The Godfather returns

Chapter 22

VIA A MAZE of intermediaries, Nick Geraci had been told to come in. To see the Boss. Geraci had a pretty good idea what it was about. He’d suggested the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Too public, he was told. Don Corleone couldn’t possibly risk doing anything that would make his appointment to the presidential transition team any more controversial than it already was-especially the day before the inauguration. It would have to be in the car, a limo.

Which cinched it: they were going to kill him.

In a situation like this, though, there’s no choice but to go where you’re told. It’s a part of the life. Geraci knew that a long time ago. A wiseguy who’s called in, if he’s smart, is like a lawyer preparing a case. You anticipate every question you might get asked and hope for the best. If you’re able to talk your way out of it, walk away pissed off, not grateful.

Asking to bring his guys along for the ride would arouse suspicion. That was out. Packing a gun or a knife was a bad risk. If he’s searched, he’s done for. Even if he’s not, there’s not much chance he’d have enough time to whip out a concealed weapon at the moment of truth.

He waited all morning at a corner table in a tavern on First Avenue along with Donnie Bags, Eddie Paradise, and Momo the Roach. A few connected guys milled around outside. A row of pallid men from the neighborhood drank breakfast at the bar. The place was owned by Elwood Cusik, a boxer who’d done enforcer work for the Corleones.

Michael had tried to kill him once before, and Geraci had retaliated beautifully. He’d used Forlenza to let Russo know what was going on with Fredo and down in Cuba; after that, Geraci hadn’t had to lift a finger. Fredo had unwittingly betrayed Michael, over nothing. Anyone could see that Cuba was unstable and going to blow. Yet Michael was so blinded by the millions he could make as an almost-legitimate businessman there that he had allowed himself to get sucked into a situation where he’d killed his own brother. His wife had left him over it, took the kids, and moved a continent away. He’d lost two capos-Rocco and Frankie Pants, both rivals of Geraci’s-fighting over an empire in Cuba that was destined never to exist. If there really was a fate worse than death, Geraci had inflicted it on Michael Corleone.

As he waited, Geraci tried to figure out how Michael could have learned about this. He was at a loss.

Two hours late, Donnie Bags, near the window, signaled that Michael’s limo was there. The Roach and Eddie Paradise flanked Geraci as he crossed the sidewalk. He was ready for anything. He pictured his daughters’ faces. And he reached for the door handle.

“Hello, Fausto.”

“Don Corleone.” Geraci got into the car alone and climbed into the seat facing Michael. Al Neri, behind the wheel, was the only other person in the car. “You have a nice trip?”

Geraci nodded to the Roach, who closed the door. Neri put the car in gear.

“Outstanding. You should go up again. These new planes practically fly themselves.”

“I’ll bet,” Geraci said. One of Michael’s thank-you gifts from Ambassador M. Corbett Shea had been a new airplane. “I have dreams that I’m flying. Funny thing is, they’re never nightmares. But once I wake up, I can’t even imagine being a passenger again. Hey, congratulations, by the way. Next best thing to having a paesan’ in the White House.”

“It’s just the transition team,” Michael said. “I only served as an adviser. One of many.”

Over the years, the Corleones had granted the Sheas many favors, including several that had helped get the new president elected. In return, Michael had asked for this appointment. Geraci had it on good authority that Michael had never met face-to-face with anyone in the new administration. It was understood that he would participate in name only. All Michael wanted was the credibility the appointment gave him.

“Think we’ll live to see it?” Geraci said. “An Italian in the White House?”

“I’m certain of it,” Michael said.

Geraci had positioned himself on the seat so that Neri would have to stop the car before killing him. There didn’t seem much chance that Michael would do the job himself. If it happened, it would happen someplace they took him, probably by men waiting for him there. “I hope you’re right, Don Corleone.”

“Just Michael, okay? We’re old friends, Fausto, and I’m retired now.”

“That’s what I hear.” The rumors that Michael was going legit had been swirling around for years and intensified after Shea’s election. “But I didn’t think we had retirement in this thing of ours. Whatever happened to ‘You come in alive and you go out dead’? We all swear to that.”

“I swore to it, and I’ll uphold it. I’ll always be a part of the Family my father built,” Michael said. “But my relationship to it will be the same as it is for some of the men my father’s age who’ve served us well and moved to Florida or Arizona. Men from whom we ask nothing.”

“Explain to me how this is going to work,” Geraci said. “I’ve heard different things, but I wrote a lot of it off as just talk.”

“It’s simple. As you know, I promised Clemenza and Tessio they could have their own Families when the time was right. Tessio betrayed us and Pete’s dead, but the promise still lives.”

“Ogni promessa è un debito, eh?” Geraci said. “As my old man used to say.”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “Today I pay that debt. In every respect, you’re our best man in New York. As of today, I have no further need for the businesses you run, not even the income from them. I’m out. I’m the one who should call you Don. Don Geraci. Congratulations.”

That’s it. I’m dead. “Thank you,” Geraci said. “Just like that?”

“How else?” Michael said.

Despite himself, Geraci shot a glance at Neri. They were heading west on Seventy-ninth Street, into Central Park. Neri was looking straight ahead. “I’m deeply honored. Overwhelmed.”

“You earned it.”

Geraci held up his ringless right hand. “If I’d known, I’d have bought a ring.”

“Take mine,” Michael said. “It was blessed by the pope himself.” He started taking it off. It was tasteful, classy: a big diamond surrounded by sapphires.

He wouldn’t give that ring to a man he was about to kill, would he? And who’d give away a ring that had been blessed by the fucking pope?

“I was kidding,” Geraci said. “I couldn’t possibly accept. You’ve been too generous already.” Geraci held up his big right hand, half again the size of Michael’s and gnarled from the many punches it had landed, with and without boxing gloves. “Also, I don’t think it’ll fit.”

Michael laughed. “I never really noticed.” He slid the ring back on his finger.

How could he never have noticed? “You know what they say. Big hands-”

“Big rings.”

“Exactly. Really, Michael, this is incredible news. A dream come true.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Of course I knew. But I heard there was some trouble with the Commission.”

“You have good sources. The Commission has asked that I stay on. I was opposed to this, but their decision is binding. I will remain in an advisory capacity, both to them and to you. It should go without saying that this arrangement will be maintained in the strictest confidence. Anyone you appoint as capo must be cleared with the Commission, and I advise you to clear it with me first. I assume you’ll want to keep Nobilio?”

“I need to think about it.” Richie Two Guns had taken over Clemenza’s old regime. Everything Geraci knew about Richie was good-he’d helped put together the monopoly the New York Families now had on cement, for example, and had a big presence down in Fort Lauderdale, too-but saying yes, just like that, didn’t seem smart. If all this was on the level, that is. “Think Richie’ll be sore you picked me?”

“You don’t think he’ll be a lot more sore if you bust him down?”

“I’m not talking about busting him down. I’m just wondering how he’ll take the news.”

“I’m sure it won’t come as much of a surprise.”

“You talk to him?”

Michael shook his head. “It’s out there, though. If there’s a problem, I can talk to him.”

“I’m sure it’ll work out great.” He and Richie had talked about the rumors. Richie had said he’d be happy to see Geraci become the new Don and was pulling for the Commission to approve it. Probably he was telling the truth. “Richie seems like a good man.”

“For your own regime, I won’t presume to make suggestions. Just talk to me first.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll be providing limited counsel to you, but I won’t be serving as your consigliere. I have another sort of life I wish to lead. I don’t want my past to intrude on that life.”

“I understand.” Though he didn’t, not entirely. “Do I run that choice past you as well?”

“Up to you.”

“If you don’t mind,” Geraci said, “I’d like Tom Hagen to be my consigliere.”

“Unfortunately,” Michael said, “I do mind. My brother Tom will continue to work closely with me as my attorney.”

Another good sign. If Geraci really was about to be killed, Michael could have said yes.

“Thought I’d take a shot. You always want the best man you can get.”

“You don’t like me,” Michael said. “Do you, Fausto?”

Geraci quickly decided that lying would be more dangerous than telling the truth. “That’s true. I don’t. No disrespect, but I don’t know many people who do.”

“But you fear me.”

“Fear is the enemy of logic,” Geraci said, “but you’re right. I do. More than death. I know what you’re trying to say, Michael. I’m ready. I know what it means to you, the sacrifices your family has made to build this organization. I’ll give it all I have. Everything.”

Michael reached over and slapped Geraci on the knee, affectionately.

They got onto Broadway, uptown.

No mention had been made of what had used to be Rocco Lampone’s regime. Rocco had gotten himself killed two years ago in Miami and still hadn’t been replaced. There were made guys out in Nevada-Al Neri, his nephew Tommy, Figaro, four or five others, plus the connected guys underneath them. If they were a part of this deal, Michael would have said so. Especially with Neri right there, Geraci wasn’t going to push his luck. Fuck Nevada.

Geraci rubbed his chin. “Maybe I took a couple punches too many,” he said, “but I’m confused. You honest to God have no further need for my businesses? You’re gonna just, what, control a couple casinos in Nevada and call it a career?”

Michael nodded. “Fair question,” he said. “I made my family a promise that I’d get out, and I’m keeping my promise. As a matter of fact, I had this in place two years ago. Between the casinos in Nevada and the ones in Cuba and our various real estate holdings, I had a business empire that would’ve sustained itself for a hundred years. But then the Communists took over Cuba and we lost everything there. The various misfortunes that came our way at about the same time meant both that the organization as a whole needed the income from those legitimate businesses and that I couldn’t yet step down. But two years and Jimmy Shea’s election have changed everything. Losing our legal gambling revenues in Cuba was terrible, but now we have influence in New Jersey. We got their governor elected president, but I’d say what was even more important there was the mutually beneficial arrangement you’ve built with the Stracci Family. For as long as I can remember, there’s been talk of legalizing gambling in Atlantic City, and I plan to stay on the Commission until that happens-probably in a year-so that we can get in there, too. How long is a Communist country a hundred miles off our shore going to last? If it wasn’t for the Russians, we’d have taken the place back the moment they started stealing from us, but the difference between Cuba and every other Communist country is that they’re so close to the richest country in the world they can taste it and already have. I give it two years, maybe three, and we’ll be back in business there, too. I have assurances from the Shea government that they’ll enforce the return of all properties to their previous owners. The point I’m trying to make is that if we don’t have considerable resources banked, we can’t run casinos without the likes of Louie Russo crushing us. We don’t quite have those resources yet. Between what we do have, both financial and in terms of personnel, together with what now seems inevitable-well, it’s better to get out a year too early than a minute too late.”

“So who feeds the meat eaters?” Geraci asked. The Corleone Family’s greatest asset was the network of people it kept on its payroll. “I know a lot of the cops and union people we have, some of the judges and the D.A.s, but I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. And the politicians, forget it. All I know is rumors.”

Geraci had been running most of the Family’s business in New York, but the connection guys were under Michael and Hagen.

“Tom will be in touch with you,” Michael said. “There will be a transition period. When I took over from my father, it took him and Tom six months to explain everything to me.”

“I guess if it’s possible to make the transition from one leader of the free world to another in two months, I can figure all this out in six.”

Michael chuckled.

“You’re really not going to use our judges and cops and so on?” Geraci asked. “You’re giving that up?”

“Did I say that? I said I have no more need for the income from the businesses you run.”

“Sure,” Geraci said. “I understand. You’re out.”

“Don’t be naive, Fausto. There are plenty of men on the president’s transition team who are feeding more meat eaters than we do.”

So there’s retired and then there’s whatever it is that you are, Geraci thought. Got it.

