“You’re kidding,” Nick said. “That place in Youngstown had birds with cocaine on their feathers, birds pumped full of blood thinner so they’d bleed like mad in a loss and become a huge underdog and then go off the drugs and win. Birds with any of a thousand kinds of poison on their spurs. I can’t begin to remember all the different ways they made birds look sick when they were ready to kill and made others look healthy when they were about to die.”
“You’re naive. Mexicans are worse. Geniuses, though, gotta admit.”
They didn’t need to leave until midafternoon, but Fausto Geraci was up the next morning at four, studying road maps and ministering to the pampered engine of his Olds 88. He insisted on driving, of course. Geraci’s usual driver-Donnie Bags, his third cousin-was just a guy who drove the car, but Nick Geraci’s father was a true wheel man. Someone looking at him behind the wheel and ignoring everything else would have said he drove like an old man: huge eyeglasses, head bent over the wheel, gloved hands at ten and two, radio off so he could concentrate on the road. But he’d always driven like that. Meanwhile, he weaved that Rocket 88 through traffic like the Formula One racer he should have been, swerving from lane to lane, cutting into spaces that seemed too small but never were. Except for the cars and trucks he’d wrecked on purpose and notwithstanding the stretch he did in Marion for vehicular homicide (a cover-up he participated in, loyally, after the Jew’s joyriding fourteen-year-old niece accidentally greased an old lady), Fausto Geraci had never had an accident. He had a sixth sense for where the cops were, too, and, on the rare occasions he was pulled over, could size up the officer and know instantly whether to hand him the badge indicating that he was a retired member of the Ohio Highway Patrol (the badge was real, picked up, crazily enough, at a yard sale) or whether to slip him the badge with a folded-up fifty underneath it. He kept one, prefolded, in the glove box, between the badge and the car’s registration. Once, when Nick was twelve, he took the money. His father gave him an epic beating: the motivation, in fact, for him to start calling himself “Nick” (until then he’d been “Junior” or “Faustino”) and to sign up for boxing lessons.
Nick waited his father out. Whatever the story was, he’d tell it when he was good and ready. Whatever it was, it was something big. He had an air about him like he’d finally been given the kind of job suitable for a man of his obvious talents.
Finally, as they got to the other side of the George Washington Bridge and whipped onto the shoulder to pass two semis, Fausto Geraci veered back onto the road, took a deep breath, and began to tell his son everything he’d learned-personally, by the way-from Vinnie Forlenza.
“You listening?”
“All ears,” Nick said, tugging his ears.
Apparently, Sal Narducci got tired of waiting around for the Jew to die. But even though Laughing Sal probably killed a stadium full of men in his time, he didn’t have the balls to kill his boss. What he did was, he tried to humiliate Forlenza into stepping down, first by getting someone to sabotage that plane-yes, that plane-and then by coming up with the idea of kidnapping Nick from the hospital and hiding him, which was supposed to make Forlenza look reckless and weak, and which probably at least to a point did the trick.
“But look, Ace,” Fausto said, using the nickname, as always, with an edge to his voice, “don’t go running to your boss, either, okay? That pezzonovante is behind the whole thing.”
Nick Geraci found this more than a little hard to believe.
“Why you think you’re alive, you big dummy?’ Fausto said. “You think they’d’ve kept you alive if they thought you fucked up? How many guys you know pulled a stunt like you did in the lake there and didn’t wind up taking two in the head, a meat hook up the ass, butta-beepa-da-boppa-da-boop?”
There were plenty of reasons. Michael needed him. “The crash was ruled an accident.”
Fausto sighed. “Everyone tells me what a genius son I got, can you believe it?”
It only then occurred to Nick that he had no idea what sort of men worked for the FAA, how easy it might or might not be to bribe them. Though there was always some underpaid, powerless shmoe you could get to: a diver, some assistant in the crime lab, somebody who’d lie about life-and-death matters for a little cash or a night with a classy hooker.
