The Godfather Returns (5 page)

“Sir,” said the man. “Now, please.”

If they were for real and they found the gun there, he’d get arrested. Which someone, probably Zaluchi, could fix. No way to get rid of the gun now anyway.

Fredo palmed one of the oranges. He opened the door and got out slowly. No sudden moves. He flipped the orange to the man in white and braced himself for death. The man just stepped aside. The cops grabbed Fredo by the arms before the orange hit the ground.

“Shouldn’t you fellas be Mounties?” Fredo’s eyes darted, looking for the men with tommy guns.

“You’re coming
into
the United States, sir. Please come this way.”

“You know, that car?” Fredo said. “It’s Mr. Joe Zaluchi’s, who as you probably know is a pretty important businessman in Detroit.”

Their grip loosened, but only a little. They took him behind the roadside A-frame customs building. Fredo’s heart knocked against his rib cage. He kept looking around for the men with guns, listening for the sounds of cocking hammers, inserted clips. He considered shaking himself free and making a run for it. Just as he was about to, the men pointed to a line on the ground and asked him to walk it.

They
were
real. They weren’t going to kill him. Probably.

“Mr. Zaluchi is kind of eager to get his car back,” Fredo said.

“With your arms out like this, sir,” said one of the cops. He said
out
in that funny Canadian way. That accent always struck Fredo as comical.

“Sure you’re not a Mountie?” Fredo asked, but he did as he was told.

So far as he could tell, he walked the line perfectly, but these jokers were unimpressed. They had him recite the alphabet backward, which he did perfectly. He looked at his watch.

“If you fellas give me your names,” he said, “I’m sure Mr. Zaluchi would be happy to make a donation to your retirement fund or something. Whatever he does, I’ll do, too.”

Each man cocked his head, the way dogs do.

Fredo was getting the giggles.

“Is something funny, Mr. Frederick?”

Fredo shook his head. Betrayed by his own nerves, he tried, literally, to wipe the smile from his face. Nothing was funny.

“I apologize if I misunderstood, sir,” one of them said. “Did you offer us a bribe?”

He frowned. “Wasn’t the word I used
donation
?”

“That was the word all right,” said the other one. “I think Bob thought you were proposing a sort of quid pro quo.”

A cop learns some lawyer words, he gets assigned to cream puff duty at the border.
Cream puff duty:
the thought forced the corners of his mouth up, though he was furious at himself, not amused.
Cream puff.
Not Fredo Corleone, who’d knocked up half the showgirls in Vegas and was on his way back there to take care of the other half. He took a deep breath. He was not going to laugh. “I don’t want no trouble. I don’t want to assume anything, but”—and here he had to fight the giggles again—“did I pass the test or not?”

They exchanged a look.

The man in white came around the corner of the building.
Here it comes,
Fredo thought. But he wasn’t carrying Fredo’s gun. Instead, he had that wet, mangled piece of paper, the handbill, spread out on a clipboard, dabbing at it with a handkerchief. “Mr. Frederick?” he said. “Can you explain this?”

“What’s that?” Fredo said. Which was when he remembered:
he’d left his gun back in the room.
“I never seen that.”

The man put his face close to the note. “It’s signed ‘Forgive me, Fredo,’ ” he read. “Who’s Fredo?”

Which he pronounced to rhyme with
guido.

Which caused Fredo, finally, to erupt in laughter.

The warm-ups his doctor had prescribed took half an hour, tops, but Johnny Fontane was taking no chances. He started them in the desert, stopped in Barstow for a steaming mug of tea with honey and lemon, and was going through the regimen of humming and ululations for maybe the fiftieth time when he blew through a red light a couple blocks from the National Records Tower. An LAPD motorcycle cop swung behind him. They came to a stop together, near the back entrance of the building. Phil Ornstein—second in command at National—stood alone at the curb, pacing, smoking.

Johnny ran his fingers through his thinning hair, grabbed his hat from the seat beside him, and got out of the car. “Take care of this,” Johnny said, jerking a thumb toward the cop. “Will ya, Philly?”

“Got that right.” Phil put out his cigarette. “We thought you were driving down here after your midnight show. There’s a room at the Ambassador Hotel we paid for and you never checked into.”

The cop took off his helmet. “You’re Johnny Fontane,” he said, “aren’t you?”