“And the seat on the Commission. Do I have one, or is that you?”

“That’s me for now. You’ll have one eventually. Get yourself organized, and after that the Commission will take care of it. I don’t think there’s going to be any problem with that.”

They discussed several other specific issues. The car crossed the park again and started back down Lexington Avenue-hardly a neighborhood for a murder. They really weren’t going to kill him. Michael still hadn’t learned who was really behind his brother’s betrayal. But Geraci wasn’t taking any chances.

“Speaking of excellent sources,” he said, “I want you to know something. They tried to kill your brother.”

“Who tried to kill my brother?”

“Louie Russo. Fuckface.”

“My brothers are dead.”

“A while ago. I just learned about it.”

“Which brother?”

It unnerved Geraci that Michael could call Hagen my brother one moment and say My brothers are dead the next. “Fredo. It was a botched hit, and Russo called it off. Remember Labor Day?”

Geraci didn’t need to say which Labor Day. Michael nodded.

“After Pete’s kid’s wedding, Fredo wound up in a motel in Canada. With-I don’t know how to say this-with another man. The button guys were supposed to make it look like Fredo killed himself out of shame or what-have-you. I’d tell you that it was a setup, a frame-up, except for a few things.”

The problem with Michael’s poker face was that when he put it on, you noticed it.

“First,” Geraci said, “when Russo’s men got to the motel, Fredo was gone but there was still someone there-a salesman; nice job, wife, kids-and he’s naked on the bed. Second, the button guys open the door, and the salesman pulls a gun and shoots them. The gun’s a Colt Peacemaker with the serial number filed off. It may have been Fredo’s gun, maybe not, but he definitely lost a gun on that trip-Figaro told me that-and Fredo loved those Colts. Anyway, the salesman kills one guy, wounds the other. Next day, someone chloroforms a nurse, slits the wounded guy’s throat, then buries the knife in his eye up to the hilt and leaves it there. The day after that, the salesman goes to meet with his lawyer, and that’s the last anybody ever sees him. Other than his hands, that is, which someone chopped off and mailed to his wife.”

“You’re saying Don Russo covered his tracks.”

“I’m saying that, yes.”

“Why didn’t they come after Fredo again?”

“The idea was to embarrass the Family. You named Fredo sotto capo, and right after that it turns out he’s queer. I’m not saying he was, all right? I’m just giving you information.”

Michael nodded.

“If they made it look like he offed himself,” Geraci said, “that would’ve been the end of it. No revenge, no nothing. Our organization is hurt, and they benefit. They were mad about Las Vegas. They thought of it as their turf. But then after… you know. The crash. My crash. It wasn’t necessary anymore, at least for a while. I can’t prove it, but it stands to reason that Russo was behind the tragedy with your brother. Fredo was out in L.A. half the time, and L.A. was where he betrayed us.” Geraci raised his eyebrows, shrugged. “L.A. equals Chicago, right?”

It was no secret among the made members of the Family that Michael had ordered his own brother killed.

“How do you know so much?” Michael said. “How did you learn these things?”

“I’ve got a guy,” Geraci said. “Somebody inside the FBI.”

“The FBI?” Michael said, clearly impressed. The FBI-the director’s peccadillos notwithstanding-was considered incorruptible.

“The gun Fredo was arrested with in L.A. when he killed that dog? Also a Colt with its serial number filed off. In the lab they were able to use acid and bring the number back up. Same with the gun from Windsor. They were both part of a shipment that our guy in Reno got and sold to nonexistent people. Thank God not to Gerald O’Malley. Oh, and one more thing.”

Geraci reached in his coat pocket for the closest thing he had to a concealed weapon-a cigarette lighter: jeweled, made in Milan, engraved CHRISTMAS 1954. He tossed it to Michael.

“Recognize this?”

Michael’s face reddened. He turned the lighter over in his small, perfectly manicured hand, then made a fist, covering it. Almost covering it.

“The salesman said it belonged to the other guy,” Geraci said. “Listen, Michael, I feel awful about this. If you want me to go after Russo, say the word and it’s done. I’ll come at him with everything we got.”

Michael turned to face the window. For several blocks he tapped the fist with the lighter in it against his chin.

Geraci was bluffing. He didn’t have anyone in the FBI. He’d heard those Colts all came from the same dealer and hoped that was right. He’d gotten the lighter from Russo, who’d gotten it from the salesman’s killer.

But Geraci was serious about going after Russo. He’d had peace in his regime for five years. He had a hell of a war chest. The last few years, Cesare Indelicato, the Sicilian capo di tutti capi, had been providing Geraci not only with heroin and other drugs but also personnel. Geraci had a whole crew of zips now, over in Bushwick, there on Knickerbocker Avenue, and he’d been setting up some of the legal immigrants with jobs in pizza parlors all over the Midwest, quietly tossing dough and making a little of it until the time may come for them to do Nick Geraci a favor. Men like that, living as law-abiding good neighbors for years in Kenosha, Cleveland Heights, or Youngstown, could go on “vacation,” do a job on somebody, come home, and nobody would ever in a million years connect them to some dead gangster eight hundred miles away. If Richie Two Guns was as good as he seemed, Geraci was confident the Corleones could cripple the Chicago outfit and make those animals answerable to the New York Families again. And, of course, Geraci could in the process cover his tracks for his role in manipulating Fredo to betray his brother. Better to do it on Michael’s say-so (with Michael having to answer to the Commission for it) than for Geraci to worry about whether to do it later.

“Thank you just the same,” Michael finally said. “But as I told you, I’m retired.”

The car stopped. They were back on First Avenue, in front of the Roach’s bar. Geraci wondered if Michael had really been thinking all that time or if he’d simply waited until the end of the drive to answer.

Nick Geraci held out his left hand, palm down, in front of his chest and held his right underneath, pointing at the bottom of his palm. “Qui sotto non ci piove.” Under here you won’t be rained on. “Un giorno avrai bisogno di me.” One day you’ll need me.

An old expression. Tessio would say it when pledging his protection, and Michael must have heard his father say it, too.

“I appreciate that, Fausto,” Michael said.

“Don’t mention it.”

Michael smiled. A chill went through Nick Geraci.

“You thought I was going to kill you,” Michael said, “didn’t you?”

“I think everyone’s trying to kill me all the fucking time,” Geraci said. “Force of habit.”

“That’s probably why you’re still alive.”

How did he mean that? That it was probably why no one had ever killed him or why Michael wasn’t killing him now? Geraci wasn’t about to ask for a clarification.

“Anyway, Michael, what reason would I have to think you were going to kill me?” Geraci said. “Like you said, you’re retired. Good luck to you in your new life.”

Michael still had the lighter in his fist.

They kissed and embraced, and Geraci watched the limo pull away. When he walked inside the bar, his men had somehow known to gather, a good thirty or forty of them. Shaking, Nick Geraci went upstairs and slumped in a big leather chair in the corner. His men followed. He slipped his wedding ring onto the little finger of his right hand, and his men lined up to kiss it.

Chapter 23

MR. FONTANE ! Have you been promised a job in the Shea administration?”

The lobby of Constitution Hall was full of reporters. Johnny Fontane was sitting behind a table on a crowded dais, flanked by a dozen stars of stage and screen. There would be many more onstage tomorrow. They were making history. No one he’d asked to perform at the inaugural ball for Jimmy Shea had said no. If the Russians dropped the bomb on Washington, there’d be little left of show business but school plays, rock music, and stag films. “A job?” Johnny said, in mock horror. “I became a saloon singer so I’d never have to have a job.”

This got a decent laugh. He wanted them to think the answer might be yes. The Ambassador had talked about setting Fontane up to run for office. Jimmy himself-at Fontane’s place in Vegas, on a break from going at it with Rita Duvall, who was also on the podium now-had suggested making Fontane the ambassador to Italy. Or how about some little tropical paradise with blue skies and limitless pussy? He and Johnny had both been pretty drunk at that point.

“What does it say about the Shea presidency,” a voice shouted, “that the inaugural ball is being produced by someone like yourself with reputed Mafia ties?”

Johnny couldn’t believe it. When was this shit going to stop?

The jerk-off who asked the question was with a paper in New York. Johnny had punched him out once. The out-of-court settlement had been ten grand and worth every cent.

Bobby Chadwick-the brother-in-law of the president-elect-leaned over his mike. “By someone like Johnny Fontane? Forgive me if you’re a correspondent from the planet Uranus and unfamiliar with our ways, but here on Earth, it’s safe to say there’s nobody like Johnny Fontane.”

He got a laugh, too, but the laughter subsided and the other reporters still looked at Johnny for an answer. If this had been a restaurant or a nightclub, Johnny could have merely arched an eyebrow and this jerk-off would have been out on his ass.

“Reputed is a word lazy reporters use so they can make things up,” Johnny said. “Let me give you some facts. There are more than five million Americans of Italian descent. According to a report the U.S. Senate put out two years ago, there are at most four thousand people associated with the quote-unquote Mafia. I’ll do the math for you, buddy-boy. That’s thirteen-hundred-to-one odds. You’re more likely to get eaten by a bear. Yet every time somebody whose name ends with a vowel gets ahead, bigots like you ask if we’re in the Mob.”

“Are you in the Mob?”

Well, he’d walked into that one. “I’m not even going to dignify a question that ignorant.”

“I could be wrong,” said Sir Oliver Smith-Christmas, the distinguished British actor, seated at the edge of the podium, “but aren’t you confusing the sort of gentlemen who oftentimes own American nightclubs with those like my friend Mr. Fontane, who simply perform in them? Where is a nightclub singer to perform if not in a nightclub?”

“Ollie makes a good point,” Johnny Fontane said. “Once the big-band era was over-”

“Isn’t it a fact that the late Vito Corleone was your godfather?” the reporter said.

Not that kind of godfather, you stupid fuck. “He stood for my baptism, yes. He was a friend of my parents.”

“Does President-elect Shea have ties to organized crime?” another reporter asked. “Michael Corleone, who was among those called to testify before the Senate two years ago, served as a member of the transition-”

“Why don’t you ask that to Michael Corleone, huh?” Johnny said. “Better yet, why don’t you ask all the sick kids Mr. Corleone’s hospital and charities have helped? Look, folks, this is an exciting time for our country. I think I can speak for everyone up here when I say that we’re behind President Shea one hundred percent. But let’s keep the questions a little more on the subject of the inaugural ball itself, all right?”

“You grew up in New York,” the jerk-off shouted, “but you’re friendly with Louie Russo in Chicago and Ignazio Pignatelli in Los Angeles.” The shithead pronounced it Pig-natelli, rather than Peenyatelli. “Pignatelli’s sister is listed as a shareholder in the new record label you started. My question is, is it possible to transfer your membership-”

“Don’t make me come down from here and show you some manners,” Johnny said.

“Are you going to have me whacked? That’s the Mafia word for it, right? Whacked?”

“Now, how the fuck would I know that?” Johnny said. Obviously, everyone knew that, but that wasn’t the point.

A murmur went through the room.

“How on earth,” Johnny rephrased it, “would I know that?”

After Kay Corleone left her husband and left Nevada, she landed a teaching job at a first-rate boarding school in Maine. She and her children lived in a stone cottage on the grounds of the school. Michael didn’t like it, but she needed a job, not financially but as a means of creating an identity separate from all she’d been with him. She’d applied only to schools thousands of miles from Lake Tahoe. She hadn’t expected Michael to fight so hard for custody and had been even more surprised when out of the blue he told her he’d looked into the school where she was teaching and decided that the children’s education would be best served by going there. Kay had no idea what changed his mind. He claimed he simply realized he was using the kids as pawns in the divorce and putting his feelings ahead of what they really needed. She wanted to believe that. She’d curbed her impulse to tell him that if he’d paid more attention to his heart than his cold mind, he might not have found himself in this mess in the first place.

