Sollozzo was sitting directly facing the door of the toilet, his dark eyes blazing with alertness. Michael gave a smile. "Now I can talk," he said with a sigh of relief.
Captain McCluskey was eating the plate of veal and spaghetti that had arrived. The man on the far wall had been stiff with attention, now he too relaxed visibly.
Michael sat down again. He remembered Clemenza had told him not to do this, to come out of the toilet and blaze away. But either out of some warning instinct or sheer funk (или просто от испуга, со страха; funk – сильный запах, зловоние) he had not done so. He had felt that if he had made one swift move he would have been cut down. Now he felt safe and he must have been scared because he was glad he was no longer standing on his legs. They had gone weak with trembling.
Sollozzo was leaning toward him. Michael, his belly covered by the table, unbuttoned his jacket and listened intently. He could not understand a word the man was saying. It was literally gibberish (невнятная речь, тарабарщина [‘gıb∂rı∫]) to him. His mind was so filled with pounding (to pound – бить/ся/, колотить/ся/) blood that no word registered. Underneath the table his right hand moved to the gun tucked into his waistband and he drew it free. At that moment the waiter came to take their order and Sollozzo turned his head to speak to the waiter. Michael thrust the table away from him with his left hand and his right hand shoved the gun almost against Sollozzo's head. The man's coordination was so acute ([∂‘kju:t] остроконечный, острый; сильный, резкий) that he had already begun to fling himself away at Michael's motion. But Michael, younger, his reflexes sharper, pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Sollozzo squarely between his eye and his ear and when it exited on the other side blasted out a huge gout (брызги, поток) of blood and skull fragments onto the petrified (остолбеневший; to petrify [‘petrıfaı] – превращать/ся/ в камень, окаменевать) waiter's jacket. Instinctively Michael knew that one bullet was enough. Sollozzo had turned his head in that last moment and he had seen the light of life die in the man's eyes as clearly as a candle goes out.
Only one second had gone by as Michael pivoted to bring the gun to bear on McCluskey. The police captain was staring at Sollozzo with phlegmatic surprise, as if this had nothing to do with him. He did not seem to be aware of his own danger. His veal-covered fork was suspended («подвешенная» = застывшая в воздухе) in his hand and his eyes were just turning on Michael. And the expression on his face, in his eyes, held such confident outrage (такое самоуверенное возмущение), as if now he expected Michael to surrender or to run away, that Michael smiled at him as he pulled the trigger. This shot was bad, not mortal (смертельный). It caught McCluskey in his thick bull-like throat and he started to choke loudly as if he had swallowed too large a bite of the veal. Then the air seemed to fill with a fine mist of sprayed blood as he coughed it out of his shattered lungs (легкие). Very coolly, very deliberately, Michael fired the next shot through the top of his white-haired skull.
The air seemed to be full of pink mist (розовая дымка). Michael swung toward the man sitting against the wall. This man had not made a move. He seemed paralyzed. Now he carefully showed his hands on top of the table and looked away. The waiter was staggering back toward the kitchen, an expression of horror on his face, staring at Michael in disbelief. Sollozzo was still in his chair, the side of his body propped up (to prop – подпирать) by the table. McCluskey, his heavy body pulling downward, had fallen off his chair onto the floor. Michael let the gun slip out of his hand so that it bounced off (отскочил от; bounce – бумс! бух!) his body and made no noise. He saw that neither the man against the wall nor the waiter had noticed him dropping the gun. He strode the few steps toward the door and opened it. Sollozzo's car was parked at the curb still, but there was no sign of the driver. Michael turned left and around the corner. Headlights flashed on and a battered sedan pulled up to him, the door swinging open. He jumped in and the car roared away. He saw that it was Tessio at the wheel, his trim features hard as marble.
"Did you do the job on Sollozzo?" Tessio asked.
For that moment Michael was struck by the idiom Tessio had used. It was always used in a sexual sense, to do the job on a woman meant seducing (to seduce [sı’dju:s] – соблазнять) her. It was curious that Tessio used it now. "Both of them," Michael said.
"Sure?" Tessio asked.
"I saw their brains," Michael said.
There was a change of clothes for Michael in the car. Twenty minutes later he was on an Italian freighter slated (to slate – намечать, планировать) for Sicily. Two hours later the freighter put out to sea and from his cabin Michael could see the lights of New York City burning like the fires of hell. He felt an enormous sense of relief. He was out of it now. The feeling was familiar and he remembered being taken off the beach of an island his Marine division had invaded (to invade – захватывать, вторгаться, оккупировать). The battle had been still going on but he had received a slight wound and was being ferried back (ferry – паром) to a hospital ship. He had felt the same overpowering relief then that he felt now. All hell would break loose (разразится) but he wouldn't be there.
On the day after the murder of Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey, the police captains and lieutenants in every station house in New York City sent out the word: there would be no more gambling, no more prostitution, no more deals of any kind until the murderer of Captain McCluskey was caught. Massive raids began all over the city. All unlawful business activities came to a standstill (полностью остановились; standstill – остановка, пауза).
Later that day an emissary from the Families asked the Corleone Family if they were prepared to give up the murderer. They were told that the affair did not concern them. That night a bomb exploded in the Corleone Family mall in Long Beach, thrown from a car that pulled up to the chain, then roared away. That night also two button men of the Corleone Family were killed as they peaceably ate their dinner in a small Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. The Five Families War of 1946 had begun.
Book 2
Chapter 12
Johnny Fontane waved a casual dismissal to the manservant and said, "See you in
1
the morning, Billy." The colored butler bowed his way out of the huge dining room-living
room with its view of the Pacific Ocean. It was a friendly-good-bye sort of bow, not a
servant's bow, and given only because Johnny Fontane had company for dinner.
Johnny's company was a girl named Sharon Moore, a New York City Greenwich
Village girl in Hollywood to try for a small part in a movie being produced by an old
flame who had made the big time. She had visited the set while Johnny was acting in
the Woltz movie. Johnny had found her young and fresh and charming and witty, and
had asked her to come to his place for dinner that evening. His invitations to dinner
were always famous and had the force of royalty and of course she said yes.
Sharon Moore obviously expected him to come on very strong because of his
reputation, but Johnny hated the Hollywood "piece of meat" approach. He never slept
with any girl unless there was something about her he really liked. Except, of course,
sometimes when he was very drunk and found himself in bed with a girl he didn't even
remember meeting or seeing before. And now that he was thirty-five years old, divorced
once, estranged (отделен, отдален) from his second wife, with maybe a thousand
pubic scalps dangling from his belt, he simply wasn't that eager. But there, was
something about Sharon Moore that aroused affection in him and so he had invited her to dinner.
2
He never ate much but he knew young pretty girls ambitiously starved themselves for
pretty clothes and were usually big eaters on a date so there was plenty of food on the
table. There was also plenty of liquor; champagne in a bucket, scotch, rye (хлебная
водка), brandy and liqueurs on the sideboard. Johnny served the drinks and the plates
of food already prepared. When they had finished eating he led her into the huge living
room with its glass wall that looked out onto the Pacific. He put a stack of Ella Fitzgerald
records on the hi-fi and settled on the couch with Sharon. He made a little small talk
with her, found out about what she had been like as a kid, whether she had been a
tomboy (девчонка-сорванец) or boy crazy, whether she had been homely or pretty,
lonely or gay. He always found these details touching, it always evoked the tenderness
he needed to make love.
They nestled together on the sofa, very friendly, very comfortable. He kissed her on
the lips, a cool friendly kiss, and when she kept it that way he left it that way. Outside
the huge picture window he could see the dark blue sheet of the Pacific lying flat
beneath the moonlight.
"How come you're not playing any of your records?" Sharon asked him. Her voice was
teasing. Johnny smiled at her. He was amused by her teasing him. "I'm not that
Hollywood," he said.
"Play some for me," she said. "Or sing for me. You know, like the movies. I'll bubble
up and melt all over you just like those girls do on the screen."
Johnny laughed outright. When he had been younger, he had done just such things
and the result had always been stagy (неестественный, театральный), the girls trying
to look sexy and melting, making their eyes swim with desire for an imagined fantasy
camera. He would never dream of singing to a girl now; for one thing, he hadn't sung for
months, he didn't trust his voice. For another thing, amateurs didn't realize how much
professionals depended on technical help to sound as good as they did. He could have
played his records but he felt the same shyness about hearing his youthful passionate
voice as an aging, balding man running to fat feels about showing pictures of himself as
a youth in the full bloom of manhood.
"My voice is out of shape," he said. "And honestly, I'm sick of hearing myself sing."
They both sipped their drinks. "I hear you're great in this picture," she said. "Is it true
you did it for nothing?"
"Just a token payment," Johnny said.
He got up to give her a refill on her brandy glass, gave her a gold-monogrammed
cigarette and flashed his lighter out to hold the light for her. She puffed on the cigarette
and sipped her drink and he sat down beside her again. His glass had considerably
more brandy in it than hers, he needed it to warm himself, to cheer himself, to charge
3
himself up. His situation was the reverse of the lover's usual one. He had to get himself
drunk instead of the girl. The girl was usually too willing where he was not. The last two
years had been hell on his ego, and he used this simple way to restore it, sleeping with
a young fresh girl for one night, taking her to dinner a few times, giving her an
expensive present and then brushing her off in the nicest way possible so that her
feelings wouldn't be hurt. And then they could always say they had had a thing with the
great Johnny Fontane. It wasn't true love, but you couldn't knock it if the girl was
beautiful and genuinely nice. He hated the hard, bitchy ones, the ones who screwed for
him and then rushed off to tell their friends that they'd screwed the great Johnny
Fontane, always adding that they'd had better. What amazed him more than anything
else in his career were the complaisant (обходительный, неконфликтный
[k∂m'pleız∂nt]) husbands who almost told him to his face that they forgave their wives
since it was allowed for even the most virtuous matron to be unfaithful with a great
singing and movie star like Johnny Fontane. That really floored (to floor – валить
наземь, сбивать с ног; смущать, поражать) him.
He loved Ella Fitzgerald on records. He loved that kind of clean singing, that kind of
clean phrasing. It was the only thing in life he really understood and he knew he
understood it better than anyone else on earth. Now lying back on the couch, the
brandy warming his throat, he felt a desire to sing, not music, but to phrase with the
records, yet it was something impossible to do in front of a stranger. He put his free
hand in Sharon's lap, sipping his drink from his other hand. Without any slyness but with
the sensualness of a child seeking warmth, his hand in her lap pulled up the silk of her
dress to show milky white thigh above the sheer netted gold of her stockings and as
always, despite all the women, all the years, all the familiarity, Johnny felt the fluid sticky
warmness flooding through his body at that sight. The miracle still happened, and what
would he do when that failed him as his voice had?
He was ready now. He put his drink down on the long inlaid (мозаичный,
инкрустированный) cocktail table and turned his body toward her. He was very sure,
very deliberate, and yet tender. There was nothing sly or lecherously lascivious
(похотливый, сладострастный [l∂’sıvıj∂s]) in his caresses. He kissed her on the lips
while his hands rose to her breasts. His hand fell to her warm thighs, the skin so silky to
his touch. Her returning kiss was warm but not passionate and he preferred it that way
right now. He hated girls who turned on all of a sudden as if their bodies were motors
galvanized into erotic pumpings by the touching of a hairy switch.
Then he did something he always did, something that had never yet failed to arouse
him. Delicately and as lightly as it was possible to do so and still feel something, he
brushed the tip of his middle finger deep down between her thighs. Some girls never
4
even felt that initial move toward lovemaking. Some were distracted by it, not sure it was
a physical touch because at the same time he always kissed them deeply on the mouth.
Still others seemed to suck in his finger or gobble it up (жадно есть, заглатывать) with
a pelvic (тазовый) thrust. And of course before he became famous, some girls had
slapped his face. It was his whole technique and usually it served him well enough.
Sharon's reaction was unusual. She accepted it all, the touch, the kiss, then shifted
her mouth off his, shifted her body ever so slightly back along the couch and picked up
her drink. It was a cool but definite refusal. It happened sometimes. Rarely; but it
happened. Johnny picked up his drink and lit a cigarette.
She was saying something very sweetly, very lightly. "It's not that I don't like you,
Johnny, you're much nicer than I thought you'd be. And it's not because I'm not that kind
of a girl. It's just that I have to be turned on to do it with a guy, you know what I mean?"
Johnny Fontane smiled at her. He still liked her. "And I don't turn you on?"
She was a little embarrassed. "Well, you know, when you were so great singing and
all, I was still a little kid. I sort of just missed you, I was the next generation. Honest, it's
not that I'm goody-goody (паинька). If you were a movie star I grew up on, I'd have my
panties off in a second."
He didn't like her quite so much now. She was sweet, she was witty, she was
intelligent. She hadn't fallen all over herself to screw for him or try to hustle (толкать,
пихать; добиваться чего-либо напористыми, не всегда честными действиями) him
because his connections would help her in show biz. She was really a straight kid. But
there was something else he recognized. It had happened a few times before. The girl
who went on a date with her mind all made up not to go to bed with him, no matter how
much she liked him, just so that she could tell her friends, and even more, herself, that
she had turned down a chance to screw for the great Johnny Fontane. It was something
he understood now that he was older and he wasn't angry. He just didn't like her quite
that much and he had really liked her a lot.
And now that he didn't like her quite so much, he relaxed more. He sipped his drink
and watched the Pacific Ocean. She said, "I hope you're not sore, Johnny. I guess I'm
being square, I guess in Hollywood a girl's supposed to put out just as casually as
kissing a beau (щеголь; здесь: кавалер [b∂u]) good night. I just haven't been around
long enough."
Johnny smiled at her and patted her cheek. His hand fell down to pull her skirt
5
discreetly over her rounded silken knees. "I'm not sore," he said. "It's nice having an old-
fashioned date." Not telling what he felt: the relief at not having to prove himself a great
lover, not having to live up (быть достойным /чего-либо/, тянуться) to his screened,
godlike image. Not having to listen to the girl trying to react as if he really had lived up to
that image, making more out of a very simple, routine piece of ass than it really was.
They had another drink, shared a few more cool kisses and then she decided to go.
Johnny said politely, "Can I call you for dinner some night?"
She played it frank and honest to the end. "I know you don't want to waste your time
and then get disappointed," she said. "Thanks for a wonderful evening. Someday I'll tell
my children I had supper with the great Johnny Fontane all alone in his apartment."
He smiled at her. "And that you didn't give in (уступить, сдаться)," he said. They both
laughed. "They'll never believe that," she said. And then Johnny, being a little phony
(фальшивый, притворяющийся) in his turn, said, "I'll give it to you in writing, want me
to?" She shook her head. He continued on. "Anybody doubts you, give me a buzz on
the phone, I'll straighten them right out. I'll tell them how I chased you all around the
apartment but you kept your honor. OK?"
He had, finally, been a little too cruel and he felt stricken at the hurt on her young face.
She understood that he was telling her that he hadn't tried too hard. He had taken the
sweetness of her victory away from her. Now she would feel that it had been her lack of
charm or attractiveness that had made her the victor this night. And being the girl she
was, when she told the story of how she resisted the great Johnny Fontane, she would
always have to add with a wry little smile, "Of course, he didn't try very hard." So now
taking pity on her, he said, "If you ever feel real down, give me a ring. OK? I don't have
to shack up (сожительствовать, переспать) every girl I know."
"I will," she said. She went out the door.
He was left with a long evening before him. He could have used what Jack Woltz
called the "meat factory," the stable of willing starlets, but he wanted human
companionship. He wanted to talk like a human being. He thought of his first wife,
Virginia. Now that the work on the picture was finished he would have more time for the
kids. He wanted to become part of their life again. And he worried about Virginia too.
She wasn't equipped to handle the Hollywood sharpies (sharpy – жулик, мошенник;
энергичный человек) who might come after her just so that they could brag about
having screwed Johnny Fontane's first wife. As far as he knew, nobody could say that
yet. Everybody could say it about his second wife though, he thought wryly. He picked
up the phone.
6
He recognized her voice immediately and that was not surprising. He had heard it the
first time when he was ten years old and they had been in 4B together. "Hi, Ginny," he
said, "you busy tonight? Can I come over for a little while?"
"All right," she said. "The kids are sleeping though; I don't want to wake them up."
"That's OK," he said. "I just wanted to talk to you."
Her voice hesitated slightly, then carefully controlled not to show any concern, she
asked, "Is it anything serious, anything important?"
"No," Johnny said. "I finished the picture today and I thought maybe I could just see
you and talk to you. Maybe I could take a look at the kids if you're sure they won't wake
up."
"OK," she said. "I'm glad you got that part you wanted."
"Thanks," he said. "I'll see you in about a half hour."
When he got to what had been his home in Beverly Hills, Johnny Fontane sat in the
car for a moment staring at the house. He remembered what his Godfather had said,
that he could make his own life what he wanted. Great chance if you knew what you
wanted. But what did he want?
His first wife was waiting for him at the door. She was pretty, petite (маленького
роста, изящная [p∂'ti:t]) and brunette, a nice Italian girl, the girl next door who would
never fool around with another man and that had been important to him. Did he still
want her, he asked himself, and the answer was no. For one thing, he could no longer
make love to her, their affection had grown too old. And there were some things,
nothing to do with sex, she could never forgive him. But they were no longer enemies.
She made him coffee and served him homemade cookies in the living room. "Stretch
out on the sofa," she said, "you look tired." He took off his jacket and his shoes and
loosened his tie while she sat in the chair opposite him with a grave little smile on her
face. "It's funny," she said.
"What's funny?" he asked her, sipping coffee and spilling some of it on his shirt.
"The great Johnny Fontane stuck (to stick – завязнуть, застрять) without a date," she
said.
"The great Johnny Fontane is lucky if he can even get it up anymore," he said.
It was unusual for him to be so direct. Ginny asked, "Is there something really the
matter?"
Johnny grinned at her. "I had a date with a girl in my apartment and she brushed me
off. And you know, I was relieved."
To his surprise he saw a look of anger pass over Ginny's face. "Don't worry about
those little tramps," she said. "She must have thought that was the way to get you
interested in her," And Johnny realized with amusement that Ginny was actually angry
with the girl who had turned him down.
"Ah, what the hell," he said. "I'm tired of that stuff. I have to grow up sometime. And
7
now that I can't sing anymore I guess I'll have a tough time with dames. I never got in on
my looks, you know."
