The failure to mention Fredo was no accident, Hagen thought.
“However,” Michael said. He let the pause linger. “There are situations where I need to be represented along with my consigliere-Commission meetings and the like. There’s no one I’d rather have at my side on such occasions than my father’s oldest friend, Pete Clemenza.”
Hagen applauded and slapped Pete on the back. Clemenza said he’d be honored. Rocco gave him a bear hug. Clemenza called out for Neri to have Enzo grab some strega for a toast. Hagen smiled. That was another thing: once men like Clemenza were gone, the important toasts would no longer be made with strega or homemade grappa. It would be Jack Daniel’s or Johnnie Walker. Before long they’d be in boardrooms clanking mugs of weak coffee.
Enzo, it turned out, had a bottle of strega in his desk drawer. He joined them for the toast. “May we live our lives so that when we die we are smiling,” Clemenza said, “and everyone else is crying like a fucking baby.”
They were about to leave when there was a knock on the door.
“Sorry, fellas,” Neri said, opening the door. “Seemed like you was wrapping up and-”
Johnny Fontane, carrying a fancy leather satchel, elbowed past him and, in a voice barely above a whisper, said something that sounded like “How’re your birds, fellas?” Neri scowled. He wasn’t the sort of man one elbowed past, not even a pezzonovante pretty boy like Fontane.
“We was just talking about you,” Clemenza said. “That statue you busted, up in your room there, you know that thing cost three grand?”
“You got a good deal on it,” Fontane said. “I’d have guessed five.”
He’d never been close to Michael, but he presumed to cross the room and, with his free arm, embrace him. Michael did not react. He said nothing.
Hagen had no use for show business people.
Hal Mitchell appeared in the doorway, now in his tux, too, breathless and apologizing. “It’s just that the opening act’s already on and-”
“First thing.” Fontane lifted the satchel as high as he could reach. “Here’s this.” He dropped it. It landed hard on the desk in front of Michael. It sounded like money. “Airmail from Frank Falcone. He sends his regrets, and so does Mr. Pignatelli.”
Presumably it was a “loan” from the pension fund of the Hollywood unions Falcone controlled-an investment in the Castle in the Clouds.
Michael remained seated. He looked at the satchel. Other than that, he was motionless. His expression couldn’t have been more blank if he’d spent all afternoon dead.
A vein in the singer’s temple began to twitch.
Michael ran his finger around the rim of his empty glass.
The other men kept still, letting Fontane and Mike stare each other down and waiting for Fontane to say what the second thing was. It seemed unthinkable that this, such a small favor in return for all that had been done on his behalf, would have provoked such a childish outburst.
Hagen would never understand Fontane’s lack of gratitude. Ten years ago, on Connie’s wedding day, Hagen had walked away with two favors to carry out: getting Enzo Aguello his American citizenship and getting Johnny the part in that war movie. Since then, Enzo had been a faithful friend, even standing unarmed at the hospital alongside Michael when two cars full of men had come to kill Vito, an act of bravery that probably saved the Don’s life. What had Johnny Fontane ever given back to the Corleones?
No one had put a gun to Johnny’s head to sign a contract with the Les Halley Orchestra, yet Vito Corleone had to send a man to put a gun to Halley’s to get him out of it. The Corleones had gotten Jack Woltz to cast him in that war picture, which Johnny would have had in the first place if he hadn’t sport-fucked a starlet Woltz was in love with. Hagen shuddered. After the murders of so many people, how was it possible that what stayed with him in his nightmares was Luca taking a machete and hacking off the head of Woltz’s racehorse? Something Hagen hadn’t even seen. And something Johnny didn’t even know about, since Woltz, as expected, had hushed it up. Another gift from the Corleones: the blessings of ignorance. The Corleones had even bought Fontane an Academy Award. All those favors, and this was how he acted?
The silence in the room thickened.
Fontane shifted his weight from foot to foot. Did he really think he could win a battle of nerves with Michael Corleone?
Finally, Fontane let out a deep breath. “All right, but here’s the second thing.” He pointed to his throat. “I’m sorry as hell, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go on.”
All Michael said was “Is that right?”
