Patrick’s Cathedral. On his side of Fifth Avenue he spotted
the limousine he was looking for. It was parked, nakedly alone between a whole
string of red NO PARKING and No STANDING signs. Neri slowed his pace. He was
too early. He stopped to write something in his summons book and then kept
walking. He was abreast of the limousine. He tapped its fender with his
nightstick. The driver looked up in surprise. Neri pointed to the NO STANDING
sign with his stick and motioned the driver to move his car. The driver turned
his head away.
Neri walked out into the street so that he was standing by
the driver’s open window. The driver was a tough-looking hood, just the kind he
loved to break up. Neri said with deliberate insultingness, “OK, wise guy, you
want me to stick a summons up your ass or do you wanta get moving?”
The driver said impassively, “You better check with your
precinct. Just give me the ticket if it’ll make you feel happy.”
“Get the hell out of here,” Neri said,
“or I’ll drag you out of that car and break your ass.”
The driver made a ten-dollar bill appear by some sort of
magic, folded it into a little square using just one hand, attd tried to shove
it inside Neri’s blouse. Neri moved back onto the sidewalk and crooked his
finger at the driver. The driver came out of the car.
“Let me see your license and registration,” Neri said. He
had been hoping to get the driver to go around the block but there was no hope
for that now. Out of the corner of his eye, Neri saw three short, heavyset men
coming down the steps of the Plaza building, coming down toward the street. It
was Barzini himself and his two bodyguards, on their way to meet Michael Corleone.
Even as he saw this, one of the bodyguards peeled off to come ahead and see
what was wrong with Barzini’s car.
This man asked the driver, “What’s up?”
The driver said curtly, “I’m getting a ticket, no sweat.
This guy must be new in the precinct.”
At that moment Barzini came up with his other bodyguard. He
growled, “What the hell is wrong now?”
Neri finished writing in his summons book and gave the
driver back his registration and license. Then he put his summons book back in
his hip pocket and with the forward motion of his hand drew the.38 Special.
He put three bullets in Barzini’s
barrel chest before the other three men unfroze enough
to dive for cover. By that time Neri had darted into the
crowd and around the corner where the car was waiting for him. The car sped up
to Ninth Avenue and turned downtown. Near Chelsea Park, Neri, who had discarded
the cap and put on the overcoat and changed clothing, transferred to another
car that was waiting for him. He had left the gun and the police uniform in the
other car. It would be gotten rid of. An hour later he was safely in the mall
on Long Beach and talking to Michael Corleone.
* * *
Tessio was waiting in the kitchen of the old Don’s house and
was sipping at a cup of coffee when Tom Hagen came for him. “Mike is ready for
you now,” Hagen said. “You better make your call to Barzini and tell him to
start on his way.”
Tessio rose and went to the wall phone. He dialed Barzini’s
office in New York and said curtly, “We’re on our way to Brooklyn.” He hung up
and smiled at Hagen. “I hope Mike can get us a good deal tonight.”
Hagen said gravely, “I’m sure he will.” He escorted Tessio
out of the kitchen and onto the mall. They walked toward Michael’s house. At
the door they were stopped by one of the bodyguards. “The boss says he’ll come
in a separate car. He says for you two to go on ahead.”
Tessio frowned and turned to Hagen. “Hell, he can’t do that;
that screws up all my arrangements.”
At that moment three more bodyguards materialized around
them. Hagen said gently, “I can’t go with you either, Tessio.”
The ferret-faced caporegime understood everything in a flash
of a second. And accepted it. There was a moment of physical weakness, and then
he recovered. He said to Hagen, “Tell Mike it was business, I always liked
him.”
Hagen nodded. “He understands that.”
Tessio paused for a moment and then said softly, “Tom, can
you get me off the hook? For old times’ sake?”
Hagen shook his head. “I can’t,” he
said.