Without breaking stride, Johnny turned, flashed a million-dollar grin, made his fingers into six-shooters, winked, and fired off a few imaginary shots.

Phil, on his way to talk to the cop, stopped, sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair.

“The wife and I loved your last picture,” the cop said.

It had been a Western, a real piece of shit. As if anyone would believe a guy like him on a horse, saving decent folk from desperados. Johnny gave the cop the autograph he wanted, right on the back of his ticket pad.

“Making records again, huh?” the cop asked.

“Trying to,” Johnny said.

“My wife always used to love your records.”

That’s why none of the record companies in New York would give him a contract—no singer who’d ever been more popular with women than men (said some
pezzonovante
at Worldwide Artists) had ever managed to change that. But what Johnny hated even more was the past tense: not
loves
but
used to love.
Movies were fine, though even now, with his own production company and an Academy Award (currently swaddled in his daughter’s toy crib at his ex’s house), the people who ran things out here still made him feel like some dumb Guinea who’d crashed the party. The long waits on the set bored him silly, and he’d had about enough of smart-asses calling him One-Take Johnny. From here on, if he could get the right part, swell, but he was moving on. It just wasn’t where his heart was. He wasn’t really an actor, not really a hoofer, not really a teenster idol or even a crooner. He was Johnny Fontane, saloon singer—a good one and, if he gave it his all, which this contract with National gave him the chance to do, maybe one of the best who’d ever lived. Maybe
the
best. Why not? It’s hell when the person you know you are isn’t the person people see when they look at you. Not that he was going to say anything. You don’t say anything bad to or about anyone who’s been loyal to you. “What’s your wife’s name?” Johnny asked.

“Irene.”

“You and Irene ever get over to Vegas?”

The cop shook his head. “We’ve talked about it.”

“You got to see it to believe it. Look, I’m at the Castle in the Sand all month. Classy joint. You want to come, I’ll get you in.”

The cop thanked him.

“Fucking guy,” he said to Phil in the elevator up to the studio. “Bet he pulls over all your talent, eh? Bet he’s got an autograph collection that’d fill a garage.”

“You’re a cynical man, Mr. Fontane.”

“Loosen up, Philly, you’re too serious.” Though Johnny caught sight of his own mug in the shiny steel walls of the elevator, and he looked nothing if not serious. He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced it. “Everything all set?”

“For over an hour now,” Phil said. “There’s just one thing. Hear me out, okay?”

Johnny poker-faced him and said nothing, but he’d listen. It was Phil Ornstein who—after every other major label had passed—had given Johnny a seven-year contract (for lousy dough, but so what? dough wasn’t an issue). It was Phil Ornstein who had insisted that Johnny Fontane’s voice was back and that his public image as a boozing, brawling thug was both unwarranted and would only enhance sales.

“I know you wanted Eddie Neils for musical director, and if that’s what you really want, fine, we’ll try it.”

Johnny hit the
stop
button on the elevator. Eddie Neils had arranged and recorded Johnny the last time he’d had any hits. Johnny went to his house and wouldn’t leave until the old man gave him an audition right in his marble-floored hallway, among statues of eagles and naked people, and, when Johnny overcame the shitty acoustics and sounded like a little bit of something, Eddie had finally agreed to work with him again.

“You’re telling me Eddie’s not here?”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” Phil said, tapping his gut. “Bleeding ulcer. Had to go to the hospital last night. He’ll be fine. But—”

“He’s not here.”

“He’s not. Right. Here’s the thing, though. He was never our choice for you anyhow.”

That Phil was classy enough to say
for you
instead of
for your comeback
wasn’t lost on Johnny. “You always wanted the other guy,” Johnny said. “The kid. Trombone man.”

“Yes. Cy Milner. He’s not a kid. He’s forty, forty-five years old. We took the liberty of hiring him to write a couple new charts.”

Milner had been a ’bone man with Les Halley, but after Johnny had left the band. They’d never met. “Since when? Since yesterday?”

“Since yesterday. He works fast. He’s a legend for the fast-working.”

The kid’s a legend, and I’m One-Take Johnny.
“What about the charts Eddie already did?”

“We can use those, too. Either way.”