Clemenza pursed his lips and flicked a softened toothpick past Fontane’s ear. “I thought Fredo’s doctor friend fixed that. Your throat. The Jew surgeon, what’s-his-face. Jules Stein.”
“Segal,” Johnny corrected. “He did.” He looked around the room. “Which reminds me. You guys seen Fredo? I got something for him. A present. A present from me.”
“His plane was delayed,” Hagen said.
Fontane shrugged. “It’ll wait, I guess,” he said. “Look, fellas, you know me. I’m a pro.” The stage whisper made him seem like one of those women who do it to make men come closer. “My voice is good, but my throat?” He shook his head. “Not a hundred percent. Even so, I been doing these shows here, filling up the joint. Today I had a terrific recording session in L.A. Sometimes you just know. Here’s the rub. On the plane back here, I fell asleep. When I woke up, my throat? Awful sore. So I was thinking-”
“Your first mistake right there,” Clemenza said.
“-I should gargle some salt water and hit the hay. I’m no good like this. Numbnuts could go long.” Morrie “Numbnuts” Streator was Fontane’s long-suffering opening act, a comic he’d rescued from the Catskills. “He’s on now. He’s killin’ ’em. Ask the sarge.”
No one did. The issue here wasn’t how much the guests were enjoying the blue jokes.
“I took the liberty,” Fontane said, “of calling Buzz Fratello. He and Dotty don’t have a show tonight. They could do it. Step in for me. In fact, they’re on their way over right now.”
“Yeah?” said Clemenza, impressed. “The more I see that Buzz, the more I like him.”
“No can do, Johnny,” Hal said. He had not been invited to come in the room and, like Neri, had remained just outside the doorway. “Buzz Fratello and Dotty Ames are under contract across the way.” Meaning the Kasbah, which the Chicago outfit controlled. “Exclusively.”
“They don’t start there until next weekend. This thing’s just a private show, right? A party. It’s no different than someone singing in one of the lounges afterward. We all do that.”
Michael remained still, his eyes on Fontane. After a very long time, Michael reached up and flicked his fingertips backhanded against his own jawbone, a gesture so identical to the late Don’s it gave Hagen chills.
“Mike,” Fontane said. “Michael.” He was getting nowhere. You had to hand it to the guy, though. A different sort of person would have turned around and looked at the other people in the room, trying to read anything he could from the less inscrutable faces. He might even have made a wisecrack-Fontane’s nature, most of the time. But Johnny held his spot. “Don Corleone. I have the greatest respect for you. I mean that. But this? This is just one show.”
Michael folded his hands on the desk. He didn’t even blink. Finally he cleared his throat. After the long stillness, it had the effect of a gunshot.
“What you do,” Michael said, “is of no concern to me. Get out.”
Chapter 10
F RANK FALCONE had a hundred grand on that fight at the Cleveland Armory. He was going to be ringside, he told Nick Geraci, even if it meant Geraci swimming to shore with Falcone lashed to his back. Don Forlenza offered the services of one of his boats. Laughing Sal Narducci pointed out that the bigger ones were already at the fight. There was nothing left but fishing boats unfit to go that far in open water during a storm.
It was not a long fli
ght: maybe fifteen minutes. Geraci told them not to worry, he’d flown in conditions a hundred times worse than this-which of course he had not-and he went to ready the plane. He radioed the tower at Burke Lakefront Airport, which issued a staunch warning not to take off. He pretended not to hear.
The twin-engine airplane carrying Tony Molinari, Frank Falcone, Richard “the Ape” Aspromonte, Lefty Mancuso, and their pilot, officially listed as Gerald O’Malley, lifted off from Rattlesnake Island and into the dark sky. From the moment they were airborne, the flight was a struggle. He was so preoccupied with the challenges the storm threw his way that he wasn’t at all sure if there was anything wrong with the fuel. Probably there wasn’t. He’d checked both tanks before takeoff. He switched to the other tank not so much as a precaution but because he needed to focus on other things. As he strained though the soupy sky to see the lights of Cleveland, he thought he heard the engine sputtering, and without thinking he switched the tanks again and blurted something to the tower about sabotage, which, under these conditions, would have been difficult to assess for a pilot ten times more experienced than Nick Geraci.