She said loyally, "You were always better looking than you photographed."
Johnny shook his head. "I'm getting fat and I'm getting bald. Hell, if this picture doesn't
make me big again I better learn how to bake pizzas. Or maybe we'll put you in the
movies, you look great."
She looked thirty-five, A good thirty-five, but thirty-five. And out here in Hollywood that
might as well be a hundred. The young beautiful girls thronged through the city like
lemmings (лемминг, пеструшка /зоол./), lasting one year, some two, Some of them so
beautiful they could make a man's heart almost stop beating until they opened their
mouths, until the greedy hopes for success clouded the loveliness of their eyes.
Ordinary women could never hope to compete with them on a physical level. And you
could talk all you wanted to about charm, about intelligence, about chic, about poise, the
raw beauty of these girls overpowered everything else. Perhaps if there were not so
many of them there might be a chance for an ordinary, nice-looking woman. And since
Johnny Fontane could have all of them, or nearly all of them, Ginny knew that he was
saying all this just to flatter her. He had always been nice that way. He had always been
polite to women even at the height of his fame, paying them compliments, holding lights
for their cigarettes, opening doors. And since all this was usually done for him, it made it
even more impressive to the girls he went out with. And he did it with all girls, even the
one-night stands, I-don't-know-your-name girls.
She smiled at him, a friendly smile. "You already made me, Johnny, remember? For
twelve years. You don't have to give me your line."
He sighed and stretched out on the sofa. "No kidding, Ginny, you look good. I wish I
looked that good."
She didn't answer him. She could see he was depressed. "Do you think the picture is
OK? Will it do you some good?" she asked.
Johnny nodded. "Yeah. It could bring me all the way back. If I get the Academy thing
8
and play my cards right, I can make it big again even without the singing. Then maybe I
can give you and the kids more dough (тесто; деньги /сленг/ [d∂u])."
"We have more than enough," Ginny said.
"I wanta see more of the kids too," Johnny said. "I want to settle down a little bit. Why
can't I come every Friday night for dinner here? I swear I'll never miss one Friday, I don't
care how far away I am or how busy I am. And then whenever I can I'll spend weekends
or maybe the kids can spend some part of their vacations with me."
Ginny put an ashtray on his chest. "It's OK with me," she said. "I never got married
because I wanted you to keep being their father." She said this without any kind of
emotion, but Johnny Fontane, staring up at the ceiling, knew she said it as an
atonement (компенсация, возмещение) for those other things, the cruel things she had
once said to him when their marriage had broken up, when his career had started going
down the drain (дренажная канава, водосток, канализация).
"By the way, guess who called me," she said.
Johnny wouldn't play that game, he never did. "Who?" he asked.
Ginny said, "You could take at least one lousy guess." Johnny didn't answer. "Your
Godfather," she said.
Johnny was really surprised. "He never talks to anybody on the phone. What did he
say to you?"
"He told me to help you," Ginny said. "He said you could be as big as you ever were,
that you were on your way back, but that you needed people to believe in you. I asked
him why should I? And he said because you're the father of my children. He's such a
sweet old guy and they tell such horrible stories about him."
Virginia hated phones and she had had all the extensions (удлинение, расширение;
удлинитель, добавочный телефон) taken out except for the one in her bedroom and
one in the kitchen. Now they could hear the kitchen phone ringing. She went to answer
it. When she came back into the living room there was a look of surprise on her face.
"It's for you, Johnny," she said. "It's Tom Hagen. He says it's important."
Johnny went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. "Yeah, Tom," he said.
Tom Hagen's voice was cool. "Johnny, the Godfather wants me to come out and see
you and set some things up that can help you out now that the picture is finished. He
wants me to catch the morning plane. Can you meet it in Los Angeles? I have to fly
back to New York the same night so you won't have to worry about keeping your night
free for me."
"Sure, Tom," Johnny said. "And don't worry about me losing a night. Stay over and
relax a bit. I'll throw a party and you can meet some movie people." He always made
9
that offer, he didn't want the folks from his old neighborhood to think he was ashamed of
them.
"Thanks," Hagen said, "but I really have to catch the early morning plane back. OK,
you'll meet the eleven-thirty A.M. out of New York?"
"Sure," Johnny said.
"Stay in your car," Hagen said. "Send one of your people to meet me when I get off
the plane and bring me to you."
"Right," Johnny said.
He went back to the living room and Ginny looked at him inquiringly. "My Godfather
has some plan for me, to help me out," Johnny said. "He got me the part in the movie, I
don't know how. But I wish he'd stay out of the rest of it."
He went back onto the sofa. He felt very tired. Ginny said, "Why don't you sleep in the
guest bedroom tonight instead of going home? You can have breakfast with the kids
and you won't have to drive home so late. I hate to think of you all alone in that house of
yours anyway. Don't you get lonely?"
"I don't stay home much," Johnny said.
She laughed and said, "Then you haven't changed much." She paused and then said,
"Shall I fix up the other bedroom?"
Johnny said, "Why can't I sleep in your bedroom?"
She flushed. "No," she said. She smiled at him and he smiled back. They were still
friends.
When Johnny woke up the next morning it was late, he could tell by the sun coming in
through the drawn blinds. It never came in that way unless it was in the afternoon. He
yelled, "Hey, Ginny, do I still rate (заслуживать, удоставиваться) breakfast?" And far
away he heard her voice call, "Just a second."
And it was just a second. She must have had everything ready, hot in the oven, the tray
waiting to be loaded, because as Johnny lit his first cigarette of the day, the door of the
bedroom opened and his two small daughters came in wheeling the breakfast cart
(тележка, тачка; здесь: поднос на колесиках).
They were so beautiful it broke his heart. Their faces were shining and clear, their
eyes alive with curiosity and the eager desire to run to him. They wore their hair braided
old-fashioned in long pigtails and they wore old-fashioned frocks and white patent-
leather (лакированный) shoes. They stood by the breakfast cart watching him as he
stubbed out his cigarette and waited for him to call and hold his arms wide. Then they
10
came running to him. He pressed his face between their two fresh fragrant cheeks and
scraped them with his beard so that they shrieked. Ginny appeared in the bedroom door
and wheeled the breakfast cart the rest of the way so that he could eat in bed. She sat
beside him on the edge of the bed, pouring his coffee, buttering his toast. The two
young daughters sat on the bedroom couch watching him. They were too old now for
pillow fights or to be tossed (to toss – бросать, кидать, подбрасывать) around. They
were already smoothing their mussed (to muss – приводить в беспорядок, путать)
hair. Oh, Christ, he thought, pretty soon they'll be all grown up, Hollywood punks will be
out after them.
He shared his toast and bacon with them as he ate, gave them sips of coffee. It was a
habit left over from when he had been singing with the band and rarely ate with them so
they liked to share his food when he had his odd-hour meals like afternoon breakfasts
or morning suppers. The change-around in food delighted them – to eat steak and
french fries (картофель фри, чипсы) at seven in the morning, bacon and eggs in the
afternoon.
Only Ginny and a few of his close friends knew how much he idolized his daughters.
That had been the worst thing about the divorce and leaving home. The one thing he
had fought about, and for, was his position as a father to them. In a very sly way he had
made Ginny understand he would not be pleased by her remarrying, not because he
was jealous of her, but because he was jealous of his position as a father. He had
arranged the money to be paid to her so it would be enormously to her advantage
financially not to remarry. It was understood that she could have lovers as long as they
were not introduced into her home life. But on this score he had absolute faith in her.
She had always been amazingly shy and old-fashioned in sex. The Hollywood gigolos
had batted zero (выбивали ноль = ничего не могли добиться; bat – бита /в
бейсболе/) when they started swarming around her, sniffing for the financial settlement
and the favors they could get from her famous husband.
He had no fear that she expected a reconciliation because he had wanted to sleep
with her the night before. Neither one of them wanted to renew their old marriage. She
understood his hunger for beauty, his irresistible impulse toward young women far more
beautiful than she. It was known that he always slept with his movie co-stars at least
once. His boyish charm was irresistible to them, as their beauty was to him.
"You'll have to start getting dressed pretty soon," Ginny said. "Tom's plane will be
getting in." She shooed the daughters out of the room.
"Yeah," Johnny said. "By the way, Ginny, you know I'm getting divorced? I'm gonna
be a free man again."
She watched him getting dressed. He always kept fresh clothes at her house ever
since they had come to their new arrangement after the wedding of Don Corleone's
daughter. "Christmas is only two weeks away," she said. "Shall I plan on you being
here?"
It was the first time he had even thought about the holidays. When his voice was in
11
shape, holidays were lucrative singing dates but even then Christmas was sacred. If he
missed this one, it would be the second one. Last year he had been courting his second
wife in Spain, trying to get her to marry him.
"Yeah," he said. "Christmas Eve and Christmas." He didn't mention New Year's Eve.
That would be one of the wild nights he needed every once in a while, to get drunk with
his friends, and he didn't want a wife along then. He didn't feel guilty about it.
She helped him put on his jacket and brushed it off. He was always fastidiously
(fastidious [f∂s’tıdıj∂s] – привередливо, разборчиво, изощренно) neat. She could see
him frowning because the shirt he had put on was not laundered (to launder ['lo:nd∂] –
стирать и гладить /белье/) to his taste, the cuff links (запонки; cuff – манжета), a pair
he had not worn for some time, were a little too loud for the way he liked to dress now.
She laughed softly and said, "Tom won't notice the difference."
The three women of the family walked him to the door and out on the driveway to his
car. The two little girls held his hands, one on each side. His wife walked a little behind
him. She was getting pleasure out of how happy he looked. When he reached his car he
turned around and swung each girl in turn high up in the air and kissed her on the way
down. Then he kissed his wife and got into the car. He never liked drawn-out good-byes.
Arrangements had been made by his PR (public relations – связь с
общественностью) man and aide. At his house a chauffeured car was waiting, a rented
car. In it were the PR man and another member of his entourage. Johnny parked his car
and hopped in and they were on their way to the airport. He waited inside the car while
the PR man went out to meet Tom Hagen's plane. When Tom got into the car they
shook hands and drove back to his house.
Finally he and Tom were alone in the living room. There was a coolness between
them. Johnny had never forgiven Hagen for acting as a barrier to his getting in touch
with the Don when the Don was angry with him, in those bad days before Connie's
12
wedding. Hagen never made excuses for his actions. He could not. It was part of his job
to act as a lightning rod for resentments which people were too awed to feel toward the
Don himself though he had earned them.
"Your Godfather sent me out here to give you a hand (помочь) on some things,"
Hagen said. "I wanted to get it out of the way before Christmas."
Johnny Fontane shrugged. "The picture is finished. The director was a square guy
and treated me right. My scenes are too important to be left on the cutting-room floor
just for Woltz to pay me off. He can't ruin a ten-million-dollar picture. So now everything
depends on how good people think I am in the movie."
Hagen said cautiously, "Is winning this Academy Award so terribly important to an
actor's career, or is it just the usual publicity crap that really doesn't mean anything one
way or the other?" He paused and added hastily, "Except of course the glory, everybody
likes glory."
Johnny Fontane grinned at him. "Except my Godfather. And you. No, Tom, it's not a
lot of crap. An Academy Award can make an actor for ten years. He can get his pick
(выбор; лучшая, отборная часть /чего-либо/) of roles. The public goes to see him. It's
not everything, but for an actor it's the most important thing in the business. I'm counting
on winning it. Not because I'm such a great actor but because I'm known primarily as a
singer and the part is foolproof («защищенный от дурака» = элементарный в
обращении; надежный /без риска неудачи/). And I'm pretty good too, no kidding."
Tom Hagen shrugged and said, "Your Godfather tells me that the way things stand
now, you don't have a chance of winning the award."
Johnny Fontane was angry. "What the hell are you talking about? The picture hasn't
even been cut yet, much less shown. And the Don isn't even in the movie business.
Why the hell did you fly the three thousand miles just to tell me that shit?" He was so
shaken he was almost in tears.
Hagen said worriedly, "Johnny, I don't know a damn thing about all this movie stuff.
Remember, I'm just a messenger boy for the Don. But we have discussed this whole
business of yours many times. He worries about you, about your future. He feels you
still need his help and he wants to settle your problem once and for all. That's why I'm
here now, to get things rolling. But you have to start growing up, Johnny. You have to
stop thinking about yourself as a singer or an actor. You've got to start thinking about
yourself as a prime mover (первичный двигатель; буксир, тягач), as a guy with
muscle."
Johnny Fontane laughed and filled his glass. "If I don't win that Oscar I'll have as
13
much muscle as one of my daughters. My voice is gone; if I had that back I could make
some moves. Oh, hell. How does my Godfather know I won't win it? OK, I believe he
knows. He's never been wrong."
Hagen lit a thin cigar. "We got the word that Jack Woltz won't spend studio money to
support your candidacy. In fact he's sent the word out to everybody who votes that he
does not want you to win. But holding back the money for ads (ad – сокр. от
advertisment – реклама) and all that may do it. He's also arranging to have one other
guy get as much of the opposition votes as he can swing. He's using all sorts of bribes-
jobs, money, broads, everything. And he's trying to do it without hurting the picture or
hurting it as little as possible."
Johnny Fontane shrugged. He filled his glass with whiskey and downed it. "Then I'm
dead."
Hagen was watching him with his mouth curled up with distaste. "Drinking won't help
your voice," he said.
"Fuck you," Johnny said.
Hagen's face suddenly became smoothly impassive. Then he said, "OK, I'll keep this
purely business."
Johnny Fontane put his drink down and went over to stand in front of Hagen. "I'm
sorry I said that, Tom," he said. "Christ, I'm sorry. I'm taking it out on you because I
wanta kill that bastard Jack Woltz and I'm afraid to tell off (отчитывать, бранить,
разносить) my Godfather. So I get sore at you." There were tears in his eyes. He threw
the empty whiskey glass against the wall but so weakly that the heavy shot glass did not
even shatter and rolled along the floor back to him so that he looked down at it in baffled
(озадаченный, сбитый с толку) fury. Then he laughed. "Jesus Christ," he said.
He walked over to the other side of the room and sat opposite Hagen. "You know, I had
everything my own way for a long time. Then I divorced Ginny and everything started
going sour. I lost my voice. My records stopped selling. I didn't get any more movie work.
And then my Godfather got sore at me and wouldn't talk to me on the phone or see me
when I came into New York. You were always the guy barring the path and I blamed
you, but I knew you wouldn't do it without orders from the Don. But you can't get sore at
him. It's like getting sore at God. So I curse you. But you've been right all along the line.
And to show you I mean my apology I'm taking your advice. No more booze until I get
my voice back. OK?"
The apology was sincere. Hagen forgot his anger. There must be something to this
thirty-five-year-old boy or the Don would not be so fond of him. He said, "Forget it,
14
Johnny." He was embarrassed at the depth of Johnny's feeling and embarrassed by the
suspicion that it might have been inspired by fear, fear that he might turn the Don
against him. And of course the Don could never be turned by anyone for any reason.
His affection was mutable only by himself.
"Things aren't so bad," he told Johnny. "The Don says he can cancel out everything
Woltz does against you. That you will almost certainly win the Award. But he feels that
won't solve your problem. He wants to know if you have the brains and balls to become
a producer on your own, make your own movies from top to bottom."
"How the hell is he going to get me the Award?" Johnny asked incredulously.
Hagen said sharply, "How do you find it so easy to believe that Woltz can finagle
(добиваться чего-либо нечестными или обходными путями, жульничать [fı'neıgl]) it
and your Godfather can't? Now since it's necessary to get your faith for the other part of
our deal I must tell you this. Just keep it to yourself. Your Godfather is a much more
powerful man than Jack Woltz. And he is much more powerful in areas far more critical.
How can he swing the Award? He controls, or controls the people who control, all the
labor unions in the industry, all the people or nearly all the people who vote. Of course
you have to be good, you have to be in contention (конкуренция; спор) on your own
merits. And your Godfather has more brains than Jack Woltz. He doesn't go up to these
people and put a gun to their heads and say, 'Vote for Johnny Fontane or you are out of
a job.' He doesn't strong-man where strong-arm doesn't work or leaves too many hard
feelings. He'll make those people vote for you because they want to. But they won't
want to unless he takes an interest. Now just take my word for it that he can get you the
Award. And that if he doesn't do it, you won't get it."
"OK," Johnny said. "I believe you. And I have the balls and brains to be a producer but
I don't have the money. No bank would finance me. It takes millions to support a movie."
Hagen said dryly, "When you get the Award, start making plans to produce three of
your own movies. Hire the best people in the business, the best technicians, the best
stars, whoever you need. Plan on three to five movies."
"You're crazy," Johnny said. "That many movies could mean twenty million bucks."
"When you need the money," Hagen said, "get in touch with me. I'll give you the name
of the bank out here in California to ask for financing. Don't worry, they finance movies
all the time. Just ask them for the money in the ordinary way, with the proper
justifications, like a regular business deal. They will approve. But first you have to see
me and tell me the figures and the plans. OK?"
Johnny was silent for a long time. Then he said quietly, "Is there anything else?"
15
Hagen smiled. "You mean, do you have to do any favors in return for a loan of twenty
million dollars? Sure you will." He waited for Johnny to say something. "Nothing you
wouldn't do anyway if the Don asked you to do it for him."
Johnny said, "The Don has to ask me himself if it's something serious, you know what
I mean? I won't take your word or Sonny's for it."
Hagen was surprised by this good sense. Fontane had some brains after all. He had
sense to know that the Don was too fond of him, and too smart, to ask him to do
something foolishly dangerous, whereas Sonny might. He said to Johnny, "Let me
reassure you on one thing. Your Godfather has given me and Sonny strict instructions
not to involve you in any way in anything that might get you bad publicity through our
fault. And he will never do that himself. I guarantee you that any favor he asks of you,
you will offer to do before he requests it. OK?"
Johnny smiled. "OK," he said.
Hagen said, "Also he has faith in you. He thinks you have brains and so he figures the
bank will make money on the investment, which means he will make money on it. So it's
really a business deal, never forget that. Don't go screwing around with the money. You
may be his favorite godson but twenty million bucks is a lot of dough. He has to stick his
neck out to make sure you get it."
