Nazorine when he knew he was going to file (подать как-либо документ) bankruptcy
but this was a common practice. Under law there was nothing to be done.
Of course the matter was easily adjusted. Don Corleone sent his Consigliori, Genco
Abbandando, to speak to the wholesaler, and as was to be expected, that wide-awake
businessman caught the drift immediately and arranged for Nazorine to get his furniture.
But it was an interesting lesson for the young Vito Corleone.
The second incident had more far-reaching repercussions (repercussion – отдача
/после удара/; отзвук, эхо). In 1939, Don Corleone had decided to move his family out
of the city. Like any other parent he wanted his children to go to better schools and mix
with better companions. For his own personal reasons he wanted the anonymity of
surburban life where his reputation was not known. He bought the mall property in Long
Beach, which at that time had only four newly built houses but with plenty of room for
more. Sonny was formally engaged to Sandra and would soon marry, one of the houses
would be for him. One of the houses was for the Don. Another was for Genco
Abbandando and his family. The other was kept vacant at the time.
A week after the mall was occupied, a group of three workmen came in all innocence
with their truck. They claimed to be furnace (печь, топка ['f∂:nıs]) inspectors for the
town of Long Beach. One of the Don's young bodyguards let the men in and led them to
the furnace in the basement. The Don, his wife and Sonny were in the garden taking
their ease and enjoying the salty sea air.
Much to the Don's annoyance he was summoned into the house by his bodyguard.
The three workmen, all big burly fellows, were grouped around the furnace. They had
taken it apart, it was strewn around the cement basement floor. Their leader, an
authoritative man, said to the Don in a gruff (грубый, сердитый) voice, "Your furnace is
in lousy shape. If you want us to fix it and put it together again, it'll cost you one hundred
fifty dollars for labor and parts and then we'll pass you for county inspection." He took
out a red paper label. "We stamp this seal on it, see, then nobody from the county
bothers you again."
The Don was amused. It had been a boring, quiet week in which he had had to
neglect his business to take care of such family details moving to a new house entailed
(to entail – влечь за собой). In more broken English than his usual slight accent he
asked, "If I don't pay you, what happens to my furnace?"
65
The leader of the three men shrugged. "We just leave the furnace the way it is now."
He gestured at the metal parts strewn over the floor.
The Don said meekly, "Wait, I'll get you your money." Then he went out into the
garden and said to Sonny, "Listen, there's some men working on the furnace, I don't
understand what they want. Go in and take care of the matter." It was not simply a joke;
he was considering making his son his underboss. This was one of the tests a business
executive had to pass.
Sonny's solution did not altogether please his father. It was too direct, too lacking in
Sicilian subtleness. He was the Club (дубинка), not the Rapier. For as soon as Sonny
heard the leader's demand he held the three men at gunpoint and had them thoroughly
bastinadoed (приказал как следует отколотить; bastinado [bжstı’neıd∂u]– палочные
удары) by the bodyguards. Then he made them put the furnace together again and tidy
up the basement. He searched them and found that they actually were employed by a
house-improvement firm with headquarters in Suffolk County. He learned the name of
the man who owned the firm. Then he kicked the three men to their truck. "Don't let me
see you in Long Beach again," he told them. "I'll have your balls hanging from your
ears."
It was typical of the young Santino, before he became older and crueler, that he
extended his protection to the community he lived in. Sonny paid a personal call to the
home-improvement firm owner and told him not to send any of his men into the Long
Beach area ever again. As soon as the Corleone Family set up their usual business
liaison with the local police force they were informed of all such complaints and all
crimes by professional criminals. In less than a year Long Beach became the most
crime-free town of its size in the United States. Professional stickup artists and strong-
arms received one warning not to ply (усердно работать, заниматься чем-либо; ply –
сгиб, складка; уклон, склонность) their trade in the town. They were allowed one
offense (обида, оскорбление; проступок, нарушение; преступление). When they
committed a second they simply disappeared. The flimflam (трюк, мошенническая
проделка) home-improvement gyp (мошенничество; плут) artists, the door-to-door
con men (жулики /сленг/) were politely warned that they were not welcome in Long
Beach. Those confident con men who disregarded the warning were beaten within an
inch of their lives (чуть не до смерти; within an inch of = closely, near to). Resident
young punks who had no respect for law and proper authority were advised in the most
fatherly fashion to run away from home. Long Beach became a model city.
What impressed the Don was the legal validity (действительность, законность
[v∂'lıdıtı]; valid [‘vжlıd] – действительный, имеющий силу) of these sales swindles
(swindle – надувательство). Clearly there was a place for a man of his talents in that
other world which had been closed to him as an honest youth. He took appropriate
steps to enter that world.
And so he lived happily on the mall in Long Beach, consolidating and enlarging his
66
empire, until after the war was over, the Turk Sollozzo broke the peace and plunged the
Don's world into its own war, and brought him to his hospital bed.
Book 4
Chapter 15
In the New Hampshire village, every foreign phenomenon was properly noticed by
housewives peering from windows, storekeepers lounging (to lounge – сидеть
развалясь, праздно проводить время) behind their doors. And so when the black
automobile bearing New York license plates stopped in front of the Adams' home, every
citizen knew about it in a matter of minutes.
Kay Adams, really a small-town girl despite her college education, was also peering
from her bedroom window. She had been studying for her exams and preparing to go
downstairs for lunch when she spotted the car coming up the street, and for some
reason she was not surprised when it rolled to a halt (/автомобиль/ остановился) in
front of her lawn. Two men got out, big burly men who looked like gangsters in the
movies to her eyes, and she flew down the stairs to be the first at the door. She was
sure they came from Michael or his family and she didn't want them talking to her father
and mother without any introduction. It wasn't that she was ashamed of any of Mike's
friends, she thought; it was just that her mother and father were old-fashioned New
England Yankees and wouldn't understand her even knowing such people.
She got to the door just as the bell rang and she called to her mother, "I'll get it." She
opened the door and the two big men stood there. One reached inside his breast pocket
like a gangster reaching for a gun and the move so surprised Kay that she let out a little
gasp but the man had taken out a small leather case which he flapped open to show an
identification card. "I'm Detective John Phillips from the New York Police Department,"
he said. He motioned to the other man, a dark-complexioned man with very thick, very
black eyebrows. "This is my partner, Detective Siriani. Are you Miss Kay Adams?"
Kay nodded. Phillips said, "May we come in and talk to you for a few minutes. It's
about Michael Corleone."
She stood aside to let them in. At that moment her father appeared in the small side
hall that led to his study. "Kay, what is it?" he asked.
Her father was a gray-haired, slender, distinguished-looking man who not only was
the pastor of the town Baptist church but had a reputation in religious circles as a
scholar. Kay really didn't know her father well, he puzzled her, but she knew he loved
67
her even if he gave the impression he found her uninteresting as a person. Though they
had never been close, she trusted him. So she said simply, "These men are detectives
frorn New York. They want to ask me questions about a boy I know."
Mr. Adams didn't seem surprised. "Why don't we go into my study?" he said.
Detective Phillips said gently, "We'd rather talk to your daughter alone, Mr. Adams."
Mr. Adams said courteously, "That depends on Kay, I think. My dear, would you rather
speak to these gentlemen alone or would you prefer to have me present? Or perhaps
your mother?"
Kay shook her head. "I'll talk to them alone."
Mr. Adams said to Phillips, "You can use my study. Will you stay for lunch?" The two
men shook their heads. Kay led them into the study.
They rested uncomfortably on the edge of the couch as she sat in her father's big
leather chair. Detective Phillips opened the conversation by saying, "Miss Adams, have
you seen or heard from Michael Corleone at any time in the last three weeks?" The one
question was enough to warn her. Three weeks ago she had read the Boston
newspapers with their headlines about the killing of a New York police captain and a
narcotics smuggler named Virgil Sollozzo. The newspaper had said it was part of the
gang war involving the Corleone Farnily.
Kay shook her head. "No, the last time I saw him he was going to see his father in the
hospital. That was perhaps a month ago."
The other detective said in a harsh voice, "We know all about that meeting. Have you
seen or heard from him since then?"
"No," Kay said.
Detective Phillips said in a polite voice, "If you do have contact with him we'd like you
to let us know. It's very important we get to talk to Michael Corleone. I must warn you
that if you do have contact with him you may be getting involved in a very dangerous
situation. If you help him in any way, you may get yourself in very serious trouble."
Kay sat up very straight in the chair. "Why shouldn't I help him?" she asked. "We're
going to be married, married people help each other."
It was Detective Siriani who answered her. "If you help, you may be an accessory
(добавочный, вспомогательный; /здесь/ соучастник [∂k'ses∂ri]) to murder. We're
looking for your boy friend because he killed a police captain in New York plus an
68
informer the police officer was contacting. We know Michael Corleone is the person who
did the shooting."
Kay laughed. Her laughter was so unaffected, so incredulous, that the officers were
impressed. "Mike wouldn't do anything like that," she said. "He never had anything to do
with his family. When we went to his sister's wedding it was obvious that he was treated
as an outsider, almost as much as I was. If he's hiding now it's just so that he won't get
any publicity, so his name won't be dragged through all this. Mike is not a gangster. I
know him better than you or anybody else can know him. He is too nice a man to do
anything as despicable (презренный [‘despık∂bl]) as murder. He is the most law-
abiding (законопослушный) person I know, and I've never known him to lie."
Detective Phillips asked gently, "How long have you known him?"
"Over a year," Kay said and was surprised when the two men smiled.
"I think there are a few things you should know," Detective Phillips said. "On the night
he left you, he went to the hospital. When he came out he got into an argument with a
police captain who had come to the hospital on official business. He assaulted that
police officer but got the worst of it. In fact he got a broken jaw and lost some teeth. His
friends took him out to the Corleone Family houses at Long Beach. The following night
the police captain he had the fight with was gunned down and Michael Corleone
disappeared. Vanished. We have our contacts, our informers. They all point the finger at
Michael Corleone but we have no evidence for a court of law. The waiter who witnessed
the shooting doesn't recognize a picture of Mike but he may recognize him in person.
And we have Sollozzo's driver, who refuses to talk, but we might make him talk if we
have Michael Corleone in our hands. So we have all our people looking for him, the FBI
is looking for him, everybody is looking for him. So far, no luck, so we thought you might
be able to give us a lead (подсказать что-то, направить нас по верному следу)."
Kay said coldly, "I don't believe a word of it." But she felt a bit sick knowing the part
about Mike getting his jaw broken must be true. Not that that would make Mike commit
murder.
"Will you let us know if Mike contacts you?" Phillips asked.
Kay shook her head. The other detective, Siriani, said roughly, "We know you two
have been shacking up together. We have the hotel records and witnesses. If we let
69
that information slip to the newspapers your father and mother would feel pretty lousy.
Real respectable people like them wouldn't think much of a daughter shacking up with a
gangster. If you don't come clean right now I'll call your old man in here and give it to
him straight."
Kay looked at him with astonishment. Then she got up and went to the door of the
study and opened it. She could see her father standing at the living-room window,
sucking at his pipe. She called out, "Dad, can you join us?" He turned, smiled at her,
and walked to the study. When he came through the door he put his arm around his
daughter's waist and faced the detectives and said, "Yes, gentlemen?"
When they didn't answer, Kay said coolly to Detective Siriani, "Give it to him straight,
officer."
Siriani flushed. "Mr. Adams, I'm telling you this for your daughter's good. She is mixed
up with a hoodlum we have reason to believe committed a murder on a police officer.
I'm just telling her she can get into serious trouble unless she cooperates with us. But
she doesn't seem to realize how serious this whole matter is. Maybe you can talk to
her."
"That is quite incredible," Mr. Adams said politely.
Siriani jutted his jaw. "Your daughter and Michael Corleone have been going out
together for over a year. They have stayed overnight in hotels together registered as
man and wife. Michael Corleone is wanted for questioning in the murder of a police
officer. Your daughter refuses to give us any information that may help us. Those are
the facts. You can call them incredible but I can back everything up."
"I don't doubt your word, sir," Mr. Adams said gently. "What I find incredible is that my
daughter could be in serious trouble. Unless you're suggesting that she is a" – here his
face became one of scholarly doubt – "a 'moll (любовница гангстера [mol]),' I believe
it's called."
Kay looked at her father in astonishment. She knew he was being playful in his
donnish (педантичный, высокомерный, чванный) way and she was surprised that he
could take the whole affair so lightly.
Mr. Adams said firmly, "However, rest assured that if the young man shows his face
here I shall immediately report his presence to the authorities. As will my daughter. Now,
if you will forgive us, our lunch is growing cold."
70
He ushered the men out of the house with every courtesy and closed the door on their
backs gently but firmly. He took Kay by the arm and led her toward the kitchen far in the
rear of the house, "Come, my dear, your mother is waiting lunch for us."
By the time they reached the kitchen, Kay was weeping silently, out of relief from
strain, at her father's unquestioning affection. In the kitchen her mother took no notice of
her weeping, and Kay realized that her father must have told her about the two
detectives. She sat down at her place and her mother served her silently. When all
three were at the table her father said grace (молитва /перед едой/) with bowed head.
Mrs. Adams was a short stout woman always neatly dressed, hair always set. Kay
had never seen her in disarray (беспорядок /в одежде/; смятение [dıs∂'reı]). Her
mother too had always been a little disinterested in her, holding her at arm's length. And
she did so now. "Kay, stop being so dramatic. I'm sure it's all a great deal of fuss about
nothing at all. After all, the boy was a Dartmouth boy, he couldn't possibly be mixed up
in anything so sordid (грязный, низкий, подлый)."
Kay looked up in surprise. "How did you know Mike went to Dartmouth?"
Her mother said complacently (complacent [k∂m'pleısnt] – благодушный), "You
young people are so mysterious, you think you're so clever. We've known about him all
along, but of course we couldn't bring it up until you did."
