THE GODFATHER
By
Mario Puzo
Courtesy:
Shahid Riaz
Islamabad - Pakistan
shahid.riaz@gmail.com
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Book One
Chapter 1
Behind every great fortune there
is a crime – Balzac
Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and
waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter,
who had tried to dishonor her.
The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the
sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men
standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there
was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet
understand.
“You acted like the worst kind of degenerates,” the judge
said harshly. Yes, yes, thought Amerigo Bonasera. Animals. Animals. The two
young men, glossy hair crew cut, scrubbed clean-cut faces composed into humble
contrition, bowed their heads in submission.
The judge went on. “You acted like wild beasts in a jungle
and you are fortunate you did not sexually molest that poor girl or I’d put you
behind bars for twenty years.” The judge paused, his eyes beneath impressively
thick brows flickered slyly toward the sallow-faced Amerigo Bonasera, then lowered
to a stack of probation reports before him. He frowned and shrugged as if
convinced against his own natural desire. He spoke again.
“But because of your youth, your clean records, because of
your fine families, and because the law in its majesty does not seek vengeance,
I hereby sentence you to three years’ confinement to the penitentiary. Sentence
to be suspended.”
Only forty years of professional mourning kept the
overwhelming frustration and hatred from showing on Amerigo Bonasera’s face.
His beautiful young daughter was still in the hospital with her broken jaw
wired together; and now these two animales went free? It had all been a farce.
He watched the happy parents cluster around their darling sons. Oh, they were
all happy now, they were smiling now.
The black bile, sourly bitter, rose in Bonasera’s throat,
overflowed through tightly clenched teeth. He used his white linen pocket
handkerchief and held it against his lips. He was standing so when the two
young men strode freely up the aisle, confident and cool-eyed, smiling, not
giving him so much as a glance. He let them pass without saying
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a word, pressing the fresh linen
against his mouth.
The parents of the animales were coming by now, two men and
two women his age but more American in their dress. They glanced at him,
shamefaced, yet in their eyes was an odd, triumphant defiance.
Out of control, Bonasera leaned forward toward the aisle and
shouted hoarsely, “You will weep as I have wept– I will make you weep as your
children make me weep”– the linen at his eyes now. The defense attorneys
bringing up the rear swept their clients forward in a tight little band,
enveloping the two young men, who had started back down the aisle as if to
protect their parents. A huge bailiff moved quickly to block the row in which
Bonasera stood. But it was not necessary.
All his years in America, Amerigo Bonasera had trusted in
law and order. And he had prospered thereby. Now, though his brain smoked with
hatred, though wild visions of buying a gun and killing the two young men
jangled the very bones of his skull, Bonasera turned to his still
uncomprehending wife and explained to her, “They have made fools of us.” He
paused and then made his decision, no longer fearing the cost. “For justice we
must go on our knees to Don Corleone.”
* * *
In a garishly decorated Los Angeles hotel suite, Johnny
Fontane was as jealously drunk as any ordinary husband. Sprawled on a red
couch, he drank straight from the bottle of scotch in his hand, then washed the
taste away by dunking his mouth in a crystal bucket of ice cubes and water. It
was four in the morning and he was spinning drunken fantasies of murdering his
trampy wife when she got home. If she ever did come home. It was too late to
call his first wife and ask about the kids and he felt funny about calling any
of his friends now that his career was plunging downhill. There had been a time
when they would have been delighted, flattered by his calling them at four in
the morning but now he bored them. He could even smile a little to himself as
he thought that on the way up Johnny Fontane’s troubles had fascinated some of
the greatest female stars in America.
Gulping at his bottle of scotch, he heard finally his wife’s
key in the door, but he kept drinking until she walked into the room and stood
before him. She was to him so very beautiful, the angelic face, soulful violet
eyes, the delicately fragile but perfectly formed body. On the screen her
beauty was magnified, spiritualized. A hundred million men all over the world
were in love with the face of Margot Ashton. And paid to see it on the
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screen.
“Where the hell were you?” Johnny
Fontane asked.
“Out fucking,” she said.
She had misjudged his drunkenness. He sprang over the
cocktail table and grabbed her by the throat. But close up to that magical
face, the lovely violet eyes, he lost his anger and became helpless again. She
made the mistake of smiling mockingly, saw his fist draw back. She screamed,
“Johnny, not in the face, I’m making a picture.”
She was laughing. He punched her in the stomach and she fell
to the floor. He fell on top of her. He could smell her fragrant breath as she
gasped for air. He punched her on the arms and on the thigh muscles of her
silky tanned legs. He beat her as he had beaten snotty smaller kids long ago
when he had been a tough teenager in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. A painful
punishment that would leave no lasting disfigurement of loosened teeth or
broken nose.
But he was not hitting her hard enough. He couldn’t. And she
was giggling at him. Spread-eagled on the floor, her brocaded gown hitched up
above her thighs, she taunted him between giggles. “Come on, stick it in. Stick
it in, Johnny, that’s what you really want.”
Johnny Fontane got up. He hated the woman on the floor but
her beauty was a magic shield. Margot rolled away, and in a dancer’s spring was
on her feet facing him. She went into a childish mocking dance and chanted,
“Johnny never hurt me, Johnny never hurt me.” Then almost sadly with grave
beauty she said, “You poor silly bastard, giving me cramps like a kid. Ah,
Johnny, you always will be a dumb romantic guinea, you even make love like a
kid. You still think screwing is really like those dopey songs you used to
sing.” She shook her head and said, “Poor Johnny. Goodbye, Johnny.” She walked
into the bedroom and he heard her turn the key in the lock.
Johnny sat on the floor with his face in his hands. The
sick, humiliating despair overwhelmed him. And then the gutter toughness that
had helped him survive the jungle of Hollywood made him pick up the phone and
call for a car to take him to the airport. There was one person who could save
him. He would go back to New York. He would go back to the one man with the
power, the wisdom he needed and a love he still trusted. His Godfather
Corleone.
* * *
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The baker, Nazorine, pudgy and crusty as his great Italian
loaves, still dusty with flour, scowled at his wife, his nubile daughter,
Katherine, and his baker’s helper, Enzo. Enzo had changed into his
prisoner-of-war uniform with its green-lettered armband and was terrified that
this scene would make him late reporting back to Governor’s Island. One of the
many thousands of Italian Army prisoners paroled daily to work in the American
economy, he lived in constant fear of that parole being revoked. And so the
little comedy being played now was, for him, a serious business.
Nazorine asked fiercely, “Have you dishonored my family?
Have you given my daughter a little package to remember you by now that the war
is over and you know America will kick your ass back to your village full of
shit in Sicily?”
Enzo, a very short, strongly built boy, put his hand over
his heart and said almost in tears, yet cleverly, “Padrone, I swear by the Holy
Virgin I have never taken advantage of your kindness. I love your daughter with
all respect. I ask for her hand with all respect. I know I have no right, but
if they send me back to Italy I can never come back to America. I will never be
able to marry Katherine.”
Nazorine’s wife, Filomena, spoke to the point. “Stop all
this foolishness,” she said to her pudgy husband. “You know what you must do.
Keep Enzo here, send him to hide with our cousins in Long Island.”
Katherine was weeping. She was already plump, homely and
sprouting a faint moustache. She would never get a husband as handsome as Enzo,
never find another man who touched her body in secret places with such
respectful love. “I’ll go and live in Italy,” she screamed at her father. “I’ll
run away if you don’t keep Enzo here.”
Nazorine glanced at her shrewdly. She was a “hot number”
this daughter of his. He had seen her brush her swelling buttocks against
Enzo’s front when the baker’s helper squeezed behind her to fill the counter
baskets with hot loaves from the oven. The young rascal’s hot loaf would be in
her oven, Nazorine thought lewdly, if proper steps were not taken. Enzo must be
kept in America and be made an American citizen. And there was only one man who
could arrange such an affair. The Godfather. Don Corleone.
* * *
All of these people and many others received engraved
invitations to the wedding of Miss Constanzia Corleone, to be celebrated on the
last Saturday in August 1945. The father of the bride, Don Vito Corleone, never
forgot his old friends and neighbors though
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he himself now lived in a huge house on Long Island. The
reception would be held in that house and the festivities would go on all day.
There was no doubt it would be a momentous occasion. The war with the Japanese
had just ended so there would not be any nagging fear for their sons fighting
in the Army to cloud these festivities. A wedding was just what people needed to
show their joy.
And so on that Saturday morning the friends of Don Corleone
streamed out of New York City to do him honor. They bore cream-colored
envelopes stuffed with cash as bridal gifts, no checks. Inside each envelope a
card established the identity of the giver and the measure of his respect for
the Godfather. A respect truly earned.
Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody came for help,
and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promises, nor the craven
excuse that his hands were tied by more powerful forces in the world than
himself. It was not necessary that he be your friend, it was not even important
that you had no means with which to repay him. Only one thing was required.
That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor
or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man’s troubles to his
heart. And he would let nothing stand in the way to a solution of that man’s
woe. His reward? Friendship, the respectful title of “Don,” and sometimes the
more affectionate salutation of “Godfather.” And perhaps, to show respect only,
never for profit, some humble gift– a gallon of homemade wine or a basket of
peppered taralles– specially baked to grace his Christmas table. It was
understood, it was mere good manners, to proclaim that you were in his debt and
that he had the right to call upon you at any time to redeem your debt by some
small service.
Now on this great day, his daughter’s wedding day, Don Vito
Corleone stood in the doorway of his Long Beach home to greet his guests, all
of them known, all of them trusted. Many of them owed their good fortune in
life to the Don and on this intimate occasion felt free to call him “Godfather”
to his face. Even the people performing festal services were his friends. The
bartender was an old comrade whose gift was all the wedding liquors and his own
expert skills. The waiters were the friends of Don Corleone’s sons. The food on
the garden picnic tables had been cooked by the Don’s wife and her friends and
the gaily festooned one-acre garden itself had been decorated by the young
girl–chums of the bride.
Don Corleone received everyone– rich and poor, powerful and
humble– with an equal show of love. He slighted no one. That was his character.
And the guests so exclaimed at how well he looked in his tux that an
inexperienced observer might easily have
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thought the Don himself was the lucky
groom.
Standing at the door with him were two of his three sons.
The eldest, baptized Santino but called Sonny by everyone except his father,
was looked at askance by the older Italian men; with admiration by the younger.
Sonny Corleone was tall for a first-generation American of Italian parentage,
almost six feet, and his crop of bushy, curly hair made him look even taller.
His face was that of a gross Cupid, the features even but the bow-shaped lips
thickly sensual, the dimpled cleft chin in some curious way obscene. He was
built as powerfully as a bull and it was common knowledge that he was so
generously endowed by nature that his martyred wife feared the marriage bed as
unbelievers once feared the rack. It was whispered that when as a youth he had
visited houses of ill fame, even the most hardened and fearless putain, after
an awed inspection of his massive organ, demanded double price.
Here at the wedding feast, some young matrons, wide-hipped,
wide-mouthed, measured Sonny Corleone with coolly confident eyes. But on this
particular day they were wasting their time. Sonny Corleone, despite the
presence of his wife and three small children, had plans for his sister’s maid
of honor, Lucy Mancini. This young girl, fully aware, sat at a garden table in
her pink formal gown, a tiara of flowers in her glossy black hair. She had
flirted with Sonny in the past week of rehearsals and squeezed his hand that
morning at the altar. A maiden could do no more.
She did not care that he would never be the great man his
father had proved to be. Sonny Corleone had strength, he had courage. He was
generous and his heart was admitted to be as big as his organ. Yet he did not
have his father’s humility but instead a quick, hot temper that led him into
errors of judgment. Though he was a great help in his father’s business, there
were many who doubted that he would become the heir to it.
The second son, Frederico, called Fred or Fredo,was a child
every Italian prayed to the saints for. Dutiful, loyal, always at the service
of his father, living with his parents at age thirty. He was short and burly,
not handsome but with the same Cupid head of the family, the curly helmet of
hair over the round face and sensual bow-shaped lips. Only, in Fred, these lips
were not sensual but granitelike. Inclined to dourness, he was still a crutch
to his father, never disputed him, never embarrassed him by scandalous behavior
with women. Despite all these virtues he did not have that personal magnetism,
that animal force, so necessary for a leader of men, and he too was not
expected to inherit the family business.
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The third son, Michael Corleone, did not stand with his
father and his two brothers but sat at a table in the most secluded corner of
the garden. But even there he could not escape the attentions of the family
friends.
Michael Corleone was the youngest son of the Don and the
only child who had refused the great man’s direction. He did not have the
heavy, Cupid-shaped face of the other children, and his jet black hair was
straight rather than curly. His skin was a clear olive-brown that would have
been called beautiful in a girl. He was handsome in a delicate way. Indeed
there had been a time whey the Don had worried about his youngest son’s
masculinity. A worry that was put to rest when Michael Corleone became
seventeen years old.
Now this youngest son sat at a table in the extreme corner
of the garden to proclaim his chosen alienation from father and family. Beside
him sat the American girl everyone had heard about but whom no one had seen
until this day. He had, of course, shown the proper respect and introduced her
to everyone at the wedding, including his family. They were not impressed with
her. She was too thin, she was too fair, her face was too sharply intelligent
for a woman, her manner too free for a maiden. Her name, too, was outlandish to
their ears; she called herself Kay Adams. If she had told them that her family
had settled in America two hundred years ago and her name was a common one,
they would have shrugged.
Every guest noticed that the Don paid no particular attention
to this third son. Michael had been his favorite before the war and obviously
the chosen heir to run the family business when the proper moment came. He had
all the quiet force and intelligence of his great father, the born instinct to
act in such a way that men had no recourse but to respect him. But when World
War II broke out, Michael Corleone volunteered for the Marine Corps. He defied
his father’s express command when he did so.
Don Corleone had no desire, no intention, of letting his
youngest son be killed in the service of a power foreign to himself. Doctors
had been bribed, secret arrangements had been made. A great deal of money had
been spent to take the proper precautions. But Michael was twenty-one years of
age and nothing could be done against his own willfulness. He enlisted and
fought over the Pacific Ocean. He became a Captain and won medals. In 1944 his
picture was printed in Life magazine with a photo layout of his deeds. A friend
had shown Don Corleone the magazine (his family did not dare), and the Don had
grunted disdainfully and said, “He performs those miracles for strangers.”
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When Michael Corleone was discharged early in 1945 to
recover from a disabling wound, he had no idea that his father had arranged his
release. He stayed home for a few weeks, then, without consulting anyone,
entered Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and so he left his
father’s house. To return for the wedding of his sister and to show his own
future wife to them, the washed-out rag of an American girl.
Michael Corleone was amusing Kay Adams by telling her little
stories about some of the more colorful wedding guests. He was, in turn, amused
by her finding these people exotic, and, as always, charmed by her intense
interest in anything new and foreign to her experience. Finally her attention
was caught by a small group of men gathered around a wooden barrel of homemade
wine. The men were Amerigo Bonasera, Nazorine the Baker, Anthony Coppola and
Luca Brasi. With her usual alert intelligence she remarked on the fact that
these four men did not seem particularly happy. Michael smiled. “No, they’re
not,” he said. “They’re waiting to see my father in private. They have favors
to ask.” And indeed it was easy to see that all four men constantly followed
the Don with their eyes.
As Don Corleone stood greeting guests, a black Chevrolet
sedan came to a stop on the far side of the paved mall. Two men in the front
seat pulled notebooks from their jackets and, with no attempt at concealment,
jotted down license numbers of the other cars parked around the mall. Sonny
turned to his father and said, “Those guys over there must be cops.”
Don Corleone shrugged. “I don’t own the
street. They can do what they please.”
Sonny’s heavy Cupid face grew red with anger. “Those lousy
bastards, they don’t respect anything.” He left the steps of the house and
walked across the mall to where the black sedan was parked. He thrust his face
angrily close to the face of the driver, who did not flinch but flapped open
his wallet to show a green identification card. Sonny stepped back without
saying a word. He spat so that the spittle hit the back door of the sedan and
walked away. He was hoping the driver would get out of the sedan and come after
him, on the mall, but nothing happened. When he reached the steps he said to
his father, “Those guys are FBI men. They’re taking down all the license
numbers. Snotty bastards.”
Don Corleone knew who they were. His closest and most
intimate friends had been advised to attend the wedding in automobiles not
their own. And though he disapproved of his son’s foolish display of anger, the
tantrum served a purpose. It would convince the
interlopers that their presence was unexpected and
unprepared for. So Don Corleone himself was not angry. He had long ago learned
that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge
that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps
his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful. It was this knowledge
that prevented the Don from losing the humility all his friends admired in him.
But now in the garden, behind the house, a four-piece band
began to play. All the guests had arrived. Don Corleone put the intruders out
of his mind and led his two sons to the wedding feast.
* * *
There were, now, hundreds of guests in the huge garden, some
dancing on the wooden platform bedecked with flowers, others sitting at long
tables piled high with spicy food and gallon jugs of black, homemade wine. The
bride, Connie Corleone, sat in splendor at a special raised table with her
groom, the maid of honor, bridesmaids and ushers. It was a rustic setting in
the old Italian style. Not to the bride’s taste, but Connie had consented to a
“guinea” wedding to please her father because she had so displeased him in her
choice of a husband.
The groom, Carlo Rizzi, was a half-breed, born of a Sicilian
father and the North Italian mother from whom he had inherited his blond hair
and blue eyes. His parents lived in Nevada and Carlo had left that state
because of a little trouble with the law. In New York he met Sonny Corleone and
so met the sister. Don Corleone, of course, sent trusted friends to Nevada and
they reported that Carlo’s police trouble was a youthful indiscretion with a
gun, not serious, that could easily be wiped off the books to leave the youth
with a clean record. They also came back with detailed information on legal
gambling in Nevada which greatly interested the Don and which he had been
pondering over since. It was part of the Don’s greatness that he profited from
everything.
Connie Corleone was a not quite pretty girl, thin and
nervous and certain to become shrewish later in life. But today, transformed by
her white bridal gown and eager virginity, she was so radiant as to be almost
beautiful. Beneath the wooden table her hand rested on the muscular thigh of
her groom. Her Cupid-bow mouth pouted to give him an airy kiss.
She thought him incredibly handsome. Carlo Rizzi had worked
in the open desert air while very young– heavy laborer’s work. Now he had
tremendous forearms and his
shoulders bulged the jacket of his tux. He basked in the
adoring eyes of his bride and filled her glass with wine. He was elaborately
courteous to her as if they were both actors in a play. But his eyes kept
flickering toward the huge silk purse the bride wore on her right shoulder and
which was now stuffed full of money envelopes. How much did it hold? Ten
thousand? Twenty thousand? Carlo Rizzi smiled. It was only the beginning. He
had, after all, married into a royal family. They would have to take care of
him.
In the crowd of guests a dapper young man with the sleek
head of a ferret was also studying the silk purse. From sheer habit Paulie
Gatto wondered just how he could go about hijacking that fat pocketbook. The
idea amused him. But he knew it was idle, innocent dreaming as small children
dream of knocking out tanks with popguns. He watched his boss, fat, middle-aged
Peter Clemenza whirling young girls around the wooden dance floor in a rustic
and lusty Tarantella. Clemenza, immensely tall, immensely huge, danced with
such skill and abandon, his hard belly lecherously bumping the breasts of
younger, tinier women, that all the guests were applauding him. Older women
grabbed his arm to become his next partner. The younger men respectfully
cleared off the floor and clapped their hands in time to the mandolin’s wild
strumming. When Clemenza finally collapsed in a chair, Paulie Gatto brought him
a glass of icy black wine and wiped the perspiring Jovelike brow with his silk
handkerchief. Clemenza was blowing like a whale as he gulped down the wine. But
instead of thanking Paulie he said curtly, “Never mind being a dance judge, do
your job. Take a walk around the neighborhood and see everything is OK.” Paulie
slid away into the crowd.
The band took a refreshment break. A young man named Nino
Valenti picked up a discarded mandolin, put his left foot up on a chair and
began to sing a coarse Sicilian love song. Nino Valenti’s face was handsome
though bloated by continual drinking and he was already a little drunk. He
rolled his eyes as his tongue caressed the obscene lyrics. The women shrieked
with glee and the men shouted the last word of each stanza with the singer.
Don Corleone, notoriously straitlaced in such matters,
though his stout wife was screaming joyfully with the others, disappeared
tactfully into the house. Seeing this, Sonny Corleone made his way to the
bride’s table and sat down beside young Lucy Mancini, the maid of honor. They
were safe. His wife was in the kitchen putting the last touches on the serving
of the wedding cake. Sonny whispered a few words in the young girl’s ear and she
rose. Sonny waited a few minutes and then casually followed her,
stopping to talk with a guest here and
there as he worked his way through the crowd.
