The Family Corleone

by Mario Puzo

  He touched the butt of his pistol where it stuck out a little from an inside pocket, just to reassure himself that it was there. He was going to kill Tom Hagen, and that would rile up the Corleones. No way around it—that was big trouble on the way. Vito Corleone’s reputation was more talker than killer, but Clemenza and his boys were tough guys, especially Clemenza. Luca tried to pull together what he knew of the Corleones. Genco Abbandando was consigliere. He was Vito’s partner in the olive oil business. Peter Clemenza was Vito’s capo. Jimmy Mancini and Richie Gatto were Clemenza’s men… That was all he knew for sure, but it wasn’t a big-time organization, nothing like Mariposa, or even Tattaglia and the other families. It seemed to Luca that the Corleones were someplace between a gang and an organization like Mariposa’s and Tattaglia’s and LaConti’s—or what was left of LaConti’s. He knew Clemenza had more men than just Mancini and Gatto, but he didn’t know who. Luca thought maybe Al Hats was with the Corleones too, but he didn’t know for sure. He’d have to find all this out before he took care of the kid. He didn’t give a fuck if the Corleones had an army behind them—but he liked to know what he was up against. Luca considered that his boys weren’t going to like this, and then, as if the thought made them appear, JoJo’s yellow De Soto pulled to the curb beside him, and Hooks stuck his head out the window.

  “Hey, boss,” Hooks said. He got out of the car wearing a black porkpie hat with a green feather in the hatband.

  “What’s this about?” Luca watched as JoJo and the rest of the boys got out of the car and slammed the doors. They made a circle around him.

  “We got trouble,” Hooks said. “Tommy Cinquemani wants a meeting. He just showed up at the warehouse with a few of his men. He wasn’t happy.”

  “He wants a meeting with me?” Luca said. His head was still pounding, but the news of Cinquemani coming up to the Bronx to arrange a meeting made him smile. “Who’d he have with him?” he asked, and he started walking again, heading for his apartment.

  JoJo looked back to his car parked on the curb.

  “Leave it,” Luca said. “You’ll come back for it later.”

  JoJo said, “We got guns stashed under the seats.”

  “And somebody’s gonna steal from you in this neighborhood?”

  “Okay,” JoJo said, “yeah,” and he joined the others as they headed for Luca’s.

  “So who was with Cinquemani?” Luca asked again. The bunch of them took up the sidewalk. The boys were in suits and ties as they walked on either side of Luca.

  “Nicky Crea, Jimmy Grizzeo, and Vic Piazza,” Paulie said.

  “Grizz,” Luca said. He was the only one of the three that he knew, and he didn’t like him. “What did Tommy have to say?”

  “He wants a meeting,” Hooks said.

  “Did he say about what?”

  Vinnie Vaccarelli stuck his hand down his pants to scratch himself. He was a wiry kid in his twenties, the youngest of the gang. His clothes always seemed about to fall off. “He’s got some things he wants to talk to you about.”

  “So the dentist wants to see me,” Luca said.

  “The dentist?” Vinnie asked.

  Luca said, “Stop scratching your balls, will ya, kid?” Vinnie yanked his hand out of his pants. “That’s what they call Cinquemani. The dentist. Maybe he wants to work on my teeth.” When the boys were silent, Luca explained, “He’s likes to break guys’ teeth off with pliers.”

  “Fuck that,” Hooks said, meaning he wanted no part of a guy who breaks people’s teeth.

  Luca smiled at Hooks. All his boys looked a little nervous. “Bunch of finocch’s,” he said to them, and walked on as if he were both disappointed and amused.

  “So what do you want to do?” Hooks asked.

  They were on Third Avenue, alongside the El, a few doors down from Luca’s place.

  Luca climbed the three short steps up to the door of his building and unlocked it while the boys waited. He pushed the door open and turned to face Hooks. “Let Cinquemani wait,” he said. “Don’t tell him anything. We’ll make him come back and ask again, nicer.”

