The Godfather Returns (9 page)

“No one ever called it a sit-down,” Molinari said. “It’s just a few friends talking is all. The weather clears, maybe Don Forlenza will loan us some clubs, we can grab some golf—”

“Very comfortable chair,” said Narducci, rubbing its arms.

“—or take a boat and go fishing,” Molinari continued. “Maybe have a cocktail with your nurse friend and a lovely afternoon of buttfucking.”

Falcone frowned. “I don’t do that-there.
In culo?
Did somebody say I did that?”

“Hit a nerve, did I?” Molinari said.

Don Forlenza drained his cappuccino and set his mug down so hard it shattered. No one at the table reacted. At first no one made any attempt to pick up the mess.

A door opened. The bodyguards leapt to their feet and faced it. Two of Forlenza’s men entered. Laughing Sal motioned for them to go. They went.

“We are not clever little policemen trying to solve crimes,” Forlenza said. He said “solve crimes” as if it were a fresh cat turd in his mouth and switched back to Sicilian. “I have my own problems and so, I gather”—he motioned toward Falcone and Molinari—“do you. If I have trouble in Cleveland, this affects no one in New York. No one there is concerned. The trouble is mine, as it should be. Yet if New York has problems, too often this, of no concern whatsoever to me, becomes my problem. The papers are filled with speculation. The police have questioned and harassed friends of ours far from the scenes of those crimes in New York—even our partners, people handling the money, running the businesses, fronting the investments. Some in Washington are pressuring the FBI to take agents away from their war on communism and send them after us and our interests. Senators are threatening to hold hearings. Even our legitimate businesses may be targeted by the IRS. I have grandchildren going to college, buying their first houses, and the complications I have had to endure simply to get my own money to them—”

He took a drink of water. They watched his hand as he set the glass down carefully.

“Well, you know. Millions of dollars of lost business, and it must be the same for you.”

Falcone began making a little sculpture out of cookies, strawberries, orange rinds, and nearby shards of glass.

“Our concerns,” said Forlenza, “are four.” He thrust out his left hand to say this, ready to tick off those reasons. It was a pet gesture. Forlenza had four reasons for anything. Four reasons Jews were misunderstood. Four reasons why, all pride aside, Joe Louis would have knocked out Rocky Marciano. Four reasons veal was better than sirloin. If Don Forlenza had been born with two extra fingers, he would have had six reasons for everything.

“First,” he said, returning to English, his right index finger bending back his left, “New York. Helping them understand that this thing of ours can stand up to anything but infighting, that we all win the uneasy peace we have achieved simply by observing it.”

This met with nods of agreement all around, even from Geraci.

“Second”—middle finger—“Las Vegas. Seven years ago, we sat in a fancy bank building in New York City and agreed that Las Vegas would be open for business for us all. A city of the future, where any Family could operate. Yet now the Corleones have set up headquarters there—”

Geraci started to talk, but Forlenza wagged a finger at him.

“—and the Chicago outfit all of a sudden thinks it’s in charge of enforcement there.”

“Fuckface,” muttered Narducci, a faraway look in his eyes.

“For your information,” Falcone said, now adding strawberries and more glass to his pile, “he don’t like to be called that.” Luigi Russo, who ran things in Chicago, preferred to be called Louie. He’d gotten his more colorful nickname (which the newspapers were forced to shorten to “the Face”) from a hooker who claimed the only sex he wanted was to stick his big nose up her cunt. Her decapitated body washed up on the Michigan side of the lake; her head was never found.

“Speaking of which,” Forlenza said, “third”—ring finger—“Chicago.”

Geraci glanced at Falcone, whose operation was once just a branch of the Chicago outfit. No reaction. Every piece of glass that had been on the table was in front of him now.

“When we all met seven years ago, Chicago wasn’t even invited,” Forlenza said. “Can you imagine?”

Once, eager to direct Capone’s growth away from them, the New York Families had agreed that everything west of Chicago belonged to Chicago. There was still enough Cleveland in Nick Geraci to recognize this as a plan that could have made sense only to a New Yorker. Capone fell; brutal chaos followed. L.A. and San Francisco split off. Moe Greene, from New York, had a dream that became Las Vegas, which was designated an open city with no say from Chicago. After Greene was killed, the Corleones took over his casino and built the Castle in the Sand, but the most powerful force in the city was a coalition of the midwestern Families, led by Detroit and Cleveland. Chicago had points in that coalition (as did the Corleone Family, but only a few), and Louie Russo had made noises about wanting more control of it. Chicago was unified again and getting stronger by the day. With New York in turmoil, many saw Russo as the most powerful figure in American organized crime.

