The Family Corleone

by Ed Falco

  “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.”

  “The Irish to the Irish,” Hooks said. “Got it.”

  “Good,” Donnie said.

  “And what about your sister?” Hooks asked. “What should I tell her?”

  “I don’t have a sister,” Donnie answered, “but you can tell that girl you’re talking about that we reap what we sow.” He backed out the door with Willie and hurried down the stairs, where Sean was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps.

  “We’re into it now,” Willie said, and he pushed Sean out the door. The three of them trotted around the corner, where their car was waiting, the engine running.

  From the chair where he was tied up, Rosario LaConti had a panoramic view of the Hudson River. In the distance, he could see the Statue of Liberty glittering blue-green in bright sunlight. He was in a largely empty loft with ceiling-to-floor windows. He had been carried up to the loft in a freight elevator, and then taken to this chair in front of these tall windows and tied up. They’d left the carving knife in his shoulder because he wasn’t bleeding much, and Frankie Pentangeli had said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So they’d left the knife handle protruding from just under his collarbone, and to Rosario’s wonderment, it didn’t hurt very much. It hurt, especially when he moved, but he would have imagined it would hurt a great deal more.

  In general, Rosario was pleased with how he was handling it all, finding himself in this position—which he had always known, all his life, was a possibility, finding himself in this position or a position like this: a possibility and in all likelihood a probability. And so now here he was, and he found that he wasn’t scared, that he wasn’t in a lot of pain, and that he wasn’t even especially sad about what was going to happen soon, inevitably. He was an old man. In a few months, if he’d had a few months, he’d have turned seventy. His wife had died of cancer in her fifties. His oldest son had been murdered by the same man who was about to murder him. His younger son had just betrayed him, had sold him out in return for his own life—and Rosario was glad for it. Good for him. The deal was, as Emilio Barzini had explained it, the boy got to stay alive if he’d leave the state and hand over his old man. So good for him, Rosario thought. He thought maybe the kid might make a better life for himself—though he doubted it. He’d never been very bright. Still, maybe he wouldn’t wind up like this, Rosario thought, and that at least was something. As for himself, as for Rosario LaConti, he was tired and ready to be done with it all. The only thing bothering him—other than the slight pain from the knife in his shoulder, which wasn’t much after all—was his nakedness. It wasn’t right. You don’t strip a man naked in this kind of a situation, especially a man like Rosario, who had, after all, been a big shot. It wasn’t right.

  Behind Rosario, over a pile of shipping crates, Giuseppe Mariposa was talking quietly with the Barzini brothers and Tommy Cinquemani. Rosario could see them reflected in the windows. Frankie Pentangeli stood off by himself, next to the freight elevator. The Rosato brothers were arguing quietly about something. Carmine Rosato threw up his hands and walked away from Tony Rosato. He came over to the chair and said, “Mr. LaConti. How are you holding up?”

  Rosario craned his neck to get a good look at him. Carmine was a kid, still a baby in his twenties, all dressed up in a pin-striped suit like he was going out for a fancy dinner.

  “You all right?” Carmine asked.

  Rosario said, “My shoulder hurts a little.”

  “Yeah,” Carmine said, and he looked at the knife handle and part of the blood-smeared blade sticking out of Rosario’s shoulder as if it were a problem for which there was no solution.

  When at last Giuseppe quit his conference with the Barzinis and Tommy and came back to the chair, Rosario said, “Joe, for God’s sake. Let me get dressed. Don’t humiliate me like this.”

  Giuseppe stood in front of the chair, clasped his hands together, and rocked them back and forth for emphasis. He, too, was dressed as if he was on his way to a party, with a crisp blue dress shirt and a bright-yellow tie that disappeared into a black vest. “Rosario,” he said. “You know how much trouble you caused me?”

  “It’s business, Joe,” Rosario said, raising his voice. “It’s all business. This too.” He glanced down at himself. “This is business.”

  “It’s not all business,” Giuseppe said. “Sometimes it gets personal.”

  “Joe,” Rosario said. “It’s not right.” He nodded as best he could toward his body, which was flabby and speckled with liver spots. The skin of his chest was doughy and pale, and his sex drooped tiredly down onto the chair. “You know this is not right, Joe,” he said. “Let me get dressed.”

  “Look at this,” Giuseppe said. He had noticed a spot of blood on the cuff of his shirt. “This shirt cost me ten bucks.” He looked at Rosario as if he were furious at him for getting blood on his shirt. “I never liked you, Rosario,” he said. “You were always high and mighty, in your fancy tailored suits. Always giving me the high hat.”

