And so when the black automobile bearing New York license plates stopped in front of the Adams’ home, every citizen knew about it in a matter of minutes.
   Kay Adams, really a small-town girl despite her college education, was also peering from her bedroom window. She had been studying for her exams and preparing to go downstairs for lunch when she spotted the car coming up the street, and for some reason she was not surprised when it rolled to a halt in front of her lawn. Two men got out, big burly men who looked like gangsters in the movies to her eyes, and she flew down the stairs to be the first at the door. She was sure they came from Michael or his family and she didn’t want them talking to her father and mother without any introduction. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of any of Mike’s friends, she thought; it was just that her mother and father were old-fashioned New England Yankees and wouldn’t understand her even knowing such people.
   She got to the door just as the bell rang and she called to her mother, “I’ll get it.” She opened the door and the two big men stood there. One reached inside his breast pocket like a gangster reaching for a gun and the move so surprised Kay that she let out a little gasp but the man had taken out a small leather case which he flapped open to show an identification card. “I’m Detective John Phillips from the New York Police Department,” he said. He motioned to the other man, a dark-complexioned man with very thick, very black eyebrows. “This is my partner, Detective Siriani. Are you Miss Kay Adams?”
   Kay nodded. Phillips said, “May we come in and talk to you for a few minutes. It’s about Michael Corleone.”
   She stood aside to let them in. At that moment her father appeared in the small side hall that led to his study. “Kay, what is it?” he asked.
   Her father was a gray-haired, slender, distinguished-looking man who not only was the pastor of the town Baptist church but had a reputation in religious circles as a scholar. Kay really didn’t know her father well, he puzzled her, but she knew he loved her even if he gave the impression he found her uninteresting as a person. Though they had never been close, she trusted him. So she said simply, “These men are detectives from New York. They want to ask me questions about a boy I know.”
   Mr. Adams didn’t seem surprised. “Why don’t we go into my study?” he said.
   Detective Phillips said gently, “We’d rather talk to your daughter alone, Mr. Adams.”
   Mr. Adams said courteously, “That depends on Kay, I think. My dear, would-you rather speak to these gentlemen alone or would you prefer to have me present? Or perhaps your mother?”
   Kay shook her head. “I’ll talk to them alone.”
   Mr. Adams said to Phillips, “You can use my study. Will you stay for lunch?” The two men shook their heads. Kay led them into the study.
   They rested uncomfortably on the edge of the couch as she sat in her father’s big leather chair. Detective Phillips opened the conversation by saying, “Miss Adams, have you seen or heard from Michael Corleone at any time in the last three weeks?” The one question was enough to warn her. Three weeks ago she had read the Boston newspapers with their headlines about the killing of a New York police captain and a narcotics smuggler named Virgil Sollozzo. The newspaper had said it was part of the gang war involving the Corleone Family.
   Kay shook her head. “No, the last time I saw him he was going to see his father in the hospital. That was perhaps a month ago.”
   The other detective said in a harsh voice, “We know all about that meeting. Have you seen or heard from him since then?”
   “No,” Kay said.
   Detective Phillips said in a polite voice, “If you do have contact with him we’d like you to let us know. It’s very important we get to talk to Michael Corleone. I must warn you that if you do have contact with him you may be getting involved in a very dangerous situation. If you help him in any way, you may get yourself in very serious trouble.”
   Kay sat up very straight in the chair. “Why shouldn’t I help him?” she asked. “We’re going to be married, married people help each other.”
   It was Detective Siriani who answered her. “If you help, you may be an accessory to murder. We’re looking for your boy friend because he killed a police captain in New York plus an informer the police officer was contacting. We know Michael Corleone is the person who did the shooting.”
   Kay laughed. Her laughter was so unaffected, so incredulous, that the officers were impressed. “Mike wouldn’t do anything like that,” she said. “He never had anything to do with his family. When we went to his sister’s wedding it was obvious that he was treated as an outsider, almost as much as I was. If he’s hiding now it’s just so that he won’t get any publicity, so his name won’t be dragged through all this. Mike is not a gangster. I know him better than you or anybody else can know him. He is too nice a man to do anything as despicable as murder. He is the most law-abiding person I know, and I’ve never known him to lie.”
   Detective Phillips asked gentiy, “How long have you known him?”
   “Over a year,” Kay said and was surprised when the two men smiled.
   “I think there are a few things you should know,” Detective Phillips said. “On the night he left you, he went to the hospital. When he came out he got into an argument with a police captain who had come to the hospital on official business. He assaulted that police officer but got the worst of it. In fact he got a broken jaw and lost some teeth. His friends took him out to the Corleone Family houses at Long Beach. The following night the police captain he had the fight with was gunned down and Michael Corleone disappeared. Vanished. We have our contacts, our informers. They all point the finger at Michael Corleone but we have no evidence for a court of law. The waiter who witnessed the shooting doesn’t recognize a picture of Mike but he may recognize him in person. And we have Sollozzo’s driver, who refuses to talk, but we might make him talk if we have Michael Corleone in our hands. So we have all our people looking for him, the FBI is looking for him, everybody is looking for him. So far, no luck, so we thought you might be able to give us a lead.”
   Kay said coldly, “I don’t believe a word of it.” But she felt a bit sick knowing the part about Mike getting his jaw broken must be true. Not that that would make Mike commit murder.
   “Will you let us know if Mike contacts you?” Phillips asked.
   Kay shook her head. The other detective, Siriani, said roughly, “We know you two have been shacking up together. We have the hotel records and witnesses. If we let that information slip to the newspapers your father and mother would feel pretty lousy. Real respectable people like them wouldn’t think much of a daughter shacking up with a gangster. If you don’t come clean right now I’ll call your old man in here and give it to him straight.”
   Kay looked at him with astonishment. Then she got up and went to the door of the study and opened it. She could see her father standing at the living-room window, sucking at his pipe. She called out, “Dad, can you join us?” He turned, smiled at her, and walked to the study. When he came through the door he put his arm around his daughter’s waist and faced the detectives and said, “Yes, gentlemen?”
   When they didn’t answer, Kay said coolly to Detective Siriani, “Give it to him straight, officer.”
   Siriani flushed. “Mr. Adams, I’m telling you this for your daughter’s good. She is mixed up with a hoodlum we have reason to believe committed a murder on a police officer. I’m just telling her she can get into serious trouble unless she cooperates with us. But she doesn’t seem to realize how serious this whole matter is. Maybe you can talk to her.”
   “That is quite incredible,” Mr. Adams said politely.
   Siriani jutted his jaw. “Your daughter and Michael Corleone have been going out together for over a year. They have stayed overnight in hotels together registered as man and wife. Michael Corleone is wanted for questioning in the murder of a police officer. Your daughter refuses to give us any information that may help us. Those are the facts. You can call them incredible but I can back everything up.”
   “I don’t doubt your word, sir,” Mr. Adams said gently. “What I find incredible is that my daughter could be in serious trouble. Unless you’re suggesting that she is a”– here his face became one of scholarly doubt– “a ‘moll,’ I believe it’s called.”
   Kay looked at her father in astonishment. She knew he was being playful in his donnish way and she was surprised that he could take the whole affair so lightly.
   Mr. Adams said firmly, “However, rest assured that if the young man shows his face here I shall immediately report his presence to the authorities. As will my daughter. Now, if you will forgive us, our lunch is growing cold.”
   He ushered the men out of the house with every courtesy and closed the door on their backs gently but firmly. He took Kay by the arm and led her toward the kitchen far in the rear of the house, “Come, my dear, your mother is waiting lunch for us.”
   By the time they reached the kitchen, Kay was weeping silently, out of relief from strain, at her father’s unquestioning affection. In the kitchen her mother took no notice of her weeping, and Kay realized that her father must have told her about the two detectives. She sat down at her place and her mother served her silently. When all three were at the table her father said grace with bowed head.
   Mrs. Adams was a short stout woman always neatly dressed, hair always set. Kay had never seen her in disarray. Her mother too had always been a little disinterested in her, holding her at arm’s length. And she did so now. “Kay, stop being so dramatic. I’m sure it’s all a great deal of fuss about nothing at all. After all, the boy was a Dartmouth boy, he couldn’t possibly be mixed up in anything so sordid.”
   Kay looked up in surprise. “How did you know Mike went to Dartmouth?”
   Her mother said complacently, “You young people are so mysterious, you think you’re so clever. We’ve known about him all along, but of course we couldn’t bring it up until you did.”
   “But how did you know?” Kay asked. She still couldn’t face her father now that he knew about her and Mike sleeping together. So she didn’t see the smile on his face when he said, “We opened your mail, of course.”
   Kay was horrified and angry. Now she could face him. What he had done was more shameful than her own sin. She could never believe it of him. “Father, you didn’t, you couldn’t have.”
   Mr. Adams smiled at her. “I debated which was the greater sin, opening your mail, or going in ignorance of some hazard my only child might be incurring. The choice was simple, and virtuous.”
   Mrs. Adams said between mouthfuls of boiled chicken, “After all, my dear, you are terribly innocent for your age. We had to be aware. And you never spoke about him.”
   For the first time Kay was grateful that Michael was never affectionate in his letters. She was grateful that her parents hadn’t seen some of her letters. “I never told you about him because I thought you’d be horrified about his family.”
   “We were,” Mr. Adams said cheerfully. “By the way, has Michael gotten in touch with you?”
   Kay shook her head. “I don’t believe he’s guilty of anything.”
   She saw her parents exchange a glance over the table. Then Mr. Adams said gently, “If he’s not guilty and he’s vanished, then perhaps something else happened to him.”
   At first Kay didn’t understand. Then she got up from the table and ran to her room.


* * *

   Three days later Kay Adams got out of a taxi in front of the Corleone mall in Long Beach. She had phoned, she was expected. Tom Hagen met her at the door and she was disappointed that it was him. She knew he would tell her nothing.
   In the living room he gave her a drink. She had seen a couple of other men lounging around the house but not Sonny. She asked Tom Hagen directly, “Do you know where Mike is? Do you know where I can get in touch with him?”
   Hagen said smoothly, “We know he’s all right but we don’t know where he is right now. When he heard about that captain being shot he was afraid they’d accuse him. So he just decided to disappear. He told me he’d get in touch in a few months.”
   The story was not only false but meant to be seen through, he was giving her that much. “Did that captain really break his jaw?” Kay asked.
   “I’m afraid that’s true,” Tom said. “But Mike was never a vindictive man. I’m sure that had nothing to do with what happened.”
   Kay opened her purse and took out a letter. “Will you deliver this to him if he gets in touch with you?”
   Hagen shook his head. “If I accepted that letter. and you told a court of law I accepted that letter, it might be interpreted as my having knowledge of his whereabouts. Why don’t you just wait a bit? I’m sure Mike will get in touch.”
   She finished her drink and got up to leave. Hagen escorted her to the hall but as he opened the door, a woman came in from outside. A short, stout woman dressed in black. Kay recognized her as Michael’s mother. She held out her hand and said, “How are you, Mrs. Corleone?”
   The woman’s small black eyes darted at her for a moment, then the wrinkled, leathery, olive skinned face broke into a small curt smile of greeting that was yet in some curious way truly friendly. “Ah, you Mikey’s little girl,” Mrs. Corleone said. She had a heavy Italian accent, Kay could barely understand her. “You eat something?” Kay said no, meaning she didn’t want anything to eat, but Mrs. Corleone turned furiously on Tom Hagen and berated him in Italian ending with, “You don’t even give this poor girl coffee, you disgrazia.” She took Kay by the hand, the old woman’s hand surprisingly warm and alive, and led her into the kitchen. “You have coffee and eat something, then somebody drive you home. A nice girl like you, I don’t want you to take the train.” She made Kay sit down and bustled around the kitchen, tearing off her coat and hat and draping them over a chair. In a few seconds there was bread and cheese and salami on the table and coffee perking on the stove.
   Kay said timidly, “I came to ask about Mike, I haven’t heard from him. Mr. Hagen said nobody knows where he is, that he’ll turn up in a little while.”
   Hagen spoke quickly, “That’s all we can tell her now, Ma.”
   Mrs. Corleone gave him a look of withering contempt. “Now you gonna tell me what to do? My husband don’t tell me what to do, God have mercy on him.” She crossed herself.
   “Is Mr. Corleone all right?” Kay asked.
   “Fine,” Mrs. Corleone said. “Fine. He’s getting old, he’s getting foolish to let something like that happen.” She tapped her head disrespectfully. She poured the coffee and forced Kay to eat some bread and cheese.
   After they drank their coffee Mrs. Corleone took one of Kay’s hands in her two brown ones. She said quietly, “Mikey no gonna write you, you no gonna hear from Mikey. He hide two– three years. Maybe more, maybe much more. You go home to your family and find a nice young fellow and get married.”
   Kay took the letter out of her purse. “Will you send this to him?”
   The old lady took the letter and patted Kay on the cheek. “Sure, sure,” she said. Hagen started to protest and she screamed at him in Italian. Then she led Kay to the door. There she kissed her on the cheek very quickly and said, “You forget about Mikey, he no the man for you anymore.”
   There was a car waiting for her with two men up front. They drove her all the way to her hotel in New York never saying a word. Neither did Kay. She was trying to get used to the fact that the young man she had loved was a coldblooded murderer. And that she had been told by the most unimpeachable source: his mother.
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Chapter 16

   Carlo Rizzi was punk sore at the world. Once married into the Corleone Family, he’d been shunted aside with a small bookmaker’s business on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He’d counted on one of the houses in the mall on Long Beach, he knew the Don could move retainer families out when he pleased and he had been sure it would happen and he would be on the inside of everything. But the Don wasn’t treating him right. The “Great Don,” he thought with scorn. An old Moustache Pete who’d been caught out on the street by gunmen like any dumb small-time hood. He hoped the old bastard croaked. Sonny had been his friend once and if Sonny became the head of the Family maybe he’d get a break, get on the inside.
   He watched his wife pour his coffee. Christ, what a mess she turned out to be. Five months of marriage and she was already spreading, besides blowing up. Real guinea broads all these Italians in the East.
   He reached out and felt Connie’s soft spreading buttocks. She smiled at him and he said contemptuously, “You got more ham than a hog.” It pleased him to see the hurt look on her face, the tears springing into her eyes. She might be a daughter of the Great Don but she was his wife, she was his property now and he could treat her as he pleased. It made him feel powerful that one of the Corleones was his doormat.
   He had started her off just right. She had tried to keep that purse full of money presents for herself and he had given her a nice black eye and taken the money from her. Never told her what he’d done with it, either. That might have really caused some trouble. Even now he felt just the slightest twinge of remorse. Christ, he’d blown nearly fifteen grand on the track and show girl bimbos.
