by Mario Puzo
“No,” Sonny said. “We’re all of us bulletproof.”
“Sure,” Cork said, “but you ever think about it?”
Sonny didn’t worry about getting killed, him or his boys. The way he planned things, if everybody did what they were supposed to do—and everybody did—then there shouldn’t be any trouble. He looked over to Cork and said, “I worry more about my pop. I hear things around, and from what I hear, he’s got some kind of trouble with Mariposa.”
“Nah,” Cork said, without having to think about it. “Your father’s too smart, and he’s got a bloody army protectin’ him. From what I hear, Mariposa’s gang’s a bunch of retards tryn ta fuck a doorknob.”
“Where do you come up with that shit?”
“I’ve got imagination!” Cork yelled. “Remember fifth grade? Mrs. Hanley? Face like a busted cabbage? She used to take me by the ear and say, ‘That’s quite an imagination you’ve got, Bobby Corcoran!’ ”
Sonny pulled the car to the curb in front of Corcoran’s Bakery. He looked up over the shop to the apartments, where, as he expected, all the windows were dark. They were on the corner of Forty-third and Eleventh, parked under a streetlight. Next to the bakery a wrought-iron spear fence guarded a two-story red-stone apartment building. Weeds grew in the spaces of the fence, and the little courtyard on either side of a rough stone stoop was littered with garbage. The windows and roofline of the building were trimmed with granite that must have at some point added a bright, decorative touch, but now the granite was dull and pocked and coated with grime. Cork didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get out of the car and Sonny didn’t mind lingering in the quiet.
Cork said, “Did you hear Nico’s father lost his job? If it weren’t for Nico, they’d all be on the breadline.”
“Where’s Nico tell them the money’s coming from?”
“They don’t ask,” Cork said. “Listen,” he added, “I’ve been waitin’ for the right time to tell you: Hooks doesn’t want us hittin’ Mariposa again, and if we do, we can’t use Luca as the middleman.”
“How come?”
“Too dangerous. Mariposa’s got a bee up his arse about us.” Cork looked out to the street and then back to Sonny. “We’re gonna have to do a stickup or a kidnapping or something.”
“We don’t do kidnappings,” Sonny said. “What are you, crazy?” When Cork didn’t answer, he added, “Just let me do the planning. I’ll figure out what’s next.”
“Good,” Cork said. “But it can’t be too long. I’m okay,” he said, “but the Romeros, the whole family’d be out on the street without the twins bringing in some dough.”
“Jesus,” Sonny said, “what are we now, the Public Works Administration?”
Cork said, “We’re like part of the National Recovery Act.”
Sonny looked at Cork and they both cracked up.
“We’re the New Deal,” Sonny said, still laughing.
Cork pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Jaysus,” he said. “I’m drunk.”
Sonny sighed and said, “I’ve got to have a talk with Pop. This going-to-work shit is killing me.”
“What are you gonna tell him,” Cork asked, through his hat, which had slipped down over his face, “you want to be a gangster?”
“I am a gangster,” Sonny said, “and so is he. Only difference is he pretends he’s a legit businessman.”
“He is a legit businessman,” Cork said. “He runs the Genco Pura Olive Oil business.”
“That’s right,” Sonny said, “and every grocery store in the city better carry Genco Pura Olive Oil or else take out fire insurance.”
“Okay, so he’s a ruthless businessman,” Cork said. He sat up and put his hat back on his head. “But, pal,” he added, “what successful businessman isn’t?”
“Yeah, sure,” Sonny said, “but legit businessmen don’t run the numbers and gambling and shylocking and the unions and all the rest Pop’s into. Why’s he got to pretend he’s something he’s not?” Sonny leaned back and looked across the seat to Cork, as if he might actually be hoping for an answer. “He acts like people that cross him don’t wind up dead,” Sonny added. “See, to me, that makes him a gangster.”