"Tell him not to worry," Johnny said. "If a guy like Jack Woltz can be a big movie
genius, anybody can."
"That's what your Godfather figures," Hagen said. "Can you have me driven back to
the airport? I've said all I have to say. When you do start signing contracts for
everything, hire your own lawyers, I won't be in on it. But I'd like to see everything
before you sign, if that's OK with you. Also, you'll never have any labor troubles. That
will cut costs on your pictures to some extent, so when the accountants lump (lump –
глыба, кусок; to lump – смешивать, валить в одну кучу) some of that in, disregard
those figures."
Johnny said cautiously, "Do I have to get your OK on anything else, scripts, stars, any
of that?"
Hagen shook his head. "No," he said. "It may happen that the Don would object to
something but he'll object to you direct if he does. But I can't imagine what that would be.
16
Movies don't affect him at all, in any way, so he has no interest. And he doesn't believe
in meddling, that I can tell you from experience."
"Good," Johnny said. "I'll drive you to the airport myself. And thank the Godfather for
me. I'd call him up and thank him but he never comes to the phone. Why is that, by the
way?"
Hagen shrugged. "He hardly ever talks on the phone. He doesn't want his voice
recorded, even saying something perfectly innocent. He's afraid that they can splice
(соединять внахлест, сращивать /концы чего-либо/ /строит./; склеивать встык
/ленту, пленку/) the words together so that it sounds as if he says something else. I
think that's what it is. Anyway his only worry is that someday he'll be framed (to frame –
фабриковать, подставлять, ложно обвинять) by the authorities. So he doesn't want to
give them an edge (дать им себя подцепить, дать им карты в руки; edge – кромка,
край)."
They got into Johnny's car and drove to the airport. Hagen was thinking that Johnny
was a better guy than he figured. He'd already learned something, just his driving him
personally to the airport proved that. The personal courtesy, something the Don himself
always believed in. And the apology. That had been sincere. He had known Johnny a
long time and he knew the apology would never be made out of fear. Johnny had
always had guts. That's why he had always been in trouble, with his movie bosses and
with his women. He was also one of the few people who was not afraid of the Don.
Fontane and Michael were maybe the only two men Hagen knew of whom this could be
said. So the apology was sincere, he would accept it as such. He and Johnny would
have to see a lot of each other in the next few years. And Johnny would have to pass
the next test, which would prove how smart he was. He would have to do something for
the Don that the Don would never ask him to do or insist that he do as part of the
agreement. Hagen wondered if Johnny Fontane was smart enough to figure out that
part of the bargain.
After Johnny dropped Hagen off at the airport (Hagen insisted that Johnny not hang
around for his plane with him) he drove back to Ginny's house. She was surprised to
see him. But he wanted to stay at her place so that he would have time to think things
out, to make his plans. He knew that what Hagen had told him was extremely important,
that his whole life was being changed. He had once been a big star but now at the
young age of thirty-five he was washed up. He didn't kid himself about that. Even if he
won the Award as best actor, what the hell could it mean at the most? Nothing, if his
17
voice didn't come back. He'd be just second-rate, with no real power, no real juice. Even
that girl turning him down, she had been nice and smart and acting sort of hip (также
hep – знающий толк в чем-то, секущий; классный, стильный /сленг/), but would she
have been so cool if he had really been at the top? Now with the Don backing him with
dough he could be as big as anybody in Hollywood. He could be a king. Johnny smiled.
Hell. He could even be a Don.
It would be nice living with Ginny again for a few weeks, maybe longer. He'd take the
kids out every day, maybe have a few friends over. He'd stop drinking and smoking,
really take care of himself. Maybe his voice would get strong again. If that happened
and with the Don's money, he'd be unbeatable. He'd really be as close to an oldtime
king or emperor as it was possible to be in America. And it wouldn't depend on his voice
holding up or how long the public cared about him as an actor. It would be an empire
rooted in money and the most special, the most coveted kind of power.
Ginny had the guest bedroom made up for him. It was understood that he would not
share her room, that they would not live as man and wife. They could never have that
relationship again. And though the outside world of gossip columnists (корреспондент,
обозреватель /ведущий постоянную рубрику/) and movie fans gave the blame for the
failure of their marriage solely to him, yet in a curious way, between the two of them,
they both knew that she was even more to blame for their divorce.
When Johnny Fontane became the most popular singer and movie musical comedy
star in motion pictures, it had never occurred to him to desert his wife and children. He
was too Italian, still too old-style. Naturally he had been unfaithful. That had been
impossible to avoid in his business and the temptations to which he was continually
exposed. And despite being a skinny, delicate-looking guy, he had the wiry horniness
(horny – сексуально возбужденный, сексульно озабоченный) of many small-boned
Latin types. And women delighted him in their surprises. He loved going out with a
demure (спокойный, сдержанный, трезвый, рассудительный, притворно
застенчивый [dı'mju∂]) sweet-faced virginal-looking girl and then uncapping her breasts
to find them so unexpectedly slopingly (sloping – косой, покатый) full and rich, lewdly
(lewd – похотливый; распутный) heavy in contrast to the cameo face. He loved to find
sexual shyness and timidity in the sexy-looking girls who were all fake (поддельный,
фальшивый) motion like a shifty basketball player, vamping (to vamp – завлекать,
соблазнять) as if they had slept with a hundred guys, and then when he got them alone
having to battle for hours to get in and do the job and finding out they were virgins.
18
And all these Hollywood guys laughed at his fondness for virgins. They called it an old
guinea taste, square, and look how long it took to make a virgin give you a blow job
(феллация) with all the aggravation and then they usually turned out to be a lousy
piece of ass. But Johnny knew that it was how you handled a young girl. You had to
come on to her the right way and then what could be greater than a girl who was tasting
her first dick and loving it? Ab, it was so great breaking them in. It was so great having
them wrap their legs around you. Their thighs were all different shapes, their asses
were different, their skins were all different colors and shades of white and brown and
tan and when he had slept with that young colored girl in Detroit, a good girl, not a
hustler, the young daughter of a jazz singer on the same nightclub bill with him, she had
been one of the sweetest things he had ever had. Her lips had really tasted like warm
honey with pepper mixed in it, her dark brown skin was rich, creamy, and she had been
as sweet as God had ever made any woman and she had been a virgin.
And the other guys were always talking about blow jobs, this and other variations, and
he really didn't enjoy that stuff so much. He never liked a girl that much after they tried it
that way, it just didn't satisfy him right. He and his second wife had finally not got along,
because she preferred the old sixty-nine too much to a point where she didn't want
anything else and he had to fight to stick it in. She began making fun of him and calling
him a square and the word got around that he made love like a kid. Maybe that was why
that girl last night had turned him down. Well, the hell with it, she wouldn't be too great
in the sack (гамак; койка) anyway. You could tell (можно различить, распознать) a girl
who really liked to fuck and they were always the best. Especially the ones who hadn't
been at it too long. What he really hated were the ones who had started screwing at
twelve and were all fucked out by the time they were twenty and just going through the
motions and some of them were the prettiest of all and could fake you out.
Ginny brought coffee and cake into his bedroom and put it on the long table in the
sitting room part. He told her simply that Hagen was helping him put together the money
credit for a producing package and she was excited about that. He would be important
again. But she had no idea of how powerful Don Corleone really was so she didn't
understand the significance of Hagen coming from New York. He told her Hagen was
also helping with legal details.
When they had finished the coffee he told her he was going to work that night, and
make phone calls and plans for the future. "Half of all this will be in the kids' names," he
told her. She gave him a grateful smile and kissed him good night before she left his
room.
There was a glass dish full of his favorite monogrammed cigarettes, a humidor
19
(коробка для хранения сигар с увлажнителем) with pencil-thin black Cuban cigars on
his writing desk. Johnny tilted back (откинулся) and started making calls. His brain was
really whirring (to whirr – жужжать, шуметь) along. He called the author of the book,
the best-selling novel, on which his new film was based. The author was a guy his own
age who had come up the hard way and was now a celebrity in the literary world. He
had come out to Hollywood expecting to be treated like a wheel (что с ним будут
обращаться как с королем) and, like most authors, had been treated like shit. Johnny
had seen the humiliation of the author one night at the Brown Derby. The writer had
been fixed up with a well-known bosomy starlet for a date on the town and a sure
shack-up later. But while they were at dinner the starlet had deserted the famous author
because a ratty-looking movie comic had waggled (to waggle – помахивать,
покачивать) his finger at her. That had given the writer the right slant (наклон, склон;
быстрый взгляд; точка зрения, подход, мнение) on just who was who in the
Hollywood pecking (to peck – клевать /клювом/) order. It didn't matter that his book
had made him world famous. A starlet would prefer the crummiest (crummy –
крошащийся, рыхлый; никудышный, несчастный; to crum – раскрошить), the rattiest,
the phoniest movie wheel.
Now Johnny called the author at his New York home to thank him for the great part he
had written in his book for him. He flattered the shit out of the guy. Then casually he
asked him how he was doing on his next novel and what it was all about. He lit a cigar
while the author told him about a specially interesting chapter and then finally said,
"Gee, I'd like to read it when you're finished. How about sending me a copy? Maybe I
can get you a good deal for it, better than you got with Woltz."
The eagerness in the author's voice told him that he had guessed right. Woltz had
chiseled (надул: «обработал зубилом»: chisel [t∫ızl]) the guy, given him peanuts
(бесценок, «смешные деньги»; peanut – арахис, земляной орех) for the book.
Johnny mentioned that he might be in New York right after the holidays and would the
author want to come and have dinner with some of his friends. "I know a few good-
looking broads," Johnny said jokingly. The author laughed and said OK.
Next Johnny called up the director and cameraman on the film he had just finished to
thank them for having helped him in the film. He told them confidentially that he knew
Woltz had been against him and he doubly appreciated their help and that if there was
ever anything he could do for them they should just call.
Then he made the hardest call of all, the one to Jack Woltz. He thanked him for the
20
part in the picture and told him how happy he would be to work for him anytime. He did
this merely to throw Woltz off the track. He had always been very square, very straight.
In a few days Woltz would find out about his maneuvering and be astounded by the
treachery of this call, which was exactly what Johnny Fontane wanted him to feel.
After that he sat at the desk and puffed at his cigar. There was whiskey on a side
table but he had made some sort of promise to himself and Hagen that he wouldn't
drink. He shouldn't even be smoking. It was foolish; whatever was wrong with his voice
probably wouldn't be helped by knocking off drinking and smoking. Not too much, but
what the hell, it might help and he wanted all the percentages with him, now that he had
a fighting chance.
Now with the house quiet, his divorced wife sleeping, his beloved daughters sleeping,
he could think back to that terrible time in his life when he had deserted them. Deserted
them for a whore tramp of a bitch who was his second wife. But even now he smiled at
the thought of her, she was such a lovely broad in so many ways and, besides, the only
thing that saved his life was the day that he had made up his mind never to hate a
woman or, more specifically, the day he had decided he could not afford to hate his first
wife and his daughters, his girl friends, his second wife, and the girl friends after that,
right up to Sharon Moore brushing him off so that she could brag about refusing to
screw for the great Johnny Fontane.
He had traveled with the band singing and then he had become a radio star and a star
of the movie stage shows and then he had finally made it in the movies. And in all that
time he had lived the way he wanted to, screwed the women he wanted to, but he had
never let it affect his personal life. Then he had fallen for his soon to be second wife,
Margot Ashton; he had gone absolutely crazy for her. His career had gone to hell, his
voice had gone to hell, his family life had gone to hell. And there had come the day
when he was left without anything.
The thing was, he had always been generous and fair. He had given his first wife
everything he owned when he divorced her. He had made sure his two daughters would
get a piece of everything he made, every record, every movie, every club date. And
when he had been rich and famous he had refused his first wife nothing. He had helped
out all her brothers and sisters, her father and mother, the girl friends she had gone to
school with and their families. He had never been a stuck-up (высокомерный,
заносчивый, самодовольный) celebrity. He had sung at the weddings of his wife's two
younger sisters, something he hated to do. He had never refused her anything except
the complete surrender of his own personality.
And then when he had touched bottom, when he could no longer get movie work,
21
when he could no longer sing, when his second wife had betrayed him, he had gone to
spend a few days with Ginny and his daughters. He had more or less flung himself on
her mercy (сдался ей на милость) one night because he felt so lousy. That day he had
heard one of his recordings and he had sounded so terrible that he accused the sound
technicians of sabotaging the record. Until finally he had become convinced that that
was what his voice really sounded like. He had smashed the master record and refused
to sing anymore. He was so ashamed that he had not sung a note except with Nino at
Connie Corleone's wedding.
He had never forgotten the look on Ginny's face when she found out about all his
misfortunes. It had passed over her face only for a second but that was enough for him
never to forget it. It was a look of savage and joyful satisfaction. It was a look that could
only make him believe that she had contemptuously hated him all these years. She
quickly recovered and offered him cool but polite sympathy. He had pretended to accept
it. During the next few days he had gone to see three of the girls he had liked the most
over the years, girls he had remained friends with and sometimes still slept with in a
comradely way, girls that he had done everything in his power to help, girls to whom he
had given the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts or job opportunities.
On their faces he had caught that same fleeting (to fleet – быстро двигаться,
проходить; скользить по поверхности) look of savage satisfaction.
It was during that time that he knew he had to make a decision. He could become like
a great many other men in Hollywood, successful producers, writers, directors, actors,
who preyed (to prey – охотиться; prey – добыча) on beautiful women with lustful
hatred. He could use power and monetary favors grudgingly, always alert for treason,
always believing that women would betray and desert him, adversaries to be bested
(противники, над которыми нужно взять верх, которых надо перехитрить). Or he
could refuse to hate women and continue to believe in them.
He knew he could not afford not to love them, that something of his spirit would die if
he did not continue to love women no matter how treacherous and unfaithful they were.
It didn't matter that the women he loved most in the world were secretly glad to see him
crushed, humiliated, by a wayward (своенравный, капризный, несговорчивый) fortune;
it did not matter that in the most awful way, not sexually, they had been unfaithful to him.
He had no choice. He had to accept them. And so he made love to all of them, gave
them presents, hid the hurt their enjoyment of his misfortunes gave him. He forgave
them knowing he was being paid back for having lived in the utmost freedom from
22
women and in the fullest flush (внезапный прилив; буйный рост, расцвет; изобилие)
of their flavor. But now he never felt guilty about being untrue to them. He never felt
guilty about how he treated Ginny, insisting on remaining the sole father of his children,
yet never even considering remarrying her, and letting her know that too. That was one
thing he had salvaged (to salvage [‘sжlvıdG] – спасать имущество /при
кораблекрушении, пожаре/) out of his fall from the top. He had grown a thick skin
about the hurts he gave women.
He was tired and ready for bed but one note of memory stuck with him: singing with
Nino Valenti. And suddenly he knew what would please Don Corleone more than
anything else. He picked up the phone and told the operator to get him New York. He
called Sonny Corleone and asked him for Nino Valenti's number. Then he called Nino.
Nino sounded a little drunk as usual.
"Hey, Nino, how'd you like to come out here and work for me," Johnny said. "I need a
guy I can trust."
Nino, kidding around, said, "Gee, I don't know, Johnny, I got a good job on the truck,
boffing (boff – зад /сленг/; to boff – хлопнуть, шлепнуть; трахнуть, перепихнуться
/мягкое выражение/) housewives along my route, picking up a clear hundred-fifty every
week. What you got to offer?"
"I can start you at five hundred and get you blind dates with movie stars, how's that?"
Johnny said. "And maybe I'll let you sing at my parties."
"Yeah, OK, let me think about it." Nino said. "Let me talk it over with my lawyer and
my accountant and my helper on the truck."
"Hey, no kidding around, Nino," Johnny said. "I need you out here. I want you to fly
out tomorrow morning and sign a personal contract for five hundred a week for a year.
Then if you steal one of my broads and I fire you, you pick up at least a year's salary.
OK?"
There was a long pause. Nino's voice was sober. "Hey, Johnny, you kidding?"
Johnny said, "I'm serious, kid. Go to my agent's office in New York. They'll have your
plane ticket and some cash. I'm gonna call them first thing in the morning. So you go up
there in the afternoon. OK? Then I'll have somebody meet you at the plane and bring
you out to the house."
Again there was a long pause and then Nino's voice, very subdued (приглушенный,
смягченный), uncertain, said, "OK, Johnny." He didn't sound drunk anymore.
Johnny hung up the phone and got ready for bed. He felt better than any time since
he had smashed that master record.
Chapter 13
Johnny Fontane sat in the huge recording studio and figured costs on a yellow pad.
23
Musicians were filing in, all of them friends he had known since he was a kid singer with
the bands. The conductor, top man in the business of pop accompaniment and a man
who had been kind to him when things went sour, was giving each musician bundles of
music and verbal instructions. His name was Eddie Neils. He had taken on this
recording as a favor to Johnny, though his schedule (расписание, график [‘∫edju:l]) was
crowded.
Nino Valenti was sitting at a piano fooling around nervously with the keys. He was
also sipping from a huge glass of rye. Johnny didn't mind that. He knew Nino sang just
as well drunk as sober and what they were doing today wouldn't require any real
musicianship on Nino's part.
Eddie Neils had made special arrangements of some old Italian and Sicilian songs,
and a special job on the duel-duet song that Nino and Johnny had sung at Connie
Corleone's wedding. Johnny was making the record primarily because he knew that the
Don loved such songs and it would be a perfect Christmas gift for him. He also had a
hunch (горб; предчувствие) that the record would sell in the high numbers, not a
million, of course. And he had figured out that helping Nino was how the Don wanted his
payoff. Nino was, after all, another one of the Don's godchildren.
Johnny put his clipboard and yellow pad on the folding chair beside him and got up to
stand beside the piano. He said, "Hey, paisan (земляк –сицилийск.)," and Nino
glanced up and tried to smile. He looked a little sick. Johnny leaned over and rubbed his
shoulder blades. "Relax, kid," he said. "Do a good job today and I'll fix you up with the
best and most famous piece of ass in Hollywood."
Nino took a gulp of whiskey. "Who's that, Lassie?"
Johnny laughed. "No, Deanna Dunn. I guarantee the goods (the goods – требуемые
качества; именно то, что нужно)."
Nino was impressed but couldn't help saying with pseudo-hopefulness, "You can't get
me Lassie?"
