The Godfather returns

by Mark Winegardner

  Johnny’s career was at its commercial peak. The record label he owned might or might not have been bankrolled to some extent by Louie Russo and Jackie Ping-Pong. Johnny tried to stay out of that kind of thing and let his team of lawyers and accountants take care of it. Same thing went for his movie production company and the Corleones’ investment. What he did know was that both companies were making a mint. His own records sold like mad-for which he got three times the royalty rate he’d made back at National Records. He’d hired Philly Ornstein away from National to run the company, and the acts Philly had signed were piling up gold records, too. Even the bad pictures his company released were packing the theaters (perhaps especially the bad ones; the only film the company released from 1959 to 1962 that lost money in its initial run was Fried Neck Bones, with Oliver Smith-Christmas playing a terminally ill southern lawyer and J. J. White, Jr., playing a Negro juke joint singer falsely accused of raping a white girl, a film now considered a classic). If Johnny Fontane bought a stock, it went up. If he bought land, same deal. The casino he owned twenty percent of in Lake Tahoe, the Castle in the Clouds? Forget about it: full of suckers every day of the year, hottest joint in town. Sure, it was good to be the president’s pally. It was better to be Johnny Fontane’s.

  Johnny hadn’t spoken to either Shea brother since the inauguration. He understood, of course, but a few days before the Shea administration’s hundred-day mark, Johnny finally broke down and called the private number he’d been given. The secretary refused to put him through.

  “Can you take a message?”

  “Of course, Mr. Fontane.”

  “Here it is: Get your bird out here before it falls off. Love, JF. In those exact words.”

  Later that day, as the news started to get out that the crazy little invasion of Cuba wasn’t just the work of a bunch of angry expatriates but instead had been undertaken with the backing of the U.S. government, Johnny felt bad about leaving such a frivolous message. His retired Secret Service man said there was no use calling to tell the secretary to tell her to toss the message. If it was on the log, it stayed on the log.

  Soon, though, the worst of the controversy passed-the whole operation had been approved by Jimmy’s predecessor anyway, something he’d inherited that was too far along to stop-and Corbett Shea sent word that the president was planning his first trip to the West. He’d signed a bill for a new national park not far from Las Vegas, and he wanted to give a speech at the site. He had a few other stops to make-other smiley feel-good moments for the boys on the nightly news-but primarily this was going to be a vacation.

  “Much deserved, I might add,” Johnny said, which was true. Even Jimmy’s political opponents had to admit that aside from the Cuban escapade, the young charismatic president was off to one of the finest starts in American history. “Come on out early if you want,” Johnny said. “Bring your wife or come alone. Stay as long as you’d like.”

  “My wife!” the Ambassador said, guffawing. He’d been to Fontane’s place in Beverly Hills a few times and was as randy an old guy as you’d ever want to meet.

  He arrived a few days later with only his Secret Service detail. He sat out by the pool in the nude, making long distance calls almost nonstop, visibly pissed off nearly all the time but keeping his voice down. Here and there, he took a few minutes off and went up to his room for a session with one of the high-class pros Johnny had arranged. The Ambassador never went into town to see a show or place a friendly bet, never even played tennis, even though he supposedly still played and Fontane had put in a lighted court.

  Truckloads of food and beverages arrived for the impending visit. The day before the president left for his trip west, Johnny took a handcart and rolled the latest delivery out beside the larger pool to show to his guest. It was a thick bronze plaque, four feet by three feet, that read PRESIDENT JAMES KAVANAUGH SHEA SLEPT HERE.

  “What in hell are you going to do with that?”

  “What do you think, Corbett? I have a crew on their way over right now to bolt it over the headboard in the room where Jimmy’s staying. I was going to put quotation marks around slept, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful.”

  The Ambassador frowned. “Kind of big, don’t you think?”

  “Look around, Corbett. The biggest and the best of everything. My friends are worth nothing less.”

  The Ambassador shook his head. “There must have been a misunderstanding, John. Jimmy’s not coming.”

  That cracked Johnny up. “Seriously, though. Any idea what time they’re getting here tomorrow? I have some arrangements I need to take care of.”

  “You deaf, you stupid Guinea? He’s not coming. I never said he was. You invited me out here, and I came. Jimmy has too many other matters to contend with right now. He’s going to make that speech, but there’s not going to be time for a vacation. Even if there is, it’s a bad idea for him to be seen in a town like Las Vegas or at the home of… well, at your home.”

  “What’s wrong with my home? What are you talking about?”

  But Fontane had it figured out now.

  “You know we all appreciate everything you’ve done for us,” the Ambassador said.

  “That sounds a hell of a lot like a kiss-off.”

  “I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding, John. Blame that cocksucker in Cuba. He embarrassed my boy. We’re looking into what we can do for revenge. You Italians understand that, though, right? Revenge?”

  What did that cocksucker in Cuba have to do with such a titanic act of rudeness? “Who did you think all this food was for? All these-”

  “How the hell would I know?” He stood up, letting his towel fall, stark naked with his arms outstretched. He was a large but frail man. Why an old goat like this was determined to go around all the time with his shriveled prick flapping in the wind, Johnny couldn’t imagine. “Do I look like I have your social calendar hidden on me here somewhere?”