He watched Tessio being surrounded by bodyguards and led
into a waiting car. He felt a little sick. Tessio had been the best soldier in
the Corleone Family; the old Don had relied on him more than any other man with
the exception of Luca Brasi. It was too bad that so intelligent a man had made
such a fatal error in judgment so late in life.
* * *
Carlo Rizzi, still waiting for his interview with Michael,
became jittery with all the arrivals and departures. Obviously something big was
going on and it looked as if he were going to be left out. Impatiently he
called Michael on the phone. One of the house bodyguards answered, went to get
Michael, and came back with the message that Michael wanted him to sit tight,
that he would get to him soon.
Carlo called up his mistress again and told her he was sure
he would be able to take her to a late supper and spend the night. Michael had
said he would call him sin, whatever he had planned couldn’t take more than an
hour, or two. Then it would take him about forty minutes to drive to Westbury.
It could be done. He promised her he would do it and sweet-talked her into not
being sore. When he hung up he decided to get properly dressed so as to save
time afterward. He had just slipped into a fresh shirt when there was a knock
on the door. He reasoned quickly that Mike had tried to get him on the phone
and had kept getting a busy signal so had simply sent a messenger to call him.
Carlo went to the door and opened it. He felt his whole body go weak with
terrible sickening fear. Standing in the doorway was Michael Corleone, his face
the face of that death Carlo Rizzi saw often in his dreams.
Behind Michael Corleone were Hagen and Rocco Lampone. They
looked grave, like people who had come with the utmost reluctance to give a
friend bad news. The three of them entered the house and Carlo Rizzi led them
into the living room. Recovered from his first shock, he thought that he had
suffered an attack of nerves. Michael’s words made him really sick, physically nauseous.
“You have to answer for Santino,”
Michael said.
Carlo didn’t answer, pretended not to understand. Hagen and
Lampone had split away to opposite walls of the room. He and Michael faced each
other.
“You fingered Sonny for the Barzini people,” Michael said,
his voice flat. “That little farce you played out with my sister, did Barzini
kid you that would fool a Corleone?”
Carlo Rizzi spoke out of his terrible fear, without dignity,
without any kind of pride. “I swear I’m innocent. I swear on the head of my
children I’m innocent. Mike, don’t do this to me, please, Mike, don’t do this
to me.”
Michael said quietly, “Barzini is dead. So is Phillip
Tattaglia. I want to square all the Family accounts tonight. So don’t tell me
you’re innocent. It would be better for you to admit what you did.”
Hagen and Lampone stared at Michael with astonishment. They
were thinking that Michael was not yet the man his father was. Why try to get
this traitor to admit guilt? That guilt was already proven as much as such a
thing could be proven. The answer was obvious. Michael still was not that
confident of his right, still feared being unjust, still worried about that
fraction of an uncertainty that only a confession by Carlo Rizzi could erase.
There was still no answer. Michael said almost kindly,
“Don’t be so frightened. Do you think I’d make my sister a widow? Do you think
I’d make my nephews fatherless? After all I’m Godfather to one of your kids.
No, your punishment will be that you won’t be allowed any work with the Family.
I’m putting you on a plane to Vegas to join your wife and kids and then I want
you to stay there. I’ll send Connie an allowance. That’s all. But don’t keep
saying you’re innocent, don’t insult my intelligence and make me angry. Who
approached you, Tattaglia or Barzini?”
Carlo Rizzi in his anguished hope for life, in the sweet
flooding relief that he was not going to be killed, murmured, “Barzini.”
“Good, good,” Michael said softly. He beckoned with his
right hand. “I want you to leave now. There’s a car waiting to take you to the
airport.”
Carlo went out the door first, the other three men very
close to him. It was night now, but the mail as usual was bright with
floodlights. A car pulled up. Carlo saw it was his own car. He didn’t recognize
the driver. There was someone sitting in the back but on the far side. Lampone
opened the front door and motioned to Carlo to get in. Michael said, “I’ll call
your wife and tell her you’re on your way down.” Carlo got into the car. His
silk shirt was soaked with sweat.