He didn’t say anything for a long time. He listened. His father went over it. Everything added up. There had been something dumped in those gas tanks. Don Forlenza had figured it out when he’d heard about a guy who’d gone to Las Vegas on vacation and disappeared. Guy was a mechanic but also a cugin’, wanted to be a qualified man with all his heart. Fausto laughed. “I can tell you personally, those people ain’t let nobody in since who knows fucking when.”
Fausto kept the car at a steady eighty-eight, as if the car’s model name decreed it.
“Anyway, the cugin’ don’t come back from Vegas, and this pal of his, another cugin’, he gets on his high horses, comes to the social club, trying to find out what happened. For the Jew, a light goes on. A mechanic. Missing, probably-” He made a gun with his hand, reached over, and pretended to blow his son’s brains out. “So Forlenza takes the pal in back for a talk. A question here, question there, butta-beepa-da-boppa-da-boop. The pal knew everything. The rest you can guess.”
“What do you mean, the rest I can guess? You mean like what’s left of the pal is underneath a freshly poured basement in Chagrin Falls?”
“Smart guy. Forget the pal. Long story short, your boss and Laughing Sal had this dead mechanic slip something in your fuel tank. Look in the glove box, smart guy.”
Nick gave him a look. “Go on,” Fausto said. “I won’t beat you.”
Thirty years ago, that beating was, and they’d neither one mentioned it since. Thirty years between a father and a son can work like that. In fact, it usually does.
Like the rest of the car, the glove box was immaculate: the badge, neatly stacked atop the fifty (which Nick was careful not to touch), the registration, two white envelopes, and the owner’s manual. One envelope contained service records for the car. “The other one,” Fausto said. “That one there.”
Inside it were six train tickets to Cleveland, for Nick and five of his men, which made it unlikely there’d be any kind of ambush there.
Fausto explained in detail about where to go and the security measures to take to meet with Don Forlenza, which would happen in a part of the Cleveland Art Museum that was in between exhibits and closed off to the public. “Probably you don’t remember that Polack Mike Zielinsky, used to run my old local?”
“You serious, Dad? Of course I remember.” That Polack Zielinsky had been a friend of the family for years. He was Nick’s sister’s godfather and one of Fausto’s best and only friends.
“Well, all right then. Get to the museum nine-fifteen sharp. You see that fat fuck standing out by that Thinker thing-”
“The sculpture?”
“Sculpture, statue. In front there.”
“I know it.”
“He’s there-the Polack, not the statue-you’ll know things are jake, go on in. No Polack, go back to the hotel, he’ll be in the lobby.”
For Nick Geraci, this whole matter had gone from hard to believe to hard to accept. But what could Michael’s motives have been? Why would he want to kill him?
“I know what you’re thinking.” Fausto shook his head. “You really are naive.”
“How you figure?”
“How long you been in this line of work?”
“Your point?”
“My point is,” said his father, “no point. Shit gets done for no reason that makes sense to anybody but the doer and the fellas he has do the shit for him. Most of the time they don’t know shit, either. They just do shit. It’s a miracle you didn’t die a long time ago, big shot.”
It was a good thing that the drive to Troy was so long and that his father wasn’t much of a talker. The long silences gave Nick Geraci time to figure out what to do. Even so, he struggled. He’d look
into things, verifying what he could verify without sending up any flags. He’d move slowly. He’d learn more. He’d consider every move, from every angle.
One thing he knew for certain: if what his father said was indeed true, Nick Geraci would figure out how to do something to Michael Corleone that would do more harm than death.
They made it to Troy. The cockfights were in an old icehouse. The front of the place had been turned into a bar. There was a huge gravel parking lot behind the building and out of sight from the road.
“How’d you know about this place, Dad?”
Fausto Geraci rolled his eyes. “You know all the ins and outs and what-have-yous, right? But your old man, he don’t know his ass from his elbow.”
Nick let it go. They got out. His father complained about the cold. He’d been the toughest sonofabitch there was about the cold back in Cleveland.
“It’s March in New York, Dad.”
“Your blood thins.” He nonetheless stopped to light one of Charlotte ’s cigarettes, gave a little scornful chuckle, muttered something, and headed for the door.
“What’s that?”