  Johnny Fontane shook his head. He swallowed the firestorm of anger rising in him. He left the plaque where it was, turned around, and went inside. He didn’t think it would have been a good move to beat the president’s father to a bloody pulp. He was tempted to make a few calls and send up some girl with a disease for Corbett Shea’s nightcap, but he thought better of that, too. He just avoided the despicable old coot.

  Early the next morning, the Ambassador left without saying good-bye.

  On the outside, Johnny seemed to be taking this snub with impressive Sicilian stoicism. He even rented a semi and helped his staff load up the food. He gave the driver directions to a soup kitchen in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, with strict instructions to tell the staff only that it was from an anonymous donor.

  The president gave the speech. Johnny Fontane watched it on television. It was hard to be angry at a man who could make you feel that good about your country’s future.

  But at the end of the story, the reporter said the president would be spending the next week in Malibu, vacationing at the home of a Princeton classmate of his, a lawyer who-according to the reporter-“is a direct descendent of President John Adams.”

  Fontane watched in stunned disbelief.

  You stupid Guinea.

  Then he flicked off the television and went out to the workshop the construction crews had been using. The crate of TNT they’d used to blow a hole in the rock that had been where the second pool now was had only two sticks left. He’d never used TNT before but was far too furious to be afraid, at least until he lit the first stick and saw the flame racing down the wick. He heaved it, and it landed dead bang in the middle of the helipad. The air rained sand and fist-sized chunks of cement.

  You stupid Guinea.

  After the second stick, the helipad was pretty much a crater.

  Chapter 26

  T OM HAGEN, early for his tee time, ducked into the country club restaurant for coffee. He ordered two cups, as was his habit, so he wouldn’t be at anyone’s mercy for a refill.

  “Mr.
Hagen!” a voice called.

  Hagen turned around. “Mr. Ambassador,” he said, approaching the old man’s table, hand outstretched. Corbett Shea was at a table with Secret Service men. “What a pleasant surprise.” It was a secret, apparently, that he’d been staying at Johnny Fontane’s, but there were few secrets in Nevada that Hagen didn’t know about. “What brings you to Las Vegas?”

  “My foundation is considering a request to build a theater building at the university here,” he said. “I was so shocked Las Vegas even had a university, much less a theater department, I had to come out and see it for myself. Sit.”

  Like he was a goddamned dog. But that was the Ambassador. Hagen got the waiter’s attention, then sat. “I just have a minute. Early tee time.”

  The Ambassador raised his cup. “Never too early for tea.”

  Hagen smiled. “Coffee man, myself,” he said. “You a member here?”

  The Ambassador cringed, as if Hagen had asked him if he’d ever fucked a chicken.

  “Your son’s doing a magnificent job,” Hagen said. “I wasn’t in Washington long, but it was long enough to know how hard it is to get things done, especially things that might really make a difference in the lives of average Americans.”

  This launched the Ambassador into a litany of (Cuba-free) fatherly bragging. Hagen had been sincere, though. His kids had pictures of President Shea on their walls, next to rock-and-roll singers, movie stars, and Jesus. As tainted as the election had been and as callow as Jimmy Shea seemed, Hagen had been astonished to see how swiftly he’d become a great leader. It reminded Hagen of when he was teaching Michael to take over for his father.

  Hagen finished his second cup. He had to go. “Are you in town long?” he asked.

  “On my way out, actually,” he said. “Couple quick meetings, and I head out of this desert hellhole for California.”

  “We still need to get that tennis game in sometime,” Hagen said.

  “What tennis game?”

  “Forget it,” Hagen said. “Please give the president my regards. Anything he ever needs, consider it done.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  Tom Hagen spent his patience on his business and his family and had none left over for the game of golf. He rented a cart whenever possible. He walked up to the ball, addressed it, smacked it. Just hit it and forget it.

  He had a knack for knowing where his ball went, and it drove him nuts-as was the case now-when one of his playing partners hacked through undergrowth with his seven-iron like some great explorer trying to find the headwaters of the Nile. You’re just a duffer with custom clubs, he thought, drumming his hands on the steering wheel of the cart. Take the fucking drop.

  “Take a drop, for God’s sake!” Hagen shouted. On the rare occasions he had to spend more than ten seconds looking for his ball, he took the penalty and got on with it. Life’s short.

  “Found it!” Michael Corleone called. Michael had heard that Corbett Shea was in town, too. Supposedly the president had been planning to stay at Fontane’s but had had to cancel. Which didn’t mean the story about the proposed Corbett Hall was entirely false.

  “You’d get your handicap down to nothing,” Michael said, taking his sweet time lining up his shot, “if you took more time on your shots and weren’t so quick to take a drop.”

  “Forget it,” Hagen said. “I’d just be trading one sort of handicap for another.” As it was, his handicap was a six, best in the foursome. Hal Mitchell was a fifteen, Mike was at best a twenty. Mike’s friend Joe was playing with borrowed clubs and would be lucky to break a hundred on the front nine. “You found your ball; hit the fucking thing and let’s go.”

