The Godfather Returns (37 page)

“Fredo,” she finally said. “Baby. I want you to know that I know. I’ve always known.”

“Known what?” Fredo got out of bed and went to take a piss. He knew what she meant, though. Rage washed over him.

“This is Hollywood. That’s entertainment, y’know? Plenty of people have marriages that are covers for . . . well,
that.
It’s fine. All I ask is a warm place to come at night—pun intended—and maybe some nice things once in a—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” She sighed. “Forget it.”

Fredo washed his hands and stood in the doorway to the bathroom. “I want to know.” He raised his fist and bounced it lightly against the doorframe. “Tell me.”

“What are you going to do? Are you going to hit me? Shoot another little dog? I’m telling you that I understand how you are. I don’t know if
forgive
is the right word, but—”

“Forgive me for
wha
t
?”

He could toss her out the window. She was a drunk bitch with a fading career. People like that jump out of windows every day.

“Really,” she said. “Forget it. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

His brothers would have beaten her up. Fredo knew that. They thought he was weak. Everyone did, but he wasn’t. He was
strong.
It took strength not to throw her out the window or beat her. Fredo kept his breathing perfectly even and ordered room service. When it came he did not smash his grapefruit in her face. He calmly ate his food and waited for her to leave.

Once she was out of earshot, he hurled his orange juice glass at the door.

He picked up the table lamp and slammed its iron base into the television screen. He threw a green glass ashtray against the row of liquor bottles behind the bar. He took out a knife and, taking his time, shredded the sofa, the chairs, the bed, the pillows, even the drapes.

He took running starts and stomped dozens of holes in the walls.

For no particular reason, the only things in the suite he was careful to leave alone were Deanna’s clothes and jewelry. And his own clothes. Otherwise, he destroyed whatever he could. People must have heard, but no one came to stop him.

Finally, he took out his gun. Some crummy off-brand piece of shit, nothing nice like those Colts. He went into the bathroom and fired a round at the bidet, which he’d never figured out how to use or whether it was just for women. Who the fuck wanted to pay prices like what this joint cost and feel stupid? A porcelain shard gashed his cheek, but he barely felt it.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He put a bullet in the reflection of his balding head. Then he shot the mirror over the bed, too. The shower of glass was spectacular. His life up to now had been but forty-three years of bad luck; if he’d just brought on another seven, another fourteen, so what?

Fredo looked at his watch. The whole day had gotten away from him. He was supposed to meet Jules Segal and some possible investors at Gussie Cicero’s supper club in an hour. Fredo called the front desk and said that his wife had had a wild party last night. “You might want to send someone up to figure out the damage,” he said. “Just put it on my bill.”

The clerk asked if Fredo had heard shots fired.

“Oh, that,” Fredo said. “I had a Western on the TV full-blast.”

He hung up. He gave the ruined TV set a kick. He went into the flooded bathroom and turned off the water to the toilet. He looked around the suite. A hell of a goddamned mess, but in the end, all he’d wasted on this one was a day. He’d spent forty-three years on the mess he’d made of his life. He grabbed his tux and his Mary Janes. He could get dressed at Cicero’s.

After two encores, J. J. White, Jr., left the stage, drenched in sweat and to a standing ovation. Fredo and Jules Segal were at a table in front, along with two Beverly Hills attorneys, Jacob Lawrence and Allen Barclay—friends of Segal’s and also the registered owners of a Vegas casino that really belonged to Vincent Forlenza. Fredo had wrangled gorgeous young starlets as dates for the two married lawyers. Segal’s date was Lucy Mancini, who used to be Sonny Corleone’s
goumada.
The ladies all went to powder their noses.

Figaro and Capra were at the next table with dates of their own, watching Fredo’s back.

“All right, Doc,” Fredo said, sitting down. “I got this theory.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Segal said. “J.J.’s better when he’s solo and not kissing Johnny Fontane’s ass with all the Uncle Tomming.”

“My theory,” Lawrence said, “is that Jews are the best entertainers. It’s in our blood.”

This cracked Barclay and Segal up. White, a Negro, had married a Jew and converted. Lawrence, Barclay, and Segal were all born Jewish, though the lawyers had changed their names.

Fredo frowned. “J.J.’s great, but I’m not talking about nothin’ like that,” he said. “I’m talking about our possible business arrangement in New Jersey. My theory is, the trick to getting anybody to do anything is that you gotta get ’em to think it was their own idea in the first place.”