  “Ah, for Christ’s sake,” Hooks said, and he stepped into the hallway, edging in front of Luca. “We can’t play around with these guys, boss. Mariposa sent one of his capos to see us. We ignore him, next thing we know we’re all gonna be in boxes.”

  Luca moved into the hallway with Hooks, and the rest of the boys joined them. When the door closed, the hall and the steps were dark. Luca flipped a light switch. “You smell cigarettes?” he asked Hooks, and he looked up the steps to the next landing.

  Hooks shrugged. “I always smell cigarettes,” he said. “Why?” He tapped a Lucky out of his pack and lit up.

  “Nothing.” Luca started up the stairs with the boys following. “I don’t like Cinquemani,” he said, “and I don’t like Grizz.”

  “Jimmy Grizzeo?” Paulie asked.

  “I did a heist with Grizz,” Luca said, “before he hooked up with Cinquemani. I didn’t like him then and I don’t like him now.”

  “Grizz is nobody,” Hooks said. “It’s Cinquemani’s the problem. Mariposa sent him, and we can’t ignore Mariposa.”

  “Why not?” Luca asked. He was enjoying himself. His head was still throbbing, but the pleasure of watching Hooks squirm almost made him forget the pain.

  “ ’Cause some of us ain’t interested in dying,” Hooks said.

  “Then you’re in the wrong business,” Luca said. “Lotta guys die in this business.” They were at the door to his apartment, and he turned to face Hooks as he felt around in his jacket pocket for keys. “You can’t be worried about dyin’, Hooks. It’s got to be the other guys worried about dyin’. You see what I’m saying to you?”

  Hooks started to answer, and then a door slammed and there was a rush of footsteps someplace above them, and everyone turned and watched the stairs to the roof.

  “Give me your heater,” Willie said.

  “What do you want my gun for?” Donnie had just started down the ladder off the roof, and he was looking up at Willie. When they’d seen Luca had all his boys with him, they’d abandoned their plan for another time. The roof across the alley was empty of people and crowded with crates. There wasn’t much light left, and the rooftops were all shadows.

  “Never mind,” Willie said, “just give it to me.”

  “You got your own gun,” Donnie said. He lifted himself up to get a look back at the closed roof door. “Ain’t no one comin’ after us,” he said. “They don’t know nothin’.”

  “Just give me your fuckin’ heater,” Willie said.

  Donnie reached into his shoulder holster and handed Willie his gun. “I still don’t know what the hell you need my gun for.”

  Willie gestured down to the next rooftop. “Go on,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Donnie laughed and said, “Are you goin’ daffy on me now, Willie?” He looked down to locate the next step on the ladder, and when he looked up again, Willie was running. Confusion froze him in place for an instant before he leapt up off the ladder and back onto the tar paper as Willie disappeared through the roof door.

  Luca thought it was one of the neighborhood kids. Kids were always climbing the rooftops. He thought maybe some kid being chased when the door banged open and someone came running down the steps, and then, to confuse matters even more, a train roared by on the El. Luca backed into the shadows and pulled his gun. Then lead started flying.

  One guy, two guns blasting away out of the dark. All Luca saw was a shadow unloading fire. All he heard was the squeal and thunder of the passing train punctuated by gunfire. When it was over, when the shadow flew away as quick as a ghost, he was pulling the trigger on an empty chamber, so he knew he had fired back and kept firing but he’d be damned if he could remember anything past that first shot and the window shattering and then crouching over Paulie, who’d been hit and was moaning and then waiting for whatever might happen next in the shadows and the stink of gunpowder and t
he quiet after the train was gone and the shooting over. It was the surprise of the thing that had stopped him dead, and when he shook that off and he realized what had just happened, some torpedo openin’ up on them with two guns like a fuckin’ cowboy, he bolted up the stairs after him.

  On the roof, he found nothing. There were two fire escape ladders, one on each side of the building. He made a note to have them removed. On the rooftop across the alley, a half dozen workers in overalls were hanging around the ledge and looking over. Behind them, the roof was loaded with crates. Luca yelled across, “You birds see anything?” When no one answered, he shouted “Well?”