Michael didn’t see Tony and Mary often. When he did, he usually picked them up in his plane and flew them to New York for a weekend of frenzied activity: ice-skating, carriage rides, museums, movies, the zoo-everything he could cram in. They’d come home exhausted. For weeks afterward, Mary, who was seven now and worshiped her father, would tell endless stories about their time together. Tony, who was nine, rarely talked about him at all.

When Michael first told Kay his schedule was tight and asked her to take the kids to New York herself this time, she’d said it was impossible. When he told her about the inaugural ball and said Kay could go, too, she declined. Washington had a lot of bad memories for her. Though she hoped he’d find a way to make it work so he could take Mary and Tony. And, no, having some button man come to Maine and drive them to New York was not an option.

Everything changed when Kay heard about Jules Segal. He’d been her doctor in Nevada. She’d recommended him to a friend who’d moved there and learned that he’d been shot more than a year ago-the victim of a botched burglary, according to the newspapers.

So now, the day of the ball, Kay waited in a room at the Essex House, in a suite overlooking Central Park. The kids were watching TV. They didn’t have a set at home anymore. Seeing them transfixed by it here confirmed for her that this had been a good idea. She looked at her watch. He was late. Some things never changed.

Finally, she heard voices in the hall. Michael and-of course!-Al Neri opened the door.

“Why isn’t he dressed?” Michael asked, pointing at Tony. Michael already had his tux on.

“I’m not going to your stupid ball,” Tony said.

Kay had been so distracted that she hadn’t noticed that Tony had taken off his suit and changed back into the blue shirt and chinos he wore to school every day.

Mary leapt from the bed to go hug her father. “I’m going!” Mary said. “Don’t I look like a beautiful princess? Because that’s who goes to balls is why.”

“You do, sweetheart. You really do. C’mon, Tony. You’re going. You’ll love it.”

Kay told Tony to put his suit back on. The boy snatched it up and trudged to the bathroom, muttering. Neri sat down on the sofa, apparently content with the cartoon program that was on. Mary twirled around, showing off her dress. Kay told her to go watch the rest of the show on TV, she needed to have a word alone with Daddy. Then she steered Michael into the adjoining bedroom and closed the door.

“I did it, Kay. I’ve retired from-well, from the dangerous aspects of the business I inherited from my father. I promised you that I’d make all my business dealings legitimate, and I’ve done it.”

She frowned. “You made that promise ten years ago.” She presumed it was a clumsy ploy to get her to come back to him. Still, she hoped for the kids’ sake he was telling the truth. Sooner or later, he was going to be killed or go to jail, and she hated to think how it would affect Tony and Mary when he did. “I’m happy for you, though, Michael. I really am.”

“You look great, Kay. Maine, teaching: it’s really agreeing with you.”

“Michael, I have to ask you something. I want you to tell me the truth.”

In a split second, his face became an expressionless mask.

“Did you have Jules Segal killed?”

“No.”

No hesitation. Just no. Isn’t that exactly what a liar would do when the answer is yes?

“I don’t think I believe you,” Kay said.

“I told you a long time ago not to ask me about my business, Kay.”

“This isn’t your business, it’s our business. You had Dr. Segal killed because of me, didn’t you? Because of the-”

“Don’t say it.” At least now he had an expression on his face. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Abortion. Are you going to slap me again?” The way he had when she’d told him: the slap that had ended their marriage, in a different hotel, but in Washington, where he was about to go.

“No, Kay,” he said. “I’m not.”

“Because if that burglary was your handiwork-”

“I don’t want to talk about this subject.”

“-you should know that it wasn’t him.”

“Kay, stop it. We both know that when you-when that happened, he was the doctor you went to. We own that hospital, Kay.”

“So it shouldn’t have been too hard to get my records and see that I had a miscarriage.”

“Oh, sure. You flew to Las Vegas so you could have a miscarriage, and the attending doctor just happened to be the same man who performed the abortions every time Fredo-”

Her stomach felt like it had been twisted by a pair of strong hands. “Oh, God, Michael. I knew it. I knew it. You just… I was so angry. I was scared. It was terrible to live in fear of what might happen to you, but I realized there was nothing I was more afraid of than you-”

“Me? I have protected this family, our family, ahead of anything and everything else.”

“Michael, you married into another kind of family a long time before we started ours. Even your first wife was your second wife. I was your third.”

“Nothing could have ever happened to you. Or our children. Nothing ever will.”

“Come on, Michael. Our house in Nevada was attacked, like some target in a war zone. Did you promise Apollonia nothing would ever happen to her, too? I suppose we should count our blessings we weren’t blown to smithereens.”

“Kay-”

“And what do you mean, Nothing ever will? What sort of protection, what kind of goons do you command in your capacity as a legitimate businessman? Legitimate businessman. We’ll see. Do you really expect me to believe that anything about you has changed, that anything about you will ever change? Calling yourself legitimate won’t change what you’ve done.”

He kept his eyes on her as he reached into his jacket pocket. For a terrible moment she thought he was reaching for a gun or a knife. He took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Are you through?” he said.

“You don’t understand. I’m not like you, Michael. I could have never killed our… our son. I flew to Las Vegas to help organize a fund-raiser for the art museum, and right after I got there I had a miscarriage. I didn’t have any word from you for two weeks after that happened. Two weeks. No woman should have to live through that alone. I decided to leave you. I had other reasons, bigger reasons, all the reasons we’ve talked about, but that was the last straw. I knew you’d never give me a divorce. So I told you I’d had an abortion. I wanted to hurt you, and I told a lie to do it. I wanted to see that look on your face, and I saw it. I wanted to see what you’d do, and you hit me.”

Michael lowered his head and, very slightly, nodded.

“Jules Segal was my regular doctor, Michael. Do you really think that anybody, especially him, a man who knew who you are as well as anyone in Las Vegas, would have performed an abortion on the wife of a-of a man in your position? Segal wouldn’t have… I don’t know… lit a cigarette without your blessing. I never in my wildest dreams, my wildest nightmares, thought you’d send your goons-”

“We need to go,” Michael said. “I’m going.” He turned and went into the other room. “Come on, Mary, Tony. Who wants to go for an airplane ride?”

Mary shouted that she did, she did, and Tony didn’t say anything, but within moments her children had both kissed her and said their good-byes. No one turned off the television.

Kay Corleone-an accessory to murder before the fact-collapsed onto the bed.

She had no one to blame but herself. Michael was a killer. She’d fallen in love with him not in spite of that but-as he told her about what he’d done in the war-because of it. She knew in her heart that he’d killed those two men in the restaurant. She knew about a lot of other killings, too, and pretended not to. She married him and changed religions-leaving one that allowed divorce for one that prohibited it-so that she could go to confession and try to live with herself for loving a killer. When she’d finally worn Tom Hagen down and gotten him to tell her that the house in Lake Tahoe had in fact been torched and bulldozed because the FBI had bugged the beams and foundation, she’d actually thought, This is the last straw. But no. She’d stayed. She’d rebuilt. When men with machine guns opened fire and nearly killed her children, she left the house but stayed with him. Not until he abandoned her when she lost the baby and hit her and killed his own brother did she do what a truly innocent person would have done years ago.

A news broadcast came on. The lead story of course was the swearing in of the toothy new president. Kay looked up. In a shot of the crowd, she saw Tom and Theresa Hagen. She put her head back down, profoundly alone, and cried herself to sleep.

Chapter 24

DRESSED IN a pink ball gown that barely contained her swollen breasts and clutching a pair of Superman pajamas, Francesca Van Arsdale, six months pregnant with her second child, chased her first one (two-year-old William Brewster Van Arsdale IV, whom they were calling Sonny) through the maze of boxes in their apartment on Capitol Hill. Sonny was naked except for the gold Notre Dame football helmet he’d gotten for Christmas from her brother Frankie. She heard Billy’s Dual-Ghia and looked out the kitchen window. The sight of the woman getting out of Billy’s ridiculously expensive car stopped Francesca in her tracks.

She dropped the pajamas. It wasn’t the babysitter. It was her. That Woman.

Francesca braced herself against the kitchen sink. But no. It wasn’t. On second glance, the babysitter was about fifteen and looked no more like the woman Billy had cheated on her with-another member of the Floridians for Shea staff-than would have any other willowy blond beauty who was everything Francesca was not.

“Ready, Francie?” Billy called, opening the door.

Sonny, ecstatic, sprinted toward his father and gave him an inadvertent but savage header to the crotch. As Billy moaned and crumpled into a chair, Francesca scooped up the pajamas and then Sonny, too, and gave the girl-the little sister of someone Billy knew from Harvard Law School-an agonizingly thorough set of instructions.

“You look fantastic,” Billy said, holding the car door open. “Gorgeous.”

Francesca was quite clear on the fact that she looked like a big pink cow. She struggled to get into that low-slung car with some semblance of dignity. Billy didn’t seem to notice. When she was in, he leaned down and kissed her, chastely at first, and then passionately. When the kiss was over, he thanked her. Thanked her!

It had been like this for weeks. Her own mother had told her to forget about the affair. Men are going to have their goumadas. You know why surveys say that fifty percent of men cheat on their wives? she’d asked. Because the other fifty are liars. But once in a while, she’d said, you can pretend to be surprised to learn about some woman-which, if you don’t do it too often, can spark enough guilt to make your husband treat you like you were courting. In contrast, Francesca’s sister’s advice had been to kill him. But Kathy had never liked Billy. She was also (despite a string of boyfriends in London, where she was getting her Ph.D. in Continental literature) not a mother. Being a mother changed things more than anyone who was not a mother could possibly imagine. What was Francesca supposed to do, get a divorce? Raise two children alone? So far, her mother seemed to have been dead-on. But Francesca didn’t trust Billy’s newfound devotion. Despite all his penitential tenderness, he’d made love to her maybe twice since she started to show. When she’d been pregnant the first time, Billy had been turned on by it, had wanted to do it all the time.

“You should see my office, babe,” Billy said. Right after the inaugural address, Daniel Brendan Shea-the president’s brother and new attorney general-had assembled his staff and had a meeting. This didn’t bode well for Billy working fewer hours than he had during the campaign (though maybe in this case those hours would be more exclusively devoted to work). “It’s small, but it’s on the same floor as Danny’s.”

“You’re calling him Danny?” You’re calling me babe?

“That’s what he said to call him.” Billy actually stuck his chest out with pride. This was not a gesture she found endearing, though maybe she once had.

“On a first-name basis with the attorney general,” she marveled. Did he call That Woman babe, too? “I’m proud of you.”

Which, despite everything, was true.

“The third youngest attorney general in the history of the United States,” Billy said. “Before he’s done, don’t be surprised if he’s considered the best one, too. He has an incredible combination of intelligence and-this doesn’t sound like a compliment, but it is-ruthlessness.”

“Sounds to me,” she said, “like he’s the right man for the job.”