   He could feel Connie watching his back and so he flexed his muscles as he reached for the plate of sweet buns on the other side of the table. He’d just polished off ham and eggs but he was a big man and needed a big breakfast. He was pleased with the picture he knew he presented to his wife. Not the usual greasy dark guinzo husband but crew-cut blond, huge golden-haired forearms and broad shoulders and thin waist. And he knew he was physically stronger than any of those so-called hard guys that worked for the family. Guys like Clemenza, Tessio, Rocco Lampone, and that guy Paulie that somebody had knocked off. He wondered what the story was about that. Then for some reason he thought about Sonny. Man to man he could take Sonny, he thought, even though Sonny was a little bigger and a little heavier. But what scared him was Sonny’s rep, though he himself had never seen Sonny anything but good-natured and kidding around. Yeah, Sonny was his buddy. Maybe with the old Don gone, things would open up.
   He dawdled over his coffee. He hated this apartment. He was used to the bigger living quarters of the West and in a little while he would have to go crosstown to his “book” to run the noontime action. It was a Sunday, the heaviest action of the week, what with baseball going already and the tail end of basketball and the night trotters starting up. Gradually he became aware of Connie bustling around behind him and he turned his head to watch her.
   She was getting dressed up in the real New York City guinzo style that he hated. A silk flowered-pattern dress with belt, showy bracelet and earrings, flouncy sleeves. She looked twenty years older. “Where the hell are you going?” he asked.
   She, answered him coldly, “To see my father out in Long Beach. He still can’t get out of bed and he needs company.”
   Carlo was curious. “Is Sonny still running the show?”
   Connie gave him a bland look. “What show?”
   He was furious. “You lousy little guinea bitch, don’t talk to me like that or I’ll beat that kid right out of your belly.” She looked frightened and this enraged him even more. He sprang from his chair and slapped her across the face, the blow leaving a red welt. With quick precision he slapped her three more times. He saw her upper lip split bloody and puff up. That stopped him. He didn’t want to leave a mark. She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door and he heard the key turning in the lock. He laughed and returned to his coffee.
   He smoked until it was time for him to dress. He knocked on the door and said, “Open it up before I kick it in.” There was no answer. “Come on, I gotta get dressed,” he said in a loud voice. He could hear her getting up off the bed and coming toward the door, then the key turned in the lock. When he entered she had her back to him, walking back toward the bed, lying down on it with her face turned away to the wall.
   He dressed quickly and then saw she was in her slip. He wanted her to go visit her father, he hoped she would bring back information. “What’s the matter, a few slaps take all the energy out of you?” She was a lazy slut.
   “I don’t wanna go.” Her voice was tearful, the words mumbled. He reached out impatiently and pulled her around to face him. And then he saw why she didn’t want to go and thought maybe it was just as well.
   He must have slapped her harder than he figured. Her left cheek was blown up, the cut upper lip ballooned grotesquely puffy and white beneath her nose. “OK,” he said, “but I won’t be home until late. Sunday is my busy day.”
   He left the apartment and found a parking ticket on his car, a fifteen-dollar green one. He put it in the glove compartment with the stack of others. He was in a good humor. Slapping the spoiled little bitch around always made him feel good. It dissolved some of the frustration he felt at being treated so badly by the Corleones.
   The first time he had marked her up, he’d been a little worried. She had gone right out to Long Beach to complain to her mother and father and to show her black eye. He had really sweated it out. But when she came back she had been surprisingly meek, the dutiful little Italian wife. He had made it a point to be the perfect husband over the next few weeks, treating her well in every way, being lovey and nice with her, banging her every day, morning and night. Finally she had told him what had happened since she thought he would never act that way again.
   She had found her parents coolly unsympathetic and curiously amused. Her mother had had a little sympathy and had even asked her father to speak to Carlo Rizzi. Her father had refused. “She is my daughter,” he had said, “but now she belongs to her husband. He knows his duties. Even the King of Italy didn’t dare to meddle with the relationship of husband and wife. Go home and learn how to behave so that he will not beat you.”
   Connie had said angrily to her father, “Did you ever hit your wife?” She was his favorite and could speak to him so impudently. He had answered, “She never gave me reason to beat her.” And her mother had nodded and smiled.
   She told them how her husband had taken the wedding present money and never told her what he did with it. Her father had shrugged and said, “I would have done the same if my wife had been as presumptuous as you.”
   And so she had returned home, a tittle bewildered, a little frightened. She had always been her father’s favorite and she could not understand his coldness now.
   But the Don had not been so unsympathetic as he pretended. He made inquiries and found out what Carlo Rizzi had done with the wedding present money. He had men assigned to Carlo Rizzi’s bookmaking operation who would report to Hagen everything Rizzi did on the job. But the Don could not interfere. How expect a man to discharge his husbandly duties to a wife whose family he feared? It was an impossible situation and he dared not meddle. Then when Connie became pregnant he was convinced of the wisdom of his decision and felt he never could interfere though Connie complained to her mother about a few more beatings and the mother finally became concerned enough to mention it to the Don. Connie even hinted that she might want a divorce. For the first time in her life the Don was angry with her. “He is the father of your child. What can a child come to in this world if he has no father?” he said to Connie.
   Learning all this, Carlo Rizzi grew confident. He was perfectly safe. In fact he bragged to his two “writers” on the book, Sally Rags and Coach, about how he bounced his wife around when she got snotty and saw their looks of respect that he had the guts to manhandle the daughter of the great Don Corleone.
   But Rizzi would not have felt so safe if he had known that when Sonny Cotleone learned of the beatings he had flown into a murderous rage and had been restrained only by the sternest and most imperious command of the Don himself, a command that even Sonny dared not disobey. Which was why Sonny avoided Rizzi, not trusting himself to control his temper.
   So feeling perfectly safe on this beautiful Sunday morning, Carlo Rizzi sped crosstown on 96th Street to the East Side. He did not see Sonny’s car coming the opposite way toward his house.


* * *

   Sonny Corleone had left the protection of the mall and spent the night with Lucy Mancini in town. Now on the way home he was traveling with four bodyguards, two in front and two behind. He didn’t need guards right beside him, he could take care of a single direct assault. The other men traveled in their own cars and had apartments on either side of Lucy’s apartment. It was safe to visit her as long as he didn’t do it too often. But now that he was in town he figured he would pick up his sister Connie and take her out to Long Beach. He knew Carlo would be working at his book and the cheap bastard wouldn’t get her a car. So he’d give his sister a lift out.
   He waited for the two men in front to go into the building and then followed them. He saw the two men in back pull up behind his car and get out to watch the streets. He kept his own eyes open. It was a million-to-one shot that the opposition even knew he was in town but he was always careful. He had learned that in the 1930’s war.
   He never used elevators. They were death traps. He climbed the eight flights to Connie’s apartment, going fast. He knocked on her door. He had seen Carlo’s car go by and knew she would be alone. There was no answer. He knocked again and then he heard his sister’s voice, frightened, timid, asking, “Who is it?”
   The fright in the voice stunned him. His kid sister had always been fresh and snotty, tough as anybody in the family. What the hell had happened to her? He said, “It’s Sonny.” The bolt inside slid back and the door opened and Connie was in his arms sobbing. He was so surprised he just stood there. He pushed her away from him and saw her swollen face and he understood what had happened.
   He pulled away from her to run down the stairs and go after her husband. Rage flamed up in him, contorting his own face. Connie saw the rage and clung to him, not letting him go, making him come into the apartment. She was weeping out of terror now. She knew her older brother’s temper and feared it. She had never complained to him about Carlo for that reason. Now she made him come into the apartment with her.
   “It was my fault,” she said. “I started a fight with him and I tried to hit him so he hit me. He really didn’t try to hit me that hard. I walked into it.”
   Sonny’s heavy Cupid face was under control. “You going to see the old man today?”
   She didn’t answer, so he added, “I thought you were, so I dropped over to give you a lift. I was in the city anyway.”
   She shook her head. “I don’t want them to see me this way. I’ll come next week.”
   “OK,” Sonny said. He picked up her kitchen phone and dialed a number. “I’m getting a doctor to come over here and take a look at you and fix you up. In your condition you have to be careful. How many months before you have the kid?”
   “Two months,” Connie said. “Sonny, please don’t do anything. Please don’t.”
   Sonny laughed. His face was cruelly intent when he said, “Don’t worry, I won’t make your kid an orphan before he’s born.” He left the apartment after kissing her lightly on her uninjured cheek.


* * *

   On East 112th Street a long line of cars were doubleparked in front of a candy store that was the headquarters of Carlo Rizzi’s book. On the sidewalk in front of the store, fathers played catch with small children they had taken for a Sunday morning ride and to keep them company as they placed their bets. When they saw Carlo Rizzi coming they stopped playing ball and bought their kids ice cream to keep them quiet. Then they started studying the newspapers that gave the starting pitchers, trying to pick out winning baseball bets for the day.
   Carlo went into the large room in the back of the store. His two “writers,” a small wiry man called Sally Rags and a big husky fellow called Coach, were already waiting for the action to start. They had their huge, lined pads in front of them ready to write down bets. On a wooden stand was a blackboard with the names of the sixteen big league baseball teams chalked on it, paired to show who was playing against who. Against each pairing was a blocked-out square to enter the odds.
   Carlo asked Coach, “Is the store phone tapped today?”
   Coach shook his head. “The tap is still off.”
   Carlo went to the wall phone and dialed a number. Sally Rags and Coach watched him impassively as he jotted down the “line,” the odds on all the baseball games for that day. They watched him as he hung up the phone and walked over to the blackboard and chalked up the odds against each game. Though Carlo did not know it, they had already gotten the line and were checking his work. In the first week in his job Carlo had made a mistake in transposing the odds onto the blackboard and had created that dream of all gamblers, a “middle.” That is, by betting the odds with him and then betting against the same team with another bookmaker at the correct. odds, the gambler could not lose. The only one who coud lose was Carlo’s book. That mistake had caused a six-thousand-dollar loss in the book for the week and confirmed the Don’s judgment about his son-in-law. He had given the word that all of Carlo’s work was to be checked.
   Normally the highly placed members of the Corleone Family would never be concerned with such an operational detail. There was at least a five-layer insulation to their level. But since the book was being used as a testing ground for the son-in-law, it had been placed under the direct scrutiny of Tom Hagen, to whom a report was sent every day.
   Now with the line posted, the gamblers were thronging into the back room of the candy store to jot down the odds on their newspapers next to the games printed there with probable pitchers. Some of them held their little children by the hand as they looked up at the blackboard. One guy who made big bets looked down at the little girl he was holding by the hand and said teasingly, “Who do you like today, Honey, Giants or the Pirates?” The little girl, fascinated by the colorful names, said, “Are Giants stronger than Pirates?” The father laughed.
   A line began to form in front of the two writers. When a writer filled one of his sheets he tore it off, wrapped the money he had collected in it and handed it to Carlo. Carlo went out the back exit of the room and up a flight of steps to an apartment which housed the candy store owner’s family. He called in the bets to his central exchange and put the money in a small wall safe that was hidden by an extended window drape. Then he went back down into the candy store after having first burned the bet sheet and flushed its ashes down the toilet bowl.
   None of the Sunday games started before two P.M. because of the blue laws, so after the first crowd of bettors, family men who had to get their bets in and rush home to take their families to the beach, came the trickling of bachelor gamblers or the diehards who condemned their families to Sundays in the hot city apartments. These bachelor bettors were the big gamblers, they bet heavier and came back around four o’clock to bet the second games of doubleheaders. They were the ones who made Carlo’s Sundays a full-time day with overtime, though some married men called in from the beach to try and recoup their losses.
   By one-thirty the betting had trickled off so that Carlo and Sally Rags could go out and sit on the stoop beside the candy store and get some fresh air. They watched the stickball game the kids were having. A police car went by. They ignored it. This book had very heavy protection at the precinct and couldn’t be touched on a local level. A raid would have to be ordered from the very top and even then a warning would come through in plenty of time.
   Coach came out and sat beside them. They gossiped a while about baseball and women. Carlo said laughingly, “I had to bat my wife around again today, teach her who’s boss.”
   Coach said casually, “She’s knocked up pretty big now, ain’t she?”
   “Ahh, I just slapped her face a few times,” Carlo said. “I didn’t hurt her.” He brooded for a moment. “She thinks she can boss me around, I don’t stand for that.”
   There were still a few bettors hanging around shooting the breeze, talking baseball, some of them sitting on the steps above the two writers and Carlo. Suddenly the kids playing stickball in the street scattered. A car came screeching up the block and to a halt in front of the candy store. It stopped so abruptly that the tires screamed and before it had stopped, almost, a man came hurtling out of the driver’s seat, moving so fast that everybody was paralyzed. The man was Sonny Corleone.
   His heavy Cupid-featured face with its thick, curved mouth was an ugly mask of fury. In a split second he was at the stoop and had grabbed Carlo Rizzi by the throat. He pulled Carlo away from the others, trying to drag him into the street, but Carlo wrapped his huge muscular arms around the iron railings of the stoop and hung on. He cringed away, trying to hide his head and face in the hollow of his shoulders. His shirt ripped away in Sonny’s hand.
   What followed then was sickening. Sonny began beating the cowering Carlo with his fists, cursing him in a thick, rage-choked voice. Carlo, despite his tremendous physique, offered no resistance, gave no cry for mercy or protest. Coach and Sally Rags dared not interfere. They thought Sonny meant to kill his brother-in-law and had no desire to share his fate. The kids playing stickball gathered to curse the driver who had made them scatter, but now were watching with awestruck interest. They were tough kids but the sight of Sonny in his rage silenced them. Meanwhile another car had drawn up behind Sonny’s and two of his bodyguards jumped out. When they saw what was happening they too dared not interfere. They stood alert, ready to protect their chief if any bystanders had the stupidity to try to help Carlo.
   What made the sight sickening was Carlo’s complete subjection, but it was perhaps this that saved his life. He clung to the iron railings with his hands so that Sonny could not drag him into the street and despite his obvious equal strength, still refused to fight back. He let the blows rain on his unprotected head and neck until Sonny’s rage ebbed. Finally, his chest heaving, Sonny looked down at him and said, “You dirty bastard, you ever beat up my sister again I’ll kill you.”
   These words released the tension. Because of course, if Sonny intended to kill the man he would never have uttered the threat. He uttered it in frustration because he could not carry it out. Carlo refused to look at Sonny. He kept his head down and his hands and arms entwined in the iron railing. He stayed that way until the car roared off and he heard Coach say in his curiously paternal voice, “OK, Carlo, come on into the store. Let’s get out of sight.”
   It was only then that Carlo dared to get out of his crouch against the stone steps of the stoop and unlock his hands from the railing. Standing up, he could see the kids look at him with the staring, sickened faces of people who had witnessed the degradation of a fellow human being. He was a little dizzy but if was more from shock, the raw fear that had taken command of his body; he was not badly hurt despite the shower of heavy blows. He let Coach lead him by the arm into the back room of the candy store and put ice on his face, which, though it was not cut or bleeding, was lumpy with swelling bruises. The fear was subsiding now and the humiliation he had suffered made him sick to his stomach so that he had to throw up. Coach held his head over the sink, supported him as if he were drunk, then helped him upstairs to the apartment and made him lie down in one of the bedrooms. Carlo never noticed that Sally Rags had disappeared.
