by Mario Puzo
Vito took another sip of his drink. “Why,” he asked Clemenza quietly, “would I want to get rid of somebody who puts the fear of God into Mariposa?”
“And not just Mariposa,” Tessio said.
Clemenza opened his hands. “What choice do we have?”
Vito said, “Tell Joe we’ll take care of Luca Brasi. Tell him we’re working on it. Just do what I say, please. I don’t want him or Cinquemani going after Brasi. I want them to think we’re doing the job.”
Clemenza fell back in his chair as if defeated. He looked to Tessio.
“Vito,” Tessio said, and he moved from the door to the desk, “forgive me, but on this I have to side with Clemenza. If Mariposa comes after us, we’re no match. He can wipe us out.”
Vito sighed and folded his hands in front of him. He looked to Genco and nodded.
“Listen,” Genco said. He hesitated, searching for the best words. “We wanted to keep this between me and Vito,” he said, “because there was no need to take a chance on anyone slipping up and getting Frankie Pentangeli bumped off.”
Clemenza clapped his hands, understanding immediately. “Frankie’s with us! I always loved that son of a bitch! He’s too good to be with scum like Mariposa.”
“Clemenza,” Vito said, “God love you, I trust you with the lives of my children, but—” He paused and raised a finger. “You love to talk, Clemenza, and about this you make even a little slip and our friend will suffer.”
“Vito,” Clemenza said, “hand to God. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Good,” Vito said, and again he nodded to Genco.
“Mariposa’s coming after us,” Genco said. “We know this from Frankie. It’s just a matter of time—”
“Son of a bitch,” Clemenza said, interrupting. “The decision’s already been made?”
“Sì,” Genco said. “While Mariposa and his boys are still busy with LaConti, we’ve got time—but we’re in his sights. He wants the olive oil business; he wants our connections; he wants everything. He knows once Prohibition is repealed, he’s going to need more businesses, and he’s set his sights on us.”
“Bastardo!” Tessio said. “Emilio and the others? They go along?”
Genco nodded. “He thinks you’re a separate organization,” he said to Tessio, “but they’re coming after you, too. Probably, they’re thinking, the Corleones first, then you.”
Clemenza said, “Why don’t we just have Frankie blow Mariposa’s brains out?”
“And what good would that do?” Vito said. “Then Emilio Barzini’s in a better position to come after us, with the other families behind him.”
Clemenza muttered, “I’d like to blow his brains out anyway.”
“For now,” Genco said, “Giuseppe’s biding his time—but Frankie says he’s planning something with the Barzinis. They’re keeping him on the outside, so he doesn’t know what it is—but he knows something’s going on, and when he finds out, we’ll know. For now, though, with the LaConti mess, they’re not ready to make a move.”
“And so what are we supposed to do?” Clemenza asked. “Sit around and wait till they decide to come after us?”
“We have an advantage,” Vito said, and he stood with his Strega in hand and went around to his seat at the desk. “With Frankie on the inside, we’re in a position to know what Joe’s planning.” He took a cigar from the desk drawer and began unwrapping it. “Mariposa is thinking about the future,” he said, “but so am I. With repeal coming, I’m looking at new ways of doing business. Right now, the Dutch Schultzes and the Legs Diamonds…” Vito looked disgusted. “These people—in the newspapers every other day, these hotshots—they have to go. I know that and Giuseppe knows it. We all know it. There’s too many clowns out there who think they can do whatever they want. Every two blocks, there’s another big shot. That has to end. Giuseppe thinks he can run everything. Make no mistake,” Vito said, and he snipped the end off his cigar, “Joe’s like that idiota, Adolf Hitler, in Germany. He’s not stopping till he has it all.” Vito paused, lit his cigar, and puffed on it. “We have plans,” he said. “I don’t know how yet, but Luca Brasi may be helpful. Anybody who scares Mariposa could be helpful to us, so we’ll do our best to keep him alive. And the punks that are stealing from Mariposa? It’s in our interest to find out who they are and give them to Joe—so we’ll keep trying to do that. If we can give him the punks and stall him on Brasi, and we keep Frankie alive and working with us…” Again, Vito paused. He looked around the room at his friends. “With God’s help, when the time comes, we’ll be ready. Now,” he said, and he pointed to the study door, “forgive me, but I’ve had a hard day.”