All eyes followed them. The maid of honor, thoroughly
Americanized by three years of college, was a ripe girl who already had a
“reputation.” All through the marriage rehearsals she had flirted with Sonny
Corleone in a teasing, joking way she thought was permitted because he was the
best man and her wedding partner. Now holding her pink gown up off the ground,
Lucy Mancini went into the house, smiling with false innocence; ran lightly up
the stairs to the bathroom. She stayed there for a few moments. When she came
out Sonny Corleone was on the landing above, beckoning her upward.
From behind the closed window of Don Corleone’s “office,” a
slightly raised corner room, Thomas Hagen watched the wedding party in the
festooned garden. The walls behind him were stacked with law books. Hagen was
the Don’s lawyer and acting Consigliere, or counselor, and as such held the
most vital subordinate position in the family business. He and the Don had
solved many a knotty problem in this room, and so when he saw the Godfather
leave the festivities and enter the house, he knew, wedding or no, there would
be a little work this day. The Don would be coming to see him. Then Hagen saw
Sonny Corleone whisper in Lucy Mancini’s ear and their little comedy as he
followed her into the house. Hagen grimaced, debated whether to inform the Don,
and decided against it. He went to the desk and picked up a handwritten list of
the people who had been granted permission to see Don Corleone privately. When
the Don entered the room, Hagen handed him the list. Don Corleone nodded and
said, “Leave Bonasera to the end.”
Hagen used the French doors and went directly out into the
garden to where the supplicants clustered around the barrel of wine. He pointed
to the baker, the pudgy Nazorine.
Don Corleone greeted the baker with an embrace. They had
played together as children in Italy and had grown up in friendship. Every
Easter freshly baked clotted-cheese and wheat-germ pies, their crusts
yolk-gold, big around as truck wheels, arrived at Don Corleone’s home. On
Christmas, on family birthdays, rich creamy pastries proclaimed the Nazorines’
respect. And all through the years, lean and fat, Nazorine cheerfully paid his
dues to the bakery union organized by the Don in his salad days. Never asking
for a favor in return except for the chance to buy black-market OPA sugar
coupons during the war. Now the time had come for the baker to claim his rights
as a loyal friend, and Don Corleone looked forward with great pleasure to
granting his request.
He gave the baker a Di Nobili cigar and a glass of yellow
Strega and put his hand on the man’s shoulder to urge him on. That was the mark
of the Don’s humanity. He knew from bitter experience what courage it took to
ask a favor from a fellow man.
The baker told the story of his daughter and Enzo. A fine
Italian lad from Sicily; captured by the American Army; sent to the United
States as a prisoner of war; given parole to help our war effort! A pure and
honorable love had sprung up between honest Enzo and his sheltered Katherine
but now that the war was ended the poor lad would be repatriated to Italy and
Nazorine’s daughter would surely die of a broken heart. Only Godfather Corleone
could help this afflicted couple. He was their last hope.
The Don walked Nazorine up and down the room, his hand on the
baker’s shoulder, his head nodding with understanding to keep up the man’s
courage. When the baker had finished, Don Corleone smiled at him and said, “My
dear friend, put all your worries aside.” He went on to explain very carefully
what must be done. The Congressman of the district must be petitioned. The
Congressman would propose a special bill that would allow Enzo to become a
citizen. The bill would surely pass Congress. A privilege all those rascals
extended to each other. Don Corleone explained that this would cost money, the
going price was now two thousand dollars. He, Don Corleone, would guarantee
performance and accept payment. Did his friend agree?
The baker nodded his head vigorously. He did not expect such
a great favor for nothing. That was understood. A special Act of Congress does
not come cheap. Nazorine was almost tearful in his thanks. Don Corleone walked
him to the door, assuring him that competent people would be sent to the bakery
to arrange all details, complete all necessary documents. The baker embraced
him before disappearing into the garden.
Hagen smiled at the Don. “That’s a good investment for
Nazorine. A son-in-law and a cheap lifetime helper in his bakery all for two
thousand dollars.” He paused. “Who do I give this job to?”
Don Corleone frowned in thought. “Not to our paisan. Give it
to the Jew in the next district. Have the home addresses changed. I think there
might be many such cases now the war is over; we should have extra people in
Washington that can handle the overflow and not raise the price.” Hagen made a
note on his pad. “Not Congressman Luteco. Try Fischer.”
The next man Hagen brought in was a very simple case. His
name was Anthony Coppola and he was the son of a man Don Corleone had worked
with in the railroad
yards in his youth. Coppola needed five hundred dollars to
open a pizzeria; for a deposit on fixtures and the special oven. For reasons
not gone into, credit was not available. The Don reached into his pocket and
took out a roll of bills. It was not quite enough. He grimaced and said to Tom
Hagen, “Loan me a hundred dollars, I’ll pay you back Monday when I go to the
bank.” The supplicant protested that four hundred dollars would be ample, but
Don Corleone patted his shoulder, saying, apologetically, “This fancy wedding
left me a little short of cash.” He took the money Hagen extended to him and
gave it to Anthony Coppola with his own roll of bills.
Hagen watched with quiet admiration. The Don always taught
that when a man was generous, he must show the generosity as personal. How
flattering to Anthony Coppola that a man like the Don would borrow to loan him
money. Not that Coppola did not know that the Don was a millionaire but how
many millionaires let themselves be put to even a small inconvenience by a poor
friend?
The Don raised his head inquiringly. Hagen said, “He’s not
on the list but Luca Brasi wants to see you. He understands it can’t be public
but he wants to congratulate you in person.”
For the first time the Don seemed displeased. The answer was
devious. “Is it necessary?” he asked.
Hagen shrugged. “You understand him better than I do. But he
was very grateful that you invited him to the wedding. He never expected that.
I think he wants to show his gratitude.”
Don Corleone nodded and gestured that
Luca Brasi should be brought to him.
In the garden Kay Adams was struck by the violet fury
imprinted on the face of Luca Brasi. She asked about him. Michael had brought
Kay to the wedding so that she would slowly and perhaps without too much of a
shock, absorb the truth about his father. But so far she seemed to regard the
Don as a slightly unethical businessman. Michael decided to tell her part of
the truth indirectly. He explained that Luca Brasi was one of the most feared
men in the Eastern underworld. His great talent, it was said, was that he could
do a job of murder all by himself, without confederates, which automatically
made discovery and conviction by the law almost impossible. Michael grimaced
and said, “I don’t know whether all that stuff is true. I do know he is sort of
a friend to my father.”
For the first time Kay began to understand. She asked a
little incredulously, “You’re not hinting that a man like that works for your
father?”
The hell with it, he thought. He said, straight out, “Nearly
fifteen years ago some people wanted to take over my father’s oil importing
business. They tried to kill him and nearly did. Luca Brasi went after them.
The story is that he killed six men in two weeks and that ended the famous
olive oil war.” He smiled as if it were a joke.
Kay shuddered. “You mean your father
was shot by gangsters?”
“Fifteen years ago,” Michael said. “Everything’s been
peaceful since then.” He was afraid he had gone too far.
“You’re trying to scare me,” Kay said. “You just don’t want
me to marry you.” She smiled at him and poked his ribs with her elbow. “Very
clever.”
Michael smiled back at her. “I want you
to think about it,” he said.
“Did he really kill six men?” Kay
asked.
“That’s what the newspapers claimed,” Mike said. “Nobody
ever proved it. But there’s another story about him that nobody ever tells.
It’s supposed to be so terrible that even my father won’t talk about it. Tom
Hagen knows the story and he won’t tell me. Once I kidded him, I said, ‘When
will I be old enough to hear that story about Luca?’ and Tom said, ‘When you’re
a hundred.’ ”Michael sipped his glass of wine. “That must be some story. That
must be some Luca.”
Luca Brasi was indeed a man to frighten the devil in hell
himself. Short, squat, massive-skulled, his presence sent out alarm bells of
danger. His face was stamped into a mask of fury. The eyes were brown but with
none of the warmth of that color, more a deadly tan. The mouth was not so much
cruel as lifeless; thin, rubbery and the color of veal.
Brasi’s reputation for violence was awesome and his devotion
to Don Corleone legendary. He was, in himself, one of the great blocks that
supported the Don’s power structure. His kind was a rarity.
Luca Brasi did not fear the police, he did not fear society,
he did not fear God, he did not fear hell, he did not fear or love his fellow
man. But he had elected, he had chosen, to fear and love Don Corleone. Ushered
into the presence of the Don, the terrible Brasi held himself stiff with
respect. He stuttered over the flowery congatulations he offered and his formal
hope that the first grandchild would be masculine. He then handed the Don an
envelope stuffed with cash as a gift for the bridal couple.
So that was what he wanted to do. Hagen
noticed the change in Don Corleone. The
Don received Brasi as a king greets a subject who has done
him an enormous service, never familiar but with regal respect. With every
gesture, with every word, Don Corleone made it clear to Luca Brasi that he was
valued. Not for one moment did he show surprise at the wedding gift being
presented to him personally. He understood.
The money in the envelope was sure to be more than anyone
else had given. Brasi had spent many hours deciding on the sum, comparing it to
what the other guests might offer. He wanted to be the most generous to show
that he had the most respect, and that was why he had given his envelope to the
Don personally, a gaucherie the Don overlooked in his own flowery sentence of
thanks. Hagen saw Luca Brasi’s face lose its mask of fury, swell with pride and
pleasure. Brasi kissed the Don’s hand before he went out the door that Hagen
held open. Hagen prudently gave Brasi a friendly smile which the squat man
acknowledged with a polite stretching of rubbery, veal-colored lips.
When the door closed Don Corleone gave a small sigh of
relief. Brasi was the only man in the world who could make him nervous. The man
was like a natural force, not truly subject to control. He had to be handled as
gingerly as dynamite. The Don shrugged. Even dynamite could be exploded
harmlessly if the need arose. He looked questioningly at Hagen. “Is Bonasera
the only one left?”
Hagen nodded. Don Corleone frowned in thought, then said,
“Before you bring him in, tell Santino to come here. He should learn some
things.”
Out in the garden, Hagen searched anxiously for Sonny
Corleone. He told the waiting Bonasera to be patient and went over to Michael Corleone
and his girl friend. “Did you see Sonny around?” he asked. Michael shook his
head. Damn, Hagen thought, if Sonny was screwing the maid of honor all this
time there was going to be a mess of trouble. His wife, the young girl’s
family; it could be a disaster. Anxiously he hurried to the entrance through
which he had seen Sonny disappear almost a half hour ago.
Seeing Hagen go into the house, Kay Adams asked Michael
Corleone, “Who is he? You introduced him as your brother but his name is
different and he certainly doesn’t look Italian.”
“Tom lived with us since he was twelve years old,” Michael
said. “His parents died and he was roaming around the streets with this bad eye
infection. Sonny brought him home one night and he just stayed. He didn’t have
anyplace to go. He lived with us until he got married.”
Kay Adams was thrilled. “That’s really
romantic,” she said. “Your father must be a
warmhearted person. To adopt somebody just like that when he
had so many children of his own.”
Michael didn’t bother to point out that immigrant Italians
considered four children a small family. He merely said, “Tom wasn’t adopted.
He just lived with us.”
“Oh,” Kay said, then asked curiously,
“why didn’t you adopt him?”
Michael laughed. “Because my father said it would be
disrespectful for Tom to change his name. Disrespectful to his own parents.”
They saw Hagen shoo Sonny through the French door into the
Don’s office and then crook a finger at Amerigo Bonasera. “Why do they bother
your father with business on a day like this?” Kay asked.
Michael laughed again. “Because they know that by tradition
no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter’s wedding day. And no Sicilian
ever lets a chance like that go by.”
* * *
Lucy Mancini lifted her pink gown off the floor and ran up
the steps. Sonny Corleone’s heavy Cupid face, redly obscene with winey lust,
frightened her, but she had teased him for the past week to just this end. In
her two college love affairs she had felt nothing and neither of them lasted
more than a week. Quarreling, her second lover had mumbled something about her
being “too big down there.” Lucy had understood and for the rest of the school
term had refused to go out on any dates.
During the summer, preparing for the wedding of her best
friend, Connie Corleone, Lucy heard the whispered stories about Sonny. One
Sunday afternoon in the Corleone kitchen, Sonny’s wife Sandra gossiped freely.
Sandra was a coarse, good-natured woman who had been born in Italy but brought
to America as a small child. She was strongly built with great breasts and had
already borne three children in five years of marriage. Sandra and the other
women teased Connie about the terrors of the nuptial bed. “My God,” Sandra had
giggled, “when I saw that pole of Sonny’s for the first time and realized he
was going to stick it into me, I yelled bloody murder. After the first year my
insides felt as mushy as macaroni boiled for an hour. When I heard he was doing
the job on other girls I went to church and lit a candle.”
They had all laughed but Lucy had felt
her flesh twitching between her legs.
Now as she ran up the steps toward
Sonny a tremendous flash of desire went through
her body. On the landing Sonny grabbed her hand and pulled
her down the hall into an empty bedroom. Her legs went weak as the door closed
behind them. She felt Sonny’s mouth on hers, his lips tasting of burnt tobacco,
bitter. She opened her mouth. At that moment she felt his hand come up beneath
her bridesmaid’s gown, heard the rustle of material giving way, felt his large
warm hand between her legs, ripping aside the satin panties to caress her
vulva. She put her arms around his neck and hung there as he opened his
trousers. Then he placed both hands beneath her bare buttocks and lifted her.
She gave a little hop in the air so that both her legs were wrapped around his
upper thighs. His tongue was in her mouth and she sucked on it. He gave a
savage thrust that banged her head against the door. She felt something burning
pass between her thighs. She let her right hand drop from his neck and reached
down to guide him. Her hand closed around an enormous, blood-gorged pole of
muscle. It pulsated in her hand like an animal and almost weeping with grateful
ecstasy she pointed it into her own wet, turgid flesh. The thrust of its
entering, the unbelievable pleasure made her gasp, brought her legs up almost
around his neck, and then like a quiver, her body received the savage arrows of
his lightning-like thrusts; innumerable, torturing; arching her pelvis higher
and higher until for the first time in her life she reached a shattering
climax, felt his hardness break and then the crawly flood of semen over her
thighs. Slowly her legs relaxed from around his body, slid down until they
reached the floor. They leaned against each other, out of breath.
It might have been going on for some time but now they could
hear the soft knocking on the door. Sonny quickly buttoned his trousers,
meanwhile blocking the door so that it could not be opened. Lucy frantically
smoothed down her pink gown, her eyes flickering, but the thing that had given
her so much pleasure was hidden inside sober black cloth. Then they heard Tom
Hagen’s voice, very low, “Sonny, you in there?”
Sonny sighed with relief. He winked at
Lucy. “Yeah, Tom, what is it?”
Hagen’s voice, still low, said, “The Don wants you in his
office. Now.” They could hear his footsteps as he walked away. Sonny waited for
a few moments, gave Lucy a hard kiss on the lips, and then slipped out the door
after Hagen.
Lucy combed her hair. She checked her dress and pulled
around her garter straps. Her body felt bruised, her lips pulpy and tender. She
went out the door and though she felt the sticky wetness between her thighs she
did not go to the bathroom to wash but ran straight on down the steps and into
the garden. She took her seat at the bridal table next to Connie, who exclaimed
petulantly, “Lucy, where were you? You look drunk. Stay
beside me now.”
The blond groom poured Lucy a glass of wine and smiled
knowingly. Lucy didn’t care. She lifted the grapey, dark red juice to her
parched mouth and drank. She felt the sticky wetness between her thighs and
pressed her legs together. Her body was trembling. Over the glass rim, as she
drank, her eyes searched hungrily to find Sonny Corleone. There was no one else
she cared to see. Slyly she whispered in Connie’s ear, “Only a few hours more
and you’ll know what it’s all about.” Connie giggled. Lucy demurely folded her
hands on the table, treacherously triumphant, as if she had stolen a treasure
from the bride.
* * *
Amerigo Bonasera followed Hagen into the corner room of the
house and found Don Corleone sitting behind a huge desk. Sonny Corleone was
standing by the window, looking out into the garden. For the first time that
afternoon the Don behaved coolly. He did not embrace the visitor or shake
hands. The sallow-faced undertaker owed his invitation to the fact that his
wife and the wife of the Don were the closest of friends. Amerigo Bonasera
himself was in severe disfavor with Don Corleone.
Bonasera began his request obliquely and cleverly. “You must
excuse my daughter, your wife’s goddaughter, for not doing your family the
respect of coming today. She is in the hospital still.” He glanced at Sonny
Corleone and Tom Hagen to indicate that he did not wish to speak before them.
But the Don was merciless.
“We all know of your daughter’s misfortune,” Don Corleone
said. “If I can help her in any way, you have only to speak. My wife is her
godmother after all. I have never forgotten that honor.” This was a rebuke. The
undertaker never called Don Corleone, “Godfather” as custom dictated.
Bonasera, ashen-faced, asked, directly
now, “May I speak to you alone?”
Don Corleone shook his head. “I trust these two men with my
life. They are my two right arms. I cannot insult them by sending them away.”
The undertaker closed his eyes for a moment and then began
to speak. His voice was quiet, the voice he used to console the bereaved. “I
raised my daughter in the American fashion. I believe in America. America has
made my fortune. I gave my daughter her freedom and yet taught her never to
dishonor her family. She found a ‘boy friend,’ not an Italian. She went to the
movies with him. She stayed out late. But he never came to meet her parents. I
accepted all this without a protest, the fault is mine. Two months ago
he took her for a drive. He had a masculine friend with him.
They made her drink whiskey and then they tried to take advantage of her. She
resisted. She kept her honor. They beat her. Like an animal. When I went to the
hospital she had two black eyes. Her nose was broken. Her jaw was shattered.
They had to wire it together. She wept through her pain. ‘Father, Father, why
did they do it? Why did they do this to me?’ And I wept.” Bonasera could not
speak further, he was weeping now though his voice had not betrayed his
emotion.
Don Corleone, as if against his will, made a gesture of
sympathy and Bonasera went on, his voice human with suffering. “Why did I weep?
She was the light of my life, an affectionate daughter. A beautiful girl. She
trusted people and now she will never trust them again. She will never be beautiful
again.” He was trembling, his sallow face flushed an ugly dark red.
“I went to the police like a good American. The two boys
were arrested. They were brought to trial. The evidence was overwhelming and
they pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced them to three years in prison and
suspended the sentence. They went free that very day. I stood in the courtroom
like a fool and those bastards smiled at me. And then I said to my wife: ‘We
must go to Don Corleone for justice.’ ”
The Don had bowed his head to show respect for the man’s
grief. But when he spoke, the words were cold with offended dignity. “Why did
you go to the police? Why didn’t you come to me at the beginning of this
affair?”
Bonasera muttered almost inaudibly,
“What do you want of me? Tell me what you wish.
But do what I beg you to do.” There was
something almost insolent in his words.
Don Corleone said gravely, “And what is
that?”
Bonasera glanced at Hagen and Sonny Corleone and shook his
head. The Don, still sitting at Hagen’s desk, inclined his body toward the
undertaker. Bonasera hesitated, then bent down and put his lips so close to the
Don’s hairy ear that they touched. Don Corleone listened like a priest in the
confessional, gazing away into the distance, impassive, remote. They stood so
for a long moment until Bonasera finished whispering and straightened to his
full height. The Don looked up gravely at Bonasera. Bonasera, his face flushed,
returned the stare unflinchingly.
Finally the Don spoke. “That I cannot
do. You are being carried away.”
Bonasera said loudly, clearly, “I will pay you anything you
ask.” On hearing this, Hagen flinched, a nervous flick of his head. Sonny
Corleone folded his arms, smiled
sardonically as he turned from the window to watch the scene
in the room for the first time.
Don Corleone rose from behind the desk. His face was still
impassive but his voice rang like cold death. “We have known each other many
years, you and I,” he said to the undertaker, “but until this day you never
came to me for counsel or help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me
to your house for coffee though my wife is godmother to your only child. Let us
be frank. You spurned my friendship. You feared to be in my debt.”
Bonasera murmured, “I didn’t want to
get into trouble.”
The Don held up his hand. “No. Don’t speak. You found
America a paradise. You had a good trade, you made a good living, you thought
the world a harmless place where you could take your pleasure as you willed.