The orchestra swung into the opening song of the medley (смесь; попурри). Johnny
Fontane listened intently. Eddie Neils would play all the songs through in their special
arrangements. Then would come the first take (выручка) for the record. As Johnny
listened he made mental notes on exactly how he would handle each phrase, how he
would come into each song. He knew his voice wouldn't last long, but Nino would be
24
doing most of the singing, Johnny would be singing under him. Except of course in the
duet-duel song. He would have to save himself for that.
He pulled Nino to his feet and they both stood by their microphones. Nino flubbed (to
flub – сделать неудачно, совершить промах) the opening, flubbed it again. His face
was beginning to get red with embarrassment. Johnny kidded him, "Hey, you stalling (to
stall – ставить в стойло; застревать; останавливать, задерживать) for overtime?"
"I don't feel natural without my mandolin," Nino said.
Johnny thought that over for a moment. "Hold that glass of booze in your hand," he
said. It seemed to do the trick. Nino kept drinking from the glass as he sang but he was
doing fine. Johnny sang easily, not straining, his voice merely dancing around Nino's
main melody. There was no emotional satisfaction in this kind of singing but he was
amazed at his own technical skill. Ten years of vocalizing had taught him something.
When they came to the duet-duel song that ended the record, Johnny let his voice go
and when they finished his vocal chords ached. The musicians had been carried away
by the last song, a rare thing for these calloused (callous ['kжl∂s] – огрубелый:
«мозолистый») veterans. They hammered down their instruments and stamped their
feet in approval as applause. The drummer gave them a ruffle (дробь барабана) of
drums.
With stops and conferences they worked nearly four hours before they quit. Eddie
Neils came over to Johnny and said quietly, "You sounded pretty good, kid. Maybe
you're ready to do a record. I have a new song that's perfect for you."
Johnny shook his head. "Come on, Eddie, don't kid me. Besides in a couple of hours
I'll be too hoarse to even talk. Do you think we'll have to fix up much of the stuff we did
today?"
Eddie said thoughtfully, "Nino will have to come into the studio tomorrow. He made
some mistakes. But he's much better than I thought he would be. As for your stuff, I'll
have the sound engineers fix anything I don't like. OK?"
"OK," Johnny said. "When can I hear the pressing (запись /на пластинку,
граммофонную/)?"
"Tomorrow night," Eddie Neils said. "Your place?"
"Yeah," Johnny said. "Thanks, Eddie. See you tomorrow." He took Nino by the arm
and walked out of the studio. They went to his house instead of Ginny's.
25
By this time it was late afternoon. Nino was still more than half-drunk. Johnny told him
to get under the shower and then take a snooze (короткий сон /днем/). They had to be
at a big party at eleven that night.
When Nino woke up, Johnny briefed him. "This party is a movie star Lonely Hearts
Club," he said. "These broads tonight are dames you've seen in the movies as glamour
(чары; романтический ореол, очарование; эффектный ['glжm∂]) queens millions of
guys would give their right arms to screw. And the only reason they'll be at the party
tonight is to find somebody to shack them up. Do you know why? Because they are
hungry for it, they are just a little old. And just like every dame, they want it with a little
bit of class."
"What's the matter with your voice?" Nino asked.
Johnny had been speaking almost in a whisper. "Every time after I sing a little bit that
happens. I won't be able to sing for a month now. But I'll get over the hoarseness in a
couple of days."
Nino said thoughtfully, "Tough, huh?"
Johnny shrugged. "Listen, Nino, don't get too drunk tonight. You have to show these
Hollywood broads that my paisan buddy ain't weak in the poop (корма). You gotta come
across. Remember, some of these dames are very powerful in movies, they can get you
work. It doesn't hurt to be charming after you knock off a piece (кое-что урвешь)."
Nino was already pouring himself a drink. "I'm always charming," he said. He drained
the glass. Grinning, he asked, "No kidding, can you really get me close to Deanna
Dunn?"
"Don't be so anxious," Johnny said. "It's not going to be like you think."
The Hollywood Movie Star Lonely Hearts Club (so called by the young juvenile leads
whose attendance was mandatory (обязательный, принудительный)) met every
Friday night at the palatial, studio-owned home of Roy McElroy, press agent or rather
public relations counsel for the Woltz International Film Corporation. Actually, though it
was McElroy's open house party, the idea had come from the practical brain of Jack
Woltz himself. Some of his money-making movie stars were getting older now. Without
the help of special lights and genius makeup men they looked their age. They were
having problems. They had also become, to some extent, desensitized (стали
бесчувственны, чувства их атрофировались, притупились) physically and mentally.
They could no longer "fall in love." They could no longer assume the role of hunted
women. They had been made too imperious; by money, by fame, by their former beauty.
Woltz gave his parties so that it would be easier for them to pick up lovers, one-night
stands, who, if they had the stuff (если окажутся способны, если есть в них этот
26
талант), could graduate into full-time bed partners and so work their way upward. Since
the action sometimes degenerated into brawls (brawl – шумная ссора, скандал) or
sexual excess that led to trouble with the police, Woltz decided to hold the parties in the
house of the public relations counselor, who would be right there to fix things up, pay off
newsmen and police officers and keep everything quiet.
For certain virile young male actors on the studio payroll who had not yet achieved
stardom (положение ‘звезды’) or featured roles (feature – полнометражный фильм),
attendance at the Friday night parties was not always pleasant duty. This was explained
by the fact that a new film yet to be released by the studio would be shown at the party.
In fact that was the excuse for the party itself. People would say, "Let's go over to see
what the new picture so and so made is like." And so it was put in a professional context.
Young female starlets were forbidden to attend the Friday night parties. Or rather
discouraged. Most of them took the hint.
Screenings (screening – демонстрация фильма; screen – ширма; экран) of the new
movies took place at midnight and Johnny and Nino arrived at eleven. Roy McElroy
proved to be, at first sight, an enormously likable man, well-groomed (хорошо
ухоженный /о лошади/; холеный), beautifully dressed. He greeted Johnny Fontane
with a surprised cry of delight. "What the hell are you doing here?" he said with genuine
astonishment.
Johnny shook his hand. "I'm showing my country cousin the sights. Meet Nino."
McElroy shook hands with Nino and gazed at him appraisingly. "They'll eat him up
alive," he said to Johnny. He led them to the rear patio.
The rear patio was really a series of huge rooms whose glass doors had been opened
to a garden and pool. There were almost a hundred people milling around (двигались
кругом, кружили; to mill – молоть; mill – мельница), all with drinks in their hands. The
patio lighting was artfully arranged to flatter feminine faces and skin. These were
women Nino had seen on the darkened movie screens when he had been a teenager.
They had played their part in his erotic dreams of adolescence. But seeing them now in
the flesh was like seeing them in some horrible makeup. Nothing could hide the
tiredness of their spirit and their flesh; time had eroded (to erode – разъедать,
разрушать) their godhead. They posed and moved as charmingly as he remembered
but they were like wax fruit, they could not lubricate his glands («смазать» его железы,
гланды). Nino took two drinks, wandered to a table where he could stand next to a nest
of bottles. Johnny moved with him. They drank together until behind them came the
magic voice of Deanna Dunn.
27
Nino, like millions of other men, had that voice imprinted on his brain forever. Deanna
Dunn had won two Academy Awards, had been in the biggest movie grosser (фильм,
приносящий огромный доход) made in Hollywood. On the screen she had a feline
(кошачий ['fi:laın]) feminine charm that made her irresistible to all men. But the words
she was saying had never been heard on the silver screen. "Johnny, you bastard, I had
to go to my psychiatrist again because you gave me a one-night stand. How come you
never came back for seconds?"
Johnny kissed her on her proffered (to proffer – предлагать) cheek. "You wore me
out for a month," he said. "I want you to meet my cousin Nino. A nice strong Italian boy.
Maybe he can keep up with you (держаться наравне; составить компанию)."
Deanna Dunn turned to give Nino a cool look. "Does he like to watch previews?"
Johnny laughed. "I don't think he's ever had the chance. Why don't you break him in?"
Nino had to take a big drink when he was alone with Deanna Dunn. He was trying to
be nonchalant (беспечный, беззаботный ['non∫∂l∂nt]) but it was hard. Deanna Dunn
had the upturned nose, the clean-cut classical features of the Anglo-Saxon beauty. And
he knew her so well. He had seen her alone in a bedroom, heart-broken, weeping over
her dead flier husband who had left her with fatherless children. He had seen her angry,
hurt, humiliated, yet with a shining dignity when a caddish (грубый, вульгарный) Clark
Gable had taken advantage of her, then left her for a sexpot (сексуально
привлекательная женщина, «секс-бомба»). (Deanna Dunn never played sexpots in
the movies.) He had seen her flushed with requited (to requite – отплачивать,
вознаграждать) love, writhing in the embrace of the man she adored and he had seen
her die beautifully at least a half dozen times. He had seen her and heard her and
dreamed about her and yet he was not prepared for the first thing she said to him alone.
"Johnny is one of the few men with balls in this town," she said. "The rest are all fags
(fag – младший ученик, оказывающий услуги старшим товращам /в английских
школах/) and sick morons (moron [‘mo:ron] – слабоумный, идиот) who couldn't get it
up with a broad if you pumped a truckload of Spanish fly into their scrotums (scrotum
[‘skr∂ut∂m] – мошонка)." She took Nino by the hand and led him into a corner of the
room, out of traffic and out of competition.
Then still coolly charming, she asked him about himself. He saw through her. He saw
that she was playing the role of the rich society girl who is being kind to the stableboy or
the chauffeur, but who in the movie would either discourage his amatory interest (if the
28
part were played by Spencer Tracy), or throw up everything in her mad desire for him (if
the part were played by Clark Gable). But it didn't matter. He found himself telling her
about how he and Johnny had grown up together in New York, about how he and
Johnny had sung together on little club dates. He found her marvelously sympathetic
and interested. Once she asked casually, "Do you know how Johnny made that bastard
Jack Woltz give him the part?" Nino froze and shook his head. She didn't pursue it.
The time had come to see the preview of a new Woltz movie. Deanna Dunn led Nino,
her warm hand imprisoning his, to an interior room of the mansion that had no windows
but was furnished with about fifty small two-person couches scattered around in such a
way as to give each one a little island of semiprivacy.
Nino saw there was a small table beside the couch and on the table were an ice bowl,
glasses and bottles of liquor plus a tray of cigarettes. He gave Deanna Dunn a cigarette,
lit it and then mixed them both drinks. They didn't speak to each other. After a few
minutes the lights went out.
He had been expecting something outrageous (возмутительный). After all, he had
heard the legends of Hollywood depravity (развращенность). But he was not quite
prepared for Deanna Dunn's voracious plummet (жадный натиск, «ныряние»;
voracious [v∂’reı∫∂s] – прожорливый; жадный, ненасытный; plummet – свинцовый
отвес, гирька отвеса; to plummet – нырять, погружаться) on his sexual organ without
even a courteous and friendly word of preparation. He kept sipping his drink and
watching the movie, but not tasting, not seeing. He was excited in a way he had never
been before but part of it was because this woman servicing him in the dark had been
the object of his adolescent dreams.
Yet in a way his masculinity was insulted. So when the world-famous Deanna Dunn
was sated (насыщена, пресыщена) and had tidied him up, he very coolly fixed her a
fresh drink in the darkness and lit her a fresh cigarette and said in the most relaxed
voice imaginable, "This looks like a pretty good movie."
He felt her stiffen beside him on the couch. Could it be she was waiting for some sort
of compliment? Nino poured his glass full from the nearest bottle his hand touched in
the darkness. The hell with that. She'd treated him like a god damn male whore. For
some reason now he felt a cold anger at all these women. They watched the picture for
another fifteen minutes. He leaned away from her so their bodies did not touch.
Finally she said in a low harsh whisper, "Don't be such a snotty (сопливый) punk, you
liked it. You were as big as a house."
Nino sipped his drink and said in his natural off-hand manner (бесцеремонная,
29
развязная манера), "That's the way it always is. You should see it when I get excited."
She laughed a little and kept quiet for the rest of the picture. Finally it was over and
the lights went on. Nino took a look around. He could see there had been a ball here in
the darkness though oddly enough he hadn't heard a thing. But some of the dames had
that hard, shiny, bright-eyed look of women who had just been worked over real good.
They sauntered out of the projection room. Deanna Dunn left him immediately to go
over and talk to an older man Nino recognized as a famous featured player, only now,
seeing the guy in person, he realized that he was a fag. He sipped his drink thoughtfully.
Johnny Fontane came up beside him and said, "Hi, old buddy, having a good time?"
Nino grinned. "I don't know. It's different. Now when I go back to the old neighborhood
I can say Deanna Dunn had me."
Johnny laughed. "She can be better than that if she invites you home with her. Did
she?"
Nino shook his head. "I got too interested in the movie," he said. But this time Johnny
didn't laugh.
"Get serious, kid," he said. "A dame like that can do you a lot of good. And you used
to boff anything. Man, sometimes I still get nightmares when I remember those ugly
broads you used to bang (трахал; to bang – стукнуть, хлопнуть)."
Nino waved his glass drunkenly and said very loud, "Yeah, they were ugly but they
were women." Deanna Dunn, in the corner, turned her head to look at them. Nino
waved his glass at her in greeting.
Johnny Fontane sighed. "OK, you're just a guinea peasant."
"And I ain't gonna change," Nino said with his charmingly drunken smile.
Johnny understood him perfectly. He knew Nino was not as drunk as he pretended.
He knew that Nino was only pretending so that he could say things which he felt were
too rude to say to his new Hollywood padrone when sober. He put his arm around
Nino's neck and said affectionately, "You wise guy bum (задница; лодырь), you know
you got an ironclad (покрытый броней; жесткий, твердый) contract for a year and you
can say and do anything you want and I can't fire you."
"You can't fire me?" Nino said with drunken cunning.
"No," Johnny said.
"Then fuck you," Nino said.
For a moment Johnny was surprised into anger. He saw the careless grin on Nino's
face. But in the past few years he must have gotten smarter, or his own descent from
stardom had made him more sensitive. In that moment he understood Nino, why his
boyhood singing partner had never become successful, why he was trying to destroy
30
any chance of success now. That Nino was reacting away from all the prices of success,
that in some way he felt insulted by everything that was being done for him.
Johnny took Nino by the arm and led him out of the house. Nino could barely walk
now. Johnny was talking to him soothingly. "OK, kid, you just sing for me, I wanta make
dough on you. I won't try to run your life. You do whatever you wanta do. OK, paisan?
All you gotta do is sing for me and earn me money now that I can't sing anymore. You
got that, old buddy?"
Nino straightened up. "I'll sing for you, Johnny," he said, his voice slurring (to slur –
произносить невнятно; slur – /расплывшееся/ пятно) so that he could barely be
understood. "I'm a better singer than you now. I was always a better singer than you,
You know that?"
Johnny stood there thinking; so that was it. He knew that when his voice was healthy
Nino simply wasn't in the same league with him, never had been in those years they
had sung together as kids. He saw Nino was waiting for an answer, weaving drunkenly
in the California moonlight. "Fuck you," he said gently, and they both laughed together
like the old days when they had both been equally young.
When Johnny Fontane got word about the shooting of Don Corleone he not only
worried about his Godfather, but also wondered whether the financing for his movie was
still alive. He had wanted to go to New York to pay his respects to his Godfather in the
hospital but he had been told not to get any bad publicity, that was the last thing Don
Corleone would want. So he waited. A week later a messenger came from Tom Hagen.
The financing was still on but for only one picture at a time.
Meanwhile Johnny let Nino go his own way in Hollywood and California, and Nino was
doing all right with the young starlets. Sometimes Johnny called him up for a night out
together but never leaned on him (to lean on – опираться, полагаться; to lean –
наклоняться; прислоняться). When they talked about the Don getting shot, Nino said
to Johnny, "You know, once I asked the Don for a job in his organization and he
wouldn't give it to me. I was tired of driving a truck and I wanted to make a lot of dough.
You know what he told me? He says every man has only one destiny and that my
destiny was to be an artist. Meaning that I couldn't be a racket guy."
Johnny thought that one over. The Godfather must be just about the smartest guy in
the world. He'd known immediately that Nino could never make a racket guy, would only
get himself in trouble or get killed. Get killed with just one of his wisecracks (удачная
31
острота, саркастическое замечание). But how did the Don know that he would be an
artist? Because, goddamn it, he figured that someday I'd help Nino. And how did he
figure that? Because he would drop the word to me and I would try to show my gratitude.
Of course he never asked me to do it. He just let me know it would make him happy if I
did it. Johnny Fontane sighed. Now the Godfather was hurt, in trouble, and he could
kiss the Academy Award good-bye with Woltz working against him and no help on his
side. Only the Don had the personal contacts that could apply pressure and the
Corleone Family had other things to think about. Johnny had offered to help, Hagen had
given him a curt no.
Johnny was busy getting his own picture going. The author of the book he had starred
in had finished his new novel and came west on Johnny's invitation, to talk it over
without agents or studios getting into the act. The second book was perfect for what
Johnny wanted. He wouldn't have to sing, it had a good gutsy (отважный; сочный,
полнокровный, сильный) story with plenty of dames and sex and it had a part that
Johnny instantly recognized as tailor-made for Nino. The character talked like Nino,
acted like him, even looked like him. It was uncanny. All Nino would have to do would
be to get up on the screen and be himself.
Johnny worked fast. He found that he knew a lot more about production than he thought
he did, but he hired an executive producer, a man who knew his stuff but had trouble
finding work because of the blacklist. Johnny didn't take advantage but gave the man a
fair contract. "I expect you to save me more dough this way," he told the man frankly.
So he was surprised when the executive producer came to him and told him the union
rep (= representative – представитель) had to be taken care of to the tune (за сумму;
tune – мелодия) of fifty thousand dollars. There were a lot of problems dealing with
overtime and hiring and the fifty thousand dollars would be well spent. Johnny debated
whether the executive producer was hustling him and then said, "Send the union guy to
me."
The union guy was Billy Goff. Johnny said to him, "I thought the union stuff was fixed
by my friends. I was told not to worry about it. At all."
Goff said, "Who told you that?"
Johnny said, "You know goddamn well who told me. I won't say his name but if he
tells me something that's it."