Clemenza took a step toward Vito as if he had more to say, but Vito held up his hand and went to the window. He turned his back on Clemenza and the others and stared out onto the street as they all left the room. When the study door closed, he sat in the window seat and looked across Hughes Avenue to the red brick, two-family houses that rose above the slate sidewalk. He looked to the houses, but his eyes were turned inward. The previous night, the night before he went to see Luca Brasi, he dreamed he was in Central Park, by the fountain, looking into a steamer trunk at a mangled body. He couldn’t make out the identity of the body, but his heart was pounding because he feared to see who it was. He leaned over the trunk, closer and closer, but he couldn’t make out the face on the body all horribly crumpled and stuffed into the cramped space. Then two things happened fast together in the dream. First, he looked up and saw the huge stone angel atop the fountain, pointing at him. Then he looked down and the body in the steamer trunk reached up and grabbed his hand as if imploring him for something—and Vito woke up with his heart raging. Vito, who always slept soundly, lay awake through most of that night, his thoughts scurrying everywhere—and then in the morning, as he read the newspaper with his coffee, he came across a photograph of the kid, Nicky Crea, in Central Park, stuffed into the steamer trunk with the angel atop the fountain pointing at him. The photo was buried several pages deep in the paper, part of a follow-up story on the murder. No suspects. No witnesses. No clues. Only a kid’s body stuffed in a steamer trunk and an unidentified man in civilian clothes peering into the trunk. The sight of the picture had brought the dream back vividly, and he had pushed the newspaper aside—but the dream and newspaper together, they’d left him with an ominous feeling. Later, when Luca Brasi told him about Tom, his thoughts flashed to the dream, as if there might be a connection—and even now, as the day drew to a close, he couldn’t shake the dream, which was as alive in him as a recent memory, and he couldn’t get rid of that ominous feeling, as if something bad was looming.
Vito sat in his study window, with his cigar and his drink, until Carmella came to the door and knocked once before opening it. When she saw Vito in the window seat, she sat alongside him. She didn’t say anything. She looked at his face, and then took his hand in hers and rubbed his fingers the way he liked, kneading the joints and knuckles one by one as the last of the daylight faded.
Donnie O’Rourke turned the corner onto Ninth Avenue and stopped to tie his shoelace. He rested his foot on the base of a lamppost and looked up and down the street as he took his time with the laces. The neighborhood was quiet: a couple of mugs dressed to the nines walking along the sidewalk and laughing with a good-looking dame between them; an older woman with a brown paper bag in her arms and a kid at her side. Out on the street, cars rolled by regularly and a peddler pushed his empty cart while he whistled a tune likely only he could identify. It was late in the afternoon and unseasonably warm, the end of a gorgeous day when everyone had been out taking in the blue skies and bright sunlight. Once he was satisfied that he wasn’t being followed or watched, Donnie proceeded up the block to an apartment building where he had rented a place with Sean and Willie. Their rooms were on the first floor, up one flight of stairs from the building entrance, and as soon as Donnie entered the small foyer with its white and black tiled floor, the basement door to the
right of the staircase flew open.
One of Luca’s boys aimed a pistol at his head. Donnie considered going for his gun, but then another one of Luca’s gang, the one with the bandaged hand, came out of the basement behind the first guy, and he was holding a sawed-off shotgun at waist level, aimed at Donnie’s balls. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Luca just wants to talk to you.” He pointed down to the basement with the sawed-off while the first guy frisked Donnie and found both the pistol in his shoulder holster and the snub-nose strapped to his ankle.
In the basement, Luca was stretched out on a beat-up claw-foot chair next to the furnace. The stuffing in the seat and chair back was sticking out in white puffs where the animal-skin-patterned fabric was ripped in a jagged Z, and the claw on the rear right leg was broken off so that the chair tilted awkwardly. Luca leaned back in the chair with his arms behind his head and his legs crossed. He was wearing dress slacks and an undershirt, and his shirt and jacket and tie were draped over a matching, equally dilapidated claw-foot chair to his right. Hooks Battaglia stood behind Luca with his hands thrust in his pockets, looking bored. Another guy with his hand in his pants scratching himself stood behind Hooks. Donnie nodded to Hooks.