On the way to the ball, they made quick stops at parties at several different embassies and hotels. As if by magic, Billy knew where to go, where the valet parking would be, the names of the hosts, and how to find them. When Francesca got inside, she had to pee-she always had to pee; it was like having a truck parked on her bladder-and she always guessed wrong about which way the bathroom was. She couldn’t help but be dazzled to be in these ornate mansions-especially the French embassy, which gave her an evil thrill, thinking about how jealous Kathy would be when she heard about it. And everywhere she turned, she saw a famous face or met a powerful person. But at the same time, she was miserable. Strangers kept pawing her, presuming that they could touch her belly, and Billy never once told them to keep their filthy hands to themselves. Her back was killing her. And she felt inadequate and out of place, as she had for most of her marriage. The pregnancy aside-and it was never aside; this kid was going to be a giant-no one looked like her (the Italian embassy was not among their stops). The women were either tall, WASPy, and glamorous, with their hair piled high and sprayed perfectly in place (like That Woman, in other words), or they were Washington wives: elegant matrons in fat pearls who somehow managed to be both unobtrusive and lively.

At every party, though, except for during her trips to the restroom, Billy stayed by her side. It was painful to watch him thwart his instinct to abandon her and work the room, but not so painful that Francesca was ever tempted to tell him to go do what he needed to do.

They finally arrived at Constitution Hall and were walking up the steps when she heard a high, unfamiliar voice calling her name. She turned and couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Bee-Boy! Bee-Boy!”

Francesca’s heart soared. It was Mary Corleone and Uncle Mike. She hadn’t seen them since her wedding day, more than three years before. Her uncle looked like he’d aged ten years.

She reached down to pick Mary up and then thought better of it. “I hardly recognized you,” Francesca said. “You’re huge.”

“You’re huge, too,” Mary said, rubbing Francesca’s belly. Mary was her cousin. She could rub until her heart’s content. “We both have on the same-colored dress. That’s a baby in there, right? I’m smart. I’m seven years old.”

Uncle Mike asked if he could touch it.

“Of course,” she said. “You are smart,” she told Mary. “It is a baby. A big one, I think.”

When the baby kicked and Michael recoiled in delight, Francesca noticed her cousin Tony, standing behind his father. She bent down to hug him, too. He smiled but didn’t say anything. There was a man in a long coat behind them, too, who must have been a bodyguard.

“My brother doesn’t talk much,” Mary said. “But he’s not retarded. When he sings he can say anything. People are going to sing at the fancy ball, did you know that?”

“You’re retarded,” Tony said, perfectly well.

“I was hoping I’d see you here,” Francesca said. “When did you get in?”

Michael looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes ago.”

“Are you staying long?” Francesca asked. “We’re not really moved in, but I’d love to have you come see our apartment.”

A look passed between Billy and Michael, then Billy turned the other way. The only other time they’d seen each other had been at the wedding; Billy had acted funny then, too. She knew it had to do with how her family’s past might affect his political future. Every marriage has taboo conversations, she thought, and this, really, was their only one. They were lucky.

“Just for the night,” Michael said. “Next time I’m in town, maybe. The work with the transition team is over, obviously, but I should still be back here on business fairly often.”

Billy extended his hand to the bodyguard. “Billy Van Arsdale.”

“We met,” Al Neri said. But that was all he said.

“C’mon, Uncle Mike,” Francesca said. “You sure you don’t have time for a home-cooked breakfast?”

“Yeah, are you sure?” Mary said. “Mommy says breakfast is the most importantest meal of the day.”

“All you eat for breakfast is cheese,” Tony said.

“That’s from a song,” Mary scoffed. “I eat everything. Please, Daddy? Can we go?”

Marguerite Duvall took the stage with ten women in red lingerie and ten slim men in tight-fitting simulated chaps, to re-create the big production number from Cattle Call, complete with the burning bordello and her famous risqué-but-classy finish. Rita played the French madam, the best friend of the sheriff. It was a small role, but this number had helped get her a Tony award nomination (that and the rumor that she was sleeping with the man who was now president).

Johnny Fontane stood in the wings, dressed in a white cape with a purple satin lining and a striped swallowtail tuxedo designed especially for tonight’s event by the best designer in Milan. He was sipping what looked like bourbon but was really tea and honey in a rocks glass.

“The lovely and talented Miss Done-’Em-All Duvall,” said Buzz Fratello, shaking his head in admiration. He and Dotty were on next. “I hear she’s fucking Fuckface, too.”

Johnny had introduced her to both Jimmy Shea and Louie Russo. But Fontane had included Rita in the inaugural ball on his own, with no word from either of them. The talent roster had been his call. The Ambassador made some suggestions, but Johnny ignored him. Rita might not be the biggest star here, but she’d been nominated for a Tony award, for Christ’s sake. For Fontane, she was a good luck charm. He’d met her when Hal Mitchell rounded her up-back when she was just some struggling French showgirl-for a threesome the night before the first sessions on Fontane Blue. Ever since then, Johnny Fontane’s life had been mostly Saturday nights. Even when things had gone south with Annie McGowan, a week in Acapulco with Rita and a Golden Globe for that picture about the alkie detective, and everything was so jake it was jacob.

The fake bawdy house was in flames now. The audience seemed to be eating it up.

“Look at him,” Fratello said, meaning the president: front and center, holding hands with his wife and beaming at the taut-legged, high-kicking ersatz hookers. “I’ll sleep a lot better tonight knowing the leader of the free world is a man who appreciates fine pussy,” he said.

“Relaxes the hand that’s on the button,” Johnny agreed.

Buzz made his inimitable leering noises. “Which button we talkin’ about?” Buzz asked, which cracked Johnny up.

“Let me ask you something, Buzz,” Johnny said. “You’re a paesano. You sing in all the same joints I do. You know the same guys I know. Why don’t they ask you that Mafia shit?”

“You know the definition of dirty Guinea? An Italian gentleman who just left the room.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m funny,” Buzz said. “Who ever heard of a funny gangster?”

“I got news for you, pally. You’re not that funny.”

“I love you, too, you wop bastard.”

Not a lot of other people could talk to him this way, but from Buzz it was different.

“C’mon. You own a part of a casino, Johnny. Who else owns casinos but wiseguys?”

“A lot of people, and you know it.”

“I know it, but that’s not how people see it,” Buzz said. “Look, I hear it, too. What you said to that reporter yesterday, you were right.”

“I never read that about you.”

“You probably sold more records since we been talkin’ than I will all year. Crook your little finger, and any chick alive follows you home. And you’re a movie star. If that ain’t enough, you got your pussy-chasing partner there elected president, and he owes you. When you’re on top of the world, my dago friend, little people sit home at night, dreaming about knockin’ you down. Forget it. You’ll live longer.”

Jimmy Shea was a man of vision who’d inspired the country and gotten the most votes. Nobody got him elected. Johnny had worked hard to help him, but so had a lot of people. Still, he was proud Jimmy had won, and he had high hopes for what it would be like to be one of the best friends of the president. He’d already redone his estate in Las Vegas, expanding the main house and building bungalows for guests and Secret Service. There was a second pool now and even a helicopter pad. Jimmy had said it would be his western White House.

Now came the big finish. The stage was full of fake smoke, and Rita tore off her dress. She was wearing a body suit. The squares in the cheap seats might have sworn they saw her bird, but from where Johnny Fontane stood, it was pure cornball, not to mention a lousy substitute for Rita in the genuine altogether.

“You know the other reason they don’t ask me as often if I’m in the Mafia?”

“What’s that?” Johnny was backing away, ready to take the stage.

“Because I’m not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Buzz lowered his head. “I am sorry if I have displeased you.” He dropped to his knees, grabbed Johnny Fontane’s right hand, and kissed the signet ring Annie McGowan had given him during their brief marriage. “Forgive me, Godfather.”

Only once did Billy Van Arsdale ask Francesca Corleone if her family was in the Mafia. It was the day before his graduation from Florida State. His parents had taken them to dinner at the Governor’s Club, gotten into a noisy, drunken argument, and left separately. “I love your family,” she’d said, deadpan, hoping to lighten the mood. It had come out wrong.

“At least,” he said, “they’re not in the Mafia.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” she said.

“I don’t know.” He brightened, as if he’d been waiting to ask the question from the time they’d met and finally had his opening. “Is your family in the Mafia?”

“That’s what you think, isn’t it? That all Italians are in the Mafia? That we eat-a the pizza, we squeeze-a the tomatoes, and we-”

“Not all Italians,” he said. “I’m only asking about the male members of your family.”

“Of course not.” She threw down her napkin. She stood up, punched him in the mouth, and stormed out.

She knew that her family was in the Mafia-Kathy had convinced her-but Francesca hadn’t meant to lie. What she’d heard was her own anxiety, the anxiety that lurked behind his question: the fear that Billy was with her only because she seemed exotic. He was always looking for something new and different: foreign movies, the latest records, beat poetry in a coffeehouse in Frenchtown, the Negro neighborhood in Tallahassee. Once, they had driven six hours to the Seminole Reservation so he could learn to wrestle alligators. Every few weeks, it seemed, he started some new hobby. Every haircut was a little different than the one before it.

Can’t you see Billy’s just here, Kathy had said, to experience a gen-u-ine Mafia Christmas?

Francesca started running through the hot night, determined not to cry. It was over. Fine. Good. He’d been her first love, but so what? He wouldn’t be her last. He was going off to Harvard Law School in the fall, and she’d be back here. It probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Also, he was a jerk. A phony. It had felt great to hit him. It had made a great smacking noise that had sounded more impressive than what people would expect from a girl. Her hand still tingled. She’d have to thank her brother Frankie for being such a pain in the ass over the years and giving her the chance to hone her skills.

The same mysterious ability Billy deployed to breeze into and out of all those inauguration-night parties had been on display that night in Tallahassee, too. She’d had no destination. She’d run down a hill and into a residential neighborhood unfamiliar to her, and at the exact moment she realized she might be lost, she heard a car slow down beside her and there was Billy, in his Thunderbird. He’d known just where to go.

“Wow, what a punch!” He was smiling, laughing through his big, undamaged white teeth. She was a girl who could knock your block off, another way she was exotic and new. “I love you, slugger.”

“How did your family get so rich?” she asked. “Behind every great fortune there’s a crime.” She’d read that in a book by one of the French writers Kathy was studying. Balzac, maybe.

“Several, I’m sure,” he said. “Those assholes are capable of anything.”

Those assholes were his father and grandfather. It was bizarre to hear anyone talk about his family that way.

She got in the car.

They made up that night, but the drama of that evening set the tone for their courtship.

The long-distance romance had all the melodrama such things do among the young, fraught with ten-page letters, sneaking suspicions, and tearful phone calls-at least on Francesca’s part. Billy claimed to be so busy at Harvard that he barely had time to eat or sleep, much less write her letters or talk on the phone long distance. Then he sent her a postcard, of all things, a typed postcard, to tell her he’d gotten an internship with a firm in New York and wasn’t coming back home to south Florida that summer. She borrowed her roommate Suzy’s VW bug and drove all night to Cambridge, to end the whole mess in person. Naturally, she and Billy slept together. She went home more confused than ever and, it turned out, pregnant.

He wanted her to get an abortion.

Then he even made arrangements for a doctor in Palm Beach to do it.

Francesca couldn’t bear the thought of it. But she certainly didn’t want to have the baby, either. Marrying Billy-not that he’d asked or even mentioned the possibility-was out of the question. She told Kathy-the first and only person she’d confided in-that she wouldn’t marry that snake if he was the last man on earth. Everything that could happen was something Francesca Corleone definitely would not do.

Billy broke his leg skydiving (the end of another new hobby), and while he was in the hospital he had a sudden change of heart-inexplicable, from Francesca’s perspective, though who can explain a change of heart? The day he was discharged, he flew to see her and proposed.

Overjoyed, she accepted.