“You’re just figuring that out?” Segal said. “How old are you?” A few years ago, his hair had been gray. Now it was brown as milk chocolate. His suntanned face was only a shade lighter.

Fredo forced a smile. “Point is, I could twist things around and make you think you were the ones who thought of this cemetery thing, but that’s not how I do business. I’m not trying to sell you on nothin’. You don’t want to get in on the ground floor here? Believe me, I know a hundred guys who will. But Jules, you’ve helped me out of a lot of tight spots with the ladies; the least I could do was give you this chance. You fellas, too. Friends of Jules are friends of mine. I’m friends with your Cleveland friends, too. Me and Nick Geraci, probably you know him, we’re like this. Tight. When the time comes, he’ll be in on this, too, believe me. And the Jew?” he said, meaning Forlenza. “Personal friend.” Fredo had actually never laid eyes on the guy. “Long story short, this was my idea, all right? But put your pride aside, and you’ll see that if you go in on this, we’ll all make a mint.”

Capra buried his head in his date’s hair. His English was too shaky for him to pick up on what was going on at the next table. Figaro, on the other hand, was stunned that Fredo would go to civilians for money—even though Geraci had said that this was probably what would happen. Figaro used to cut Geraci’s hair; his original connection to the Family had been Tessio (another customer). The longer Figaro was out in Nevada and California, the more he was convinced that Vito’s sons were wrecking everything. The base of the Family’s power was New York—where Figaro was born, and where his loyalties remained. He was Nick Geraci’s guy, all the way.

Gussie Cicero and Figaro made eye contact from across the room. Figaro nodded. Gussie went to tell Mortie Whiteshoes and Johnny Ola they had the opening they’d need to get Fredo to help them get their boss and Michael to wrap up some sort of mutually beneficial negotiations. As far as Gussie knew, he himself was doing a harmless favor, and Figaro was just confirming that Fredo was talking about whatever it was that he’d supposedly come there to talk about. As far as Gussie Cicero knew, the idea for putting Ola and Whiteshoes together with Fredo Corleone—for whatever reason—had come from Jackie Ping-Pong. As far as Ping-Pong knew, the idea was Louie Russo’s. As far as Russo knew, it was Vincent the Jew’s idea.

“It may well be a good idea, Fredo,” Segal said. “But good ideas are for suckers.”

Fredo cocked his head.

“What makes an idea valuable,” Segal said, “is knowing what to do with it.”

This was a lot of disrespect to swallow from a self-important, cunt-happy Jew who’d have never even gotten his medical license back if the Corleones hadn’t made the head of the review board an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I know,” Fredo said in a near-whisper, consciously aping the quiet menace his father and brother came by so naturally, “what to do with it.”

The men at his table showed no sign of being intimidated.

“Maybe so,” Lawrence said, “but we’ve looked into the details. The ordinances will be next to impossible to pass. Even if you do, the existing cemeteries and related businesses are sure to file suit to get any new laws overturned. I don’t know how things were done in San Francisco or why, but it doesn’t matter. Different state, different century. Today, you have to worry about the likes of Allen and me. The lawyers. If you want to go ahead with this, trust me, there’ll be plenty of . . . what’s the term you people use? Plenty of beaks to wet.”

“ ‘You people’?” Fredo said.

Lawrence shrugged. The women were making their way back to the table.

“There’s other problems,” Segal said. “Tell him, Allen.”

“Cemeteries,” Barclay said, “have to able to be maintained until the end of time with only the interest from a trust. In other words, you’re tying up a fortune up front, which from what I know about your business, I can’t imagine you’d want to do. Also, don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Corleone, but the money would need to be so clean you could eat off it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Fredo said. He couldn’t believe they were going to keep talking about this in front of their dates. “I got all that covered.” Though he didn’t.

The women took their seats and kissed their dates.

“I won’t even get into all the problems you’d face,” Lawrence said, “trying to transport millions of dead bodies across state lines. Or the impossibility of sewing up any kind of monopoly on all this out in New Jersey.”

“Dead bodies!” said Lucy Mancini.

Fredo shot a look at the other men, who at least had enough sense not to explain things. The other women averted their eyes. Lucy flushed, redder than her fresh Singapore Sling. She’d been around long enough not to say a thing like that, and she obviously knew it.