"But how did you know?" Kay asked. She still couldn't face her father now that he
knew about her and Mike sleeping together. So she didn't see the smile on his face
when he said, "We opened your mail, of course."
Kay was horrified and angry. Now she could face him. What he had done was more
shameful than her own sin. She could never believe it of him. "Father, you didn't, you
couldn't have."
Mr. Adams smiled at her. "I debated which was the greater sin, opening your mail, or
going in ignorance of some hazard my only child might be incurring (to incur [ın'k∂:] –
подвергаться /чему-либо/; навлечь на себя). The choice was simple, and virtuous."
Mrs. Adams said between mouthfuls of boiled chicken, "After all, my dear, you are
terribly innocent for your age. We had to be aware. And you never spoke about him."
For the first time Kay was grateful that Michael was never affectionate in his letters.
She was grateful that her parents hadn't seen some of her letters. "I never told you
about him because I thought you'd be horrified about his family."
"We were," Mr. Adams said cheerfully. "By the way, has Michael gotten in touch with
you?"
Kay shook her head. "I don't believe he's guilty of anything."
71
She saw her parents exchange a glance over the table. Then Mr. Adams said gently,
"If he's not guilty and he's vanished, then perhaps something else happened to him."
At first Kay didn't understand. Then she got up from the table and ran to her room.
Three days later Kay Adams got out of a taxi in front of the Corleone mall in Long
Beach. She had phoned, she was expected. Tom Hagen met her at the door and she
was disappointed that it was him. She knew he would tell her nothing.
In the living room he gave her a drink. She had seen a couple of other men lounging
around the house but not Sonny. She asked Tom Hagen directly, "Do you know where
Mike is? Do you know where I can get in touch with him?"
Hagen said smoothly, "We know he's all right but we don't know where he is right now.
When he heard about that captain being shot he was afraid they'd accuse him. So he
just decided to disappear. He told me he'd get in touch in a few months."
The story was not only false but meant to be seen through, he was giving her that much.
"Did that captain really break his jaw?" Kay asked.
"I'm afraid that's true," Tom said. "But Mike was never a vindictive (мстительный
[vın’dıktıv]) man. I'm sure that had nothing to do with what happened."
Kay opened her purse and took out a letter. "Will you deliver this to him if he gets in
touch with you?"
Hagen shook his head. "If I accepted that letter and you told a court of law I accepted
that letter, it might be interpreted as my having knowledge of his whereabouts
(местонахождение). Why don't you just wait a bit? I'm sure Mike will get in touch."
She finished her drink and got up to leave. Hagen escorted her to the hall but as he
opened the door, a woman came in from outside. A short, stout woman dressed in black.
Kay recognized her as Michael's mother. She held out her hand and said, "How are you,
Mrs. Corleone?"
The woman's small black eyes darted at her for a moment, then the wrinkled, leathery,
olive-skinned face broke into a small curt smile of greeting that was yet in some curious
way truly friendly. "Ah, you Mikey's little girl," Mrs. Corleone said. She had a heavy
Italian accent, Kay could barely understand her. "You eat something?" Kay said no,
meaning she didn't want anything to eat, but Mrs. Corleone turned furiously on Tom
Hagen and berated (to berate – ругать, бранить) him in Italian ending with, "You don't
even give this poor girl coffee, you disgrazia." She took Kay by the hand, the old
woman's hand surprisingly warm and alive, and led her into the kitchen. "You have
coffee and eat something, then somebody drive you home. A nice girl like you, I don't
72
want you to take the train." She made Kay sit down and bustled (to bustle – торопиться,
суетиться) around the kitchen, tearing off her coat and hat and draping them over a
chair. In a few seconds there was bread and cheese and salami on the table and coffee
perking (to perk – вскидывать голову; подаваться вперед; /здесь/ возвышаться,
быть установленым наверху) on the stove.
Kay said timidly, "I came to ask about Mike, I haven't heard from him. Mr. Hagen said
nobody knows where he is, that he'll turn up in a little while."
Hagen spoke quickly, "That's all we can tell her now, Ma."
Mrs. Corleone gave him a look of withering contempt (с «уничтожающим»
презрением; to wither [‘wıр∂] – вянуть; иссушать). "Now you gonna tell me what to do?
My husband don't tell me what to do, God have mercy on him." She crossed herself.
"Is Mr. Corleone all right?" Kay asked.
"Fine," Mrs. Corleone said. "Fine. He's getting old, he's getting foolish to let something
like that happen." She tapped her head disrespectfully. She poured the coffee and
forced Kay to eat some bread and cheese.
After they drank their coffee Mrs. Corleone took one of Kay's hands in her two brown
ones. She said quietly, "Mikey no gonna write you, you no gonna hear from Mikey. He
hide two – three years. Maybe more, maybe much more. You go home to your family
and find a nice young fellow and get married."
Kay took the letter out of her purse. "Will you send this to him?"
The old lady took the letter and patted Kay on the cheek. "Sure, sure," she said.
Hagen started to protest and she screamed at him in Italian. Then she led Kay to the
door. There she kissed her on the cheek very quickly and said, "You forget about Mikey,
he no the man for you anymore."
There was a car waiting for her with two men up front. They drove her all the way to
her hotel in New York never saying a word. Neither did Kay. She was trying to get used
to the fact that the young man she had loved was a cold-blooded murderer. And that
she had been told by the most unimpeachable source: his mother.
Chapter 16
Carlo Rizzi was punk sore at the world. Once married into the Corleone Family, he'd
been shunted aside (to shunt – переводить на запасный путь; /здесь/ откладывать в
сторону, оставить не у дел) with a small bookmaker's business on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan. He'd counted on one of the houses in the mall on Long Beach, he
73
knew the Don could move retainer families out when he pleased and he had been sure
it would happen and he would be on the inside of everything. But the Don wasn't
treating him right. The "Great Don," he thought with scorn. An old Moustache Pete
who'd been caught out on the street by gunmen like any dumb small-time (мелкий,
незначительный, второсортный) hood. He hoped the old bastard croaked (to croak –
каркать; /разг./ умереть). Sonny had been his friend once and if Sonny became the
head of the Family maybe he'd get a break, get on the inside.
He watched his wife pour his coffee. Christ, what a mess she turned out to be. Five
months of marriage and she was already spreading, besides blowing up. Real guinea
broads all these Italians in the East.
He reached out and felt Connie's soft spreading buttocks. She smiled at him and he
said contemptuously, "You got more ham than a hog." It pleased him to see the hurt
look on her face, the tears springing into her eyes. She might be a daughter of the Great
Don but she was his wife, she was his property now and he could treat her as he
pleased. It made him feel powerful that one of the Corleones was his doormat (половик
для вытирания ног).
He had started her off just right. She had tried to keep that purse full of money
presents for herself and he had given her a nice black eye and taken the money from
her. Never told her what he'd done with it, either. That might have really caused some
trouble. Even now he felt just the slightest twinge of remorse (угрызения совести;
twinge – приступ боли). Christ, he'd blown nearly fifteen grand on the track (играя на
скачках) and show girl bimbos (bimbo – глупая красотка легкого поведения).
He could feel Connie watching his back and so he flexed his muscles as he reached
for the plate of sweet buns on the other side of the table. He'd just polished off ham and
eggs but he was a big man and needed a big breakfast. He was pleased with the
picture he knew he presented to his wife. Not the usual greasy dark guinzo husband
(guinzo – итальяшка) but crew-cut blond, huge golden-haired forearms and broad
shoulders and thin waist. And he knew he was physically stronger than any of those so
called hard guys that worked for the family. Guys like Clemenza, Tessio, Rocco
Lampone, and that guy Paulie that somebody had knocked off. He wondered what the
story was about that. Then for some reason he thought about Sonny. Man to man he
could take Sonny, he thought, even though Sonny was a little bigger and a little heavier.
But what scared him was Sonny's rep, though he himself had never seen Sonny
anything but good-natured and kidding around. Yeah, Sonny was his buddy. Maybe with
the old Don gone, things would open up.
74
He dawdled (to dawdle – тратить, тянуть время, бездельничать) over his coffee. He
hated this apartment. He was used to the bigger living quarters of the West and in a
little while he would have to go crosstown to his "book" to run the noontime action. It
was a Sunday, the heaviest action of the week what with baseball going already and the
tail end of basketball and the night trotters (trotter – рысак) starting up. Gradually he
became aware of Connie bustling around behind him and he turned his head to watch
her.
She was getting dressed up in the real New York City guinzo style that he hated. A
silk flowered-pattern dress with belt, showy bracelet and earrings, flouncy (flounce –
оборка) sleeves. She looked twenty years older. "Where the hell are you going?" he
asked.
She answered him coldly, "To see my father out in Long Beach. He still can't get out
of bed and he needs company."
Carlo was curious. "Is Sonny still running the show?"
Connie gave him a bland look. "What show?"
He was furious. "You lousy little guinea bitch, don't talk to me like that or I'll beat that
kid right out of your belly." She looked frightened and this enraged him even more. He
sprang from his chair and slapped her across the face, the blow leaving a red welt
(след, рубец /от удара/). With quick precision he slapped her three more times. He
saw her upper lip split bloody and puff up. That stopped him. He didn't want to leave a
mark. She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door and he heard the key turning in
the lock. He laughed and returned to his coffee.
He smoked until it was time for him to dress. He knocked on the door and said, "Open
it up before I kick it in." There was no answer. "Come on, I gotta get dressed," he said in
a loud voice. He could hear her getting up off the bed and coming toward the door, then
the key turned in the lock. When he entered she had her back to him, walking back
toward the bed, lying down on it with her face turned away to the wall.
He dressed quickly and then saw she was in her slip. He wanted her to go visit her
father, he hoped she would bring back information. "What's the matter, a few slaps take
all the energy out of you?" She was a lazy slut.
"I don't wanna go." Her voice was tearful, the words mumbled. He reached out
impatiently and pulled her around to face him. And then he saw why she didn't want to
go and thought maybe it was just at well.
He must have slapped her harder than he figured. Her left cheek was blown up, the
cut upper lip ballooned grotesquely puffy and white beneath her nose. "OK," he said,
"but I won't be home until late. Sunday is my busy day."
He left the apartment and found a parking ticket on his car, a fifteen-dollar green one.
He put it in the glove compartment with the stack of others. He was in a good humor.
75
Slapping the spoiled little bitch around always made him feel good. It dissolved some of
the frustration (досада, расстройство /планов/, разочарование) he felt at being
treated so badly by the Corleones.
The first time he had marked her up, he'd been a little worried. She had gone right out
to Long Beach to complain to her mother and father and to show her black eye. He had
really sweated it out. But when she came back she had been surprisingly meek, the
dutiful little Italian wife. He had made it a point to be the perfect husband over the next
few weeks, treating her well in every way, being lovey and nice with her, banging her
every day, morning and night. Finally she had told him what had happened since she
thought he would never act that way again.
She had found her parents coolly unsympathetic and curiously amused. Her mother
had had a little sympathy and had even asked her father to speak to Carlo Rizzi. Her
father had refused. "She is my daughter," he had said, "but now she belongs to her
husband. He knows his duties. Even the King of Italy didn't dare to meddle with the
relationship of husband and wife. Go home and learn how to behave so that he will not
beat you."
Connie had said angrily to her father, "Did you ever hit your wife?" She was his
favorite and could speak to him so impudently. He had answered, "She never gave me
reason to beat her." And her mother had nodded and smiled.
She told them how her husband had taken the wedding present money and never told
her what he did with it. Her father had shrugged and said, "I would have done the same
if my wife had been as presumptuous (самонадеянный, дерзкий, нахальный
[prı’zΛmptju∂s]) as you."
And so she had returned home, a little bewildered, a little frightened. She had always
been her father's favorite and she could not understand his coldness now.
But the Don had not been so unsympathetic as he pretended. He made inquiries and
found out what Carlo Rizzi had done with the wedding present money. He had men
assigned to Carlo Rizzi's bookmaking operation who would report to Hagen everything
Rizzi did on the job. But the Don could not interfere. How expect a man to discharge his
husbandly duties to a wife whose family he feared? It was an impossible situation and
he dared not meddle. Then when Connie became pregnant he was convinced of the
wisdom of his decision and felt he never could interfere though Connie complained to
her mother about a few more beatings and the mother finally became concerned
76
enough to mention it to the Don. Connie even hinted that she might want a divorce. For
the first time in her life the Don was angry with her. "He is the father of your child. What
can a child come to in this world if he has no father?" he said to Connie.
Learning all this, Carlo Rizzi grew confident. He was perfectly safe. In fact he bragged
(to brag – похваляться, хвастаться) to his two "writers" on the book, Sally Rags and
Coach, about how he bounced his wife around when she got snotty and saw their looks
of respect that he had the guts (имеет смелость, не боится; gut – кишка) to
manhandle (тащить, передвигать вручную; грубо обращаться, избивать) the
daughter of the great Don Corleone.
But Rizzi would not have felt so safe if he had known that when Sonny Corleone
learned of the beatings he had flown into a murderous rage and had been restrained
only by the sternest and most imperious command of the Don himself, a command that
even Sonny dared not disobey. Which was why Sonny avoided Rizzi, not trusting
himself to control his temper.
So feeling perfectly safe on this beautiful Sunday morning, Carlo Rizzi sped crosstown
on 96th Street to the East Side. He did not see Sonny's car coming the opposite way
toward his house.
Sonny Corleone had left the protection of the mall and spent the night with Lucy
Mancini in town. Now on the way home he was traveling with four bodyguards, two in
front and two behind. He didn't need guards right beside him, he could take care of a
single direct assault. The other men traveled in their own cars and had apartments on
either side of Lucy's apartment. It was safe to visit her as long as he didn't do it too often.
But now that he was in town he figured he would pick up his sister Connie and take her
out to Long Beach. He knew Carlo would be working at his book and the cheap bastard
wouldn't get her a car. So he'd give his sister a lift out.
