The Family Corleone

by Mario Puzo

  “Sì,” Tessio said, gravely. “An abomination.”

  “And now we’ll make them pay,” Mariposa said, leaning over the table. “Tell me, Salvatore…” He filled Tessio’s wineglass from the bottle of Montepulciano in the center of the table. “What can I do for you in return for this favor you offer me?”

  Tessio looked around the table, surprised to be getting down to business so quickly. Emilio nodded to him, encouraging him to respond. Tessio said to Mariposa, “I want to make a peaceful living. The bookmaking in Brooklyn. The concessions on Coney Island. That’s all I need.”

  Mariposa sat back in his chair. “That’s a very good living,” he said, “and peaceful.” He paused, as if to think it over, and then said, “You have my word on it.”

  “We have an understanding, then,” Tessio said. “Thank you, Don Mariposa.” He rose and reached across the table to shake hands.

  “Splendido,” Emilio said, as Mariposa and Tessio shook hands. He clapped politely, along with Tattaglia, and then looked at his wristwatch. To Giuseppe he said, “Now that you two have an agreement, Tattaglia and I need to take care of a few things with our boys.” He stood and Tattaglia joined him. “Give us a few minutes,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”

  “But where are you going?” Giuseppe objected. He looked surprised. “Right now you have to go?”

  “We have to set some things in motion,” Tattaglia said.

  “It won’t take five minutes,” Emilio added, and he put a hand on Tattaglia’s shoulder and led him to the door, which, again, magically opened for him.

  Giuseppe looked to Tomasino, as if for reassurance. To Tessio he said, “Business,” and made a face. “They’ll be right back.”

  Once Tattaglia and Barzini were out of the room, Tomasino turned in his chair and wrapped his beefy arms around Giuseppe’s chest, pinning him to his seat, while in the same moment, Tessio rose and stuffed a cloth napkin in his mouth.

  Giuseppe craned and twisted his neck, trying to look behind him to the man who was holding him fast to his seat. Through the napkin he muttered “Tomasino!”

  Tomasino said, “It’s business, Joe,” as Tessio removed a garrote from his jacket pocket and snapped the thin piano wire taut in front of Giuseppe’s face.

  “I usually don’t do the dirty work anymore,” Tessio said as he moved behind Mariposa. “But this is special,” he added, whispering into his ear. “Just for you, I insisted.” He wrapped the wire around Mariposa’s neck, slowly at first, giving him time to feel the cold metal against his skin. Then Tomasino let go of Mariposa as Tessio pulled the wire tight while at the same time pressing his knee into the back of Giuseppe’s chair for leverage. Giuseppe struggled and managed to kick the leg of the dining table, knocking it back and spilling a place setting to the floor before the wire cut through his jugular, sending a spray of blood over the white tablecloth. In another second, his body went limp and Tessio pushed him forward. Mariposa remained in his seat, slumped over his place setting, blood spilling from his neck and pooling rapidly into his plate, which quickly filled up to look like a bowl of red soup.

  “He wasn’t as bad a guy as everybody made out,” Tomasino said. He straightened his jacket and smoothed his hair. “I hope Don Corleone will see my cooperation in this as a sign of my loyalty to him.”

  “You’ll find Vito a good man to work for,” Tessio said. He pointed to the door, and Tomasino left the room.

  Tessio poured water onto a napkin and tried to rub out a spot of blood on his cuff. When he succeeded only in making it worse, he folded his cuff back out of sight under his jacket sleeve. At the door, he gave a final look back to Mariposa slumped and bleeding over the table. With an anger that seemed to come out of nowhere, he said, “Let me see you jump for me now, Joe.” He spit on the floor and walked out of the room, where Eddie Veltri and Ken Cuisimano were waiting for him, strategically situated in front of each door, blocking the view from the club. The orchestra was playing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

  “I like this song,” Tessio said to Ken. He touched Eddie on the shoulder and said, “Andiamo.”

  As the three of them made their way through the maze of tables, Tessio hummed along with the young singer. When he sang a few of the lyrics out loud—“something here inside cannot be denied”—Eddie tapped him on the back and said, “Sal, I’d take a bullet for you and you know it, but, Madre ’Dio, don’t sing.”

  Tessio looked at Eddie askance before he broke into a big smile, followed by a laugh. He exited the club onto the crowded streets of mid-Manhattan, laughing.