They were married in July with him still on crutches. She’d been upset that he’d have to slit the leg of his tux, and he assured her he could afford the small tailoring charge. She got upset about a lot of things-a pregnant bride’s prerogative, perhaps, but all of it a substitute for the two things she was really upset about: her walks up and down the aisle. Down would be pathetic, with Billy on crutches. But up would be impossible. Who could ever take her father’s place? Not her little brothers, and certainly not Stan the Liquor Man (who was still engaged to her mother and who still hadn’t married her). Uncle Fredo was older than Uncle Mike, and she knew Uncle Fredo better. She was drawn to Uncle Mike, though, and always had been. He was a war hero, a romantic figure, a man who looked great in a tuxedo. She knew some of his dark secrets-at least via the imperfect conduits of Kathy and Aunt Connie-but despite this, in the end he was the only man she could imagine giving her away. “It’s who Pop would want,” she told Kathy, her maid of honor, expecting her twin sister to disagree. “Obviously,” Kathy said instead. No one said obviously with more withering scorn than Kathy. “Who else?”

Uncle Mike balanced Francesca’s jittery nerves with his dignified and regal bearing. He told her that her father would have been proud, that Santino was here, watching, be sure of that. But he was smart enough to say this a long time before they went up the aisle, so that they could cry together and get those tears out of the way. When they were finally alone in the narthex, he took her arm and told her not to worry. He shrugged. “It’s only the rest of your life.”

She laughed. It was the perfect thing to say.

She went down the aisle happy. Only when Michael gave her hand to Billy did she see that it was her uncle whose face was streaked with tears.

On the trip back down the aisle, she steadied Billy, and he managed to make it without crutches. At the reception, he even danced. He was such a bad dancer in the first place, at least with the cast he had an excuse.

They moved to Boston. When he finished law school, he turned down a job making a fortune on Wall Street (he already had a fortune) in favor of being a clerk for a judge on the Florida Supreme Court. It was tough to be back in Tallahassee as her class graduated (she went to Suzy Kimball’s graduation party and hardly knew the poised young woman who was bound for missionary work in China). But Francesca had a family now and truly did think she was happy-at least until Billy quit his job with the court to work for Floridians for Shea. He was gone all the time. Eventually Francesca found out that he was doing more than campaigning.

How did she find out about That Woman?

Francesca was a Corleone. It was a maxim, much repeated in her family, that it was impossible, over time, to deceive a Corleone. That was one theory. She was also that most dangerous of adversaries to philandering: a woman whose darkest fear is that her husband doesn’t think she’s good enough for him.

Ernest Hemingway is not Papa, that guy with the white beard. He’s not the voice of a lost generation. He’s not a straw man to be dismissed as sexist by tweedy frauds whose lives will give less to the world than any of several of Hemingway’s lesser afternoons. He’s those great early books. Nothing else matters.

Einstein is not a poster boy for genius. Picasso is not a swarthy bald womanizer. Mozart isn’t an enfant terrible. Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath aren’t tragic affronts to the oppressive male hegemony. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King aren’t harmless, lovable little brown guys white people can feel comfortable endorsing. Babe Ruth isn’t a fat slob who ate hot dogs and visited sick kids in the hospital. Yes, the Mafia fixed the Sonny Liston fight that allowed Muhammad Ali to become the heavyweight champ in the first place, and, yes, Ali stood up for what he believed in. But first and foremost, he was a man who could knock the toughest motherfucker in the valley on his ass and make it seem like poetry.

Johnny Fontane was a fine actor when he felt like it. He had an enviably large penis that he put to great use. He helped transform Las Vegas from a desert stopover into the fastest-growing city in the United States. He was the son of immigrant parents, the embodiment of the American dream. He looked great in a hat. He invented American cool (Caucasian division).

Big deal.

What difference does it make that Fontane gave the Shea campaign a half-million bucks in a satchel that had been a personal gift from Jackie Ping-Pong? Ping-Pong had nothing to do with the money itself. Johnny had to carry it in something. (And, anyway, he lived in a world where people gave a lot of gifts. Once, he’d had an accountant who told him to cut back on all that. Fontane sent him a Rolex.) Fontane raised millions for that campaign, so what does it matter that this particular half million was part of the skim from the Kasbah, a Chicago-owned casino in Las Vegas? What difference does it make who in West Virginia wound up with it, or how exactly those recipients might have used it to ensure that Jimmy Shea won a state that he might have won anyway?

Fontane introduced Rita Duvall to both Louie Russo and Jimmy Shea (not to mention Fredo Corleone, whose baby she put up for adoption in 1956, right before her career took off). What happened after the introductions had to do with her, not Johnny Fontane.

Once, a sheriff’s deputy who’d taken a swing at Johnny Fontane after Fontane had fucked the guy’s wife died mysteriously in the desert. So what? Fontane fucked a lot of men’s wives. People die mysteriously in the desert every day. There was never a shred of evidence of any causal connection between those two terrible but commonplace truths.

Sure, Fontane was Vito Corleone’s godson. He got along with Michael, too. He was friendly with Russo, with Tony Stracci, with Gussie Cicero, and so on. So were a lot of people (Ambassador M. Corbett Shea, for example). He wasn’t a member of anyone’s quote-unquote crime family. Johnny Fontane was just loyal to people who were loyal to him when his life was nothing but Mondays.

Butta-beepa-da-boppa-da-boop.

In the end, Johnny Fontane was a singer. The world will not see his like again.

He called himself a saloon singer, but at first that was Sicilian humility, then false modesty, then-after the masterpieces of American song that he released in the late fifties and early sixties-a disingenuous joke that the whole world was in on.

Take, as only one of many examples one might cite, his performance at James K. Shea’s inaugural ball.

That famous striped tux would have looked clownish on anyone else, but on Fontane it seems perfectly natural, one of the signal moments in twentieth-century style. All evening, he’s a charming and funny master of ceremonies, with none of the boys-will-be-boys dicking around from his nightclub act or the ponderous showbiz patter of his late-career arena shows. He is, when called upon, a brilliant duet partner-most notably with Ella Fitzgerald on a quiet, stirring a cappella version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Fontane’s own set consists of just three songs. The occasion would not seem to play to his strengths. His greatest recordings were either torch songs sung from a singularly male perspective or anthemic renditions of numbers about battered losers who endure-neither of which would have struck the right note for the occasion.

We first see him alone, in a pool of light. The top hat sits on a stool beside him. The music starts, just a piano and drums. Brushes. It’s a slow, loping arrangement of “It Had to Be You.” Fontane holds the microphone away from him at an angle and sings with his head cocked toward the ceiling. Throughout the song, Fontane moves the mike to alter his tone, playing it as well as Charlie Parker played his horn. Great voices abound, but Johnny Fontane is something rarer: a great singer.

The crowd bursts into applause. Fontane grabs his top hat and rips into “Ridin’ High,” stalking the stage with an animal ferocity Cole Porter could never have imagined. When Fontane finishes, breathless, the crowd leaps to its feet. Fontane’s grin is unmistakably that of a kid who grew up with nothing and looks out to see he’s got more than everything.

While there may be little to redeem the earnest version of “Big Dreams” that the Shea campaign co-opted as its official theme song (with new lyrics written by Wally Morgan), Johnny Fontane, suffused with the triumph of the moment, gives it a hero’s try. He certainly seems sincere. After the opening verse, a curtain behind him rises, and the rest of the night’s acts stride forth and join in for the chorus. When the camera cuts to the audience, the houselights are up and everyone’s standing and singing along, too. The president kisses his first lady. Fontane throws them his top hat. The president catches it and puts it on. It fits.

Chapter 25

I KNOW YOUR NAME IS BILLY, ” Mary said. “I only call you Bee-Boy because my cousin Kathy who looks just like Francie only without a baby inside calls you that too, even though I thought of it first, back when I was a baby. But I’d been born, of course.”

“I like it,” Billy said, showing everyone inside the apartment, “coming from you.”

Francesca had been up since four, unpacking the kitchen boxes, going to the grocery store, and cooking breakfast. She was exhausted but used to it. The baby kicked so much she hadn’t been getting much sleep anyway.

“Everything’s just about ready,” she said. “Excuse the mess. We’ve only been here two days. Billy, why don’t you give them the ten-cent tour and then we’ll eat. Hey, Sonny! Get over here, right now! We have guests!”

Her son got up from in front of the TV and ran and tackled Tony. Sonny was just shy of his third birthday. Tony was nine. Tony took it well. Uncle Mike noted his son’s patience with obvious approval. She’d never noticed much resemblance between Uncle Mike and Grandpa Vito, but suddenly it was there in her uncle’s weary eyes, so much so it was spooky.

“So this is Sonny,” Michael said, picking him up. “I’m your Uncle Mike. You’re pretty tough, huh?”

Francesca rolled her eyes. “Sonny won’t take that helmet off. Half the time he even sleeps in it. It’s Frankie’s fault. At Christmas, all he did was teach Sonny how to play football.”

Billy, for no apparent reason, eyed Uncle Mike as if he thought he might drop Sonny.

“Good teacher, I bet,” Michael said. Frankie Corleone, as a sophomore, had started at linebacker for Notre Dame.

“You like football, sport?” Billy asked Tony.

Tony shrugged.

“That’s the way I am, too,” Billy said, mussing the boy’s hair.

“He hates that,” Mary said.

“I don’t mind,” Tony said.

She reached for his hair herself, and he slapped her hand. Michael set Sonny down, scooped Mary up in one arm, and held Tony by the hand with the other.

“Sorry,” Michael said. They immediately calmed down. He was an amazing father.

“Don’t be,” Francesca said. “They’re just being kids. I bet you fought with your brothers and Aunt Connie worse than that. I’m lucky I never killed my sister.”

“Nice apartment,” Michael said.

The building was more than a hundred years old. It was once a mansion and had been divided into four big apartments. Theirs was on the ground floor and included most of what must have been a ballroom and was now their living room, dining room, and kitchen. The wooden floors were sloped and buckled enough that Sonny’s toys and marbles were forever rolling across rooms. Francesca loved it. She’d never lived anyplace that was more than twenty years old before, and certainly nowhere so elegant, however faded. Several times a day she’d walk to the curb just to look at it and marvel that this was where she lived.

Thinking of this, she looked out at the curb and saw Al Neri still sitting in the car. “Your driver can come in, too, you know,” she said as everyone sat down. “I bet he’s hungry.”

“He ate already,” Michael said. “He gets up early.”

Francesca wasn’t really that anxious about breakfast-after all, other than Uncle Mike, it was just Billy and three kids. Still, she apologized for the sausages, which were the best she had been able to find on short notice-she had no idea where to shop-but everyone else seemed to think they were fine. The rolls she’d found weren’t what she’d have chosen, either, but they went over all right, too. She could only blame being pregnant for the box of jelly doughnuts.

Her fretting gave her something to talk about other than Aunt Kay. She couldn’t figure out how to bring that up. The Corleones were Catholic, yet in the last few years both Aunt Connie (who’d been married to Ed Federici for less than a year before they’d split up) and Uncle Mike had gotten divorced. And there must be some reason her mother and Stan the Liquor Man had never gotten married. All that, plus Billy’s situation. It had Francesca worried. She couldn’t think of much that would be more horrible than living a continent away from your kids.

“I was sorry to hear about you and Kay,” Billy said. Blurted it out, just like that. Francesca didn’t know whether to admire him for his bluntness or slap him.

Michael answered with a rueful nod.

Francesca reached across the table and gave her uncle’s arm a squeeze in sympathy.

“I spent my whole childhood rooting for my parents to get a divorce,” Billy said. “But you and Kay didn’t-”

She kicked him under the table.

“You never know, I guess,” Billy said. “How often do you get to see Tony and Mary?”

Just like that, right in front of them. Slapping him seemed like the way to go.