He waited for the two men in front to go into the building and then followed them. He
saw the two men in back pull up behind his car and get out to watch the streets. He kept
his own eyes open. It was a million-to-one shot that the opposition even knew he was in
town but he was always careful. He had learned that in the 1930's war.
He never used elevators. They were death traps. He climbed the eight flights to
Connie's apartment, going fast. He knocked on her door. He had seen Carlo's car go by
and knew she would be alone. There was no answer. He knocked again and then he
heard his sister's voice, frightened, timid, asking, "Who is it?"
The fright in the voice stunned him. His kid sister had always been fresh and snotty,
tough as anybody in the family. What the hell had happened to her? He said, "It's
Sonny." The bolt inside slid back and the door opened and Connie was in his arms
sobbing. He was so surprised he just stood there. He pushed her away from him and
saw her swollen face and he understood what had happened.
77
He pulled away from her to run down the stairs and go after her husband. Rage flamed
up in him, contorting his own face. Connie saw the rage and clung to him, not letting him
go, making him come into the apartment. She was weeping out of terror now. She knew
her older brother's temper and feared it. She had never complained to him about Carlo
for that reason. Now she made him come into the apartment with her.
"It was my fault," she said. "I started a fight with him and I tried to hit him so he hit me.
He really didn't try to hit me that hard. I walked into it."
Sonny's heavy Cupid face was under control. "You going to see the old man today?"
She didn't answer, so he added, "I thought you were, so I dropped over to give you a
lift. I was in the city anyway."
She shook her head. "I don't want them to see me this way. I'll come next week."
"OK," Sonny said. He picked up her kitchen phone and dialed a number. "I'm getting a
doctor to come over here and take a look at you and fix you up. In your condition you
have to be careful. How many months before you have the kid?"
"Two months," Connie said. "Sonny, please don't do anything. Please don't."
Sonny laughed. His face was cruelly intent (полный решимости; пристальный;
погруженный во что-либо [ın'tent]) when he said, "Don't worry, I won't make your kid
an orphan before he's born." He left the apartment after kissing her lightly on her
uninjured cheek.
On East 112th Street a long line of cars were double-parked in front of a candy store
that was the headquarters of Carlo Rizzi's book. On the sidewalk in front of the store,
fathers played catch with small children they had taken for a Sunday morning ride and
to keep them company as they placed their bets (делали ставки). When they saw Carlo
Rizzi coming they stopped playing ball and bought their kids ice cream to keep them
quiet. Then they started studying the newspapers that gave the starting pitchers (pitcher
– подающий мяч; to pitch – бросать, кидать; /спорт./ подавать), trying to pick out
winning baseball bets for the day.
78
Carlo went into the large room in the back of the store. His two "writers," a small wiry
man called Sally Rags and a big husky fellow called Coach, were already waiting for the
action to start. They had their huge, lined pads in front of them ready to write down bets.
On a wooden stand was a blackboard with the names of the sixteen big league baseball
teams chalked on it, paired to show who was playing against who. Against each pairing
was a blocked-out square to enter the odds.
Carlo asked Coach, "Is the store phone tapped (to tap the line – подслушивать
телефонный разговор; tap – пробка, затычка; кран; to tap – вставлять кран,
снабжать втулкой; вынимать пробку) today?"
Coach shook his head. "The tap is still off."
Carlo went to the wall phone and dialed a number. Sally Rags and Coach watched
him impassively as he jotted down the "line," the odds on all the baseball games for that
day. They watched him as he hung up the phone and walked over to the blackboard
and chalked up the odds against each game. Though Carlo did not know it, they had
already gotten the line and were checking his work. In the first week in his job Carlo had
made a mistake in transposing the odds onto the blackboard and had created that
dream of all gamblers, a "middle." That is, by betting the odds with him and then betting
against the same team with another bookmaker at the correct odds, the gambler could
not lose. The only one who could lose was Carlo's book. That mistake had caused a
six-thousand-dollar loss in the book for the week and confirmed the Don's judgment
about his son-in-law. He had given the word that all of Carlo's work was to be checked.
Normally the highly placed members of the Corleone Family would never be
concerned with such an operational detail. There was at least a five-layer insulation to
their level. But since the book was being used as a testing ground for the son-in-law, it
had been placed under the direct scrutiny of Tom Hagen, to whom a report was sent
every day.
Now with the line posted, the gamblers were thronging into the back room of the
candy store to jot down the odds on their newspapers next to the games printed there
with probable pitchers. Some of them held their little children by the hand as they looked
up at the blackboard. One guy who made big bets looked down at the little girl he was
holding by the hand and said teasingly, "Who do you like today, Honey, Giants or the
Pirates?" The little girl, fascinated by the colorful names, said, "Are Giants stronger than
Pirates?" The father laughed.
A line began to form in front of the two writers. When a writer filled one of his sheets
he tore it off, wrapped the money he had collected in it and handed it to Carlo. Carlo
went out the back exit of the room and up a flight of steps to an apartment which
housed the candy store owner's family. He called in the bets to his central exchange
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and put the money in a small wall safe that was hidden by an extended window drape.
Then he went back down into the candy store after having first burned the bet sheet and
flushed (to flush – спускать; бить струей) its ashes down the toilet bowl.
None of the Sunday games started before two P.M. because of the blue laws, so after
the first crowd of bettors, family men who had to get their bets in and rush home to take
their families to the beach, came the trickling (trickle – струйка) of bachelor gamblers or
the die-hards (die-hard – твердолобый человек; консерватор) who condemned their
families to Sundays in the hot city apartments. These bachelor bettors were the big
gamblers, they bet heavier and came back around four o'clock to bet the second games
of doubleheaders (две игры, следующие непосредственно друг за другом). They
were the ones who made Carlo's Sundays a full-time day with overtime, though some
married men called in from the beach to try and recoup (компенсировать, возмещать
[rı'ku:p]) their losses.
By one-thirty the betting had trickled off so that Carlo and Sally Rags could go out and
sit on the stoop (крыльцо со ступенями; открытая веранда) beside the candy store
and get some fresh air. They watched the stickball (stickball – a form of baseball played
in the streets, on playgrounds, etc., in which a rubber ball and a broomstick or the like
are used in place of a baseball and bat) game the kids were having. A police car went
by. They ignored it. This book had very heavy protection at the precinct and couldn't be
touched on a local level. A raid would have to be ordered from the very top and even
then a warning would come through in plenty of time.
Coach came out and sat beside them. They gossiped a while about baseball and
women. Carlo said laughingly, "I had to bat (бить палкой, битой; bat – бита; дубина,
било /для льна/) my wife around again today, teach her who's boss."
Coach said casually, "She's knocked up pretty big now, ain't she?"
"Ahh, I just slapped her face a few times," Carlo said.
"I didn't hurt her." He brooded for a moment. "She thinks she can boss me around, I
don't stand for that (не потерплю этого)."
There were still a few bettors hanging around shooting the breeze (to shoot the
breeze – трепаться, болтать /сленг/; breeze – легкий ветерок; новость, слух), talking
baseball, some of them sitting on the steps above the two writers and Carlo. Suddenly
the kids playing stickball in the street scattered. A car came screeching (to screech –
скрипеть, визжать) up the block and to a halt in front of the candy store. It stopped so
80
abruptly that the tires screamed and before it had stopped, almost, a man came hurtling
out (to hurtle – пролетать, нестись со свистом; сильно бросать) of the driver's seat,
moving so fast that everybody was paralyzed. The man was Sonny Corleone.
His heavy Cupid-featured face with its thick, curved mouth was an ugly mask of fury.
In a split second he was at the stoop and had grabbed Carlo Rizzi by the throat. He
pulled Carlo away from the others, trying to drag him into the street, but Carlo wrapped
his huge muscular arms around the iron railings of the stoop and hung on. He cringed
(to cringe – съеживаться /от страха/) away, trying to hide his head and face in the
hollow of his shoulders. His shirt ripped away in Sonny's hand.
What followed then was sickening. Sonny began beating the cowering Carlo with his
fists, cursing him in a thick, rage-choked voice. Carlo, despite his tremendous physique,
offered no resistance, gave no cry for mercy or protest. Coach and Sally Rags dared not
interfere. They thought Sonny meant to kill his brother-in-law and had no desire to share
his fate. The kids playing stickball gathered to curse the driver who had made them
scatter, but now were watching with awestruck interest. They were tough kids but the
sight of Sonny in his rage silenced them. Meanwhile another car had drawn up behind
Sonny's and two of his bodyguards jumped out. When they saw what was happening
they too dared not interfere. They stood alert, ready to protect their chief if any
bystanders had the stupidity to try to help Carlo.
What made the sight sickening was Carlo's complete subjection, but it was perhaps
this that saved his life. He clung to the iron railings with his hands so that Sonny could
not drag him into the street and despite his obvious equal strength, still refused to fight
back. He let the blows rain on his unprotected head and neck until Sonny's rage ebbed.
Finally, his chest heaving, Sonny looked down at him and said, "You dirty bastard, you
ever beat up my sister again I'll kill you."
These words released the tension. Because of course, if Sonny intended to kill the
man he would never have uttered the threat. He uttered it in frustration because he
could not carry it out. Carlo refused to look at Sonny. He kept his head down and his
hands and arms entwined in the iron railing. He stayed that way until the car roared off
and he heard Coach say in his curiously paternal voice, "OK, Carlo, come on into the
store. Let's get out of sight."
It was only then that Carlo dared to get out of his crouch against the stone steps of the
stoop and unlock his hands from the railing. Standing up, he could see the kids look at
him with the staring, sickened faces of people who had witnessed the degradation of a
fellow human being. He was a little dizzy but it was more from shock, the raw fear that
had taken command of his body; he was not badly hurt despite the shower of heavy
81
blows. He let Coach lead him by the arm into the back room of the candy store and put
ice on his face, which, though it was not cut or bleeding, was lumpy with swelling
bruises. The fear was subsiding now and the humiliation he had suffered made him sick
to his stomach so that he had to throw up (вырвать). Coach held his head over the sink,
supported him as if he were drunk, then helped him upstairs to the apartment and made
him lie down in one of the bedrooms. Carlo never noticed that Sally Rags had
disappeared.
Sally Rags had walked down to Third Avenue and called Rocco Lampone to report
what had happened. Rocco took the news calmly and in his turn called his caporegime,
Pete Clemenza. Clemenza groaned and said, "Oh, Christ, that goddamn Sonny and his
temper," but his finger had prudently clicked down on the hook so that Rocco never
heard his remark.
Clemenza called the house in Long Beach and got Tom Hagen. Hagen was silent for
a moment and then he said, "Send some of your people and cars out on the road to
Long Beach as soon as you can, just in case Sonny gets held up by traffic or an
accident. When he gets sore like that he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Maybe
some of our friends on the other side will hear he was in town. You never can tell."
Clemenza said doubtfully, "By the time I could get anybody on the road, Sonny will be
home. That goes for the Tattaglias too."
"I know," Hagen said patiently. "But if something out of the ordinary happens, Sonny
may be held up. Do the best you can, Pete."
Grudgingly Clemenza called Rocco Lampone and told him to get a few people and
cars and cover the road to Long Beach. He himself went out to his beloved Cadillac and
with three of the platoon (взвод; полицейский отряд [pl∂’tu:n]) of guards who now
garrisoned his home, started over the Atlantic Beach Bridge, toward New York City.
One of the hangers-on (hanger-on – прихлебатель, приспешник) around the candy
store, a small bettor on the payroll of the Tattaglia Family as an informer, called the
contact he had with his people. But the Tattaglia Family had not streamlined (to
streamline – придавать обтекаемую форму; хорошо налаживать, подготовить) itself
for the war, the contact still had to go all the way through the insulation layers before he
finally got to the caporegime who contacted the Tattaglia chief. By that time Sonny
Corleone was safely back in the mall, in his father's house, in Long Beach, about to face
his father's wrath.
Chapter 18
The war of 1947 between the Corleone Family and the Five Families combined
against them proved to be expensive for both sides. It was complicated by the police
pressure put on everybody to solve the murder of Captain McCluskey. It was rare that
operating officials of the Police Department ignored political muscle that protected
gambling and vice operations, but in this case the politicians were as helpless as the
general staff of a rampaging (to rampage [rжm’peıdG] – неистовствовать,
буйствовать), looting army whose field officers refuse to follow orders.
This lack of protection did not hurt the Corleone Family as much as it did their
82
opponents. The Corleone group depended on gambling for most of its income, and was
hit especially hard in its "numbers" or "policy" branch of operations. The runners who
picked up the action were swept into police nets and usually given a medium
shellacking (полное поражение; основательная порка) before being booked. Even
some of the "banks" were located and raided, with heavy financial loss. The
"bankers," .90 calibers in their own right, complained to the caporegimes, who brought
their complaints to the family council table. But there was nothing to be done. The
bankers were told to go out of business. Local Negro free-lancers were allowed to take
over the operation in Harlem, the richest territory, and they operated in such scattered
fashion that the police found it hard to pin them down.
After the death of Captain McCluskey, some newspapers printed stories involving him
with Sollozzo. They published proof that McCluskey had received large sums of money
in cash, shortly before his death. These stories had been planted by Hagen, the
information supplied by him. The Police Department refused to confirm or deny these
stories, but they were taking effect. The police force got the word through informers,
through police on the Family payroll, that McCluskey had been a rogue cop
(продажный полицейский; rogue [r∂ug] – жулик, мошенник).
Not that he had taken money or clean graft (взятка, подкуп), there was no rank-and-
file onus to that (за это бы никто не бросил в него камень; rank-and-file – члены
какой-либо организации /исключая руководителей или офицеров/, рядовые члены;
onus – бремя; ответственность, долг ['∂un∂s]). But that he had taken the dirtiest of
dirty money; murder and drugs money. And in the morality of policemen, this was
unforgivable.