Cork said, “I don’t see a dime’s worth of difference between the two, businessmen and gangsters.” He grinned at Sonny and his eyes lit up. “Did you see the Romeros with those choppers? Jaysu Christi!” He positioned his hands as if holding a tommy gun and shouted, “This is your last chance, Rico! Are you coming out or do you want to be carried out?” He mimicked firing the tommy gun and bounced around in his seat, banging off the dashboard and the door and seat back.
Sonny got out of the car, laughing. “Come on,” he said. “I gotta be at work in a few hours.”
Cork made it out to the sidewalk before he looked up and said, “Oh, Jesus.” He fell back against the car. “Shite!” he yelled and he hurried to the yard next to the bakery, took hold of two spears, and puked into the grass and weeds.
A window opened above the bakery and Eileen stuck her head out. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. She had the same straight, sandy-blond hair as her brother, and it hung down on either side of her face. Her eyes were dark in the streetlight.
Sonny opened his arms in a gesture that said What can I do? “He asked me to bring him here,” he said, trying not to shout and still be heard.
“Bring him on up,” Eileen said, and closed the window.
“I’m okay.” Cork straightened himself out and took a deep breath. “That’s better.” He waved Sonny off. “You can go,” he said. “I’m fine now.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Cork said. He fished around in his jacket pocket and came up with a set of keys. “Go on,” he said, waving at Sonny again.
Sonny watched while Cork struggled first to find the right key and then to get it in the keyhole. “Cazzo!” he said. “How much did you have to drink?”
Cork said, “Just get this door open for me, pal, will ya? I’ll be fine once the bloody mystery of this door is solved.”
Sonny took the key from Cork and unlocked the door. “Eileen’s door will be locked too,” he said.
“Aye, it will, now,” Cork said, putting on the Irish, which he liked to do now and then.
“Come on.” Sonny put his arm around Cork’s waist and guided him up the stairs.
Cork said, too loud, “Ah, yer a good friend, Sonny Corleone.”
Sonny said, “Can it, will ya? You’ll wake up the whole building.”
Eileen heard the boys making their way up the stairs as she opened the door to Caitlin’s room a crack and peeked in. The child was sleeping soundly with her arm around a tattered brown and yellow giraffe she called Boo, for reasons unknown to humankind. Caitlin had latched onto the plush toy soon after James’s death and had been dragging it around with her everywhere in the years since. Now its fur was matted and its colors faded, and it was hardly recognizable any longer as a giraffe—except what else could a soft lump of matted yellow and brown material that was clutched by a child and apparently some kind of a creature with a long neck be besides a giraffe?
Eileen pulled a quilt up to Caitlin’s neck and straightened out the girl’s hair.
In the kitchen, she rinsed out the coffeepot and took a can of Maxwell House down from the cupboard. When the front door opened behind her and Sonny came into the kitchen practically carrying Cork, she turned and put her hands on her hips. “The two of you,” she said. “Will you look at yourselves?”
“Ah, Sis,” Cork said. He pulled away from Sonny and stood up straight. “I’m fine,” he said. He took off his hat and blocked the crown.
Eileen said, “You look fine, don’t you?”
Sonny said, “We were out celebrating a little.”
Eileen watched Sonny, steely-eyed. To Cork she said, “See that?” and she pointed to a newspaper on the kitchen table. “I’ve been saving it for you.” She looked at Sonny and said, “For both you boys.”
Cor
k took a careful step toward the table, leaned over the paper, and squinted at the picture on the front page of a sharply dressed young man sprawled out on the street, his brains splattered all over the curb. A crisp straw boater lay on the sidewalk beside him. “Ah, that’s the Mirror for ya,” Cork said. “Always lookin’ for something sensational.”
“Sure,” Eileen said. “Got nothin’ to do with you, does it?”
“Ah, Sis,” Cork said, and flipped the paper over.
“Don’t Ah, Sis me,” Eileen said. “I know what you’re doing.” She flipped the paper over again. “This is the kind of business you’re getting into. This is how you’ll wind up.”
“Ah, Sis,” Cork said.
Eileen said, “And I won’t shed a tear for you, Bobby Corcoran.”