The plane made its hapless approach toward Cleveland. The pilot’s last words to the tower were “Sono fottuto.” Translation: “I’m fucked.”
Then, a mile from shore, the plane plowed into the frothy brown chop of Lake Erie.
Geraci had been hit hard playing football in school, much harder in the ring. Once, at Lake Havasu, he’d been in a speedboat driven by his father and slammed into an aluminum dock. The hardest tackle, the most brutal punch, and that speedboat crash he’d somehow survived combined would have felt about half as bad as smacking into Lake Erie in an airplane.
The plane flipped. What felt like a moment later, Geraci was underwater. His door was jammed. He worked his legs free and started stomping a bigger hole in the glass of the windshield. The water was completely black. As he tried to get through the hole, a hand grabbed his arm. It was too dark to know whose hand it was. He tried to pull the man with him, through the hole in the windshield, to safety. The man was stuck. If Geraci hung on, they’d both die. He was about out of breath. The grip was strong, digging deep into the flesh of his arm. Geraci pried off the fingers, feeling and hearing the bones actually break.
Geraci swam free of the sinking wreck. He used the sound of the pounding rain to find the surface. His lungs spasmed and his Adam’s apple bucked. A tingling feeling shot down his arms. He felt a twinge, almost a draining feeling, at the top of his skull. He’d never make it to the top. He was going to breathe water. This was it. Have a good last thought, something worthy, but all he could think of was this filthy water, near home, and how this was where he was going to die. He kept swimming. His mother had loved to swim. His mother! Ah. That was a good last thought. He loved her. She was a good mother, a good woman. He could see her. She was younger than when he’d last seen her. Now she was sipping a martini and reading a movie magazine beside the public pool in his old neighborhood. She was dead, too.
Johnny Fontane, along with his very special guests Buzz Fratello and the lovely and talented Miss Dotty Ames, finished their boffo show at the Beautiful Oasis Room at the Castle in the Sand with a lengthy and hilarious medley of songs about booze, performed for a crowd that didn’t yet know thing one about the crash. It was a crowd, invitation only, largely made up of Teamsters officials from all over America, along with their wives (or more youthful simulacra). Michael Corleone had also, as an olive branch, invited a few select others-food, lodging, and a thousand dollars worth of chips, all on the house. Because it was a private party, even those who were ordinarily unable to set foot in Las Vegas were able to attend. For example: right by the stage was Don Molinari’s brother Butchie (who’d done time for hijacking and extortion) and several other top men from San Francisco. In the men’s room, trying to urinate and cursing inventively at his prick in Italian, was Carlo Tramonti (manslaughter; grand theft; arson; insurance fraud), the boss of New Orleans and a rising power in Havana. There was at least one member representing each of the other New York Families, each accompanied by women and bodyguards. The pale man in the gigantic sunglasses in the booth all the way in the back was Chicago’s Louie “the Face” Russo (possession of stolen goods; aggravated assault; bribing a federal agent), believed by some members of the FBI to be “in line for the still vacant position of ‘capo di tutti i capi’ of the entire so-called La Cosa Nostra.” Together, the appearance of all these people had provided enough cover to fly in several of the Corleones’ own associates from New York without arousing suspicion. Also noteworthy-particularly since they were right by the stage and had come in for so much good-hearted innuendo-laden needling-were those blushing, happy honeymooners, the former Miss Susan Zaluchi and her new husband, Ray Clemenza. C’mon, folks: Put your hands together. Let’s hear it for ’em.
In his own black velvet booth, Michael Corleone leaned back and took a long drag of his cigarette. He looked at his watch. It was Swiss, more than fifty years old. It had once belonged to a marine named Vogelsong, who’d used his dying breath to say he wanted Michael to have it.
By now, if everything had gone right, everyone on that airplane should be dead.
Michael had seen planes crash. Up close. It was all too easy for him to picture the terror on the men’s faces as the plane went down. He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it.
Instead, he’d think about this: His plan had worked. He’d had setbacks, collateral damage, and midcourse corrections, but in the end, all had worked.