Goff said, "Things have changed. Your friend is in trouble and his word don't go this
far west anymore."
Johnny shrugged. "See me in a couple of days. OK?"
32
Goff smiled. "Sure, Johnny," he said. "But calling in New York ain't going to help you."
But calling New York did help. Johnny spoke to Hagen at his office. Hagen told him
bluntly not to pay. "Your Godfather will be sore as hell if you pay that bastard a dime
(монета в 10 центов)," he told Johnny. "It will make the Don lose respect and right now
he can't afford that."
"Can I talk to the Don?" Johnny asked. "Will you talk to him? I gotta get the picture
rolling."
"Nobody can talk to the Don right now," Hagen said. "He's too sick. I'll talk to Sonny
about fixing things up. But I'll make the decision on this. Don't pay that smart bastard a
dime. If anything changes, I'll let you know."
Annoyed, Johnny hung up. Union trouble could add a fortune to making the film and
screw up the works generally. For a moment he debated slipping Goff the fifty grand on
the quiet. After all, the Don telling him something and Hagen telling him something and
giving him orders were two different things. But he decided to wait for a few days.
By waiting he saved fifty thousand dollars. Two nights later, Goff was found shot to
death in his home in Glendale. There was no more talk of union trouble. Johnny was a
little shaken by the killing. It was the first time the long arm of the Don had struck such a
lethal blow so close to him.
As the weeks went by and he became busier and busier with getting the script
(сценарий) ready, casting the movie and working out production details, Johnny
Fontane forgot about his voice, his not being able to sing. Yet when the Academy
Award nominations came out and he found himself one of the candidates, he was
depressed because he was not asked to sing one of the songs nominated for the Oscar
at the ceremony that would be televised nationally. But he shrugged it off and kept
working. He had no hope of winning the Academy Award now that his Godfather was no
longer able to put pressure on, but getting the nomination had some value.
The record he and Nino had cut, the one of Italian songs, was selling much better
than anything he had cut lately, but he knew that it was Nino's success more than his.
He resigned himself to never being able to again sing professionally.
Once a week he had dinner with Ginny and the kids. No matter how hectic
(лихорадочный, возбужденный: «чахоточный»; здесь: суетливый, оживленный)
things got he never skipped that duty. But he didn't sleep with Ginny. Meanwhile his
second wife had finagled a Mexican divorce and so he was a bachelor (холостяк
['bжt∫∂l∂]) again. Oddly enough he was not that frantic to bang starlets who would have
33
been easy meat. He was too snobbish really. He was hurt that none of the young stars,
the actresses who were still on top, ever gave him a tumble (не проявляли к нему
интереса; to tumble – валиться вниз; понять что-либо /сленг/). But it was good to
work hard. Most nights he would go home alone, put his old records on the player, have
a drink and hum along with them for a few bars (несколько тактов). He had been good,
damn good. He hadn't realized how good he was. Even aside from the special voice,
which could have happened to anybody, he was good. He had been a real artist and
never knew it, and never knew how much he loved it. He'd ruined his voice with booze
and tobacco and broads just when he really knew what it was all about.
Sometimes Nino came over for a drink and listened with him and Johnny would say to
him scornfully, "You guinea bastard, you never sang like that in your life." And Nino
would give him that curiously charming smile and shake his head and say, "No, and I
never will," in a sympathetic voice, as if he knew what Johnny was thinking.
Finally, a week before shooting the new picture, the Academy Award night rolled
around. Johnny invited Nino to come along but Nino refused. Johnny said, "Buddy, I
never asked you a favor, right? Do me a favor tonight and come with me. You're the
only guy who'll really feel sorry for me if I don't win."
For one moment Nino looked startled. Then he said, "Sure, old buddy, I can make it."
He paused for a moment and said, "If you don't win, forget it. Just get as drunk as you
can get and I'll take care of you. Hell, I won't even drink myself tonight. How about that
for being a buddy (ну как, разве я не настоящий друг)?"
"Man," Johnny Fontane said, "that's some buddy."
The Academy Award night came and Nino kept his promise. He came to Johnny's
house dead sober and they left for the presentation theater together. Nino wondered
why Johnny hadn't invited any of his girls or his ex-wives to the Award dinner.
Especially Ginny. Didn't he think Ginny would root for (поддерживать, ободрять) him?
Nino wished he could have just one drink, it looked like a long bad night.
Nino Valenti found the whole Academy Award affair a bore until the winner of the best
male actor was announced. When he heard the words "Johnny Fontane," he found
himself jumping into the air and applauding. Johnny reached out a hand for him to
shake and Nino shook it. He knew his buddy needed human contact with someone he
trusted and Nino felt an enormous sadness that Johnny didn't have anyone better than
himself to touch in his moment of glory.
What followed was an absolute nightmare. Jack Woltz's picture had swept all the
major awards and so the studio's party was swamped (to swamp [swomp] – заливать,
затоплять; swamp – болото, топь) with newspaper people and all the on-the-make
(старающийся улучшить свое положение /обычно за счет других/; ищущий
34
любовного приключения) hustlers, male and female. Nino kept his promise to remain
sober, and he tried to watch over Johnny. But the women of the party kept pulling
Johnny Fontane into bedrooms for a little chat and Johnny kept getting drunker and
drunker.
Meanwhile the woman who had won the award for the best actress was suffering the
same fate but loving it more and handling it better. Nino turned her down (отверг), the
only man at the party to do so.
Finally somebody had a great idea. The public mating (совокупление; to mate –
сочетаться /браком/; спариваться /о птицах/) of the two winners, everybody else at
the party to be spectators in the stands. The actress was stripped down and the other
women started to undress Johnny Fontane. It was then that Nino, the only sober person
there, grabbed the half-clothed Johnny and slung (to sling – швырять; вешать через
плечо) him over his shoulder and fought his way out of the house and to their car. As
he drove Johnny home, Nino thought that if that was success, he didn't want it.
Book 3
Chapter 14
The Don was a real man at the age of twelve. Short, dark, slender, living in the
strange Moorish-looking (выглядящий по-мавритански, напоминающий что-то
мавританское) village of Corleone in Sicily, he had been born Vito Andolini, but when
strange men came to kill the son of the man they had murdered, his mother sent the
young boy to America to stay with friends. And in the new land he changed his name to
Corleone to preserve some tie with his native village. It was one of the few gestures of
sentiment he was ever to make.
In Sicily at the turn of the century the Mafia was the second government, far more
powerful than the official one in Rome. Vito Corleone's father became involved in a feud
(наследственная вражда, междоусобица; кровная месть [fju:d]) with another villager
who took his case to the Mafia. The father refused to knuckle under (покориться) and in
a public quarrel killed the local Mafia chief. A week later he himself was found dead, his
body torn apart by lupara blasts. A month after the funeral Mafia gunmen came inquiring
after the young boy, Vito. They had decided that he was too close to manhood, that he
might try to avenge the death of his father in the years to come. The twelve-year-old
Vito was hidden by relatives and shipped to America. There he was boarded with the
Abbandandos, whose son Genco was later to become Consigliori to his Don.
Young Vito went to work in the Abbandando grocery store on Ninth Avenue in New
York's Hell's Kitchen. At the age of eighteen Vito married an Italian girl freshly arrived
from Sicily, a girl of only sixteen but a skilled cook, a good housewife. They settled
down in a tenement (многоквартирный дом, сдаваемый в аренду ['tenım∂nt]) on
Tenth Avenue, near 35th Street, only a few blocks from where Vito worked, and two
years later were blessed with their first child, Santino, called by all his friends Sonny
because of his devotion to his father.
In the neighborhood lived a man called Fanucci. He was a heavy-set, fierce-looking
Italian who wore expensive light-colored suits and a cream-colored fedora. This man
was reputed to be of the "Black Hand," an offshoot (ответвление, боковая ветвь) of
the Mafia which extorted money from families and storekeepers by threat of physical
violence. However, since most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood were violent
themselves, Fanucci's threats of bodily harm were effective only with elderly couples
35
without male children to defend them. Some of the storekeepers paid him trifling sums
as a matter of convenience. However, Fanucci was also a scavenger (уборщик мусора;
животное или птица, питающееся падалью ['skжvındG∂]) on fellow criminals, people
who illegally sold Italian lottery or ran gambling games in their homes. The Abbandando
grocery gave him a small tribute, this despite the protests of young Genco, who told his
father he would settle the Fanucci hash (заставит его замолчать, разделается с ним;
hash – блюдо из мелко нарезанного мяса и овощей; мешанина, путаница). His
father forbade him. Vito Corleone observed all this without feeling in any way involved.
One day Fanucci was set upon by three young men who cut his throat from ear to ear,
not deeply enough to kill him, but enough to frighten him and make him bleed a great
deal. Vito saw Fanucci fleeing from his punishers, the circular slash flowing red. What
he never forgot was Fanucci holding the cream-colored fedora under his chin to catch
the dripping blood as he ran. As if he did not want his suit soiled or did not want to leave
a shameful trail of carmine.
But this attack proved a blessing in disguise for Fanucci. The three young men were not
murderers, merely tough young boys determined to teach him a lesson and stop him
from scavenging. Fanucci proved himself a murderer. A few weeks later the knife-
wielder was shot to death and the families of the other two young men paid an
indemnity (возмещение, компенсация) to Fanucci to make him forswear his
vengeance (отказаться от мести). After that the tributes became higher and Fanucci
became a partner in the neighborhood gambling games. As for Vito Corleone, it was
none of his affair. He forgot about it immediately.
36
During World War I, when imported olive oil became scarce, Fanucci acquired a part-
interest in the Abbandando grocery store by supplying it not only with oil, but imported
Italian salami, hams and cheeses. He then moved a nephew into the store and Vito
Corleone found himself out of a job.
By this time, the second child, Frederico, had arrived and Vito Corleone had four
mouths to feed. Up to this time he had been a quiet, very contained young man who
kept his thoughts to himself. The son of the grocery store owner, young Genco
Abbandando, was his closest friend, and to the surprise of both of them, Vito
reproached his friend for his father's deed. Genco, flushed with shame, vowed to Vito
that he would not have to worry about food. That he, Genco, would steal food from the
grocery to supply his friend's needs. This offer though was sternly refused by Vito as too
shameful, a son stealing from his father.
The young Vito, however, felt a cold anger for the dreaded Fanucci. He never showed
this anger in any way but bided his time (выжидал благоприятного случая). He
worked in the railroad for a few months and then, when the war ended, work became
slow and he could earn only a few days' pay a month. Also, most of the foremen were
Irish and American and abused the workmen in the foulest language, which Vito always
bore stone-faced as if he did not comprehend, though he understood English very well
despite his accent.
One evening as Vito was having supper with his family there was a knock on the
window that led to the open air shaft (шахта; проход) that separated them from the next
building. When Vito pulled aside the curtain he saw to his astonishment one of the
young men in the neighborhood, Peter Clemenza, leaning out from a window on the
other side of the air shaft. He was extending a white-sheeted bundle.
"Hey, paisan," Clemenza said. "Hold these for me until I ask for them. Hurry up."
Automatically Vito reached over the empty space of the air shaft and took the bundle.
Clemenza's face was strained and urgent. He was in some sort of trouble and Vito's
helping action was instinctive. But when he untied the bundle in his kitchen, there were
five oily guns staining the white cloth. He put them in his bedroom closet and waited. He
learned that Clemenza had been taken away by the police. They must have been
knocking on his door when he handed the guns over the air shaft.
Vito never said a word to anyone and of course his terrified wife dared not open her
lips even in gossip for fear her own husband would be sent to prison. Two days later
Peter Clemenza reappeared in the neighborhood and asked Vito casually, "Do you
have my goods still?"
Vito nodded. He was in the habit of talking little.
37
Clemenza came up to his tenement flat and was given a glass of wine while Vito dug
the bundle out of his bedroom closet.
Clemenza drank his wine, his heavy good-natured face alertly watching Vito. "Did you
look inside?"
Vito, his face impassive, shook his head. "I'm not interested in things that don't
concern me," he said.
They drank wine together the rest of the evening. They found each other congenial.
Clemenza was a storyteller; Vito Corleone was a listener to storytellers. They became
casual friends.
A few days later Clemenza asked the wife of Vito Corleone if she would like a fine rug
for her living room floor. He took Vito with him to help carry the rug. Clemenza led Vito
to an apartment house with two marble pillars and a white marble stoop (крыльцо со
ступенями; открытая веранда). He used a key to open the door and they were inside
a plush apartment. Clemenza grunted, "Go on the other side of the room and help me
roll it up."
The rug was a rich red wool. Vito Corleone was astonished by Clemenza's generosity.
Together they rolled the rug into a pile and Clemenza took one end while Vito took the
other. They lifted it and started carrying it toward the door.
At that moment the apartment bell rang. Clemenza immediately dropped the rug and
strode to the window. He pulled the drape aside slightly and what he saw made him
draw a gun from inside his jacket. It was only at that moment the astonished Vito
Corleone realized that they were stealing the rug from some stranger's apartment.
The apartment bell rang again. Vito went up alongside Clemenza so that he too could
see what was happening. At the door was a uniformed policeman. As they watched, the
policeman gave the doorbell a final push, then shrugged and walked away down the
marble steps and down the street.
Clemenza grunted in a satisfied way and said, "Come on, let's go." He picked up his
end of the rug and Vito picked up the other end. The policeman had barely turned the
comer before they were edging out the heavy oaken door and into the street with the
rug between them. Thirty minutes later they were cutting the rug to fit the living room of
38
Vito Corleone's apartment. They had enough left over for the bedroom. Clemenza was
an expert workman and from the pockets of his wide, ill-fitting jacket (even then he liked
to wear loose clothes though he was not so fat), he had the necessary carpet-cutting
tools.
Time went on, things did not improve. The Corleone family could not eat the beautiful
rug. Very well, there was no work, his wife and children must starve. Vito took some
parcels of food from his friend Genco while he thought things out. Finally he was
approached by Clemenza and Tessio, another young tough of the neighborhood. They
were men who thought well of him, the way he carried himself, and they knew he was
desperate. They proposed to him that he become one of their gang which specialized in
hijacking (to hijack – грабить) trucks of silk dresses after those trucks were loaded up at
the factory on 31st Street. There was no risk. The truck drivers were sensible
workingmen who at the sight of a gun flopped (быстренько спрыгнули; to flop –
шлепнуться, плюхнуться) on the sidewalk like angels while the hijackers drove the
truck away to be unloaded at a friend's warehouse. Some of the merchandise would be
sold to an Italian wholesaler (оптовый торговец), part of the loot (добыча,
награбленное) would be sold door-to-door in the Italian neighborhoods – Arthur
Avenue in the Bronx, Mulberry Street, and the Chelsea district in Manhattan – all to poor
Italian families looking for a bargain, whose daughters could never be able to afford
such fine apparel (наряд, одеяние [∂‘pжr∂l]). Clemenza and Tessio needed Vito to
drive since they knew he chauffeured the Abbandando grocery store delivery truck. In
1919, skilled automobile drivers were at a premium (в большом почете, в большом
спросе).
Against his better judgment, Vito Corleone accepted their offer. The clinching
(решающий; clinch – зажим, скоба; заклепка; to clinch – прибивать гвоздем, загибая
его шляпку, заклепывать; окончательно решать, договариваться) argument was
that he would clear (получить чистую прибыль) at least a thousand dollars for his
share of the job. But his young companions struck him as rash, the planning of the job
haphazard (наудачу; случайно), the distribution of the loot foolhardy (рискованный,
безрассудный). Their whole approach was too careless for his taste. But he thought
them of good, sound character. Peter Clemenza, already burly, inspired a certain trust,
and the lean saturnine (мрачный, угрюмый ['sжt∂:naın]) Tessio inspired confidence.
The job itself went off without a hitch (зацепка, заминка). Vito Corleone felt no fear,
much to his astonishment, when his two comrades flashed guns and made the driver
get out of the silk truck. He was also impressed with the coolness of Clemenza and
Tessio. They didn't get excited but joked with the driver, told him if he was a good lad
39
they'd send his wife a few dresses. Because Vito thought it stupid to peddle (торговать
вразнос) dresses himself and so gave his whole share of stock to the fence (забор,
ограда; укрыватель или скупщик краденого /сленг/), he made only seven hundred
dollars. But this was a considerable sum of money in 1919.
The next day on the street, Vito Corleone was stopped by the cream-suited, white-
fedoraed Fanucci. Fanucci was a brutal-looking man and he had done nothing to
disguise the circular scar that stretched in a white semicircle from ear to ear, looping
(loop – петля; to loop – делать петлю) under his chin. He had heavy black brows and
coarse features which, when he smiled, were in some odd way amiable.
He spoke with a very thick Sicilian accent. "Ah, young fellow," he said to Vito. "People
tell me you're rich. You and your two friends. But don't you think you've treated me a
little shabbily (shabby – протертый, потрепанный; низкий, подлый)? After all, this is
my neighborhood and you should let me wet my beak (клюв)." He used the Sicilian
phrase of the Mafia, "Fari vagnari a pizzu." Pizzu means the beak of any small bird such
as a canary. The phrase itself was a demand for part of the loot.
As was his habit, Vito Corleone did not answer. He understood the implication (намек,
подтекст; to implicate – вовлекать, впутывать; заключать в себе, подразумевать)
immediately and was waiting for a definite demand.
Fanucci smiled at him, showing gold teeth and stretching his noose-like scar tight
around his face. He mopped his face with a handkerchief and unbuttoned his jacket for
a moment as if to cool himself but really to show the gun he carried stuck in the
waistband of his comfortably wide trousers. Then he sighed and said, "Give me five
hundred dollars and I'll forget the insult. After all, young people don't know the
courtesies due a man like myself."
Vito Corleone smiled at him and even as a young man still unblooded (еще не
запятнанный кровью), there was something so chilling in his smile that Fanucci
hesitated a moment before going on. "Otherwise the police will come to see you, your
wife and children will be shamed and destitute (останется без средств; destitute –
лишенный средств /к существованию/). Of course if my information as to your gains is
incorrect I'll dip (погружать /в жидкость/, окунать) my beak just a little. But no less than
three hundred dollars. And don't try to deceive me."
For the first time Vito Corleone spoke. His voice was reasonable, showed no anger. It
was courteous, as befitted a young man speaking to an older man of Fanucci's
eminence (высота; высокое положение). He said softly, "My two friends have my
share of the money, I'll have to speak to them."