  LaConti shrugged and then grimaced at the subsequent pain in his shoulder. “So now you cut me down to size,” he said. “I’m not arguing with you, Joe. You’re doing what you gotta do. This is the nature of our business. I’ve been on your side of this more times than I can count—but I never sent a man off naked, for God’s sake.” He looked around him, at the Barzini brothers and Tommy Cinquemani, as if asking for their agreement. “Have some decency, Joe,” he said. “Besides, it’s bad for business. You’re making us look like a bunch of animals.”

  Giuseppe was quiet, as if he was considering Rosario’s arguments. He asked Cinquemani, “What do you think, Tommy?”

  Carmine Rosato said, “Listen, Joe—”

  “I didn’t ask you, kid!” Giuseppe barked, and he looked again to Cinquemani.

  Tommy laid one hand on the back of Rosario’s chair, and with the other he gingerly touched the still-swollen skin under his eye. “I think having him splashed across the newspapers like this,” he said, “tells everybody who’s in charge now. I think the message will be very clear. I think even your friend Mr. Capone in Chicago will take note.”

  Giuseppe stepped closer to Carmine Rosato and said, “I think Tommy’s right.” To Rosario he said, “And I gotta be honest with you, LaConti. I’m lovin’ this.” As he stared at Rosario, his look turned solemn. “Who’s giving who the high hat now?” he asked. He nodded to Tomasino.

  Rosario shouted, “No! Not like this!” as Tomasino picked up the chair and hurled LaConti through the window.

  Giuseppe rushed over with the others in time to see a shower of glass and wood splinters follow Rosario to the pavement, where the chair shattered on impact. “Madonna mia!” Mariposa said. “Did you see that?” He grunted, stared down at the street and the blood seeping from Rosario’s head onto the sidewalk, and then turned abruptly and left the loft as if the matter with Rosario was now done and he had other business to take care of. Behind him, Carmine lingered at the window until his brother put his arm around his shoulder and led him away.

  Vito had pulled Sonny away from Tessio and Clemenza, and now they were crossing the compound together on their way to the basement of Vito’s house, to check on the progress of the furnace inspection. Vito had already asked several questions about Leo’s Garage and Sonny’s work there, and Sonny had answered them all with a few words. It was late in the afternoon and the sun cast long shadows over the grass around the compound walls. At the entrance to the estate, the big Essex was parked nose to nose with Tessio’s Packard, and a few of the men were hanging around the cars, smoking cigarettes and chatting. Sonny pointed to a lot across from the main house, where there was nothing more than a foundation. “Who’s that for?” he asked.

  “That?” Vito said. “That’s for when one of my sons gets married. That will be his house. I told the builders to put the foundation down and I’d let them know when I wa
nted the house completed.”

  “Pop,” Sonny said. “I have no plans to marry Sandra.”

  Vito stepped in front of Sonny and put his hand on his shoulder. “This is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Come on, Pop,” Sonny said. “Sandra’s sixteen.”

  “How old do you think your mother was when I married her? Sixteen.”

  “Yeah, Pop, but I’m seventeen. You were older.”

  “That’s true,” Vito said, “and I’m not suggesting that you get married right away.”

  “So what are we talking about, then?”

  Vito fixed Sonny with a glare, letting him know that he didn’t like his tone. “Mrs. Columbo has talked to your mother,” he said. “Sandra is in love with you. Did you know that?”

  Sonny shrugged.

  “Answer me.” Vito clapped his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “Sandra is not the kind of girl you play around with, Sonny. You don’t play with her affections.”

  “No, Pop,” Sonny said. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what is it like, Santino?”

  Sonny looked away from Vito, at the cars and Ken Cuisimano and Fat Jimmy, two of Tessio’s men, who were leaning against the Essex’s long hood and smoking cigars. The two men watched Sonny until he made eye contact with Fat Jimmy, and then they turned to each other and started talking. Sonny said to his father, “Sandra is a very special girl. It’s just that I don’t plan to marry anybody. Not right now.”

  “But she’s special to you,” Vito said. “Not like all these others you’re so famous for running after.”

  Sonny said, “Hey, Pop…”

  “Don’t tell me ‘Hey, Pop,’ ” Vito said. “You think I don’t know?”

  “I’m young, Pop.”

  “That’s true,” Vito said. “You are young—and one of these days, you’ll grow up.” He paused and raised his finger. “Sandra is not a girl to fool around with. If you think she might be the girl you want to marry, you keep seeing her.” He stepped closer to Sonny to make his point. “If you know in your heart she’s not the girl you’ll marry, you stop seeing her. Capisc’? I don’t want you breaking this young girl’s heart. That’s something that…” Vito paused and hunted for the right words. “That’s something that would lower my opinion of you, Santino. And you don’t want that.”