  Donnie O’Rourke turned the radio down. All night his parents had been fighting in the next room, both of them drunk again, and they were still at it, late as it was, after midnight according to the radio announcer. He lowered the volume and turned toward the open window next to his bed, where he could hear the curtains fluttering in a light breeze. He was seated in a rocking chair facing his bed and the window, his hands folded in his lap, a shawl over his legs. Quickly, he smoothed his hair and straightened out his sunglasses, leveling them on the bridge of his nose. He pulled his shirt straight over his shoulders and buttoned it to his neck. He sat up and arranged himself as best he could.

  He’d lost track of time again, had no idea of the day, though he knew it was spring with summer coming on. He could smell it. He could smell everything lately. He knew whether it was his mother or father coming into the kitchen instantly from the sound of their movements and from the smell of them, which was the smell of whiskey and beer, but different for each of them, a slightly different odor he recognized immediately though he couldn’t put it in words, the smells, their smell. Now he knew it was Luca Brasi on the fire escape. He knew it with certainty. When he heard him step into the room through the open window, he smiled at him and said his name, softly. “Luca,” he said. “Luca Brasi.”

  “How did you know—it was me?” Luca spoke softly, little more than a whisper.

  “No need to be worrying about my folks,” Donnie said. “They’re too drunk to cause you any problems.”

  “I’m not—worried about them,” Luca said. He crossed the room till he was standing in front of the rocker. He asked again, “How’d you know it—was me, Donnie?”

  “I can smell you,” Donnie said. He laughed and added, “Jesus, you smell bad, Luca. You smell like a sewer.”

  “I don’t bathe like I should,” Luca answered. “I don’t like—getting wet. The water—bothers me.” He was quiet awhile; then he asked, “Are you scared?”

  “Scared?” Donnie said. “Jesus, Luca, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Okay,” Luca said, “I’m here now, Donnie,” and put his hands around Donnie’s neck.

  Donnie leaned back in his chair, undid a high button on his shirt, and turned his head to the ceiling. “Go ahead,” he said in a whisper. “Do it.”

  Luca tightened his grip all at once, savagely, and in no time at all it was dark and quiet and everything was gone, even the sour smell of beer and whiskey from the kitchen, even the sweet smell of spring and the changing season.

  27.

  Light rain—as much heavy mist as rain—dripped from the black fire escapes that lined the alley behind Eileen’s bakery. It was late for Caitlin to be up, and Sonny was surprised when Eileen stopped at the living room window and pulled down the shade with Caitlin in her arms. They were a pair, the two of them: Eileen with her sandy blond hair in finger curls, Caitlin with fine blond waves falling over her shoulders. Sonny took off his fedora and brushed the wetness from its brim. He’d been waiting in the alley a long time. He’d parked a few blocks away at dusk, waited until it got dark, opened an unlocked spear-picket gate, and took up a place in the alley where he could watch the back windows of Eileen’s apartment. Part of him figured Bobby wouldn’t be here, with Eileen and Caitlin, and part of him couldn’t imagine where else he’d go—and then maybe a second or two after Eileen pulled the shade, he knew Bobby was with her. He’d never seen that
shade pulled in the many times he’d visited Eileen’s apartment. The window looked out on a blank wall in a gated alley no one but the garbage collectors used. A minute later, the block-glass window of the little room behind the bakery lit up with a dim orangish light, and Sonny knew it was Bobby. He could almost see him settling into that narrow cot and turning on the table lamp where it rested beside a stack of books.

  The screwdriver he’d brought along, knowing, if needed, he could use it to jimmy the back door to the bakery, was in his pants pocket, and he wrapped his fingers around the grooved wooden handle. He watched the door for several minutes. He couldn’t seem to make his mind settle or his feet move. He was sweating and he felt like he might be getting sick. He took a few deep breaths and then found the silencer in his jacket pocket and looked it over: a heavy, silvery cylinder, grooved where it screwed into the barrel. He held the gun steady around the barrel and fitted the silencer to it. When he was done he dropped it into his jacket pocket, but still didn’t move from his spot, only waited there in the heavy mist, watching the door like it might at any moment open and Bobby would be there, laughing at him and inviting him in.