“You micks,” Luca said, as Paulie and JoJo pushed Donnie in front of the chair. “You start a war with me, and then you walk around without bodyguards like you don’t have a care in the world. What’s wrong with you? You didn’t think I’d find this place?”
Donnie said, “Go fuck yourself, Luca.”
“See,” Luca said, and he looked behind him to Hooks. “See why I like this guy?” He pointed to Donnie. “He’s not scared of me,” he said, “and he’s not scared of dying. How can you not like a guy like that?”
Donnie said to Hooks, “I’d rather wind up dead than bootlickin’ for the likes of him.”
Hooks shook his head slightly, as if to warn Donnie off his belligerence.
Luca said, “So who do you want to bootlick for, Donnie? We all gotta bootlick for somebody.” He laughed and added, “ ’Cept me, of course.”
Donnie said, “What do you want, Luca? You going to kill me now?”
“I’d rather not kill you.” Luca looked behind him, at the furnace, and then above him, where a pair of big pipes ran along the ceiling. “I like you,” he said, turning his attention back to Donnie. “I’m sympathetic,” he added. “You had a nice thing going, you and the rest of the Irish, and then me and all the scungilli eaters—that’s what you call us sometimes, right?—me and the rest of the scungilli eaters come along and screw it up for you. You micks used to run the whole show. I understand how having us come in and kick your sorry drunk asses back into the gutter—I understand how that might get your goat. I’m sympathetic.”
“Isn’t that big of you, now?” Donnie said. “You’re all heart, Luca.”
“That’s the truth,” Luca said, and sat up straight in the wrecked chair. “I don’t want to kill you—not even after all you done to deserve it. I got Kelly to think of too. That’s a factor, me being with your sister.”
“You’re welcome to her,” Donnie said. “She’s all yours.”
“She is a whore,” Luca said, and then smiled when Donnie’s face darkened and he looked like he wanted to tear Luca’s heart out. “But even so, she’s my whore.”
“Rot in hell, Luca Brasi,” Donnie said. “You and all of yours.”
“Probably,” Luca said, and then shrugged off the curse. “You know what that bank stickup cost me?” he asked, a touch of anger coming into his voice for the first time. “And still, I really don’t want to kill you, Donnie, because, like I say, I’m sympathetic.” Luca paused dramatically and then threw up his hands. “But I gotta kill Willie,” he said. “He tried to kill me, he shot up a couple of my boys, he made a big noise about coming after me… Willie has to go.”
“So?” Donnie asked, “what are you doing with me, then?”
Luca twisted around to face Hooks. “See?” he said. “He’s smart. He understands: We knew where they were hiding out; we could’ve just picked up Willie and been done with it. In fact,” he said, and turned back to Donnie, “we know exactly where Willie is right now. He’s upstairs, in your apartment, on the first floor, apartment 1B. We watched him walk in about an hour ago.”
Donnie took a step closer to Luca. “Get to the point,” he said. “I’m bored.”
“Sure,” Luca said. He yawned and then stretched out again, as if he were relaxing in the sun somewhere rather than in a dank and shadowy basement. “All I’m asking you to do—and I give you my word I won’t touch a hair on your mick head—is go out there in the hall, call up the stairs, and tell Willie to come down to the basement. That’s it, Donnie. That’s all I’m asking you to do.”
Donnie laughed. “You want to make me betray my brother in return for my life.”
“That’s right,” Luca said, sitting up straight again. “That’s the deal.”
“Sure,” Donnie said. “Tell you what, instead: Why don’t you go home and fuck your whore of a mother, Luca?”
Luca motioned to Vinnie and JoJo standing side by side, leaning against the furnace. JoJo reached down to his feet and came up with a length of rope. Paulie joined the others in tying Donnie’s wrists and hanging him from the pipes so that he had to stand on his toes to keep from dangling in the air. Donnie looked to Hooks, who remained as motionless as a statue beside Luca.
“I was hoping to avoid this,” Luca said. He got up with a groan from his crippled chair.