You never armed yourself with true friends. After all, the police guarded you,
there were courts of law, you and yours could come to no harm. You did not need
Don Corleone. Very well. My feelings were wounded but I am not that sort of
person why thrusts his friendship on those who do not value it– on those who
think me of little account.” The Don paused and gave the undertaker a polite,
ironic smile. “Now you come to me and say, ‘Don Corleone give me justice.’ And
you do not ask with respect. You do not offer me your friendship. You come into
my home on the bridal day of my daughter and you ask me to do murder and you
say”–here the Don’s voice became a scornful mimicry–” ‘I will pay you
anything.’ No, no, I am not offended, but what have I ever done to make you
treat me so disrespectfully?”
Bonasera cried out in his anguish and his fear, “America has
been good to me. I wanted to be a good citizen. I wanted my child to be
American.”
The Don clapped his hands together with decisive approval.
“Well spoken. Very fine. Then you have nothing to complain about. The judge has
ruled. America has ruled. Bring your daughter flowers and a box of candy when
you go visit her in the hospital. That will comfort her. Be content. After all,
this is not a serious affair, the boys were young, high-spirited, and one of
them is the son of a powerful politician. No, my dear Amerigo, you have always
been honest. I must admit, though you spurned my friendship, that I would trust
the given word of Amerigo Bonasera more than I would any other man’s. So give
me your word that you will put aside this madness. It is not American. Forgive.
Forget. Life is full of misfortunes.”
The cruel and contemptuous irony with
which all this was said, the controlled anger of
the Don, reduced the poor undertaker to a quivering jelly
but he spoke up bravely again. “I ask you for justice.”
Don Corleone said curtly, “The court
gave you justice.”
Bonasera shook his head stubbornly. “No. They gave the
youths justice. They did not give me justice.”
The Don acknowledged this fine distinction with an approving
nod, then asked, “What is your justice?”
“An eye for an eye,” Bonasera said.
“You asked for more,” the Don said.
“Your daughter is alive.”
Bonasera said reluctantly, “Let them suffer as she suffers.”
The Don waited for him to speak further. Bonasera screwed up the last of his
courage and said, “How much shall I pay you?” It was a despairing wail.
Don Corleone turned his back. It was a
dismissal. Bonasera did not budge.
Finally, sighing, a good-hearted man who cannot remain angry
with an erring friend, Don Corleone turned back to the undertaker, who was now
as pale as one of his corpses. Don Corleone was gentle, patient. “Why do you
fear to give your first allegiance to me?” he said. “You go to the law courts
and wait for months. You spend money on lawyers who know full well you are to
be made a fool of. You accept judgment from a judge who sells himself like the
worst whore in the streets. Years gone by, when you needed money, you went to
the banks and paid ruinous interest, waited hat in hand like a beggar while
they sniffed around, poked their noses up your very asshole to make sure you
could pay them back.” The Don paused, his voice became sterner.
“But if you had come to me, my purse would have been yours.
If you had come to me for justice those scum who ruined your daughter would be
weeping bitter tears this day. If by some misfortune an honest man like
yourself made enemies they would become my enemies”– the Don raised his arm,
finger pointing at Bonasera– “and then, believe me, they would fear you.”
Bonasera bowed his head and murmured in
a strangled voice, “Be my friend. I accept.”
Don Corleone put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Good,” he
said, “you shall have your justice. Some day, and that day may never come, I
will call upon you to do me a service in return. Until that day, consider this
justice a gift from my wife, your daughter’s godmother.”
When the door closed behind the grateful undertaker, Don
Corleone turned to Hagen and said, “Give this affair to Clemenza and tell him
to be sure to use reliable people, people who will not be carried away by the
smell of blood. After all, we’re not murderers, no matter what that corpse valet
dreams up in his foolish head.” He noted that his firstborn, masculine son was
gazing through the window at the garden party. It was hopeless, Don Corleone
thought. If he refused to be instructed, Santino could never run the family
business, could never become a Don. He would have to find somebody else. And
soon. After all, he was not immortal.
From the garden, startling all three men, there came a happy
roaring shout. Sonny Corleone pressed close to the window. What he saw made him
move quickly toward the door, a delighted smile on his face. “It’s Johnny, he
came to the wedding, what did I tell you?” Hagen moved to the window. “It’s
really your godson,” he said to Don Corleone. “Shall I bring him here?”
“No,” the Don said. “Let the people enjoy him. Let him come
to me when he is ready.” He smiled at Hagen. “You see? He is a good godson.”
Hagen felt a twinge of jealousy. He said dryly, “It’s been
two years. He’s probably in trouble again and wants you to help.”
“And who should he come to if not his
godfather?” asked Don Corleone.
* * *
The first one to see Johnny Fontane enter the garden was
Connie Corleone. She forgot her bridal dignity and screamed, “Johneee.” Then
she ran into his arms. He hugged her tight and kissed her on the mouth, kept
his arm around her as others came up to greet him. They were all his old
friends, people he had grown up with on the West Side. Then Connie was dragging
him to her new husband. Johnny saw with amusement that the blond young man
looked a little sour at no longer being the star of the day. He turned on all
his charm, shaking the groom’s hand, toasting him with a glass of wine.
A familiar voice called from the bandstand, “How about
giving us a song, Johnny?” He looked up and saw Nino Valenti smiling down at
him. Johnny Fontane jumped up on the bandstand and threw his arms around Nino.
They had been inseparable, singing together, going out with girls together,
until Johnny had started to become famous and sing on the radio. When he had
gone to Hollywood to make movies Johnny had phoned Nino a couple of times just
to talk and had promised to get him a club singing date. But he had never done
so. Seeing Nino now, his cheerful, mocking, drunken grin, all the
affection returned.
Nino began strumming on the mandolin. Johnny Fontane put his
hand on Nino’s shoulder. “This is for the bride,” he said, and stamping his
foot, chanted the words to an obscene Sicilian love song. As he sang, Nino made
suggestive motions with his body. The bride blushed proudly, the throng of
guests roared its approval. Before the song ended they were all stamping with
their feet and roaring out the sly, double-meaning tag line that finished each
stanza. At the end they would not stop applauding until Johnny cleared his
throat to sing another song.
They were all proud of him. He was of them and he had become
a famous singer, a movie star who slept with the most desired women in the
world. And yet he had shown proper respect for his Godfather by traveling three
thousand miles to attend this wedding. He still loved old friends like Nino
Valenti. Many of the people there had seen Johnny and Nino singing together
when they were just boys, when no one dreamed that Johnny Fontane would grow up
to hold the hearts of fifty million women in his hands.
Johnny Fontane reached down and lifted the bride up onto the
bandstand so that Connie stood between him and Nino. Both men crouched down,
facing each other, Nino plucking the mandolin for a few harsh chords. It was an
old routine of theirs, a mock battle and wooing, using their voices like
swords, each shouting a chorus in turn. With the most delicate courtesy, Johnny
let Nino’s voice overwhelm his own, let Nino take the bride from his arm, let
Nino swing into the last victorious stanza while his own voice died away. The
whole wedding party broke into shouts of applause, the three of them embraced
each other at the end. The guests begged for another song.
Only Don Corleone, standing in the corner entrance of the
house, sensed something amiss. Cheerily, with bluff good humor, careful not to
give offense to his guests, he called out, “My godson has come three thousand
miles to do us honor and no one thinks to wet his throat?” At once a dozen full
wineglasses were thrust at Johnny Fontane. He took a sip from all and rushed to
embrace his Godfather. As he did so he whispered something into the older man’s
ear. Don Corleone led him into the house.
Tom Hagen held out his hand when Johnny came into the room.
Johnny shook it and said, “How are you, Tom?” But without his usual charm that
consisted of a genuine warmth for people. Hagen was a little hurt by this
coolness but shrugged it off. It was one of the penalties for being the Don’s
hatchet man.
Johnny Fontane said to the Don, “When I
got the wedding invitation I said to myself, ‘My
Godfather isn’t mad at me anymore.’ I called you five times
after my divorce and Tom always told me you were out or busy so I knew you were
sore.”
Don Corleone was filling glasses from the yellow bottle of
Strega. “That’s all forgotten. Now. Can I do something for you still? You’re
not too famous, too rich, that I can’t help you?”
Johnny gulped down the yellow fiery liquid and held out his
glass to be refilled. He tried to sound jaunty. “I’m not rich, Godfather. I’m
going down. You were right. I should never have left my wife and kids for that
tramp I married. I don’t blame you for getting sore at me.”
The Don shrugged. “I worried about you,
you’re my godson, that’s all.”
Johnny paced up and down the room. “I was crazy about that
bitch. The biggest star in Hollywood. She looks like an angel. And you know
what she does after a picture? If the makeup man does a good job on her face,
she lets him bang her. If the cameraman made her look extra good, she brings
him into her dressing room and gives him a screw. Anybody. She uses her body
like I use the loose change in my pocket for a tip. A whore made for the
devil.”
Don Corleone curtly broke in. “How is
your family?”
Johnny sighed. “I took care of them. After the divorce I
gave Ginny and the kids more than the courts said I should. I go see them once
a week. I miss them. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy.” He took another drink.
“Now my second wife laughs at me. She can’t understand my being jealous. She
calls me an old-fashioned guinea, she makes fun of my singing. Before I left I
gave her a nice beating but not in the face because she was making a picture. I
gave her cramps, I punched her on the arms and legs like a kid and she kept
laughing at me.” He lit a cigarette. “So, Godfather, right now, life doesn’t
seem worth living.”
Don Corleone said simply. “These are troubles I can’t help
you with.” He paused, then asked, “What’s the matter with your voice?”
All the assured charm, the self-mockery, disappeared from
Johnny Fontane’s face. He said almost brokenly, “Godfather, I can’t sing
anymore, something happened to my throat, the doctors don’t know what.” Hagen
and the Don looked at him with surprise, Johnny had always been so tough.
Fontane went on. “My two pictures made a lot of money. I was a big star. Now
they throw me out. The head of the studio always hated my guts and now he’s
paying me off.”
Don Corleone stood before his godson and asked grimly, “Why
doesn’t this man like you?”
“I used to sing those songs for the liberal organizations,
you know, all that stuff you never liked me to do. Well, Jack Woltz didn’t like
it either. He called me a Communist, but he couldn’t make it stick. Then I
snatched a girl he had saved for himself. It was strictly a one-night stand and
she came after me. What the hell could I do? Then my whore second wife throws
me out. And Ginny and the kids won’t take me back unless I come crawling on my
hands and knees, and I can’t sing anymore. Godfather, what the hell can I do?”
Don Corleone’s face had become cold without a hint of
sympathy. He said contemptuously, “You can start by acting like a man.”
Suddenly anger contorted his face. He shouted. “LIKE A MAN!” He reached over
the desk and grabbed Johnny Fontane by the hair of his head in a gesture that
was savagely affectionate. “By Christ in heaven, is it possible that you spent
so much time in my presence and turned out no better than this? A Hollywood
finocchio who weeps and begs for pity? Who cries out like a woman– ‘What shall
I do? Oh, what shall I do?”
The mimicry of the Don was so extraordinary, so unexpected,
that Hagen and Johnny were startled into laughter. Don Corleone was pleased.
For a moment he reflected on how much he loved this godson. How would his own
three sons have reacted to such a tongue-lashing? Santino would have sulked and
behaved badly for weeks afterward. Fredo would have been cowed. Michael would
have given him a cold smile and gone out of the house, not to be seen for
months. But Johnny, ah, what a fine chap he was, smiling now, gathering
strength, knowing already the true purpose of his Godfather.
Don Corleone went on. “You took the woman of your boss, a
man more powerful than yourself, then you complain he won’t help you. What
nonsense. You left your family, your children without a father, to marry a
whore and you weep because they don’t welcome you back with open arms. The
whore, you don’t hit her in the face because she is making a picture, then you
are amazed because she laughs at you. You lived like a fool and you have come
to a fool’s end.”
Don Corleone paused to ask in a patient voice, “Are you
willing to take my advice this time?”
Johnny Fontane shrugged. “I can’t marry Ginny again, not the
way she wants. I have to gamble, I have to drink, I have to go out with the
boys. Beautiful broads run after me and
I never could resist them. Then I used to feel like a heel
when I went back to Ginny. Christ, I can’t go through all that crap again.”
It was rare that Don Corleone showed exasperation. “I didn’t
tell you to get married again. Do what you want. It’s good you wish to be a
father to your children. A man who is not a father to his children can never be
a real man. But then, you must make their mother accept you. Who says you can’t
see them every day? Who says you can’t live in the same house? Who says you
can’t live your life exactly as you want to live it?”
Johnny Fontane laughed. “Godfather, not all women are like
the old Italian wives. Ginny won’t stand for it.”
Now the Don was mocking. “Because you acted like a
finocchio. You gave her more than the court said. You didn’t hit the other in
the face because she was making a picture. You let women dictate your actions
and they are not competent in this world, though certainly they will be saints
in heaven while we men burn in hell. And then I’ve watched you all these
years.” The Don’s voice became earnest. “You’ve been a fine godson, you’ve given
me all the respect. But what of your other old friends? One year you run around
with this person, the next year with another person. That Italian boy who was
so funny in the movies, he had some bad luck and you never saw him again
because you were more famous. And how about your old, old comrade that you went
to school with, who was your partner singing? Nino. He drinks too much out of
disappointment but he never complains. He works hard driving the gravel truck
and sings weekends for a few dollars. He never says anything against you. You
couldn’t help him a bit? Why not? He sings well.”
Johnny Fontane said with patient weariness, “Godfather, he
just hasn’t got enough talent. He’s OK, but he’s not big time.”
Don Corleone lidded his eyes almost closed and then said,
“And you, godson, you now, you just don’t have talent enough. Shall I get you a
job on the gravel truck with Nino?” When Johnny didn’t answer, the Don went on.
“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than
government. It is almost the equal of family. Never forget that. If you had
built up a wall of friendships you wouldn’t have to ask me to help. Now tell
me, why can’t you sing? You sang well in the garden. As well as Nino.”
Hagen and Johnny smiled at this delicate thrust. It was
Johnny’s turn to be patronizingly patient. “My voice is weak. I sing one or two
songs and then I can’t sing again for hours or days. I can’t make it through
the rehearsals or the retakes. My voice is weak, it’s got
some sort of sickness.”
“So you have woman trouble. Your voice is sick. Now tell me
the trouble you’re having with this Hollywood pezzonovante who won’t let you
work.” The Don was getting down to business.
“He’s bigger than one of your pezzonovantes,” Johnny said.
“He owns the studio. He advises the President on movie propaganda for the war.
Just a month ago he bought the movie rights to the biggest novel of the year. A
best seller. And the main character is a guy just like me. I wouldn’t even have
to act, just be myself. I wouldn’t even have to sing. I might even win the
Academy Award. Everybody knows it’s perfect for me and I’d be big again. As an
actor. But that bastard Jack Woltz is paying me off, he won’t give it to me. I
offered to do it for nothing, for a minimum price and he still says no. He sent
the word that if I come and kiss his ass in the studio commissary, maybe he’ll
think about it.”
Don Corleone dismissed this emotional nonsense with a wave
of his hand. Among reasonable men problems of business could always be solved.
He patted his godson on the shoulder. “You’re discouraged. Nobody cares about
you, so you think. And you’ve lost a lot of weight. You drink a lot, eh? You
don’t sleep and you take pills?” He shook his head disapprovingly.
“Now I want you to follow my orders,” the Don said. “I want
you to stay in my house for one month. I want you to eat well, to rest and
sleep. I want you to be my companion, I enjoy your company, and maybe you can
learn something about the world from your Godfather that might even help you in
the great Hollywood. But no singing, no drinking and no women. At the end of
the month you can go back to Hollywood and this pezzonovante, this.90 caliber
will give you that job you want. Done?”
Johnny Fontane could not altogether believe that the Don had
such power. But his Godfather had never said such and such a thing could be
done without having it done. “This guy is a personal friend of J. Edgar
Hoover,” Johnny said. “You can’t even raise your voice to him.”
“He’s a businessman,” the Don said
blandly. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
“It’s too late,” Johnny said. “All the contracts have been
signed and they start shooting in a week. It’s absolutely impossible.”
Don Corleone said, “Go, go back to the party. Your friends
are waiting for you. Leave everything to me.” He pushed Johnny Fontane out of
the room.
Hagen sat behind the desk and made notes. The Don heaved a
sigh and asked, “Is there anything else?”
“Sollozzo can’t be put off any more. You’ll have to see him
this week.” Hagen held his pen over the calendar.
The Don shrugged. “Now that the wedding
is over, whenever you like.”
This answer told Hagen two things. Most important, that the
answer to Virgil Sollozzo would be no. The second, that Don Corleone, since he
would not give the answer before his daughter’s wedding, expected his no to
cause trouble.
Hagen said cautiously, “Shall I tell Clemenza to have some
men come live in the house?”
The Don said impatiently, “For what? I didn’t answer before
the wedding because on an important day like that there should be no cloud, not
even in the distance. Also I wanted to know beforehand what he wanted to talk
about. We know now. What he will propose is an infamita.”
Hagen asked, “Then you will refuse?” When the Don nodded,
Hagen said, “I think we should all discuss it– the whole Family– before you
give your answer.”
The Don smiled. “You think so? Good, we will discuss it.
When you come back from California. I want you to fly there tomorrow and settle
this business for Johnny. See that movie pezzonovante. Tell Sollozzo I will see
him when you get back from California. Is there anything else?”
Hagen said formally, “The hospital called. Consigliere
Abbandando is dying, he won’t last out the night. His family was told to come
and wait.”
Hagen had filled the Consigliere’s post for the past year,
ever since the cancer had imprisoned Genco Abbandando in his hospital bed. Now
he waited to hear Don Corleone say the post was his permanently. The odds were
against it. So high a position was traditionally given only to a man descended
from two Italian parents. There had already been trouble about his temporary
performance of the duties. Also, he was only thirty-five, not old enough,
supposedly, to have acquired the necessary experience and cunning for a
successful Consigliere.
But the Don gave him no encouragement. He asked, “When does
my daughter leave with her bridegroom?”
Hagen looked at his wristwatch. “In a
few minutes they’ll cut the cake and then a half
hour after that.” That reminded him of something else. “Your
new son-in-law. Do we give him something important, inside the Family?”
He was surprised at the vehemence of the Don’s answer.
“Never.” The Don hit the desk with the flat of his hand. “Never. Give him
something to earn his living, a good living. But never let him know the
Family’s business. Tell the others, Sonny, Fredo, Clemenza.”
The Don paused. “Instruct my sons, all three of them, that
they will accompany me to the hospital to see poor Genco. I want them to pay
their last respects. Tell Freddie to drive the big car and ask Johnny if he
will come with us, as a special favor to me.” He saw Hagen look at him
questioningly. “I want you to go to California tonight. You won’t have time to
go see Genco. But don’t leave until I come back from the hospital and speak
with you. Understood?”
“Understood,” Hagen said. “What time
should Fred have the car waiting?”
“When the guests have left,” Don
Corleone said. “Genco will wait for me.”
“The Senator called,” Hagen said. “Apologizing for not
coming personally but that you would understand. He probably means those two
FBI men across the street taking down license numbers. But he sent his gift
over by special messenger.”
The Don nodded. He did not think it necessary to mention
that he himself had warned the Senator not to come. “Did he send a nice
present?”
Hagen made a face of impressed approval that was very
strangely Italian on his German-Irish features. “Antique silver, very valuable.
The kids can sell it for a grand at least. The Senator spent a lot of time
getting exactly the right thing. For those kind of people that’s more important
than how much it costs.”
Don Corleone did not hide his pleasure that so great a man
as the Senator had shown him such respect. The Senator, like Luca Brasi, was
one of the great stones in the Don’s power structure, and he too, with this
gift, had resworn his loyalty.
* * *
When Johnny Fontane appeared in the garden, Kay Adams
recognized him immediately. She was truly surprised. “You never told me your
family knew Johnny Fontane,” she said. “Now I’m sure I’ll marry you.”
“Do you want to meet him?” Michael
asked.
“Not now,” Kay said. She sighed. “I was
in love with him for three years. I used to come
down to New York whenever he sang at the Capitol and scream
my head off. He was so wonderful.”
“We’ll meet him later,” Michael said.
When Johnny finished singing and vanished into the house
with Don Corleone, Kay said archly to Michael, “Don’t tell me a big movie star
like Johnny Fontane has to ask your father for a favor?”
“He’s my father’s godson,” Michael said. “And if it wasn’t
for my father he might not be a big movie star today.”