“Not as often as I’d like,” Uncle Mike said. “I’m trying to rearrange some of my responsibilities with my businesses so that I’ll have more time for that.”

“Daddy has a new airplane!” Mary said. “He’s going to fly and see us all the time now.”

Tony took another jelly doughnut, though he hadn’t eaten the one that was on his plate.

“I keep a small apartment in New York for when I’m there on business,” Michael said. “I may get something bigger so that they can stay there, too, whenever I come east.”

“I still think of all of you as being in New York,” Francesca said. “It seems like you just moved to Nevada.”

“Six years,” Michael said. “Almost four in Tahoe. I kept both houses, in Vegas and Tahoe, too. They’re both bigger than I need, but for Mary and Tony they’re home. They’ve been home.”

“It’s different these days,” Billy said. “People move around a lot more. Look at us, sweetie. Three years of marriage, three addresses.”

“It’s funny,” she said, “all those years in Florida, and I still think of New York as home. I should have gone to college there, the way Kathy did. She loved being back.”

“But then we’d have never met,” Billy said.

Francesca cocked her head. He was completely sincere, crestfallen, as if he really were imagining never meeting her. It was so impossibly vulnerable, she just melted.

“The love of my life,” she said, completely sincere, too, reaching out to stroke his cheek.

“Francie and Bee-Boy sittin’ in a tree,” Mary said. “C’mon, Tony. Sing it with me.”

“Dad,” Tony said. “Tell her to cut it out.”

Michael Corleone raised his coffee cup. “To love,” he said.

It was the perfect thing to say.

The kids stopped squabbling and everyone raised a glass, and no one, Francesca thought, could have felt anything but love.

Except Billy, whose participation in the toast couldn’t have been more halfhearted.

When they left, Francesca sent a plate of food along for the bodyguard.

They stood on the white marble front steps, waving as the car pulled away. “You always say you love my family,” she said to Billy. Sonny was running in circles, arms pumping, carrying his teddy bear like a football. “So why don’t you like my uncle?”

They’d been through so much. Why not get rid of this taboo, too?

But Billy didn’t say anything. He called to Sonny to stay away from the street. Sonny wasn’t all that close to the street, actually, but Billy picked him up and went inside.

That night, after Sonny was asleep, Francesca came to bed, exhausted, to see that Billy had her side covered with file folders. He was propped up on his side, reading.

“Want me to sleep on the sofa?”

He looked up, startled, then immediately scooped up the folders and dropped them to the floor. She got into bed, and he turned off the light and started giving her a massage: unhurried, careful, lingering on her swollen feet and sore lower back. She’d come to bed with barely enough energy to close her eyes, but when he finally took her nightgown all the way off, she turned toward him, and when his tongue slid between her lips, she let out a low, hungry gasp.

“What was that?” he said.

“Shut up and love me,” she said.

For a few moments, minutes, she forgot everything she was worried about and just was.

Out of breath afterward and slick with sweat, she felt enormous again. Billy rested his tanned arm on her mountainous fish-white belly. They lay like that for a long time.

The baby started kicking, harder than ever.

“Why don’t I like your uncle, huh?” Billy asked.

“Forget it,” she said. She knew, anyway, or thought she did. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

She felt the searing pain of a contraction.

“Wow. I felt that,” Billy said. “What a kick!”

She clenched her jaw to endure the pain. It started to ease.

“Remember when I broke my leg skydiving?” Billy said.

“Of course I do,” she said, her breathing slowing now.

“I lied. I’ve never been skydiving in my life.”

Her hips bucked with another contraction, sharper this time.

“I think this is it,” Francesca said. “I think I’m having the baby.”

That night, Francesca fell victim to her family’s grim history. Her paternal grandmother always refused to talk about it, but she’d had at least four miscarriages. Her maternal grandmother went to Mass every July 22 to mourn the one she had. Her mother and two of her aunts had suffered them, too.

Francesca’s baby, born three months prematurely, was a fighter. She lived for almost a day. She was named Carmela, after her great-grand-mother. Francesca wanted to bury her next to her as well, on the family burial plot on Long Island. Billy disagreed. He thought the baby should be buried in Florida. Circumstances-the horror of losing the baby and Billy’s all-around contrition even before that-ensured that this was a disagreement, not an argument, and that Francesca would prevail.

Michael Corleone paid for everything. Francesca knew that Billy objected, but she was pleased that he had the good sense not to insult her uncle by refusing his help. The ceremony was small and held at the cemetery, in a driving snowstorm.

Billy’s parents didn’t even come. Her own twin sister didn’t come, either-just sent a telegram from London saying she was sorry to learn the bad news. Her brother Frankie missed the spring intersquad football game for it and never complained. Her brother Chip missed his own sixteenth birthday party for it, also without a second thought. Family.

It was a traditional Italian cemetery, with pictures of the dead in cameo frames mounted on the marble monument. As Francesca left, she bent to kiss the cold images. Grandma Carmela. Grandpa Vito. Zia Angelina. Uncle Carlo. Her father, Santino Corleone. She looked into his laughing eyes and thought, See you next time, Daddy.

Uncle Fredo was missing and presumed dead, but there was no picture of him here. There was no picture of baby Carmela, either. None had been taken. She’d lived, briefly, but had had no life.

Uncle Mike, as busy as he undoubtedly was, came early, stayed late, and was a tremendous comfort. Not even her mother was able to talk to Francesca as openly about the nightmare of losing a child as Uncle Mike did. And seeing Sonny playing with Tony and Mary at the reception afterward, watching how well they got along, what buoyant spirits they all seemed to have, gave Francesca hope she could go on.

Billy was struggling with the baby’s death and, understandably, was having a hard time talking about it.

She was having a hard time not blaming him. It was irrational, she knew. But it seemed like a kind of justice being visited on them for his having wanted her to get an abortion when she had been pregnant with Sonny. And what on earth had possessed him to think that telling her he’d been so disinclined to marry her in the first place that he’d only done it after her uncle had sent men to break his leg would make him seem like the good guy in the story?

On top of that, every time she looked at him, she imagined that he was worrying about being photographed by the police or the FBI while attending a gen-u-ine Mafia funeral. That was probably unfair. She had no idea what he was thinking. But they had been photographed. Evil, heartless bastards. She was starting to understand the oppression her uncle faced every day, that her father had faced every day, too.

Suddenly, on the day she buried her own daughter, it clicked. He’d used his parents’ money and his efforts in the Shea campaign to get the job in the attorney general’s office so he could destroy her family.

That was ridiculous, she immediately realized. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She was emotional, distraught, with crazy hormones running amok from head to toe. This was Billy. Whatever his faults-and who doesn’t have faults?-this was the one true love of her life.

Still.

When she’d accused Billy, once, of there having been a crime behind his own family’s fortune, he’d nonchalantly said he was sure there’d been several. Those assholes are capable of anything, he’d said, and he hadn’t been joking. So why was he worried about whatever her family might or might not have done? She knew what her sister would say: Because we’re Italian. It was Kathy who’d found out that the new president’s father had been in business with Grandpa Vito. Bootlegging. A crime that no longer exists. A crime that never should have been a crime, but a crime nonetheless. A generation later, James K. Shea is in the White House and Michael Corleone (again, according to Kathy, who’d gotten it from Aunt Connie, who’d sobered up and seemed a more reliable source than she used to be) had cut himself off from criminal activity of any kind and yet was still being trailed by the heartless maggots from law enforcement at the family-only funeral of his baby niece. Why? Because we’re Italian.

A few weeks later, on a transatlantic call Francesca had been working up to since the funeral, she woke her sister up from a deep sleep and told her how much she’d been hurt that Kathy hadn’t come home.

“You had a funeral?” Kathy said. “I thought it was just a miscarriage.”

“Just a miscarriage? And anyway, she lived for-”

“Do you know what time it is here?”

“How could you not know we’d have a funeral? When I lost baby Carmela-”

“You named it? Oh, honey. Honey. You named it after Grandma?”

It.

Francesca hung up.

Even though Jimmy Shea had said that he probably wouldn’t be able to get out to Las Vegas until after his administration’s first hundred days, from the moment Johnny Fontane got back from Washington, he took time out of his frantic professional schedule to oversee preparations at his newly expanded estate as if the president’s first visit would be tomorrow. Johnny added ten people to his staff, including a retired member of the Secret Service, whose job was to stay in constant contact with his old agency, to be ready at a moment’s notice if the president needed to come west and blow off a little steam. There was now a guest room accessible through an ingenious recessed panel from what would be the president’s office as well as from a stairway in the floor of the closet, which would allow the Secret Service to show women in and out via the new underground garage. Louie Russo had given Rita Duvall her own suite at the Kasbah, but as a backup, Fontane had at least three of Hollywood’s reigning sex goddesses clamoring to be of service as well, again at a moment’s notice. Danny Shea had started back up with Annie McGowan, who’d been his mistress before she had been married to Johnny, and Johnny had made it clear to them both that they’d be welcome anytime, together or separately. He’d given several of the best chefs in L.A. fifty thousand apiece just to agree to drop everything and come when Johnny called. Johnny didn’t go for drugs himself, but Bobby Chadwick and the president both had a thing for cocaine; the stuff Gussie Cicero had gotten him was supposedly as pure as it gets.

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

TOM 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.

Still in his golf clothes, Tom Hagen flicked on the lights of his office in Las Vegas, above a shoe store near Fremont, and sat down at his desk-the rolltop that had once been Genco Abbandando’s, shipped here from Vito Corleone’s house on the mall. At this point in Hagen’s career, he had the connections to get anybody’s story on his desk and gift wrapped, generally with three or four calls, nearly always in no time at all. An hour, by his standards, was a pretty lousy showing. He already had the information Lucadello had given to register at the Castle in the Sand and what he’d learned about the guy during a morning on the golf course. He estimated that Joe Lucadello would be a three-call, twenty-minute job. Hagen looked at his watch, noted the time, and picked up the phone.

Four hours later, Hagen had nothing. No one by that name had ever worked for Eastern Airlines, flown for the RCAF, or been a member of the CCC. The Philly people had never heard of him. He’d never been fingerprinted anywhere in the United States. He’d never registered a car, a boat, a gun, or a legal complaint. He’d never paid federal income tax. Sure, the identity was probably a fake, but even a fake ID left more of a trace than this. As far as Hagen could tell, there was no Joe Lucadello. He’d played golf all morning with Casper the One-Eyed Ghost.

Just to have anything at all to show for his afternoon, he checked out the Ambassador’s story. All of it was true: he’d been at Johnny’s but left; he had in fact met with the people at the university, who were very eager to know if Mr. Shea seemed inclined to approve the building. “The Ambassador’s a hard man to read,” Hagen said. “Good luck to you, though.”

He looked at his watch again. He’d barely have time to change and make it to the opening at the art museum.

He sped to the hotel and ran around getting ready to go out for the night as if he were dreadfully late, but he arrived at the museum early, as usual. The opening didn’t start for twenty minutes. Theresa, the chairwoman of the museum’s acquisitions committee, was at the airport picking up the artist. The wizened docent minding the velvet rope wagged her finger at Hagen and told him to hold his horses, but the museum director rushed over and apologized profusely.

Tom had never heard of this artist, but he saw right away that the exhibit was Theresa’s idea of a compromise, garnished with a wicked joke. He couldn’t help but smile. She had a degree in art history, and her taste ran toward abstract painting. Many of the ladies on her committee were blue-haired ranchers’ wives who didn’t know art but knew what they liked. They liked lugubrious oil paintings of Indians. They liked Norman Rockwell. They liked some of Picasso’s early work. The show was called “Cats, Cars, and Comics: The Pop Art of Andy Warhol.” The cars looked like they’d been copied from magazine ads, with the same image of a sports car repeated in neat rows and many colors. The comics were blotchy enlargements of Popeye and Superman. The bluehairs loved the cats, though, even the green one with red eyes that gave Hagen the willies.