  Beside him in the cart, Hal Mitchell shook his head and chuckled. In any other context, even Hagen wouldn’t have dared to speak to Michael this way. But it was understood that when it came to sports, Tom was still the big brother, no different than when they were kids and he was trying to teach Mike to play a decent game of tennis. Their playing partners didn’t seem as startled by this as other people were. Both had known Mike almost as long as Tom had-Mitchell since the war and Joe Lucadello even longer, since Mike’s days in the CCC. Joe was a skinny guy from Philadelphia with loud clothes and an eye patch. He was in Vegas on vacation, a guest at the Castle in the Sand. This was the first Hagen had met him.

  “Mike tells me you and him joined the Canadian Air Force together,” Mitchell said. Joe had just cheerfully four-putted the flattest, slowest green on the course. They were on the way to the next tee.

  “That’s the Royal Canadian Air Force, Mr. Mitchell,” Joe said, winking.

  “Call me Sarge,” he said. “All my fwiends do.”

  “Thanks, friend.”

  “Should’ve seen us, Sarge,” Michael said. “Couple of punk kids who could barely handle this little plane we’d taken lessons on, and somehow we thought we were ready to bring down the Red Baron.”

  “Youth,” Joe said. “That’s your somehow. The Red Baron’s from the wrong war, by the way. He was the Great one. We were the Good one.”

  “The wrong war,” Michael muttered.

  Ever since the situation with Fredo, Michael had been like this, these shifts in mood. It weighed on Hagen, too. As consigliere, he’d always believed that there were things that had to be done and you did them. Once you did them, you never talked about it. You forgot about it. Even a tiny gap between believing a thing and doing it was enough space to harbor nightmares.

  Snap out of it. Hit it and forget it.

  Hagen had honors. He blasted the ball, more than two hundred fifty yards and straight as a Kansas Rotarian.

  “I didn’t catch what you do, Joe,” Mitchell said on the way to the next hole, their two carts abreast on the path. “Still a piwot?”

  “Very funny,” Joe said. “You’re a funny guy. I knew you managed the casino, but I had no idea you were one of the comedians, too.”

  Pilot, the sarge had meant, but it did, Hagen realized, sound a lot like pirate. He didn’t want to embarrass Mitchell by correcting Joe, and he couldn’t make eye contact with Mike. For a long, painful moment, no one seemed to know what to say.

  It was in that moment that Hagen first wondered if Joe Lucadello was really an old buddy from the CCC and not a member of another Family.

  “Not piwate,” the Sarge barked. “Piwot.” He held out his arms to pantomime airplane. His golf cart nearly swerved into a sand trap. “Pwanes.”

  “Oh, right,” Joe said. “Sorry. Um, no. Right after the war I was with Eastern. But no.”

  “You get that in the war, did you?” Mitchell said. “The eye?”

  “More or less,” Joe said.

  More or less? Hagen got out and grabbed his driver. Maybe that wasn’t as odd as it sounded. A lot of veterans were funny about talking about the war. Hagen wasn’t a veteran, but those three were. Mitchell seemed to accept the nonanswer as nothing unusual.

  Hagen teed up his ball.

  “So what wine of work are you in?” Mitchell said.

  “This and that,” Joe said. “Different deals in the works, you know? Mostly I take it nice and easy, like the song says.”

  Hagen backed off the ball. He’d been about to tee off, but that got his attention. It wasn’t the breach of golf etiquette that bugged him. Chatter all you want, he didn’t care. It was that Joe had said what a wise-guy would say. Michael was supposedly in town for shareholders’ meetings of two of their companies, and Joe was supposedly here on vacation. What did it mean if Joe was with another Family? Hagen had always presumed there was something other than the desire to be a law-abiding citizen that was behind Michael’s making Geraci the boss. If Mike was sincere about stepping down, why did he do it with all those strings attached? The Commission? They’d have been glad to see him go. Michael had said that it was for protection: for himself, his family, his business interests. Or maybe Michael couldn’t bring himself to let go of the connection racket, which had always been the Corleones’ most valuable asset.


  Or maybe it had something to do with this Joe character.

  Hagen addressed the ball.

  He continued to believe that Michael had created the kind of intricate, brilliant riddle that Vito had often constructed and Hagen had enjoyed trying to solve (why Hagen resented having to do this with Michael, he both did and didn’t understand). Could this pirate in orange Sansabelt slacks be a key to it all? Hagen hadn’t checked him out in advance. Michael had said that he and Joe had been in the CCC together, and Hagen had accepted it at face value. Joe said he was from Jersey, just outside Philly, but Hagen didn’t really know the Philly people. They were a thing unto themselves. New Jersey might be a lead, though. The president was from New Jersey. Michael had his head so far up the Ambassador’s ass he could sing out of that pink bastard’s navel. It didn’t all add up-Eastern Airlines? not what a wiseguy would say-but there were plenty of numbers to plug in and see if they’d help Tom Hagen solve for x.