  “Didn’t see a thing,” someone with an Irish brogue said. “Just heard the shootin’.”

  “That wasn’t shootin’,” Luca said. “It was kids with fireworks left over from the Fourth.”

  “Ah,” the voice said, “so it was.” He retreated with the others.

  When Luca turned around, he found Hooks and JoJo standing one on each side of the roof door like guards, pistols dangling from their hands. “Put the guns away,” he said.

  Hooks said, “Paulie and Tony are shot up.”

  “How bad?” Luca passed between them and went down the stairs. The staircase was dark and he had to hold on to the handrail and feel for the steps.

  JoJo said, “They’ll live.”

  Hooks said to JoJo, “What are you, a fuckin’ doctor now?” To Luca he said, “Looks like Tony took a bullet in the leg.”

  “Where in the leg?”

  “Couple of inches to the left and the kid’d be a eunuch.”

  “Paulie?”

  “Right through his hand,” JoJo said. “Looks like Jesus Christ on the cross.”

  On Luca’s landing, where the wind blew into the hallway through the shattered window, Hooks said, “Luca, we can’t fool around with Cinquemani and Mariposa. They’ll put us all in the ground.”

  JoJo said, “Hooks is right, Luca. This is crazy. For what? A few shipments of hooch?”

  Luca said, “You scared, boys? You scared of a little action?”

  Hooks said, “You know better than that, boss.”

  In the doorway to Luca’s apartment, Tony was cursing and groaning, pressing the heel of his hand into his leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Luca knocked out a few shards of glass from the tattered remains of the hall window. It was dark, the only light coming from the open door to his apartment and up from the street. He figured if the coppers were coming, he’d have heard the sirens by now. He leaned out the window and looked down at the El. The street was empty, no one to be seen anywhere, not a kid running or an old lady sweeping her stoop.

  Behind Luca, Vinnie wrapped a bandanna around Tony’s leg. “He’s bleedin’ like a pig,” he said. “I can’t get it to stop.”

  “Take him and Paulie to the hospital,” Luca said. “Make up some story. Tell ’em it happened out on the docks.”

  “The hospital?” Hooks asked. “You don’t think Doc Gallagher’ll take care of them for us?”

  Luca said, “You worry too much, Hooks.” He nodded to Vinnie.

  Vinnie went back into the apartment to get Paulie. On his way through the door, he said to Hooks and JoJo, “I’ll need you to give me a hand carrying Tony out.”

  Hooks took his hat off and toyed with the feathers. To Luca he said, “So what now? What about Cinquemani?”

  Luca knocked shards of glass out of the window frame with the butt of his gun. He looked up to the sky and a few stars that were faint points of light in the dark. A couple of small dark birds flew toward the window ledge and then veered away. “Let’s set up a meeting with Cinquemani,” he said. He sat in the window frame. “Tell him we got the message. Tell him we want the meeting someplace public—”

  “Where?” Hooks asked. “A restaurant, someplace like that?”

  “Don’t matter,” Luca said.

  “Why don’t it matter?” Hooks asked. He took his hat off and put it back on again while Luca watched him. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Don’t we want to pick the place?”

  “Hooks,” Luca said, “you’re startin’ to get on my nerves.”

  “Hey, boss,” Hooks said. He opened his hands, a gesture that said he was done asking questions. “I’ll tell ’em it don’t matter. They can pick the place.”

  “Good,” Luca said. “Just make a big deal about how it’s gotta be public, okay? For everybody’s security.”

  “Sure,” Hooks said. “When?”

  “Soon as possible,” Luca said. “Sooner the better. If you look a little scared, that’s okay.” He pointed to his doorway, where Tony looked to be on the edge of passing out. “Take the boys to the hospital,” he said, “and then come back here and I’ll fill you in on the plan.”

  Hooks watched Luca, trying to read his eyes. He opened his mouth, on the verge of asking one more question—and then thought better of it. “Come on, JoJo,” he said, and then the two of them disappeared into the apartment.