“Sure you were,” Donnie said. “It’s a cryin’ shame the ugly things this world makes you do, Luca, isn’t it?”
Luca nodded as if impressed with Donnie’s insight. He danced a little, like a boxer warming up, throwing rights and lefts at the air, before he neared Donnie and said, “You sure?”
Donnie sneered. “Get on with it. I’m bored.”
Luca’s first punch was a single, mean right to the stomach, which left Donnie dangling from the pipes and gasping for air. Luca watched him in silence until he could breathe normally again, giving him a chance to rethink his decision. When Donnie didn’t speak, he hit him again, a single blow, this time to the face, bloodying his mouth and nose. Again Luca waited, and when again Donnie didn’t speak, Luca went at him, dancing around him, throwing hard combinations of punches to Donnie’s ribs and stomach, his arms and his back, like a boxer working a heavy bag. When he finally stopped, with Donnie choking and spitting blood, he shook out his hands and laughed. “Cazzo!” he said, looking to Hooks. “He’s not gonna do it.”
Hooks shook his head, agreeing.
To Donnie, Luca said, “You’re not gonna call your brother, are you?”
Donnie tried to speak but couldn’t get out a coherent word. His lips and chin were bright red with blood.
“What?” Luca asked, stepping closer, and Donnie managed to sputter, “Fuck you, Luca Brasi.”
Luca said, “That’s what I thought. Okay. You know what, then?” He went to the chair where his clothes were hanging. He wiped blood off his hands with a rag and put on his shirt. “I’ll leave you hanging here until someone finds you.” He pulled his tie through his collar and then put on his jacket and approached Donnie again. “You sure about this, Donnie?” he asked. “Because, you know, maybe, just for the hell of it, we’ll pick up Willie and ask him to give you up—and maybe he won’t be so loyal.”
Donnie managed a bloody smile in response.
“If that’s the way you want it…,” Luca said, fixing his tie. “We’ll leave you here hanging, and then in a few days, a few weeks, sometime soon, I’ll find you or Willie, and we’ll talk it over again.” He patted Donnie a couple of times on the ribs, and Donnie threw his head back in pain from the slight blows. “You know why I’m doing it this way?” Luca asked. “Because I like this. This is my idea of fun.” To Hooks, Luca said, “Let’s go,” and then he noticed Vinnie with his hands down his pants, scratching himself. “Vinnie,” he said. “Didn’t you get that tak
en care of yet?” To Donnie he said, “Kid’s got the clap.”
Hooks said, “Let’s go,” and motioned to the rest of the boys.
“Wait,” Luca said, watching Vinnie. To Paulie he said, “Give Vinnie your handkerchief.”
“It’s dirty,” Paulie said.
When Luca looked at him as if he was an idiot, Paulie pulled his handkerchief out of his pants pocket and handed it to Vinnie.
To Vinnie, Luca said, “Stick that down your pants and get it all good and messy with that gunk dripping out of your dick.”
Vinnie said, “What?”
Luca rolled his eyes, as if fed up with having to deal with idiots. To Donnie he said, “We’ll give you a little something else to remember us by while you’re hanging around.” To Vinnie he said, “When you’re done doing what I told you to do, blindfold him with the handkerchief.”
Hooks said, “Ah, for God’s sake, Luca.”
Luca laughed and said, “What? I think it’s funny,” and then he walked away, through the shadows, and out the basement door.
Sandra laughed out loud at Sonny’s story and then covered her eyes as if embarrassed by her laugh, which was loud and hearty, not the kind of laugh you’d expect from a little girl. Sonny liked the sound of it, and he laughed along with her until he looked up and saw Mrs. Columbo scowling at them, as if they were both behaving shamelessly. He nudged Sandra, who looked up to the window and waved to her grandmother, a little bit of defiance in the gesture that made Sonny break out in a wide grin. Mrs. Columbo, as always, was dressed in black, her round face carved out of wrinkles, a noticeable line of dark hair over her upper lip. What a difference between her and her granddaughter, who was wearing a bright-yellow dress, as if to celebrate the unusual warmth of the day. Sandra’s dark eyes had a sparkle to them when she laughed, and Sonny resolved to make her laugh more often.