The Family Corleone (22 page)

Vito raised his hand, silencing Clemenza. To Genco he said, “I want to meet this
demone
who strikes fear into Mariposa’s heart.”

Genco said, “I agree with Clemenza on this. This is a bad idea, Vito. You don’t go alone and naked to see a man like Luca Brasi.”

Vito smiled and opened his hands as if to embrace both his
capos
. “Are you scared of this
diavolo
too?”

“Vito,” Clemenza said, and again looked up to the sky.

Vito asked Genco, “What’s the name of that judge in Westchester who used to be a cop before he was a judge?”

“Dwyer,” Genco said.

“Ask him, as a favor to me, to find out everything he can about Luca Brasi. I want to know all there is to know before I go see him.”

Genco said, “If that’s what you want.”

“Good,” Vito said. “Now, let’s enjoy this weather.” He put his arms around the shoulders of his
capos
and walked with them through the gate and into the compound. “Beautiful homes, no?” He nodded toward Genco’s and Clemenza’s mostly finished houses.

“
Sì
,” Genco said. “
Bella
.”

Clemenza laughed and patted Vito on the back. “Not like the old days,” he said, “stealing dresses off garment trucks and selling them house to house.”

Vito shrugged and said, “I never did that.”

“No,” Genco said, “you only drove the truck.”

Clemenza said, “But you stole a rug with me once, remember that?”

At that Vito laughed. He had once stolen a rug from a wealthy family’s house with Clemenza—only Clemenza had told him the rug was to be a gift, in repayment of an earlier favor from Vito, and he hadn’t mentioned that the wealthy family didn’t know they were giving away this gift. “Come on,” Vito said to Clemenza. “Let’s look over your house first.”

From the gate behind them, Richie Gatto called to Vito, and Vito turned to find him standing by the window of a white half-ton panel truck with
Everready Furnace Repair
emblazoned in red across the sides and on the doors. Inside the truck, two burly men in gray coveralls were looking through the window at Vito and the half dozen other men scattered around the compound. Gatto trotted over to him and said, “Couple of guys, say they’re from the town and they’re supposed to inspect the furnace in your house. They say it’s a free inspection.”

“My house?” Vito said.

Genco said, “With no appointment? They just show up?”

Richie said, “They’re a couple of rubes. I looked them over. I don’t see any trouble.”

Genco looked to Clemenza, and Clemenza patted Richie’s jacket, feeling for his gun.

Richie laughed and said, “What do you think? I forgot what you pay me for?”

Clemenza said, “Just checking,” and turned to Vito. “What the hell,” he said. “Let ’em inspect the furnace.”

Vito said to Richie, “Tell Eddie to stay with them.” He raised a finger. “Don’t leave them alone in the house for two seconds,
capisc’
?”

“Sure,” Gatto said. “I won’t let them out of my sight.”

“Good.” Vito put his hand on Clemenza’s back and directed him again toward his house.

Out of sight behind Vito and Clemenza, in the yard behind Vito’s house, Michael and Fredo were playing catch. Tessio talked with
Sonny nearby and every once in a while shouted instructions to one of the boys, telling them something about throwing or catching a baseball. Connie played with Dolce near the back door to the house, holding a small branch over the cat’s head as it pawed at the leaves. In the kitchen, behind Connie, Tom found himself alone with Carmella, which was a rare occasion. Anybody being alone with anybody was a rare occasion in the Corleone household, where there were always family and friends around and kids underfoot. The kitchen was empty of appliances, but Carmella was showing Tom where everything would go. “Over there,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “we’re going to have a refrigerator.” She fixed her eyes on Tom, emphasizing the import of what she was saying. “An electric refrigerator,” she said.

“That’s something, Mama,” Tom said, and he straddled one of two rickety chairs that the workmen had left around and that he had found and brought into the kitchen.

Carmella clasped her hands together and was silent, watching Tom. “Look at you,” she said, finally. “Tom,” she said, “you’re all grown up.”

Tom sat up straight in his chair and looked himself over. He had on a soft-green shirt with a white corded sweater tied around his neck. He had seen the boys at NYU wearing sweaters around their necks and taken to doing so himself at every possible occasion. “Me?” he said. “Am I all grown up?”

Carmella leaned over him and squeezed his cheek. “College boy!” she said, and then dropped down into the second chair and sighed as she looked over the kitchen space. “An electric refrigerator,” she whispered, as if the thought of such a thing was amazing.