The car pulled away, moving swiftly toward the gate. Carlo
started to turn his head to see if he knew the man sitting behind him. At that
moment, Clemenza, as cunningly and daintily as a little girl slipping a ribbon
over the head of a kitten, threw his garrot around Carlo Rizzis neck. The
smooth rope cut into the skin with Clemenza’s powerful yanking throttle, Carlo
Rizzi’s body went leaping into the air like a fish on a line, but Clemenza held
him fast, tightening the garrot until the body went slack. Suddenly there was a
foul odor in the air of the car. Carlo’s body, sphincter released by
approaching death, had voided itself. Clemenza kept the garrot tight for
another few minutes to make sure, then released the rope and put it back in his
pocket. He relaxed himself against the seat cushions as Carlo’s body slumped
against the door. After a few moments Clemenza
rolled the window down to let out the
stink.
The victory of the Corleone Family was complete. During that
same twenty-four-hour period Clemenza and Lampone turned loose their regimes
and punished the infiltrators of the Corleone domains. Neri was sent to take
command of the Tessio regime. Barzini bookmakers were put out of business; two
of the highest-ranking Barzini enforcers were shot to death as they were
peaceably picking their teeth over dinner in an Italian restaurant on Mulberry
Street. A notorious fixer of trotting races was also killed as he returned home
from a winning night at the track. Two of the biggest shylocks on the
waterfront disappeared, to be found months later in the New Jersey swamps.
With this one savage attack, Michael Corleone made his
reputation and restored the Corleone Family to its primary place in the New
York Families. He was respected not only for his tactical brillance but because
some of the most important caporegimes in both the Barzini and Tattaglia
Families immediately went over to his side.
It would have been a perfect triumph for Michael Corleone
except for an exhibition of hysteria by his sister Connie.
Connie had flown home with her mother, the children left in
Vegas. She had restrained her widow’s grief until the limousine pulled into the
mall. Then, before she could be restrained by her mother, she ran across the
cobbled street to Michael Corleone’s house. She burst through the door and
found Michael and Kay in the living room. Kay started to go to her, to comfort
her and take her in her arms in a sisterly embrace but stopped short when
Connie started screaming at her brother, screaming curses and reproaches. “You
lousy bastard,” she shrieked. “You killed my husband. You waited until our
father died and nobody could stop you and you killed him. You killed him. You
blamed him about Sonny, you always did, everybody did. But you never thought
about me. You never gave a damn about me. What am I going to do now, what am I
going to do?” She was wailing. Two of Michael’s bodyguards had come up behind
her and were waiting for orders from him. But he just stood there impassively
and waited for his sister to finish.
Kay said in a shocked voice, “Connie,
you’re upset, don’t say such things.”
Connie had recovered from her hysteria. Her voice held a
deadly venom. “Why do you think he was always so cold to me? Why do you think
he kept Carlo here on the mall? All the time he knew he was going to kill my
husband. But he didn’t dare while my father was alive. My father would have
stopped him. He knew that. He was just waiting. And
then he stood Godfather to our child just to throw us off
the track. The coldhearted bastard. You think you know your husband? Do you
know how many men he had killed with my Carlo? Just read the papers. Barzini
and Tattaglia and the others. My brother had them killed.”
She had worked herself into hysteria again. She tried to
spit in Michael’s face but she had no saliva.
“Get her home and get her a doctor,” Michael said. The two
guards immediately grabbed Connie’s arms and pulled her out of the house.
Kay was still shocked, still horrified. She said to her
husband, “What made her say all those things, Michael, what makes her believe
that?”
Michael shrugged. “She’s hysterical.”
Kay looked into his eyes. “Michael,
it’s not true, please say it’s not true.”
Michael shook his head wearily. “Of course it’s not. Just
believe me, this one time I’m letting you ask about my affairs, and I’m giving
you an answer. It is not true.” He had never been more convincing. He looked
directly into her eyes. He was using all the mutual trust they had built up in
their married life to make her believe him. And she could not doubt any longer.