  Luca’s headache had quit as soon as the shooting started. In the hallway, in the dark, with Tony moaning behind him, he wondered about that.

  Outside Eileen’s bakery, Sonny pulled to the curb, cut the engine, and slumped down in the driver’s seat. He tilted his hat over his eyes as if he were about to take a short nap. The neighborhood was noisy with the rumble of trains coming from the rail yards and a line of cars and carts clattering along the street. He’d just left Sandra’s and he’d walked along Arthur Avenue awhile, feeling pent up and at loose ends—which wasn’t unusual for him—and then he’d gotten in his car without really telling himself that he was going to Eileen’s. He still thought he probably should just go back to his place and call it a night, but he didn’t like spending an evening alone on Mott Street. He didn’t know what to do with himself there. If his icebox had food in it, he’d eat it—but he didn’t like shopping. He felt like a finocch’ buying groceries. Usually he’d go home to eat and his mother would give him something to bring back with him, and that’s how food wound up in the icebox—leftover lasagna or manicotti and big jars of sauce. He never went home without coming back with enough food to last him a few days before he went home again, and so on. At his apartment, he’d lie on his back in bed and look at the ceiling, and if he didn’t fall asleep he’d get up and go looking for one of his boys, or try to find a card game somewhere, or hit a speakeasy—and then he’d drag his ass in to work the next morning half dead. Sandra had gotten him riled up. In his mind he unbuttoned her blouse and peeled away her clothes till he got to those breasts, which would be delicious and ripe to be touched—but he might as well forget about it because it would take at least a bunch more dinners and maybe even an engagement ring before he got anywhere near those naked breasts—and he wasn’t ready for that. But he liked her. She was sweet and beautiful. She had him going.

  Sonny tilted his hat back, leaned over the steering wheel, and looked up to Eileen’s apartment. The lights were on in the living room windows. He didn’t know how she’d react if he showed up like this, without calling, in the evening. He checked his wristwatch. It was almost nine o’clock, so Caitlin was likely in bed. When the thought occurred to Sonny that maybe Eileen’s evenings alone in her apartment were as boring as his, that maybe all there was for her to do was listen to the radio before going to sleep, he got out of the car and rang the bell to her apartment, and then stepped back on the street. Eileen opened a window and stuck her head out, and he opened his arms and said, “I thought you might like some company.” She was wearing a blue dress with a wide collar and her hair was marcelled. “You had your hair done,” he said, and she smiled a smile he couldn’t quite read. It didn’t say she was happy to see him, but it didn’t say she was unhappy either. She closed the window and disappeared without a word. Sonny took a step closer to the door and listened for the sound of her apartment door opening or her footsteps on the stairs. When he didn’t hear anything, he took off his fedora and scratched his head. He stepped back to look up to
her window again—and then the door flew open and Cork was out on the street.

  “Hey, Sonny!” Cork said, holding the door open. “What are you doing here? Eileen said you’re looking for me?”

  Sonny said, “What the hell happened to you?” He said it a little too loud and too blustery in an effort to hide his surprise at seeing Cork, though Cork didn’t seem to notice.

  Cork’s shirt was smeared with bright red handprints over his heart. “Caitlin,” he said, frowning at the stains. “Shirt’s ruined.”

  Sonny swiped a fingertip over the red stains and it came away clean.

  “Some kind of kid’s paint,” Cork said, still looking at the handprints. “Eileen says the shirt’s a goner.”

  “That kid’s a holy terror.”

  “She ain’t so bad,” Cork said. “So what’s going on?”

  “I went by your place,” Sonny lied. “You weren’t there.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m here,” Cork said, and he looked at Sonny cockeyed, as if to ask if he had suddenly turned into an idiot.

  Sonny coughed into his fist while he tried to come up with something to say. Then he thought of the plan for their next job. “Got word of another shipment,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “What? Tonight?”

  “Nah.” Sonny moved alongside Cork and leaned against the doorframe. “Don’t know for sure when yet. I just wanted to tell you about it.”