40
Fanucci was reassured. "You can tell your two friends that I expect them to let me wet
my beak in the same manner. Don't be afraid to tell them," he added reassuringly.
"Clemenza and I know each other well, he understands these things. Let yourself be
guided by him. He has more experience in these matters."
Vito Corleone shrugged. He tried to look a little embarrassed. "Of course," he said.
"You understand this is all new to me. Thank you for speaking to me as a godfather."
Fanucci was impressed. "You're a good fellow," he said. He took Vito's hand and
clasped it in both of his hairy ones. "You have respect," he said. "A fine thing in the
young. Next time speak to me first, eh? Perhaps I can help you in your plans."
In later years Vito Corleone understood that what had made him act in such a perfect,
tactical way with Fanucci was the death of his own hot-tempered father who had been
killed by the Mafia in Sicily. But at that time all he felt was an icy rage that this man
planned to rob him of the money he had risked his life and freedom to earn. He had not
been afraid. Indeed he thought, at that moment, that Fanucci was a crazy fool. From
what he had seen of Clemenza, that burly Sicilian would sooner give up his life than a
penny of his loot. After all, Clemenza had been ready to kill a policeman merely to steal
a rug. And the slender Tessio had the deadly air of a viper (гадюка ['vaıp∂]).
But later that night, in Clemenza's tenement apartment across the air shaft, Vito
Corleone received another lesson in the education he had just begun. Clemenza cursed,
Tessio scowled (to scowl [skaul] – хмуриться, смотреть сердито), but then both men
started talking about whether Fanucci would be satisfied with two hundred dollars.
Tessio thought he might.
Clemenza was positive. "No, that scarface bastard must have found out what we
made from the wholesaler who bought the dresses. Fanucci won't take a dime less than
three hundred dollars. We'll have to pay."
Vito was astonished but was careful not to show his astonishment. "Why do we have
to pay him? What can he do to the three of us? We're stronger than him. We have guns.
Why do we have to hand over the money we earned?"
Clemenza explained patiently. "Fanucci has friends, real brutes. He has connections
with the police. He'd like us to tell him our plans because he could set us up for the cops
and earn their gratitude. Then they would owe him a favor. That’s how he operates. And
he has a license from Maranzalla himself to work this neighborhood." Maranzalla was a
gangster often in the newspapers, reputed to be the leader of a criminal ring
specializing in extortion, gambling and armed robbery.
Clemenza served wine that he had made himself. His wife, after putting a plate of
41
salami, olives and a loaf of Italian bread on the table, went down to sit with her women
cronies in front of the building, carrying her chair with her. She was a young Italian girl
only a few years in the country and did not yet understand English.
Vito Corleone sat with his two friends and drank wine. He had never used his
intelligence before as he was using it now. He was surprised at how clearly he could
think. He recalled everything he knew about Fanucci. He remembered the day the man
had had his throat cut and had run down the street holding his fedora under his chin to
catch the dripping blood. He remembered the murder of the man who had wielded the
knife and the other two having their sentences removed by paying an indemnity. And
suddenly he was sure that Fanucci had no great connections, could not possibly have.
Not a man who informed to the police. Not a man who allowed his vengeance to be
bought off. A real Mafioso chief would have had the other two men killed also. No.
Fanucci had got lucky and killed one man but had known he could not kill the other two
after they were alerted. And so he had allowed himself to be paid. It was the personal
brutal force of the man that allowed him to levy tribute (взимать налог: levy [‘levı]) on
the shopkeepers, the gambling games that ran in the tenement apartments. But Vito
Corleone knew of at least one gambling game that had never paid Fanucci tributes and
nothing had ever happened to the man running it.
And so it was Fanucci alone. Or Fanucci with some gunmen hired for special jobs on
a strictly cash basis. Which left Vito Corleone with another decision. The course his own
life must take.
It was from this experience came his oft-repeated belief that every man has but one
destiny. On that night he could have paid Fanucci the tribute and have become again a
grocery clerk with perhaps his own grocery store in the years to come. But destiny had
decided that he was to become a Don and had brought Fanucci to him to set him on his
destined path.
When they finished the bottle of wine, Vito said cautiously to Clemenza and Tessio, "If
you like, why not give me two hundred dollars each to pay to Fanucci? I guarantee he
will accept that amount from me. Then leave everything in my hands. I'll settle this
problem to your satisfaction."
At once Clemenza's eyes gleamed with suspicion. Vito said to him coldly, "I never lie
to people I have accepted as my friends. Speak to Fanucci yourself tomorrow. Let him
ask you for the money. But don't pay him. And don't in any way quarrel with him. Tell
him you have to get the money and will give it to me to give him. Let him understand
that you are willing to pay what he asks. Don't bargain. I'll quarrel over the price with
42
him. There's no point making him angry with us if he's as dangerous a man as you say
he is."
They left it at that. The next day Clemenza spoke with Fanucci to make sure that Vito
was not making up the story. Then Clemenza came to Vito's apartment and gave him
the two hundred dollars. He peered (to peer – вглядываться, всматриваться) at Vito
Corleone and said, "Fanucci told me nothing below three hundred dollars, how will you
make him take less?"
Vito Corleone said reasonably, "Surely that's no concern of yours (не твоя забота).
Just remember that I've done you a service."
Tessio came later. Tessio was more reserved than Clemenza, sharper, more clever
but with less force. He sensed something amiss, something not quite right. He was a
little worried. He said to Vito Corleone, "Watch yourself with that bastard of a Black
Hand, he's tricky as a priest. Do you want me to be here when you hand him the money,
as a witness?"
Vito Corleone shook his head. He didn't even bother to answer. He merely said to
Tessio, "Tell Fanucci I'll pay him the money here in my house at nine o'clock tonight. I'll
have to give him a glass of wine and talk, reason with him to take the lesser sum. "
Tessio shook his head. "You won't have much luck. Fanucci never retreats."
"I'll reason with him," Vito Corleone said. It was to become a famous phrase in the
years to come. It was to become the warning rattle (предупреждающий треск) before a
deadly strike. When he became a Don and asked opponents to sit down and reason
with him, they understood it was the last chance to resolve an affair without bloodshed
and murder.
Vito Corleone told his wife to take the two children, Sonny and Fredo, down into the
street after supper and on no account to let them come up to the house until he gave
her permission. She was to sit on guard at the tenement door. He had some private
business with Fanucci that could not be interrupted. He saw the look of fear on her face
and was angry. He said to her quietly, "Do you think you've married a fool?" She didn't
answer. She did not answer because she was frightened, not of Fanucci now, but of her
husband. He was changing visibly before her eyes, hour by hour, into a man who
radiated some dangerous force. He had always been quiet, speaking little, but always
gentle, always reasonable, which was extraordinary in a young Sicilian male. What she
43
was seeing was the shedding (to shed – ронять, терять, сбрасывать /одежду, кожу/)
of his protective coloration of a harmless nobody now that he was ready to start on his
destiny (судьба). He had started late, he was twenty-five years old, but he was to start
with a flourish.
Vito Corleone had decided to murder Fanucci. By doing so he would have an extra
seven hundred dollars in his bankroll (roll – свиток, сверток; /сленг/ пачка денег). The
three hundred dollars he himself would have to pay the Black Hand terrorist and the two
hundred dollars from Tessio and the two hundred dollars from Clemenza. If he did not
kill Fanucci, he would have to pay the man seven hundred dollars cold cash. Fanucci
alive was not worth seven hundred dollars to him. He would not pay seven hundred
dollars to keep Fanucci alive. If Fanucci needed seven hundred dollars for an operation
to save his life, he would not give Fanucci seven hundred dollars for the surgeon. He
owed Fanucci no personal debt of gratitude, they were not blood relatives, he did not
love Fanucci. Whyfore, then, should he give Fanucci seven hundred dollars?
And it followed inevitably, that since Fanucci wished to take seven hundred dollars
from him by force, why should he not kill Fanucci? Surely the world could do without
such a person.
There were of course some practical reasons. Fanucci might indeed have powerful
friends who would seek vengeance. Fanucci himself was a dangerous man, not so
easily killed. There were the police and the electric chair. But Vito Corleone had lived
under a sentence of death since the murder of his father. As a boy of twelve he had fled
his executioners and crossed the ocean into a strange land, taking a strange name. And
years of quiet observation had convinced him that he had more intelligence and more
courage than other men, though he had never had the opportunity to use that
intelligence and courage.
And yet he hesitated before taking the first step toward his destiny. He even packed
the seven hundred dollars in a single fold of bills and put the money in a convenient side
pocket of his trousers. But he put the money in the left side of his trousers. In the right-
hand pocket he put the gun Clemenza had given him to use in the hijacking of the silk
truck.
Fanucci came promptly at nine in the evening. Vito Corleone set out a jug of
homemade wine that Clemenza had given him.
Fanucci put his white fedora on the table beside the jug of wine. He unloosened his
broad multiflowered tie, its tomato stains camouflaged by the bright patterns. The
summer night was hot, the gaslight feeble (слабый, хилый). It was very quiet in the
44
apartment. But Vito Corleone was icy. To show his good faith he handed over the roll of
bills and watched carefully as Fanucci, after counting it, took out a wide leather wallet
and stuffed the money inside. Fanucci sipped his glass of wine and said, "You still owe
me two hundred dollars." His heavy-browed face was expressionless.
Vito Corleone said in his cool reasonable voice, "I'm a little short, I've been out of work.
Let me owe you the money for a few weeks."
This was a permissible (позволительный) gambit. Fanucci had the bulk (объем;
большие размеры; основная масса) of the money and would wait. He might even be
persuaded to take nothing more or to wait a little longer. He chuckled over his wine and
said, "Ah, you're a sharp young fellow. How is it I've never noticed you before? You're
too quiet a chap for your own interest. I could find some work for you to do that would
be very profitable."
Vito Corleone showed his interest with a polite nod and filled up the man's glass from
the purple jug. But Fanucci thought better of what he was going to say and rose from his
chair and shook Vito's hand. "Good night, young fellow," he said. "No hard feelings (без
обиды), eh? If I can ever do you a service let me know. You've done a good job for
yourself tonight."
Vito let Fanucci go down the stairs and out the building. The street was thronged with
witnesses to show that he had left the Corleone home safely. Vito watched from the
window. He saw Fanucci turn the comer toward 11th Avenue and knew he was headed
toward his apartment, probably to put away his loot before coming out on the streets
again. Perhaps to put away his gun. Vito Corleone left his apartment and ran up the
stairs to the roof. He traveled over the square block of roofs and descended down the
steps of an empty loft (чердак; верхний этаж /торгового помещения, склада/)
building fire escape that left him in the back yard. He kicked the back door open and
went through the front door. Across the street was Fanucci's tenement apartment house.
The village of tenements extended only as far west as Tenth Avenue. Eleventh
Avenue was mostly warehouses and lofts rented by firms who shipped by New York
Central Railroad and wanted access to the freight (фрахт, груз) yards (that
honeycombed (honeycomb – медовые соты; to honeycomb – изрешетить,
продырявить) the area from Eleventh Avenue to the Hudson River. Fanucci's
apartment house was one of the few left standing in this wilderness and was occupied
mostly by bachelor trainmen, yard workers, and the cheapest prostitutes. These people
did not sit in the street and gossip like honest Italians, they sat in beer taverns guzzling
(to guzzle – жадно глотать; пропивать) their pay. So Vito Corleone found it an easy
45
matter to slip across the deserted Eleventh Avenue and into the vestibule of Fanucci's
apartment house. There he drew the gun he had never fired and waited for Fanucci.
He watched through the glass door of the vestibule, knowing Fanucci would come
down from Tenth Avenue. Clemenza had showed him the safety on the gun and he had
triggered it empty. But as a young boy in Sicily at the early age of nine, he had often
gone hunting with his father, had often fired the heavy shotgun called the lupara. It was
his skill with the lupara even as a small boy that had brought the sentence of death
upon him by his father's murderers.
Now waiting in the darkened hallway, he saw the white blob (капля; маленький
шарик /земли, глины/) of Fanucci crossing the street toward the doorway. Vito stepped
back, shoulders pressed against the inner door that led to the stairs. He held his gun out
to fire. His extended hand was only two paces from the outside door. The door swung in.
Fanucci, white, broad, smelly, filled the square of light. Vito Corleone fired.
The opened door let some of the sound escape into the street, the rest of the gun's
explosion shook the building. Fanucci was holding on to the sides of the door, trying to
stand erect, trying to reach for his gun. The force of his struggle had torn the buttons off
his jacket and made it swing loose. His gun was exposed but so was a spidery vein
(вена; жилка [veın]) of red on the white shirtfront of his stomach. Very carefully, as if he
were plunging a needle into a vein, Vito Corleone fired his second bullet into that red
web.
Fanucci fell to his knees, propping the door open. He let out a terrible groan. the
groan of a man in great physical distress that was almost comical. He kept giving these
groans; Vito remembered hearing at least three of them before he put the gun against
Fanucci's sweaty, suety (сальный; suet [sjuıt] – почечное или нутряное сало) cheek
and fired into his brain. No more than five seconds had passed when Fanucci slumped
(to slump – резко падать, тяжело опускаться) into death, jamming (to jam – зажимать;
впихивать) the door open with his body.
Very carefully Vito took the wide wallet out of the dead man's jacket pocket and put it
inside his shirt. Then he walked across the street into the loft building, through that into
the yard and climbed the fire escape to the roof. From there he surveyed the street.
Fanucci's body was still lying in the doorway but there was no sign of any other person.
Two windows had gone up in the tenement and he could see dark heads poked out but
since he could not see their features they had certainly not seen his. And such men
would not give information to the police. Fanucci might lie there until dawn or until a
patrolman making the rounds stumbled on his body. No person in that house would
deliberately (сознательно, осознанно; нарочно = по собственной воле) expose
46
himself to police suspicion or questioning. They would lock their doors and pretend they
had heard nothing.
He could take his time. He traveled over the rooftops to his own roof door and down to
his own flat. He unlocked the door, went inside and then locked the door behind him. He
rifled (to rifle – обыскивать в целях грабежа) the dead man's wallet. Besides the seven
hundred dollars he had given Fanucci there were only some singles and a five-dollar
note.
Tucked (to tuck – делать складки /на платье/; подгибать; засовывать, прятать;
tuck – складка) inside the flap (клапан, заслонка, /боковое/ отделение) was an old
five-dollar gold piece, probably a luck token (знак, примета; здесь: талисман). If
Fanucci was a rich gangster, he certainly did not carry his wealth with him. This
confirmed some of Vito's suspicions.
He knew he had to get rid of the wallet and the gun (knowing enough even then that
he must leave the gold piece in the wallet). He went up on the roof again and traveled
over a few ledges (ledge – планка, рейка). He threw the wallet down one air shaft and
then he emptied the gun of bullets and smashed its barrel against the roof ledge. The
barrel wouldn't break. He reversed it in his hand and smashed the butt against the side
of a chimney. The butt split into two halves. He smashed it again and the pistol broke
into barrel and handle, two separate pieces. He used a separate air shaft for each. They
made no sound when they struck the earth five stories below, but sank into the soft hill
of garbage that had accumulated there. In the morning more garbage would be thrown
out of the windows and, with luck, would cover everything. Vito returned to his
apartment.
He was trembling a little but was absolutely under control. He changed his clothes and
fearful that some blood might have splattered on them, he threw them into a metal tub
his wife used for washing. He took lye (щёлок) and heavy brown laundry soap to soak
the clothes and scrubbed them with the metal wash board beneath the sink. Then he
scoured (to scour – отчищать, оттирать) tub and sink with lye and soap. He found a
bundle of newly washed clothes in the corner of the bedroom and mingled his own
clothes with these. Then he put on a fresh shirt and trousers and went down to join his
wife and children and neighbors in front of the tenement.
All these precautions proved to be unnecessary. The police, after discovering the
dead body at dawn, never questioned Vito Corleone. Indeed he was astonished that
they never learned about Fanucci's visit to his home on the night he was shot to death.
47
He had counted on that for an alibi, Fanucci leaving the tenement alive. He only learned
later that the police had been delighted with the murder of Fanucci and not too anxious
to pursue his killers. They had assumed it was another gang execution, and had
questioned hoodlums with records in the rackets and a history of strong-arm. Since Vito
had never been in trouble he never came into the picture.
But if he had outwitted the police, his partners were another matter. Pete Clemenza
and Tessio avoided him for the next week, for the next two weeks, then they came to
call on him one evening. They came with obvious respect. Vito Corleone greeted them
with impassive courtesy and served them wine.
Clemenza spoke first. He said softly, "Nobody is collecting from the store owners on
Ninth Avenue. Nobody is collecting from the card games and gambling in the
neighborhood."
Vito Corleone gazed at both men steadily but did not reply. Tessio spoke. "We could
take over Fanucci's customers. They would pay us."
Vito Corleone shrugged. "Why come to me? I have no interest in such things."
Clemenza laughed. Even in his youth, before growing his enormous belly, he had a fat
man's laugh. He said now to Vito Corleone, "How about that gun I gave you for the truck
job? Since you won't need it any more you can give it back to me."
Very slowly and deliberately Vito Corleone took a wad of bills out of his side pocket
and peeled off five tens. "Here, I'll pay you. I threw the gun away after the truck job." He
smiled at the two men.
At that time Vito Corleone did not know the effect of this smile. It was chilling because
it attempted no menace. He smiled as if it was some private joke only he himself could
appreciate. But since he smiled in that fashion only in affairs that were lethal, and since
the joke was not really private and since his eyes did not smile, and since his outward
character was usually so reasonable and quiet, the sudden unmasking of his true self
was frightening.
Clemenza shook his head. "I don't want the money," he said. Vito pocketed the bills.
He waited. They all understood each other. They knew he had killed Fanucci and
though they never spoke about it to anyone the whole neighborhood, within a few
weeks, also knew. Vito Corleone was treated as a "man of respect" by everyone. But he
made no attempt to take over the Fanucci rackets and tributes.