She smiled at him ruefully and came into his arms for a kiss.
“We both need a drink,” she said. She went into the kitchen
for ice and while there heard the front door open. She went out of the kitchen
and saw Clemenza, Neri and Rocco Lampone come in with the bodyguards. Michael
had his back to her, but she moved so that she could see him in profile. At
that moment Clemenza addressed her husband, greeting him formally.
“Don Michael,” Clemenza said.
Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He
reminded her of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity,
who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men.
One hand was on his hip, the profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his
body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease, weight resting on one foot slightly
behind the other. The caporegimes stood before him. In that moment Kay knew
that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true. She went back into the
kitchen and wept.
Book Nine
Chapter 32
The bloody victory of the Corleone Family was not complete
until a year of delicate political maneuvering established Michael Corleone as
the most powerful Family chief in the United States. For twelve months, Michael
divided his time equally between his headquarters at the Long Beach mall and
his new home in Las Vegas. But at the end of that year he decided to close out
the New York operation and sell the houses and the mall property. For that
purpose he brought his whole family East on a last visit. They would stay a
month, wind up business, Kay would do the personal family’s packing and
shipping of household goods. There were a million other minor details.
Now the Corleone Family was unchallengeable, and Clemenza
had his own Family. Rocco Lampone was the Corleone caporegime. In Nevada,
Albert Neri was head of all security for the Family-controlled hotels. Hagen
too was part of Michael’s Western Family.
Time helped heal the old wounds. Connie Corleone was
reconciled to her brother Michael. Indeed not more than a week after her
terrible accusations she apologized to Michael for what she had said and
assured Kay that there had been no truth in her words, that it had been only a
young widow’s hysteria.
Connie Corleone easily found a new husband; in fact, she did
not wait the year of respect before filling her bed again with a fine young
fellow who had come to work for the Corleone Family as a male secretary. A boy
from a reliable Italian family but graduated from the top business college in
America. Naturally his marriage to the sister of the Don made his future
assured.
Kay Adams Corleone had delighted her in-laws by taking
instruction in the Catholic religion and joining that faith. Her two boys were
also, naturally, being brought up in that church, as was required. Michael
himself had not been too pleased by this development. He would have preferred
the children to be Protestant, it was more American.
To her surprise, Kay came to love living in Nevada. She
loved the scenery, the hills and canyons of garishly red rock, the burning
deserts, the unexpected and blessedly refreshing lakes, even the heat. Her two
boys rode their own ponies. She had real servants, not bodyguards. And Michael
lived a more normal life. He owned a construction business; he joined the
businessmen’s clubs and civic committees; he had
a healthy interest in local politic without interfering
publicly. It was a good life. Kay was happy that they were closing down their
New York house and that Las Vegas would be truly their permanent home. She
hated coming back to New York. And so on this last trip she had arranged all
the packing and shipping of goods with the utmost efficiency and speed, and now
on the final day she felt chat same urgency to leave that longtime patients
feel when it is time to be discharged from the hospital.
On that final day, Kay Adams Cory woke at dawn. She could
hear the roar of the truck motors outside on the mall. The trucks that would
empty all the houses of furniture. The Corleone Family would be flying back to
Las Vegas in the afternoon, including Mama Corleone.
When Kay came out of the bathroom, Michael was propped up on
his pillow smoking a cigarette. “Why the hell do you have to go to church every
morning?” he said. “I don’t mind Sundays, but why the hell during the week?
You’re as bad as my mother.” He reached over in the darkness and switched on
the tablelight.
Kay sat at the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings.
“You know how converted Catholics are,” she said. “They take it more
seriously.”
Michael reached over to touch her thigh, on the warm skin
where the top of her nylon hose ended. “Don’t,” she said. “I’m taking Communion
this morning.”
He didn’t try to hold her when she got up from the bed. He
said, smiling slightly, “If you’re such a strict Catholic, how come you let the
kids duck going to church so much?”