The rope came down. Still no Theresa. A sparse crowd began to gather.

“Nice car,” Michael said, pointing. He’d arrived along with a group of stockholders and fronts in their biggest real estate company, plus Al Neri and some other muscle. After this they were all going to a private dinner Enzo Arguello was serving up in the rotating ballroom at the Castle. “All those different colors make it hard to choose, though.”

“I think maybe that’s sort of the point,” Hagen said.

Finally, Theresa arrived with what had to be the artist, a frail, blank-faced young man with pinkish blond hair and red-lensed glasses. The bluehairs swarmed him.

“Your friend Joe seemed like a good man,” Hagen said.

“He is,” Michael said. “One of the best I’ve ever met.”

“Is that right?” Hagen said.

“You have a nice afternoon?” Michael said.

It was not said kindly.

How the hell could he have learned about that blackjack dealer in Bonanza Village? Hagen had taken every precaution. Had it been the flowers? A phone tap?

“You didn’t find a thing, did you?”

Lucadello. That’s what he was talking about. “I just made a few calls on him,” Tom said. “I had some other paperwork. But to answer your question, no. I didn’t.”

“If you wanted to know about my friend Joe, why didn’t you ask me?”

“I was just curious,” Hagen said.

Michael raised his wineglass and nodded toward the green cat. “To curiosity,” he said, but did not drink.

“Did something get back to you?”

“Nothing got back to me,” Michael said, switching to Sicilian. “I know how you think, Tom. I knew what you’d do. It’s who you are, why you’re such a good lawyer.”

“So what Family is he with?” Tom asked, in Sicilian, too. “I contacted Nunzio in Philly-”

“Why do you leap to the conclusion that Joe is a part of this thing of ours, Tom? Because he has an Italian name? I’m disappointed in you.”

“Not because he has an Italian name, no. Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Look, it’s fine. Everything you want to know about Joe he’ll tell you himself.” Michael switched back to English. “Actually, more like everything you need to know. At any rate, we’re meeting with him at midnight in my suite.”

Theresa had escaped from the ring of people surrounding the artist and made a beeline over to her husband and Michael. “What do you think?”

“Great,” Michael said.

“Visionary,” Tom said.

She put her arm around him, as if they were still schoolkids.

“I hate it, too,” Theresa said. “But, believe me, it’ll be big. Him, too.”

“Late plane?” Tom asked, holding out his arms the way the sarge had, which did manage to get a smile out of Mike.

Theresa shook her head. “He made me stop so he could get out and walk down the Strip. He stared at one marquee, just stared without moving, for-God, I don’t know. Forever. He did it again at a gift shop window. He took every whorehouse leaflet he could get his hands on, too. Hundreds of them, for art purposes obviously, but who ended up carrying them? Moi.”

“Obviously?” Tom said.

“I don’t think he likes girls,” Theresa stage-whispered.

Tom averted his eyes from Michael’s.

“Anyway,” Theresa said, “now he’s over there telling everybody that in the future, America will be Las Vegas. Not be like Vegas. Be Vegas. The man’s been here three hours.”

Michael shrugged. “Some people catch on quick.”

After the dinner meeting, when they got to Michael’s suite, Joe Lucadello was already there, shirtless, still in his orange pants, sitting at the bar and playing solitaire.

“Tom! What a treat. C’mon in.” As if it were his suite. “Mike tells me you were interested in getting to know me better. I’m flattered.”

Tom had been with Michael the entire time since the art museum. There would have been no time Michael could have told Joe anything.

Al and Tommy Neri had followed them in. Michael gave them a nod, and they headed to the adjoining room, closing the door behind them.

“Mike tells you that, huh?” Hagen looked around the room and realized why it seemed so familiar. The pool table. This was the same suite where Fredo had lived before he had been married. It had been redecorated, but the pool table was the same. Michael turned on the television, loud. The TV was also new. Fredo had kept the TV on all the time just for the sake of having noise around, but these days they turned it on to provide cover from possible wiretaps. The late show was on, some old picture with people in togas.

Joe raised an open bottle of Pernod in one hand, a sealed bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other, and arched his eyebrows. As he did, Hagen tried to see behind the eye patch, but no dice.

“I’ll pass,” Tom said. “Look, I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but I’ve had a long day, and it’s not over yet, so would you mind telling me what’s going on? Whoever you are.”

“He’s Joe Lucadello,” Michael said, racking the balls on the pool table. “That’s God’s honest truth.”

“Though I haven’t been Joe Lucadello in fifteen years,” Joe admitted.

“Oh yeah?” Hagen said. “So who are you?”

“Nobody. Anybody. Mike knows me as Joe Lucadello, which was who I was back when we first met. It still is who I am, of course, but as you took it upon yourself to learn, other than the hotel registration last night-which will disappear, by the way-there’s no record of me anywhere. A few people have memories of that young man, but that’s all.”

“Right,” Hagen said. “You’re a ghost.”

Joe laughed. “Excellent guess, Tom! You’re very warm.”

The shattering sound of Michael Corleone’s break startled Tom off his bar stool.

Then it hit him. What’s close to ghost? Spook. Joe was a spook. CIA.

“Sure you don’t want a drink?” Joe said. “You’re pretty jumpy.”

“He drinks a lot of coffee.” Michael sank two balls off the break. He kept shooting. “Like you can’t believe. Gallons.”

“Stuff’ll kill you,” Joe said.

Hagen turned on the bar stool to face Michael. “What’s going on here? This one-eyed guy you haven’t seen since Christ left Chicago stops by on vacation claiming he’s in the-”

“Company,” Joe said.

“And we’re supposed to believe him? Without checking-”

Michael slammed the two ball into a corner pocket, much harder than necessary.

“You’re off your game, Tom,” Michael said in Sicilian. “All this jumping to conclusions. Why do you assume I haven’t seen him in years? I simply told you he was my friend Joe that I met in the CCC. Why do you assume I haven’t verified who he works for? Why do you assume he’s stopping by and not that he came here with business to discuss with us?”

Hagen frowned. Us?

And how did Hagen-or Michael, for that matter-know for certain that Joe couldn’t understand Sicilian dialect?

Michael lined up a tough bank shot on the three ball and stroked it in like it was nothing. “Tom, you were my lawyer at those Senate hearings,” he said in English, “and you did a first-rate job, but-”

Three ball, side pocket.

“-I was fortunate enough to have another line of defense.”

“Defense overstates it,” Joe said, gathering up the cards from the bar. “Insurance; that’s all it was. Friends helping friends. You did such a good job, Tom, that we didn’t have to do much of anything.”

Much of anything?

Michael set down the cue stick.

What happened, he said, was that Joe had contacted him not long after the raid on that farmhouse in New York, when the FBI established the Top Hoodlum Program and it became clear they’d be putting more pressure on the so-called Mafia. He and Joe hadn’t seen each other since the day Billy Bishop had asked to see Michael’s pilot’s license and Michael had protected Joe by saying he had no license. In the meantime, Joe had been shot down over Remagen, escaped from a prison camp, then been assigned to a U.S. intelligence detail. After that, one thing led to another. Lots of jobs in Europe. The last few years back on home soil. Long story short, Joe-who’d remained grateful to Mike for what he did-had thought he might be able to help an old friend. He had various ways of keeping a man out of jail, protecting him from prosecution. If it ever came to that, the FBI wouldn’t know who was responsible, wouldn’t even know what had happened. What’s the catch? Michael had wanted to know. No catch, Joe said. We’re not looking for an informant the way the FBI would. Nothing that could get you into trouble within your world. Anything we’d ever ask would be a purely cash-and-carry, services-rendered deal. If Michael was ever asked to do a job he didn’t want to send men to do, Joe promised, that’d be fine. Say no, and that would be the end of it. Joe wasn’t in the market for a slave or a terrified supplicant. Just a vendor.

Hagen started going over all the jobs the past three years that he’d wondered about, but he stopped himself. He couldn’t think about that.

“So why all of a sudden are you bringing me into this?” Hagen said.

“Joe has a proposal,” Michael said. “And I need your counsel. It’s a big step. One step backward from what we’ve been trying to do in order to take a dozen steps ahead. If we accept, I’ll need your full involvement.”

“A proposal?”

Michael picked up his stick, pointed it at Joe, giving him the floor, then started sizing up angles on the impossible shot the four ball seemed to be.

Joe clapped a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “What I’m going to tell you here, you’re either going to like it and be a part of it or else it never happened. One or the other. Obviously, I’m talking to men who understand how to conduct themselves under conditions like that.”

Michael missed the shot, but not by much.

“A long time ago,” said Joe Lucadello, “I told Michael-I’ll bet you remember this, Mike; we were talking about Mussolini-I said that in all of history there’s never been any hero, any villain, any leader of any kind who was impossible to kill.”

Michael nodded. “It made an impression.”

“So here’s your government’s proposal, in a nutshell. This comes directly from Albert Soffet himself”-Soffet was the director of the CIA-“and it has presidential approval. How would you-meaning your business interests-like to be able to go back down to Cuba and pick up right where you left off? How would you like to get paid to do a job for us down there that would make that happen? Supremely well paid, I should add. Every dime is a hundred percent legal, and we can do things so that it’s effectively tax-free. We’d even help train your people. In fact, we’d have to insist on that point.”

“Train them?”

“The revolution changed many things. The men you send to do the job need to know about those things. There are Cuban patriots living in exile who will be able to help as well. We know these people. We’re familiar with their skills and limitations. There’s procedure to follow, too, so that, as I say, nobody goes to jail, be it one in America or, God forbid, Cuba. The risk-let me be clear-is that if and when anything goes wrong, we had nothing to do with it. If the Russians think we’re behind it, as a government, we could be looking at World War Three. Naturally, if your people get into trouble, we’ll do everything possible to help, but not at the expense of revealing our connection with the project. You-your people-will have acted as private citizens. You never met me. I don’t exist.”

Hagen would have been amused by Joe’s spelling all this out-he definitely wasn’t a connected guy of any sort-except for the enormity of the scheme he was suggesting. Killing a lowly beat cop was against the rules of their tradition, Hagen thought. How in the hell were they going to get away with assassinating the leader of another country?

And contrary to what the public and FBI and apparently the CIA seemed to think, killings happened for some reason-self-preservation, revenge-not for a fee.

But wasn’t it revenge? Men had died for stealing a hundred bucks from a Corleone shylock. When the Cuban government had taken over or closed down their casinos-how had that been any different from stealing millions?

And what exactly were the rules that governed a retired Don?

In a spectacular combination shot, Michael Corleone sank the four in the side pocket. The six rolled after the five like a man trying to apologize to an angry lover, and they disappeared into the corner pocket together.

“Wow,” Joe said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

“We expecting someone?” Hagen said.

“He’s late,” Joe said, though it was Michael who went to get the door. “My apologies. As perhaps you know, he’s nearly always late.”

It was Ambassador M. Corbett Shea.

“Sorry, gents,” he said. The Secret Service men stayed in the hall, which meant they’d been allowed to search the room earlier. “I had some business with my sons. So can I tell the president and the attorney general we have a deal? Or do you have questions you’d like me to pass on? How’d you put it, Mr. Cahn-sig-lee-airy? Anything the president needs, consider it done?”