Kay
Adams laughed with delight. “That sounds like another great story.” Michael
shook his head “I can’t tell that one,” he said. “Trust me,” she said.
He told her. He told her without being funny. He told it
without pride. He told it without any sort of explanation except that eight
years before his father had been more impetuous, and because the matter
concerned his godson, the Don considered it an affair of personal honor.
The story was quickly told. Eight years ago Johnny Fontane
had made an extraordinary success singing with a popular dance band. He had
become a top radio attraction. Unfortunately the band leader, a well-known show
business personality named Les Halley, had signed Johnny to a five-year
personal services contract. It was a common show business practice. Les Halley
could now loan Johnny out and pocket most of the money.
Don Corleone entered the negotiations personally. He offered
Les Halley twenty thousand dollars to release Johnny Fontane from the personal
services contract. Halley offered to take only fifty percent of Johnny’s
earnings. Don Corleone was amused. He dropped his offer from twenty thousand
dollars to ten thousand dollars. The band leader, obviously not a man of the
world outside his beloved show business, completely missed the significance of
this lower offer. He refused.
The next day Don Corleone went to see the band leader
personally. He brought with him his two best friends, Genco Abbandando, who was
his Consigliere, and Luca Brasi. With no other witnesses Don Corleone persuaded
Les Halley to sign a document giving up all rights to all services from Johnny
Fontane upon payment of a certified check to the amount of ten thousand
dollars. Don Corleone did this by putting a pistol to the
forehead of the band leader and assuring him with the utmost
seriousness that either his signature or his brains would rest on that document
in exactly one minute. Les Halley signed. Don Corleone pocketed his pistol and
handed over the certified check.
The rest was history. Johnny Fontane went on to become the
greatest singing sensation in the country. He made Hollywood musicals that
earned a fortune for his studio. His records made millions of dollars. Then he
divorced his childhood-sweetheart wife and left his two children, to marry the
most glamorous blond star in motion pictures. He soon learned that she was a
“whore.” He drank, he gambled, he chased other women. He lost his singing
voice. His records stopped selling. The studio did not renew his contract. And
so now he had come back to his Godfather.
Kay said thoughtfully, “Are you sure you’re not jealous of
your father? Everything you’ve told me about him shows him doing something for
other people. He must be goodhearted.” She smiled wryly. “Of course his methods
are not exactly constitutional.”
Michael sighed. “I guess that’s the way it sounds, but let
me tell you this. You know those Arctic explorers who leave caches of food
scattered on the route to the North Pole? Just in case they may need them
someday? That’s my father’s favors. Someday he’ll be at each one of those
people’s houses and they had better come across.”
* * *
It was nearly twilight before the wedding cake was shown,
exclaimed over and eaten. Specially baked by Nazorine, it was cleverly
decorated with shells of cream so dizzyingly delicious that the bride greedily
plucked them from the corpse of the cake before she whizzed away on her
honeymoon with her blond groom. The Don politely sped his guests’ departure,
noting meanwhile that the black sedan with its FBI men was no longer visible.
Finally the only car left in the driveway was the long black
Cadillac with Freddie at the wheel. The Don got into the front seat, moving
with quick coordination for his age and bulk. Sonny, Michael and Johnny Fontane
got into the back seat. Don Corleone said to his son Michael, “Your girl
friend, she’ll get back to the city by herself all right?”
Michael nodded. “Tom said he’d take care of it.” Don
Corleone nodded with satisfaction at Hagen’s efficiency.
Because of the gas rationing still in effect, there was
little traffic on the Belt Parkway to Manhattan. In less than an hour the
Cadillac rolled into the street of French Hospital. During the ride Don
Corleone asked his youngest son if he was doing well in school.
Michael nodded. Then Sonny in the back seat asked his
father, “Johnny says you’re getting him squared away with that Hollywood
business. Do you want me to go out there and help?”
Don Corleone was curt. “Tom is going tonight. He won’t need
any help, it’s a simple affair.”
Sonny Corleone laughed. “Johnny thinks you can’t fix it,
that’s why I thought you might want me to go out there.”
Don Corleone turned his head. “Why do you doubt me?” he
asked Johnny Fontane. “Hasn’t your Godfather always done what he said he would
do? Have I ever been taken for a fool?”
Johnny apologized nervously. “Godfather, the man who runs it
is a real.90 caliber pezzonovante. You can’t budge him, not even with money. He
has big connections. And he hates me. I just don’t know how you can swing it.”
The Don spoke with affectionate amusement. “I say to you:
you shall have it.” He nudged Michael with his elbow. “We won’t disappoint my
godson, eh, Michael?”
Michael, who never doubted his father
for a moment, shook his head.
As they walked toward the hospital entrance, Don Corleone
put his hand on Michael’s arm so that the others forged ahead. “When you get
through with college, come and talk to me,” the Don said. “I have some plans
you will like.”
Michael didn’t say anything. Don Corleone grunted in
exasperation. “I know how you are. I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t
approve of. This is something special. Go your own way now, you’re a man after
all. But come to me as a son should when you have finished with your
schooling.”
* * *
The family of Genco Abbandando, wife and three daughters
dressed in black, clustered like a flock of plump crows on the white tile floor
of the hospital corridor. When they saw Don Corleone come out of the elevator,
they seemed to flutter up off the white tiles in an instinctive surge toward
him for protection. The mother was regally stout in black, the daughters fat
and plain. Mrs. Abbandando pecked at Don Corleone’s cheek, sobbing, wailing,
“Oh, what a saint you are, to come here on your daughter’s wedding day.”
Don Corleone brushed these thanks aside. “Don’t I owe
respect to such a friend, a friend who has been my right arm for twenty,
years?” He had understood immediately
that the soon-to-be widow did not comprehend that her
husband would die this night. Genco Abbandando had been in this hospital for
nearly a year dying of his cancer and the wife had come to consider his fatal
illness almost an ordinary part of life. Tonight was just another crisis. She
babbled on. “Go in and see my poor husband,” she said, “he asks for you. Poor
man, he wanted to come to the wedding to show his respect but the doctor would
not permit it. Then he said you would come to see him on this great day but I
did not believe it possible. Ah, men understand friendship more than we women.
Go inside, you will make him happy.”
A nurse and a doctor came out of Genco Abbandando’s private
room. The doctor was a young man, serious-faced and with the air of one born to
command, that is to say, the air of one who has been immensely rich all his
life. One of the daughters asked timidly, “Dr. Kennedy, can we go to see him
now?”
Dr. Kennedy looked over the large group with exasperation.
Didn’t these people realize that the man inside was dying and dying in
torturous pain? It would be much better if everyone let him die in peace. “I
think just the immediate family,” he said in his exquisitely polite voice. He
was surprised when the wife and daughters turned to the short, heavy man
dressed in an awkwardly fitted tuxedo, as if to hear his decision.
The heavy man spoke. There was just the slightest trace of
an Italian accent in his voice. “My dear doctor,” said Don Corleone, “is it true
he is dying?”
“Yes,” said Dr. Kennedy.
“Then there is nothing more for you to do,” said Don
Corleone. “We will take up the burden. We will comfort him. We will close his
eyes. We will bury him and weep at his funeral and afterwards we will watch
over his wife and daughters.” At hearing things put so bluntly, forcing her to
understand, Mrs. Abbandando began to weep.
Dr. Kennedy shrugged. It was impossible to explain to these
peasants. At the same time he recognized the crude justice in the man’s remarks.
His role was over. Still exquisitely polite, he said, “Please wait for the
nurse to let you in, she has a few necessary things to do with the patient.” He
walked away from them down the corridor, his white coat flapping.
The nurse went back into the room and they waited. Finally
she came out again, holding the door for them to enter. She whispered, “He’s
delirious with the pain and fever, try not to excite him. And you can stay only
a few minutes, except for the wife.” She recognized Johnny Fontane as he went
by her and her eyes opened wide. He gave her a faint smile
of acknowledgment and she stared at him with frank
invitation. He filed her away for future reference, then followed the others
into the sick man’s room.
Genco Abbandando had run a long race with death, and now,
vanquished, he lay exhausted on the raised bed. He was wasted away to no more
than a skeleton, and what had once been vigorous black hair had turned into
obscene stringy wisps. Don Corleone said cheerily, “Genco, dear friend, I have
brought my sons to pay their respects, and look, even Johnny, all the way from
Hollywood.”
The dying man raised his fevered eyes gratefully to the Don.
He let the young men clasp his bony hand in their fleshy ones. His wife and
daughters ranged themselves along his bed, kissing his cheek, taking his other
hand in turn.
The Don pressed his old friend’s hand. He said comfortingly,
“Hurry up and get better and we’ll take a trip back to Italy together to our
old village. We’ll play boccie in front of the wineshop like our fathers before
us.”
The dying man shook his head. He motioned the young men and
his family away from his bedside; with the other bony claw he hung fast to the
Don. He tried to speak. The Don put his head down and then sat on the bedside
chair. Genco Abbandando was babbling about their childhood. Then his coal-black
eyes became sly. He whispered. The Don bent closer. The others in the room were
astonished to see tears running down Don Corleone’s face as he shook his head.
The quavering voice grew louder, filling the room. With a tortured, superhuman
effort, Abbandando lifted his head off his pillow, eyes unseeing, and pointed a
skeletal forefinger at the Don. “Godfather, Godfather,” he called out blindly,
“save me from death, I beg of you. My flesh is burning off my bones and I can
feel the worms eating away my brain. Godfather, cure me, you have the power,
dry the tears of my poor wife. In Corleone we played together as children and
now will you let me die when I fear hell for my sins?”
The Don was silent. Abbandando said, “It is your daughter’s
wedding day, you cannot refuse me.”
The Don spoke quietly, gravely, to pierce through the
blasphemous delirium. “Old friend,” he said, “I have no such powers. If I did I
would be more merciful than God, believe me. But don’t fear death and don’t
fear hell. I will have a mass said for your soul every night and every morning.
Your wife and your children will pray for you. How can God punish you with so
many pleas for mercy?”
The skeleton face took on a cunning
expression that was obscene. Abbandanda said
slyly, “It’s been arranged then?”
When the Don answered, his voice was cold, without comfort.
“You blaspheme. Resign yourself.”
Abbandando fell back on the pillow. His eyes lost their wild
gleam of hope. The nurse came back into the room and started shooing them out
in a very matter-of-fact way. The Don got up but Abbandando put out his hand.
“Godfather,” he said, “stay here with me and help me meet death. Perhaps if He
sees you near me He will be frightened and leave me in peace. Or perhaps you
can say a word, pull a few strings, eh?” The dying man winked as if he were
mocking the Don, now not really serious. “You’re brothers in blood, after all.”
Then, as if fearing the Don would be offended, he clutched at his hand. “Stay
with me, let me hold your hand. We’ll outwit that bastard as we’ve outwitted
others. Godfather, don’t betray me.”
The Don motioned the other people out of the room. They
left. He took the withered claw of Genco Abbandando in his own two broad hands.
Softly, reassuringly, he comforted his friend, as they waited for death
together. As if the Don could truly snatch the life of Gencp Abbandando back
from that most foul and criminal traitor to man.
* * *
The wedding day of Connie Corleone ended well for her. Carlo
Rizzi performed his duties as a bridegroom with skill and vigor, spurred on by
the contents of the bride’s gift purse which totaled up to over twenty thousand
dollars. The bride, however, gave up her virginity with a great deal more
willingness than she gave up her purse. For the latter, he had to blacken one
of her eyes.
Lucy Mancini waited in her house for a call from Sonny
Corleone, sure that he would ask her for a date. Finally she called his house
and when she heard a woman’s voice answer the phone she hung up. She had no way
of knowing that nearly everyone at the wedding had remarked the absence of her
and Sonny for that fatal half hour and the gossip was already spreading that
Santino Corleone had found another victim. That he had “done the job” on his
own sister’s maid of honor.
Amerigo Bonasera had a terrible nightmare. In his dreams he
saw Don Corleone, in peaked cap, overalls and heavy gloves, unloading
bullet-riddled corpses in front of his funeral parlor and shouting, “Remember,
Amerigo, not a word to anyone, and bury them quickly.” He groaned so loud and
long in his sleep that his wife shook him awake. “Eh, what a man you are,” she
grumbled. “To have a nightmare only after a wedding.”
Kay Adams was escorted to her New York City hotel by Paulie
Gatto and Clemenza. The car was large, luxurious and driven by Gatto. Clemenza
sat in the back seat and Kay was given the front seat next to the driver. She
found both men wildly exotic. Their speech was movie Brooklynese and they
treated her with exaggerated courtliness. During the ride she chatted casually
with both men and was surprised when they spoke of Michael with unmistakable
affection and respect. He had led her to believe that he was an alien in his
father’s world. Now Clemenza was assuring her in his wheezing guttural voice
that the “old man” thought Mike was the best of his sons, the one who would
surely inherit the family business.
“What business is that?” Kay asked in
the most natural way.
Paulie Gatto gave her a quick glance as he turned the wheel.
Behind her Clemenza said in a surprised voice. “Didn’t Mike tell you? Mr.
Corleone is the biggest importer of Italian olive oil in the States. Now that
the war is over the business could get real rich. He’ll need a smart boy like
Mike.”
At the hotel Clemenza insisted on coming to the desk with
her. When she protested, he said simply, “The boss said to make sure you got
home OK. I gotta do it.”
After she received her room key he walked her to the
elevator and waited until she got in. She waved to him, smiling, and was
surprised at his genuine smile of pleasure in return. It was just as well she
did not see him go back to the hotel clerk and ask, “What name she registered
under?”
The hotel clerk looked at Clemenza coldly. Clemenza rolled
the little green spitball he was holding in his hand across to the clerk, who
picked it up and immediately said, “Mr. and Mrs. Michael Corleone.”
Back in the car, Paulie Gatto said,
“Nice dame.”
Clemenza grunted. “Mike is doing the job on her.” Unless, he
thought, they were really married. “Pick me up early in the morning,” he told
Paulie Gatto. “Hagen got some deal for us that gotta be done right away.”
* * *
It was late Sunday night before Tom Hagen could kiss his
wife good-bye and drive out to the airport. With his special number one
priority (a grateful gift from a Pentagon staff general officer) he had no
trouble getting on a plane to Los Angeles.
It had been a busy but satisfying day
for Tom Hagen. Genco Abbandando had died at
three in the morning and when Don Corleone returned from the
hospital, he had informed Hagen that he was now officially the new Consigliere
to the family. This meant that Hagen was sure to become a very rich man, to say
nothing of power.
The Don had broken a long-standing tradition. The
Consigliere was always a full-blooded Sicilian, and the fact that Hagen had been
brought up as a member of the Don’s family made no difference to that
tradition. It was a question of blood. Only a Sicilian born to the ways of
ormerta, the law of silence, could be trusted in the key post of Consigliere.
Between the head of the family, Don Corleone, who dictated policy, and the
operating level of men who actually carried out the orders of the Don, there
were three layers, or buffers. In that way nothing could be traced to the top.
Unless the Consigliere turned traitor. That Sunday morning Don Corleone gave
explicit instructions on what should be done to the two young men who had
beaten the daughter of Amerigo Bonasera. But he had given those orders in
private to Tom Hagen. Later in the day Hagen had, also in private without
witnesses, instructed Clemenza. In turn Clemenza had told Paulie Gatto to
execute the commission. Paulie Gatto would now muster the necessary manpower
and execute the orders. Paulie Gatto and his men would not know why this
particular task was being carried out or who had ordered it originally. Each
link of the chain would have to turn traitor for the Don to be involved and
though it had never yet happened, there was always the possibility. The cure
for that possibility also was known. Only one link in the chain had to
disappear.
The Consigliere was also what his name implied. He was the
counselor to the Don, his right-hand man, his auxiliary brain. He was also his
closest companion and his closest friend. On important trips he would drive the
Don’s car, at conferences he would go out and get the Don refreshments, coffee
and sandwiches, fresh cigars. He would know everything the Don knew or nearly
everything, all the cells of power. He was the one man in the world who could
bring the Don crashing down to destruction. But no Consigliere had ever
betrayed a Don, not in the memory of any of the powerful Sicilian families who
had established themselves in America. There was no future in it. And every
Consigliere knew that if he kept the faith, he would become rich, wield power
and win respect. If misfortune came, his wife and children would be sheltered
and cared for as if he were alive or free. If he kept the faith.
In some matters the Consigliere had to act for his Don in a
more open way and yet not involve his principal. Hagen was flying to California
on just such a matter. He realized that his career as Consigliere would be
seriously affected by the success or failure of
this mission. By family business standards whether Johnny
Fontane got his coveted part in the war movie, or did not, was a minor matter.
Far more important was the meeting Hagen had set up with Virgil Sollozzo the
following Friday. But Hagen knew that to the Don, both were of equal
importance, which settled the matter for any good Consigliere.
The piston plane shook Tom Hagen’s already nervous insides
and he ordered a martini from the hostess to quiet them. Both the Don and
Johnny had briefed him on the character of the movie producer, Jack Woltz. From
everything that Johnny said, Hagen knew he would never be able to persuade
Woltz. But he also had no doubt whatsoever that the Don would keep his promise
to Johnny. His own role was that of negotiator and contact.
Lying back in his seat, Hagen went over all the information
given to him that day. Jack Woltz was one of the three most important movie
producers in Hollywood, owner of his own studio with dozens of stars under
contract. He was on the President of the United States’ Advisory Council for
War Information, Cinematic Division, which meant simply that he helped make
propaganda movies. He had had dinner at the White House. He had entertained J.
Edgar Hoover in his Hollywood home. But none of this was as impressive as it
sounded. They were all official relationships. Woltz didn’t have any personal
political power, mainly because he was an extreme reactionary, partly because
he was a megalomaniac who loved to wield power wildly without regard to the
fact that by so doing legions of enemies sprang up out of the ground.
Hagen sighed. There would be no way to “handle” Jack Woltz.
He opened his briefcase and tried to get some paper work done, but he was too
tired. He ordered another martini and reflected on his life. He had no regrets,
indeed he felt that he had been extremely lucky. Whatever the reason, the
course he had chosen ten years ago had proved to be right for him. He was
successful, he was as happy as any grown man could reasonably expect, and he
found life interesting.
Tom Hagen was thirty-five years old, a tall crew-cut man,
very slender, very ordinary-looking. He was a lawyer but did not do the actual
detailed legal work for the Corleone family business though he had practiced
law for three years after passing the bar exam.
At the age of eleven he had been a playmate of
eleven-year-old Sonny Corleone. Hagen’s mother had gone blind and then died
during his eleventh year. Hagen’s father, a heavy drinker, had become a
hopeless drunkard. A hardworking carpenter, he had
never done a dishonest thing in his life. But his drinking
destroyed his family and finally killed him. Tom Hagen was left an orphan who
wandered the streets and slept in hallways. His younger sister had been put in
a foster home, but in the 1920’s the social agencies did not follow up cases of
eleven-year-old boys who were so ungrateful as to run from their charity.
Hagen, too, had an eye infection. Neighbors whispered that he had caught or
inherited it from his mother and so therefore it could be caught from him. He was
shunned. Sonny Corleone, a warmhearted and imperious eleven-year-old, had
brought his friend home and demanded that he be taken in. Tom Hagen was given a
hot dish of spaghetti with oily rich tomato sauce, the taste of which he had
never forgotten, and then given a metal folding bed to sleep on.
In the most natural way, without a word being spoken or the
matter discussed in any fashion, Don Corleone had permitted the boy to stay in
his household. Don Corleone himself took the boy to a special doctor and had
his eye infection cured. He sent him to college and law school. In all this the
Don acted not as a father but rather as a guardian. There was no show of
affection but oddly enough the Don treated Hagen more courteously than his own
sons, did not impose a parental will upon him. It was the boy’s decision to go
to law school after college. He had heard Don Corleone say once, “A lawyer with
his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.” Meanwhile, much to
the annoyance of their father, Sonny and Freddie insisted on going into the
family business after graduation from high school. Only Michael had gone on to
college, and he had enlisted in the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor.
After he passed the bar exam, Hagen married to start his own
family. The bride was a young Italian girl from New Jersey, rare at that time
for being a college graduate. After the wedding, which was of course held in
the home of Don Corleone, the Don offered to support Hagen in any undertaking
he desired, to send him law clients, furnish his office, start him in real
estate.
Tom
Hagen had bowed his head and said to the Don, “I would like to work for you.”
The Don was surprised, yet pleased. “You know who I am?” he asked.