She felt uncomfortable and she was wary. He was studying her
with what she thought of privately as his “Don’s” eye. “They have plenty of
time,” she sate. “When we get back home, I’ll make them attend more.”
She kissed him good-bye before she left. Outside the house
the air was already getting warm. The summer sun rising in the east was red.
Kay walked to where her car was parked near the gates of the mall. Mama
Corleone, dressed in her widow black, was already sitting in it, waiting for her.
It had become a set routine, early Mass, every morning, together.
Kay kissed the old woman’s wrinkled cheek, then got behind
the wheel. Mama Corleone asked suspiciously, “You eata breakfast?”
“No,” Kay said.
The old woman nodded her head
approvingly. Kay had once forgotten that it was
forbidden to take food from midnight on before receiving
Holy Communion. That had been a long time ago, but Mama Corleone never trusted
her after that and always checked. “You feel all right?” the old woman asked.
“Yes,” Kay said.
The church was small and desolate in the early morning
sunlight. Its stained-glass windows shielded the interior from heat, it would
be cool there, a place to rest. Kay helped her mother-in-law up the white stone
steps and then let her go before her. The old woman preferred a pew up front,
close to the altar. Kay waited on the steps for an extra minute. She was always
reluctant at this last moment, always a little fearful.
Finally she entered the cool darkness. She took the holy
water on her fingertips and made the sign of the cross, fleetingly touched her
wet fingertips to her parched lips. Candles flickered redly before the saints,
the Christ on his cross. Kay genuflected before entering her row and then knelt
on the hard wooden rail of the pew to wait for her call to Communion. She bowed
her head as if she were praying, but she was not quite ready for that.
* * *
It was only here in these dim, vaulted churches that she
allowed herself to think about her husband’s other life. About that terrible
night a year ago when he had deliberately used all their trust and love in each
other to make her believe his lie that he had not killed his sister’s husband.
She had left him because of that lie, not because of the
deed. The next morning she had taken the children away with her to her parents’
house in New Hampshire. Without a word to anyone, without really knowing what
action she meant to take. Michael had immediately understood. He had called her
the first day and then left her alone. It was a week before the limousine from
New York pulled up in front of her house with Tom Hagen.
She had spent a long terrible afternoon with Tom Hagen, the
most terrible afternoon of her life. They had gone for a walk in the woods
outside her little town and Hagen had not been gentle.
Kay had made the mistake of trying to be cruelly flippant, a
role to which she was not suited. “Did Mike send you up here to threaten me?”
she asked. “I expected to see some of the ‘boys’ get out of the car with their
machine guns to make me go back.”
For the first time since she had known him, she saw Hagen
angry. He said harshly, “That’s the worst kind of juvenile crap I’ve ever
heard. I never expected that from a woman like you. Come on, Kay.”
“All right,” she said.
They walked along the green country road. Hagen asked
quietly, “Why did you run away?”
Kay said, “Because Michael lied to me. Because he made a
fool of me when he stood Godfather to Connie’s boy. He betrayed me. I can’t
love a man like that. I can’t live with it. I can’t let him be father to my
children.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Hagen said.
She turned on him with now-justified rage. “I mean that he
killed his sister’s husband. Do you understand that?” She paused for a moment.
“And he lied to me.”
They walked on for a long time in silence. Finally Hagen
said, “You have no way of really knowing that’s all true. But just for the sake
of argument let’s assume that it’s true. I’m not saying it is, remember. But
what if I gave you what might be some justification for what he did. Or rather
some possible justifications?”
Kay looked at him scornfully. “That’s the first time I’ve
sees the lawyer side of you, Tom. It’s not your best side.”
Hagen grinned. “OK. Just hear me out. What if Carlo had put
Sonny on the spot, fingered him. What if Carlo beating up Connie that time was
a deliberate plot to get Sonny out in the open, that they knew he would take
the route over the Jones Beach Causeway? What if Carlo had been paid to help
get Sonny killed? Then what?”