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he heard Eileen yell at Caitlin, a harsh note of frustration in her voice, he found himself crossing the alley and slipping the screwdriver into the space between the frame and the lock. The bakery door opened easily, and he stepped into a quiet dark space rich with the smell of cinnamon. A bit of light seeped out from under the door to Bobby’s room. From upstairs, directly over him, he heard running water and the patter of Caitlin’s feet shuffling in and out of the bathroom. He took the gun from his pocket and then put it back and then took it out again and pushed open the narrow door to find Bobby, as he’d guessed, stretched out on the cot, a book in hand, the lamp on beside the bed, a new bright-orange shade hiding the lightbulb. Bobby startled, tossed the book to the floor, and then froze, halfway out of the bed, stopped, picked up the book, and fell back with his arms crossed behind his head. His eyes were fixed on the gun in Sonny’s hand. “How’d you get in?” he asked.

  Sonny had been pointing the gun at Bobby. He let it drop to his side and leaned back against the wall. With his free hand, he rubbed his eyes. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “Bobby…”

  Bobby squinted and cocked his head. “What are you doing here, Sonny?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here, Bobby? You shot my father.”

  “It was an accident.” Cork watched Sonny leaning against the wall. He studied his face. “Clemenza didn’t tell you, did he?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Eileen got word to Clemenza. He should have told you. He knows what happened at the parade, Sonny.”

  “I know what happened at the parade,” Sonny said. “I was there, remember?”

  Bobby pushed his hair off his face and scratched his head. He was wearing khakis and a blue work shirt unbuttoned to his waist. He again looked at the gun dangling from Sonny’s hand. “A silencer,” he said, and laughed. “Sonny, it was an accident, my shooting Vito. I saw that moron Dwyer coming up on Vito from behind. I took a shot at him and I hit Vito by accident. That’s what happened, Sonny. Think about it. You don’t think I’d take a shot at your father, do you?”

  “I saw you take a shot at my father.”

  “Yeah, but I was shooting at Dwyer.”

  “I gotta admit,” Sonny said, rubbing his eyes again, “you never were a very good shot.”

  “I was nervous,” Bobby said, as if defending himself against being a bad shot. “There were bullets flying everywhere. Thank God I only hit him in the shoulder.” Again he looked at the gun in Sonny’s hand. “You came here to kill me,” he said. “Jesus Christ, Sonny.”

  Sonny rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked up to the ceiling as if the words he was looking for might be written there. “I’ve got to kill you, Bobby,” he said, “even if what you say is true. Nobody’s gonna believe it, and if I tell ’em I believe you, I look weak. I look like a fool.”

  “You look like a fool? Is that what you just said? You want to kill me so that you won’t look like a fool? Is that it?”

  “I’d be seen as weak,” Sonny said, “and stupid. It’d be over for me, with my family.”

  “And so you’re gonna kill me?” Bobby put on a face of exaggerated amazement. “Jaysu Christi, Sonny,” he said. “You can’t kill me, even if you think you have to, which, by the way, is fuckin’ ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Bobby said, a quick, sharp note of anger shooting into his voice, though he was still lying back in his cot, his arms behind his head. “You can’t kill me, Sonny. We’ve known each other since we were younger than Caitlin. Who are you kiddin’? You can’t be killin’ me because of how it makes you look with your family.” He watched Sonny, reading his face and his eyes. “You’re not gonna shoot me,” he said. “It’d be like shootin’ yourself. You can’t do it.”

  Sonny lifted the gun, pointed it at Bobby, and found that he was right. He couldn’t pull the trigger. He knew it, that he could never pull the trigger. Bobby seemed to know it too.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Bobby said. “It’s breakin’ my heart, you thought you could do a thing like this.” He stared at Sonny fiercely then and added, “This isn’t you, Sonny. This isn’t you to think you could have done a thing like this.”

  Sonny kept the gun aimed at Bobby’s heart. “I have to, Cork,” he said. “I have no choice.”

  “Don’t be feedin’ yourself that malarky. Of course you have a choice.”

  “I don’t,” Sonny said.

  Cork covered his eyes with his hands and sighed, as if despairing. “You can’t do it,” he said, without looking at Sonny. “Even if you’re stupid enough to think you have to.”

  Sonny let the gun drop to his side. “You micks,” he said, “you’re all good at talkin’.”