“I said, ‘I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder.’ ” He was moving pretty fast for an old guy.
“You can what now?”
“From your Eddie Rickenbacker book, genius,” Fausto said. “He said it. You left it. The book. Do me a favor, stop looking at me like you think I can’t read.”
Nick seemed to remember that the line had been on the book’s flyleaf.
Inside, men Nick didn’t know recognized him and made way for him. This happened a lot in New York, but it was nice to see it here, through his father’s eyes.
They went to the men’s room. “Last words on the subject,” Fausto whispered, his eyes on the wall above the urinal trough. “You want me to take care of you-know-who”-he let go of his dick, turned to his son, and snapped his fingers, both hands-“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Nick smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
“Don’t take him lightly,” Fausto said, zipping up. “In his day he sent more men to meet the Devil than-”
“I won’t.” Nick washed his hands and held the door for his father. “First bet’s on me.”
He placed it with the same five his father had left under Charlotte ’s purse. It went on a big ugly Blueface stag, a ten-to-one underdog that they first saw in its pen, shitting all over itself. Fausto looked at the diarrhea and even stuck his finger into a gob that had fallen on the floor and smelled it. Thirty seconds in, the shit-tailed cock leapt up and hit the other bird’s carotid artery. As Fausto the Driver had guessed, the diarrhea had been a sham, induced with Epsom salts.
The Geracis were fifty to the good, playing it cool, trying to find the angles that would decide the next deadly fight, no matter how much rage beat in the hearts of the next two chickens.
Chapter 19
P ETE CLEMENZA was holding court at a diner just outside the Garment District, a place with a back dining room where no one who was not with Clemenza was ever seated. The man who owned the place was old enough to be Pete’s father, and Pete was seventy. They’d been friends longer than either man could remember. This particular morning, the boss was home sick and Pete was in the kitchen, an apron tied over his silk suit, cooking peppers and eggs, redoing the chopped onions (the ones already prepared were “a million times too coarse”), and showing the ropes to the punks who worked for his friend, keeping them in line. Two of Clemenza’s men sat at a metal table crammed in the corner, listening to Clemenza do what he’d done for the better part of his waking life, which was tell a story. It had been what had sealed his bond with Vito Corleone. Pete was a born storyteller, Vito a born listener.
This one happened five years ago, right after Pete got out of prison for a short stretch he’d had to do for extortion (the case was overturned on appeal). Pete had gone to see Tessio’s new TV. “Compared to the TV sets in the joint,” Pete said, “this one’s got a picture so pretty it made your dick hard. It’s Friday night, and Tessio’s got a few of us over to watch the fights, hoist a couple, place a friendly wager or two. Tessio had inside dope on every fight in creation, but he’s extending his hospitality, so losing money to him, it’s like slipping the house a little something for a good seat. Only guy there I don’t know is this one kid-new guy, wound tight as a squirrel. For somebody who’s not well known, he’s asking a lot of questions, and at a certain point I say something about it. Kid goes white, but Sally says, ‘Let him ask, how else does a guy learn?’ A little later I’m in the hall comin’ out of the can when Richie Two Guns asks what the squirrel’s story was. I didn’t know shit, I said, which maybe oughta be on my tombstone. The first fight starts, and Sally tells Richie to turn the sound off, that he can’t stand the announcer. Then Sally tells the squirrel to announce the fight. Kid laughs, but Sally pulls out a gun and waves it at him like get on with it. Kid looks like he might piss himself. ‘Welcome to Madison Square Garden,’ he says, and, I shit you not, his voice comes out of the TV! ‘Who’s in the dark trunks?’ Sally says. The squirrel says, ‘In the dark trunks, we have Beau Jack,’ which again comes through the TV. Sally smiles and says he don’t like this announcer, either. Richie rips the squirrel’s shirt off, and damned if this hairy bastard ain’t wearing a wire. First one I ever saw with a transmitter. Primitive government piece of shit played right through Sally’s new TV. Sally goes over, leans into the microphone part, and says, ‘Fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno.’ For every law, there’s a loophole, I guess you’d say. Anyway, this cop or whatever he was must have known Italian and figured out that despite the rule against killing cops, Sally was going to get the job done anyway. So then the squirrel really does piss himself. It shorts out the fucking transmitter. Squirrel starts jerking and screaming. Swear to God, his nuts are on fire. His nuts!”