Now the Commission could meet. Hagen was wrong: no agreement would last unless it involved Chicago, but no peace involving Chicago would be in the Corleones’ best interest unless Louie Russo came to the table motivated. This crash should motivate him plenty.
Michael had probably never smoked a whole cigarette so fast or enjoyed one more. He lit another and inhaled deeply.
He’d done what he needed to do. Period. Because of that, he’d sleep just fine. After all this was wrapped up in a month or so, he’d take a vacation and sleep twelve hours a day. Had he ever, as an adult, taken a vacation? Those years he’d spent hiding in Sicily were a lot of things, but a vacation? No. During the war, he’d taken liberty- Hawaii, New Zealand. But a family vacation? Never. He and Kay and the kids should go to Acapulco. Maybe see Hawaii again, at peace. Why not? Clown around with Anthony and Mary the way Pop always made time to do, get buried in the sand, rub oil on Kay’s sexy back, maybe see if he could get her pregnant again. He’d wear flowery shirts and dance the mambo.
Michael lifted his half-full water glass. We did it, Pop, he thought. We won.
“God almighty,” Clemenza said, red-faced from laughter and pointing a fat thumb at Fratello, who was racing around the stage like some frantic pillhead. “He’s something, eh?”
“Something,” Michael said.
Fontane had held back, doing quiet numbers and joking around in the ones that would have made him push his voice, but the brilliance he exuded even when he wasn’t trying-maybe especially then-was a thing of beauty. He was a punk, but he was an artist, too. Michael couldn’t be talked to the way Fontane had this afternoon, but by the same token he couldn’t stay mad at the guy.
Fratello? An embarrassment. Here was a guy who’d knocked around for years as “the cafone on the saxophone.” Then he’d put down the sax, started singing like a Negro but with a mamma-mia Italian accent, married a leggy blonde half his age, and bam: Buzz Fratello and Dotty Ames, stars of The Starbright Soap Variety Hour.
Fratello finished the set by sprinting across the stage, diving to the floor, sliding ten feet or so through Dotty’s legs, coming to a stop perfectly timed so he could roll over, look up at her crotch, and rub his eyes in comic disbelief. Fontane cracked up. Dotty helped Buzz up, and they all took a bow. The crowd rose to its feet. The singers left the stage. The ovation continued. The orchestra members kept the fanfare going; clearly, there would be an encore.
Michael
felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Phone,” Hal Mitchell whispered. “It’s Tom.”
Michael nodded and put out his cigarette. Showtime. He glanced at Louie Russo’s table. Someone was whispering something in his ear, too, and when Michael made eye contact with the whisperer, the man looked away. Michael reached over and tapped Clemenza.
Seconds later-as the orchestra launched into a vampy take on “Mala Femmina” and Buzz, Dotty, and Fontane locked arms and gamboled back onstage for their encore-some of the implications of what may or may not have happened on Lake Erie, sketchy as the details were, must have dawned on Louie Russo. But by the time he peered over his sunglasses at the black velvet booth in the corner, it was empty. Even the candle had been blown out.
Nick Geraci’s head broke the surface. He gasped for air, and it surged down his arms and legs, and then he screamed. It was the first time he felt the excruciating pain from his cracked ribs and broken leg.
About a hundred yards away, a flaming oil slick marked the spot where the plane had smashed into Lake Erie. Bobbing in the middle of it were one of the wings, a big chunk of the side of the fuselage with the painted lion logo on it, and the upper half of what turned out to be Frank Falcone’s corpse.
Geraci wasn’t sure what had happened or whose fault it had been, though the pain and adrenaline made it hard to think clearly. He was tethered to reason only by his conviction that if everyone back there was dead, he might as well be. Rescue could mean death.
Through the rain he could see the haze of the Cleveland skyline. He swam away from it. North. Back to Rattlesnake Island, to Canada, a passing boat. Someplace where he could buy himself some time to work things out. Someplace where he’d have a shot at controlling his own fate. His leg felt like it was on fire with pain and his cracked ribs made it almost impossible to breathe, yet by the time the Coast Guard speedboat spotted him, Geraci was about a quarter mile from the crash site, in extreme shock, unconscious, his lungs filling with water, going down.
The Godfather returns Page 15