  “I’m just telling you the truth,” Cork said. “The truth’s the truth, even if you’re too stupid to see it.”

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  “You said it, Sonny.”

  Sonny felt like he was wrestling with an unsolvable problem. He looked down at the gun dangling from his hand and then across the room to Cork, and though his eyes moved, his body was frozen in place. As the seconds ticked past, his face grew darker. Finally he said, “I may be stupid, Bobby, but at least my sister’s not a whore.”

  Cork looked up at Sonny and laughed. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Eileen,” Sonny said. “Hey, pal, I’ve been fuckin’ Eileen for years.”

  “What’s got into you?” Cork asked, and he sat up on the cot. “Why are you saying stuff like this to me?”

  “Because it’s true, you stupid mick. I’ve been doing the number on Eileen three times a week since—”

  “Shut up, you lyin’ bastard!” Cork looked to the ceiling, to the sound of water running in the bath, as if concerned that Eileen or Caitlin might hear what was being said. “It’s not funny, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said to Sonny. “Eileen wouldn’t dirty herself with the likes of you, and we both know it.”

  “But you’re wrong,” Sonny said, and he pushed himself off the wall, his legs finally moving. He took a step toward Cork. “Eileen loves it,” he said. “She loves to suck—”

  Cork was up and off the bed and almost on top of Sonny before he lifted the gun, aimed for Cork’s heart, and shot him, the gun going off with a loud thump, with the sound of a hammer blow against plaster. A block of window glass shattered and shards of glass hit the orange lampshade, knocking the lamp to the floor. Sonny let the gun drop from his hand as he caught Cork in his arms. He saw the impossibly wide and spreading bloodstain on the back of Cork’s shirt and knew with certainty that he was dead, that the bullet had gone through his heart and exited his back and lodged in the block-glass window that looked out over the alley. He took the time to lift
Cork, lay him down in his bed, and place an open book on the bloodstain spreading over his heart, as if to hide the wound from Eileen, who was already hurrying down the stairs, calling Bobby’s name, asking if he was okay.

  Sonny was out of the alley and at the gate when he heard her scream. She screamed once, loud and long, followed by silence. At his car, he started the engine and then flung open the door, leaned over, and vomited into the street. He drove off, wiping his arm roughly across his mouth, his head full of a strange, loud buzzing and the echo of Eileen’s scream and the thump of the gun as it went off in his hand, a sound he both heard in his head and felt in his bones, as if the bullet had hit him as well as Bobby. In a crazy moment he looked down at his heart, thinking he might have somehow also been shot, and when he saw blood all over his shirt he panicked until he realized that it was Bobby’s blood and not his own, but still he reached under the shirt with his fingers, feeling the skin over his heart, crazily needing to reassure himself that he was fine, that nothing had happened to him, that he’d be okay—and then he found that he wasn’t driving back to his apartment as he had planned, but instead he was heading for the docks and the river. He didn’t know why he was driving to the river, but he didn’t resist. It was like something was pulling him there—and he didn’t begin to straighten himself out, to make his heart slow down and to get his thoughts straight, until he saw the water and parked close to it and waited there in the dark of his car looking out over the river to the lights of the city, with those sounds in his head beginning to fade, the buzzing and Eileen’s scream and that thump that he both heard and could still feel in his bones and against his heart.

  28.

  Vito leaned back on the living room sofa and held Connie in his lap with an arm around her waist, letting her cuddle up against him sleepily as she looked out over the living room and listened with what seemed like genuine interest to Jimmy Mancini and Al Hats argue about baseball. Jimmy’s daughter Lucy sat beside them, working intently on a connect-the-dots picture in a brightly colored activity book. Every once in a while she’d look up at Connie, as if to make sure her friend hadn’t gone anywhere while she’d been lost in her picture. They were in Vito’s living room on Hughes Avenue, midafternoon on a Sunday that had been gorgeous, with bright blue skies and temperatures in the seventies. When Tessio came into the room, Al and Jimmy stopped their arguing, which had been mostly about the Giants’ chances of repeating as World Series champs. Al said, “Sal, you think the Dodgers got a shot at the pennant?” Both men broke into laughter as soon as the question was asked, since the Dodgers would be lucky if they made it out of the cellar. Tessio, a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan, ignored them, sat next to Lucy, and took an interest in her activity book.