Forlenza shook his head in disbelief. “The New York Families said they’d given up trying to civilize Chicago. Back then, people called them our black sheep. Our mad dogs.”

“Our castrated chickens,” said Molinari, referring to the literal translation of
Capone.

“Bunch of animals,” said Laughing Sal.

Falcone patted his pile on either side, shoring it up. It stood about two hands high. He leaned his face toward it as if he were trying to catch his reflection in the larger shards.

“And fourth”—pinkie—“drugs.” At that word, Forlenza slumped back in his wheelchair. He looked exhausted.

“Drugs?” Molinari said.

“Oh, boy,” said Narducci.

“Not this again,” said Falcone.

Geraci tried not to react at all.

“An old riddle, yes,” Forlenza said, “but one still unsolved. It is the biggest threat to our thing. Yes, if we don’t control it, others will, and we may lose power, but if—”

“If we do,” Falcone interrupted, “not that we aren’t already, the cops supposedly won’t look the other way like they do with gambling, women, unions, and so forth. C’mon, Vincent. Learn some new songs, huh? Look around. This little booze smuggler’s paradise”—a thunderclap boomed, in perfect synch with
paradise—
“that was your thing. You’ve done well, and
salu’.
But for men of my generation, it’s narcotics. For the next one, who knows?”

Narducci muttered something that Geraci heard as “Martian hookers.”

“Many of us,” Forlenza said, “when we took our oaths swore
—swore,
on our Family’s saint—that we would not be involved with narcotics.” He pointed to Falcone’s heap of cookies, fruit, and glass. “What are you doing?”

“Something to do is all,” he said. “Look, Vincent, I love you like you was
my
godfather, I do, but you need to live in the present day. Out west, we got it all set up, foolproof, layers and layers of guys between all the suckers who use it—your niggers, your Mexicans, your artistic types, your hotshots—and the people who sell it to ’em and the people who sell it to
them.
And so forth. The way we do anything else, and it works fine. The cops or whatever, they can slow it down a bit, especially in troubled times like this here, but the number of things that’d have to go wrong for them to get any of
us
in legal problems? Forget it. Not a chance.”

The Cleveland Family, Geraci knew, had some dealings in narcotics but contented itself with tributes and left most of the profits to the Negroes, the Irish, and the miscellaneous. After Prohibition, Cleveland had simply taken its next best things, gambling and unions, and expanded those. It wasn’t an organization open to new ideas or even new men. Geraci’s father said it had been more than ten years since Cleveland had initiated a new member.

Forlenza forged ahead, repeating himself: booze was different—cops drank and didn’t really want to break that up—but drugs were something else.

As Falcone reached down, got a piece of glass from the floor, and held it up toward the chandelier, Molinari diplomatically pointed out that Forlenza might be slightly naive about the makeup of today’s young street cop.

“That’s it,” Forlenza said. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The waiters returned. He pointed at the glass and cookies. “Take that away.”

“Did I
say
I wanted that taken away?” Falcone set down the shard and looked at the waiters. “Take it away and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Chicago, right there,
Geraci thought.
Chicago in a fucking nutshell.

The waiters stood still. The one on the right—a Slavic-looking man with thick gray hair—had gone as white as his shirt. The one on the left, a man with a fringe of white hair and a tire black moustache, faced Forlenza, his head slightly bowed.

“Take it away,” Forlenza said.

“Just try it.” Falcone took the last
biscotto
and placed it like a cherry atop his pile.

“I got a grandkid going to some expensive school,” Narducci said. “Makes sculptures kind of like that. You two should meet.”

“Oh yeah?” Falcone swiveled in his chair to look at him. “Where at?”

“Where you going to meet or where does he go to school?”

“School.”

Narducci shrugged. “I just pay for it. To me, one kindergarten’s the same as another.”

Falcone leapt from his chair, and as he lunged toward the old
consigliere,
Geraci, still seated, hit Falcone squarely on the chin. His head snapped back. He staggered and fell.

The bodyguards rushed the table. Geraci stood. Time seemed to slow down. Amateurs had such bad footwork, he expected this to be over fast.