Hagen understood that the policeman believes in law and order in a curiously
innocent way. He believes in it more than does the public he serves. Law and order is,
after all, the magic from which he derives his power, individual power which he
cherishes as nearly all men cherish individual power. And yet there is always the
83
smoldering resentment (тлеющее, теплящееся негодование, возмущение, чувство
обиды [rı'zentm∂nt]) against the public he serves. They are at the same time his ward
(опека, подопечный) and his prey (добыча). As wards they are ungrateful, abusive
(оскорбительный, бранный; /здесь/ оскорбляющие [∂'bju:sıv]; to abuse [∂'bju:z] –
оскорблять, ругать) and demanding. As prey they are slippery and dangerous, full of
guile (обман, хитрость, вероломство [gaıl]). As soon as one is in the policeman's
clutches (когти, лапы) the mechanism of the society the policeman defends marshals
(выстраивать /войска/) all its resources to cheat him of his prize. The fix is put in by
politicians. Judges give lenient (мягкий, снисходительный [‘li:nj∂nt]) suspended
sentences to the worst hoodlums. Governors of the States and the President of the
United States himself give full pardons, assuming that respected lawyers have not
already won his acquittal (оправдание /юр./ [∂'kwıtl]). After a time the cop learns. Why
should he not collect the fees these hoodlums are paying? He needs it more. His
children, why should they not go to college? Why shouldn't his wife shop in more
expensive places? Why shouldn't he himself get the sun with a winter vacation in
Florida? After all, he risks his life and that is no joke.
But usually he draws the line against accepting dirty graft. He will take money to let a
bookmaker operate. He will take money from a man who hates getting parking tickets or
speeding tickets. He will allow call girls and prostitutes to ply their trade; for a
consideration. These are vices natural to a man. But usually he will not take a payoff for
drugs, armed robberies, rape, murder and other assorted (смешанный) perversions. In
his mind these attack the very core (сердцевина) of his personal authority and cannot
be countenanced (countenance [‘kauntın∂ns] – выражение лица; to keep one’s
countenance – не показывать вида; to countenance – терпеть, одобрять,
санкционировать).
The murder of a police Captain was comparable to regicide (цареубийство
['redGısaıd]). But when it became known that McCluskey had been killed while in the
company of a notorious narcotics peddler, when it became known that he was
suspected of conspiracy to murder, the police desire for vengeance began to fade. Also,
after all, there were still mortgage (заклад, ипотека; закладная ['mo:gıdG]) payment to
be made, cars to be paid off, children to be launched (to launch – бросать, метать;
запускать /ракету/) into the world. Without their "sheet" money (деньги, получаемые
по списку /с нарушителей закона, кормящихся на их участке/); sheet – простыня;
84
лист бумаги, печатный лист), policemen had to scramble (карабкаться, продираться,
бороться за обладание) to make ends meet. Unlicensed peddlers were good for lunch
money. Parking ticket payoffs came to nickels and dimes (nickel – монета в 5 центов;
dime – монета в 10 центов). Some of the more desperate even began shaking down
suspects (homosexuals, assaults (assault – нападение; изнасилование [∂'so:lt]) and
batteries (battery – побои, оскорбление действием /юр./) in the precinct squad rooms
(в полицейских участках; squad [skwod] – /воен./ группа, команда /здесь – на
дежурстве/). Finally the brass relented (начальство смягчилось; brass [brα:s] –
латунь, желтая медь; начальство, старший офицер /воен. жарг/). They raised the
prices and let the Families operate. Once again the payoff sheet (список выплат) was
typed up by the precinct bagman (странствующий торговец; коммивояжер /здесь
имеется в виду (насмешливо) полицейский, собирающий свою «долю»/), listing
every man assigned to the local station and what his cut was each month. Some
semblance of social order was restored.
It had been Hagen's idea to use private detectives to guard Don Corleone's hospital
room. These were, of course, supplemented by the much more formidable soldiers of
Tessio's regime. But Sonny was not satisfied even with this. By the middle of February,
when the Don could be moved without danger, he was taken by ambulance to his home
in the mall. The house had been renovated so that his bedroom was now a hospital
room with all equipment necessary for any emergency. Nurses specially recruited and
checked had been hired for round-the-clock care, and Dr. Kennedy, with the payment of
a huge fee, had been persuaded to become the physician in residence to this private
hospital. At least until the Don would need only nursing care.
The mall itself was made impregnable. Button men were moved into the extra houses,
the tenants sent on vacations to their native villages in Italy, all expenses paid.
Freddie Corleone had been sent to Las Vegas to recuperate and also to scout out
(разведать) the ground for a Family operation in the luxury hotel-gambling casino
complex that was springing up. Las Vegas was part of the West Coast empire still
neutral and the Don of that empire had guaranteed Freddie's safety there. The New
York five Families had no desire to make more enemies by going into Vegas after
Freddie Corleone. They had enough trouble on their hands in New York.
Dr. Kennedy had forbade any discussion of business in front of the Don. This edict
was completely disregarded. The Don insisted on the council of war being held in his
85
room. Sonny, Tom Hagen, Pete Clemenza and Tessio gathered there the very first night
of his homecoming.
Don Corleone was too weak to speak much but he wished to listen and exercise veto
powers. When it was explained that Freddie had been sent to Las Vegas to learn the
gambling casino business, he nodded his head approvingly. When he learned that
Bruno Tattaglia had been killed by Corleone button men he shook his head and sighed.
But what distressed him most of all was learning that Michael had killed Sollozzo and
Captain McCluskey and had then been forced to flee to Sicily. When he heard this he
motioned them out and they continued the conference in the corner room that held the
law library.
Sonny Corleone relaxed in the huge armchair behind the desk. "I think we'd better let
the old man take it easy for a couple of weeks, until the doc says he can do business."
He paused. "I'd like to have it going again before he gets better. We have the go-ahead
from the cops to operate. The first thing is the policy banks in Harlem. The black boys
up there had their fun, now we have to take it back. They screwed up the works but
good, just like they usually do when they run things. A lot of their runners (runner –
/здесь/ руководящий бизнесом) didn't payoff winners. They drive up in Cadillacs and
tell their players they gotta wait for their dough or maybe just pay them half what they
win. I don't want any runner looking rich to his players. I don't want them dressing too
good. I don't want them driving new cars. I don't want them welching (to welch, to welsh
– скрыться, не уплатив проигрыша) on paying a winner. And I don't want any free-
lancers staying in business, they give us a bad name. Tom, let's get that project moving
right away. Everything else will fall in line as soon as you send out the word that the lid
is off («крышка открыта» = секретность снята, можно работать спокойно)."
Hagen said, "There are some very tough boys up in Harlem. They got a taste of the
big money. They won't go back to being runners or sub-bankers again."
Sonny shrugged. "Just give their names to Clemenza. That's his job, straightening
them out."
Clemenza said to Hagen, "No problem."
It was Tessio who brought up the most important question. "Once we start operating,
the five Families start their raids. They'll hit our bankers in Harlem and our bookmakers
on the East Side. They may even try to make things tough for the garment center outfits
we service. This war is going to cost a lot of money."
86
"Maybe they won't," Sonny said. "They know we'll hit them right back. I've got peace
feelers (feeler – щупальце; разведчик) out and maybe we can settle everything by
paying an indemnity for the Tattaglia kid."
Hagen said, "We're getting the cold shoulder (нам оказывают холодный прием) on
those negotiations. They lost a lot of dough the last few months and they blame us for it.
With justice. I think what they want is for us to agree to come in on the narcotics trade,
to use the Family influence politically. In other words, Sollozzo's deal minus Sollozzo.
But they won't broach (broach – вертел; to broach – делать прокол, отверстие;
почать /бочку вина/; /здесь/ огласить; начать обсуждать) that until they've hurt us
with some sort of combat action. Then after we've been softened up they figure we'll
listen to a proposition on narcotics."
Sonny said curtly, "No deal on drugs. The Don said no and it's no until he changes it."
Hagen said briskly, "Then we're faced with a tactical problem. Our money is out in the
open. Bookmaking and policy. We can be hit. But the Tattaglia Family has prostitution
and call girls and the dock unions. How the hell are we going to hit them? The other
Families are in some gambling. But most of them are in the construction trades,
shylocking, controlling the unions, getting the government contracts. They get a lot from
strong-arm and other stuff that involves innocent people. Their money isn't out in the
street. The Tattaglia nightclub is too famous to touch it, it would cause too much of a
stink. And with the Don still out of action their political influence matches ours. So we've
got a real problem here."
"It's my problem, Tom," Sonny said. "I'll find the answer. Keep the negotiation alive
and follow through on the other stuff. Let's go back into business and see what happens.
Then we'll take it from there. Clemenza and Tessio have plenty of soldiers, we can
match the whole Five Families gun for gun if that's the way they want it. We'll just go to
the mattresses."
There was no problem getting the free-lance Negro bankers out of business. The
police were informed and cracked down. With a special effort. At that time it was not
possible for a Negro to make a payoff to a high police or political official to keep such an
operation going. This was due to racial prejudice and racial distrust more than anything
else. But Harlem had always been considered a minor problem, and its settlement was
expected.
The Five Families struck in an unexpected direction. Two powerful officials in the
garment unions were killed, officials who were members of the Corleone Family. Then
the Corleone Family shylocks were barred from the waterfront piers (pier – волнолом,
дамба; пирс) as were the Corleone Family bookmakers. The longshoremen's union
(longshoreman – портовый грузчик) locals had gone over to the Five Families.
Corleone bookmakers all over the city were threatened to persuade them to change
their allegiance (верность, лояльность; вассальная зависимость [∂'li:dG∂ns]). The
87
biggest numbers (затраты; смета) banker in Harlem, an old friend and ally (союзник) of
the Corleone Family, was brutally murdered. There was no longer any option. Sonny
told his caporegimes to go to the mattresses.
Two apartments were set up in the city and furnished with mattresses for the button
men to sleep on, a refrigerator for food, and guns and ammunition. Clemenza staffed
one apartment and Tessio the other. All Family bookmakers were given bodyguard
teams. The policy bankers in Harlem, however, had gone over to the enemy and at the
moment nothing could be done about that. All this cost the Corleone Family a great deal
of money and very little was coming in. As the next few months went by, other things
became obvious. The most important was that the Corleone Family had overmatched
itself (to overmatch = to be more than a match for – превосходить /силой, умением/;
/здесь/ переоценить свои силы; match – ровня, пара; равносильный противник).
There were reasons for this. With the Don still too weak to take a part, a great deal of
the Family's political strength was neutralized. Also, the last ten years of peace had
seriously eroded the fighting qualities of the two caporegimes, Clemenza and Tessio.
Clemenza was still a competent executioner and administrator but he no longer had the
energy or the youthful strength to lead troops. Tessio had mellowed (смягчился; mellow
– спелый, сочный; to mellow – делаться спелым, созревать; смягчаться)with age
and was not ruthless enough. Tom Hagen, despite his abilities, was simply not suited to
be a Consigliori in a time of war. His main fault was that he was not a Sicilian.
Sonny Corleone recognized these weaknesses in the Family's wartime posture but
could not take any steps to remedy them. He was not the Don and only the Don could
replace the caporegimes and the Consigliori. And the very act of replacement would
make the situation more dangerous, might precipitate some treachery (спровоцировать,
вызвать какое-нибудь предательство, измену; to precipitate [prı’sıpıteıt] –
низвергать, повергать; ввергать; ускорять, торопить). At first, Sonny had thought of
fighting a holding action until the Don could become well enough to take charge, but
with the defection of the policy bankers, the terrorization of the bookmakers, the Family
position was becoming precarious (случайный; ненадежный, сомнительный,
опасный [prı’kε∂rı∂s]). He decided to strike back.
But he decided to strike right at the heart of the enemy. He planned the execution of
the heads of the five Families in one grand tactical maneuver. To that purpose he put
into effect an elaborate system of surveillance (надзор, наблюдение /напр. за
подозреваемым/ [s∂:’veıl∂ns]) of these leaders. But after a week the enemy chiefs
promptly dived underground and were seen no more in public.
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The Five Families and the Corleone Empire were in stalemate (пат /шахм./; мертвая
точка, тупик; stale – несвежий /хлеб/; спертый /воздух/; выдохшийся /спортсмен/).
Chapter 18
Amerigo Bonasera lived only a few blocks from his undertaking establishment on
Mulberry Street and so always went home for supper. Evenings he returned to his place
of business, dutifully joining those mourners paying their respects to the dead who lay in
state in his somber parlors.
He always resented the jokes made about his profession, the macabre (мрачный,
ужасный /франц./ [m∂'kα:br]; dance macabre – танец смерти /жанр средневекового
искусства/) technical details which were so unimportant. Of course none of his friends
or family or neighbors would make such jokes. Any profession was worthy of respect to
men who for centuries earned bread by the sweat of their brows.
Now at supper with his wife in their solidly furnished apartment, gilt statues of the
Virgin Mary with their red-glassed candles flickering on the sideboard, Bonasera lit a
Camel cigarette and took a relaxing glass of American whiskey. His wife brought
steaming plates of soup to the table. The two of them were alone now; he had sent his
daughter to live in Boston with her mother's sister, where she could forget her terrible
experience and her injuries at the hands of the two ruffians (хулиган, негодяй ['rΛfj∂n])
Don Corleone had punished.
As they ate their soup his wife asked, "Are you going back to work tonight?"
Amerigo Bonasera nodded. His wife respected his work but did not understand it. She
did not understand that the technical part of his profession was the least important. She
thought, like most other people, that he was paid for his skill in making the dead look so
lifelike in their coffins. And indeed his skill in this was legendary. But even more
important, even more necessary was his physical presence at the wake
(бодрствование; поминки /перед погребением/). When the bereaved family
(скорбящая, понесшая потерю семья; to bereave – лишать, отнимать) came at night
89
to receive their blood relatives and their friends beside the coffin of their loved one, they
needed Amerigo Bonasera with them.