Tom twisted around in his chair to glance behind him, through an arched doorway into a large dining room. For an instant his thoughts flashed back to the cramped rooms in the squalid apartment where he had lived with his parents. A picture of his sister emerged out of nowhere. She was barely more than a toddler, her hair askew, her calves streaked with dirt, picking through a handful of clothes on the floor, looking for something clean to wear.

“What is it?” Carmella asked with that slightly angry tone Tom knew was only concern, as if the possibility of anything being wrong with any of her children made her angry.

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?” Carmella said. “That look on your face!” She shook her hand at him.

“I was thinking about my family,” Tom said. “My biological family,” he added quickly, meaning that of course he wasn’t talking about the Corleones, who were his real family now.

Carmella patted Tom’s hand, meaning she knew what he meant. He didn’t have to explain.

“I’m so grateful to you and Pop,” he said.

“
Sta’zitt’!
” Carmella looked away, as if embarrassed by Tom’s gratitude.

“My younger sister wants nothing to do with me,” Tom went on, surprising himself with his babbling, just him and Mama alone in the kitchen of their new home. “I located her more than a year ago now,” he said. “I wrote to her, told her all about me…” He straightened out his sweater. “She wrote back and said she never wanted to hear from me again.”

“Why would she say that?”

“All those years growing up,” Tom said, “before you took me in—She wants to forget it all, including me.”

“She won’t forget you,” Carmella said. “You’re family.” She touched Tom’s arm, once more encouraging him to drop the subject.

“Maybe she won’t forget me,” Tom said, and he laughed. “But she’s trying.” What he didn’t tell Carmella was that his sister didn’t want anything to do with the Corleone family. It was true that she wanted to forget her past—but she also didn’t want anything to do with gangsters, which was what she called his family in her one and only letter. “And my father…,” Tom said, unable to keep quiet. “My father’s father, Dieter Hagan, was German, but his mother, Cara Gallagher, was Irish. My father hated his father—I never met the man, my grandfather, but I heard my father curse him often enough—and he adored his mother, whom I also never met. So it’s not surprising
that when my father married, he married an Irish woman.” Tom put on an Irish brogue. “And once he married into an Irish family, he acted and talked like he was Irish back to the Druids.”

“The what?” Carmella asked.

“The Druids,” Tom explained, “an ancient Irish tribe.”

“Too much college!” Carmella said. She smacked his arm.

“That’s my father,” Tom said. “Henry Hagen. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s still a drunk and a degenerate gambler—and I fully expect to hear from him one of these days looking for a handout, soon as he discovers I made something of myself.”

“And what will you do then, Tom,” Carmella asked, “when he comes looking for a handout?”

“Henry Hagen? If he shows up looking for a handout, I’ll probably give him twenty bucks and a hug.” He laughed and patted the sleeves of his sweater, as if the thing was alive and he was comforting it. “He did bring me into this world,” he said to Carmella. “Even if he didn’t stick around to take care of me.”

Connie came through the back door at the sound of Tom laughing. She carried Dolce with her, the poor cat sagging like a soggy loaf of bread in her skinny arms.

“Connie!” Carmella said. “What are you doing?”

Tom thought Carmella looked relieved at the interruption. “Come here,” he said to Connie in a scary voice. When she threw the cat on the floor and ran out the door yelling, he kissed Carmella on the cheek and ran after her.

Donnie edged the long black hood of his Plymouth closer to the corner and cut the engine. Down the block and across the street, two men stood outside a whitewashed door. Both wore scruffy leather jackets and knit caps. They were smoking cigarettes and talking, and they looked in place on a block of warehouses and machine shops and industrial buildings. At the next intersection beyond them, the hood of Corr Gibson’s De Soto peeked around the corner. Sean and Willie were in the Plymouth with Donnie. Pete Murray and the Donnelly brothers were with Corr. Donnie checked his wristwatch
as Little Stevie walked by him on schedule and turned to give him a wink before stumbling around the corner humming “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a bottle of Schaefer’s in a brown paper bag sticking out of his jacket pocket.

Willie said, “That kid’s just a little crazy, don’t you think?”

Sean said, “He’s got a bug up his arse about dagos.” He was in the backseat, hunched over his pistol, checking the bullets and spinning the barrel.

Willie said, “Try not to shoot that thing if you don’t have to.”

