The Godfather returns

by Mark Winegardner

  The Godfather returns

  Mark Winegardner

  Even before you open the book, the stark red, white and black cover sparks the strains of Nino Rota's "The Godfather Waltz" begin playing in your mind. Mark Winegardner has been granted to task of writing a sequel to Mario Puzo's essential 1969 novel The Godfather, a novel which not only must pick up the story of that book, but must also fit the characters and situations Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and others traced through three epic films. The result in The Godfather Returns.

  Perhaps most of Winegardner's readers will be more familiar with the films than with the novel, which followed several different characters, many of whom, such as Johnny Fontane or Lucy Mancini, are only peripheral to the films. Winegardner returns to Puzo's novel to follow several different characters. Taking a technique for the second film, however, he also moves through time to present Michael Corleone's story before the first film, between the first two films, and between the second and third films.

  Winegardner's decisions to fill in the blanks between the films is one of the weaknesses of The Godfather Returns. The films left out much of the empire building Michael had to do between them in his attempt to go legitimate. While Winegardner manages to add interesting layers of intrigue to Michaels' quest, and to the characters who surround him, the novel really works best when the characters are engaging in mafioso wheeling and dealing.

  One of the strengths of Puzo's work was the characters he made come to life, and Winegardner does an excellent job not only with the lives of Puzo's characters, but with his own. Just as Puzo eventually picked up the story of Santino's son, Vincent, in "The Godfather, Part III," Winegardner also elects to follow Santino's offspring, in this case his twin daughters, as they take their first steps at breaking from the family business. Fredo, a pivotal character in the first two films, is actually fleshed out in The Godfather Returns, in which Winegardner adds to the appetites he exhibits in the first films and gives a deeper look into his need to become his own man and gain his older brother's approval.

  The central character to the novel, however, is Nick Geraci, a member of the Corleone family who, Winegardner reveals, becomes the button man who killed Sal Tessio, his mentor. After proving his loyalty to the Corleones, it is clear that Geraci will eventually turn on the family as he tries to strike out on his own, setting up an eventual confrontation with Michael. Although it is clear Michael will be victorious, the cost of his victory helps build tension.

  In many ways, Winegardner manages to recapture the style and spirit of Puzo's original novel. Nevertheless, there is the feeling that something is missing from The Godfather Returns. Winegardner successfully captures every individual aspect of Puzo's work, whether in the original novel or the films, but there is a magic beneath it that is missing. Despite missing the Puzo magic, The Godfather Returns is a welcome reintroduction to the Corleone clan.

  Steven H Silver

  Mark Winegardner

  The Godfather returns

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  alla mia famiglia

  Whoever forsakes the old way for the new knows what he is losing, but not what he will find.

  – Sicilian proverb

  They were killing my friends.

  – AUDIE MURPHY,

  most decorated U.S. soldier of World War II, when asked how he had found the courage to fight an entire German infantry company

  Timeline

  *The Godfather II also covers the early life of Vito Corleone (1910-1939) in flashback scenes.

  **The second half of The Godfather Returns also covers the early life of Michael Corleone (1920-1945) in flashback scenes.

  Cast of Characters

  THE CORLEONE FAMILY

  Vito Corleone, the first godfather of New York ’s most powerful crime family

  Carmela Corleone, Vito Corleone’s wife and mother of their four children

  Sonny Corleone, Vito and Carmela Corleone’s oldest son

  Sandra Corleone, Sonny’s wife, now living in Florida

  Francesca, Kathy, Frankie, and Chip Corleone, Sonny and Sandra Corleone’s children

  Tom Hagen, consigliere and unofficially adopted son

  Theresa Hagen, Tom’s wife and mother of their three children Andrew, Frank, and Gianna

  Frederico “Fredo” Corleone, Vito and Carmela’s second-born son (underboss 1955-1959)

  Deanna Dunn, Oscar-winning actress and Fredo’s wife

  Michael Corleone, Vito’s youngest son and the reigning Don of the Corleone Family

  Kay Adams Corleone, Michael’s second wife

  Anthony and Mary Corleone, children of Michael and Kay Corleone

  Connie Corleone, Vito and Carmela’s daughter

  Carlo Rizzi, Connie Corleone’s deceased husband

  Ed Federici, Connie Corleone’s second husband

  T HE C ORLEONE F AMILY O RGANIZATION

  Cosimo “Momo the Roach” Barone, soldato under Geraci and nephew of Sally Tessio

  Pete Clemenza, caporegime

  Fausto Dominick “Nick” Geraci, Jr. (aka Ace Geraci), soldato under Tessio, later caporegime, later boss

