The Godfather returns

by Mark Winegardner

  “You’ve done well, Fausto,” Forlenza said. “I hear good things.”

  “Thank you, Godfather,” Geraci said. “We hit a rough patch, but we’re making progress.”

  Forlenza smirked. His disapproval might have been gentle, but it registered; a Sicilian doesn’t have the American faith in progress, doesn’t use the word the way Geraci just had.

  Forlenza motioned to a round table by the window. The storm raged even stronger now. The nurse pushed Forlenza to the table. Geraci continued to stand.

  Narducci returned, accompanied by the other Dons and their bodyguards, who’d freshened up from their airsickness episode but still seemed shaky. Frank Falcone entered with a heavy-lidded stare, bovine in its blankness. It told the whole story. Molinari had, as planned, told him who Geraci was. Falcone pointed at the paintings of men in jodhpurs and pale stout women in tiaras. “People you know, Don Forlenza?”

  “Came with the place. Anthony, Frank. Let me introduce you to an amico nostro.” A friend of ours. A friend of mine was just an associate. A friend of ours was a made guy. “Fausto Dominick Geraci, Jr.”

  “Call me Nick,” Geraci said to Falcone and Molinari.

  “A good Cleveland boy,” Forlenza said, “Ace, we used to call him, who now does business in New York. He is also, I am proud to say, my godson.”

  “We met,” Falcone said. “More or less.”

  “Eh, Frank. I’m sure you can indulge a man’s pride in his godson.”

  Falcone shrugged. “Of course.”

  “Gentlemen,” Geraci said, “I bring you greetings from Don Corleone.”

  Forlenza looked at the guards and pointed to Geraci. “Go ahead, do your job.”

  Geraci presented himself to be frisked, though of course they’d done it to him back in Detroit, too. One more time today and we’ll be going steady, he thought. This search was state of the art, complete with a hand inside his shirt and under the band of his underpants, looking for recording devices. As they finished, two white-haired waiters in bow ties brought out a crystal tray of biscotti all’uovo, small bowls of strawberries and orange wedges, and steaming glass mugs of cappuccino. They set a silver bell beside Forlenza and left.

  “They came with the place, too.” Forlenza took a sip of his cappuccino. “Before we get started,” he said, “you must all understand that the decision to invite an emissary from Don Corleone was mine alone.”

  Geraci doubted this but had no way of knowing for certain.

  “No offense, Vincent,” said Falcone, “or, what’s-your-face? Geraci. No offense, but I still can’t get used to calling that little pezzonovante Michael Don Corleone.” Falcone had ties with the Barzini Family and also with a Hollywood union guy named Billy Goff whom the Corleones had supposedly clipped. On top of which, he had made his bones in Chicago, under Capone.

  “Frank,” said Molinari. “Please. This accomplishes nothing.”

  Forlenza asked them to sit, and they did. Narducci sat in a leather armchair a few feet away. The bodyguards took seats on a sofa against the far wall. As they all watched, the nurse, without a cue, turned and walked out of the room.

  Falcone gave a low whistle. “It’s that white uniform. You could put any dame in one of those, I’d want to bend her over a gurney, hike it up, and screw her silly. Every time I go to the hospital, my dick gets so hard and stays so hard they got to give me extra blood.”

  “Frank,” said Molinari.

  “What? Jokes are fucking wasted on you, my friend.”

  Forlenza asked Molinari and Falcone about the wedding of Joe Zaluchi’s daughter and Pete Clemenza’s son, who wasn’t in the business per se (he built shopping centers). They also asked how it was that a Cleveland boy had come to fall in with the Corleones. Geraci said that after his boxing career didn’t work out, he was stuck in New York with a wife and kids, and his godfather made some calls. Some expression returned to Falcone’s face. Forlenza cleared his throat in a way everyone understood as a call to order, took a long drink of water, and began.

  “Sangu sciura sangu,” he said. “Blood cries for blood. This has been the undoing of our tradition in Sicily. An endless spiral of vendettas has left our friends there less powerful than any time in a century. Yet here in America we are flourishing as never before. There is enough money, enough power, for everyone. We have legal operations in Cuba and, particularly in the case of the Families represented here, Nevada. The amount we can make from this is, if I may be honest, limited only by our imaginations and-” he held up one finger-“and by our unfortunate tradition of riding the runaway train of vendetta to oblivion.”

  Forlenza looked toward the high white ceiling and continued in Sicilian, which Geraci understood though couldn’t really speak. “Perhaps there are men in this room who know who is responsible for the killings in New York.” He gave Geraci, Falcone, and Molinari each a glance of precisely equivalent duration, then took a long, strategic sip of his cappuccino. “Emilio Barzini, a great man and one of my oldest, dearest friends, has been killed. Phillip Tattaglia is dead.” Forlenza paused to eat one of the tiny biscotti, underscoring all that was implied in his lack of any encomium to describe the weak and whiny Don Tattaglia. “Michael Corleone’s oldest, wisest caporegime, Tessio, was killed. Don Corleone’s brother-in-law, the father of his baby godson, was killed. Five other amici nostri, dead. What happened? Maybe one of you knows. I for one do not. My sources tell me that Barzini and Tattaglia, frustrated by the weak protection their narcotics business got from the Corleones’ judges and politicians, went after the Corleones and were killed in return. Perhaps. Others say Michael Corleone killed Barzini and Tattaglia so he could transfer his base of operation west and have it not seem to be a move made out of weakness. A possibility, no question. Could it be that we are witnessing revenge for the deaths seven years ago of the eldest sons of Vito Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia? Why not? In such matters, seven years can be but the flick of a fish’s tail. Or”-and here he took another cookie and took his time munching it-“perhaps-who knows?-this is all a plot by Don Stracci and Don Cuneo, whose families have never had the power held by either the Barzinis or the Corleones, to seize control of New York. Their quick negotiations for peace have, in the minds of many people, added force to this speculation. Even the newspapers are adopting this wild guess and promulgating it to the stupid masses as fact.”

  This inspired knowing chuckles. The newspaper stories were plants. The Straccis’ power base was New Jersey, and the Cuneos ran upstate New York (and the biggest milk company in the region, which was how Ottilio Cuneo had become “Leo the Milkman”). Neither was believed to be powerful or ambitious enough to make an attack on the three stronger families.

  “Or maybe,” Falcone said in English, “who knows? The Corleones killed ’em all.”

  Falcone, Geraci was fairly certain, would have been surprised to learn that his angry hyperbole was one hundred percent correct.

  “Even their own men?” Molinari said. Though a friend of the Corleones, Molinari, too, almost certainly did not know what had really happened in New York. “C’mon, Frank.”

  Falcone shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m like Vincent, I can’t unravel this fuckin’ thing. I hear people talkin’, that’s all. But a lot of what I hear is that even though Don Vito, may he rest in peace, pledged on his life that he would not avenge his son’s death, what’s-his-face-”

  “Santino,” Geraci said.

  “Another country heard from.” He raised his cappuccino cup in a mock toast. “Thanks, O’Malley. Yeah: Santino. He said he wouldn’t avenge it or even look into it. The way we understood it was that his Family wouldn’t do that, but, see, it was all a bunch of fucking double-talk. All he meant was that he personally wouldn’t do it. Vito stepped down so that Michael could plot revenge and carry it out as soon as the old man died.”

  “Forgive me,” Geraci said. “It’s not double-talk. It didn’t happen that way.”

  “Look, Vincent,” Falcone said, “why are
the Corleones the only New York Family represented here, huh? Why am I having a sit-down with you two and someone else’s wet-behind-the-ears soldato? Even your consigliere’s not at the table.”

  “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.