“I guess I’ll be going,” Sonny said. He was standing by the door, hat in hand.
Eileen looked to Sonny and the hardness in her eyes melted a little. “I’ll put up some coffee,” she said. She turned her back on the boys and rummaged through the sink for the innards of the coffeepot.
“Nah,” Cork said, “not for me. I’m beat.”
“I’ve got to work in the morning,” Sonny said.
“Fine,” Eileen said, “I’ll make it for myself. Now you’ve wakened me,” she said to Cork, “I’ll be up all night.”
“Ah, Sis,” Cork said. “I just wanted to see Caitlin and have breakfast with her.” He let go of the table, which he had been holding on to with both hands, took a step around it toward the sink, and stumbled. Sonny caught him before he hit the ground.
“For God’s sake,” Eileen said. To Sonny she said, “Help him into the back room, will ya?” To Cork she said, “The bed’s all made.”
Cork said, “Thanks, Sis. I’m fine, I swear.” He straightened out his hat, which had been knocked askew when he stumbled.
“Good,” Eileen said. “Go get yourself some sleep then, Bobby. I’ll have breakfast for you in the mornin’.”
“All right,” Cork said. “Night, Eileen.” To Sonny he said, “I’m fine. You go on. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He took a careful step to Eileen, kissed her on the cheek—which she didn’t acknowledge—and then went off into the back room and closed the door behind him.
Sonny waited until he heard the sound of Cork collapsing into bed, and then he approached Eileen at the sink and put his arms around her.
She pushed him away. “Are you crazy?” she whispered. “With my brother in one room and my daughter in the other? Are you completely out of your mind, Sonny Corleone?”
Sonny whispered, “I’m crazy about you, doll.”
“Shush,” she said, though they were speaking softly. “Go on, now,” she said. “Go on home,” and she pushed him to the door.
In the hallway, Sonny said, “Wednesday again?”
“Sure,” Eileen said. She poked her head out into the hall, looked around, and then kissed him, a peck on the lips. “Be gone with you, now,” she said, “and be careful driving home.”
“Wednesday,” Sonny whispered.
Eileen watched Sonny as he went off down the stairs. He held his hat in his hand as he took the steps two at a time. He was big and broad-shouldered, with a thick head of gorgeous curly black hair. At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped to put on his hat, and the streetlight through the glass panes of the door caught the soft blue of the crown as he pulled it down toward his eyes. In that moment, he looked like a movie star: tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious. What he didn’t look like was a seventeen-year-old boy and a friend of her brother’s since they were both in knickers. “Ah, Gad,” she whispered to herself as Sonny disappeared onto the street. She said it again, one more time, out in the hall, and then added, “Ah, Jesus,” before she closed and locked her door.
5.
Kelly tapped the window’s bottom rail with a ball-peen hammer in an attempt to break the paint seal. After she had been at it for a while, tapping and banging, she placed the hammer on the floor at her feet, wedged the heels of her hands under the lower sash on either side of the lock, and pushed. When it wouldn’t open, she cursed it, plopped herself down on a wooden stool, and contemplated her choices. Wind rattled the glass panes. Beyond the window, the trees crowding the backyard bowed and swayed. She was in Luca’s house off West Shore Road in Great Neck, just over the city line on Long Island. This place was nothing like the crowded apartment in Hell’s Kitchen where she’d grown up, the youngest child and only girl among three brothers, but still it brought her life in that apartment to mind, her life waiting on her brothers and her parents like she was born a slave just because she was a girl. Everything in that apartment was rattrap and rundown thanks to her miserable father, who was forever pissing himself wherever he collapsed and stinking up everything, and her mother wasn’t much better, the pair of them. A girl couldn’t have anything nice in a place like that. And what did she get for a reward after making everybody’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner? A backhanded slap from her mother and a rough word from all the men except Sean, who was a big baby. They thought they were through with her when she took up with Luca—after they threw her out like trash—but she was the one done with them, all of them. She could have better in life than they ever would let her. She was enough of a looker to be in the movies. Everybody said so. She just needed to get free of stinkin’ rattraps like this one, and she could with Luca because there was nobody tougher than Luca Brasi—and now she was going to have his baby, though he still didn’t know it. He could go places, Luca, and he could take her with him, only he made her crazy sometimes how he had no real ambition. Look at this place, for example, the way it was falling apart around him. It made her angry.