For he was a strict chaperone (опекун, сопровождающий; chaperone – пожилая
дама, сопровождающия молодую девушку на балы и пр.; компаньонка [‘∫жp∂r∂un])
to death. His face always grave, yet strong and comforting, his voice unwavering, yet
muted to a low register, he commanded the mourning ritual. He could quiet grief that
was too unseemly, he could rebuke (упрекать, делать выговор [rı’bju:k]) unruly
children whose parents had not the heart to chastise (подвергать наказанию
/особенно телесному/ [t∫жs’taız]). Never cloying (слащав; to cloy – пресыщать) in the
tender of his condolences, yet never was he offhand (импровизированный; /здесь/
бесцеремонный). Once a family used Amerigo Bonasera to speed a loved one on
(проводить, отправить в последний путь близкого человека), they came back to him
again and again. And he never, never, deserted one of his clients on that terrible last
night above ground.
Usually he allowed himself a little nap after supper. Then he washed and shaved
afresh, talcum powder generously used to shroud (посыпать, укрыть; shroud – саван;
пелена, покров) the heavy black beard. A mouthwash always. He respectfully changed
into fresh linen, white gleaming shirt, the black tie, a freshly pressed dark suit, dull black
shoes and black socks. And yet the effect was comforting instead of somber. He also
kept his hair dyed black, an unheard-of frivolity in an Italian male of his generation; but
not out of vanity. Simply because his hair had turned a lively pepper and salt, a color
which struck him as unseemly for his profession.
After he finished his soup, his wife placed a small steak before him with a few forkfuls
of green spinach oozing yellow oil. He was a light eater. When he finished this he drank
a cup of coffee and smoked another Camel cigarette. Over his coffee he thought about
his poor daughter. She would never be the same. Her outward beauty had been
restored but there was the look of a frightened animal in her eyes that had made him
unable to bear the sight of her. And so they had sent her to live in Boston for a time.
Time would heal her wounds. Pain and terror was not so final as death, as he well knew.
His work made him an optimist.
He had just finished the coffee when his phone in the living room rang. His wife never
answered it when he was home, so he got up and drained his cup and stubbed out his
cigarette. As he walked to the phone he pulled off his tie and started to unbutton his
shirt, getting ready for his little nap. Then he picked up the phone and said with quiet
courtesy, "Hello."
The voice on the other end was harsh, strained. "This is Tom Hagen," it said. "I'm
calling for Don Corleone, at his request."
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Amerigo Bonasera felt the coffee churning (churn – маслобойка, мешалка; to churn
– взбивать /масло/; взбалтывать, вспенивать) sourly in his stomach, felt himself
going a little sick. It was more than a year since he had put himself in the debt of the
Don to avenge his daughter's honor and in that time the knowledge that he must pay
that debt had receded. He had been so grateful seeing the bloody faces of those two
ruffians that he would have done anything for the Don. But time erodes gratitude more
quickly than it does beauty. Now Bonasera felt the sickness of a man faced with
disaster. His voice faltered as he answered, "Yes, I understand. I'm
listening."
He was surprised at the coldness in Hagen's voice. The Consigliori had always been
a courteous man, though not Italian, but now he was being rudely brusque. "You owe
the Don a service," Hagen said. "He has no doubt that you will repay him. That you will
be happy to have this opportunity. In one hour, not before, perhaps later, he will be at
your funeral parlor to ask for your help. Be there to greet him. Don't have any people
who work for you there. Send them home. If you have any objections to this, speak now
and I'll inform Don Corleone. He has other friends who can do him this service."
Amerigo Bonasera almost cried out in his fright, "How can you think I would refuse the
Godfather? Of course I'll do anything he wishes. I haven't forgotten my debt. I'll go to my
business immediately, at once."
Hagen's voice was gentler now, but there was something strange about it. "Thank
you," he said. "The Don never doubted you. The question was mine. Oblige him tonight
and you can always come to me in any trouble, you'll earn my personal friendship."
This frightened Amerigo Bonasera even more. He stuttered, "The Don himself is
coming to me tonight?"
"Yes," Hagen said.
"Then he's completely recovered from his injuries, thank God," Bonasera said. His
voice made it a question.
There was a pause at the other end of the phone, then Hagen's voice said very quietly,
"Yes." There was a click and the phone went dead.
Bonasera was sweating. He went into the bedroom and changed his shirt and rinsed
his mouth. But he didn't shave or use a fresh tie. He put on the same one he had used
during the day. He called the funeral parlor and told his assistant to stay with the
bereaved family using the front parlor that night. He himself would be busy in the
laboratory working area of the building. When the assistant started asking questions
Bonasera cut him off very curtly and told him to follow orders exactly.
91
He put on his suit jacket and his wife, still eating, looked up at him in surprise. "I have
work to do," he said and she did not dare question him because of the look on his face.
Bonasera went out of the house and walked the few blocks to his funeral parlor.
This building stood by itself on a large lot with a white picket fence running all around
it. There was a narrow roadway leading from the street to the rear, just wide enough for
ambulances and hearses (hearse [h∂:s] – катафалк, похоронные дроги). Bonasera
unlocked the gate and left it open. Then he walked to the rear of the building and
entered it through the wide door there. As he did so he could see mourners already
entering the front door of the funeral parlor to pay their respects to the current corpse.
Many years ago when Bonasera had bought this building from an undertaker planning
to retire, there had been a stoop of about ten steps that mourners had to mount before
entering the funeral parlor. This had posed a problem. Old and crippled mourners
determined to pay their respects had found the steps almost impossible to mount, so
the former undertaker had used the freight elevator for these people, a small metal
platform, that rose out of the ground beside the building. The elevator was for coffins
and bodies. It would descend underground, then rise into the funeral parlor itself, so that
a crippled mourner would find himself rising through the floor beside the coffin as other
mourners moved their black chairs aside to let the elevator rise through the trapdoor
(люк, опускная дверь; trap – ловушка, капкан; /вентиляционная/ дверь /в шахте/).
Then when the crippled or aged mourner (скорбящий; to mourn – скорбеть,
оплакивать /кого-либо/) had finished paying his respects, the elevator would again
come up through the polished floor to take him down and out again.
Amerigo Bonasera had found this solution to the problem unseemly (неподобающий,
непристойный) and penny-pinching (мелочный, скаредный, экономящий на копейке;
to pinch – щипать; сжимать; скупиться). So he had had the front of the building
remodeled, the stoop done away with and a slightly inclining walk put in its place. But of
course the elevator was still used for coffins and corpses.
In the rear of the building, cut off from the funeral parlor and reception rooms by a
massive soundproof (звуконепроницаемый) door, was the business office, the
embalming (to embalm [ım'bα:m] – бальзамировать; balm – бальзам) room, a
storeroom for coffins, and a carefully locked closet holding chemicals and the awful
tools of his trade. Bonasera went to the office, sat at his desk and lit up a Camel, one of
the few times he had ever smoked in this building. Then he waited for Don Corleone.
He waited with a feeling of the utmost despair. For he had no doubt as to what
92
services he would be called upon to perform. For the last year the Corleone Family had
waged war against the five great Mafia Families of New York and the carnage had filled
the newspapers. Many men on both sides had been killed. Now the Corleone Family
had killed somebody so important that they wished to hide his body, make it disappear,
and what better way than to have it officially buried by a registered undertaker? And
Amerigo Bonasera had no illusions about the act he was to commit. He would be an
accessory to murder. If it came out, he would spend years in jail. His daughter and wife
would be disgraced, his good name, the respected name of Amerigo Bonasera,
dragged through the bloody mud of the Mafia war.
He indulged himself (позволил себе) by smoking another Camel. And then he
thought of something even more terrifying. When the other Mafia Families found out that
he had aided the Corleones they would treat him as an enemy. They would murder him.
And now he cursed the day he had gone to the Godfather and begged for his
vengeance. He cursed the day his wife and the wife of Don Corleone had become
friends. He cursed his daughter and America and his own success. And then his
optimism returned. It could all go well. Don Corleone was a clever man. Certainly
everything had been arranged to keep the secret. He had only to keep his nerve. For of
course the one thing more fatal than any other was to earn the Don's displeasure.
He heard tires on gravel. His practiced ear told him a car was coming through the
narrow driveway and parking in the back yard. He opened the rear door to let them in.
The huge fat man, Clemenza, entered, followed by two very rough-looking young
fellows. They searched the rooms without saying a word to Bonasera, then Clemenza
went out. The two young men remained with the undertaker.
A few moments later Bonasera recognized the sound of a heavy ambulance coming
through the narrow driveway. Then Clemenza appeared in the doorway followed by two
men carrying a stretcher (носилки; to stretch – растягивать/ся/, вытягивать/ся/). And
Amerigo Bonasera's worst fears were realized. On the stretcher was a corpse swaddled
(to swaddle – пеленать, свивать /младенца/) in a gray blanket but with bare yellow
feet sticking out the end.
Clemenza motioned the stretcher-bearers into the embalming room. And then from
the blackness of the yard another man stepped into the lighted office room. It was Don
Corleone.
The Don had lost weight during his illness and moved with a curious stiffness. He was
holding his hat in his hands and his hair seemed thin over his massive skull. He looked
older, more shrunken than when Bonasera had seen him at the wedding, but he still
93
radiated power. Holding his hat against his chest, he said to Bonasera, "Well, old friend,
are you ready to do me this service?"
Bonasera nodded. The Don followed the stretcher into the embalming room and
Bonasera trailed after him. The corpse was on one of the guttered (gutter –
водосточный желоб, сточная канавка) tables. Don Corleone made a tiny gesture with
his hat and the other men left the room.
Bonasera whispered, "What do you wish me to do?"
Don Corleone was staring at the table. "I want you to use all your powers, all your skill,
as you love me," he said. "I do not wish his mother to see him as he is." He went to the
table and drew down the gray blanket. Amerigo Bonasera against all his will, against all
his years of training and experience, let out a gasp of horror. On the embalming table
was the bullet-smashed face of Sonny Corleone. The left eye drowned in blood had a
star fracture (трещина, излом, разрыв) in its lens (линза; хрусталик глаза). The
bridge of his nose and left cheekbone were hammered into pulp.
For one fraction of a second the Don put out his hand to support himself against
Bonasera's body. "See how they have massacred my son," he said.
Chapter 19
Perhaps it was the stalemate that made Sonny Corleone embark on the bloody
course of attrition (трение, изнашивание от трения; истощение, изнурение) that
ended in his own death. Perhaps it was his dark violent nature given full rein. In any
case, that spring and summer he mounted senseless raids on enemy auxiliaries
(auxiliary [o:g’zılj∂rı] – вспомогательный; помощник). Tattaglia Family pimps (pimp –
сводник, сутенер) were shot to death in Harlem, dock goons (goon – головорез,
наемный бандит) were massacred. Union officials who owed allegiance to the Five
Families were warned to stay neutral, and when the Corleone bookmakers and shylocks
were still barred from the docks, Sonny sent Clemenza and his regime to wreak (давать
выход, волю чувству [ri:k], to wreak vengeance upon one’s enemy – отомстить врагу)
havoc (опустошение, разрушение ['hжv∂k]) upon the long shore.
This slaughter was senseless because it could not affect the outcome of the war.
Sonny was a brilliant tactician and won his brilliant victories. But what was needed was
the strategical genius of Don Corleone. The whole thing degenerated into such a deadly
guerrilla war that both sides found themselves losing a great deal of revenue and lives
to no purpose. The Corleone Family was finally forced to close down some of its most
94
profitable bookmaking stations, including the book given to son-in-law Carlo Rizzi for his
living. Carlo took to drink and running with chorus girls and giving his wife Connie a hard
time. Since his beating at the hands of Sonny he had not dared to hit his wife again but
he had not slept with her. Connie had thrown herself at his feet and he had spurned her,
as he thought, like a Roman, with exquisite patrician pleasure. He had sneered at her,
"Go call your brother and tell him I won't screw you, maybe he'll beat me up until I get a
hard on (эрекция)."
But he was in deadly fear of Sonny though they treated each other with cold
politeness. Carlo had the sense to realize that Sonny would kill him, that Sonny was a
man who could, with the naturalness of an animal, kill another man, while he himself
would have to call up all his courage, aIl his will, to commit murder. It never occurred to
Carlo that because of this he was a better man than Sonny Corleone, if such terms
could be used; he envied Sonny his awesome savagery, a savagery which was now
becoming a legend.
Tom Hagen, as the Consigliori, disapproved of Sonny's tactics and yet decided not to
protest to the Don simply because the tactics, to some extent, worked. The Five
Families seemed to be cowed (to cow – запугивать, усмирять), finally, as the attrition
went on, and their counterblows weakened and finally ceased altogether. Hagen at first
distrusted this seeming pacification of the enemy but Sonny was jubilant (ликующий,
торжествующий ['dGu:bıl∂nt]). "I'll pour it on," he told Hagen, "and then those bastards
will come begging for a deal."
Sonny was worried about other things. His wife was giving him a hard time because
the rumors had gotten to her that Lucy Mancini had bewitched her husband. And though
she joked publicly about her Sonny's equipment and technique, he had stayed away
from her too long and she missed him in her bed, and she was making life miserable for
him with her nagging.
In addition to this Sonny was under the enormous strain of being a marked man. He
had to be extraordinarily careful in all his movements and he knew that his visits to Lucy
Mancini had been charted by the enemy. But here he took elaborate precautions since
this was the traditional vulnerable spot. He was safe there. Though Lucy had not the
slightest suspicion, she was watched twenty-four hours a day by men of the Santino
regime and when an apartment became vacant on her floor it was immediately rented
by one of the most reliable men of that regime.
The Don was recovering and would soon be able to resume command. At that time
the tide of battle must swing to the Corleone Family. This Sonny was sure of.
Meanwhile he would guard his Family's empire, earn the respect of his father, and,
95
since the position was not hereditary to an absolute degree, cement his claim as heir to
the Corleone Empire.