Molinari burst out laughing. Amazingly, a beat later, from the floor, so did Falcone. The bodyguards stopped. Geraci didn’t move.

“Kindergarten,” Molinari said. “That’s pretty funny.”

Falcone stood, rubbing his jaw. “Nice punch, O’Malley. Sittin’ down. Wow.”

“Instinct,” Geraci said. Narducci didn’t even say thank you. “Sorry. You all right?”

Falcone shrugged. “Forget about it.”

“What were you going to do,” Molinari said, “beat up an old man?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Falcone said, and now everyone laughed. Geraci took his seat, and the bodyguards took theirs. “I don’t give a fuck,” said Falcone. “Take it.”

The two visibly grateful waiters rushed to obey. The one with the dyed moustache even had the poise to return a moment later and refill everyone’s water glass.

“Blow their head off with what, Frank?” Forlenza asked.

“Figure of speech,” said Falcone, which got another big laugh.

Geraci had been looking for an opening, a chance to say what he’d come there to say, and this seemed like the time. He made eye contact with his godfather.

Forlenza nodded.

Again he cleared his throat as a call to order, and in the pause this created took a regally unhurried drink of water.

“Gentlemen,” Forlenza said. “Our guest unfortunately needs to go.” By which, everyone understood, he meant,
should leave before certain things are discussed,
not
has somewhere else to be.
“But he has come a long, long way, and before he leaves, he’d like to say a few words.”

Geraci, in addressing his superiors, stood. He thanked Don Forlenza and promised that his words would be few. “Though I am flattered to have been allowed at this table,” Geraci said, “Don Falcone is correct. This is not my place. As you point out”—indicating Falcone and thinking of Tessio, who always stressed the natural advantages of being underestimated—“I’m just someone’s wet-behind-the-ears
soldato.
” A lie, but one Falcone had initiated.

Narducci’s echolalia had grown so faint that this time Geraci couldn’t guess at what he said.

“The Corleone organization,” Geraci said, “is not, I assure you, a threat to any of you. Michael Corleone wants peace. He’s determined that this cease-fire become permanent and has taken measures to achieve it. He never had any intention of running Las Vegas. After three or four years in this interim location, the Corleone Family will relocate to Lake Tahoe. Actually, it will cease to exist. Our New York operation will continue in some form, but everything in Lake Tahoe will be run by Michael Corleone like the affairs of any American business magnate—Carnegie, Ford, Hughes, whomever.”

“Law school,” Narducci said, presumably triggered by
whomever.

“The Corleone Family,” said Geraci, “will not in the future initiate any more members.” Tonight, in other words, to be construed as the pres-ent. “Michael Corleone will retire from our way of life, and he will do so in a manner that will both be respectful of other organizations and, if anyone chooses, also provide a model for any of us who wishes to take a similar path.” He pushed his chair in. “Gentlemen, unless you have any questions or concerns . . . ?”

He waited a moment. Falcone and Forlenza both looked at Molinari, who ever so slowly blinked. A known friend of the Corleones, he was prepared to elaborate and the more appropriate person to do so.

“In that case,” Geraci said, “I’m going to go check on the weather, in case we—”

“Fuck the weather,” Falcone said. He had a hundred grand on the fight. “When it’s time to go, hotshot, we’re going.”

Narducci muttered something that sounded like “acts of God.”

“Fuck God,” Falcone said. “Don’t take this wrong, Vincent, but I’m not getting stuck—”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Geraci said, and left.

Tom Hagen went back to his room to wait. He tossed his unused three-hundred-dollar tennis racquet onto the bed. He kept on his tennis shirt and changed from shorts into chinos, from sneakers into loafers. On the two different golf courses he could see from the air-conditioned splendor of his room, foursomes of brightly dressed men laughed and drank cocktails on the vast expanse of green where a few decades earlier there had been only cactus and sand, where anyone out there at midday would have been roasting, starving, dying of thirst, gleeful buzzards circling overhead. Instead, servants on golf carts bore cold beer and fresh towels. It reminded Hagen of the stories he’d read about ancient Rome, where the emperors cooled their palaces in the summertime by having slaves haul untold tons of heavy, melting snow down from the mountaintops. More slaves stood beside the mounds of snow night and day, drenched in sweat and waving big papyrus fans. For a king, no corner of the earth is inhospitable.