The farmhouse was ancient. It dated well back into the last century. The rooms were all big, with high ceilings and tall windows, and the glass in all the windows was somehow wavy, as if it had melted a little. Whenever she was out here, Kelly had to remind herself that the city was only a half-hour drive away. It felt like a different world, with woods all around them and gravel roads and an empty stretch of beach that looked out over Little Neck Bay. She liked to take walks down to the water and then come back and look over the farmhouse, imagining what it could be like with some work and attention. The gravel driveway could be paved. The pocked and peeling white paint could be stripped away, and a fresh coat of maybe light blue could turn the neglected clapboard exterior into something fresh and colorful. The interior, too, desperately needed a paint job, and the floors needed to be refinished—but with work the place could be lovely, and Kelly liked to stand at the head of the driveway and imagine how it could be.
At the moment, though, all she wanted to do was open a window and let some air into the house. In the basement an ancient coal-burning furnace grumbled and moaned as it cranked out heat. The radiators gurgled and hissed, and when the furnace was just getting going, sometimes the whole house shook with the monumental effort of keeping it heated. She found it impossible to regulate the heat. It was either sweltering or freezing, and this morning it was sweltering—even though it was windy and cold out. She pulled her robe tight around her neck and went into the kitchen, where she found a butcher knife in the sink. She thought she might slice through the paint to free the window. Behind her, Luca came down the stairs from the bedroom barefoot and bare chested, in striped pajama bottoms. His hair, short and dark, was pressed flat on the right side of his head where it had been mashed against the pillow. A series of sleep scars ran all the way along his cheek up to his temple. Kelly said, “You look funny, Luca.”
Luca plopped himself down in a kitchen chair. “What the hell’s the racket?” he asked. “I thought someone was trying to bust down the door.”
“That was me,” Kelly said. “Should I make you some breakfast?”
Luca held his head in his hands and massaged his temples. “What’ve we got?” he asked, looking at the tabletop.
Kelly opened the icebox. “We got some eggs and ham,” she said. “I could make you that
.”
Luca nodded. “What was the banging?” he asked again.
“I was tryin’ to get a window open. It’s boiling. I couldn’t sleep with it this hot. That’s why I got up.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“About ten,” Kelly said.
“Jesus Christ,” Luca said. “I hate getting up before noon.”
“Yeah,” Kelly said, “but it was boilin’.”
Luca watched Kelly, as if trying to read her. “You makin’ some coffee?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure, honey.” Kelly opened a cupboard over the sink and took down a bag of Eight O’Clock coffee.
“Why didn’t you just open the bedroom window?” Luca asked. “That one opens easy.”
“ ’Cause then the wind blows right on us. I thought if I opened one down here it might cool the whole place a little.”
Luca glanced behind him, to the empty room off the kitchen, where a wooden stool rested beside the window, a hammer on the floor next to it. He went into the room and slammed the window casing a couple of times with the heel of his hand. He struggled with it briefly before it flew open all the way and a cold wind swirled past him and out the door to the kitchen. He lowered the window, leaving it open an inch. When he went back to the table, Kelly was smiling at him.
“What?”
“Nothin’,” Kelly said. “You’re just so strong; that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Luca said. Kelly’s hair was especially red in the light through the kitchen window. She was undressed under her robe and he could see the sides of her breasts in the V of terry cloth falling from her shoulders. “And you’re a pretty snappy-lookin’ dish.”
Kelly beamed and gave him back a coquettish smile before she broke two eggs into a frying pan and scrambled them up with a slice of ham, the way he liked. When breakfast was ready she put it on a plate and slid it in front of him, along with a glass of fresh orange juice.