   Sally Rags had walked down to Third Avenue and called Rocco Lampone to report what had happened. Rocco took the news calmly and in his turn called his caporegime, Pete Clemenza. Clemenza groaned and said, “Oh, Christ, that goddamn Sonny and his temper,” but his finger had prudently clicked down on the hook so that Rocco never heard his remark.
   Clemenza called the house in Long Beach and got Tom Hagen. Hagen was silent for a moment and then he said, “Send some of your people and cars out on the road to Long Beach as soon as you can, just in case Sonny gets held up by traffic or an accident. When he gets sore like that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Maybe some of our friends on the other side will hear he was in town. You sever can tell.”
   Clemenza said doubtfully, “By the time I could get anybody on the road, Sonny will be home. That goes for the Tattaglias too.”
   “I know,” Hagen said patiently. “But if something out of the ordinary happens, Sonny may be held up. Do the best you can, Pete.”
   Grudgingly Clemenza called Rocco Lampone and told him to get a few people and cars and cover the road to Long Beach. He himself went out to his beloved Cadillac and with three of the platoon of guards who now garrisoned his home, started over the Atlantic Beach Bridge, toward New York City.
   One of the hangers-on around the candy store, a small bettor on the payroll of the Tattaglia Family as an informer, called the contact he had with his people. But the Tattaglia Family had not streamlined itself for the war, the contact still had to go all the way through the insulation layers before he finally got to the caporegime, who contacted the Tattaglia chief. By that time Sonny Corleone was safely back in the mall, in his father’s house, in Long Beach, about to face his father’s wrath.
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Poruke Odustao od brojanja
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Chapter 17

   The war of 1947 between the Corleone Family and the Five Families combined against them proved to be expensive for both sides. It was complicated by the police pressure put on everybody to solve the murder of Captain McCluskey. It was rare that operating officials of the Police Department ignored political muscle that protected gambling and vice operations, but in this case the politicians were as helpless as the general staff of a rampaging, looting army whose field officers refuse to follow orders.
   This lack of protection did not hurt the Corleone Family as much as it did their opponents. The Corleone group depended on gambling for most of its income, and was hit especially hard in its “numbers” or “policy” branch of operations. The runners who picked up the action were swept into police nets and usually given a medium shellacking before being booked. Even some of the “banks” were located and raided, with heavy financial loss. The “bankers,” .90 calibers in their own right, complained to the caporegimes, who brought their complaints to the family council table. But there was nothing to be done. The bankers were told to go out of business. Local Negro free-lancers were allowed to take over the operation in Harlem, the richest territory, and they operated in such scattered fashion that the police found it hard to pin them down.
   After the death of Captain McCluskey, some newspapers printed stories involving him with Sollozzo. They published proof that McCluskey had received large sums of money in cash, shortly before his death. These stories had been planted by Hagen, the information supplied by him. The Police Department refused to confirm or deny these stories, but they were taking effect. The police force got the word through informers, through police on the Family payroll, that McCluskey had been a rogue cop. Not that he had taken money or clean graft, there was no rank-and-file onus to that. But that he had taken the dirtiest of dirty money; murder and drugs money. And in the morality of policemen, this was unforgivable.
   Hagen understood that the policeman believes in law and order in a curiously innocent way. He believes in it more than does the public he serves. Law and order is, after all, the magic from which he derives his power, individual power which he cherishes as nearly all men cherish individual power. And yet there is always the smoldering resentment against the public he serves. They are at the same time his ward and his prey. As wards they are ungrateful, abusive and demanding. As prey they are slippery and dangerous, full of guile. As soon as one is in the policeman’s clutches the mechanism of the society the policeman defends marshals all its resources to cheat him of his prize. The fix is put in by politicians. Judges give lenient suspended sentences to the worst hoodlums. Governors of the States and the President of the United States himself give full pardons, assuming that respected lawyers have not already won his acquittal. After a time the cop learns. Why should he not collect the fees these hoodlums are paying? He needs it more. His children, why should they not go to college? Why shouldn’t his wife shop in more expensive places? Why shouldn’t be himself get the sun with a winter vacation in Florida? After all, he risks his life and that is no joke.
   But usually he draws the line against accepting dirty graft. He will take money to let a bookmaker operate. He will take money from a man who hates getting parking tickets or speeding tickets. He will allow call girls and prostitutes to ply their trade; for a consideration. These are vices natural to a man. But usually he will not take a payoff for drugs, armed robberies, rape, murder and other assorted perversions. In his mind these attack the very core of his personal authority and cannot be countenanced.
   The murder of a police captain was comparable to regicide. But when it became known that McCluskey had been killed while in the company of a notorious narcotics peddler, when it became known that he was suspected of conspiracy to murder, the police desire for vengeance began to fade. Also, after all, there were still mortgage payments to be made, cars to be paid off, children to be launched into the world. Without their “sheet” money, policemen had to scramble to make ends meet. Unlicensed peddlers were good for lunch money. Parking ticket payoffs came to nickels and dimes. Some of the more desperate even began shaking down suspects (homosexuals, assaults and batteries) in the precinct squad rooms. Finally the brass relented. They raised the prices and let the Families operate. Once again the payoff sheet was typed up by the precinct bagman, listing every man assigned to the local station and what his cut was each month. Some semblance of social order was restored.


* * *

   It had been Hagen’s idea to use private detectives to guard Don Corleone’s hospital room. These were, of course, supplemented by the much more formidable soldiers of Tessio’s regime. But Sonny was not satisfied even with this. By the middle of February, when the Don could be moved without danger, he was taken by ambulance to his home in the mall. The house had been renovated so that his bedroom was now a hospital room with all equipment necessary for any emergency. Nurses specially recruited and checked had been hired for round-the-clock care, and Dr. Kennedy, with the payment of a huge fee, had been persuaded to become the physician in residence to this private hospital. At least until the Don would need only nursing care.
   The mall itself was made impregnable. Button men were moved into the extra houses, the tenants sent on vacations to their native villages in Italy, all expenses paid.
   Freddie Corleone had been sent to Las Vegas to recuperate and also to scout out the ground for a Family operation in the luxury hotel-gambling casino complex that was springing up. Las Vegas was part of the West Coast empire still neutral and the Don of that empire had guaranteed Freddie’s safety there. The New York five Families had no desire to make more enemies by going into Vegas after Freddie Corleone. They had enough trouble on their hands in New York.
   Dr. Kennedy had forbade any discussion of business in front of the Don. This edict was completely disregarded. The Don insisted on the council of war being held in his room. Sonny, Tom Hagen, Pete Clemenza and Tessio gathered there the very first night of his homecoming.
   Don Corleone was too weak to speak much but he wished to listen and exercise veto powers. When it was explained that Freddie had been sent to Las Vegas to learn the gambling casino business he nodded his head approvingly. When he learned that Bruno Tattaglia had been killed by Corleone button men he shook his head and sighed. But what distressed him most of all was learning that Michael had killed Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey and had then been forced to flee to Sicily. When he heard this he motioned them out and they continued the conference in the corner room that held the law library.
   Sonny Corleone relaxed in the huge armchair behind the desk. “I think we’d better let the old man take it easy for a couple of weeks, until the doc says he can do business.” He paused. “I’d like to have it going again before he gets better. We have the go-ahead from the cops to operate. The first thing is the policy banks in Harlem. The black boys up there had their fun, now we have to take it back. They screwed up the works but good, just like they usually do when they run things. A lot of their runners didn’t pay off winners. They drive up in Cadillacs and tell their players they gotta wait for their dough or maybe just pay them half what they win. I don’t want any runner looking rich to his players. I don’t want them dressing too good. I don’t want them driving new cars. I don’t want them welching on paying a winner. And I don’t want any free-lancers staying in business, they give us a bad name. Tom, let’s get that project moving right away. Everything else will fall in line as soon as you send out the word that the lid is off.”
   Hagen said, “There are some very tough boys up in Harlem. They got a taste of the big money. They won’t go back to being runners or sub-bankers again.”
   Sonny shrugged. “Just give their names to Clemenza. That’s his job, straightening them out.”
   Clemenza said to Hagen, “No problem.”
   It was Tessio wbo brought up the most important question. “Once we start operating, the five Families start their raids. They’ll hit our bankers in Harlem and out bookmakers on the East Side. They may even try to make things tough for the garment center outfits we service. This war is going to cost a lot of money.”
   “Mabe they won’t,” Sonny said. “They know we’ll hit them right back. I’ve got peace feelers out and maybe we can settle everything by paying an indemnity for the Tattaglia kid.”
   Hagen said, “We’re getting the cold shoulder on those negotiations. They lost a lot of dough the last few months and they blame us for it. With justice. I think what they want is for us to agree to come in on the narcotics trade, to use the Family influence politically. In other words, Sollozzo’s deal minus Sollozzo. But they won’t broach that until they’ve hurt us with some sort of combat action. Then after we’ve been softened up they figure we’ll listen to a proposition on narcotic.”
   Sonny said curtly, “No deal on drugs. The Don said no and it’s no until he changes it.”
   Hagen said briskly, “Then we’re faced with a tactical problem. Our money is out in the open. Bookmaking and policy. We can be hit. But the Tattaglia Family has prostitution and call girls and the dock unions. How the hell are we going to hit them? The other Families are in some gambling. But most of them are in the construction trades, shylocking, controlling the unions, getting the government contracts. They get a lot from strong-arm and other stuff that involves innocent people. Their money isn’t out in the street. The Tattaglia nightclub is too famous to touch it, it would cause too much of a stink. And with the Don still out of action their political influence matches ours. So we’ve got a real problem here.”
   “It’s my problem, Tom,” Sonny said. “I’ll find the answer. Keep the negotiation alive and follow through on the other stuff. Let’s go back into business and see what happens. Then we’ll take it from there. Clemenza and Tessio have plenty of soldiers, we can match the whole Five Families gun for gun if that’s the way they want it. We’ll just go to the mattresses.”
   There was no problem getting the free-lance Negro bankers out of business. The police were informed and cracked down. With a special effort. At that time it was not possible for a Negro to make a payoff to a high police or political official to keep such an operation going. This was due to racial prejudice and racial distrust more than anything else. But Harlem had always been considered a minor problem, and its settlement was expected.
   The Five Families struck in an unexpected direction. Two powerful officials in the garment unions were killed, officials who were members of the Corleone Family. Then the Corleone Family shylocks were barred from the waterfront piers as were the Corleone Family bookmakers. The longshoremen’s union locals had gone over to the Five Families. Corleone bookmakers all over the city were threatened to persuade them to change their allegiance. The biggest numbers banker in Harlem, an old friend and ally of the Corleone Family, was brutally murdered. There was no longer any option. Sonny told his caporegimes to go to the mattresses.
   Two apartments were set up in the city and furnished with mattresses for the button men to sleep on, a refrigerator for food, and guns and ammunition. Clemenza staffed one apartment and Tessio the other. All Family bookmakers were given bodyguard teams. The policy bankers in Harlem, however, had gone over to the enemy and at the moment nothing could be done about that. All this cost the Corleone Family a great deal of money and very little was coming in. As the next few months went by, other things became obvious. The most important was that the Corleone Family had overmatched itself.
   There were reasons for this. With the Don still too weak to take a part, a great deal of the Family’s political strength was neutralized. Also, the last ten years of peace had seriously eroded the fighting qualities of the two caporegimes, Clemenza and Tessio. Clemenza was still a competent executioner and administrator but he no longer had the energy or the youthful strength to lead troops. Tessio had mellowed with age and was not ruthless enough. Tom Hagen, despite his abilities, was simply not suited to be a Consigliere in a time of war. His main fault was that he was not a Sicilian.
   Sonny Corleone recognized these weaknesses in the Family’s wartime posture but could not take any steps to remedy them. He was not the Don and only the Don could replace the caporegimes and the Consigliere. And the very act of replacement would make the situation more dangerous, might precipitate some treachery. At first, Sonny had thought of fighting a holding action until the Don could become well enough to take charge, but with the defection of the policy bankers, the terrorization of the bookmakers, the Family position was becoming precarious. He decided to strike back.
   But he decided to strike right at the heart of the enemy. He planned the execution of the heads of the five Families in one grand tactical maneuver. To that purpose he put into effect an elaborate system of surveillance of these leaders. But after a week the enemy chiefs promptly, dived underground and were seen no more in public.
   The Five Families and the Corleone Empire were in stalemate.
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Zodijak Gemini
Pol Muškarac
Poruke Odustao od brojanja
Zastava 44°49′N - 20°29′E
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Apple iPhone 6s
Chapter 18

   Amerigo Bonasera lived only a few blocks from his undertaking establishment on Mulberry Street and so always went home for supper. Evenings he returned to his place of business, dutifully joining those mourners paying their respects to the dead who lay in state in his somber parlors.
   He always resented the jokes made about his profession, the macabre technical details which were so unimportant. Of course none of his friends or family or neighbors would make such jokes. Any profession was worthy of respect to men who for centuries earned bread by the sweat of their brows.
   Now at supper with his wife in their solidly furnished apartment, gilt statues of the Virgin Mary with their red-glassed candles flickering on the sideboard, Bonasera lit a Camel cigarette and took a relaxing glass of American whiskey. His wife brought steaming plates of soup to the table. The two of them were alone now; he had sent his daughter to live in Boston with her mother’s sister, where she could forget her terrible experience and her injuries at the hands of the two ruffians Don Corleone had punished.
   As they ate their soup his wife asked, “Are you going back to work tonight?”
   Amerigo Bonasera nodded. His wife respected his work but did not understand it. She did not understand that the technical part of his profession was the least important. She thought, like most other people, that he was paid for his skill in making the dead look so lifelike in their coffins. And indeed his skill in this was legendary. But even more important, even more necessary was his physical presence at the wake. When the bereaved family came at night to receive their blood relatives and their friends beside the coffin of their loved one, they needed Amerigo Bonasera with them.
   For he was a strict chaperone to death. His face always grave, yet strong and comforting, his voice unwavering, yet muted to a low register, he commanded the mourning ritual. He could quiet grief that was too unseemly, he could rebuke unruly children whose parents had not the heart to chastise. Never cloying in the tender of his condolences, yet never was he offhand. Once a family used Amerigo Bonasera to speed a loved one on, they came back to him again and again. And he never, never, deserted one of his clients on that terrible last night above ground.
   Usually he allowed himself a little nap after supper. Then he washed and shaved afresh, talcum powder generously used to shroud the heavy black beard. A mouthwash always. He respectfully changed into fresh linen, white gleaming shirt, the black tie, a freshly pressed dark suit, dull black shoes and black socks. And yet the effect was comforting instead of somber. He also kept his hair dyed black, an unheard-of frivolity in an Italian male of his generation; but not out of vanity. Simply because his hair had turned a lively pepper and salt, a color which struck him as unseemly for his profession.