Everyone in that cramped kitchen laughed.
Clemenza keeled over onto the grill.
They must have thought he was going for a bigger laugh yet. For a moment-as the big man’s great big heart blew like a bald truck tire-he got one. Then the flesh of his fat face seared and crackled and his suit coat burst into flame. His men leapt up and pulled him from the grill. They smothered the fire in no time.
All the last original employees of Genco Pura Olive Oil-its president, Vito Corleone; its manager, Genco Abbandando; and its two salesmen, Sal Tessio and Pete Clemenza-were dead.
The train station in Cleveland was near enough to the lake that gusts of icy wind were knocking down disembarking passengers. Nick Geraci fell, as did two of his men. Eddie Paradise broke his arm, though it was a few days before he figured that out.
The Polack was out by the Thinker.
It was the day before Clemenza’s funeral and an hour after the Cleveland Museum of Art closed. Geraci was shown into a white room, utterly empty except for Vincent Forlenza-the largest anonymous donor in the history of that great museum-and his wheelchair. He called to his men to get Mr. Geraci a chair or a bench, but Geraci insisted that it was fine, he’d stand. Forlenza’s nurse and all the bodyguards waited at the end of a long hall.
Geraci admitted that his first impulse had been to have Laughing Sal’s car sabotaged and make it look like an accident. Tit for tat, more or less. Forlenza’s idea had been to car-bomb Narducci into a hundred corners of oblivion. Car bombing was the midwestern Families’ style. It was a labor saver, eliminating any need to dispose of the bodies.
They discussed the merits of torturing Narducci, as Forlenza had the dead pal of the dead mechanic. But there was nothing Narducci could tell them that they hadn’t already confirmed. If they were going to kill him, they might as well just give him two to the head or, sure, wire up his car.
But Geraci talked Forlenza into keeping Narducci alive. For now.
First of all, if Narducci died or disappeared, Michael Corleone would be onto them. And Narducci hardly seemed to pose a threat. He’d made the most in
direct move on Forlenza possible. Furthermore, as far as Geraci knew, no consigliere had ever betrayed his boss. This could be a terrible embarrassment to the Cleveland organization. Narducci would have to be disposed of in a way that wouldn’t look as if it had been ordered or even condoned by Don Forlenza.
Killing Michael Corleone would have been another option, and, like killing Narducci, a satisfying one. But where would it have led? Mayhem, war, millions of dollars in lost profits in the meantime. Even if they won, they’d lose.
For now, they’d keep a close eye on the men who’d betrayed them but turn their efforts to building a new set of allegiances. Geraci already worked with Black Tony Stracci and his organization. Forlenza had ties to Paulie Fortunato. With Clemenza’s death, Geraci would be controlling the day-to-day operations of the Corleone Family in New York. He was practically a boss himself now. So that was three of the five New York Families.
The key after that would be Chicago. Louie Russo already had a coalition involving Milwaukee, Tampa, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Dallas. Put that together with what Geraci and Forlenza could build, and Michael Corleone will wish he was dead.
The best revenge on Michael Corleone was tit for tat.
They would use Fredo as a pawn, the same way Michael had tried to use Nick Geraci.
They’d stay above the fray and let their enemies kill each other off.
They’d take it slowly. Carefully.
When it was over, Cleveland and Chicago and the other midwestern Families would again control the West. Nick Geraci would be the boss of what used to be the Corleone Family, doing business in and around New York. All they needed to do was put Fredo in the middle between Michael and Hyman Roth.
Don Forlenza shook his frail head. Morgues are full of new arrivals who look more vital than the ancient Don. “Tell me this, Fausto,” he said. “Why would this Fredo do it?”
Fausto. Only he and Michael Corleone called Geraci Fausto and it always threw him, just a little. The real Fausto called him no name at all, just names. Genius. Big shot. Ace.
The Godfather returns Page 34