What followed then was inevitable. One night Vito's wife brought a neighbor, a widow,
to the flat. The woman was Italian and of unimpeachable (безупречный,
безукоризненный; to impeach – брать под сомнение, бросать тень; порицать)
character. She worked hard to keep a home for her fatherless children. Her sixteen-
year-old son brought home his pay envelope sealed, to hand over to her in the old-
48
country style; her seventeen-year-old daughter, a dressmaker, did the same. The whole
family sewed buttons on cards at night at slave labor piece rates. The woman's name
was Signora Colombo.
Vito Corleone's wife said, "The Signora has a favor to ask of you. She is having some
trouble."
Vito Corleone expected to be asked for money, which he was ready to give. But it
seemed that Mrs. Colombo owned a dog which her youngest son adored. The landlord
had received complaints on the dog barking at night and had told Mrs. Colombo to get
rid of it. She had pretended to do so. The landlord had found out that she had deceived
him and had ordered her to vacate her apartment. She had promised this time to truly
get rid of the dog and she had done so. But the landlord was so angry that he would not
revoke (отменить, взять назад) his order. She had to get out or the police would be
summoned (to summon [‘sΛm∂n] – требовать исполнения) to put her out. And her
poor little boy had cried so when they had given the dog away to relatives who lived in
Long Island. All for nothing (ни за что ни про что), they would lose their home.
Vito Corleone asked her gently, "Why do you ask me to help you?"
Mrs. Colombo nodded toward his wife. "She told me to ask you."
He was surprised. His wife had never questioned him about the clothes he had
washed the night he had murdered Fanucci. Had never asked him where all the money
came from when he was not working. Even now her face was impassive. Vito said to
Mrs Colombo, "I can give you some money to help you move, is that what you want?"
The woman shook her head, she was in tears. "All my friends are here, all the girls I
grew up with in Italy. How can I move to another neighborhood with strangers? I want
you to speak to the landlord to let me stay."
Vito nodded. "It's done then. You won't have to move. I'll speak to him tomorrow
morning."
His wife gave him a smile which he did not acknowledge, but he felt pleased. Mrs.
Colombo looked a little uncertain. "You're sure he'll say yes, the landlord?" she asked.
"Signor Roberto?" Vito said in a surprised voice. "Of course he will. He's a good-
hearted fellow. Once I explain how things are with you he'll take pity on your
misfortunes. Now don't let it trouble you any more. Don't get so upset. Guard your
health, for the sake of your children."
49
The landlord, Mr. Roberto, came to the neighborhood every day to check on the row
of five tenements that he owned. He was a padrone, a man who sold Italian laborers
just off the boat to the big corporations. With his profits he had bought the tenements
one by one. An educated man from the North of Italy, he felt only contempt for these
illiterate (неграмотные, бескультурные) Southerners from Sicily and Naples, who
swarmed (to swarm – кишеть, роиться; swarm – рой, стая) like vermin (паразиты
['v∂:mın]) through his buildings, who threw garbage down the air shafts, who let
cockroaches (тараканы) and rats eat away his walls without lifting a hand to preserve
his property. He was not a bad man, he was a good husband and father, but constant
worry about his investments, about the money he earned, about the inevitable expenses
that came with being a man of property had worn his nerves to a frazzle (потертые или
обтрепанные края платья) so that he was in a constant state of irritation. When Vito
Corleone stopped him on the street to ask for a word, Mr. Roberto was brusque
(отрывистый, резкий, бесцеремонный [brusk]). Not rude, since anyone of these
Southerners might stick a knife into you if rubbed the wrong way, though this young
man looked like a quiet fellow.
"Signor Roberto," said Vito Corleone, "the friend of my wife, a poor widow with no man
to protect her, tells me that for some reason she has been ordered to move from her
apartment in your building. She is in despair. She has no money, she has no friends
except those that live here. I told her that I would speak to you, that you are a
reasonable man who acted out of some misunderstanding. She has gotten rid of the
animal that caused all the trouble and so why shouldn't she stay? As one Italian to
another, I ask you the favor."
Signor Roberto studied the young man in front of him. He saw a man of medium
stature but strongly built, a peasant but not a bandit, though he so laughably dared to
call himself an Italian. Roberto shrugged. "I have already rented the apartment to
another family for higher rent," he said. "I cannot disappoint them for the sake of your
friend."
Vito Corleone nodded in agreeable understanding. "How much more a month?" he
asked.
"Five dollars," Mr. Roberto said. This was a lie. The railway flat, four dark rooms,
rented for twelve dollars a month to the widow and he had not been able to get more
than that from the new tenant.
Vito Corleone took a roll of bills out of his pocket and peeled off three tens. "Here is
the six months' increase in advance. You needn't speak to her about it, she's a proud
50
woman. See me again in another six months. But of course you'll let her keep her dog."
"Like hell," Mr. Roberto said. "And who the hell are you to give me orders. Watch your
manners or you'll be out on your Sicilian ass in the street there."
Vito Corleone raised his hands in surprise. "I'm asking you a favor, only that. One
never knows when one might need a friend, isn't that true? Here, take this money as a
sign of my goodwill and make your own decision. I wouldn't dare to quarrel with it." He
thrust the money into Mr. Roberto's hand. "Do me this little favor, just take the money
and think things over. Tomorrow morning if you want to give me the money back by all
means (любым способом, во что бы то ни стало; /здесь/ конечно же, пожалуйста,
ради Бога) do so. If you want the woman out of your house, how can I stop you? It's
your property, after all. If you don't want the dog in there, I can understand. I dislike
animals myself." He patted Mr. Roberto on the shoulder. "Do me this service, eh? I
won't forget it. Ask your friends in the neighborhood about me, they'll tell you I'm a man
who believes in showing his gratitude."
But of course Mr. Roberto had already begun to understand. That evening he made
inquiries about Vito Corleone. He did not wait until the next morning. He knocked on the
Corleone door that very night, apologizing for the lateness of the hour and accepted a
glass of wine from Signora Corleone. He assured Vito Corleone that it had all been a
dreadful misunderstanding, that of course Signora Colombo could remain in the flat, of
course she could keep her dog. Who were those miserable tenants to complain about
noise from a poor animal when they paid such a low rent? At the finish he threw the
thirty dollars Vito Corleone had given him on the table and said in the most sincere
fashion, "Your good heart in helping this poor widow has shamed me and I wish to show
that I, too, have some Christian charity (милосердие). Her rent will remain what it was."
All concerned played this comedy prettily. Vito poured wine, called for cakes, wrung
Mr. Roberto's hand and praised his warm heart. Mr. Roberto sighed and said that
having made the acquaintance of such a man as Vito Corleone restored his faith in
human nature. Finally they tore themselves away from each other. Mr. Roberto, his
bones turned to jelly with fear at his narrow escape, caught the streetcar to his home in
the Bronx and took to his bed. He did not reappear in his tenements for three days.
Vito Corleone was now a "man of respect" in the neighborhood. He was reputed to be
a member of the Mafia of Sicily. One day a man who ran card games in a furnished
51
room came to him and voluntarily paid him twenty dollars each week for his "friendship."
He had only to visit the game once or twice a week to let the players understand they
were under his protection.
Store owners who had problems with young hoodlums asked him to intercede
(вмешаться). He did so and was properly rewarded. Soon he had the enormous
income for that time and place of one hundred dollars a week. Since Clemenza and
Tessio were his friends, his allies, he had to give them each part of the money, but this
he did without being asked. Finally he decided to go into the olive oil importing business
with his boyhood chum (приятель, закадычный друг), Genco Abbandando. Genco
would handle the business, the importing of the olive oil from Italy, the buying at the
proper price, the storing in his father's warehouse. Genco had the experience for this
part of the business. Clemenza and Tessio would be the salesmen. They would go to
every Italian grocery store in Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then the Bronx, to persuade
store owners to stock Genco Pura olive oil. (With typical modesty, Vito Corleone refused
to name the brand (головня; клеймо; /здесь/ фабричная марка) after himself.) Vito of
course would be the head of the firm since he was supplying most of the capital. He
also would be called in on special cases, where store owners resisted the sales talks of
Clemenza and Tessio. Then Vito Corleone would use his own formidable powers of
persuasion.
For the next few years Vito Corleone lived that completely satisfying life of a small
businessman wholly devoted to building up his commercial enterprise in a dynamic,
expanding economy. He was a devoted father and husband but so busy he could spare
his family little of his time. As Genco Pura olive oil grew to become the bestselling
imported Italian oil in America, his organization mushroomed (быстро росла;
mushroom – гриб). Like any good salesman he came to understand the benefits of
undercutting his rivals in price, barring them from distribution outlets by persuading
store
owners to stock less of their brands. Like any good businessman he aimed at holding a
monopoly by forcing his rivals to abandon the field or by merging (to merge –
сливаться) with his own company. However, since he had started off relatively helpless,
economically, since he did not believe in advertising, relying on word of mouth and
since if truth be told, his olive oil was no better than his competitors', he could not use
the common strangleholds (stranglehold – удушение, мертвая хватка) of legitimate
businessmen. He had to rely on the force of his own personality and his reputation as a
"man of respect."
52
Even as a young man, Vito Corleone became known as a "man of reasonableness."
He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to be irresistible. He always
made certain that the other fellow got his share of profit. Nobody lost. He did this, of
course, by obvious means. Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free
competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about (начал,
приступил) achieving that efficient monopoly. There were some oil wholesalers in
Brooklyn, men of fiery temper, headstrong, not amenable (поддающийся, податливый,
сговорчивый [∂'mi:n∂bl]) to reason, who refused to see, to recognize, the vision of Vito
Corleone, even after he had explained everything to them with the utmost patience and
detail. With these men Vito Corleone threw up his hands in despair and sent Tessio to
Brooklyn to set up a headquarters and solve the problem. Warehouses were burned,
truckloads of olive-green oil were dumped to form lakes in the cobbled (cobble –
булыжник) waterfront (порт, район порта) streets. One rash man, an arrogant
Milanese with more faith in the police than a saint has in Christ, actually went to the
authorities with a complaint against his fellow Italians, breaking the ten-century-old law
of omerta. But before the matter could progress any further the wholesaler disappeared,
never to be seen again, leaving behind, deserted, his devoted wife and three children,
who, God be thanked, were fully grown and capable of taking over his business and
coming to terms (договорившись, заключив соглашение; terms – условия
соглашения, договор) with the Genco Pura Oil Company.
But great men are not born great, they grow great, and so it was with Vito Corleone.
When prohibition (запрещение; запрещение продажи спиртных напитков (1920–33)
[pr∂uı’bı∫∂n]; to prohibit [pr∂’hıbıt] – запрещать, препятствовать) came to pass and
alcohol forbidden to be sold, Vito Corleone made the final step from a quite ordinary,
somewhat ruthless businessman to a great Don in the world of criminal enterprise. It did
not happen in a day, it did not happen in a year, but by the end of the Prohibition period
and the start of the Great Depression, Vito Corleone had become the Godfather, the
Don, Don Corleone.
It started casually enough. By this time the Genco Pura Oil Company had a fleet of six
delivery trucks. Through Clemenza, Vito Corleone was approached by a group of Italian
bootleggers (торговец контрабандными или самогонными спиртными напитками;
bootleg – голенище) who smuggled alcohol and whiskey in from Canada. They needed
trucks and deliverymen to distribute their produce over New York City. They needed
deliverymen who were reliable, discreet and of a certain determination and force. They
were willing to pay Vito Corleone for his trucks and for his men. The fee was so
enormous that Vito Corleone cut back drastically (радикально; drastic –
сильнодействующий /о лекарстве/) on his oil business to use the trucks almost
53
exclusively for the service of the bootlegger-smugglers. This despite the fact that these
gentlemen had accompanied their offer with a silky threat. But even then Vito Corleone
was so mature a man that he did not take insult at a threat or become angry and refuse
a profitable offer because of it. He evaluated the threat, found it lacking in conviction,
and lowered his opinion of his new partners because they had been so stupid to use
threats where none were needed. This was useful information to be pondered at its
proper time.
Again he prospered. But, more important, he acquired knowledge and contacts and
experience. And he piled up (складывал в кучу, накапливал; pile – куча, груда, кипа)
good deeds as a banker piles up securities (ценные бумаги). For in the following years
it became clear that Vito Corleone was not only a man of talent but, in his way, a genius.
He made himself the protector of the Italian families who set themselves up as small
speakeasies (speakeasy – бар, где незаконно торгуют спиртными напитками) in
their homes, selling whiskey at fifteen cents a glass to bachelor laborers. He became
godfather to Mrs. Colombo's youngest son when the lad made his confirmation and
gave a handsome present of a twenty-dollar gold piece. Meanwhile, since it was
inevitable that some of his trucks be stopped by the police, Genco Abbandando hired a
fine lawyer with many contacts in the Police Department and the judiciary (судебное
право; судебное ведомство [dGu:'dı∫ı∂rı]). A system of payoffs was set up and soon
the Corleone organization had a sizable "sheet," the list of officials entitled (to entitle –
давать право [ın'taıtl]) to a monthly sum. When the lawyer tried to keep this list down,
apologizing for the expense, Vito Corleone reassured him. "No, no," he said. "Get
everyone on it even if they can't help us right now. I believe in friendship and I am
willing to show my friendship first."
As time went by the Corleone empire became larger, more trucks were added, the
"sheet" grew longer. Also the men working directly for Tessio and Clemenza grew in
number. The whole thing was becoming unwieldy (неуправляемый)). Finally Vito
Corleone worked out a system of organization. He gave Clemenza and Tessio each the
title of Caporegime, or captain, and the men who worked beneath them the rank of
soldier. He named Genco Abbandando his counselor, or Consigliori. He put layers of
insulation (слои изоляции) between himself and any operational act. When he gave an
order it was to Genco or to one of the caporegimes alone. Rarely did he have a witness
to any order he gave any particular one of them. Then he split Tessio's group and made
it responsible for Brooklyn. He also split Tessio off from Clemenza and made it clear
54
over the years that he did not want the two men to associate even socially except when
absolutely necessary. He explained this to the more intelligent Tessio, who caught his
drift (медленное течение; направление; /здесь/ намерение) immediately, though Vito
explained it as a security measure against the law. Tessio understood that Vito did not
want his two caporegimes to have any opportunity to conspire against him and he also
understood there was no ill will involved, merely a tactical precaution. In return Vito
gave Tessio a free hand in Brooklyn while he kept Clemenza's Bronx fief (феодальное
поместье, лен [fi:f]) very much under his thumb. Clemenza was the braver, more
reckless (дерзкий, отчаянный, reckless of danger – пренебрегающий опасностью),
the crueler man despite his outward jollity (веселость; jolly – веселый, радостный),
and needed a tighter rein (повод, поводья).
The Great Depression increased the power of Vito Corleone. And indeed it was about
that time he came to be called Don Corleone. Everywhere in the city, honest men
begged for honest work in vain. Proud men demeaned (to demean – унижать)
themselves and their families to accept official charity from contemptuous officialdom
(от презирающих их властей). But the men of Don Corleone walked the streets with
their heads held high, their pockets stuffed with silver and paper money. With no fear of
losing their jobs. And even Don Corleone, that most modest of men, could not help
feeling a sense of pride. He was taking care of his world, his people. He had not failed
those who depended on him and gave him the sweat of their brows, risked their
freedom and their lives in his service. And when an employee of his was arrested and
sent to prison by some mischance, that unfortunate man's family received a living
allowance (пожизненное содержание); and not a miserly, beggarly, begrudging (to
begrudge – скупиться) pittance (скудное вспомоществование, жалование) but the
same amount the man earned when free.
This of course was not pure Christian charity. Not his best friends would have called
Don Corleone a saint from heaven. There was some self-interest in this generosity. An
employee sent to prison knew he had only to keep his mouth shut and his wife and
children would be cared for. He knew that if he did not inform to the police a warm
welcome would be his when he left prison. There would be a party waiting in his home,
the best of food, homemade ravioli, wine, pastries, with all his friends and relatives
gathered to rejoice in his freedom. And sometime during the night the Consigliori,
Genco Abbandando, or perhaps even the Don himself, would drop by to pay his
respects to such a stalwart (стойкий приверженец, верный последователь ['sto:w∂t]),
take a glass of wine in his honor, and leave a handsome present of money so that he
could enjoy a week or two of leisure with his family before returning to his daily toil
(тяжелый труд). Such was the infinite sympathy and understanding of Don Corleone.
It was at this time that the Don got the idea that he ran his world far better than his
enemies ran the greater world which continually obstructed his path. And this feeling
was nurtured by the poor people of the neighborhood who constantly came to him for
help. To get on the home relief (облегчение; освобождение /от уплаты/), to get a
young boy a job or out of jail, to borrow a small sum of money desperately needed, to
intervene with landlords who against all reason demanded rent from jobless tenants.
55
Don Vito Corleone helped them all. Not only that, he helped them with goodwill, with
encouraging words to take the bitter sting out of the charity he gave them. It was only
natural then that when these Italians were puzzled and confused on who to vote for to
represent them in the state legislature, in the city offices, in the Congress, they should
ask the advice of their friend Don Corleone, their Godfather. And so he became a
political power to be consulted by practical party chiefs. He consolidated this power with
a far-seeing statesmanlike intelligence; by helping brilliant boys from poor Italian
farnilies through college, boys who would later become lawyers, assistant district
attorneys, and even judges. He planned for the future of his empire with all the foresight
of a great national leader.
The repeal (отмена) of Prohibition dealt this empire a crippling blow but again he had
taken his precautions. In 1933 he sent emissaries to the man who controlled all the
gambling activities of Manhattan, the crap games on the docks, the shylocking that went
with it as hot dogs go with baseball games, the bookmaking on sports and horses, the
illicit gambling houses that ran poker games, the policy or numbers racket of Harlem.
This man's name was Salvatore Maranzano and he was one of the acknowledged
pezzonovante, .90 calibers, or big shots of the New York underworld. The Corleone
emissaries proposed to Maranzano an equal partnership beneficial to both parties. Vito
Corleone with his organization, his police and political contacts, could give the
Maranzano operations a stout umbrella and the new strength to expand into Brooklyn
and the Bronx. But Maranzano was a short-sighted man and spurned (to spurn –
отвергать с презрением) the Corleone offer with contempt. The great Al Capone was
Maranzano's friend and he had his own organization, his own men, plus a huge war
chest (ящик; казна). He would not brook (терпеть, выносить) this upstart (выскочка)
whose reputation was more that of a Parliamentary debator than a true Mafioso.