Hagen nodded. He hadn’t really known the extent of the Don’s
power, not then. He did not really know in the ten years that followed until he
was made the acting Consigliere after Genco Abbandando became ill. But he
nodded and met the Don’s eyes with his own. “I would work for you like your
sons,” Hagen said, meaning with complete loyalty, with complete acceptance of
the Don’s parental divinity. The Don, with that
understanding which was even then building the legend of his
greatness, showed the young man the first mark of fatherly affection since he
hadcome into his household. He took Hagen into his arms for a quick embrace and
afterward treated him more like a true son, though he would sometimes say,
“Tom, never forget your parents,” as if he were reminding himself as well as
Hagen.
There was no chance that Hagen would forget. His mother had
been near moronic and slovenly, so ridden by anemia she could not feel
affection for her children or make a pretense of it. His father Hagen had
hated. His mother’s blindness before she died had terrified him and his own eye
infection had been a stroke of doom. He had been sure he would go blind. When
his father died, Tom Hagen’s eleven-year-old mind had snapped in a curious way.
He had roamed the streets like an animal waiting for death until the fateful
day Sonny found him sleeping in the back of a hallway and brought him to his
home. What had happened afterward was a miracle. But for years Hagen had had
nightmares, dreaming he had grown to manhood blind, tapping a white cane, his blind
children behind him tap-tapping with their little white canes as they begged in
the streets. Some mornings when he woke the face of Don Corleone was imprinted
on his brain in that first conscious moment and he would feel safe.
But the Don had insisted that he put in three years of
general law practice in addition to his duties for the family business. This
experience had proved invaluable later on, and also removed any doubts in
Hagen’s mind about working for Don Corleone. He had then spent two years of
training in the offices of a top firm of criminal lawyers in which the Don had
some influence. It was apparent to everyone that he had a flair for this branch
of the law. He did well and when he went into the full-time service of the
family business, Don Corleone had not been able to reproach him once in the six
years that followed.
When he had been made the acting Consigliere, the other
powerful Sicilian families referred contemptuously to the Corleone family as
the “Irish gang.” This had amused Hagen. It had also taught him that he could
never hope to succeed the Don as the head of the family business. But he was
content. That had never been his goal, such an ambition would have been a
“disrespect” to his benefactor and his benefactor’s blood family.
* * *
It was still dark when the plane landed in Los Angeles.
Hagen checked into his hotel, showered and shaved, and watched dawn come over
the city. He ordered breakfast and
newspapers to be sent up to his room
and relaxed until it was time for his ten A.M.
appointment with Jack Woltz. The
appointment had been surprisingly easy to make.
The day before, Hagen had called the most powerful man in
the movie labor unions, a man named Billy Goff. Acting on instructions from Don
Corleone, Hagen had told Goff to arrange an appointment on the next day for
Hagen to call on Jack Woltz, that he should hint to Woltz that if Hagen was not
made happy by the results of the interview, there could be a labor strike at
the movie studio. An hour later Hagen received a call from Goff. The
appointment would be at ten A.M. Woltz had gotten the message about the
possible labor strike but hadn’t seemed too impressed, Goff said. He added, “If
it really comes down to that, I gotta talk to the Don myself.”
“If it comes to that he’ll talk to you,” Hagen said. By
saying this he avoided making any promises. He was not surprised that Goff was
so agreeable to the Don’s wishes. The family empire, technically, did not
extend beyond the New York area but Don Corleone had first become strong by
helping labor leaders. Many of them still owed him debts of friendship.
But the ten A.M. appointment was a bad sign. It meant that
he would be first on the appointment list, that he would not be invited to
lunch. It meant that Woltz held him in small worth. Goff had not been
threatening enough, probably because Woltz had him on his graft payroll. And
sometimes the Don’s success in keeping himself out of the limelight worked to
the disadvantage of the family business, in that his name did not mean anything
to outside circles.
His analysis proved correct. Woltz kept him waiting for a
half hour past the appointed time. Hagen didn’t mind. The reception room was
very plush, very comfortable, and on a plum-colored couch opposite him sat the
most beautiful child Hagen had ever seen. She was no more than eleven or
twelve, dressed in a very expensive but simple way as a grown woman. She had
incredibly golden hair, huge deep sea-blue eyes and a fresh raspberry-red
mouth. She was guarded by a woman obviously her mother, who tried to stare
Hagen down with a cold arrogance that made him want to punch her in the face.
The angel child and the dragon mother, Hagen thought, returning the mother’s
cold stare.
Finally an exquisitely dressed but stout middle-aged woman
came to lead him through a string of offices to the office-apartment of the
movie producer. Hagen was impressed by the beauty of the offices and the people
working in them. He smiled. They were all
shrewdies, trying to get their foot in the movie door by
taking office jobs; and most of them would work in these offices for the rest
of their lives or until they accepted defeat and returned to their home towns.
Jack Woltz was a tall, powerfully built man with a heavy
paunch almost concealed by his perfectly tailored tailor-made
suit. Hagen knew his history. At ten years of age Woltz had hustled empty beer
kegs and pushcarts on the East Side. At twenty he helped his father sweat
garment workers. At thirty he had left New York and moved West, invested in the
nickelodeon and pioneered motion pictures. At forty-eight he had been the most
powerful movie magnate in Hollywood, still rough-spoken, rapaciously amorous, a
raging wolf ravaging helpless flocks of young starlets. At fifty he transformed
himself. He took speech lessons, learned how to dress from an English valet and
how to behave socially from an English butler. When his first wife died he
married a world-famous and beautiful actress who didn’t like acting. Now at the
age of sixty he collected old master paintings, was a member of the President’s
Advisory Committee, and had set up a multimillion-dollar foundation in his name
to promote art in motion pictures. His daughter had married an English lord,
his son an Italian princess.
His latest passion, as reported dutifully by every movie
columnist in America, was his own racing stables on which he had spent ten
million dollars in the past year. He had made headlines by purchasing the famed
English racing horse Khartoum for the incredible price of six hundred thousand
dollars and then announcing that the undefeated racer would be retired and put
to stud exclusively for the Woltz stables.
He received Hagen courteously, his beautifully, evenly tanned,
meticulously barbered face contorted with a grimace meant to be a smile.
Despite all the money spent, despite the ministrations of the most
knowledgeable technicians, his age showed; the flesh of his face looked as if
it had been seamed together. But there was an enormous vitality in his
movements and he had what Don Corleone had, the air of a man who commanded
absolutely the world in which he lived.
Hagen came directly to the point. That he was an emissary
from a friend of Johnny Fontane. That this friend was a very powerful man who
would pledge his gratitude and undying friendship to Mr. Woltz if Mr. Woltz
would grant a small favor. The small favor would be the casting of Johnny
Fontane in the new war movie the studio planned to start next week.
The seamed face was impassive, polite.
“What favors can your friend do me?” Woltz
asked. There was just a trace of
condescension in his voice.
Hagen ignored the condescension. He explained. “You’ve got
some labor trouble coming up. My friend can absolutely guarantee to make that
trouble disappear. You have a top male star who makes a lot of money for your
studio but he just graduated from marijuana to heroin. My friend will guarantee
that your male star won’t be able to get any more heroin. And if some other
little things come up over the years a phone call to me can solve your
problems.”
Jack Woltz listened to this as if he were hearing the
boasting of a child. Then he said harshly, his voice deliberately all East Side,
“You trying to put muscle on me?”
Hagen said coolly, “Absolutely not. I’ve come to ask a
service for a friend. I’ve tried to explain that you won’t lose anything by
it.”
Almost as if he willed it, Woltz made his face a mask of
anger. The mouth curled, his heavy brows, dyed black, contracted to form a
thick line over his glinting eyes. He leaned over the desk toward Hagen. “All
right, you smooth son of a bitch, let me lay it on the line for you and your
boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane never gets that movie. I don’t care how
many guinea Mafia goombahs come out of the woodwork.” He leaned back. “A word
of advice to you, my friend. J. Edgar Hoover, I assume you’ve heard of him”–
Woltz smiled sardonically– “is a personal friend of mine. If I let him know I’m
being pressured, you guys will never know what hit you.”
Hagen listened patiently. He had expected better from a man
of Woltz’s stature. Was it possible that a man who acted this stupidly could
rise to the head of a company worth hundreds of millions? That was something to
think about since the Don was looking for new things to put money into, and if
the top brains of this industry were so dumb, movies might be the thing. The
abuse itself bothered him not at all. Hagen had learned the art of negotiation
from the Don himself. “Never get angry,” the Don had instructed. “Never make a
threat. Reason with people.” The word “reason” sounded so much better in
Italian, ragione, to rejoin. The art of this was to ignore all insults, all
threats; to turn the other cheek. Hagen had seen the Don sit at
a negotiating table for eight hours, swallowing insults, trying to persuade a
notorious and megalomaniac strong-arm man to mend his ways. At the end of the
eight hours Don Corleone had thrown up his hands in a helpless gesture and said
to the other men at the table, “But no one can reason with this fellow,” and
had stalked out of the meeting room. The strong-arm man had turned white with
fear. Emissaries were sent to bring the Don back into the room. An
agreement was reached but two months later the strong-arm
was shot to death in his favorite barbershop.
So Hagen started again, speaking in the most ordinary voice.
“Look at my card,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. Would I stick my neck out?
Have I uttered one threatening word? Let me just say that I am prepared to meet
any condition you name to get Johnny Fontane that movie. I think I’ve already
offered a great deal for such a small favor. A favor that I understand it would
be in your interest to grant. Johnny tells me that you admit he would be
perfect for that part. And let me say that this favor would never be asked if
that were not so. In fact, if you’re worried about your investment, my client
would finance the picture. But please let me make myself absolutely clear. We
understand your no is no. Nobody can force you or is trying to. We know about
your friendship with Mr. Hoover, I may add, and my boss respects you for it. He
respects that relationship very much.”
Woltz had been doodling with a huge, red-feathered pen. At
the mention of money his interest was aroused and he stopped doodling. He said
patronizingly, “This picture is budgeted at five million.”
Hagen whistled softly to show that he was impressed. Then he
said very casually, “My boss has a lot of friends who back his judgment.”
For the first time Woltz seemed to take the whole thing
seriously. He studied Hagen’s card. “I never heard of you,” he said. “I know
most of the big lawyers in New York, but just who the hell are you?”
“I have one of those dignified corporate practices,” Hagen
said dryly. “I just handle this one account.” He rose. “I won’t take up any
more of your time.” He held out his hand, Woltz shook it. Hagen took a few
steps toward the door and turned to face Woltz again. “I understand you have to
deal with a lot of people who try to seem more important than they are. In my
case the reverse is true. Why don’t you check me out with our mutual friend? If
you reconsider, call me at my hotel.” He paused. “This may be sacrilege to you,
but my client can do things for you that even Mr. Hoover might find out of his
range.” He saw the movie producer’s eyes narrowing. Woltz was finally getting
the message. “By the way, I admire your pictures very much,” Hagen said in the
most fawning voice he could manage. “I hope you can keep up the good work. Our
country needs it.”
Late that afternoon Hagen received a call from the
producer’s secretary that a car would pick him up within the hour to take him
out to Mr. Woltz’s country home for dinner. She
told him it would be about a three-hour drive but that the
car was equipped with a bar and some hors d’oeuvres. Hagen knew that Woltz made
the trip in his private plane and wondered why he hadn’t been invited to make
the trip by air. The secretary’s voice was adding politely, “Mr. Woltz
suggested you bring an overnight bag and he’ll get you to the airport in the
morning.”
“I’ll do that,” Hagen said. That was another thing to wonder
about. How did Woltz know he was taking the morning plane back to New York? He
thought about it for a moment. The most likely explanation was that Woltz had
set private detectives on his trail to get all possible information. Then Woltz
certainly knew he represented the Don, which meant that he knew something about
the Don, which in turn meant that he was now ready to take the whole matter
seriously. Something might be done after all, Hagen thought. And maybe Woltz
was smarter than he had appeared this morning.
* * *
The home of Jack Woltz looked like an implausible movie set.
There was a plantation-type mansion, huge grounds girdled by a rich black-dirt
bridle path, stables and pasture for a herd of horses. The hedges, flower beds
and grasses were as carefully manicured as a movie star’s nails.
Woltz greeted Hagen on a glass-paneled air-conditioned
porch. The producer was informally dressed in blue silk shirt open at the neck,
mustard-colored slacks, soft leather sandals. Framed in all this color and rich
fabric his seamed, tough face was startling. He handed Hagen an outsized
martini glass and took one for himself from the prepared tray. He seemed more
friendly than he had been earlier in the day. He put his arm over Hagen’s
shoulder and said, “We have a little time before dinner, let’s go look at my
horses.” As they walked toward the stables he said, “I checked you out, Tom;
you should have told me your boss is Corleone. I thought you were just some
third-rate hustler Johnny was running in to bluff me. And I don’t bluff. Not that
I want to make enemies, I never believed in that. But let’s just enjoy
ourselves now. We can talk business after dinner.”
Surprisingly Woltz proved to be a truly considerate host. He
explained his new methods, innovations that he hoped would make his stable the
most successful in America. The stables were all fire-proofed, sanitized to the
highest degree, and guarded by a special security detail of private detectives.
Finally Woltz led him to a stall which had a huge bronze plaque attached to its
outside wall. On the plaque was the name “Khartoum.”
The horse inside the stall was, even to Hagen’s
inexperienced eyes, a beautiful animal. Khartoum’s skin was jet black except
for a diamond-shaped white patch on his huge forehead. The great brown eyes
glinted like golden apples, the black skin over the taut body was silk. Woltz
said with childish pride, “The greatest racehorse in the world. I bought him in
England last year for six hundred grand. I bet even the Russian Czars never
paid that much for a single horse. But I’m not going to race him, I’m going to
put him to stud. I’m going to build the greatest racing stable this country has
ever known.” He stroked the horse’s mane and called out softly, “Khartoum,
Khartoum.” There was real love in his voice and the animal responded. Woltz
said to Hagen, “I’m a good horseman, you know, and the first time I ever rode I
was fifty years old.” He laughed. “Maybe one of my grandmothers in Russia got
raped by a Cossack and I got his blood.” He tickled Khartoum’s belly and said
with sincere admiration, “Look at that cock on him. I should have such a cock.”
They went back to the mansion to have dinner. It was served
by three waiters under the command of a butler, the table linen and ware were
all gold thread and silver, but Hagen found the food mediocre. Woltz obviously
lived alone, and just as obviously was not a man who cared about food. Hagen
waited until they had both lit up huge Havana cigars before he asked Woltz,
“Does Johnny get it or not?”
“I can’t,” Woltz said. “I can’t put Johnny into that picture
even if I wanted to. The contracts are all signed for all the performers and
the cameras roll next week. There’s no way I can swing it.”
Hagen said impatiently, “Mr. Woltz, the big advantage of
dealing with a man at the top is that such an excuse is not valid. You can do
anything you want to do.” He puffed on his cigar. “Don’t you believe my client
can keep his promises?”
Woltz said dryly, “I believe that I’m going to have labor
trouble. Goff called me up on that, the son of a bitch, and the way he talked
to me you’d never guess I pay him a hundred grand a year under the table. And I
believe you can get that fag he-man star of mine off heroin. But I don’t care
about that and I can finance my own pictures. Because I hate that bastard
Fontane. Tell your boss this is one favor I can’t give but that he should try
me again on anything else. Anything at all.”
Hagen thought, you sneaky bastard, then why the hell did you
bring me all the way out here? The producer had something on his mind. Hagen
said coldly, “I don’t think you understand the situation. Mr. Corleone is
Johnny Fontane’s godfather. That is a very
close, a very sacred religious relationship.” Woltz bowed
his head in respect at this reference to religion. Hagen went on. “Italians
have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to
look after him, and that’s why they have godfathers. Since Johnny’s father
died, Mr. Corleone feels his responsibility even more deeply. As for trying you
again, Mr. Corleone is much too sensitive. He never asks a second favor where
he has been refused the first.”
Woltz shrugged. “I’m sorry. The answer is still no. But
since you’re here, what will it cost me to have that labor trouble cleared up?
In cash. Right now.”
That solved one puzzle for Hagen. Why Woltz was putting in
so much time on him when he had already decided not to give Johnny the part.
And that could not be changed at this meeting. Woltz felt secure; he was not
afraid of the power of Don Corleone. And certainly Woltz with his national
political connections, his acquaintanceship with the FBI chief, his huge
personal fortune and his absolute power in the film industry, could not feel
threatened by Don Corleone. To any intelligent man, even to Hagen, it seemed
that Woltz had correctly assessed his position. He was impregnable to the Don
if he was willing to take the losses the labor struggle would cost. There was
only one thing wrong with the whole equation. Don Corleone had promised his
godson he would get the part and Don Corleone had never, to Hagen’s knowledge,
broken his word in such matters.
Hagen said quietly, “You are deliberately misunderstanding
me. You are trying to make me an accomplice to extortion. Mr. Corleone promises
only to speak in your favor on this labor trouble as a matter of friendship in
return for your speaking in behalf of his client. A friendly exchange of
influence, nothing more. But I can see you don’t take me seriously. Personally,
I think that is a mistake.”
Woltz, as if he had been waiting for such a moment, let
himself get angry. “I understood perfectly,” he said. “That’s the Mafia style,
isn’t is? All olive oil and sweet talk when what you’re really doing is making
threats. So let me lay it on the line. Johnny Fonfane will never get that part
and he’s perfect for it. It would make him a great star. But he never will be
because I hate that pinko punk and I’m going to run him out of the movies. And
I’ll tell you why. He ruined one of my most valuable protegees. For five years
I had this girl under training, singing, dancing, acting lessons, I spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was going to make her a star. I’ll be even
more frank, just to show you that I’m not a hard-hearted man, that it wasn’t
all dollars and cents. That girl was beautiful and she was the greatest piece
of ass I’ve ever had and I’ve had them all over the world. She could suck you
out like a water pump. Then Johnny comes along with that olive-oil
voice and guinea charm and she runs off. She threw it all
away just to make me ridiculous. A man in my position, Mr. Hagen, can’t afford
to look ridiculous. I have to pay Johnny off.”
For the first time, Woltz succeeded in astounding Hagen. He
found it inconceivable that a grown man of substance would let such
trivialities affect his judgment in an affair of business, and one of such
importance. In Hagen’s world, the Corleones’ world, the physical beauty, the
sexual power of women, carried not the slightest weight in worldly matters. It
was a private affair, except, of course, in matters of marriage and family
disgrace. Hagen decided to make one last try.
“You are absolutely right, Mr. Woltz,” Hagen said. “But are
your grievances that major? I don’t think you’ve understood how important this
very small favor is to my client. Mr. Corleone held the infant Johnny in his
arms when he was baptized. When Johnny’s father died, Mr. Corleone assumed the
duties of parenthood, indeed he is called ‘Godfather’ by many, many people who
wish to show their respect and gratitude for the help he has given them. Mr.
Corleone never lets his friends down.”
Woltz stood up abruptly. “I’ve listened to about enough.
Thugs don’t give me orders, I give them orders. If I pick up this phone, you’ll
spend the night in jail. And if that Mafia goombah tries any rough stuff, he’ll
find out I’m not a band leader. Yeah, I heard that story too. Listen, your Mr.
Corleone will never know what hit him. Even if I have to use my influence at
the White House.”
The stupid, stupid son of a bitch. How the hell did he get
to be a pezzonovante, Hagen wondered. Advisor to the President, head of the
biggest movie studio in the world. Definitely the Don should get into the movie
business. And the guy was taking his words at their sentimental face value. He
was not getting the message.
“Thank you for the dinner and a pleasant evening,” Hagen
said. “Could you give me transportation to the airport? I don’t think I’ll
spend the night.” He smiled coldly at Woltz. “Mr. Corleone is a man who insists
on hearing bad news at once.”
While waiting in the floodlit colonnade of the mansion for
his car, Hagen saw two women about to enter a long limousine already parked in
the driveway. They were the beautiful twelve-year-old blond girl and her mother
he had seen in Woltz’s office that morning. But now the girl’s exquisitely cut
mouth seemed to have smeared into a thick, pink mass. Her sea-blue eyes were
filmed over and when she walked down the steps toward the open car her long
legs tottered like a crippled foal’s. Her mother supported the child,
helping her into the car, hissing commands into her ear. The
mother’s head turned for a quick furtive look at Hagen and he saw in her eyes a
burning, hawklike triumph. Then she too disappeared into the limousine.