  Charlotte Geraci, Nick’s wife

  Barb and Bev Geraci, Nick and Charlotte’s daughters

  Rocco Lampone, caporegime

  Carmine Marino, soldato under Geraci and third cousin to the Boccicchio Family

  Al Neri, head of security for Family hotels, other security details as needed

  Tommy Neri, soldato under Lampone and nephew of Al Neri

  Richie “Two Guns” Nobilio, soldato under Clemenza, later caporegime

  Eddie Paradise, soldato under Geraci

  Salvatore Tessio, caporegime

  RIVAL CRIME FAMILIES

  Gussie Cicero, soldato under Falcone and Ping-Pong; owner of L.A. supper club

  Ottilio “Leo the Milkman” Cuneo, boss, New York

  Frank Falcone, boss, Los Angeles

  Vincent “the Jew” Forlenza, boss, Cleveland

  Fat Paulie Fortunato, boss of Barzini Family, New York

  Cesare Indelicato, capo di tutti capi, Sicily

  Tony Molinari, boss, San Francisco

  Laughing Sal Narducci, consigliere, Cleveland

  Ignazio “Jackie Ping-Pong” Pignatelli, underboss and later boss, Los Angeles

  Louie “the Face” Russo, boss, Chicago

  Anthony “Black Tony” Stracci, boss, New Jersey

  Rico Tattaglia, boss, New York (succeeded by Osvavldo “Ozzie” Altobello)

  Joe Zaluchi, boss, Detroit

  F RIENDS OF THE F AMILY C ORLEONE

  Marguerite Duvall, dancer and actress

  Johnny Fontane, Oscar-winning actor and probably the greatest saloon singer who ever lived

  Buzz Fratello, nightclub entertainer (usually with his wife, Dotty Ames)

  Fausto “the Driver” Geraci, a trucker in the Forlenza organization and father of Nick Geraci

  Joe Lucadello, friend of Michael Corleone’s youth

  Annie McGowan, singer, actress, and former hostess of puppet show Jojo, Mrs. Cheese amp; Annie

  Hal Mitchell, retired Marine and front for Corleone-owned casinos in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe

  Jules Segal, head surgeon at Corleone-owned hospital in Las Vegas

  M. Corbett “Mickey” Shea, former bootlegging partner of Vito Corleone’s; ex-ambassador to Canada

  James Kavanaugh Shea, governor of New Jersey and son of the Ambassador

  Daniel Brendan Shea, assistant attorney general of New York and
son of the Ambassador

  Albert Soffet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  William Brewster “Billy” Van Arsdale III, heir to the Van Arsdale Citrus fortune

  BookI. Spring 1955

  Chapter 1

  O N A COLD spring Monday afternoon in 1955, Michael Corleone summoned Nick Geraci to meet him in Brooklyn. As the new Don entered his late father’s house on Long Island to make the call, two men dressed like grease monkeys watched a television puppet show, waiting for Michael’s betrayer to deliver him and marveling at the tits of the corn-fed blond puppeteer.

  Michael, alone, walked into the raised corner room his late father had used as an office. He sat behind the little rolltop desk that had been Tom Hagen’s. The consigliere’s desk. Michael would have called from home-Kay and the kids had left this morning to visit her folks in New Hampshire -except that his phone was tapped. So was the other line in this house. He kept them that way to mislead listeners. But the inventive wiring that led to the phone in this office-and the chain of bribes that protected it-could have thwarted an army of cops. Michael dialed. He had no address book, just a knack for remembering numbers. The house was quiet. His mother was in Las Vegas with his sister, Connie, and her kids. On the second ring Geraci’s wife answered. He barely knew her but greeted her by name (Charlotte) and asked about her daughters. Michael avoided the phone in general and had never before called Geraci at home. Ordinarily, orders were buffered, three men deep, to ensure that nothing could be traced to the Don. Charlotte gave quavering answers to Michael’s polite questions and went to get her husband.