But the enemy was making its plans. They too had analyzed the situation and had
come to the conclusion that the only way to stave off (предотвратить, отсрочить
/бедствие/; stave – палка, шест) complete defeat was to kill Sonny Corleone. They
understood the situation better now and felt it was possible to negotiate with the Don,
known for his logical reasonableness. They had come to hate Sonny for his
bloodthirstiness, which they considered barbaric. Also not good business sense.
Nobody wanted the old days back again with all its turmoil (суматоха, беспорядок
['t∂:moıl]) and trouble.
One evening Connie Corleone received an anonymous phone call, a girl's voice,
asking for Carlo. "Who is this?" Connie asked.
The girl on the other end giggled and said, "I'm a friend of Carlo's. I just wanted to tell
him I can't see him tonight. I have to go out of town."
"You lousy bitch," Connie Corleone said. She screamed it again into the phone. "You
lousy tramp bitch." There was a click on the other end.
Carlo had gone to the track for that afternoon and when he came home in the late
evening he was sore at losing and half drunk from the bottle he always carried. As soon
as he stepped into the door, Connie started screaming curses at him. He ignored her
and went in to take a shower. When he came out he dried his naked body in front of her
and started dolling up (to doll up – наряжать/ся/; doll – кукла) to go out.
Connie stood with hands on hips, her face pointy (заостренный) and white with rage.
"You're not going any place," she said. "Your girl friend called and said she can't make it
tonight. You lousy bastard, you have the nerve to give your whores my phone number.
I'll kill you, you bastard." She rushed at him, kicking and scratching.
He held her off with one muscular forearm. "You're crazy," he said coldly. But she
could see he was worried, as if he knew the crazy girl he was screwing would actually
pull such a stunt (удачное, эффектное выступление; штука, трюк, фокус). "She was
kidding around, some nut," Carlo said.
Connie ducked (to duck – нырять, увертываться; duck – утка) around his arm and
clawed (to claw – царапать; claw – коготь) at his face. She got a little bit of his cheek
under her fingernails. With surprising patience he pushed her away. She noticed he was
96
careful because of her pregnancy and that gave her the courage to feed her rage. She
was also excited. Pretty soon she wouldn't be able to do anything, the doctor had said
no sex for the last two months and she wanted it, before the last two months started.
Yet her wish to inflict a physical injury on Carlo was very real too. She followed him into
the bedroom.
She could see he was scared and that filled her with contemptuous delight. "You're
staying home," she said, "you're not going out."
"OK, OK," he said. He was still undressed, only wearing his shorts. He liked to go
around the house like that, he was proud of his V-shaped body, the golden skin. Connie
looked at him hungrily. He tried to laugh. "You gonna give me something to eat at
least?"
That mollified (to mollify – смягчить) her, his calling on her duties, one of them at
least. She was a good cook, she had learned that from her mother. She sauteed (to
sautй – потушить, приготовить что-либо быстро в небольшом количестве масла
или жира) veal and peppers, preparing a mixed salad while the pan simmered (to
simmer – закипать; кипеть на медленном огне). Meanwhile Carlo stretched out on his
bed to read the next day's racing form. He had a water glass full of whiskey beside him
which he kept sipping at.
Connie came into the bedroom. She stood in the doorway as if she could not come
close to the bed without being invited. "The food is on the table," she said.
"I'm not hungry yet," he said, still reading the racing form.
"It's on the table," Connie said stubbornly.
"Stick it up your ass," Carlo said. He drank off the rest of the whiskey in the water
glass, tilted the bottle to fill it again. He paid no more attention to her.
Connie went into the kitchen, picked up the plates filled with food and smashed them
against the sink. The loud crashes brought Carlo in from the bedroom. He looked at the
greasy veal and peppers splattered all over the kitchen walls and his finicky
(разборчивый, мелочно требовательный) neatness was outraged. "You filthy guinea
spoiled brat," he said venomously. "Clean that up right now or I'll kick the shit out of
you."
"Like hell I will," Connie said. She held her hands like claws ready to scratch his bare
chest to ribbons.
Carlo went back into the bedroom and when he came out he was holding his belt
doubled in his hand. "Clean it up," he said and there was no mistaking the menace in
his voice. She stood there not moving and he swung the belt against her heavily padded
97
hips, the leather stinging but not really hurting. Connie retreated to the kitchen cabinets
and her hand went into one of the drawers to haul out the long bread knife. She held it
ready.
Carlo laughed. "Even the female Corleones are murderers," he said. He put the belt
down on the kitchen table and advanced toward her. She tried a sudden lunge but her
pregnant heavy body made her slow and he eluded the thrust she aimed at his groin in
such deadly earnest. He disarmed her easily and then he started to slap her face with a
slow medium-heavy stroke so as not to break the skin. He hit her again and again as
she retreated around the kitchen table trying to escape him and he pursued her into the
bedroom. She tried to bite his hand and he grabbed her by the hair to lift her head up.
He slapped her face until she began to weep like a little girl, with pain and humiliation.
Then he threw her contemptuously onto the bed. He drank from the bottle of whiskey
still on the night table. He seemed very drunk now, his light blue eyes had a crazy glint
in them and finally Connie was truly afraid.
Carlo straddled his legs apart and drank from the bottle. He reached down and
grabbed a chunk (толстый кусок, ломоть) of her pregnant heavy thigh in his hand. He
squeezed very hard, hurting her and making her beg for mercy. "You're fat as a pig," he
said with disgust and walked out of the bedroom.
Thoroughly frightened and cowed, she lay in the bed, not daring to see what her
husband was doing in the other room. Finally she rose and went to the door to peer into
the living room. Carlo had opened a fresh bottle of whiskey and was sprawled on the
sofa. In a little while he would drink himself into sodden (промокший, пропитанный;
отупевший /напр. от усталости, пьянства/) sleep and she could sneak into the kitchen
and call her family in Long Beach. She would tell her mother to send someone out here
to get her. She just hoped Sonny didn't answer the phone, she knew it would be best to
talk to Tom Hagen or her mother.
It was nearly ten o'clock at night when the kitchen phone in Don Corleone's house
rang. It was answered by one of the Don's bodyguards who dutifully turned the phone
over to Connie's mother. But Mrs. Corleone could hardly understand what her daughter
was saying, the girl was hysterical yet trying to whisper so that her husband in the next
room would not hear her. Also her face had become swollen because of the slaps, and
her puffy lips thickened her speech. Mrs. Corleone made a sign to the bodyguard that
he should call Sonny, who was in the living room with Tom Hagen.
Sonny came into the kitchen and took the phone from his mother. "Yeah, Connie," he
said.
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Connie was so frightened both of her husband and of what her brother would do that
her speech became worse. She babbled, "Sonny, just send a car to bring me home, I'll
tell you then, it's nothing, Sonny. Don't you come. Send Tom, please, Sonny. It's
nothing, I just want to come home."
By this time Hagen had come into the room. The Don was already under a sedated
sleep in the bedroom above and Hagen wanted to keep an eye on Sonny in all crises.
The two interior bodyguards were also in the kitchen. Everybody was watching Sonny
as he listened on the phone.
There was no question that the violence in Sonny Corleone's nature rose from some
deep mysterious physical well. As they watched they could actually see the blood
rushing to his heavily corded neck, could see the eyes film with hatred, the separate
features of his face tightening, growing pinched, then his face took on the grayish hue of
a sick man fighting off some sort of death, except that the adrenalin pumping through
his body made his hands tremble. But his voice was controlled, pitched low, as he told
his sister, "You wait there. You just wait there." He hung up the phone.
He stood there for a moment quite stunned with his own rage, then he said, "The
fucking sonofabitch, the fucking sonofabitch." He ran out of the house.
Hagen knew the look on Sonny's face, all reasoning power had left him. At this
moment Sonny was capable of anything. Hagen also knew that the ride into the city
would cool Sonny off, make him more rational. But that rationality might make him even
more dangerous, though the rationality would enable him to protect himself against the
consequences of his rage. Hagen heard the car motor roaring into life and he said to the
two bodyguards, "Go after him."
Then he went to the phone and made some calls. He arranged for some men of
Sonny's regime living in the city to go up to Carlo Rizzi's apartment and get Carlo out of
there. Other men would stay with Connie until Sonny arrived. He was taking a chance
(рисковал), thwarting (thwart – банка на гребной шлюпке; поперечный; to thwart –
перечить; /по/мешать исполнению, /здесь/ раздражая, действуя ему «против
шерсти») Sonny, but he knew the Don would back him up. He was afraid that Sonny
might kill Carlo in front of witnesses. He did not expect trouble from the enemy. The
Five Families had been quiet too long and obviously were looking for peace of some
kind.
By the time Sonny roared out of the mall in his Buick, he had already regained, partly,
his senses. He noted the two bodyguards getting into a car to follow him and approved.
He expected no danger, the Five Families had quit counterattacking, were not really
fighting anymore.
He had grabbed his jacket in the foyer and there was a gun in a secret dashboard
(щиток, приборная доска) compartment (отделение) of the car, the car registered in
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the name of a member of his regime, so that he personally could not get into any legal
trouble. But he did not anticipate needing any weapon. He did not even know what he
was going to do with Carlo Rizzi.
Now that he had a chance to think, Sonny knew he could not kill the father of an
unborn child, and that father his sister's husband. Not over a domestic spat (небольшая
ссора; легкий удар, шлепок; to spat – похлопать, пошлепать; побраниться; слегка
поссориться). Except that it was not just a domestic spat. Carlo was a bad guy and
Sonny felt responsible that his sister had met the bastard through him.
The paradox in Sonny's violent nature was that he could not hit a woman and had
never done so. That he could not harm a child or anything helpless. When Carlo had
refused to fight back against him that day, it had kept Sonny from killing him; complete
submission disarmed his violence. As a boy, he had been truly tenderhearted. That he
had become a murderer as a man was simply his destiny.
But he would settle this thing once and for all, Sonny thought, as he headed the Buick
toward the causeway (мостовая, мощеная дорожка, тротуар; дамба, гать) that would
take him over the water from Long Beach to the parkways on the other side of Jones
Beach. He always used this route when he went to New York. There was less traffic.
He decided he would send Connie home with the bodyguards and then he would have
a session with his brother-in-law. What would happen after that he didn't know. If the
bastard had really hurt Connie, he'd make a cripple out of the bastard. But the wind
coming over the causeway, the salty freshness of the air, cooled his anger. He put the
window down all the way.
He had taken the Jones Beach Causeway, as always, because it was usually
deserted this time of night, at this time of year, and he could speed recklessly until he hit
the parkways on the other side. And even there traffic would be light. The release of
driving very fast would help dissipate what he knew was a dangerous tension. He had
already left his bodyguards' car far behind.
The causeway was badly lit, there was not a single car. Far ahead he saw the white
cone of the manned tollbooth (будка для сбора дорожной пошлины: toll).
There were other tollbooths beside it but they were staffed only during the day, for
heavier traffic. Sonny started braking the Buick and at the same time searched his
pockets for change. He had none. He reached for his wallet, flipped it open with one
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hand and fingered out a bill. He came within the arcade of light and he saw to his mild
surprise a car in the tollbooth slot (щелка, щель, прорезь; /здесь/ узкий проезд возле
будки) blocking it, the driver obviously asking some sort of directions from the toll taker.
Sonny honked (to honk – кричать /о диких гусях/; сигналить /авто/) his horn and the
other car obediently rolled through to let his car slide into the slot.
Sonny handed the toll taker the dollar bill and waited for his change. He was in a hurry
now to close the window. The Atlantic Ocean air had chilled the whole car. But the toll
taker was fumbling with his change; the dumb son of a bitch actually dropped it. Head
and body disappeared as the toll man stooped down in his booth to pick up the money.
At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a
few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught
sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to
think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked
toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second
before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man. And in
that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real
and present had purified him.
Even so, his huge body in a reflex for life crashed against the Buick door, bursting its
lock. The man in the darkened tollbooth opened fire and the shots caught Sonny
Corleone in the head and neck as his massive frame spilled out of the car. The two men
in front held up their guns now, the man in the darkened tollbooth cut his fire, and
Sonny's body sprawled on the asphalt with the legs still partly inside. The two men each
fired shots into Sonny's body, then kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even
more, to show a mark made by a more personal human power.
Seconds afterward, all four men, the three actual assassins (assassin [∂'sжsın] –
/наемный, нападающий из-за угла/ убийца) and the bogus (поддельный, фиктивный)
toll collector, were in their car and speeding toward the Meadowbrook Parkway on the
other side of Jones Beach. Their pursuit was blocked by Sonny's car and body in the
tollgate slot but when Sonny's bodyguards pulled up a few minutes later and saw his
body lying there, they had no intention to pursue. They swung their car around in a huge
arc and returned to Long Beach. At the first public phone off the causeway one of them
hopped out and called Tom Hagen. He was very curt and very brisk. "Sonny's dead,
they got him at the Jones Beach toll."
Hagen's voice was perfectly calm. "OK," he said. "Go to Clemenza's house and tell
him to come here right away. He'll tell you what to do."
Hagen had taken the call in the kitchen, with Mama Corleone bustling around
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preparing a snack for the arrival of her daughter. He had kept his composure and the
old woman had not noticed anything amiss. Not that she could not have, if she wanted
to, but in her life with the Don she had learned it was far wiser not to perceive. That if it
was necessary to know something painful, it would be told to her soon enough. And if it
was a pain that could be spared her, she could do without. She was quite content not to
share the pain of her men, after all did they share the pain of women? Impassively she
boiled her coffee and set the table with food. In her experience pain and fear did not dull
physical hunger; in her experience the taking of food dulled pain. She would have been
outraged if a doctor had tried to sedate her with a drug, but coffee and a crust of bread
were another matter; she came, of course, from a more primitive culture.