So that was why he hadn’t got the plane ride from Los
Angeles, Hagen thought. The girl and her mother had made the trip with the
movie producer. That had given Woltz enough time to relax before dinner and do
the job on the little kid. And Johnny wanted to live in this world? Good luck
to him, and good luck to Woltz.
* * *
Paulie Gatto hated quickie jobs, especially when they
involved violence. He liked to plan things ahead. And something like tonight,
even though it was punk stuff, could turn into serious business if somebody
made a mistake. Now, sipping his beer, he glanced around, checking how the two
young punks were making out with the two little tramps at the bar.
Paulie Gatto knew everything there was to know about those
two punks. Their names were Jerry Wagner and Kevin Moonan. They were both about
twenty years old, goodlooking, brown-haired, tall, well-built. Both were due to
go back to college out of town in two weeks, both had fathers with political
influence and this, with their college student classification, had so far kept
them out of the draft. They were both also under suspended sentences for
assaulting the daughter of Amerigo Bonasera. The lousy bastards, Paulie Gatto
thought. Draft dodging, violating their probation by drinking in a bar after
midnight, chasing floozies. Young punks. Paulie Gatto had been deferred from
the draft himself because his doctor had furnished the draft board with
documents showing that this patient, male, white, aged twenty-six, unmarried,
had received electrical shock treatments for a mental condition. All false, of
course, but Paulie Gatto felt that he had earned his draft exemption. It had been
arranged by Clemenza after Gatto had “made his bones” in the family business.
It was Clemenza who had told him that this job must be
rushed through, before the boys went to college. Why the hell did it have to be
done in New York, Gatto wondered. Clemenza was always giving extra orders
instead of just giving out the job. Now if those two little tramps walked out
with the punks it would be another night wasted.
He could hear one of the girls laughing and saying, “Are you
crazy, Jerry? I’m not going in any car with you. I don’t want to wind up in the
hospital like that other poor girl.” Her voice was spitefully rich with
satisfaction. That was enough for Gatto. He finished up his
beer and walked out into the dark street. Perfect. It was
after midnight. There was only one other bar that showed light. The rest of the
stores were closed. The precinct patrol car had been taken care of by Clemenza.
They wouldn’t be around that way until they got a radio call and then they’d come
slow.
He leaned against the four-door Chevy sedan. In the back
seat two men were sitting, almost invisible, although they were very big men.
Paulie said, “Take them when they come out.”
He still thought it had all been set up too fast. Clemenza
had given him copies of the police mug shots of the two punks, the dope on
where the punks went drinking every night to pick up bar girls. Paulie had
recruited two of the strong-arms in the family and fingered the punks for them.
He had also given them their instructions. No blows on the top or the back of
the head, there was to be no accidental fatality. Other than that they could go
as far as they liked. He had given them only one warning: “If those punks get
out of the hospital in less than a month, you guys go back to driving trucks.”
The two big men were getting out of the car. They were both
ex-boxers who had never made it past the small clubs and had been fixed up by
Sonny Corleone with a little loan-shark action so that they could make a decent
living. They were, naturally, anxious to show their gratitude.
When Jerry Wagner and Kevin Moonan came out of the bar they
were perfect setups. The bar girl’s taunts had left their adolescent vanity
prickly. Paulie Gatto, leaning against the fender of his car, called out to
them with a teasing laugh, “Hey, Casanova, those broads really brushed you
off.”
The two young men turned on him with delight. Paulie Gatto
looked like a perfect outlet for their humiliation. Ferret-faced, short,
slightly built and a wise guy in the bargain. They pounced on him eagerly and
immediately found their arms pinned by two men grabbing them from behind. At
the same moment Paulie Gatto had slipped onto his right hand a specially made
set of brass knuckles studded with one-sixteenth-inch iron spikes. His timing
was good, he worked out in the gym three times a week. He smashed the punk
named Wagner right on the nose. The man holding Wagner lifted him up off the
ground and Paulie swung his arm, uppercutting into the perfectly positioned groin.
Wagner went limp and the big man dropped him. This had taken no more than six
seconds.
Now both of them turned their attention to Kevin Moonan, who
was trying to shout. The man holding him from behind did so easily with one
huge muscled arm. The other hand
he put around Moonan’s throat to cut
off any sound.
Paulie Gatto jumped into the car and started the motor. The
two big men were beating Moonan to jelly. They did so with frightening
deliberation, as if they had all the time in the world. They did not throw
punches in flurries but in timed, slow-motion sequences that carried the full
weight of their massive bodies. Each blow landed with a splat of flesh
splitting open. Gatto got a glimpse of Moonan’s face. It was unrecognizable.
The two men left Moonan lying on the sidewalk and turned their attention to
Wagner. Wagner was trying to get to his feet and he started to scream for help.
Someone came out of the bar and the two men had to work faster now. They
clubbed Wagner to his knees. One of the men took his arm and twisted it, then
kicked him in the spine. There was a cracking sound and Wagner’s scream of
agony brought windows open all along the street. The two men worked very
quickly. One of them held Wagner up by using his two hands around Wagner’s head
like a vise. The other man smashed his huge fist into the fixed target. There
were more people coming out of the bar but none tried to interfere. Paulie
Gatto yelled, “Come on, enough.” The two big men jumped into the car and Paulie
gunned it away, Somebody would describe the car and read the license plates but
it didn’t matter. It was a stolen California plate and there were one hundred
thousand black Chevy sedans in New York City.
Chapter 2
Tom Hagen went to his law office in the city on Thursday
morning. He planned to catch up on his paper work so as to have everything
cleared away for the meeting with Virgil Sollozzo on Friday. A meeting of such
importance that he had asked the Don for a full evening of talk to prepare for
the proposition they knew Sollozzo would offer the family business. Hagen
wanted to have all little details cleared away so that he could go to that
preparatory meeting with an unencumbered mind.
The Don had not seemed surprised when Hagen returned from
California late Tuesday evening and told him the results of the negotiations
with Woltz. He had made Hagen go over every detail and grimaced with distaste
when Hagen told about the beautiful little girl and her mother. He had murmured
“infamita,” his strongest disapproval. He had asked Hagen one final question.
“Does this man have real balls?”
Hagen considered exactly what the Don meant by this
question. Over the years he had learned that the Don’s values were so different
from those of most people that his words also could have a different meaning.
Did Woltz have character? Did he have a strong
will? He most certainly did, but that was not what the Don
was asking. Did the movie producer have the courage not to be bluffed? Did he
have the willingness to suffer heavy financial loss delay on his movies would
mean, the scandal of his big star exposed as a user of heroin? Again the answer
was yes. But again this was not what the Don meant. Finally Hagen translated the
question properly in his mind. Did Jack Woltz have the balls to risk
everything, to run the chance of losing all on a matter of principle, on a
matter of honor; for revenge?
Hagen smiled. He did it rarely but now he could not resist
jesting with the Don. “You’re asking if he is a Sicilian.” The Don nodded his
head pleasantly, acknowledging the flattering witticism and its truth. “No,”
Hagen said.
That had been all. The Don had pondered the question until
the next day. On Wednesday afternoon he had called Hagen to his home and given
him his instructions. The instructions had consumed the rest of Hagen’s working
day and left him dazed with admiration. There was no question in his mind that
the Don had solved the problem, that Woltz would call him this morning with the
news that Johnny Fontane had the starring part in his new war movie.
At that moment the phone did ring but it was Amerigo
Bonasera. The undertaker’s voice was trembling with gratitude. He wanted Hagen
to convey to the Don his undying friendship. The Don had only to call on him.
He, Amerigo Bonasera, would lay down his life for the blessed Godfather. Hagen
assured him that the Don would be told.
The Daily News had carried a middle-page spread of Jerry
Wagner and Kevin Moonan lying in the street. The photos were expertly gruesome,
they seemed to be pulps of human beings. Miraculously, said the News, they were
both still alive though they would both be in the hospital for months and would
require plastic surgery. Hagen made a note to tell Clemenza that something
should be done for Paulie Gatto. He seemed to know his job.
Hagen worked quickly and efficiently for the next three
hours consolidating earning reports from the Don’s real estate company, his
olive oil importing business and his construction firm. None of them were doing
well but with the war over they should all become rich producers. He had almost
forgotten the Johnny Fontane problem when his secretary told him California was
calling. He felt a little thrill of anticipation as he picked up the phone and
said, “Hagen here.”
The voice that came over the phone was
unrecognizable with hate and passion. “You
fucking bastard,” Woltz screamed. “I’ll have you all in jail
for a hundred years. I’ll spend every penny I have to get you. I’ll get that
Johnny Fontane’s balls cut off, do you hear me, you guinea fuck?”
Hagen said kindly, “I’m German-Irish.” There was a long
pause and then a click of the phone being hung up. Hagen smiled. Not once had
Woltz uttered a threat against Don Corleone himself. Genius had its rewards.
* * *
Jack Woltz always slept alone. He had a bed big enough for
ten people and a bedroom large enough for a movie ballroom scene, but he had
slept alone since the death of his first wife ten years before. This did not
mean he no longer used women. He was physically a vigorous man despite his age,
but he could be aroused now only by very young girls and had learned that a few
hours in the evening were all the youth his body and his patience could
tolerate.
On this Thursday morning, for some reason, he awoke early.
The light of dawn made his huge bedroom as misty as a foggy meadowland. Far
down at the foot of his bed was a familiar shape and Woltz struggled up on his
elbows to get a clearer look. It had the shape of a horse’s head. Still groggy,
Woltz reached and flicked on the night table lamp.
The shock of what he saw made him physically ill. It seemed
as if a great sledgehammer had struck him on the chest, his heartbeat jumped
erratically and he became nauseous. His vomit spluttered on the thick bear rug.
Severed from its body, the black silky head of the great
horse Khartoum was stuck fast in a thick cake of blood. White, reedy tendons
showed. Froth covered the muzzle and those apple-sized eyes that had glinted
like gold, were mottled the color of rotting fruit with dead, hemorrhaged
blood. Woltz was struck by a purely animal terror and out of that terror he
screamed for his servants and out of that terror he called Hagen to make his
uncontrolled threats. His maniacal raving alarmed the butler, who called
Woltz’s personal physician and his second in command at the studio. But Woltz
regained his senses before they arrived.
He had been profoundly shocked. What kind of man could
destroy an animal worth six hundred thousand dollars? Without a word of
warning. Without any negotiation to have the act, its order, countermanded. The
ruthlessness, the sheer disregard for any values, implied a man who considered
himself completely his own law, even his own God. And a man who backed up this
kind of will with the power and cunning that held his own
stable security force of no account. For by this time Woltz
had learned that the horse’s body had obviously been heavily drugged before
someone leisurely hacked the huge triangular head off with an ax. The men on
night duty claimed that they had heard nothing. To Woltz this seemed
impossible. They could be made to talk. They had been bought off and they could
be made to tell who had done the buying.
Woltz was not a stupid man, be was merely a supremely
egotistical one. He had mistaken the power he wielded in his world to be more
potent than the power of Don Corleone. He had merely needed some proof that
this was not true. He understood this message. That despite all his wealth,
despite all his contacts with the President of the United States, despite all
his claims of friendship with the director of the FBI, an obscure importer of
Italian olive oil would have him killed. Would actually have him killed!
Because he wouldn’t give Johnny Fontane a movie part he wanted. It was
incredible. People didn’t have any right to act that way. There couldn’t be any
kind of world if people acted that way. It was insane. It meant you couldn’t do
what you wanted with your own money, with the companies you owned, the power
you had to give orders. It was ten times worse than communism. It had to be
smashed. It must never be allowed.
Woltz let the doctor give him a very mild sedation. It
helped him calm down again and to think sensibly. What really shocked him was
the casualness with which this man Corleone had ordered the destruction of a
world-famous horse worth six hundred thousand dollars. Six hundred thousand
dollars! And that was just for openers. Woltz shuddered. He thought of this
life he had built up. He was rich. He could have the most beautiful women in
the world by cooking his finger and promising a contract. He was received by
kings and queens. He lived a life as perfect as money and power could make it.
It was crazy to risk all this because of a whim. Maybe he could get to
Corleone. What was the legal penalty for killing a racehorse? He laughed wildly
and his doctor and servants watched him with nervous anxiety. Another thought
occurred to him. He would be the laughingstock of California merely because
someone had contemptuously defied his power in such arrogant fashion. That
decided him. That and the thought that maybe, maybe they wouldn’t kill him.
That they had something much more clever and painful in reserve.
Woltz gave the necessary orders. His personal confidential
staff swung into action. The servants and the doctor were sworn to secrecy on
pain of incurring the studio’s and Woltz’s undying enmity. Word was given to
the press that the racehorse Khartoum had died of an illness contracted during
his shipment from England. Orders were given to
bury the remains in a secret place on
the estate.
Six hours later Johnny Fontane received a phone call from the
executive producer of the film telling him to report for work the following
Monday.
* * *
That evening, Hagen went to the Don’s house to prepare him
for the important meeting the next day with Virgil Sollozzo. The Don had
summoned his eldest son to attend, and Sonny Corleone, his heavy Cupid-shaped
face drawn with fatigue, was sipping at a glass of water. He must still be
humping that maid of honor, Hagen thought. Another worry.
Don Corleone settled into an armchair puffing his Di Nobili
cigar. Hagen kept a box of them in his room. He had tried to get the Don to
switch to Havanas but the Don claimed they hurt his throat.
“Do we know everything necessary for us
to know?” the Don asked.
Hagen opened the folder that held his notes. The notes were
in no way incriminating, merely cryptic reminders to make sure he touched on
every important detail. “Sollozzo is coming to us for help,” Hagen said. “He
will ask the family to put up at least a million dollars and to promise some
sort of immunity from the law. For that we get a piece of the action, nobody
knows how much. Sollozzo is vouched for by the Tattaglia family and they may
have a piece of the action. The action is narcotics. Sollozzo has the contacts
in Turkey, where they grow the poppy. From there he ships to Sicily. No
trouble. In Sicily he has the plant to process into heroin. He has safety-valve
operations to bring it down to morphine and bring it up to heroin if necessary.
But it would seem that the processing plant in Sicily is protected in every way.
The only hitch is bringing it into this country, and then distribution. Also
initial capital. A million dollars cash doesn’t grow on trees.” Hagen saw Don
Corleone grimace.The old man hated unnecessary flourishes in business matters.
He went on hastily.
“They call Sollozzo the Turk. Two reasons. He’s spent a lot
of time in Turkey and is supposed to have a Turkish wife and kids. Second. He’s
supposed to be very quick with the knife, or was, when he was young. Only in
matters of business, though, and with some sort of reasonable complaint. A very
competent man and his own boss. He has a record, he’s done two terms in prison,
one in Italy, one in the United States, and he’s known to the authorities as a
narcotics man. This could be a plus for us. It means that he’ll never get
immunity to testify, since he’s considered the top and, of course, because
of his record. Also he has an American wife and three
children and he is a good family man. He’ll stand still for any rap as long as
he knows that they will be well taken care of for living money.”
The Don puffed on his cigar and said,
“Santino, what do you think?”
Hagen knew what Sonny would say. Sonny was chafing at being
under the Don’s thumb. He wanted a big operation of his own. Something like
this would be perfect.
Sonny took a long slug of scotch. “There’s a lot of money it
that white powder,” he said. “But it could be dangerous. Some people could wind
up in jail for twenty years. I’d say that if we kept out of the operations end,
just stuck to protection and financing, it might be a good idea.”
Hagen looked at Sonny approvingly. He had played his cards
well. He had stuck to the obvious, much the best course for him.
The Don puffed on his cigar. “And you,
Tom, what do you think?”
Hagen composed himself to be absolutely honest. He had
already come to the conclusion that the Don would refuse Sollozzo’s
proposition. But what was worse, Hagen was convinced that for one of the few
times in his experience, the Don had not thought things through. He was not
looking far enough ahead.
“Go ahead, Tom,” the Don said encouragingly. “Not even a
Sicilian Consigliere always agrees with the boss.” They all laughed.
“I think you should say yes,” Hagen said. “You know all the
obvious reasons. But the most important one is this. There is more money
potential in narcotics than in any other business. If we don’t get into it,
somebody else will, maybe the Tattaglia family. With the revenue they earn they
can amass more and more police and political power. Their family will become
stronger than ours. Eventually they will come after us to take away what we
have. It’s just like countries. If they arm, we have to arm. If they become
stronger economically, they become a threat to us. Now we have the gambling and
we have the unions and right now they are the best things to have. But I think
narcotics is the coming thing. I think we have to have a piece of that action
or we risk everything we have. Not now, but maybe ten years from now.”
The Don seemed enormously impressed. He puffed on his cigar
and murmured, “That’s the most important thing of course.” He sighed and got to
his feet. “What time do I have to meet this infidel tomorrow?”
Hagen said hopefully, “He’ll be here at ten in the morning.”
Maybe the Don would go for it.
“I’ll want you both here with me,” the Don said. He rose,
stretching, and took his son by the arm. “Santino, get some sleep tonight, you
look like the devil himself. Take care of yourself, you won’t be young
forever.”
Sonny, encouraged by this sign of fatherly concern, asked
the question Hagen did not dare to ask. “Pop, what’s your answer going to be?”
Don Corleone smiled. “How do I know until I hear the
percentages and other details? Besides I have to have time to think over the
advice given here tonight. After all, I’m not a man who does things rashly.” As
he went out the door he said casually to Hagen, “Do you have in your notes that
the Turk made his living from prostitution before the war? As the Tattaglia
family does now. Write that down before you forget.” There was just a touch of
derision in the Don’s voice and Hagen flushed. He had deliberately not
mentioned it, legitimately so since it really had no bearing, but he had feared
it might prejudice the Don’s decision. He was notoriously straitlaced in
matters of sex.
* * *
Virgil “the Turk” Sollozzo was a powerfully built,
medium-sized man of dark complexion who could have been taken for a true Turk.
He had a scimitar of a nose and cruel black eyes. He also had an impressive
dignity.
Sonny Corleone met him at the door and brought him into the
office where Hagen and the Don waited. Hagen thought he had never seen a more
dangerous-looking man except for Luca Brasi.
There were polite handshakings all around. If the Don ever
asks me if this man has balls, I would have to answer yes, Hagen thought. He
had never seen such force in one man, not even the Don. In fact the Don
appeared at his worst. He was being a little too simple, a little too
peasantlike in his greeting.
Sollozzo came to the point immediately. The business was
narcotic. Everything was set up. Certain poppy fields in Turkey had pledged him
certain amounts every year. He had a protected plant in France to convert into
morphine. He had an absolutely secure plant in Sicily to process into heroin.
Smuggling into both countries was as positively safe as such matters could be.
Entry into the United States would entail about five percent losses since the
FBI itself was incorruptible, as they both knew. But the profits would be
enormous, the risk nonexistent.
“Then why do you come to me?” the Don asked politely. “How
have I deserved your generosity?”
Sollozzo’s dark face remained impassive. “I need two million
dollars cash,” he said. “Equally important, I need a man who has powerful
friends in the important places. Some of my couriers will be caught over the
years. That is inevitable. They will all have clean records, that I promise. So
it will be logical for judges to give light sentences. I need a friend who can
guarantee that when my people get in trouble they won’t spend more than a year
or two in jail. Then they won’t talk. But if they get ten and twenty years, who
knows? In this world there are many weak individuals. They may talk, they may
jeopardize more important people. Legal protection is a must. I hear, Don
Corleone, that you have as many judges in your pocket as a bootblack has pieces
of silver.”
Don Corleone didn’t bother to acknowledge the compliment.
“What percentage for my family?” he asked.
Sollozzo’s eyes gleamed. “Fifty percent.” He paused and then
said in a voice that was almost a caress, “In the first year your share would
be three or four million dollars. Then it would go up.”
Don Corleone said, “And what is the
percentage of the Tattaglia family?”
For the first time Sollozzo seemed to be nervous. “They will
receive something from my share. I need some help in the operations.”
“So,” Don Corleone said, “I receive fifty percent merely for
finance and legal protection. I have no worries about operations, is that what
you tell me?”
Sollozzo nodded. “If you think two million dollars in cash
is ‘merely finance,’ I congratulate you, Don Corleone.”
The Don said quietly, “I consented to see you out of my
respect for the Tattaglias and because I’ve heard you are a serious man to be
treated also with respect. I must say no to you but I must give you my reasons.
The profits in your business are huge but so are the risks. Your operation, if
I were part of it, could damage my other interests. It’s true I have many, many
friends in politics, but they would not be so friendly if my business were
narcotics instead of gambling. They think gambling is something like liquor, a
harmless vice, and they think narcotics a dirty business. No, don’t protest.