Segal put an arm around Fredo and patted him on the shoulder. “As get-rich-quick schemes go,” Segal said, “this is the worst I’ve ever heard.”

Segal extended an arm toward his friends, and they told Fredo that Segal was right.

Fredo stood. He called out to their waitress to bring another round of drinks. “Ladies,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me?” He made it seem like he was just going to take a leak, but he had no intention of coming back to the table. It’d be a good way to ditch the bodyguards, too, and have a decent night on the town.

Across the room, Johnny Ola—Hyman Roth’s token Sicilian—rose and at a discreet distance followed him to the men’s room.

Maybe,
Fredo thought,
I’ll just go home.
Although where was that? Home? He’d spent most of the last dozen or so years in hotel suites. His father was dead. His mother was in Tahoe, where Fredo had a house, too. But that wasn’t home. That was just a lake cottage in the country. A fishing cabin. Fredo Corleone was a city boy, stifled in Vegas, but Tahoe? Suffocating.

He saw Gussie Cicero and slipped him a Cleveland. For the tab. Gussie told Fredo his money wasn’t good here. “Aw, buy your wife flowers or something,” Fredo said. “Or put it in the offering plate at Mass tomorrow.”

“Mass tomorrow!” Gussie said, pocketing the thousand dollars. “You crack me up.”

At the urinal, he wondered what Deanna would do if she got back to the wreckage of their room before he did. It sent a chill through him. Though maybe it was just a piss shiver.

Fredo zipped up, spun around and slammed into Johnny Ola so hard Ola’s hat went flying and Fredo fell on his ass. The men’s room attendant rushed over to help, but Ola was already apologizing and helping Fredo to his feet.

“Did I do that?” Ola said, pointing to Fredo’s gashed cheek.

Fredo shook his head. “Cut myself shaving.”

“You’re Frederico Corleone, aren’t you? Johnny Ola,” he said, offering his hand. “We have some friends in common. I’ve been hoping to run into you. I didn’t expect it’d be so literal, you know?” He grinned. “We should talk. Sometime soon.”

Deanna was no doubt already there, had already seen what he’d done. If Fredo hadn’t balked at the thought of going to face up to that, it might have saved his life.

“No time like the present,” Fredo said.

Moments later, he was in his car, following Ola and Mortie White-shoes to Hollywood. They stopped at the Musso & Frank Grill. The place was packed, but one of those high-backed mahogany booths with the padded red leather seats miraculously opened up.

“My kind of place,” Fredo said. “Best martinis in L.A. if not the whole world. Stirred, not shaken, which, take it from an Italian, is the right way to make a martini.”

At a place with lesser martinis or less private booths, on a day that had gone better for Fredo than this one, who knows what might have happened? Fredo didn’t think of himself as a weak man, but he’d certainly look back on this as a weak moment. Ola and Whiteshoes explained that their boss and Fredo’s brother were involved in a big deal of some sort. They claimed not to know what it was about; Cuba wasn’t mentioned. Ola said that Michael was being unreasonable in the negotiations. On a better day, Fredo might have understood that was a fancy way of saying that Roth wanted Michael killed. All Fredo could think of at the time was that, when it came to his own big brother, Michael was unreasonable about everything. Fredo tried to poker-face it, but even under the best of circumstances, he was no good at that.

Ola said that if Fredo could help out with things—just some simple information that might help confirm things about the Family’s position and assets, nothing major—that there’d be something in it for him. They were open to talking about what that might be. A cash bonus, maybe.

That was when Whiteshoes chimed in and said that a little bird told him something about some kind of city of the dead Fredo was planning out in New Jersey. “I only know what my friend Jules Segal told me,” Mortie said, “but from the sound of it, I gotta say, I like the sound of it.”

(
From
The Fred Corleone Show,
March 23, 1959 [final episode].
)

FRED CORLEONE:
Ladies and gentlemen, on our show tonight we were supposed to have a very special guest, but as you can see we don’t. We’re going to
have
a guest, that is, and I said the wrong thing in implying that this other guest—I’m getting ahead of myself. That the other one’s not special. He is. Great fella. I’m not . . . (
Looks down; rubs his face with both hands.
) I should keep this simple. Nobody wants me to make it complicated. Miss Deanna Dunn, who as you may know . . . What I mean to say is that despite what was in the newspaper there, our guest tonight is not Miss Deanna Dunn.
(Looks offstage.)
I don’t need to say more than that, do I?