   After he finished his soup, his wife placed a small steak before him with a few forkfuls of green spinach oozing yellow oil. He was a light eater. When he finished this he drank a cup of coffee and smoked another Camel cigarette. Over his coffee he thought about his poor daughter. She would never be the same. Her outward beauty had been restored but there was the look of a frightened animal in her eyes that had made him unable to bear the sight of her. And so they had sent her to live in Boston for a time. Time would heal her wounds. Pain and terror was not so final as death, as he well knew. His work made him an optimist.
   He had just finished the coffee when his phone in the living room rang. His wife never answered it when he was home, so he got up and drained his cup and stubbed out his cigarette. As he walked to the phone he pulled off his tie and started to unbutton his shirt, getting ready for his little nap. Then he picked up the phone and said with quiet courtesy, “Hello.”
   The voice on the other end was harsh, strained. “This is Tom Hagen,” it said. “I’m calling for Don Corleone, at his request.”
   Amerigo Bonasera felt the coffee churning sourly in his stomach, felt himself going a little sick. It was more than a year since he had put himself in the debt of the Don to avenge his daughter’s honor and in that time the knowledge that he must pay that debt had receded. He had been so grateful seeing the bloody faces of those two ruffians that he would have done anything for the Don. But time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty. Now Bonasera felt the sickness of a man faced with disaster. His voice faltered as he answered, “Yes, I understand. I’m listening.”
   He was surprised at the coldness in Hagen’s voice. The Consigliere had always been a courteous man, though not Italian, but now he was being rudely brusque. “You owe the Don a service,” Hagen said. “He has no doubt that you will repay him. That you will be happy to have this opportunity. In one hour, not before, perhaps later, he will be at your funeral parlor to ask for your help. Be there to greet him. Don’t have any people who work for you there. Send them home. If you have any objections to this, speak now and I’ll inform Don Corleone. He has other friends who can do him this service.”
   Amerigo Bonasera almost cried out in his fright, “How can you think I would refuse the Godfather? Of course I’ll do anything he wishes. I haven’t forgotten my debt. I’ll go to my business immediately, at once.”
   Hagen’s voice was gentler now, but there was something strange about it. “Thank you,” he said “The Don never doubted you. The question was mine. Oblige him tonight and you can always come to me in any trouble, you’ll earn my personal friendship.”
   This frightened Amerigo Bonasera even more. He stuttered, “The Don himself is coming to me tonight?”
   “Yes,” Hagen said.
   “Then he’s completely recovered from his injuries, thank God,” Bonasera said. His voice made it a question.
   There was a pause at the other end of the phone, then Hagen’s voice said very quietly, “Yes.” There was a click and the phone went dead.
   Bonasera was sweating. He went into the bedroom and changed his shirt and rinsed his mouth. But he didn’t shave or use a fresh tie. He put on the same one he had used during the day. He called the funeral parlor and told his assistant to stay with the bereaved family using the front parlor that night. He himself would be busy in the laboratory working area of the building. When the assistant started asking question Bonesera cut him off very curtly and told him to follow orders exactly.
   He put on his suit jacket and his wife, still eating, looked up at him in surprise. “I have work to do,” he said and she did not dare question him because of the look on his face. Bonasera went out of the house and walked the few blocks to his funeral parlor.
   This building stood by itself on a large lot with a white picket fence running all around it. There was a narrow roadway leading from the street to the rear, just wide enough for ambulances and hearses. Bonasera unlocked the gate and left it open. Then he walked to the rear of the building and entered it through the wide door there. As he did so he could see mourners already entering the front door of the funeral parlor to pay their respects to the current corpse.
   Many years ago when Bonasgra had bought this building from an undertaker planning to retire, there had been a stoop of about ten steps that mourners had to mount before entering the funeral parlor. This had posed a problem. Old and crippled mourners determined to pay their respects had found the steps almost impossible to mount, so the former undertaker had used the freight elevator for these people, a small metal platform, that rose out of the ground beside the building. The elevator was for coffins and bodies. It would descend underground, then rise into the funeral parlor itself, so that a crippled mourner would find himself rising through the floor beside the coffin as other mourners moved their black chairs aside to let the elevator rise throngh the trapdoor. Then when the crippled or aged mourner had finished paying his respects, the elevator would again come up through the polished floor to take him down and out again.
   Amerigo Bonasera had found this solution to the problem upseernly and penny-pinching. So he had had the front of the building remodeled, the stoop done away with and a slightly inclining walk put in its place. But of course the elevator was still used for coffins and corpses.
   In the rear of the building, cut off from the funeral parlor and reception rooms by a massive soundproof door, was the business office, the embalming room, a storeroom for coffins, and a carefully locked closet holding chemicals and the awful tools of his trade. Bonasera went to the office, sat at his desk and lit up a Camel,,one of the few times he had ever smoked in this building. Then he waited for Don Corleone.
   He waited with a feeling of the utmost despair. For, he had no doubt as to what services he would be called upon to perform. For the last year the Corleone Family had waged war against the five great Mafia Families of New York and the carnage had filled the newspapers. Many men on both sides had been killed. Now the Corleone Family had killed somebody so important that they wished to hide his body, make it disappear, and what better way than to have it officially buried by a registered undertaker? And Amerigo Bonasera had no illusions about the act he was to commit. He would be an accessory to murder. If it came out, he would spend years in jail. His daughter and wife would be disgraced, his good name, the respected name of Amerigo Bonasera, dragged through the bloody, mud of the Mafia war.
   He indulged himself by smoking another Camel. And then he thought of something even more terrifying. When the other Mafia Families found out that he had aided the Corleones they would treat him as an enemy. They would murder him. And now he cursed the day he had gone to the Godfather and begged for his vengeance. He cursed the day his wife and the wife of Don Corleone had become friends. He cursed his daughter and America and his own success. And then his optimism returned. It could all go well. Don Corleone was a clever man. Certainly everything had been arranged to keep the secret. He had only to keep his nerve. For of course the one thing more fatal than any other was to earn the Don’s displeasure.
   He heard tires on gravel. His practiced ear told him a car was coming through the narrow driveway and parking in the back yard. He opened the rear door to let them in. The huge fat man, Clemenza, entered, followed by two very rough-looking young fellows. They searched the rooms without saying a word to Bonasera, then clemenza went out. The two young men remained with the undertaker.
   A few moments later Bonasera recognized the sound of a heavy ambulance coming through the narrow driveway. Then Clemenza appeared in the doorway followed by two men carrying a stretcher. And Amerigo Bonasera’s worst fears were realized. On the stretcher was a corpse swaddled in a gray blanket but with bare yellow feet sticking out the end.
   Clemenza motioned the stretcher-bearers into the embalming room. And then from the blackness of the yard another man stepped into the lighted office room. It was Don Corleone.
   The Don had lost weight during his illness and moved with a curious stiffness. He was holding his hat in his hands and his hair seemed thin over his massive skull. He looked older, more shrunken than when Bonasera had seen him at the wedding, but he still radiated power. Holding his hat against his chest, he said to Bonasera, “Well, old friend, are you ready to do me this service?”
   Bonasera nodded. The Don followed the stretcher into the embalming room and Bonasera trailed after him. The corpse was on one of the guttered tables. Don Corleone made a tiny gesture with his hat and the other men left the room.
   Bonasera whispered, “What do you wish me to do?”
   Don Corleone was staring at the table. “I want you to use all your powers, all your skill, as you love me,” he said. “I do not wish his mother to see him as he is.” He went to the table and drew down the gray blanket. Amerigo Bonasera against all his will, against all his years of training and experience, let out a gasp of horror. On the embalming able was the bullet-smashed face of Sonny Corleone. The left eye drowned in blood had a star fracture in its lens. The bridge of his nose and left cheekbone were hammered into Pulp.
   For one fraction of a second the Don put out his hand to support himself against Bonasera’s body. “See how they have massacred my son,” he said.
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Chapter 19

   Perhaps it was the stalemate that made Sonny Corleone embark on the bloody course of attrition that ended in his own death. Perhaps it was his dark violent nature given full rein.
   In any case, that spring and summer he mounts senseless raids on enemy auxiliaries. Tattaglia Family pimps were shot to death in Harlem, dock goons were massacred. Union officials who owed allegiance to the Five Families were warned to stay neutral, and when the Corleone bookmakers and shylocks were still barred from the docks, Sonny sent Clemenza and his regime to wreak havoc upon the long shore.
   This slaughter was senseless because it could not affect affect the outcome of the war. Sonny was a brilliant tactician and wears his brilliant victories. But what was needed was the strategical genius of Don Corleone. The whole thing degenerated into such a deadly guerrilla war that both sides found themselves losing a great deal of revenue and lives to no purpose. The Corleone Family was finally forced to close down some of its most profitable bookmaking stations, including the book given to son-in-law Carlo Rizzi for his living. Carlo took to drink and running with chorus girls and giving his wife Connie a hard time. Since his beating at the hands of Sonny he had not dared to hit his wife again but he had not slept with her. Connie had thrown herself at his feet and he had spurned her, as he thought, like a Roman, with exquisite patrician pleasure. He had sneered at her, “Go call your brother and tell him I won’t screw you, maybe he’ll beat me up until I get a hard on.”
   But he was in deadly fear of Sonny though they treated each other with cold politeness. Carlo had the sense to realize that Sonny would kill him, that Sonny was a man who could, with the naturalness of an animal, kill another man, while he himself would have to call up all his courage, all his will, to commit murder. It never occurred to Carlo that because of this he was a better man than Sonny Corleone, if such terms could be used; he envied Sonny his awesome savagery, a savagery which was now becoming a legend.
   Tom Hagen, as the Consigliere, disapproved of Sonny’s tactics and yet decided not to protest to the Don simply because the tactics, to some extent, worked. The Five Families seemed to be cowed, finally, as the attrition went on, and their counterblows weakened and finally ceased altogether. Hagen at first distrusted this seeming pacification of the enemy but Sonny was jubilant. “I’ll pour it on,” he told Hagen, “and then those bastards will come begging for a deal.”
   Sonny was worried about other things. His wife was giving him a hard time because the rumors had gotten to her that Lucy Mancini had bewitched her husband. And though she joked publicly about her Sonny’s equipment and technique, he had stayed away from her too long and she missed him in her bed, and she was making life miserable for him with her nagging.
   In addition to this Sonny was under the enormous strain of being a marked man. He had to be extraordinarily careful in all his movements and he knew that his visits to Lucy Mancini had been charted by the enemy. But here he took elaborate precautions since this was the traditional vulnerable spot. He was safe there. Though Lucy had not the slightest suspicion, she was watched twenty-four hours a day by men of the Santino regime and when an apartment became vacant on her floor it was immediately rented by one of the most reliable men of that regime.
   The Don was recovering and would soon be able to resume command. At that time the tide of battle must swing to the Corleone Family. This Sonny was sure of. Meanwhile he would guard his Family’s empire, earn the respect of his father, and, since the position was not hereditary to an absolute degree, cement his claim as heir to the Corleone Empire.
   But the enemy was making its plans. They too had analyzed the situation and had come to the conclusion that the only way to stave off complete defeat was to kill Sonny Corleone. They understood the situation better now and felt it was possible to negotiate with the Don, known for his logical reasonableness. They had come to hate Sonny for his bloodthirstiness, which they considered barbaric. Also not good business sense. Nobody wanted the old days back again with all its turmoil and trouble.
   One evening Connie Corleone received an anonymous phone call, a girl’s voice, asking for Carlo. “Who is this?” Connie asked.
   The girl on the other end giggled and said, “I’m a friend of Carlo’s. I just wanted to tell him I can’t see him tonight. I have to go out of town.”
   “You lousy bitch,” Connie Corleone said. She screamed it again into the phone. “You lousy tramp bitch.” There was a click on the other end.
   Carlo had gone to the track for that afternoon and when he came home in the late evening he was sore at losing and half drunk from the bottle he always carried. As soon as he stepped into the door, Connie started screaming curses at him. He ignored her and went in to take a shower. When he came out he dried his naked body in front of her and started dolling up to go out.
   Connie stood with hands on hips, her face pointy and white with rage. “You’re not going anyplace,” she said. “Your girl friend called and said she can’t make it tonight. You lousy bastard, you have the nerve to give your whores my phone number. I’ll kill you, you bastard.” She rushed at him, kicking and scratching.
   He held her off with one muscular forearm. “You’re crazy,” he said coldly. But she could see he was worried, as if he knew the crazy girl he was screwing would actually pull such a stunt. “She was kidding around, some nut,” Carlo said.
   Connie ducked around his arm and clawed at his face. She got a little bit of his cheek under her fingernails. With surprising patience he pushed her away. She noticed he was careful because of her pregnancy and that gave her the courage to feed her rage. She was also excited. Pretty soon she wouldn’t be able to do anything, the doctor had said no sex for the last two months and she wanted it, before the last two months started. Yet her wish to inflict a physical injury on Carlo was very real too. She followed him into the bedroom.
   She could see he was scared and that filled her with contemptuous delight. “You’re staying home,” she said, “you’re not going out.”
   “OK, OK,” he said. He was still undressed, only wearing his shorts. He liked to go around the house like that, he was proud of his V-shaped body, the golden skin. Connie looked at him hungrily. He tried to laugh. “You gonna give me something to eat at least?”
   That mollified her, his calling on her duties, one of them at least. She was a good cook, she had learned that from her mother. She sauteed veal and peppers, preparing a mixed salad while the pan simmered. Meanwhile Carlo stretched out on his bed to read the next day’s racing form. He had a water glass full of whiskey beside him which he kept sipping at.
   Connie came into the bedroom. She stood in the doorway as if she could not come close to the bed without being invited. “The food is on the table,” she said.
   “I’m not hungry yet,” he said, still reading the racing form.
   “It’s on the table,” Connie said stubbornly.
   “Stick it up your ass,” Carlo said. He drank off the rest of the whiskey in the water glass, tilted the bottle to fill it again. He paid no more attention to her.
   Connie went into the kitchen, picked up the plates filled with food and smashed them against the sink. The loud crashes brought Carlo in from the bedroom. He looked at the greasy veal and peppers splattered all over the kitchen walls and his finicky neatness was outraged. “You filthy guinea spoiled brat,” he said venomously. “Clean that up right now or I’ll kick the shit out of you.”
   “Like hell I will,” Connie said. She held her hands like claws ready to scratch his bare chest to ribbons.
   Carlo went back into the bedroom and when he came out he was holding his belt doubled in his hand. “Clean it up,” he said and there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. She stood there not moving and he swung the belt against her heavily padded hips, the leather stinging but not really hurting. Connie retreated to the kitchen cabinets and her hand went into one of the drawers to haul out the long bread knife. She held it ready.
   Carlo laughed. “Even the female Corleones are murderers,” he said. He put the belt down on the kitchen table and advanced toward her. She tried a sudden lunge but her pregnant heavy body made her slow and he eluded the thrust she aimed at his groin in such deadly earnest. He disarmed her easily and then he started to slap her face with a slow medium-heavy stroke so as not to break the skin. He hit her again and again as she retreated around the kitchen table trying to escape him and he pursued her into the bedroom. She tried to bite his hand and he grabbed her by the hair to lift her head up. He slapped her face until she began to weep like a little girl, with pain and humiliation. Then he threw her contemptuously onto the bed. He drank from the bottle of whiskey still on the night table. He seemed very drunk now, his light blue eyes had a crazy glint in them and finally Connie was truly afraid.