I’m telling you their thoughts, not mine. How a man makes his living is not my
concern. And what I am telling you is that this business of yours is too risky.
All the members of my family have lived well the last ten years, without
danger, without harm. I can’t endanger them or their
livelihoods out of greed.”
The only sign of Sollozzo’s disappointment was a quick
flickering of his eyes around the room, as if he hoped Hagen or Sonny would
speak in his support. Then he said, “Are you worried about security for your
two million?”
The Don smiled coldly. “No,” he said.
Sollozzo tried again. “The Tattaglia
family will guarantee your investment also.”
It was then that Sonny Corleone made an unforgivable error
in judgment and procedure. He said eagerly, “The Tattaglia family guarantees
the return of our investment without any percentage from us?”
Hagen was horrified at this break. He saw the Don turn cold,
malevolent eyes on his eldest son, who froze in uncomprehending dismay.
Sollozzo’s eyes flickered again but this time with satisfaction. He had
discovered a chink in the Don’s fortress. When the Don spoke his voice held a
dismissal. “Young people are greedy,” he said. “And today they have no manners.
They interrupt their elders. They meddle. But I have a sentimental weakness for
my children and I have spoiled them. As you see. Signor Sollozzo, my no is
final. Let me say that I myself wish you good fortune in your business. It has
no conflict with my own. I’m sorry that I had to disappoint you.”
Sollozzo bowed, shook the Don’s hand and let Hagen take him
to his car outside. There was no expression on his face when he said good-bye
to Hagen.
Back
in the room, Don Corleone asked Hagen, “What did you think of that man?” “He’s
a Sicilian,” Hagen said dryly.
The Don nodded his head thoughtfully. Then he turned to his
son and said gently, “Santino, never let anyone outside the family know what
you are thinking. Never let them know what you have under your fingernails. I
think your brain is going soft from all that comedy you play with that young
girl. Stop it and pay attention to business. Now get out of my sight.”
Hagen saw the surprise on Sonny’s face, then anger at his
father’s reproach. Did he really think the Don would be ignorant of his
conquest, Hagen wondered. And did he really not know what a dangerous mistake
he had made this morning? If that were true, Hagen would never wish to be the
Consigliere to the Don of Santino Corleone.
Don Corleone waited until Sonny had left the room. Then he
sank back into his leather armchair and motioned brusquely for a drink. Hagen
poured him a glass of anisette. The
Don looked up at him. “Send Luca Brasi
to see me,” he said.
* * *
Three months later, Hagen hurried through the paper work in
his city office hoping to leave early enough for some Christmas shopping for
his wife and children. He was interrupted by a phone call from a Johnny Fontane
bubbling with high spirits. The picture had been shot, the rushes, whatever the
hell they were, Hagen thought, were fabulous. He was sending the Don a present
for Christmas that would knock his eyes out, he’d bring it himself but there
were some little things to be done in the movie. He would have to stay out on
the Coast. Hagen tried to conceal his impatience. Johnny Fontane’s charm had
always been lost on him. But his interest was aroused. “What is it?” he asked.
Johnny Fontane chuckled and said, “I can’t tell, that’s the best part of a
Christmas present.” Hagen immediately lost all interest and finally managed,
politely, to hang up.
Ten minutes later his secretary told him that Connie
Corleone was on the phone and wanted to speak to him. Hagen sighed. As a young
girl Connie had been nice, as a married woman she was a nuisance. She made
complaints about her husband. She kept going home to visit her mother for two
or three days. And Carlo Rizzi was turning out to be a real loser. He had been
fixed up with a nice little business and was running it into the ground. He was
also drinking, whoring around, gambling and beating his wife up occasionally.
Connie hadn’t told her family about that but she had told Hagen. He wondered
what new tale of woe she had for him now.
But the Christmas spirit seemed to have cheered her up. She
just wanted to ask Hagen what her father would really like for Christmas. And
Sonny and Fred and Mike. She already knew what she would get her mother. Hagen
made some suggestions, all of which she rejected as silly. Finally she let him
go.
When the phone rang again, Hagen threw his papers back into
the basket. The hell with it. He’d leave. It never occurred to him to refuse to
take the call, however. When his secretary told him it was Michael Corieone he
picked up the phone with pleasure. He had always liked Mike.
“Tom,” Michael Corleone said, “I’m driving down to the city
with Kay tomorrow. There’s something important I want to tell the old man
before Christmas. Will he be home tomorrow night?”
“Sure,” Hagen said. “He’s not going out
of town until after Christmas. Anything I can do
for you?”
Michael was as closemouthed as his father. “No,” he said. “I
guess I’ll see you Christmas, everybody is going to be out at Long Beach,
right?”
“Right,” Hagen said. He was amused when
Mike hung up on him without any small talk.
He told his secretary to call his wife and tell her he would
be home a little late but to have some supper for him. Outside the building he
walked briskly downtown toward Macy’s. Someone stepped in his way. To his
surprise he saw it was Sollozzo.
Sollozzo took him by the arm and said quietly, “Don’t be
frightened. I just want to talk to you.” A car parked at the curb suddenly had
its door open. Sollozzo said urgently, “Get in, I want to talk to you.”.
Hagen pulled his arm loose. He was still not alarmed, just
irritated. “I haven’t got time,” he said. At that moment two men came up behind
him. Hagen felt a sudden weakness in his legs. Sollozzo said softly, “Get in
the car. If I wanted to kill you you’d be dead now. Trust me.”
Without a shred of trust Hagen got into the car. * * *
Michael Corleone had lied to Hagen. He was already in New
York, and he had called from a room in the Hotel Pennsylvania less than ten
blocks away. When he hung up the phone, Kay Adams put out her cigarette and
said, “Mike, what a good fibber you are.”
Michael sat down beside her on the bed. “All for you, honey;
if I told my family we were in town we’d have to go there right away. Then we
couldn’t go out to dinner, we couldn’t go to the theater, and we couldn’t sleep
together tonight. Not in my father’s house, not when we’re not married.” He put
his arms around her and kissed her gently on the lips. Her mouth was sweet and
he gently pulled her down on the bed. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to
make love to her and Michael felt an enormous happiness. He had spent the war
years fighting in the Pacific, and on those bloody islands he had dreamed of a
girl like Kay Adams. Of a beauty like hers. A fair and fragile body,
milky-skinned and electrified by passion. She opened her eyes and then pulled
his head down to kiss him. They made love until it was time for dinner and the
theater.
After dinner they walked past the brightly lit department
stores full of holiday shoppers and Michael said to her, “What shall I get you
for Christmas?”
She pressed against him. “Just you,”
she said. “Do you think your father will approve of
me?”
Michael said gently, “That’s not really
the question. Will your parents approve of me?”
Kay shrugged. “I don’t care,” she said.
Michael said, “I even thought of changing my name, legally,
but if something happened, that wouldn’t really help. You sure you want to be a
Corleone?” He said it only half-jokingly.
“Yes,” she said without smiling. They pressed against each
other. They had decided to get married during Christmas week, a quiet civil
ceremony at City Hall with just two friends as witnesses. But Michael had
insisted he must tell his father. He had explained that his father would not
object in any way as long as it was not done in secrecy. Kay was doubtful. She
said she could not tell her parents until after the marriage. “Of course
they’ll think I’m pregnant,” she said. Michael grinned. “So will my parents,”
he said.
What neither of them mentioned was the fact that Michael
would have to cut his close ties with his family. They both understood that
Michael had already done so to some extent and yet they both felt guilty about
this fact. They planned to finish college, seeing each other weekends and
living together during summer vacations. It seemed like a happy life.
The play was a musical called Carousel and its sentimental
story of a braggart thief made them smile at each other with amusement. When
they came out of the theater it had turned cold. Kay snuggled up to him and
said, “After we’re married, will you beat me and then steal a star for a
present?”
Michael laughed. “I’m going to be a mathematics professor,”
he said. Then he asked, “Do you want something to eat before we go to the
hotel?”
Kay shook her head. She looked up at him meaningfully. As
always he was touched by her eagerness to make love. He smiled down at her, and
they kissed in the cold street. Michael felt hungry, and he decided to order
sandwiches sent up to the room.
In the hotel lobby Michael pushed Kay toward the newsstand
and said, “Get the papers while I get the key.” He had to wait in a small line;
the hotel was still short of help despite the end of the war. Michael got his
room key and looked around impatiently for Kay. She was standing by the
newsstand, staring down at a newspaper she held in her hand. He walked toward
her. She looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, Mike,” she
said, “oh, Mike.” He took the paper from her hands. The first thing he saw was
a
photo of his father lying in the street, his head in a pool
of blood. A man was sitting on the curb weeping like a child. It was his
brother Freddie. Michael Corleone felt his body turning to ice. There was no
grief, no fear, just cold rage. He said to Kay, “Go up to the room.” But he had
to take her by the arm and lead her into the elevator. They rode up together in
silence. In their room, Michael sat down on the bed and opened the paper. The
headlines said, VITO CORLEONE SHOT. ALLEGED RACKET CHIEF CRITICALLY WOUNDED.
OPERATED ON UNDER HEAVY POLICE GUARD. BLOODY MOB WAR FEARED.
Michael felt the weakness in his legs. He said to Kay, “He’s
not dead, the bastards didn’t kill him.” He read the story again. His father
had been shot at five in the afternoon. That meant that while he had been
making love to Kay, having dinner, enjoying the theater, his father was near
death. Michael felt sick with guilt.
Kay said, “Shall we go down to the
hospital now?”
Michael shook his head. “Let me call the house first. The
people who did this are crazy and now that the old man’s still alive they’ll be
desperate. Who the hell knows what they’ll pull next.”
Both phones in the Long Beach house were busy and it was
almost twenty minutes before Michael could get through. He heard Sonny’s voice
saying, “Yeah.”
“Sonny, it’s me,” Michael said.
He could hear the relief in Sonny’s voice. “Jesus, kid, you
had us worried. Where the hell are you? I’ve sent people to that hick town of
yours to see what happened.”
“How’s the old man?” Michael said. “How
bad is he hurt?”
“Pretty bad,” Sonny said. “They shot him five times. But
he’s tough.” Sonny’s voice was proud. “The doctors said he’ll pull through.
Listen, kid, I’m busy, I can’t talk, where are you?”
“In New York,” Michael said. “Didn’t
Tom tell you I was coming down?”
Sonny’s voice dropped a little. “They’ve snatched Tom.
That’s why I was worried about you. His wife is here. She don’t know and
neither do the cops. I don’t want them to know. The bastards who pulled this
must be crazy. I want you to get out here right away and keep your mouth shut.
OK?”
“OK,” Mike said, “do you know who did
it?”
“Sure,” Sonny said. “And as soon as Luca Brasi checks in
they’re gonna be dead meat. We still have all the horses.”
“I’ll be out in a hour,” Mike said. “In a cab.” He hung up.
The papers had been on the streets for over three hours. There must have been
radio news reports. It was almost impossible that Luca hadn’t heard the news.
Thoughtfully Michael pondered the question. Where was Luca Brasi? It was the
same question that Hagen was asking himself at that moment. It was the same
question that was worrying Sonny Corleone out in Long Beach.
* * *
At a quarter to five that afternoon, Don Corleone had
finished checking the papers the office manager of his olive oil company had
prepared for him. He put on his jacket and rapped his knuckles on his son
Freddie’s head to make him take his nose out of the afternoon newspaper. “Tell
Gatto to get the car from the lot,” he said. “I’ll be ready to go home in a few
minutes.”
Freddie grunted. “I’ll have to get it myself. Paulie called
in sick this morning. Got a cold again.”
Don Corleone looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s the
third time this month. I think maybe you’d better get a healthier fellow for
this job. Tell Tom.”
Fred protested. “Paulie’s a good kid. If he says he’s sick, he’s
sick. I don’t mind getting the car.” He left the office. Don Corleone watched
out the window as his son crossed Ninth Avenue to the parking lot. He stopped
to call Hagen’s office but there was no answer. He called the house at Long
Beach but again there was no answer. Irritated, he looked out the window. His
car was parked at the curb in front of his building. Freddie was leaning
against the fender, arms folded, watching the throng of Christmas shoppers. Don
Corleone put on his jacket. The office manager helped him with his overcoat.
Don Corleone grunted his thanks and went out the door and started down the two
flights of steps.
Out in the street the early winter light was failing.
Freddie leaned casually against the fender of the heavy Buick. When he saw his
father come out of the building Freddie went out into the street to the
driver’s side of the car and got in. Don Corleone was about to get in on the
sidewalk side of the car when he hesitated and then turned back to the long
open fruit stand near the corner. This had been his habit lately, he loved the
big out-of-season fruits, yellow peaches and oranges, that glowed in their
green boxes.
The proprietor sprang to serve him. Don Corleone did not
handle the fruit. He pointed. The fruit man disputed his decisions only once,
to show him that one of his choices had a rotten underside. Don Corleone took
the paper bag in his left hand and paid the man with a five-dollar bill. He
took his change and, as he turned to go back to the waiting car, two men
stepped from around the corner. Don Corleone knew immediately what was to
happen.
The two men wore black overcoats and black hats pulled low
to prevent identification by witnesses. They had not expected Don Corleone’s
alert reaction. He dropped the bag of fruit and darted toward the parked car
with startling quickness for a man of his bulk. At the same time he shouted,
“Fredo, Fredo.” It was only then that the two men drew their guns and fired.
The first bullet caught Don Corleone in the back. He felt
the hammer shock of its impact but made his body move toward the car. The next
two bullets hit him in the buttocks and sent him sprawling in the middle of the
street. Meanwhile the two gunmen, careful not to slip on the rolling fruit,
started to follow in order to finish him off. At that moment, perhaps no more
than five seconds after the Don’s call to his son, Frederico Corleone appeared
out of his car, looming over it. The gunmen fired two more hasty shots at the
Don lying in the gutter. One hit him in the fleshy part of his arm and the
second hit him in the calf of his right leg. Though these wounds were the least
serious they bled profusely, forming small pools of blood beside his body. But
by this time Don Corleone had lost consciousness.
Freddie had heard his father shout, calling him by his
childhood name, and then he had heard the first two loud reports. By the time
he got out of the car he was in shock, he had not even drawn his gun. The two
assassins could easily have shot him down. But they too panicked. They must
have known the son was armed, and besides too much time had passed. They
disappeared around the corner, leaving Freddie alone in the street with his
father’s bleeding body. Many of the people thronging the avenue had flung
themselves into doorways or on the ground, others had huddled together in small
groups.
Freddie still had not drawn his weapon. He seemed stunned.
He stared down at his father’s body lying face down on the tarred street, lying
now in what seemed to him a blackish lake of blood. Freddie went into physical
shock. People eddied out again and someone, seeing him start to sag, led him to
the curbstone and made him sit down on it. A crowd gathered around Don
Corleone’s body, a circle that shattered when the first
police car sirened a path through them. Directly behind the
police was the Daily News radio car and even before it stopped a photographer
jumped out to snap pictures of the bleeding Don Corleone. A few moments later
an ambulance arrived. The photographer turned his attention to Freddie
Corleone, who was now weeping openly, and this was a curiously comical sight,
because of his tough, Cupid-featured face, heavy nose and thick mouth smeared
with snot. Detectives were spreading through the crowd and more police cars
were coming up. One detective knelt beside Freddie, questioning him, but
Freddie was too deep in shock to answer. The detective reached inside Freddie’s
coat and lifted his wallet. He looked at the identification inside and whistled
to his partner. In just a few seconds Freddie had been cut off from the crowd
by a flock of plainclothesmen. The first detective found Freddie’s gun in its
shoulder holster and took it. Then they lifted Freddie off his feet and shoved
him into an unmarked car. As that car pulled away it was followed by the Daily
News radio car. The photographer was still snapping pictures of everybody and
everything.
* * *
In the half hour after the shooting of his father, Sonny
Corleone received five phone calls in rapid succession. The first was from
Detective John Phillips, who was on the family payroll and had been in the lead
car of plainclothesmen at the scene of the shooting. The first thing he said to
Sonny over the phone was, “Do you recognize my voice?”
“Yeah,” Sonny said. He was fresh from a
nap, called to the phone by his wife.
Phillips said quickly without preamble, “Somebody shot your
father outside his place. Fifteen minutes ago. He’s alive but hurt bad. They’ve
taken him to French Hospital. They got your brother Freddie down at the Chelsea
precinct. You better get him a doctor when they turn him loose. I’m going down
to the hospital now to help question your old man, if he can talk. I’ll keep
you posted.”
Across the table, Sonny’s wife Sandra noticed that her
husband’s face had gone red with flushing blood. His eyes were glazed over. She
whispered, “What’s the matter?” He waved at her impatiently to shut up, swung
his body away so that his back was toward her and said into the phone, “You
sure he’s alive?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” the detective said. “A lot of blood but I
think maybe he’s not as bad as he looks.”
“Thanks,” Sonny said. “Be home tomorrow
morning eight sharp. You got a grand
coming.”
Sonny cradled the phone. He forced himself to sit still. He
knew that his greatest weakness was his anger and this was one time when anger
could be fatal. The first thing to do was get Tom Hagen. But before he could
pick up the phone, it rang. The call was from the bookmaker licensed by the
Family to operate in the district of the Don’s office. The bookmaker had called
to tell him that the Don had been killed, shot dead in the street. After a few
questions to make sure that the bookmaker’s informant had not been close to the
body, Sonny dismissed the information as incorrect. Phillips’ dope would be
more accurate. The phone rang almost immediately a third time. It was a
reporter from the Daily News. As soon as he identified himself, Sonny Corleone hung
up.
He dialed Hagen’s house and asked Hagen’s wife, “Did Tom
come home yet?” She said, “No,” that he was not due for another twenty minutes
but she expected him home for supper. “Have him call me,” Sonny said.
He tried to think things out. He tried to imagine how his
father would react in a like situation. He had known immediately that this was
an attack by Sollozzo, but Sollozzo would never have dared to eliminate so
high-ranking a leader as the Don unless he was backed by other powerful people.
The phone, ringing for the fourth time, interrupted his thoughts. The voice on
the other end was very soft, very gentle. “Santino Corleone?” it asked.
“Yeah,” Sonny said.
“We have Tom Hagen,” the voice said. “In about three hours
he’ll be released with our proposition. Don’t do anything rash until you’ve
heard what he has to say. You can only cause a lot of trouble. What’s done is
done. Everybody has to be sensible now. Don’t lose that famous temper of
yours.” The voice was slightly mocking. Sonny couldn’t be sure, but it sounded
like Sollozzo. He made his voice sound muted, depressed. “I’ll wait,” he said.
He heard the receiver on the other end click. He looked at his heavy
gold-banded wristwatch and noted the exact time of the call and jotted it down
on the tablecloth.
He sat at the kitchen table, frowning. His wife asked,
“Sonny, what is it?” He told her calmly, “They shot the old man.” When he saw
the shock on her face he said roughly, “Don’t worry; he’s not dead. And nothing
else is going to happen.” He did not tell her about Hagen. And then the phone
rang for the fifth time.
It was Clemenza. The fat man’s voice came wheezing over the
phone in gruntlike gasps. “You hear about your father?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Sonny said. “But he’s not dead.” There was a long
pause over the phone and then Clemenza’s voice came packed with emotion, “Thank
God, thank God.” Then anxiously, “You sure? I got word he was dead in the
street.”
“He’s alive,” Sonny said. He was listening intently to every
intonation in Clemenza’s voice. The emotion had seemed genuine but it was part
of the fat man’s profession to be a good actor.
“You’ll
have to carry the ball, Sonny,” Clemenza said “What do you want me to do?” “Get
over to my father’s house,” Sonny said. “Bring Paulie Gatto.”
“That’s all?” Clemenza asked. “Don’t you want me to send
some people to the hospital and your place?”
“No, I just want you and Paulie Gatto,” Sonny said. There
was a long pause. Clemenza was getting the message. To make it a little more
natural, Sonny asked, “Where the hell was Paulie anyway? What the hell was he
doing?”
There was no longer any wheezing on the other end of the
line. Clemenza’s voice was guarded. “Paulie was sick, he had a cold, so he
stayed home. He’s been a little sick all winter.”
Sonny was instantly alert. “How many times did he stay home
the last couple of months?”
“Maybe three or four times,” Clemenza said. “I always asked
Freddie if he wanted another guy but he said no. There’s been no cause, the
last ten years things been smooth, you know.”