And so she let Tom Hagen escape to his corner conference room and once in that
room, Hagen began to tremble so violently he had to sit down with his legs squeezed
together, his head hunched into his contracted shoulders, hands clasped together
between his knees as if he were praying to the devil.
He was, he knew now, no fit Consigliori for a Family at war. He had been fooled,
faked out, by the Five Families and their seeming timidity. They had remained quiet,
laying their terrible ambush (засада ['жmbu∫]). They had planned and waited, holding
their bloody hands no matter what provocation they had been given. They had waited to
land one terrible blow. And they had. Old Genco Abbandando would never have fallen
for it, he would have smelled a rat, he would have smoked them out, tripled his
precautions. And through all this Hagen felt his grief. Sonny had been his true brother,
his savior; his hero when they had been boys together. Sonny had never been mean or
bullying (to bully – задирать; запугивать) with him, had always treated him with
affection, had taken him in his arms when Sollozzo had turned him loose. Sonny's joy at
that reunion had been real. That he had grown up to be a cruel and violent and bloody
man was, for Hagen, not relevant (уместный, относящийся к делу ['relıv∂nt]).
He had walked out of the kitchen because he knew he could never tell Mama
Corleone about her son's death. He had never thought of her as his mother as he
thought of the Don as his father and Sonny as his brother. His affection for her was like
his affection for Freddie and Michael and Connie. The affection for someone who has
been kind but not loving. But he could not tell her. In a few short months she had lost all
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her sons; Freddie exiled to Nevada, Michael hiding for his life in Sicily, and now Santino
dead. Which of the three had she loved most of all? She had never shown.
It was no more than a few minutes, Hagen got control of himself again and picked up
the phone. He called Connie's number. It rang for a long time before Connie answered
in a whisper.
Hagen spoke to her gently. "Connie, this is Tom. Wake your husband up, I have to
talk to him."
Connie said in a low frightened voice, "Tom, is Sonny coming here?"
"No," Hagen said. "Sonny's not coming there. Don't worry about that. Just wake Carlo
up and tell him it's very important I speak to him."
Connie's voice was weepy. "Tom, he beat me up, I'm afraid he'll hurt me again if he
knows I called home."
Hagen said gently, "He won't. He'll talk to me and I'll straighten him out. Everything
will be OK. Tell him it's very important, very, very important he come to the phone. OK?"
It was almost five minutes before Carlo's voice came over the phone, a voice half
slurred by whiskey and sleep. Hagen spoke sharply to make him alert.
"Listen, Carlo," he said, "I'm going to tell you something very shocking. Now prepare
yourself because when I tell it to you I want you to answer me very casually as if it's less
than it is. I told Connie it was important so you have to give her a story. Tell her the
Family has decided to move you both to one of the houses in the mall and to give you a
big job. That the Don has finally decided to give you a chance in the hope of making
your home life better. You got that?"
There was a hopeful note in Carlo's voice as he answered, "Yeah, OK."
Hagen went on, "In a few minutes a couple of my men are going to knock on your
door to take you away with them. Tell them I want them to call me first. Just tell them
that. Don't say anything else. I'll instruct them to leave you there with Connie. OK?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Carlo said. His voice was excited. The tension in Hagen's voice
seemed to have finally alerted him that the news coming up was going to be really
important. Hagen gave it to him straight. "They killed Sonny tonight. Don't say anything.
Connie called him while you were asleep and he was on his way over there, but I don't
want her to know that, even if she guesses it, I don't want her to know it for sure. She'll
start thinking it's all her fault. Now I want you to stay with her tonight and not tell her
anything. I want you to make up with her. I want you to be the perfect loving husband.
And I want you to stay that way until she has her baby at least. Tomorrow morning
somebody, maybe you, maybe the Don, maybe her mother, will tell Connie that her
103
brother got killed. And I want you by her side. Do me this favor and I'll take care of you
in the times to come. You got that?"
Carlo's voice was a little shaky. "Sure, Tom, sure. Listen, me and you always got
along. I'm grateful. Understand?"
"Yeah," Hagen said. "Nobody will blame your fight with Connie for causing this, don't
worry about that. I'll take care of that." He paused and softly, encouragingly, "Go ahead
now, take care of Connie." He broke the connection.
He had learned never to make a threat, the Don had taught him that, but Carlo had
gotten the message all right: he was a hair away from death.
Hagen made another call to Tessio, telling him to come to the mall in Long Beach
immediately. He didn't say why and Tessio did not ask. Hagen sighed. Now would come
the part he dreaded.
He would have to waken the Don from his drugged slumber. He would have to tell the
man he most loved in the world that he had failed him, that he had failed to guard his
domain and the life of his eldest son. He would have to tell the Don everything was lost
unless the sick man himself could enter the battle. For Hagen did not delude himself.
Only the great Don himself could snatch even a stalemate from this terrible defeat.
Hagen didn't even bother checking with Don Corleone's doctors, it would be to no
purpose. No matter what the doctors ordered, even if they told him that the Don could
not rise from his sickbed on pain of death, he must tell his adopted father and then
follow him. And of course there was no question about what the Don would do. The
opinions of medical men were irrelevant now, everything was irrelevant now. The Don
must be told and he must either take command or order Hagen to surrender the
Corleone power to the Five Families.
And yet with all his heart, Hagen dreaded the next hour. He tried to prepare his own
manner. He would have to be in all ways strict with his own guilt. To reproach himself
would only add to the Don's burden. To show his own grief would only sharpen the grief
of the Don. To point out his own shortcomings (недостатки, дефекты, то, в чем «не
дотягивает») as a wartime Consigliori, would only make the Don reproach himself for
his own bad judgment for picking such a man for such an important post.
He must, Hagen knew, tell the news, present his analysis of what must be done to
rectify (исправить, выпрямить) the situation and then keep silent. His reactions
thereafter must be the reactions invited by his Don. If the Don wanted him to show guilt,
he would show guilt; if the Don invited grief, he would lay bare his genuine sorrow.
Hagen lifted his head at the sound of motors, cars rolling up onto the mall. The
caporegimes were arriving. He would brief them first and then he would go up and
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wake Don Corleone. He got up and went to the liquor cabinet by the desk and took out
a glass and bottle. He stood there for a moment so unnerved he could not pour the
liquid from bottle to glass. Behind him, he heard the door to the room close softly and,
turning, he saw, fully dressed for the first time since he had been shot, Don Corleone.
The Don walked across the room to his huge leather armchair and sat down. He
walked a little stiffly, his clothes hung a little loosely on his frame but to Hagen's eyes he
looked the same as always. It was almost as if by his will alone the Don had discarded
all external evidence of his still weakened frame. His face was sternly set with all its old
force and strength. He sat straight in the armchair and he said to Hagen, "Give me a
drop of anisette."
Hagen switched bottles and poured them both a portion of the fiery, licorice-tasting
alcohol. It was peasant, homemade stuff, much stronger than that sold in stores, the gift
of an old friend who every year presented the Don with a small truckload.
"My wife was weeping before she fell asleep," Don Corleone said. "Outside my
window I saw my caporegimes coming to the house and it is midnight. So, Consigliori of
mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone knows."
Hagen said quietly, "I didn't tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you
and tell you the news myself. In another moment I would have come to waken you."
Don Corleone said impassively, "But you needed a drink first."
"Yes," Hagen said.
"You've had your drink," the Don said. "You can tell me now." There was just the
faintest hint of reproach for Hagen's weakness.
"They shot Sonny on the causeway," Hagen said. "He's dead."
Don Corleone blinked (to blink – мигать, щуриться). For just the fraction of a second
the wall of his will disintegrated and the draining (to drain – дренировать, осушать
/почву/; истощать /силы, средства/) of his physical strength was plain on his face.
Then he recovered.
He clasped his hands in front of him on top of the desk and looked directly into
Hagen's eyes. "Tell me everything that happened," he said. He held up one of his hands.
"No, wait until Clemenza and Tessio arrive so you won't have to tell it all again."
It was only a few moments later that the two caporegimes were escorted into the room
by a bodyguard. They saw at once that the Don knew about his son's death because
the Don stood up to receive them. They embraced him as old comrades were permitted
105
to do. They all had a drink of anisette which Hagen poured them before he told them the
story of that night.
Don Corleone asked only one question at the end. "Is it certain my son is dead?"
Clemenza answered. "Yes," he said. "The bodyguards were of Santino's regime but
picked by me. I questioned them when they came to my house. They saw his body in
the light of the tollhouse. He could not live with the wounds they saw. They place their
lives in forfeit for what they say."
Don Corleone accepted this final verdict without any sign of emotion except for a few
moments of silence. Then he said, "None of you are to concern yourselves with this
affair. None of you are to commit any acts of vengeance, none of you are to make any
inquiries to track down the murderers of my son without my express command. There
will be no further acts of war against the Five Families without my express and personal
wish. Our Family win cease all business operations and cease to protect any of our
business operations until after my son's funeral. Then we will meet here again and
decide what must be done. Tonight we must do what we can for Santino, we must bury
him as a Christian. I will have friends of mine arrange things with the police and all other
proper authorities. Clemenza, you will remain with me at all times as my bodyguard, you
and the men of your regime. Tessio, you will guard all other members of my Family.
Tom, I want you to call Amerigo Bonasera and tell him I will need his services at some
time during this night. To wait for me at his establishment. It may be an hour, two hours,
three hours. Do you all understand that?"
The three men nodded. Don Corleone said, "Clemenza, get some men and cars and
wait for me. I will be ready in a few minutes. Tom, you did well. In the morning I want
Constanzia with her mother. Make arrangements for her and her husband to live in the
mall. Have Sandra's friends, the women, go to her house to stay with her. My wife will
go there also when I have spoken with her. My wife will tell her the misfortune and the
women will arrange for the church to say their masses and prayers for his soul."
The Don got up from his leather armchair. The other men rose with him and
Clemenza and Tessio embraced him again. Hagen held the door open for the Don, who
paused to look at him for a moment. Then the Don put his hand on Hagen's cheek,
embraced him quickly, and said, in Italian, "You've been a good son. You comfort me."
Telling Hagen that he had acted properly in this terrible time. The Don went up to his
bedroom to speak to his wife. It was then that Hagen made the call to Amerigo
Bonasera for the undertaker to redeem (выкупить /заложенные вещи/; возместить;
искупить) the favor he owed to the Corleones.
Book 5
Chapter 20
106
The death of Santino Corleone sent shock waves through the underworld of the nation.
And when it became known that Don Corleone had risen from his sick bed to take
charge of the Family affairs, when spies at the funeral reported that the Don seemed to
be fully recovered, the heads of the Five Families made frantic efforts to prepare a
defense against the bloody retaliatory (to retaliate [rı’tжlıeıt] – отплачивать, отвечать
тем же самым; применять репрессалии; retaliatory [rı’tжlı∂t∂rı] – ответный,
ответный удар; репрессивный) war that was sure to follow. Nobody made the mistake
of assuming that Don Corleone could be held cheaply because of his past misfortunes.
He was a man who had made only a few mistakes in his career and had learned from
every one of them.
Only Hagen guessed the Don's real intentions and was not surprised when emissaries
were sent to the Five Families to propose a peace. Not only to propose a peace but a
meeting of all the Families in the city and with invitations to Families all over the United
States to attend. Since the New York Families were the most powerful in the country, it
was understood that their welfare affected the welfare of the country as a whole.
At first there were suspicions. Was Don Corleone preparing a trap (западня)? Was he
trying to throw his enemies off their guard? Was he attempting to prepare a wholesale
massacre to avenge his son? But Don Corleone soon made it clear that he was sincere.
Not only did he involve all the Families in the country in this meeting, but made no move
to put his own people on a war footing (привести в боевую готовность) or to enlist
allies. And then he took the final irrevocable (неотменяемый, окончательный,
безвозвратный [ı'rev∂k∂bl]) step that established the authenticity of these intentions
and assured the safety of the grand council to be assembled. He called on the services
of the Bocchicchio Family.
The Bocchicchio Family was unique in that, once a particularly ferocious branch of the
Mafia in Sicily, it had become an instrument of peace in America. Once a group of men
who earned their living by a savage determination, they now earned their living in what
perhaps could be called a saintly fashion. The Bocchicchios' one asset (имущество
/часто об одном предмете/; ценное качество /разг./) was a closely knit structure of
107
blood relationships, a family loyalty severe even for a society where family loyalty came
before loyalty to a wife.
The Bocchicchio Family, extending out to third cousins, had once numbered nearly
two hundred when they ruled the particular economy of a small section of southern
Sicily. The income for the entire family then came from four or five flour mills, by no
means owned communally, but assuring labor and bread and a minimal security for all
Family members. This was enough, with intermarriages, for them to present a common
front against their enemies.
No competing mill, no dam that would create a water supply to their competitors or
ruin their own selling of water, was allowed to be built in their corner of Sicily. A powerful
landowning baron once tried to erect his own mill strictly for his personal use. The mill
was burned down. He called on the carabineri (полицейские /итал./) and higher
authorities, who arrested three of the Bocchicchio Family. Even before the trial the
manor house of the baron was torched (подожжен; torch – факел). The indictment
(обвинительный акт [ın'daıtm∂nt]) and accusations were withdrawn. A few months later
one of the highest functionaries in the Italian government arrived in Sicily and tried to
solve the chronic water shortage of that island by proposing a huge dam. Engineers
arrived from Rome to do surveys while watched by grim natives, members of the
Bocchicchio clan. Police flooded the area, housed in a specially built barracks.
It looked like nothing could stop the dam from being built and supplies and equipment
had actually been unloaded in Palermo. That was as far as they got. The Bocchicchios
had contacted fellow Mafia chiefs and extracted agreements for their aid. The heavy
equipment was sabotaged, the lighter equipment stolen. Mafia deputies in the Italian
Parliament launched a bureaucratic counterattack against the planners. This went on for
several years and in that time Mussolini came to power. The dictator decreed that the
dam must be built. It was not. The dictator had known that the Mafia would be a threat
to his regime, forming what amounted to a separate authority from his own. He gave full
powers to a high police official, who promptly solved the problem by throwing everybody
into jail or deporting them to penal work islands. In a few short years he had broken the
power of the Mafia, simply by arbitrarily arresting anyone even suspected of being a
mafioso. And so also brought ruin to a great many innocent families.