   Carlo straddled his legs apart and drank from the bottle. He reached down and grabbed a chunk of her pregnant heavy thigh in his hand. He squeezed very hard, hurting her and making her beg for mercy. “You’re fat as a pig,” he said with disgust and walked out of the bedroom.
   Thoroughly frightened and cowed, she lay in the bed, not daring to see what her husband was doing in the other room. Finally she rose and went to the door to peer into the living room. Carlo had opened a fresh bottle of whiskey and was sprawled on the sofa. In a little while he would drink himself into sodden sleep and she could sneak into the kitchen and call her family in Long Beach. She would tell her mother to send someone out here to get her. She just hoped Sonny didn’t answer the phone, she knew it would be best to talk to Tom Hagen or her mother.
   It was nearly ten o’clock at night when the kitchen phone in Don Corleone’s house rang. It was answered by one of the Don’s bodyguards who dutifully turned the phone over to Connie’s mother. But Mrs. Corleone could hardly understand what her daughter was saying, the girl was hysterical yet trying to whisper so that her husband in the next room would not hear her. Also her face had become swollen because of the slaps, and her puffy lips thickened her speech. Mrs. Corleone made a sign to the bodyguard that he should call Sonny, who was in the living room with Tom Hagen.
   Sonny came into the kitchen and took the phone from his mother. “Yeah, Connie,” he said.
   Connie was so frightened both of her husband and of what her brother would do that her speech became worse. She babbled, “Sonny, just send a car to bring me home, I’ll tell you then, it’s nothing, Sonny. Don’t you come. Send Tom, please, Sonny. It’s nothing, I just want to come home.”
   By this time Hagen had come into the room. The Don was already under a sedated sleep in the bedroom above and Hagen wanted to keep an eye on Sonny in all crises. The two interior bodyguards were also in the kitchen. Everybody was watching Sonny as he listened on the phone.
   There was no question that the violence in Sonny Corleone’s nature rose from some deep mysterious physical well. As they watched they could actually see the blood rushing to his heavily corded neck, could see the eyes film with hatred, the separate features of his face tightening, growing pinched, then his face took on the grayish hue of a sick man fighting off some sort of death, except that the adrenaline pumping through his body made his hands tremble. But his voice was controlled, pitched low, as he told his sister, “You wait there. You just wait there.” He hung up the phone.
   He stood there for a moment quite stunned with his own rage, then he said, “The fucking sonofabitch, the fucking sonofabitch.” He ran out of the house.
   Hagen knew the look on Sonny’s face, all reasoning power had left him. At this moment Sonny was capable of anything. Hagen also knew that the ride into the city would cool Sonny off, make him more rational. But that rationality might make him even more dangerous, though the rationality would enable him to protect himself against the consequences of his rage. Hagen heard the car motor roaring into life and he said to the two bodyguards, “Go after him.”
   Then he went to the phone and made some calls. He arranged for some men of Sonny’s regime living in the city to go up to Carlo Rizzi’s apartment and get Carlo out of there. Other men would stay with Connie until Sonny arrived. He was taking a chance, thwarting Sonny, but he knew the Don would back him up. He was afraid that Sonny might kill Carlo in front of witnesses. He did not expect trouble from the enemy. The Five Families had been quiet too long and obviously were looking for peace of some kind.
   By the time Sonny roared out of the mall in his Buick, he had already regained, partly, his senses. He noted the two bodyguards getting into a car to follow him and approved. He expected no danger, the Five Families had quit counterattacking, were not really fighting anymore. He had grabbed his jacket in the foyer and there was a gun in a secret dashboard compartment of the car, the car registered in the name of a member of his regime, so that he personally could not get into any legal trouble. But he did not anticipate needing any weapon. He did not even know what he was going to do with Carlo Rizzi.
   Now that he had a chance to think, Sonny knew he could not kill the father of an unborn child, and that father his sister’s husband. Not over a domestic spat. Except that it was not just a domestic spat. Carlo was a bad guy and Sonny felt responsible that his sister had met the bastard through him.
   The paradox in Sonny’s violent nature was that he could not hit a woman and had never done so. That he could not harm a child or anything helpless. When Carlo had refused to fight back against him that day, it had kept Sonny from killing him; complete submission disarmed his violence. As a boy, he had been truly tenderhearted. That he had become a murderer as a man was simply his destiny.
   But he would settle this thing once and for all, Sonny thought, as he headed the Buick toward the causeway that would take him over the water from Long Beach to the parkways on the other side of Jones Beach. He always used this route when he went to New York. There was less traffic.
   He decided he would send Connie home with the bodyguards and then he would have a session with his brotherin-law. What would happen after that he didn’t know. If the bastard had really hurt Connie, he’d make a cripple out of the bastard. But the wind coming over the causeway, the salty freshness of the air, cooled his anger. He put the window down all the way.
   He had taken the Jones Beach Causeway, as always, because it was usually deserted this time of night, at this time of year, and he could speed recklessly until he hit the parkways on the other side. And even there traffic would be light. The release of driving very fast would help dissipate what he knew was a dangerous tension. He had already left his bodyguards car far behind.
   The causeway was badly lit, there was not a single car. Far ahead he saw the white cone of the manned tollbooth.
   There were other tollbooths beside it but they were staffed only during the day, for heavier traffic. Sonny started braking the Buick and at the same time searched his pockets for change. He had none. He reached for his wallet, flipped it open with one hand and fingered out a bill. He came within the arcade of light and he saw to his mild surprise a car in the tollbooth slot blocking it, the driver obviously asking some sort of directions from the toll taker. Sonny honked his horn and the other car obediently rolled through to let his car slide into the slot.
   Sonny handed the toll taker the dollar bill and waited for his change. He was in a hurry now to close the window. The Atlantic Ocean air had chilled the whole car. But the toll taker was fumbling with his change; the dumb son of a bitch actually dropped it. Head and body disappeared as the toll man stooped down in his booth to pick up the money.
   At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man. And in that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and present had purified him.
   Even so, his huge body in a reflex for life crashed against the Buick door, bursting its lock. The man in the darkened tollbooth opened fire and the shots caught Sonny Corleone in the head and neck as his massive frame spilled out of the car. The two men in front held up their guns now, the man in the darkened tollbooth cut his fire, and Sonny’s body sprawled on the asphalt with the legs still partly inside. The two men each fired shots into Sonny’s body, then kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even more, to show a mark made by a more personal human power.
   Seconds afterward, all four men, the three actual assassins and the bogus toll collector, were in their car and speeding toward the Meadowbrook Parkway on the other side of Jones Beach. Their pursuit was blocked by Sonny’s car and body in the tollgate slot but when Sonny’s bodyguards pulled up a few minutes later and saw his body lying there, they had no intention to pursue. They swung their car around in a huge arc and returned to Long Beach. At the first public phone off the causeway one of them hopped out and called Tom Hagen. He was very curt and very brisk. “Sonny’s dead, they got him at the Jones Beach toll.”
   Hagen’s voice was perfectly calm. “OK,” he said. “Go to Clemenza’s house and tell him to come here right away. He’ll tell you what to do.”
   Hagen had taken the call in the kitchen, with Mama Corleone bustling around preparing a snack for the arrival of her daughter. He had kept his composure and the old woman had not noticed anything amiss. Not that she could not have, if she wanted to, but in her life with the Don she had learned it was far wiser not to perceive. That if it was necessary to know something painful, it would be told to her soon enough. And if it was a pain that could be spared her, she could do without. She was quite content not to share the pain of her men, after all did they share the pain of women? Impassively she boiled her coffee and set the table with food. In her experience pain and fear did not dull physical hunger; in her experience the taking of food dulled pain. She would have been outraged if a doctor had tried to sedate her with a drug, but coffee and a crust of bread were another matter; she came, of course, from a more primitive culture.
   And so she let Tom Hagen escape to his corner conference room and once in that room, Hagen began to tremble so violently he had to sit down with his legs squeezed together, his head hunched into his contracted shoulders, hands clasped together between his knees as if he were praying to the devil.
   He was, he knew now, no fit Consigliere for a Family at war. He had been fooled, faked out, by the Five Families and their seeming timidity. They had remained quiet, laying their terrible ambush. They had planned and waited, holding their bloody hands no matter what provocation they had been given. They had waited to land one terrible blow. And they had. Old Genco Abbandando would never have fallen for it, he would have smelled a rat, he would have smoked them out, tripled his precautions. And through all this Hagen felt his grief. Sonny had been his true brother, his savior; his hero when they had been boys together. Sonny had never been mean or bullying with him, had always treated him with affection, had taken him in his arms when Sollozzo had turned him loose. Sonny’s joy at that reunion had been real. That he had grown up to be a cruel and violent and bloody man was, for Hagen, not relevant.
   He had walked out of the kitchen because he knew he could never tell Mama Corleone about her son’s death. He had never thought of her as his mother as he thought of the Don as his father and Sonny as his brother. His affection for her was like his affection for Freddie and Michael and Connie. The affection for someone who has been kind but not loving. But he could not tell her. In a few short months she had lost all her sons; Freddie exiled to Nevada, Michael hiding for his life in Sicily, and now Santino dead. Which of the three had she loved most of all? She had never shown.
   It was no more than a few minutes. Hagen got control of himself again and picked up the phone. He called Connie’s number. It rang for a long time before Connie answered in a whisper.
   Hagen spoke to her gentiy. “Connie, this is Tom. Wake your husband up, I have to talk to him.”
   Connie said in a low frightened voice, “Tom, is Sonny coming here?”
   “No,” Hagen said. “Sonny’s not coming there. Don’t worry about that. Just wake Carlo up and tell him it’s very important I speak to him.”
   Connie’s voice was weepy. “Tom, he beat me up, I’m afraid he’ll hurt me again if he knows I called home.”
   Hagen said gently, “He won’t. He’ll talk to me and I’ll straighten him out. Everything will be OK. Tell him it’s very important, very, very important he come to the phone. OK?”
   It was almost five minutes before Carlo’s voice came over the phone, a voice half slurred by whiskey and sleep. Hagen spoke sharply to make him alert.
   “Listen, Carlo,” he said, “I’m going to tell you something very shocking. Now prepare yourself because when I tell it to you I want you to answer me very casually as if it’s less than it is. I told Connie it was important so you have to give her a story. Tell her the Family has decided to move you both to one of the houses in the mall and to give you a big job. That the Don has finally decided to give you a chance in the hope of making your home life better. You got that?”
   There was a hopeful note in Carlo’s voice as he answered, “Yeah, OK.”
   Hagen went on, “In a few minutes a couple of my men are going to knock on your door to take you away with them. Tell them I want them to call me first. Just tell them that. Don’t say anything else. I’ll instruct them to leave you there with Connie. OK?”
   “Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Carlo said. His voice was excited. The tension in Hagen’s voice seemed to have finally alerted him that the news coming up was going to be really important.
   Hagen gave it to him straight. “They killed Sonny tonight. Don’t say anything. Connie called him while you were asleep and he was on his way over there, but I don’t want her to know that, even if she guesses it, I don’t want her to know it for sure. She’ll start thinking it’s all her fault. Now I want you to stay with her tonight and not tell her anything. I want you to make up with her. I want you to be the perfect loving husband. And I want you to stay that way until she has her baby at least. Tomorrow morning somebody, maybe you, maybe the Don, maybe her mother, will tell Connie that her brother got killed. And I want you by her side. Do me this favor and I’ll take care of you in the times to come. You got that?”
   Carlo’s voice was a little shaky. “Sure, Tom, sure. Listen, me and you always got along. I’m grateful. Understand?”
   “Yeah,” Hagen said. “Nobody will blame your fight with Connie for causing this, don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of that.” He paused and softly, encouragingly, “Go ahead now, take care of Connie.” He broke the connection.
   He had learned never to make a threat, the Don had taught him that, but Carlo had gotten the message all right: he was a hair away from death.
   Hagen made another call to Tessio, telling him to come to the mall in Long Beach immediately. He didn’t say why and Tessio did not ask. Hagen sighed. Now would come the part he dreaded.
   He would have to waken the Don from his drugged slumber. He would have to tell the man he most loved in the world that he had failed him, that he had failed to guard his domain and the life of his eldest son. He would have to tell the Don everything was lost unless the sick man himself could enter the battle. For Hagen did not delude himself. Only the great Don himself could snatch even a stalemate from this terrible defeat. Hagen didn’t even bother checking with Don Corleone’s doctors, it would be to no purpose. No matter what the doctors ordered, even if they told him that the Don could not rise from his sickbed on pain of death, he must tell his adoptive father and then follow him. And of course there was no question about what the Don would do. The opinions of medical men were irrelevant now, everything was irrelevant now. The Don must be told and he must either take command or order Hagen to surrender the Corleone power to the Five Families.
   And yet with all his heart, Hagen dreaded the next hour. He tried to prepare his own manner. He would have to be in all ways strict with his own guilt. To reproach himself would only add to the Don’s burden. To show his own grief would only sharpen the grief of the Don. To point out his own shortcomings as a wartime Consigliere, would only make the Don reproach himself for his own bad judgment for picking such a man for such an important post.
   He must, Hagen knew, tell the news, present his analysis of what must be done to rectify the situation and then keep silent. His reactions thereafter must be the reactions invited by his Don. If the Don wanted him to show guilt, he would show guilt; if the Don invited grief, he would lay bare his genuine sorrow.
   Hagen lifted his head at the sound of motors, cars rolling up onto the mall. The caporegimes were arriving. He would brief them first and then he would go up and wake Don Corleone. He got up and went to the liquor cabinet by the desk and took out a glass and bottle. He stood there for a moment so unnerved he could not pour the liquid from bottle to glass. Behind him, he heard the door to the room close softly and, turning, he saw, fully dressed for the first time since he had been shot, Don Corleone.
   The Don walked across the room to his huge leather armchair and sat down. He walked a little stiffly, his clothes hung a little loosely on his frame but to Hagen’s eyes he looked the same as always. It was almost as if by his will alone the Don had discarded all external evidence of his still weakened frame. His fact was sternly set with all its old force and strength. He sat straight in the armchair and he said to Hagen, “Give me a drop of anisette.”
   Hagen switched bottles and poured them both a portion of the fiery, licorice-tasting alcohol. It was peasant, homemade stuff, much stronger than that sold in stores, the gift of an old friend who every year presented the Don with a small truckload.
   “My wife was weeping before she fell asleep,” Don Corleone said. “Outside my window I saw my caporegimes coming to the house and it is midnight. So, Consigliere of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone knows.”
   Hagen said quietly, “I didn’t tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you and tell you the news myself. In another moment I would have come to waken you.”
   Don Corleone said impassively, “But you needed a drink first.”
   “Yes,” Hagen said.
   “You’ve had your drink,” the Don said. “You can tell me now.” There was just the faintest hint of reproach for Hagen’s weakness.
   “They shot Sonny on the causeway,” Hagen said. “He’s dead.”