Phil ran his hands through the hair he mostly didn’t have. He was the sort of man who unconsciously took on other people’s mannerisms.

“What do you think I am, difficult?” Johnny yanked the
stop
button. “C’mon, Philly. I’m a pro. We’ll give old Cy a whirl, try some things, see if we can kick up a little magic, eh?”

“Thank you, Johnny.”

“I always liked a Jew with manners.”

“Fuck you, Johnny.”

“And guts.”

Johnny got off the elevator and strode down the hall toward 1A, the only studio big enough for the string setup he wanted. He burst through the doors and made a beeline to the gray-blond man across the room. He had on a British tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses, one lens so thick it made the eye look funny. Broad-shouldered, like someone who’d played football, not what you expected from a man with a baton. He looked like a kindly headmaster from some movie. Johnny and Cy Milner made each other’s acquaintance with the bare minimum exchange of words. Johnny jerked a thumb toward the microphone, and Milner nodded.

Milner mumbled directions to his engineer and then took the podium. The musicians reached for their instruments. Milner took off his coat, raised his brawny arms, and flicked his baton. Johnny was in front of the mike and ready to go.

“C’mon, gents,” he said. But that was all he said.

Johnny hit the song hard from the first note, and the orchestra—Eddie Neils’s people every one—surged lushly behind him. It was like old times. He felt himself riding over the top of the song. He could still do this. Just like riding a bicycle.

When they finished, the people in the booth clapped soundlessly.

Milner sat down at a stool. Johnny asked him what he thought. Milner said he was thinking. Johnny asked if he thought they should do it again. Milner said nothing. He just stood and raised his arms. They did it again. Milner sat back down and started making notes.

“What are you doing?”

Milner shook his head but said nothing else. Johnny looked at Phil, who got the message and brought them all into the booth together.

“We’re getting rid of two thirds of the orchestra,” Milner said.

Not “we should” or “maybe we should”; just the flat statement. Johnny snapped. This was exactly the kind of orchestra he’d used on his biggest hits, exactly the sound people yearned for.

Milner stood his ground, expressionless, absorbing Johnny’s tirade.

Finally Milner handed Phil a slip of paper. On it was the list of people to take off the clock and send home. Phil arched an eyebrow, then pointed at himself. Milner said he didn’t care who did it.

“Hell,” Johnny said. “Do what you need to do.” He sat down heavily on a leather chair.

Milner was the one who sent the men packing. Johnny sat and looked over the list of songs he’d chosen, compared the charts Neils had done and the ones Milner had done. Milner’s were written fast, dotted with sloppily filled notes. There was nothing like the old days about this.

Moments later, Johnny was back behind the microphone, staring down at the sheet music on the stand in front of him. Milner’s this time. An old Cole Porter number that he’d recorded once before, way back when. He wanted to both kill this Milner and hug him. He’d love to prove the man wrong. He prayed that the man was right.

People who’d seen Johnny Fontane in clubs, or even those who’d seen him record ten years ago, wouldn’t have recognized the coiled, brooding man now breathing evenly behind the microphone. The remaining musicians took their places. The engineer wanted a mike check. Just as they were getting ready, some kid came in and asked where he should put Mr. Fontane’s tea. Johnny pointed but did not talk, rocked slowly in place but did not otherwise move, kept his eyes fixed on the music but did not really look at it. This all took only a few moments, but to Johnny it felt like hours and also like no time at all. He closed his eyes. The last time he’d sung this song, his voice had been as clear as rainwater and, as far as he was concerned, about as interesting.

Johnny was hardly aware of the song starting. His breath control was so built up from all that time in the pool, he was barely aware he was singing. The arrangement was everywhere and nowhere, kicking in when he wanted it, staying out of his way without needing to learn how. One verse in, and all Johnny was aware of was that bum in the song, trying to use pretty words and jokes to convince himself he could survive without the woman who’d left him. By the time Johnny hit the first chorus, he
was
that bum. He wasn’t singing to the other people who might be hearing him, in the studio, on the radio, in the privacy of their living room with a bottle of whiskey emptying out far faster than it should. He was singing to and for himself, telling truths so private they could burn holes through stone. There was nothing that anyone who really heard the music could do except look upon all the pretty words and false fronts lost love inspired, upon all the blame lavished on everyone who did the right thing and left you, and despair.