Maranzano's refusal touched off (его отказ вызвал, привел к) the great war of 1933
which was to change the whole structure of the underworld in New York City.
At first glance it seemed an uneven match. Salvatore Maranzano had a powerful
organization with strong enforcers. He had a friendship with Capone in Chicago and
could call on help in that quarter. He also had a good relationship with the Tattaglia
56
Family, which controlled prostitution in the city and what there was of the thin drug traffic
at that time. He also had political contacts with powerful business leaders who used his
enforcers to terrorize the Jewish unionists in the garment center and the Italian
anarchist syndicates in the building trades.
Against this, Don Corleone could throw two small but superbly organized regimes led
by Clemenza and Tessio. His political and police contacts were negated by the
business leaders who would support Maranzano. But in his favor was the enemy's lack
of intelligence about his organization. The underworld did not know the true strength of
his soldiers and even were deceived that Tessio in Brooklyn was a separate and
independent operation.
And yet despite all this, it was an unequal battle until Vito Corleone evened out the
odds (сравнял счет) with one master stroke.
Maranzano sent a call to Capone for his two best gunmen to come to New York to
eliminate the upstart. The Corleone Family had friends and intelligence in Chicago who
relayed the news that the two gunmen were arriving by train. Vito Corleone dispatched
Luca Brasi to take care of them with instructions that would liberate the strange man's
most savage instincts.
Brasi and his people, four of them, received the Chicago hoods at the railroad station.
One of Brasi's men procured and drove a taxicab for the purpose and the station porter
carrying the bags led the Capone men to this cab. When they got in; Brasi and another
of his men crowded in after them, guns ready, and made the two Chicago boys lie on
the floor. The cab drove to a warehouse near the docks that Brasi had prepared for
them.
The two Capone men were bound hand and foot and small bath towels were stuffed
into their mouths to keep them from crying out.
Then Brasi took an ax (топор) from its place against the wall and started hacking at
one of the Capone men. He chopped the man's feet off, then the legs at the knees, then
the thighs where they joined the torso. Brasi was an extremely powerful man but it took
him many swings to accomplish his purpose. By that time of course the victim had given
up the ghost and the floor of the warehouse was slippery with the hacked fragments of
57
his flesh and the gouting (gout – сгусток крови) of his blood. When Brasi turned to his
second victim he found further effort unnecessary. The second Capone gunman out of
sheer terror had, impossibly, swallowed the bath towel in his mouth and suffocated. The
bath towel was found in the man's stomach when the police performed their autopsy to
determine the cause of death.
A few days later in Chicago the Capones received a message from Vito Corleone. It
was to this effect: "You know now how I deal with enemies. Why does a Neapolitan
interfere in a quarrel between two Sicilians? If you wish me to consider you as a friend I
owe you a service which I will pay on demand. A man like yourself must know how
much more profitable it is to have a friend who, instead of calling on you for help, takes
care of his own affairs and stands ever ready to help you in some future time of trouble.
If you do not wish my friendship, so be it. But then I must tell you that the climate in this
city is damp; unhealthy for Neapolitans, and you are advised never to visit it."
The arrogance of this letter was a calculated one. The Don held the Capones in small
esteem as stupid, obvious cutthroats. His intelligence informed him that Capone had
forfeited (to forfeit [‘fo:fıt] – расплатиться, потерять право /на что-то/; forfeit –
расплата /за проступок/; конфискация) all political influence because of his public
arrogance and the flaunting (to flaunt – гордо развеваться /о знаменах/; выставлять
напоказ, щеголять) of his criminal wealth. The Don knew, in fact was positive, that
without political influence, without the camouflage of society, Capone's world, and
others like it, could be easily destroyed. He knew Capone was on the path to
destruction. He also knew that Capone's influence did not extend beyond the
boundaries of Chicago, terrible and all-pervading as that influence there might be.
The tactic was successful. Not so much because of its ferocity (жестокость) but
because of the chilling swiftness, the quickness of the Don's reaction. If his intelligence
was so good, any further moves would be fraught (полный, чреватый) with danger. It
was better, far wiser, to accept the offer of friendship with its implied payoff (с
предполагаемой, подразумеваемой компенсацией; to imply – заключать в себе;
предполагать, подразумевать). The Capones sent back word that they would not
interfere.
The odds were now equal. And Vito Corleone had earned an enormous amount of
"respect" throughout the United States underworld with his humiliation of the Capones.
For six months he out-generaled Maranzano. He raided the crap games under that
man's protection, located his biggest policy banker (держатель игорного дома) in
Harlem and had him relieved of a day's play not only in money but in records. He
58
engaged his enemies on all fronts. Even in the garment centers he sent Clemenza and
his men to fight on the side of the unionists against the enforcers on the payroll of
Maranzano and the owners of the dress firms. And on all fronts his superior intelligence
and organization made him the victor. Clemenza's jolly ferocity, which Corleone
employed judiciously (рассудительно), also helped turn the tide of battle. And then Don
Corleone sent the held-back reserve of the Tessio regime after Maranzano himself.
By this time Maranzano had dispatched emissaries suing for (to sue for – просить о
чем-либо) a peace. Vito Corleone refused to see them, put them off on one pretext or
another. The Maranzano soldiers were deserting their leader, not wishing to die in a
losing cause. Bookmakers and shylocks were paying the Corleone organization their
protection money. The war was all but over (почти окончена).
And then finally on New Year's Eve of 1933 Tessio got inside the defenses of
Maranzano himself. The Maranzano lieutenants were anxious for a deal and agreed to
lead their chief to the slaughter. They told him that a meeting had been arranged in a
Brooklyn restaurant with Corleone and they accompanied Maranzano as his
bodyguards.
They left him sitting at a checkered (checker – шашка; checkerboard – шахматный
стол) table, morosely munching (мрачно жуя; morose [m∂’r∂us] – мрачный) a piece of
bread, and fled the restaurant as Tessio and four of his men entered. The execution
was swift and sure. Maranzano, his mouth full of half-chewed bread, was riddled with
bullets. The war was over.
The Maranzano empire was incorporated into the Corleone operation. Don Corleone
set up a system of tribute, allowing all incumbents (incumbent – пользующийся
бенефицием священник; /здесь/ букмекер, пользующийся своим доходным местом)
to remain in their bookmaking and policy number spots. As a bonus he had a foothold
(точка опоры) in the unions of the garment center which in later years was to prove
extremely important. And now that he had settled his business affairs the Don found
trouble at home.
Santino Corleone, Sonny, was sixteen years old and grown to an astonishing six feet
with broad shoulders and a heavy face that was sensual but by no means effeminate.
But where Fredo was a quiet boy, and Michael, of course, a toddler (ребенок,
начинающий ходить; to toddle – ковылять; учиться ходить), Santino was constantly
in trouble. He got into fights, did badly in school and, finally, Clemenza, who was the
boy's godfather and had a duty to speak, came to Don Corleone one evening and
informed him that his son had taken part in an armed robbery, a stupid affair which
59
could have gone very badly. Sonny was obviously the ringleader, the two other boys in
the robbery his followers.
It was one of the very few times that Vito Corleone lost his temper. Tom Hagen had
been living in his home for three years and he asked Clemenza if the orphan boy had
been involved. Clemenza shook his head. Don Corleone had a car sent to bring Santino
to his offices in the Genco Pura Olive Oil Company.
For the first time, the Don met defeat. Alone with his son, he gave full vent to his rage,
cursing the hulking (громадный, неуклюжий, неповоротливый; hulk – большое
неповоротливое судно) Sonny in Sicilian dialect, a language so much more satisfying
than any other for expressing rage. He ended up with a question. "What gave you the
right to commit such an act? What made you wish to commit such an act?"
Sonny stood there, angry, refusing to answer. The Don said with contempt, "And so
stupid. What did you earn for that night's work? Fifty dollars each? Twenty dollars? You
risked your life for twenty dollars, eh?"
As if he had not heard these last words, Sonny said defiantly (с вызовом), "I saw you
kill Fanucci."
The Don said, "Ahhh" and sank back in his chair. He waited.
Sonny said, "When Fanucci left the building, Mama said I could go up the house. I
saw you go up the roof and I followed you. I saw everything you did. I stayed up there
and I saw you throw away the wallet and the gun."
The Don sighed. "Well, then I can't talk to you about how you should behave. Don't
you want to finish school, don't you want to be a lawyer? Lawyers can steal more
money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks."
Sonny grinned at him and said slyly, "I want to enter the family business." When he
saw that the Don's face remained impassive, that he did not laugh at the joke, he added
hastily, "I can learn how to sell olive oil."
Still the Don did not answer. Finally he shrugged. "Every man has one destiny," he
said. He did not add that the witnessing of Fanucci's murder had decided that of his son.
He merely turned away and added quietly, "Come in tomorrow morning at nine o'clock.
Genco will show you what to do."
But Genco Abbandando, with that shrewd insight that a Consigliori must have,
realized the true wish of the Don and used Sonny mostly as a bodyguard for his father,
a position in which he could also learn the subtleties (subtlety – тонкость,
изощренность, хитрость; subtle – тонкий, нежный; утонченный) of being a Don. And
60
it brought out a professorial instinct in the Don himself, who often gave lectures on how
to succeed for the benefit of his eldest son.
Besides his oft-repeated theory that a man has but one destiny, the Don constantly
reproved Sonny for that young man's outbursts of temper. The Don considered a use of
threats the most foolish kind of exposure (выставление /на солнце, под дождь/;
подвергание /риску/; to expose – выставлять, подвергать действию /дождя, солнца/;
подвергать риску); the unleashing (to unleash – спускать с привязи) of anger without
forethought as the most dangerous indulgence (потворство своим слабостям
[ın'dΛldG∂ns]; to indulge – позволять себе удовольствие, давать себе волю). No one
had ever heard the Don utter a naked threat, no one had ever seen him in an
uncontrollable rage. It was unthinkable. And so he tried to teach Sonny his own
disciplines. He claimed that there was no greater natural advantage in life than having
an enemy overestimate your faults, unless it was to have a friend underestimate your
virtues.
The caporegime, Clemenza, took Sonny in hand and taught him how to shoot and to
wield a garrot (владеть гарротой /шнуром для удушения/). Sonny had no taste for the
Italian rope, he was too Americanized. He preferred the simple, direct, impersonal
Anglo-Saxon gun, which saddened Clemenza. But Sonny became a constant and
welcome companion to his father, driving his car, helping him in little details. For the
next two years he seemed like the usual son entering his father's business, not too
bright, not too eager, content to hold down (удержать, не потерять) a soft job.
Meanwhile his boyhood chum and semiadopted brother Tom Hagen was going to
college. Fredo was still in high school; Michael, the youngest brother, was in grammar
school, and baby sister Connie was a toddling girl of four. The family had long since
moved to an apartment house in the Bronx. Don Corleone was considering buying a
house in Long Island, but he wanted to fit this in with other plans he was formulating.
Vito Corleone was a man with vision. All the great cities of America were being torn by
underworld strife (борьба, раздор). Guerrilla wars by the dozen flared up, ambitious
hoodlums trying to carve themselves a bit of empire; men like Corleone himself were
trying to keep their borders and rackets secure. Don Corleone saw that the newspapers
and government agencies were using these killings to get stricter and stricter laws, to
use harsher police methods. He foresaw that public indignation might even lead to a
suspension of democratic procedures which could be fatal to him and his people. His
own empire, internally, was secure. He decided to bring peace to all the warring factions
in New York City and then in the nation.
He had no illusions about the dangerousness of his mission. He spent the first year
meeting with different chiefs of gangs in New York, laying the groundwork, sounding
61
them out (to sound – зондировать, измерять глубину /лотом/; испытать), proposing
spheres of influence that would be honored by a loosely bound confederated council.
But there were too many factions, too many special interests that conflicted. Agreement
was impossible. Like other great rulers and lawgivers in history Don Corleone decided
that order and peace were impossible until the number of reigning states had been
reduced to a manageable number.
There were five or six "Families" too powerful to eliminate. But the rest, the
neighborhood Black Hand terrorists, the free-lance shylocks, the strong-arm
bookmakers operating without the proper, that is to say paid, protection of the legal
authorities, would have to go. And so he mounted what was in effect a colonial war
against these people and threw all the resources of the Corleone organization against
them.
The pacification of the New York area took three years and had some unexpected
rewards. At first it took the form of bad luck. A group of mad-dog Irish stickup (налет,
ограбление) artists the Don had marked for extermination (уничтожение) almost
carried the day (to carry the day – одержать победу) with sheer Emerald Isle йlan (с
чисто ирландским напором, стремительностью: йlan [eı’lα:ŋ] /франц./; Emerald Isle
= Ireland). By chance, and with suicidal bravery, one of these Irish gunmen pierced the
Don's protective cordon and put a shot into his chest. The assassin was immediately
riddled with bullets but the damage was done.
However this gave Santino Corleone his chance. With his father out of action, Sonny
took command of a troop, his own regime, with the rank of caporegime, and like a
young, untrumpeted (trumpet [‘trΛmpıt] – труба; to trumpet – трубить, возвещать,
восхвалять) Napoleon, showed a genius for city warfare. He also showed a merciless
ruthlessness, the lack of which had been Don Corleone's only fault as a conqueror.
From 1935 to 1937 Sonny Corleone made a reputation as the most cunning and
relentless executioner the underworld had yet known. Yet for sheer terror even he was
eclipsed by the awesome man named Luca Brasi.
It was Brasi who went after the rest of the Irish gunmen and single-handedly wiped
them out. It was Brasi, operating alone when one of the six powerful families tried to
interfere and become the protector of the independents, who assassinated the head of
the family as a warning. Shortly after, the Don recovered from his wound and made
peace with that particular family.
By 1937 peace and harmony reigned in New York City except for minor incidents,
minor misunderstandings which were, of course, sometimes fatal.
As the rulers of ancient cities always kept an anxious eye on the barbarian tribes
roving around their walls, so Don Corleone kept an eye on the affairs of the world
outside his world. He noted the coming of Hitler, the fall of Spain, Germany's strong-
62
arming of Britain at Munich. Unblinkered (незашоренный, неослепленный; blinkers –
наглазники, шоры) by that outside world, he saw clearly the coming global war and he
understood the implications. His own world would be more impregnable
(непрницаемый, неприступный) than before. Not only that, fortunes could be made in
time of war by alert, foresighted folk. But to do so peace must reign in his domain while
war raged in the world outside.
Don Corleone carried his message through the United States. He conferred with
compatriots in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami,
and Boston. He was the underworld apostle of peace and, by 1939, more successful
than any Pope, he had achieved a working agreement amongst the most powerful
underworld organizations in the country. Like the Constitution of the United States this
agreement respected fully the internal authority of each member in his state or city. The
agreement covered only spheres of influence and an agreement to enforce peace in the
underworld.
And so when World War II broke out in 1939, when the United States joined the
conflict in 1941, the world of Don Vito Corleone was at peace, in order, fully prepared to
reap the golden harvest on equal terms with all the other industries of a booming
America. The Corleone Family had a hand in supplying black-market OPA food stamps,
gasoline stamps, even travel priorities. It could help get war contracts and then help get
black-market materials for those garment center clothing firms who were not given
enough raw material because they did not have government contracts. He could even
get all the young men in his organization, those eligible (могущий быть избранным
['elıdG∂bl]) for Army draft (набор, призыв), excused from fighting in the foreign war. He
did this with the aid of doctors who advised what drugs had to be taken before physical
examination, or by placing the men in draft-exempt (exempt [ıg’zempt] –
освобожденный /от чего-либо/) positions in the war industries.
And so the Don could take pride in his rule. His world was safe for those who had
sworn loyalty to him; other men who believed in law and order were dying by the
millions. The only fly in the ointment (мазь, /здесь/ мирро /для помазания/) was that
his own son, Michael Corleone, refused to be helped, insisted on volunteering to serve
63
his own country. And to the Don's astonishment, so did a few of his other young men in
the organization. One of the men, trying to explain this to his caporegime, said, "This
country has been good to me." Upon this story being relayed to the Don he said angrily
to the caporegime, "I have been good to him." It might have gone badly for these people
but, as he had excused his son Michael, so must he excuse other young men who so
misunderstood their duty to their Don and to themselves.
At the end of World War II Don Corleone knew that again his world would have to
change its ways, that it would have to fit itself more snugly (snug – плотно лежащий,
прилегающий) into the ways of the other, larger world. He believed he could do this
with no loss of profit.
There was reason for this belief in his own experience. What had put him on the right
track were two personal affairs. Early in his career the then-young Nazorine, only a
baker's helper planning to get married, had come to him for assistance. He and his
future bride, a good Italian girl, had saved their money and had paid the enormous sum
of three hundred dollars to a wholesaler of furniture recommended to them. This
wholesaler had let them pick out everything they wanted to furnish their tenement
apartment. A fine sturdy (сильный, крепкий, здоровый) bedroom set with two bureaus
and lamps. Also the living room set of heavy stuffed sofa and stuffed armchairs, all
covered with rich gold-threaded fabric. Nazorine and his fiancйe (невеста /франц./
[fı'α:nseı]) had spent a happy day picking out what they wanted from the huge
warehouse crowded with furniture. The wholesaler took their money, their three hundred
dollars wrung from the sweat of their blood, and pocketed it and promised the furniture
to be delivered within the week to the already rented flat.
The very next week however, the firm had gone into bankruptcy. The great warehouse
stocked with furniture had been sealed shut and attached for payment of creditors. The
wholesaler had disappeared to give other creditors time to unleash their anger on the
empty air. Nazorine, one of these, went to his lawyer, who told him nothing could be
done until the case was settled in court and all creditors satisfied. This might take three
years and Nazorine would be lucky to get back ten cents on the dollar.
Vito Corleone listened to this story with amused disbelief. It was not possible that the
law could allow such thievery. The wholesaler owned his own palatial home, an estate
in Long Island, a luxurious automobile, and was sending his children to college. How
could he keep the three hundred dollars of the poor baker Nazorine and not give him
the furniture he had paid for? But, to make sure, Vito Corleone had Genco Abbandando
check it out with the lawyers who represented the Genco Pura company.
64
They verified the story of Nazorine. The wholesaler had all his personal wealth in his
wife's name. His furniture business was incorporated and he was not personally liable
(ответственный). True, he had shown bad faith (вероломство) by taking the money of