   Don Corleone blinked. For just the fraction of a second the wall of his will disintegrated and the draining of his physical strength was plain on his face. Then he recovered.
   He clasped his hands in front of him on top of the desk and looked directly into Hagen’s eyes. “Tell me everything that happened,” he said. He held up one of his hands. “No, wait until Clemenza and Tessio arrive so you won’t have to tell it all again.”
   It was only a few moments later that the two caporegimes were escorted into the room by a bodyguard. They saw at once that the Don knew about his son’s death because the Don stood up to receive them. They embraced him as old comrades were permitted to do. They all had a drink of anisette which Hagen poured them before he told them the story of that night.
   Don Corleone asked only one question at the end. “Is it certain my son is dead?”
   Clemenza answered. “Yes,” he said. “The bodyguards were of Santino’s regime but picked by me. I questioned them when they came to my house. They saw his body in the light of the tollhouse. He could not live with the wounds they saw. They place their lives in forfeit for what they say.”
   Don Corleone accepted this final verdict without any sign of emotion except for a few moments of silence. Then he said, “None of you are to concern yourselves with this affair. None of you are to commit any acts of vengeance, none of you are to make any inquiries to track down the murderers of my son without my express command. There will be no further acts of war against the Five Families without my express and personal wish. Our Family will cease all business operations and cease to protect any of our business operations until after my son’s funeral. Then we will meet here again and decide what must be done. Tonight we must do what we can for Santino, we must bury him as a Christian. I will have friends of mine arrange things with the police and all other proper authorities. Clemenza, you will remain with me at all times as my bodyguard, you and the men of your regime. Tessio, you will guard all other members of my Family. Tom, I want you to call Amerigo Bonasera and tell him I will need his services at some time during this night. To wait for me at his establishment. It may be an hour, two hours, three hours. Do you all understand that?”
   The three men nodded. Don Corleone said, “Clemenza, get some men and cars and wait for me. I will be ready in a few minutes. Tom, you did well. In the morning I want Constanzia with her mother. Make arrangements for her and her husband to live in the mall. Have Sandra’s friends, the women, go to her house to stay with her. My wife will go there also when I have spoken with her. My wife will tell her the misfortune and the women will arrange for the church to say their masses and prayers for his soul.”
   The Don got up from his leather armchair. The other men rose with him and Clemenza and Tessio embraced him again. Hagen held the door open for the Don, who paused to look at him for a moment. Then the Don put his hand on Hagen’s cheek, embraced him quickly, and said, in Italian, “You’ve been a good son. You comfort me.” Telling Hagen that he had acted properly in this terrible time. The Don went up to his bedroom to speak to his wife. It was then that Hagen made the call to Amerigo Bonasera for the undertaker to redeem the favor he owed to the Corleones.
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Book Five

Chapter 20

   The death of Santino Corleone sent shock waves through the underworld of the nation. And when it became known that Don Corleone had risen from his sick bed to take charge of the Family affairs, when spies at the funeral reported that the Don seemed to be fully recovered, the heads of the Five Families made frantic efforts to prepare a defense against the bloody retaliatory war that was sure to follow. Nobody made the mistake of assuming that Don Corleone could be held cheaply because of his past misfortunes. He was a man who had made only a few mistakes in his career and had learned from every one of them.
   Only Hagen guessed the Don’s real intentions and was not surprised when emissaries were sent to the Five Families to propose a peace. Not only to propose a peace but a meeting of all the Families in the city and with invitations to Families all over the United States to attend. Since the New York Families were the most powerful in the country, it was understood that their welfare affected the welfare of the country as a whole.
   At first there were suspicions. Was Don Corleone preparing a trap? Was he trying to throw his enemies off their guard? Was he attempting to prepare a wholesale massacre to avenge his son? But Don Corleone soon made it clear that he was sincere. Not only did he involve all the Families in the country in this meeting, but made no move to put his own people on a war footing or to enlist allies. And then he took the final irrevocable step that established the authenticity of these intentions and assured the safety of the grand council to be assembled. He called on the services of the Bocchicchio Family.
   The Bocchicchio Family was unique in that, once a particularly ferocious branch of the Mafia in Sicily, it had become an instrument of peace in America. Once a group of men who earned their living by a savage determination, they now earned their living in what perhaps could be called a saintly fashion. The Bocchicchios’ one asset was a closely knit structure of blood relationships, a family loyalty severe even for a society where family loyalty came before loyalty to a wife.
   The Bocchicchio Family, extending out to third cousins, had once numbered nearly two hundred when they ruled the particular economy of a small section of southern Sicily. The income for the entire family then came from four or five flour mills, by no means owned communally, but assuring labor and bread and a minimal security for all Family members. This was enough, with intermarriages, for them to present a common front against their enemies.
   No competing mill, no dam that would create a water supply to their competitors or ruin their own selling of water, was allowed to be built in their corner of Sicily. A powerful landowning baron once tried to erect his own mill strictly for his personal use. The mill was burned down. He called on the carabineri and higher authorities, who arrested three of the Bocchicchio Family. Even before the trial the manor house of the baron was torched. The indictment and accusations were withdrawn. A few months later one of the highest functionaries in the Italian government arrived in Sicily and tried to solve the chronic water shortage of that island by proposing a huge dam. Engineers arrived from Rome to do surveys while watched by grim natives, members of the Bocchicchio clan. Police flooded the area, housed in a specially built barracks.
   It looked like nothing could stop the dam from being built and supplies and equipment had actually been unloaded in Palermo. That was as far as they got. The Bocchicchios had contacted fellow Mafia chiefs and extracted agreements for their aid. The heavy equipment was sabotaged, the lighter equipment stolen. Mafia deputies in the Italian Parliament launched a bureaucratic counterattack against the planners. This went on for several years and in that time Mussolini came to power. The dictator decreed that the dam must be built. It was not. The dictator had known that the Mafia would be a threat to his regime, forming what amounted to a separate authority from his own. He gave full powers to a high police official, who promptly solved the problem by throwing everybody into jail or deporting them to penal work islands. In a few short years he had broken the power of the Mafia, simply by arbitrarily arresting anyone even suspected of being a mafioso. And so also brought ruin to a great many innocent families.
   The Bocchicchios had been rash enough to resort to force against this unlimited power. Half of the men were killed in armed combat, the other half deported to penal island colonies. There were only a handful left when arrangements were made for them to emigrate to America via the clandestine underground route of jumping ship through Canada. There were almost twenty immigrants and they settled in a small town not far from New York City, in the Hudson Valley, where by starting at the very bottom they worked their way up to owning a garbage hauling firm and their own trucks. They became prosperous because they had no competition. They had no competition because competitors found their trucks burned and sabotaged. One persistent fellow who undercut prices was found buried in the garbage he had picked up during the day, smothered to death.
   But as the men married, to Sicilian girls, needless to say, children came, and the garbage business though providing a living, was not really enough to pay for the finer things America had to offer. And so, as a diversification, the Bocchicchio Family became negotiators and hostages in the peace efforts of warring Mafia families.
   A strain of stupidity ran through the Bocchicchio clan, or perhaps they were just primitive. In any case they recognized their limitations and knew they could not compete with other Mafia families in the struggle to organize and control more sophisticated business structures like prostitution, gambling, dope and public fraud. They were straight-from-the-shoulder people who could offer a gift to an ordinary patrolman but did not know how to approach a political bagman. They had only two assets. Their honor and their ferocity.
   A Bocchicchio never lied, never committed an act of treachery. Such behavior was too complicated. Also, a Bocchicchio never forgot an injury and never left it unavenged no matter what the cost. And so by accident they stumbled into what would prove to be their most lucrative profession.
   When warring families wanted to make peace and arrange a parley, the Bocchicchio clan was contacted. The head of the clan would handle the initial negotiations and arrange for the necessary hostages. For instance, when Michael had gone to meet Sollozzo, a Bocchicchio had been left with the Corleone Family as surety for Michael’s safety, the service paid for by Sollozzo. If Michael were killed by Sollozzo, then the Bocchicchio male hostage held by the Corleone Family would be killed by the Corleones. In this case the Bocchicchios would take their vengeance on Sollozzo as the source of their clansman’s death. Since the Bocchicchios were so primitive, they never let anything, any kind of punishment, stand in their way of vengeance. They would give up their own lives and there was no protection against them if they were betrayed. A Bocchicchio hostage was gilt-edged insurance.
   And so now when Don Corleone employed the Bocchicchios as negotiators and arranged for them to supply hostages for all the Families to come to the peace meeting, there could be no question as to his sincerity. There could be no question of treachery. The meeting would be safe as wedding.
   Hostages given, the meeting took place in the director’s conference room of a small commercial bank whose president was indebted to Don Corleone and indeed some of whose stock belonged to Don Corleone though it was in the president’s name. The president always treasured that moment when he had offered to give Don Corleone a written document proving his ownership of the shares, to preclude any treachery. Don Corleone had been horrified. “I would trust you with my whole fortune,” he told the president. “I would trust you with my life and the welfare of my children. It is inconceivable to me that you would ever trick me or otherwise betray me. My whole world, all my faith in my judgment of human character would collapse. Of course I have my own written records so that if something should happen to me my heirs would know that you hold something in trust for them. But I know that even if I were not here in this world to guard the interests of my children, you would be faithful to their needs.”
   The president of the bank, though not Sicilian, was a man of tender sensibilities. He understood the Don perfectly. Now the Godfather’s request was the president’s command and so on a Saturday afternoon, the executive suite of the bank, the inference room with its deep leather chairs, its absolute privacy, was made available to the Families.
   Security at the bank was taken over by a small army of handpicked men wearing bank guard uniforms. At ten o’clock on a Saturday morning the conference room began to fill up. Besides the Five Families of New York, there were representatives from ten other Families across the country, with the exception of Chicago, that black sheep of their world. They had given up trying to civilize Chicago, and they saw no point in including those mad dogs in this important conference.
   A bar had been set up and a small buffet. Each representative to the conference had been allowed one aide. Most of the Dons had brought their Consiglieres as aides so there were comparatively few young men in the room. Tom Hagen was one of those young men and the only one who was not Sicilian. He was an object of curiosity, a freak.
   Hagen knew his manners. He did not speak, he did not smile. He waited on his boss, Don Corleone, with all the respect of a favorite earl waiting on his king; bringing him a cold drink, lighting his cigar, positioning his ashtray; with respect but no obsequiousness.
   Hagen was the only one in that room who knew the identity of the portraits hanging on the dark paneled walls. They were mostly portraits of fabulous financial figures done in rich oils. One was of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Hagen could not help thinking that Hamilton might have approved of this peace meeting being held in a banking institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money.
   The arrival time had been staggered for between nine-thirty to ten A.M. Don Corleone, in a sense the host since he had initiated the peace talks, had been the first to arrive; one of his many virtues was punctuality. The next to arrive was Carlo Tramonti, who had made the southern part of the United States his territory. He was an impressively handsome middle-aged man, tall for a Sicilian, with a very deep sunburn, exquisitely tailored and barbered. He did not look Italian, he looked more like one of those pictures in the magazines of millionaire fishermen lolling on their yachts. The Tramonti Family earned its livelihood from gambling, and no one meeting their Don would ever guess with what ferocity he had won his empire.
   Emigrating from Sicily as a small boy, he had settled in Florida and grown to manhood there, employed by the American syndicate of Southern small-town politicians who controlled gambling. These were very tough men backed up by very tough police officials and they never suspected that they could be overthrown by such a greenhorn immigrant. They were unprepared for his ferocity and could not match it simply because the rewards being fought over were not, to their minds, worth so much bloodshed. Tramonti won over the police with bigger shares of the gross; he exterminated those redneck hooligans who ran their operation with such a complete lack of imagination. It was Tramonti who opened ties with Cuba and the Batista regime and eventually poured money into the pleasure resorts of Havana gambling houses, whorehouses, to lure gamblers from the American mainland. Tramonti was now a millionaire many times over and owned one of the most luxurious hotels in Miami Beach.
   When he came into the conference room followed by his aide, an equally sunburned Consigliere, Tramonti embraced Don Corleone, made a face of sympathy to show he sorrowed for the dead son.
   Other Dons were arriving. They all knew each other, they had met over the years, either socially or when in the pursuit of their businesses. They had always showed each other professional courtesies and in their younger, leaner days had done each other little services. The second Don to arrive was Joseph Zaluchi from Detroit. The Zaluchi Family, under appropriate disguises and covers, owned one of the horse-racing tracks in the Detroit area. They also owned a good part of the gambling. Zaluchi was a moon-faced, amiable-looking man who lived in a one-hundred-thousand-dollar house in the fashionable Grosse Pointe section of Detroit. One of his sons had married into an old, well-known American family. Zaluchi, like Don Corleone, was sophisticated. Detroit had the lowest incidence of physical violence of any of the cities controlled by the Families; there had been only two execution in the last three years in that city. He disapproved of traffic in drugs.
   Zaluchi had brought his Consigliere with him and both men came to Don Corleone to embrace him. Zaluchi had a booming American voice with only the slightest trace of an scent. He was conservatively dressed, very businessman, and with a hearty goodwill to match. He said to Don Corleone, “Only your voice could have brought me here.” Don Corleone bowed his head in thanks. He could count on Zaluchi for support.
   The next two Dons to arrive were from the West Coast, motoring from there in the same car since they worked together closely in any case. They were Frank Falcone and Anthony Molinari and both were younger than any of the other men who would come to the meeting; in their early forties. They were dressed a little more informally than the others, there was a touch of Hollywood in their style and they were a little more friendly than necessary. Frank Falcone controlled the movie unions and the gambling at the studios plus a complex of pipeline prostitution that supplied girls to the whorehouses of the states in the Far West. It was not in the realm of possibility for any Don to become “show biz” but Falcone had just a touch. His fellow Dons distrusted him accordingly.
   Anthony Molinari controlled the waterfronts of San Francisco and was preeminent in the empire of sports gambling. He came of Italian fishermen stock and owned the best San Francisco sea food restaurant, in which he took such pride that the legend had it he lost money on the enterprise by giving too good value for the prices charged. He had the impassive face of the professional gambler and it was known that he also had something to do with dope smuggling over the Mexican border and from the ships plying the lanes of the oriental oceans. Their aides were young, powerfully built men, obviously not counselors but bodyguards, though they would not dare to carry arms to this meeting. It was general knowledge that these bodyguards knew karate, a fact that amused the other Dons but did not alarm them in the slightest, no more than if the California Dons had come wearing amulets blessed by the Pope. Though it must be noted that some of these men were religious and believed in God.
   Next arrived the representative from the Family in Boston. This was the only Don who did not have the respect of his fellows. He was known as a man who did not do right by his “people,” who cheated them unmercifully. This could be forgiven, each man measures his own greed. What could not be forgiven was that he could not keep order in his empire. The Boston area had too many murders, too many petty wars for power, too many unsupported free-lance activities; it flouted the law too brazenly. If the Chicago Mafia were savages, then the Boston people were gavones, or uncouth louts; ruffians. The Boston Don’s name was Domenick Panza. He was short, squat; as one Don put it, he looked like a thief.