“Yeah,” Sonny said. “I’ll see you at my father’s house. Be
sure you bring Paulie. Pick him up on your way over. I don’t care how sick he
is. You got that?” He slammed down the phone without waiting for an answer.
His wife was weeping silently. He stared at her for a
moment, then said in a harsh voice, “Any of our people call, tell them to get
me in my father’s house on his special phone. Anybody else call, you don’t know
nothing. If Tom’s wife calls, tell her that Tom won’t be home for a while, he’s
on business.”
He pondered for a moment. “A couple of
our people will come to stay here.” He saw her
look of fright and said impatiently, “You don’t have to be
scared, I just want them here. Do whatever they tell you to do. If you wanta
talk to me, get me on Pop’s special phone but don’t call me unless it’s really
important. And don’t worry.” He went out of the house.
Darkness had fallen and the December wind whipped through
the mall. Sonny had no fear about stepping out into the night. All eight houses
were owned by Don Corleone. At the mouth of the mall the two houses on either
side were rented by family retainers with their own families and star boarders,
single men who lived in the basement apartments. Of the remaining six houses
that formed the rest of the half circle; one was inhabited by Tom Hagen and his
family, his own, and the smallest and least ostentatious by the Don himself.
The other three houses were given rent-free to retired friends of the Don with
the understanding that they would be vacated whenever he requested. The
harmless-looking mall was an impregnable fortress.
All eight houses were equipped with floodlights which bathed
the grounds around them and made the mall impossible to lurk in. Sonny went
across the street to his father’s house and let himself inside with his own
key. He yelled out, “Ma, where are you?” and his mother came out of the
kitchen. Behind her rose the smell of frying peppers. Before she could say
anything, Sonny took her by the arm and made her sit down. “I just got a call,”
he said. “Now don’t get worried. Pop’s in the hospital, he’s hurt. Get dressed
and get ready to get down there. I’ll have a car and a driver for you in a
little while. OK?”
His mother looked at him steadily for a moment and then
asked in Italian, “Have they shot him?”
Sonny nodded. His mother bowed her head for a moment. Then
she went back into the kitchen. Sonny followed her. He watched her turn off the
gas under the panful of peppers and then go out and up to the bedroom. He took
peppers from the pan and bread from the basket on the table and made a sloppy
sandwich with hot olive oil dripping from his fingers. He went into the huge
corner room that was his father’s office and took the special phone from a
locked cabinet box. The phone had been especially installed and was listed
under a phony name and a phony address. The first person he called was Luca
Brasi. There was no answer. Then he called the safety-valve caporegime in
Brooklyn, a man of unquestioned loyalty to the Don. This man’s name was Tessio.
Sonny told him what had happened and what he wanted. Tessio was to recruit
fifty absolutely reliable men. He was to send guards to the hospital, he was to
send men out to Long Beach to work here. Tessio asked, “Did they get Clemenza
too?” Sonny said, “I don’t want to use Clemenza’s people right now.” Tessio
understood
immediately, there was a pause, and then he said, “Excuse
me, Sonny, I say this as your father would say it. Don’t move too fast. I can’t
believe Clemenza would betray us.”
“Thanks,”
Sonny said. “I don’t think so but I have to be careful. Right?” “Right,” Tessio
said.
“Another thing,” Sonny said. “My kid brother Mike goes to college
in Hanover, New Hampshire. Get some people we know in Boston to go up and get
him and bring him down here to the house until this blows over. I’ll call him
up so he’ll expect them. Again I’m just playing the percentages, just to make
sure.”
“OK,” Tessio said, “I’ll be over your father’s house as soon
as I get things rolling. OK? You know my boys, right?”
“Yeah,” Sonny said. He hung up. He went over to a small wall
safe and unlocked it. From it he took an indexed book bound in blue leather. He
opened it to the T’s until he found the entry he was looking for. It read, “Ray
Farrell $5,000 Christmas Eve.” This was followed by a telephone number. Sonny
dialed the number and said, “Farrell?” The man on the other end answered,
“Yes.” Sonny said, “This is Santino Corleone. I want you to do me a favor and I
want you to do it right away. I want you to check two phone numbers and give me
all the calls they got and all the calls they made for the last three months.”
He gave Farrell the number of Paulie Gatto’s home and Clemenza’s home. Then he
said, “This is important. Get it to me before midnight and you’ll have an extra
very Merry Christmas.”
Before he settled back to think things out he gave Luca
Brasi’s number one more call. Again there was no answer. This worried him but
he put it out of his mind. Luca would come to the house as soon as he heard the
news. Sonny leaned back in the swivel chair. In an hour the house would be
swarming with Family people and he would have to tell them all what to do, and
now that he finally had time to think he realized how serious the situation
was. It was the first challenge to the Corleone Family and their power in ten
years. There was no doubt that Sollozzo was behind it, but he would never have
dared attempt such a stroke unless he had support from at least one of the five
great New York families. And that support must have come from the Tattaglias.
Which meant a full-scale war or an immediate settlement on Sollozzo’s terms.
Sonny smiled grimly. The wily Turk had planned well but he had been unlucky.
The old man was alive and so it was war. With Luca Brasi and the resources of
the Corleone Family there could be but one outcome. But again the nagging
worry. Where was Luca Brasi?
Chapter 3
Counting the driver, there were four men in the car with
Hagen. They put him in the back seat, in the middle of the two men who had come
up behind him in the street. Sollozzo sat up front. The man on Hagen’s right
reached over across his body and tilted Hagen’s hat over his eyes so that he
could not see. “Don’t even move your pinkie,” he said.
It was a short ride, not more than twenty minutes and when
they got out of the car Hagen could not recognize the neighborhood because
darkness had fallen. They led him into a basement apartment and made him sit on
a straightbacked kitchen chair. Sollozzo sat across the kitchen table from him.
His dark face had a peculiarly vulturine look.
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” he said. “I know you’re not
in the muscle end of the Family. I want you to help the Corleones and I want
you to help me.”
Hagen’s hands were shaking as he put a cigarette in his
mouth. One of the men brought a bottle of rye to the table and gave him a slug
of it in a china coffee cup. Hagen drank the fiery liquid gratefully. It
steadied his hand and took the weakness out of his legs.
“Your boss is dead,” Sollozzo said. He paused, surprised at
the tears that sprang to Hagen’s eyes. Then he went on. “We got him outside his
office, in the street. As soon as I got the word, I picked you up. You have to
make the peace between me and Sonny.”
Hagen didn’t answer. He was surprised at his own grief. And
the feeling of desolation mixed with his fear of death. Sollozzo was speaking
again. “Sonny was hot for my deal. Right? You know it’s the smart thing to do
too. Narcotics is the coming thing. There’s so much money in it that everybody
can get rich just in a couple of years. The Don was an old ‘Moustache Pete,’
his day was over but he didn’t know it. Now he’s dead, nothing can bring him
back. I’m ready to make a new deal, I want you to talk Sonny into taking it.”
Hagen said, “You haven’t got a chance. Sonny will come after
you with everything he’s got.”
Sollozzo said impatiently, “That’s gonna be his first reaction.
You have to talk some sense to him. The Tattaglia Family stands behind me with
all their people. The other New York families will go along with anything that
will stop a full-scale war between us. Our war has to hurt them and their
businesses. If Sonny goes along with the deal, the other Families in the
country will consider it none of their affair, even the Don’s oldest
friends.”
Hagen stared down at his hands, not answering. Sollozzo went
on persuasively. “The Don was slipping. In the old days I could never have
gotten to him. The other Families distrust him because he made you his
Consigliere and you’re not even Italian, much less Sicilian. If it goes to
all-out war the Corleone Family will be smashed and everybody loses, me
included. I need the Family political contacts more than I need the money even.
So talk to Sonny, talk to the caporegimes; you’ll save a lot of bloodshed.”
Hagen held out his china cup for more whiskey. “I’ll try,”
he said. “But Sonny is strong-headed. And even Sonny won’t be able to call off
Luca. You have to worry about Luca. I’ll have to worry about Luca if I go for
your deal.”
Sollozzo said quietly, “I’ll take care of Luca. You take
care of Sonny and the other two kids. Listen, you can tell them that Freddie
would have gotten it today with his old man but my people had strict orders not
to gun him. I didn’t want any more hard feelings than necessary. You can tell
them that, Freddie is alive because of me.”
Finally Hagen’s mind was working. For the first time he
really believed that Sollozzo did not mean to kill him or hold him as a
hostage. The sudden relief from fear that flooded his body made him flush with
shame. Sollozzo watched him with a quiet understanding smile. Hagen began to think
things out. If he did not agree to argue Sollozzo’s case, he might be killed.
But then he realized that Sollozzo expected him only to present it and present
it properly, as he was bound to do as a responsible Consigliere. And now,
thinking about it, he also realized that Sollozzo was right. An unlimited war
between the Tattaglias and the Corleones must be avoided at all costs. The
Corleones must bury their dead and forget, make a deal. And then when the time
was right they could move against Sollozzo.
But glancing up, he realized that Sollozzo knew exactly what
he was thinking. The Turk was smiling. And then it struck Hagen. What had
happened to Luca Brasi that Sollozzo was so unconcerned? Had Luca made a deal?
He remembered that on the night Don Corleone had refused Sollozzo, Luca had
been summoned into the office for a private conference with the Don. But now
was not the time to worry about such details. He had to get back to the safety
of the Corleone Family fortress in Long Beach. “I’ll do my best,” he said to
Sollozzo. “I believe you’re right, it’s even what the Don would want us to do.”
Sollozzo nodded gravely. “Fine,” he said. “I don’t like
bloodshed, I’m a businessman and blood costs too much money.” At that moment
the phone rang and one of the men
sitting behind Hagen went to answer it. He listened and then
said curtly, “OK, I’ll tell him.” He hung up the phone, went to Sollozzo’s side
and whispered in the Turk’s ear. Hagen saw Sollozzo’s face go pale, his eyes
glitter with rage. He himself felt a thrill of fear. Sollozzo was looking at
him speculatively and suddenly Hagen knew that he was no longer going to be set
free. That something had happened that might mean his death. Sollozzo said,
“The old marl is still alive. Five bullets in his Sicilian hide and he’s still
alive.” He gave a fatalistic shrug. “Bad luck,” he said to Hagen. “Bad luck for
me. Bad luck for you.”
Chapter 4
When Michael Corleone arrived at his father’s house in Long
Beach he found the narrow entrance mouth of the mall blocked off with a link
chain. The mall itself was bright with the floodlights of all eight houses,
outlining at least ten cars parked along the curving cement walk.
Two men he didn’t know were leaning against the chain. One of
them asked in a Brooklyn accent, “Who’re you?”
He told them. Another man came out of the nearest house and
peered at his face. “That’s the Don’s kid,” he said. “I’ll bring him inside.”
Mike followed this man to his father’s house, where two men at the door let him
and his escort pass inside.
The house seemed to be full of men he didn’t know, until he
went into the living room. There Michael saw Tom Hagen’s wife, Theresa, sitting
stiffly on the sofa, smoking a cigarette. On the coffee table in front of her
was a glass of whiskey. On the other side of the sofa sat the bulky Clemenza.
The caporegime’s face was impassive, but he was sweating and the cigar in his
hand glistened slickly black with his saliva.
Clemenza came to wring his hand in a consoling way,
muttering, “Your mother is at the hospital with your father, he’s going to be
all right.” Paulie Gatto stood up to shake hands. Michael looked at him
curiously. He knew Paulie was his father’s bodyguard but did not know that
Paulie had stayed home sick that day. But he sensed tension in the thin dark
face. He knew Gatto’s reputation as an up-and-coming man, a very quick man who
knew how to get delicate jobs done without complications, and today he had
failed in his duty. He noticed several other men in the corners of the room but
he did not recognize them. They were not of Clemenza’s people. Michael put
these facts together and understood. Clemenza and Gatto were suspect. Thinking
that Paulie had been at the scene, he asked the ferret-faced young man, “How is
Freddie? He OK?”
“The doctor gave him a shot,” Clemenza
said. “He’s sleeping.”
Michael went to Hagen’s wife and bent down to kiss her
cheek. They had always liked each other. He whispered, “Don’t worry, Tom will
be OK. Have you talked to Sonny yet?”
Theresa clung to him for a moment and shook her head. She
was a delicate, very pretty woman, more American than Italian, and very scared.
He took her hand and lifted her off the sofa. Then he led her into his father’s
corner room office.
Sonny was sprawled out in his chair behind the desk holding
a yellow pad in one hand and a pencil in the other. The only other man in the
room with him was the caporegime Tessio, whom Michael recognized and
immediately realized that it must be his men who were in the house and forming
the new palace guard. He too had a pencil and pad in his hands.
When Sonny saw them he came from behind his desk and took
Hagen’s wife in his arms. “Don’t worry, Theresa,” he said. “Tom’s OK. They just
wanta give him the proposition, they said they’d turn him loose. He’s not on
the operating end, he’s just our lawyer. There’s no reason for anybody to do
him harm.”
He released Theresa and then to Michael’s surprise he too,
got a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He pushed Sonny away and said grinning,
“After I get used to you beating me up I gotta put up with this?” They had
often fought when they were younger.
Sonny shrugged. “Listen, kid, I was worried when I couldn’t
get ahold of you in that hick town. Not that I gave a crap if they knocked you
off, but I didn’t like the idea of bringing the news to the old lady. I had to
tell her about Pop.”
“How’d she take it?” Michael asked.
“Good,” Sonny said. “She’s been through it before. Me too.
You were too young to know about it and then things got pretty smith while you
were growing up.” He paused and then said, “She’s down at the hospital with the
old man. He’s gonna pull through.”
“How about us going down?” Michael
asked.
Sonny shook his head and said dryly, “I can’t leave this
house until it’s all over.” The phone rang. Sonny picked it up and listened
intently. While he was listening Michael sauntered over to the desk and glanced
down at the yellow pad Sonny had been writing on. There was a list of seven
names. The first three were Sollozzo, Phillip Tattaglia, and John Tattaglia. It
struck Michael with full force that he had interrupted Sonny and Tessio
as they were making up a list of men to
be killed.
When Sonny hung up the phone he said to Theresa Hagen and
Michael, “Can you two wait outside? I got some business with Tessio we have to
finish.”
Hagen’s wife said, “Was that call about Tom?” She said it
almost truculently but she was weeping with fright. Sonny put his arm around
her and led her to the door. “I swear he’s going to be OK,” he said. “Wait in
the living room. I’ll come out as soon as I hear something.” He shut the door
behind her. Michael had sat down in one of the big leather armchairs. Sonny
gave him a quick sharp look and then went to sit down behind the desk.
“You
hang around me, Mike,” he said, “you’re gonna hear things you don’t wanta
hear.” Michael lit a cigarette. “I can help out,” he said.
“No, you can’t,” Sonny said. “The old man would be sore as
hell if I let you get mixed up in this.”
Michael stood up and yelled. “You lousy bastard, he’s my
father. I’m not supposed to help him? I can help. I don’t have to go out and
kill people but I can help. Stop treating me like a kid brother. I was in the
war. I got shot, remember? I killed some Japs. What the hell do you think I’ll
do when you knock somebody off? Faint?”
Sonny grinned at him. “Pretty soon you’ll want me to put up
my dukes. OK, stick around, you can handle the phone.” He turned to Tessio.
“That call I just got gave me dope we needed.” Hd turned to Michael. “Somebody
had to finger the old man. It could have been Clemenza, it could have been
Paulie Gatto, who was very conveniently sick today. I know the answer now,
let’s see how smart you are, Mike, you’re the college boy. Who sold out to
Sollozzo?”
Michael sat down again and relaxed back into the leather
armchair. He thought everything over very carefully. Clemenza was a caporegime
in the Corleone Family structure. Don Corleone had made him a millionaire and
they had been intimate friends for over twenty years. He held one of the most
powerful posts in the organization. What could Clemenza gain for betraying his
Don? More money? He was rich enough but then men are always greedy. More power?
Revenge for some fancied insult or slight? That Hagen had been made the
Consigliere? Or perhaps a businessman’s conviction that Sollozzo would win out?
No, it was impossible for Clemenza to be a traitor, and then Michael thought
sadly it was only impossible because he didn’t want Clemenza to die. The fat
man had always brought him gifts when he was growing up, had sometimes
taken him on outings when the Don had been too busy. He
could not believe that Clemenza was guilty of treachery.
But, on the other hand, Sollozzo would want Clemenza in his
pocket more than any other man in the Corleone Family.
Michael thought about Paulie Gatto. Paulie as yet had not
become rich. He was well thought of, his rise in the organization was certain
but he would have to put in his time like everybody else. Also he would have
wilder dreams of power, as the young always do. It had to be Paulie. And then
Michael remembered that in the sixth grade he and Paulie had been in the same
class in school and he didn’t want it to be Paulie either.
He shook his head. “Neither one of them,” he said. But he
said it only because Sonny had said he had the answer. If it had been a vote,
he would have voted Paulie guilty.
Sonny was smiling at him. “Don’t
worry,” he said. “Clemenza is OK. It’s Paulie.”
Michael could see that Tessio was relieved. As a fellow
caporegime his sympathy would be with Clemenza. Also the present situation was
not so serious if treachery did not reach so high. Tessio said cautiously,
“Then I can send my people home tomorrow?”
Sonny said, “The day after tomorrow. I don’t want anybody to
know about this until then. Listen, I want to talk some family business with my
brother, personal. Wait out in the living room, eh? We can finish our list later.
You and Ctemenza will work together on it.”
“Sure,” Tessio said. He went out.
“How do you know for sure it’s Paulie?”
Michael asked.
Sonny said, “We have people in the telephone company and
they tracked down all of Paulie’s phone calls in and out. Clemenza’s too. On
the three days Paulie was sick this month he got a call from a street booth
across from the old man’s building. Today too. They were checking to see if
Paulie was coming down or somebody was being sent down to take his place. Or
for some other reason. It doesn’t matter.” Sonny shrugged. “Thank God it was
Paulie. We’ll need Clemenza bad.”
Michael asked hesitantly, “Is it going
to be an all-out war?”
Sonny’s eyes were hard. “That’s how I’m going to play it as
soon as Tom checks in. Until the old man tells me different.”
Michael asked, “So why don’t you wait
until the old man can tell you?”
Sonny looked at him curiously. “How the
hell did you win those combat medals? We are
under
the gun, man, we gotta fight. I’m just afraid they won’t let Tom go.” Michael
was surprised at this. “Why not?”
Again Sonny’s voice was patient. “They snatched Tom because
they figured the old man was finished and they could make a deal with me and
Tom would be the sit-down guy in the preliminary stages, carry the proposition.
Now with the old man alive they know I can’t make a deal so Tom’s no good to
them. They can turn him loose or dump him, depending how Sollozzo feels. If
they dump him, it would be just to show us they really mean business, trying to
bulldoze us.”
Michael said quietly, “What made
Sollozzo think he could get a deal with you?”
Sonny flushed and he didn’t answer for a moment. Then he
said, “We had a meeting a few months ago, Sollozzo came to us with a proposition
on drugs. The old man turned him down. But during the meeting I shot off my
mouth a little, I showed I wanted the deal. Which is absolutely the wrong thing
to do; if there’s one thing the old man hammered into me it’s never, to do a
thing like that, to let other people know there’s a split of opinion in the
Family. So Sollozzo figures he gets rid of the old man, I have to go in with
him on the drugs. With the old man gone, the Family power is cut at least in
half. I would be fighting for my life anyway to keep all the businesses the old
man got together. Drugs are the coming thing, we should get into it. And his
knocking off the old man is purely business, nothing personal. As a matter of
business I would go in with him. Of course he would never let me get too close,
he’d make sure I’d never get a clean shot at him, just in case. But he also
knows that once I accepted the deal the other Families would never let me start
a war a couple of years later just for revenge. Also, the Tattaglia Family is
behind him.”
“If they had gotten the old man, what
would you have done?” Michael asked.
Sonny said very simply, “Sollozzo is dead meat. I don’t care
what it costs. I don’t care if we have to fight all the five families in New
York. The Tattaglia Family is going to be wiped out. I don’t care if we all go
down together.”
Michael said softly, “That’s not how
Pop would have played it.”
Sonny made a violent gesture. “I know I’m not the man he
was. But I’ll tell you this and he’ll tell you too. When it comes to real action
I can operate as good as anybody, short-range. Sollozzo knows that and so do
Clemenza and Tessio, I ‘made my bones’ when I was nineteen, the last time the
Family had a war, and I was a big help to the old man. So I’m not worried now.
And our Family has all the horses in a deal like this. I just