Chapter 27

AFTER LUCADELLO and Shea left, Hagen made himself a stiff drink and went out onto the balcony. Johnny Fontane’s name was in lights on the marquee of the casino across the street, the Kasbah. The Chicago joint. No performer “belonged” to a certain Family, but for years it had rankled Hagen that they’d let the biggest draw in Las Vegas cross the street to play the casino of the Corleones’ biggest rival. Hagen didn’t like Johnny, the way Vito and Fredo did, and even, to an extent, Michael. Michael was right that Families couldn’t be fighting over matters so small as what singer was booked in what casino, but in truth Michael was also covering for Fredo, who’d been responsible for overseeing the entertainment at the Corleone hotels at the time. Thinking his friendship with Johnny was a substitute for negotiation, Fredo had been caught flat-footed when Fontane-who was friendly with Russo, too, after all-had signed a six-year exclusive deal with the Kasbah. Fuck friendly. It was business.

This was business, too. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t let his emotions enter into it.

The door opened, and Michael joined him on the balcony. There was a built-in hi-fi unit, and Michael turned on a radio station, again as cover, presumably. Opera. Hagen didn’t particularly care for opera, which Michael knew. Hagen didn’t bother objecting.

“That wasn’t the first time you heard that offer,” Hagen said. “How long have you known about it?”

Michael flipped open his lighter, a jeweled one with something engraved on it. His face glowed in the flame. He took a long drag off his cigarette. “Since the last time I was in Cuba.”

“The last time you were in Cuba, you-” Were there with Fredo. Hagen didn’t want to get into that at all. “The revolution was just under way. They knew then? You knew then?”

“We talked about it then,” Michael said. “At the time, it was more of an idea than an offer. His idea. Just talk. At the time, I believed that the revolution was far bigger than the charisma of one man. I didn’t think killing him would make any difference.”

“And now?”

“The same. Only now I don’t think it makes any difference if it makes a difference.”

More riddles. Tom took a slug of his drink.

“I love you,” Tom said, “but it may be time for you and me to go our separate ways. Professionally, at least.”

“I was thinking just the opposite,” Michael said.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I can tell you, I’ve had it up to here with being kept in the dark, enough of being in, then I’m out, then I’m in, then I’m out. I’m your brother, then I’m just your lawyer. I’m your consigliere, then I’m just another politician on your payroll, then I’m in charge of things while you’re out of the country, then I’m some fucking nothing that you don’t consult about a thing like this. You knew I wasn’t going to say anything one way or the other about-anything, really, in front of a man I’ve known since this morning, without talking to you about it first. Not to mention Corbett Shea. Yet for some secret reason I’ll have to puzzle out on my own, you set it up that way.”

“Look, Tom, there’s nothing to puzzle out. I wanted you to hear it from him first because it’s his operation. Not mine. We’d be performing a service. Mickey Shea is your reassurance that the president is behind this, too. You saw how angry Mickey was. For us, it’s business. Money, opportunity, power. For them it’s revenge. I wasn’t sure about that myself, but there was no better way to see it firsthand.”

Mickey Shea. Hagen had never heard anyone call him that but the Don, Vito.

“You want to talk about it, Tom, let’s talk. Doing this job at all is a big step. The fact that we need to do it with Geraci’s people makes it a bigger step. Theoretically we could use our men here in Nevada, but the only one who’s ready for something like this would be Al Neri, and we can’t risk losing him. This is more than likely a suicide mission. If we have Geraci’s men do it, either they succeed or they don’t. If they don’t, we’ll have set it up so that we have nothing to do with it. Any repercussions would be felt by him but not us. I’m retired, after all.”

Hagen crunched an ice cube from his drink, his eyes on the nearby darkness of the desert.

“It’s possible that they’ll succeed,” Michael said, “and yet the Communists stay in power. So what? The world is neither better nor worse, and we wind up with a little something for our trouble. But think of it, Tom. Think if it does make a difference. Freedom is restored, we’re back in business in Cuba. Legal, bigger than anything we have now. Our government and whatever sort of puppet regime the U.S. installs in Cuba will be indebted to us, enough to ensure that we get re-established down there ahead of any other Family. We can easily convince the others on the Commission that Geraci and his men were just our puppets. Any resentment for our having cooperated with the government will be quelled by the millions they’ll make because of us when Cuba reopens. In any case, though, no matter how all this plays out, we’d get half the money the government is prepared to pay and Geraci’d get the other half. He’ll never know that the whole thing came through us. Joe and his associates will approach him without mentioning us. We’ll get half what they’re paying, same as if Geraci gave us our share of any big deal, only in this case Joe will bring it to us directly. Geraci is too opportunistic, too aggressive, to turn down a chance like this. And he’s got all those Sicilians he can use on this job-brave, single-minded people with the added bonus of not having the rule about killing cops or government officials. In the unlikely event that Geraci does come to us and ask for our advice or our blessings, we simply say that we’re out of such things. If he offers us a share of the money, we politely decline. Only if his efforts are successful will he ever learn a thing-probably via his godfather, Don Forlenza. Again, so what? By then Geraci will be a hero, and he’ll owe it all to us. But the bottom line is this, Tom: I need someone beside me so smart and loyal that I’ll be-we’ll be-thinking with two brains. I can’t, and won’t, go ahead with this without you at my side.”

“You’ve already thought it out pretty well without me,” Hagen said. “You’d have your old pal Joe at your side. Neri at your side. Nick Geraci doing the dirty work. I’m not indispensable, Mike. Look at the body count in this thing of ours, and it’s been going on for centuries, turning a profit every year. None of it needs any of us.”

“Well, I need you, Tom. You’ve been dealing with the Ambassador for years. The president won’t do anything to us against the old man’s wishes.”

“You could send someone else. A lawyer, a judge, somebody like that.”

“You’re the only person on this earth I trust. You know that. There’s nothing I’ve ever done that cut you out because I didn’t value you or need you. I was only trying to protect you.”

“Protect me, huh?” he said. “Thank you very much.”

“What do you want me to say? You want me to say I’m human? That I’ve made mistakes, particularly when it comes to you, and that I’m sorry? Is that what you want?”

Tom sighed. “Of course not. What I want are some straight answers.”

Michael extended his arm in an after-you gesture. “Ask away, counselor.”

“Is that eye patch for real?”

“That’s your question?”

“I’m working up to the big ones.”

“He told me war wound. I never gave it a thought after that.”

“And he’s for real, too? This whole thing, you’re certain it’s on the level? The Ambassador may have helped get his son elected, but he has no official position. I’ve never trusted him, and I’m sure you don’t either.”

“Joe was my initial contact,” Michael said, “but when I decided we might go ahead with this, I insisted on meeting with Albert Soffet. When I was in Washington for the transition meetings, I didn’t meet with those people at all, as you know. But I did meet with Director Soffet. Even then, I thought this might be too big a risk. Like that bungled invasion, it was approved by the previous administration. What Joe said was true. Soffet told me the same thing. The U.S. military can’t invade Cuba because then the Russians will retaliate. If all the U.S. does is use economic sanctions, fifty years from now the place will still be in the hands of the Communists. But our government doesn’t dare do anything directly. So they need to come up with other means. They tried Plan A, and it failed. We’re Plan B.”

“So am I to assume this was somehow the real reason you quote-unquote retired?”

“Yes and no. Look, you already know nearly everything. You know more about the finances of the legitimate businesses than I do. There’s nothing about the things we did to help get the president elected that you don’t know. And as far as putting all the connection guys we have in one crew so that both Geraci and I can use them, independently of each other-hell, Tom, we’d call that a regime if you were Sicilian.”

Tom took another long drink.

“That was supposed to be a joke,” Michael said.

Hagen rattled the ice in his glass. “Hear that? That’s me laughing.”

A siren wailed, and then another. Two fire trucks sped by. There was a big fire on the far edge of town.

“Okay. So you’re right. I didn’t tell you everything. I had two other things I had to address. I couldn’t do those things as a completely private citizen, so I engineered the deal with the Commission that-well, Jesus, Tom, you put that together, too.”

“So one of those two things you’re talking about is this job in Cuba?”

“No. Cuba is just a means to an end.”

Tom patted his coat, looking for a cigar, and found one in his breast pocket. He was softening. He had an orphan’s distrust of the stability of all human bonds, yet he knew in his heart he was destined to be Michael’s consigliere, now and forever.

Michael flicked his lighter. He kept the flame awfully high for a cigarette smoker.

Hagen bit off the tip of his Cuban cigar.

“Thanks,” Hagen said. “Nice lighter.”

“It was a gift,” Michael said.

“The other two things?” Hagen said.

As Michael lit a new cigarette for himself, he pointed to the Kasbah. “Number one.”

“Fontane?” Hagen said. “I’m getting tired of the guessing.”

“Fontane?” Michael scoffed. “No, no, no. I meant Russo. If I retired, truly retired, Louie Russo’s gotten so much power the last few years that the Commission would end up making him boss of bosses, which would be a great blow to our interests, particularly here and in Lake Tahoe. Cuba, too, if and when it opens up. He’d come after us, and we’d be powerless to stop him. We have a whole crew of men here, but it’s relatively small and primarily muscle. Without a seat on the Commission and with Russo as capo di tutti capi, we’d get outfought politically, which would be the end of us.”

“True,” Hagen agreed.

The deejay came on the radio, said they’d been listening to a selection from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, then grew very excited about the beer commercial he was doing.

“Not to mention, if Russo does become boss of bosses, knowing the way the Ambassador thinks, I’m concerned that Fuckface would have better access to the president than we would.”

“I guess I had that one half figured out already,” Tom said. “I never heard you call him that before, though. I never heard you call any Don by a nickname.”

“Well, the reason for that leads me to my second thing.” Michael smiled. It was not a smile with any mirth at all. “You want to know who gave me this lighter?”

“Let me guess. Russo.”

“All of a sudden you want to take guesses? No, Tom. Not Russo.”

Michael told him about Geraci.

He told him about trying to kill Geraci.

He told him about the need to try again, when the time was right.

Hagen listened in silence, knowing he should be angry for having been kept out in the cold for so long, fighting back the elation he was feeling instead.

He got himself another Jack Daniel’s. Michael, who almost never drank, not even wine, asked him to make him one, too.

“Question,” Hagen said, handing Michael his glass. “What’s to keep the CIA from doing the same thing to us that you’re planning to do to Geraci? Use us for the job and then dispose of us when it’s done?”

“Good to be working with you like this again,” Michael said.

“And?”

“Touché,” Michael admitted. “That’s the tricky part. But we have the connections to pit the Bureau against the Company and vice versa, at least to an extent. And, don’t forget, we do have a family member at the Justice Department.”

“Who, Billy Van Arsdale?” Hagen scoffed. “That kid still thinks he got the job because of his parents’ connections. He’s going to do everything he can to keep his distance from us.”

“He’ll do what we need him to do,” Michael said, “which is to be our personal canary in the coal mine. He’s ambitious, and he resents us. He’s afraid his connection to us by marriage is why he’s stuck in the law library instead of holding press conferences or going to court. We don’t need to use our connections to get him promoted to something better. He’ll use us-what he thinks he knows about us-to get the job done. After that, we ask him, politely, for his help.”

“In other words,” Hagen said, biting his lip to keep from grinning, “we make him an offer he can’t refuse. It’s brilliant, Mike. The old man would be proud.”

Vito Corleone had never set foot in Las Vegas, but the two men on that balcony felt the force of his legacy press down on them like a warm, firm hand.

“We’ll see,” he said. “The final test of any plan is its execution.”

“To execution,” Hagen said. They clanked glasses and drank to his grim pun.