  Nick Geraci had already put in a long day. Two heroin-bearing ships, neither of which was supposed to arrive from Sicily until next week, had shown up late last night, one in New Jersey, the other in Jacksonville. A lesser man would be in prison now, but Geraci had smoothed things over by hand-delivering a cash donation to the pension fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose men in Florida had performed like champs, and by paying a visit (and a sizable tribute) to the Stracci Family capo who controlled the docks in north Jersey. By five, Geraci was exhausted but home in his backyard in East Islip, playing horseshoes with his two girls. A two-volume history of Roman warfare he’d just started reading sat next to the armchair in his den, in position for later that night. When the phone rang, Geraci was a few sips into his second Chivas and water. He had T-bones sizzling on his barbecue pit and a Dodgers/Phillies doubleheader on the radio. Charlotte, who’d been in the kitchen assembling the rest of the meal, came out on the patio, carrying the phone with the long cord, her face drained of color.

  “Hello, Fausto.” The only other person who called Nick Geraci by his given name was Vincent Forlenza, who’d stood as Geraci’s godfather in Cleveland. “I’d like you to be a part of this thing Tessio arranged. Seven o’clock at this place called Two Toms, do you know it?”

  The sky was blue and cloudless, but anyone watching Charlotte rush to herd the girls inside might have thought she’d learned that a hurricane was bearing down on Long Island.

  “Sure,” Geraci said. “I eat there all the time.” It was a test. He was either supposed to ask about this thing Tessio arranged or he wasn’t. Geraci had always been good at tests. His gut feeling was to be honest. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about. What thing?”

  “Some important people are coming from Staten Island to sort things out.”

  Staten Island meant the Barzinis, who had that place sewn up. But if Tessio had set up peace talks with Michael and Don Barzini, why was Geraci hearing it from Michael and not Tessio? Geraci stared at the flames in his barbecue pit. Then it came to him what must have happened. He jerked his head and silently cursed.

  Tessio was dead. Probably among many others.

  The meeting place was the tip-off. Tessio loved that place. Which meant that most likely he’d contacted Barzini himself and that either he or Barzini had set up a hit on Michael, which Michael had somehow anticipated.

  Geraci poked the T-bones with a long steel spatula. “You want me there for protection,” he said, “or at the table or what?”

  “That was a hell of a long pause.”

  “Sorry. Had to get some steaks off the grill here.”

  “I know what you’re worried about, Fausto, but not why.”

  Did he mean Geraci had nothing to worry about? Or that he was trying to figure out what if any role Geraci had played in Tessio’s betrayal? “Well, pilgrim,” Geraci answered, in his best John Wayne, “I ain’t so much worried as I am saddle sore and plum tuckered out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Geraci sighed. “Even in the best of times I’m a worrier.” He felt a tide of gallows humor rise in him, though he spoke flatly: “So shoot me.”

  “That’s why you’re so good,” Michael said. “The worrying. It’s why I like you.”

  “Then you’ll forgive me if I point out the obvious,” Geraci said, “and tell you to take a route there you’d never ordinarily take. And also to avoid Flatbush.”

  Now it was Michael’s turn for a long pause. “Flatbush, huh? How do you figure that?”

  “Bums’re home.”

  “Of course,” Michael said.

  “The Dodgers. Second game of a twin bill with Philadelphia.”

  “Right,” Michael said.

  Geraci lit a cigarette. “Not a baseball fan, eh?”

  “Used to be.”

  Geraci wasn’t surprised. Seeing the business side of gambling ruined sports for a lot of the smarter guys. “This could be the Bums’ year,” Geraci said.

  “That’s what I keep hearing,” Michael said. “And of course you’re forgiven.”

  “For what?”

  “For pointing out the obvious.”

  Geraci lifted the steaks off the grill and onto a platter. “It’s a gift I have,” he said.

  An hour later, Geraci arrived at Two Toms with four of his men and positioned them outside. He took a seat alone and sipped an espresso. He wasn’t afraid. Michael Corleone, unlike his brothers-the brutish Sonny and the pathetic Fredo-had inherited the old man’s deliberate nature. He wouldn’t order a hit on a hunch. He’d make sure, no matter how long it took. Whatever test was coming, however galling it was to be tested by the likes of Michael Corleone, Nick Geraci would respond with honor. He was confident he’d emerge unscathed.

  Though he’d never heard Salvatore Tessio say a bad word about Michael, Geraci didn’t doubt that Sally had thrown in with Barzini. He had to be angry about the nepotism that made a Don out of a greenhorn like Michael. He had to see the folly of cutting the organization off from its neighborhood roots to move west and become-what? Geraci had taken over countless once-thriving neighborhood businesses built by industrious, illiterate immigrant fathers and ruined by American-born sons with business degrees and dreams of expansion.

  Geraci checked his watch, a college graduation gift from Tessio. Michael certainly hadn’t inherited the late Don’s legendary punctuality. Geraci ordered a second espresso.