Kay didn’t answer. Hagen went on. “And what if the Don, a
great man, couldn’t bring himself to do what he had to do, avenge his son’s
death by killing his daughter’s husband? What if that, finally, was too much
for him, and he made Michael his successor, knowing that Michael would take
that load off his shoulders, would take that guilt?”
“It was all over with,” Kay said, tears springing into her
eyes. “Everybody was happy. Why couldn’t Carlo be forgiven? Why couldn’t
everything go on and everybody forget?”
She had led across a meadow to a tree-shaded brook. Hagen
sank down on the grass and sighed. He looked around, sighed again and said, “In
this world you could do it.
Kay said, “He’s not the man I married.”
Hagen laughed shortly. “If he were, he’d be dead now. You’d
be a widow now. You’d have no problem.”
Kay blazed out at him. “What the hell does that mean? Come
on, Tom, speak out straight once in your life. I know Michael can’t, but you’re
not Sicilian, you can tell a woman the truth, you can treat her like an equal,
a fellow human being.”
There was another long silence. Hagen shook his head.
“You’ve got Mike wrong. You’re mad because he lied to you. Well, he warned you
never to ask him about business. You’re mad because he was Godfather to Carlo’s
boy. But you made him do that. Actually it was the right move for him to make
if he was going to take action against Carlo. The classical tactical move to
win the victim’s trust.” Hagen gave her a grim smile. “Is that straight enough
talk for you?” But Kay bowed her head.
Hagen went on. “I’ll give you some more straight talk. After
the Don died, Mike was set up to be killed. Do you know who set him up? Tessio.
So Tessio had to be killed. Carlo had to be killed. Because treachery can’t be
forgiven. Michael could have forgiven it, but people never forgive themselves
and so they would always be dangerous. Michael really liked Tessio. He loves
his sister. But he would be shirking his duty to you and his children, to his
whole family, to me and my family, if he let Tessio and Carlo go free. They
would have been a danger to us all, all our lives.”
Kay had been listening to this with tears running down her
face. “Is that what Michael sent you up here to tell me?”
Hagen looked at her in genuine surprise. “No,” he said. “He
told me to tell you you could have everything you want and do everything you
want as long as you take good care of the kids.” Hagen smiled. “He said to tell
you that you’re his Don. That’s just a joke.”
Kay put her hand on Hagen’s arm. “He
didn’t order you to tell me all the other things?”
Hagen hesitated a moment as if debating whether to tell her
a final truth. “You still don’t understand,” he said. “If you told Michael what
I’ve told you today, I’m a dead man.” He paused again. “You and the children
are the only people on this earth he couldn’t harm.”
It was a long five minutes after that Kay rose from the
grass and they started walking back to the house. When they were almost there,
Kay said to Hagen, “After supper, can you drive me and the kids to New York in
your car?”
“That’s what I came for,” Hagen said.
A week after she returned to Michael she went to a priest
for instruction to become a Catholic.
* * *
From the innermost recess of the church the bell tolled for
repentance. As she had been taught to do, Kay struck her breast lightly with
her clenched hand, the stroke of repentance. The bell tolled again and there
was the shuffling of feet as the communicants left their seats to go to the
altar rail. Kay rose to join them. She knelt at the altar and from the depths
of the church the bell tolled again. With her closed hand she struck her heart
once more. The priest was before her. She tilted back her head and opened her
mouth to receive the papery thin wafer. This was the most terrible moment of
all. Until it melted away and she could swallow and she could do what she came
to do.
Washed clean of sin, a favored supplicant, she bowed her
head and folded her hands over the altar rail. She shifted her body to make her
weight less punishing to her knees.
She emptied her mind of all thought of herself, of her
children, of all anger, of all rebellion, of all questions. Then with a
profound and deeply willed desire to believe, to be heard, as she had done
every day since the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for
the soul of Michael Corleone.
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