   The Cleveland syndicate, perhaps the most powerful of the strictly gambling operations in the United States, was represented by a sensitive-looking elderly man with gaunt features and scow-white hair. He was known, of course not to his face, as “the Jew” because he had surrounded himself with Jewish assistants rather than Sicilians. It was even rumored that he would have named a Jew as his Consigliere if he had dared. In any case, as Don Corleone’s Family was known as the Irish Gang because of Hagen’s membership, so Don Vincent Forlenza’s Family was known as the Jewish Family with somewhat more accuracy. But he ran an extremely efficient organization and he was not known ever to have fainted at the sight of blood, despite his sensitive features. He ruled with an iron hand in a velvet political glove.
   The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than the out-of-towners, the hicks. For one thing, the five New York Dons were in the old Sicilian tradition, they were “men with a belly” meaning, figuratively, power and courage; and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded cheeks. They were not too well tailored or barbered; they had the look of no-nonsense busy men without vanity.
   There was Anthony Stracci, who controlled the New Jersey area and the shipping on the West Side docks of Manhattan. He ran the gambling in Jersey and was very strong with the Democratic political machine. He had a fleet of freight hauling trucks that made him a fortune primarily because his trucks could travel with a heavy overload and not be stopped and fined by highway weight inspectors. These trucks helped ruin the highways and then his roadbuilding firm, with lucrative state contracts, repaired the damage wrought. It was the kind of operation that would warm any man’s heart, business of itself creating more business. Stracci, too, was old-fashioned and never dealt in prostitution, but because his business was on the waterfront it was impossible for him not to be involved in the drug-smuggling traffic. Of the five New York Families opposing the Corleones his was the least powerful but the most well disposed.
   The Family that controlled upper New York State, that arranged smuggling of Italian immigrants from Canada, all upstate gambling and exercised veto power on state licensing of racing tracks, was headed by Ottilio Cuneo. This was a completely disarming man with the face of a jolly round peasant baker, whose legitimate activity was one of the big milk companies. Cuneo was one of those men who loved children and carried a pocket full of sweets in the hopes of being able to pleasure one of his many grandchildren or the small offspring of his associates. He wore a round fedora with the brim turned down all the way round like a woman’s sun hat, which broadened his already moon-shaped face into the very mask of joviality. He was one of the few Dons who had never been arrested and whose true activities had never even been suspected. So much so that he had served on civic committees and had been voted as “Businessman of the Year for the State of New York” by the Chamber of Commerce.
   The closest ally to the Tattaglia Family was Don Emilio Barzini. He had some of the gambling in Brooklyn and some in Queens. He had some prostitution. He had strong-arm. He completely controlled Staten Island. He had some of the sports betting in the Bronx and Westchester. He was in narcotics. He had close ties to Cleveland and the West Coast and he was one of the few men shrewd enough to be interested in Las Vegas and Reno, the open cities of Nevada. He also had interests in Miami Beach and Cuba. After the Corleone Family, his was perhaps the strongest in New York and therefore in the country. His influence reached even to Sicily. His hand was in every unlawful pie. He was even rumored to have a toehold in Wall Street. He had supported the Tattaglia Family with money and influence since the start of the war. It was his ambition to supplant Don Corleone as the most powerful and respected Mafia leader in the country and to take over part of the Corleone empire. He was a man much like Don Corleone, but more modern, more sophisticated, more businesslike. He could never be called an old Moustache Pete and he had the confidence of the newer, younger, brasher leaders on their way up. He was a man of great personal force in a cold way, with none of Don Corleone’s warmth and he was perhaps at this moment the most “respected” man in the group.
   The last to arrive was Don Phillip Tattaglia, the head of the Tattagfia Family that had directly challenged the Corleone power by supporting Sollozzo, and had so nearly succeeded. And yet curiously enough he was held in a slight contempt by the others. For one thing, it was known that he had allowed himself to be dominated by Sollozzo, had in fact been led by the nose by that fine Turkish hand. He was held responsible for all this commotion, this uproar that had so affected the conduct of everyday business by the New York Families. Also he was a sixty-year-old dandy and woman-chaser. And he had ample opportunity to indulge his weakness.
   For the Tattaglia Family dealt in women. Its main business was prostitution. It also controlled most of the nightclubs in the United States and could place any talent anywhere in the country. Phillip Tattaglia was not above using strong-arm to get control of promising singers and comics and muscling in on record firms. But prostitution was the main source of the Family income.
   His personality was unpleasant to these men. He was a whiner, always complaining of the costs in his Family business. Laundry bills, all those towels, ate up the profits (but he owned the laundry firm that did the work). The girls were lazy and unstable, running off, committing suicide. The pimps were treacherous and dishonest and without a shred of loyalty. Good help was hard to find. Young lads of Sicilian blood turned up their noses at such work, considered it beneath their honor to traffic and abuse women; those rascals who would slit a throat with a song on their lips and the cross of an Easter palm in the lapel of their jackets. So Phillip Tattaglia would rant on to audiences unsympathetic and contemptuous. His biggest howl was reserved for authorities who had it in their power to issue and cancel liquor licenses for his nightclubs and cabarets. He swore he had made more millionaires than Wall Street with the money he had paid those thieving guardians of official seals.
   In a curious way his almost victorious war against the Corleone Family had not won him the respect it deserved. They knew his strength had come first from Sollozzo and then from the Barzini Family. Also the fact that with the advantage of surprise he had not won complete victory was evidence against him. If he had been more efficient, all this trouble could have been avoided. The death of Don Corleone would have meant the end of the war.
   It was proper, since they had both lost sons in their war against each other, that Don Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia should acknowledge each other’s presence only with a formal nod. Don Corleone was the object of attention, the other men studying him to see what mark of weakness had been left on him by his wounds and defeats. The puzzling factor was why Don Corleone had sued for peace after the death of his favorite son. It was an acknowledgment of defeat and would almost surely lead to a lessening of his power. But they would soon know.
   There were greetings, there were drinks to be served and almost another half hour went by before Don Corleone took his seat at the polished walnut table. Unobtrusively, Hagen sat in the chair slightly to the Don’s left and behind him. This was the signal for the other Dons to make their way to the table. Their aides sat behind them, the Consiglieres up close so that they could offer any advice when needed.
   Don Corleone was the first to speak and he spoke as if nothing had happened. As if he had not been grievously wounded and his eldest son slain, his empire in a shambles, his personal family scattered, Freddie in the West and under the protection of the Molinari Family and Michael secreted in the wastelands of Sicily. He spoke naturally, in Sicilian dialect.
   “I want to thank you all for coming,” he said. “I consider it a service done to me personally and I am in the debt of each and every one of you. And so I will say at the beginning that I am here not to quarrel or convince, but only to reason and as a reasonable man do everything possible for us all to part friends here too. I give my word on that, and some of you who know me well know I do not give my word lightly. Ah, well, let’s get down to business.. We are all honorable men here, we don’t have to give each other assurances as if we were lawyers.”
   He paused. None of the others spoke. Some were smoking cigars, others sipping their drinks. All of these men were good listeners, patient men. They had one other thing in common. They were those rarities, men who had refused to accept the rule of organized society, men who refused the dominion of other men. There was no force, no mortal man who could bend them to their will unless they wished it. They were men who guarded their free will with wiles and murder. Their wills could be subverted only by death. Or the utmost reasonableness.
   Don Corleone sighed. “How did things ever go so far?” he asked rhetorically. “Well, no matter. A lot of foolishness has come to pass. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary. But let me tell what happened, as I see it.”
   He paused to see if someone would object to his telling his side of the story.
   “Thank God my health has been restored and maybe I can help set this affair aright. Perhaps my son was too rash, too headstrong, I don’t say no to that. Anyway let me just say that Sollozzo came to me with a business affair in which he asked me for my money and my influence. He said he had the interest of the Tattaglia Family. The affair involved drugs, in which I have no interest. I’m a quiet man and such endeavors are too lively for my taste. I explained this to Sollozzo, with all respect for him and the Tattaglia Family. I gave him my ‘no’ with all courtesy. I told him his business would not interfere with mine, that I had no objection to his earning his living in this fashion. He took it ill and brought misfortune down on all our heads. Well, that’s life. Everyone here could tell his own tale of sorrow. That’s not to my purpose.”
   Don Corleone paused and motioned to Hagen for a cold drink, which Hagen swiftly furnished him. Don Corleone wet his mouth. “I’m willing to make the peace,” he said. “Tattaglia has lost a son, I have lost a son. We are quits. What would the world come to if people kept carrying grudges against all reason? That has been the cross of Sicily, where men are so busy with vendettas they have no time to earn bread for their families. It’s foolishness. So I say now, let things be as they were before. I have not taken any steps to learn who betrayed and killed my son. Given peace, I will not do so. I have a son who cannot come home and I must receive assurances that when I arrange matters so that he can return safely that there will be no interference, no danger from the authorities. Once that’s settled maybe we can talk about other matters that interest us and do ourselves, all of us, a profitable service today.” Corleone gestured expressively, submissively, with his hands. “That is all I want.”
   It was very well done. It was the Don Corleone of old. Reasonable. Pliant. Soft-spoken. But every man there had noted that he had claimed good health, which meant he was a man not to be held cheaply despite the misfortunes of the Corleone Family. It was noted that he had said the discussion of other business was useless until the peace he asked for was given. It was noted that he had asked for the old status quo, that he would lose nothing despite his having got the worst of it over the past year.
   However, it was Emilio Barzini who answered Don Corleone, not Tattaglia. He was curt and to the point without being rude or insulting.
   “That is all true enough,” Barzini said. “But there’s a little more. Don Corleone is too modest. The fact is that Sollozzo and the Tattaglias could not go into their new business without the assistance of Don Corleone. In fact, his disapproval injured them. That’s not his fault of course. The fact remains that judges and politicians who would accept favors from Don Corleone, even on drugs, would not allow themselves to be influenced by anybody else when it came to narcotics. Sollozzo couldn’t operate if he didn’t have some insurance of his people being treated gently. We all know that. We would all be poor men otherwise. And now that they have increased the penalties the judges and the prosecuting attorneys drive a hard bargain when one of our people get in trouble with narcotics. Even a Sicilian sentenced to twenty years might break the omerta and talk his brains out. That can’t happen. Don Corleone controls all that apparatus. His refusal to let us use it is not the act of a friend. He takes the bread out of the mouths of our families. Times have changed, it’s not like the old days where everyone can go his own way. If Corleone had all the judges in New York, then he must share them or let us others use them. Certainly he can present a bill for such services, we’re not communists, after all. But he has to let us draw water from the well. It’s that simple.”
   When Barzini had finished talking there was a silence. The lines were now drawn, there could be no return to the old status quo. What was more important was that Barzini by speaking out was saying that if peace was not made he would openly join the Tattaglia in their war against the Corleone. And he had scored a telling point. Their lives and their fortunes depended upon their doing each other services, the denial of a favor asked by a friend was an act of aggression. Favors were not asked lightly and so could not be lightly refused.
   Don Corleone finally spoke to answer. “My friends,” he said, “I didn’t refuse out of spite. You all know me. When have I ever refused an accommodation? That’s simply not in my nature. But I had to refuse this time. Why? Because I think this drug business will destroy us in the years to come. There is too much strong feeling about such traffic in this country. It’s not like whiskey or gambling or even women which most people want and is forbidden them by the pezzonovante of the church and the government. But drugs are dangerous for everyone connected with them. It could jeopardize all other business. And let me say I’m flattered by the belief that I am so powerful with the judges and law officials, I wish it were true. I do have some influence but many of the people who respect my counsel might lose this respect if drugs become involved in our relationship. They are afraid to be involved in such business and they have strong feelings about it. Even policemen who help us in gambling and other things would refuse to help us in drugs. So to ask me to perform a service in these matters is to ask me to do a disservice to myself. But I’m willing to do even that if all of you think it proper in order to adjust other matters.”
   When Don Corleone had finished speaking the room became much more relaxed with more whisperings and cross talk. He had conceded the important point. He would offer his protection to any organized business venture in drugs. He was, in effect, agreeing almost entirely to Sollozzo’s original proposal if that proposal was endorsed by the national group gathered here. It was understood that he would never participate in the operational phase, nor would he invest his money. He would merely use his protective influence with the legal apparatus. But this was a formidable concession.
   The Don of Los Angeles, Frank Falcone, spoke to answer. “There’s no way of stopping our people from going into that business..They go in on their own and they get is trouble. There’s too much money in it to resist. So it’s more dangerous if we don’t go in. At least if we control it we can cover it better, organize it better, make sure it causes less trouble. Being in it is not so bad, there has to be control, there has to be protection, there has to be organization, we can’t have everybody running around doing just what they please like a bunch of anarchists.”
   The Don of Detroit, more friendly to Corleone than any of the others, also now spoke against his friend’s position, in the interest of reasonableness. “I don’t believe in drugs,” he said. “For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn’t do that kind of business. But it didn’t matter, it didn’t help. Somebody comes to them and says, ‘I have powders, if you put up the three-, four-thousand-dollar investment we can make fifty thousand distributing.’ Who can resist such a profit? And they are so busy with their little side business they neglect the work I pay them to do. There’s more money in drugs. It’s getting bigger all the time. There’s no way to stop it so we have to control the business and keep it respectable. I don’t want any of it near schools, I don’t want any of it sold to children. That is an infamita. In my city I would try to keep the traffic in the dark people, the colored. They are the best customers, the least troublesome and they are animals anyway. They have no respect for their wives or their families or for themselves. Let them lose their souls with drugs. But something has to be done, we just can’t let people do as they please and make trouble for everyone.”
   This speech of the Detroit Don was received with loud murmurs of approval. He had hit the nail on the head. You couldn’t even pay people to stay out of the drug traffic. As for his remarks about children, that was his well-known sensibility, his tenderheartedness speaking. After all, who would sell drugs to children? Where would children get the money? As for his remarks about the coloreds, that was not even heard. The Negroes were considered of absolutely no account, of no force whatsoever. That they had allowed society to grind them into the dust proved them of no account and his mentioning them in any way proved that the Don of Detroit had a mind that always wavered toward irrelevancies.
   All the Dons spoke. Ail of them deplored the traffic in drugs as a bad thing that would cause trouble but agreed there was no way to control it. There was, simply, too much money to be made in the business, therefore it followed that there would be men who would dare anything to dabble in it. That was human nature.
   It was finally agreed. Drug traffic would be permitted and Don Corleone must give it some legal protection in the East. It was understood that the Barzini and Tattaglia Families would do most of the large-scale operations. With this out of the way the conference was able to move on to other matters of a wider interest. There were many complex problems to be solved. It was agreed that Las Vegas and Miami were to be open cities where any of the Families could operate. They all recognized that these were the cities of the future. It was also agreed that no violence would be permitted in these cities and that petty criminals of all types were to be discouraged. It was agreed that in momentous affairs, in executions that were necessary but might cause too much of a public outcry, the execution must be approved by this council. It was agreed that button men and other soldiers were to be restrained from violent crimes and acts of vengeance against each other on personal matters. It was agreed that Families would do each other services when requested, such as providing executioners, technical assistance in pursuing certain courses of action such as bribing jurors, which in some instances could be vital. These discussions, informal, colloquial and on a high level, took time and were broken by lunch and drinks from the buffet bar.