“And aim,” Donnie added. “Remember what I told you. Aim before you shoot, and pull the trigger smooth and steady.”

“Ah, for Christ’s sake,” Sean said, and tossed the gun aside.

On the street, the guys at the door had noticed Stevie and were watching him as he walked toward them, weaving and humming. Behind them, Pete Murray got out of the De Soto, followed by Billy Donnelly. When Stevie reached the two leather-jacketed mugs and fumbled for a cigarette before asking them for a light, they shoved him and told him to keep walking. Stevie took a step back, pushed his jacket sleeves up on his arms, and drunkenly put up his dukes as Pete and Billy came up behind the two guys and tapped them on the head with saps. One fell into Stevie’s arms and the other hit the sidewalk hard. Donnie pulled the car around the corner and parked at the curb as Stevie and Pete pulled the two leather jackets through the door and out of sight. A moment later, they were all huddled in the hallway, at the foot of a long flight of worn and splintery stairs. They checked their weapons, which included a pair of choppers and a shotgun. Corr Gibson wielded the shotgun and the Donnelly brothers had the choppers.

“You stay here,” Donnie said to Sean. To Billy he said, “Give the kid your sap.” When Billy handed Sean the sap, Donnie pointed to the mugs on the floor and said, “If they come around, hit ’em again. Same if anybody comes to the door. Open the door and brain ’em.”

Willie added, “Just a tap. If you hit ’em too hard you’ll kill the poor fuckers.”

Sean shoved the sap in his pocket, though he looked like he was ready to hit Willie with it.

“You ready?” Donnie said to the others.

“Let’s get on with it,” Stevie said, and the men all pulled bandannas out of their pockets and masked their faces. At the top of the stairs, Donnie knocked twice on a brushed steel door, paused, knocked twice again, paused, and then knocked three times. When the door opened, he slammed it with his shoulder and rushed into the room, followed by the rest of the boys. “Don’t fuckin’ move!” he shouted. He had a gun in each hand, one pointed indiscriminately to his left, the other pointing at Hooks Battaglia’s head. Hooks stood in front of a blackboard with a piece of chalk held delicately between his thumb and forefinger. In addition to Hooks, there were another four men in the room, three of them sitting at desks, and one behind a counter with a stack of dollar bills in his hand. The guy behind the counter had his arm, bandaged up to his fingers, in a sling. Hooks had just written the number of the third race winner at Jamaica on the blackboard.

“Look at this,” Hooks said, grinning and pointing at Donnie with the chalk, “we got us a bunch of masked Irish bandits.”

Corr Gibson fired a shotgun round into the blackboard, shattering it. The grin disappeared from Hooks’s face and he went silent.

“What’s the matter,” Donnie said, “not so amused anymore, you wop piece of shit?” He nodded to the others and they flew into a fury of movement, cleaning out the money from behind the counter while smashing windows and tossing adding machines and desk drawers onto the street and into a courtyard. When they were finished, in a matter of minutes, the place was a shambles. They backed out the door and hurried down the stairs, all except Willie and Donnie, who waited in the doorway.

“What’s this?” Hooks said. He looked worried.

Donnie and Willie pulled their bandannas off. Willie said, “Don’t be getting nervous, Hooks. We don’t plan on hurting anybody. For now.”

Hooks said, as if greeting him on the street, “Hey, Willie.” He nodded to Donnie. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

Willie said, “Tell Luca I’m sorry I missed him the other night.”

“That was you?” Hooks took a step back and looked as if the news had knocked the air out of him.

“Looks like I didn’t miss everybody, though.” Willie pointed his gun behind the counter.

Paulie held up his arm. “Ain’t nothing serious,” he said. “I’ll recover.”

“I thought I hit two of you,” Willie said.

Paulie said, “You got my buddy Tony in the leg. He’s still in the hospital.”

Hooks said, “They’re gonna have to operate.”

“Good,” Willie said. “Tell him for me I hope he loses the fuckin’ leg.”

“Will do,” Hooks said.

Donnie touched Willie’s shoulder, pulling him back toward the door. To Hooks he said, “Tell Luca it’s not gonna be healthy for him anymore to operate in any of the Irish neighborhoods. Tell him the O’Rourke brothers said so. Tell him he can do whatever he wants in his own neighborhoods, but to leave the Irish to the Irish or there’ll be hell to pay from the O’Rourkes.”