  Time and time again, Geraci had proven himself a loyal member of the Corleone organization and, still shy of his fortieth birthday, maybe its best earner. Once he’d been a boxer, a heavyweight, both as Ace Geraci (a boyhood nickname that he let stick, even though it mocked him for acceding to the American pronunciation of his name: Juh-RAY-see instead of Jair-AH-chee) and under numerous aliases (he was Sicilian but fair-haired, able to pass as Irish or German). He’d kept his feet for six rounds against a man who, a few years later, knocked the heavyweight champion of the world on his ass. But Geraci had hung around gyms since he was a little kid. He’d vowed never to become one of those punch-drunk geezers shuffling around smelling of camphor and clutching a little bag of yesterday’s doughnuts. He fought for money, not glory. His godfather in Cleveland (who was also, Geraci gradually learned, the Godfather of Cleveland) had connected him with Tessio, who ran the biggest sports gambling operation in New York. Fixed fights meant fewer blows to
the head. Soon Geraci was called on to give out back-alley beatings (beginning with two kids who’d assaulted the daughter of Amerigo Bonasera, an undertaker friendly with Vito Corleone). The beatings punished deadbeats and loudmouths who had it coming, and earned Geraci enough money to go to college. Before he was twenty-five, he’d finished his degree, left the enforcer racket, and was a rising man of promise in Tessio’s regime. He’d started out with some dubious qualities-he was the only guy hanging out at the Patrick Henry Social Club who hadn’t been born in Brooklyn or Sicily; the only one with a college degree; one of the few who didn’t want to carry guns or visit whores-but the best way to get ahead was to make money for the people above him, and Geraci was such a gifted earner that soon his exotic flaws were forgotten. His most brilliant tactic was to exaggerate his take on every job. He handed over sixty or seventy percent of everything instead of the required fifty. Even if he had been caught, what were they going to do, whack him? It was foolproof. His overpayments were an investment with jackpot-level payouts. The more he made for the men above him, the safer he was and the faster he rose. The higher he rose, the more men there were underneath him paying him fifty percent. And if the greedy morons held out on him, he was smart enough to catch it. It became clear all over New York that there was a difference between getting hit by the toughest guy you ever fought and having your eye socket flattened into a bloody paste by a blow from a former heavyweight prizefighter. The threat of what Geraci could do became a part of the mythology of the street. Soon he rarely needed to do anything to get his money but ask for it. If that. Intimidation is a better weapon than a fist or a gun.

  During the war, Geraci mastered the ration-stamp black market and held a draft-exempt civilian position as a loading-dock inspector. Tessio proposed him for membership in the Corleone Family, and at the ceremony his finger was cut by Vito himself. After the war, Geraci started his own shylock operation. He specialized in contractors, who at first never realized how front-loaded their expenses were and underestimated how tough it was, at the end of jobs, to get everyone who owes you money to pay (here, too, Geraci could be of service). He also targeted business owners who were degenerate gamblers or had any other weakness that made them seek quick cash. Before long, Geraci was able to use those businesses to launder money and give wiseguys something to put on their tax returns-at least until the time came to bust the place out. For thirty days, deliveries would stream through the front door and go straight out the back: presents for wives and girlfriends, gestures of friendship to cops, but otherwise sold to bargain hunters from the neighborhood. Once the bills came, so, too, would a mysterious fire-dago lightning. Geraci hated both the term and the crude endgame strategy, and he put it to rest by working on a night school law degree and supplanting the fires with perfectly legal bankruptcy proceedings. He incorporated every business in question (Geraci had a guy in Delaware), sheltering the owner’s personal assets. If the owner was a good sport, Geraci tossed in a thousand bucks and some land in Florida or Nevada. When Michael Corleone took advantage of his father’s semiretirement and covertly got involved with prostitution and narcotics, the businesses Vito had refused to enter, he’d put Geraci in charge of narcotics and let him hand-pick several men from Tessio’s regime and what was left of Sonny’s. Within months, Geraci worked some things-with the great Sicilian Don Cesare Indelicato, with the powers-that-be on the docks in New Jersey and Jacksonville, and with airports in New York and the Midwest, where he operated several small planes owned by companies the Corleones controlled but did not on paper own. The Corleones, unbeknown to most of the men in their organization, were making as much from narcotics as anybody in America. Without that money, they could never have amassed a war chest big enough to go after the Barzinis and the Tattaglias.