   Finally Don Barzini sought to bring the meeting to an end. “That’s the whole matter then,” he said. “We have the peace and let me pay my respects to Don Corleone, whom we all have known over the years as a man of his word. If there are any more differences we can meet again, we need not become foolish again. On my part the road is new and fresh. I’m glad this is all settled.”
   Only Phillip Tattaglia was a little worried still. The murder of Santino Corleone made him the most vulnerable person in this group if war broke out again. He spoke at length for the first time.
   “I’ve agreed to everything here, I’m willing to forget my own misfortune. But I would like to hear some strict assurances from Corleone. Will he attempt any individual vengeance? When time goes by and his position perhaps becomes stronger, will he forget that we have sworn our friendship? How am I to know that in three or four years he won’t feel that he’s been ill served, forced against his will to this agreement and so free to break it? Will we have to guard against each other all the time? Or can we truly go in peace with peace of mind? Would Corleone give us all his assurances as I now give mine?”
   It was then that Don Corleone gave the speech that would be long remembered, and that reaffirmed his position as the most far-seeing statesman among them, so full of common sense, so direct from the heart; and to the heart of the matter. In it he coined a phrase that was to become as famous in its way as Churchill’s Iron Curtain, though not public knowledge until more than ten years later.
   For the first time he stood up to address the council. He was short and a little thin from his “illness,” perhaps his sixty years showed a bit more but there was no question that he had regained all his former strength, and had all his wits.
   “What manner of men are we then, if we do not have our reason,” he said. “We are all no better than beasts in a jungle if that were the case. But we have reason, we can reason with each other and we can reason with ourselves. To what purpose would I start all these troubles again, the violence and the turmoil? My son is dead and that is a misfortune and I must bear it, not make the innocent world around me suffer with me. And so I say, I give my honor, that I will never seek vengeance, I will never seek knowledge of the deeds that have been done in the past. I will leave here with a pure heart.
   “Let me say that we must always look to our interests. We are all men who have refused to be fools, who have refused to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by the men on high. We have been fortunate here in this country. Already most of our children have found a better life. Some of you have sons who are professors, scientists, musicians, and you are fortunate. Perhaps your grandchildren will become the new pezzonovanti. None of us here want to see our children follow in our footsteps, it’s too hard a life. They can be as others, their position and security won by our courage. I have grandchildren now and I hope their children may someday, who knows, be a governor, a President, nothing’s impossible herein America. But we have to progress with the times. The time is past for guns and killings and massacres. We have to be cxmning like the business people, there’s more money in it and it’s better for our children and our grandchildren.
   “As for our own deeds, we are not responsible to the.90 calibers the pezzonovantis who take it upon themselves to decide what we shall do with our lives, who declare wars they wish us to fight in to protect what they own. Who is to say we should obey the laws they make for their own interest and to our hurt? And who are they then to meddle when we look after our own interests? Sonna coca nostra,” Don Corleone said, “these are our own affairs. We will manage our world for ourselves because it is our world, cosa nostra. And so we have to stick together to guard against outside meddlers. Otherwise they will put the ring in our nose as they have put the ring in the nose of all the millions of Neapolitans and other Italians in this country.
   “For this reason I forgo my vengeance for my dead son, for the common good. I swear now that as long as I am responsible for the actions of my Family there will not be one finger lifted against any man here without just cause and utmost provocation. I am willing to sacrifice my commercial interests for the common good. This is my word, this is my honor, there are those of you here who know I have never betrayed either.
   “But I have a selfish interest. My youngest son had to flee, accused of Sollozzo’s murder and that of a police captain. I must now make arrangements so that he can come home with safety, cleared of all those false charges. That is my affair and I will make those arrangements. I must find the real culprits perhaps, or perhaps I must convince the authorities of his innocence, perhaps the witnesses and informants will recant their lies. But again I say that this is my affair and I believe I will be able to bring my son home.
   “But let me say this. I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous failing but I must confess it here. And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself in his cell, if new witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the result of the ill will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here. If his plane show fall into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill will, that bad luck, I could never forgive. But aside from that let me swear by the souls of my grandchildren that I will never break the peace we have made. After all, are we or are we not better men than those pezzonovanti who have killed countless millions of men in our lifetimes?”
   With this Don Corleone stepped from his place and went down the table to where Don Phillip Tattaglia was sitting. Tattaglia rose to greet him and the two men embraced, kissing each other’s cheeks. The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.
   Since his son Freddie was under the protection of the Molinari Family in the West, Don Corleone lingered with the San Francisco Don after the meeting to thank him. Molinari said enough for Don Corleone to gather that Freddie had found his niche out there, was happy and had become something of a ladies’ man. He had a genius for running a hotel, it seemed. Don Corleone shook his head in wonder, as many fathers do when told of undreamed-of talents in their children. Wasn’t it true that sometimes the greatest misfortunes brought unforeseen rewards? They both agreed that this was so. Meanwhile Corleone made it clear to the San Francisco Don that he was in his debt for the great service done in protecting Freddie. He let it be known that his influence would be exerted so that the important racing wires would always be available to his people no matter what changes occurred in the power structure in the years to come, an important guarantee since the struggle over this facility was a constant open wound complicated by the fact that the Chicago people had their heavy hand in it. But Don Corleone was not without influence even in that land of barbarians and so his promise was a gift of gold.
   It was evening before Don Corleone, Tom Hagen and the bodyguard-chauffeur, who happened to be Rocco Lampone, arrived at the mall in Long Beach. When they went into the house the Don said to Hagen, “Our driver, that man Lampone, keep an eye on him. He’s a fellow worth something better I think.” Hagen wondered at this remark. Lampone had not said a word all day, had not even glanced at the two men in the back seat. He had opened the door for the Don, the car had been in front of the bank when they emerged, he had done everything correctly but no more than any well-trained chauffeur might do. Evidently the Don’s eye had seen something he had not seen.
   The Don dismissed Hagen and told him to come back to the house after supper. But to take his time and rest a little since they would put in a long night of discussion. He also told Hagen to have Clemenza and Tessio present. They should come at ten P.M., not before. Hagen was to brief Clemenza and Tessio on what had happened at the meeting that afternoon.
   At ten the Don was waiting for the three men in his office, the corner room of the house with its law library and special phone. There was a tray with whiskey bottles, ice and soda water. The Don gave his instructions.
   “We made the peace this afternoon,” he said. “I gave my word and my honor and that should be enough for all of you. But our friends are not so trustworthy so let’s all be on our guard still. We don’t want any more nasty little surprises.” Then Don turned to Hagen. “You’ve let the Bocchicchio hostages go?”
   Hagen nodded. “I called Clemenza as soon as I got home.”
   Corleone turned to the massive Clemenza. The caporegime nodded. “I released them. Tell me, Godfather, is it possible for a Sicilian to be as dumb as the Bocchicchios pretend to be?”
   Don Corleone smiled a little. “They are clever enough to make a good living. Why is it so necessary to be more clever than that? It’s not the Bocchicchios who cause the troubles of this world. But it’s true, they haven’t got the Sicilian head.”
   They were all in a relaxed mood, now that the war was over. Don Corleone himself mixed drinks and brought one to each man. The Don sipped his carefully and lit up a cigar.
   “I want nothing set forth to discover what happened to Sonny, that’s done with and to be forgotten. I want all cooperation with the other Families even if they become a little greedy and we don’t get our proper share in this. I want nothing to break this peace no matter what the provocation until we’ve found a way to bring Michael home. And I want that to be first thing on your minds. Remember this, when he comes back he must come back in absolute safety. I don’t mean from the Tattaglias or the Barzinis. What I’m concerned about are the police. Sure, we can get rid of the real evidence against him; that waiter won’t testify, nor that spectator or gunman or whatever he was. The real evidence is the least of our worries since we know about it. What we have to worry about is the police framing false evidence because their informers have assured them that Michael Corleone is the man who killed their captain. Very well. We have to demand that the Five Families do everything in their power to correct this belief of the police. All their informers who work with the police must come up with new stories. I think after my speech this afternoon they will understand it is to their interest to do so. But that’s not enough. We have to come up with something special so Michael won’t ever have to worry about that again. Otherwise there’s no point in him coming back to this country. So let’s all think about that. That’s the most importunt matter.
   “Now, any man should be allowed one foolishness in his life. I have had mine. I want all the land around the mall bought, the houses bought. I don’t want any man able to look out his window into my garden even if it’s a mile away. I want a fence around the mall and I want the mall to be on full protection all the time. I want a gate in that fence. In short, I wish now to live in a fortress. Let me say to you now that I will never go into the city to work again. I will be semiretired. I feel an urge to work in the garden, to make a little wine when the grapes are in season. I want to live in my house. The only time I’ll leave is to go on a little vacation or to see someone on important business and then I want all precautions taken. Now don’t take this amiss. I’m not preparing anything. I’m being prudent, I’ve always been a prudent man, there is nothing I find so little to my taste as carelessness in life. Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot. Be leisurely in all these things, no frantic preparations to alarm our friends. It can be done in such a way as to seem natural.
   “Now I’m going to leave things more and more up to each of you three. I want the Santino regime disbanded and the men placed in your regimes. That should reassure our friends and show that I mean peace. Tom, I want you to put together a group of men who will go to Las Vegas and give me a full report on what is going on out there. Tell me about Fredo, what is really happening out there, I hear I wouldn’t recognize my own son. It seems he’s a cook now, that be amuses himself with young girls more than a grown man should. Well, he was always too serious when he was young and he was never the man for Family business. But let’s find out what really can be done out there.”
   Hagen said quietly, “Should we send your son-in-law? After all, Carlo is a native of Nevada, he knows his way around.”
   Don Corleone shook his head. “No, my wife is lonely here without any of her children. I want Constanzia and her husband moved into one of the houses on the mall. I want Carlo given a responsible job, maybe I’ve been too harsh on him, and”– Don Corleone made a grimace– “I’m short of sons. Take him out of the gambling and put him in with the unions where he can do some paper work and a lot of talking. He’s a good talker.” There was the tiniest note of contempt in the Don’s voice.
   Hagen nodded. “OK, Clemenza and I will go over all the people and put together a group to do the Vegas job. Do you want me to call Freddie home for a few days?”
   The Don shook his head. He said cruelly, “What for? My wife can still cook our meals. Let him stay out there.” The three men shifted uneasily in their seats. They had not realized Freddie was in such severe disfavor with his father and they suspected it must be because of something they did not know.
   Don Corleone sighed. “I hope to grow some good green peppers and tomatoes in the garden this year, more than we can eat. I’ll make you presents of them. I want a little peace, a little quiet and tranquillity for my old age. Well, that’s all. Have another drink if you like.”
   It was a dismissal. The men rose. Hagen accompanied Clemenza and Tessio to their cars and arranged meetings with them to thrash out the operational details that would accomplish the stated desires of their Don. Then he went back into the house where he knew Don Conrleone world be waiting for him.
   The Don had taken off his jacket and tie and was lying down on the couch. His stern face was relaxed into lines of fatigue. He waved Hagen into a chair and said, “Well, Consigliere, do you disapprove of any of my deeds today?”
   Hagen took his time answering. “No,” he said. “But I don’t find it consistent, nor true to your nature. You say you don’t want to find out how Santino was killed or want vengeance for it. I don’t believe that. You gave your word for peace and so you’ll keep the peace but I can’t believe you will give your enemies the victory they seem to have won today. You’ve constructed a magnificent riddle that I can’t solve, so how can I approve or disapprove?”
   A look of content came over the Don’s face. “Well, you know me better than anyone else. Even though you’re not a Sicilian, I made you one. Everything you say is true, but there’s a solution and you’ll comprehend it before it spins out to the end. You agree everyone has to take my word and I’ll keep my word. And I want my orders obeyed exactly. But, Tom, the most important thing is we have to get Michael home as soon as possible. Make that first in your mind and in your work. Explore all the legal alleys, I don’t care how much money you have to spend. It has to be foolproof when he comes home. Consult the best lawyers on criminal law. I’ll give you the names of some judges who will give you a private audience. Until that time we have to guard against all treacheries.”
   Hagen said, “Like you, I’m not worried so much about the real evidence as the evidence they will manufacture. Also some police friend may kill Michael after he’s arrested. They may kill him in his cell or have one of the prisoners do it. As I see it, we can’t even afford to have him arrested or accused.”
   Don Corleone sighed. “I know, I know. That’s the difficulty. But we can’t take too long. There are troubles in Sicily. The young fellows over there don’t listen to their elders anymore and a lot of the men deported from America are just too much for the old-fashioned Dons to handle. Michael could get caught in between. I’ve taken some precautions against that and he’s still got a good cover but that cover won’t last forever. That’s one of the reasons I had to make the peace. Barzini has friends in Sicily and they were beginning to sniff Michael’s trail. That gives you one of the answers to your riddle. I had to make the peace to insure my son’s safety. There was nothing else to do.”
   Hagen didn’t bother asking the Don how he had gotten this information. He was not even surprised, and it was true that this solved part of the riddle. “When I meet with Tattaglia’s people to firm up the details, should I insist that all his drug middlemen be clean? The judges will be a little skittish about giving light sentences to a man with a record.”
   Don Corleone shrugged. “They should be smart enough to figure that out themselves. Mention it, don’t insist. We’ll do our best but if they use a real snowbird and he gets caught, we won’t lift a finger. We’ll just tell them nothing can be done. But Barzini is a man who will know that without being told. You notice how he never committed himself in this affair. One might never have known he was in any way concerned. That is a man who doesn’t get caught on the losing side.”
   Hagen was startled. “You mean he was behind Sollozzo and Tattaglia all the time?”
   Don Corleone sighed. “Tattaglia is a pimp. He could never have outfought Santino. That’s why I don’t have to know about what happened. It’s enough to know that Barzini had a hand in it.”
   Hagen let this sink in. The Don was giving him clues but there was something very important left out. Hagen knew what it was but he knew it was not his place to ask. He said good night and turned to go. The Don had a last word for him.
   “Remember, use all your wits for a plan to bring Michael home.” the Don said. “And one other thing. Arrange with the telephone man so that every month I get a list of all the telephone calls, made and received, by Clemenza and Tessio. I suspect them of nothing. I would swear they would never betray me. But there’s no harm in knowing any little thing that may help us before the event.”
   Hagen nodded and went out. He wondered if the Don was keeping a check on him also in some way and then was ashamed of his suspicion. But now he was sure that in the subtle and complex mind of the Godfather a far-ranging plan of action was being initiated that made the day’s happenings no more than a tactical retreat. And there was that one dark fact that no one mentioned, that he himself had not dared to ask, that Don Corleone ignored. All pointed to a day of reckoning in the future.
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