The Bocchicchios had been rash enough to resort to force against this unlimited
power. Half of the men were killed in armed combat, the other half deported to penal
island colonies. There were only a handful left when arrangements were made for them
to emigrate to America via the clandestine underground route of jumping ship through
108
Canada. There were almost twenty immigrants and they settled in a small town not far
from New York City, in the Hudson Valley, where by starting at the very bottom they
worked their way up to owning a garbage hauling firm (фирма по вывозу мусора; to
haul – тянуть, тащить, волочить; перевозить) and their own trucks. They became
prosperous because they had no competition. They had no competition because
competitors found their trucks burned and sabotaged. One persistent fellow who
undercut prices was found buried in the garbage he had picked up during the day,
smothered (to smother [‘smΛр∂] – душить; задохнуться) to death.
But as the men married, to Sicilian girls, needless to say, children came, and the
garbage business though providing a living, was not really enough to pay for the finer
things America had to offer. And so, as a diversification (ответвление; боковая линия;
/здесь/ дополнительное занятие), the Bocchicchio Family became negotiators and
hostages in the peace efforts of warring Mafia families.
A strain of stupidity ran through the Bocchicchio clan, or perhaps they were just
primitive. In any case they recognized their limitations and knew they could not compete
with other Mafia families in the struggle to organize and control more sophisticated
business structures like prostitution, gambling, dope and public fraud (обман,
мошенничество /здесь – государства/ [fro:d]). They were straight-from-the-shoulder
(сплеча, прямо, без обиняков) people who could offer a gift to an ordinary patrolman
but did not know how to approach a political bagman. They had only two assets. Their
honor and their ferocity.
A Bocchicchio never lied, never committed an act of treachery. Such behavior was too
complicated. Also, a Bocchicchio never forgot an injury and never left it unavenged no
matter what the cost. And so by accident they stumbled into what would prove to be
their most lucrative profession.
When warring families wanted to make peace and arrange a parley, the Bocchicchio
clan was contacted. The head of the clan would handle the initial negotiations and
arrange for the necessary hostages. For instance, when Michael had gone to meet
Sollozzo, a Bocchicchio had been left with the Corleone Family as surety for Michael's
safety, the service paid for by Sollozzo. If Michael were killed by Sollozzo, then the
Bocchicchio male hostage held by the Corleone Family would be killed by the
Corleones. In this case the Bocchicchios would take their vengeance on Sollozzo as the
cause of their clansman's death. Since the Bocchicchios were so primitive, they never
let anything, any kind of punishment, stand in their way of vengeance. They would give
up their own lives and there was no protection against them if they were betrayed. A
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Bocchicchio hostage (заложник; залог ['hostıdG]) was gilt-edged (с золотым обрезом;
первоклассный; gilt – позолота) insurance (гарантия, страхование).
And so now when Don Corleone employed the Bocchicchios as negotiators and
arranged for them to supply hostages for all the Families to come to the peace meeting,
there could be no question as to his sincerity. There could be no question of treachery.
The meeting would be safe as a wedding.
Hostages given, the meeting took place in the director's conference room of a small
commercial bank whose president was indebted to Don Corleone and indeed some of
whose stock belonged to Don Corleone though it was in the president's name. The
president always treasured that moment when he had offered to give Don Corleone a
written document proving his ownership of the shares, to preclude (предотвратить) any
treachery. Don Corleone had been horrified. "I would trust you with my whole fortune,"
he told the president. "I would trust you with my life and the welfare (благосостояние)
of my children. It is inconceivable (немыслимо, непредставимо) to me that you would
ever trick me or otherwise betray me. My whole world, all my faith in my judgment of
human character would collapse. Of course I have my own written records so that if
something should happen to me my heirs would know that you hold something in trust
for them. But I know that even if I were not here in this world to guard the interests of my
children, you would be faithful to their needs."
The president of the bank, though not Sicilian, was a man of tender sensibilities. He
understood the Don perfectly. Now the Godfather's request was the president's
command and so on a Saturday afternoon, the executive suite of the bank, the
conference room with its deep leather chairs, its absolute privacy, was made available
to the Families.
Security at the bank was taken over by a small army of handpicked (выбранный,
подобранный; отборный) men wearing bank guard uniforms. At ten o'clock on a
Saturday morning the conference room began to fill up. Besides the Five Families of
New York, there were representatives from ten other Families across the country, with
the exception of Chicago, that black sheep of their world. They had given up trying to
civilize Chicago, and they saw no point in including those mad dogs in this important
conference.
A bar had been set up and a small buffet. Each representative to the conference had
been allowed one aide (помощник, адъютант [eıd]). Most of the Dons had brought their
Consiglioris as aides so there were comparatively few young men in the room. Tom
Hagen was one of those young men and the only one who was not Sicilian. He was an
object of curiosity, a freak (каприз, причуда; уродец; человек или явление,
выходящее за рамки обычного).
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Hagen knew his manners. He did not speak, he did not smile. He waited on his boss,
Don Corleone, with all the respect of a favorite earl (граф /английский/ [∂:l]) waiting on
his king; bringing him a cold drink, lighting his cigar, positioning his ashtray; with respect
but no obsequiousness (подобострастие; obsequious [∂b’si:kwı∂s] –
подобострастный).
Hagen was the only one in that room who knew the identity of the portraits hanging on
the dark paneled walls. They were mostly portraits of fabulous financial figures done in
rich oils. One was of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Hagen could not help thinking
that Hamilton might have approved of this peace meeting being held in a banking
institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the
atmosphere of money.
The arrival time had been staggered (to stagger – шататься, колебаться;
регулировать часы работы) for between nine-thirty to ten A.M. Don Corleone, in a
sense the host since he had initiated the peace talks, had been the first to arrive; one of
his many virtues was punctuality. The next to arrive was Carlo Tramonti, who had made
the southern part of the United States his territory. He was an impressively handsome
middle-aged man, tall for a Sicilian, with a very deep sunburn, exquisitely tailored and
barbered. He did not look Italian, he looked more like one of those pictures in the
magazines of millionaire fishermen lolling (to loll – сидеть развалясь; стоять
/облокотясь/ в ленивой позе) on their yachts. The Tramonti Family earned its
livelihood from gambling, and no one meeting their Don would ever guess with what
ferocity he had won his empire.
Emigrating from Sicily as a small boy, he had settled in Florida and grown to manhood
there, employed by the American syndicate of Southern small-town politicians who
controlled gambling. These were very tough men backed up by very tough police
officials and they never suspected that they could be overthrown by such a greenhorn
(новичок, неопытный человек) immigrant. They were unprepared for his ferocity and
could not match it simply because the rewards being fought over were not, to their
minds, worth so much bloodshed. Tramonti won over the police with bigger shares of
the gross (общая масса [gr∂us]); he exterminated those redneck (неотесанный
человек, деревенщина) hooligans who ran their operation with such a complete lack of
imagination. It was Tramonti who opened ties with Cuba and the Batista regime and
eventually poured money into the pleasure resorts of Havana gambling houses,
whorehouses, to lure (завлекать, заманивать [lu∂]) gamblers from the American
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mainland. Tramonti was now a millionaire many times over and owned one of the most
luxurious hotels in Miami Beach.
When he came into the conference room followed by his aide, an equally sunburned
Consigliori, Tramonti embraced Don Corleone, made a face of sympathy to show he
sorrowed for the dead son.
Other Dons were arriving. They all knew each other, they had met over the years,
either socially or when in the pursuit of their businesses. They had always showed each
other professional courtesies and in their younger, leaner (lean – тощий, худой) days
had done each other little services. The second Don to arrive was Joseph Zaluchi from
Detroit. The Zaluchi Family, under appropriate disguises and covers, owned one of the
horse-racing tracks in the Detroit area. They also owned a good part of the gambling.
Zaluchi was a moon-faced, amiable-looking man who lived in a one-hundred-thousand-
dollar house in the fashionable Grosse Point section of Detroit. One of his sons had
married into an old, well-known American family. Zaluchi, like Don Corleone, was
sophisticated (скушенный, изощренный, сложный, непростой). Detroit had the lowest
incidence of physical violence of any of the cities controlled by the Families; there had
been only two executions in the last three years in that city. He disapproved of traffic in
drugs.
Zaluchi had brought his Consigliori with him and both men came to Don Corleone to
embrace him. Zaluchi had a booming American voice with only the slightest trace of an
accent. He was conservatively dressed, very businessman, and with a hearty goodwill
to match. He said to Don Corleone, "Only your voice could have brought me here." Don
Corleone bowed his head in thanks. He could count on Zaluchi for support.
The next two Dons to arrive were from the West Coast, motoring from there in the
same car since they worked together closely in any case. They were Frank Falcone and
Anthony Molinari and both were younger than any of the other men who would come to
the meeting; in their early forties. They were dressed a little more informally than the
others, there was a touch of Hollywood in their style and they were a little more friendly
than necessary. Frank Falcone controlled the movie unions and the gambling at the
studios plus a complex of pipeline (трубопровод, нефтепровод) prostitution that
supplied girls to the whorehouses of the states in the Far West. It was not in the realm
of possibility for any Don to become "show biz" but Falcone had just a touch. His fellow
Dons distrusted him accordingly.
Anthony Molinari controlled the waterfronts of San Francisco and was preeminent
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(выдающийся, превосходящий других) in the empire of sports gambling. He came of
Italian fishermen stock and owned the best San Francisco sea food restaurant, in which
he took such pride that the legend had it he lost money on the enterprise by giving too
good value for the prices charged. He had the impassive face of the professional
gambler and it was known that he also had something to do with dope smuggling over
the Mexican border and from the ships plying (to ply – курсировать, совершать рейс /о
корабле/) the lanes (lane – узкая дорога, тропинка /особ. между живыми
изгородями/; морской путь) of the oriental oceans. Their aides were young, powerfully
built men, obviously not counselors but bodyguards, though they would not dare to carry
arms to this meeting. It was general knowledge that these bodyguards knew karate, a
fact that amused the other Dons but did not alarm them in the slightest, no more than if
the California Dons had come wearing amulets blessed by the Pope. Though it must be
noted that some of these men were religious and believed in God.
Next arrived the representative from the Family in Boston. This was the only Don who
did not have the respect of his fellows. He was known as a man who did not do right by
his "people," who cheated them unmercifully. This could be forgiven, each man
measures his own greed. What could not be forgiven was that he could not keep order
in his empire. The Boston area had too many murders, too many petty wars for power,
too many unsupported free-lance activities; it flouted (to flout – попирать, глумиться)
the law too brazenly. If the Chicago Mafia were savages, then the Boston people were
gavones, or uncouth (неуклюжий, грубоватый, неотесанный [Λn'ku:θ]) louts (lout –
неуклюжий, неотесанный человек, деревенщина); ruffians. The Boston Don's name
was Domenick Panza. He was short, squat; as one Don put it, he looked like a thief.
The Cleveland syndicate, perhaps the most powerful of the strictly gambling
operations in the United States, was represented by a sensitive-looking elderly man with
gaunt (сухопарый; длинный, вытянутый в длину; мрачный) features and snow-white
hair. He was known, of course not to his face, as "the Jew" because he had surrounded
himself with Jewish assistants rather than Sicilians. It was even rumored that he would
have named a Jew as his Consigliori if he had dared. In any case, as Don Corleone's
Family was known as the Irish Gang because of Hagen's membership, so Don Vincent
Forlenza's Family was known as the Jewish Family with somewhat more accuracy. But
he ran an extremely efficient organization and he was not known ever to have fainted at
the sight of blood, despite his sensitive features. He ruled with an iron hand in a velvet
political glove.
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The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom
Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than
the out-of-towners, the hicks. For one thing, the five New York Dons were in the old
Sicilian tradition, they were "men with a belly" meaning, figuratively, power and courage;
and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have
done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine
heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded
cheeks. They were not too well tailored or barbered; they had the look of no-nonsense
busy men without vanity.
There was Anthony Stracci, who controlled the New Jersey area and the shipping on
the West Side docks of Manhattan. He ran the gambling in Jersey and was very strong
with the Democratic political machine. He had a fleet of freight hauling trucks that made
him a fortune primarily because his trucks could travel with a heavy overload and not be
stopped and fined by highway weight inspecton. These trucks helped ruin the highways
and then his road-building firm, with lucrative state contracts, repaired the damage
wrought. It was the kind of operation that would warm any man's heart, business of itself
creating more business. Stracci, too, was old-fashioned and never dealt in prostitution,
but because his business was on the waterfront it was impossible for him not to be
involved in the drug-smuggling traffic. Of the five New York Families opposing the
Corleones his was the least powerful but the most well disposed.
The Family that controlled upper New York State, that arranged smuggling of Italian
immigrants from Canada, all upstate (северная часть штата) gambling and exercised
veto power on state licensing of racing tracks, was headed by Ottilio Cuneo. This was a
completely disarming man with the face of a jolly round peasant baker, whose legitimate
activity was one of the big milk companies. Cuneo was one of those men who loved
children and carried a pocket full of sweets in the hopes of being able to pleasure one of
his many grandchildren or the small offspring (отпрыск) of his associates. He wore a
round fedora with the brim turned down all the way round like a woman's sun hat, which
broadened his already moon-shaped face into the very mask of joviality. He was one of
the few Dons who had never been arrested and whose true activities had never even
been suspected. So much so that he had served on civic committees and had been
voted as "Businessman of the Year for the State of New York" by the Chamber of
Commerce.
The closest ally to the Tattaglia Family was Don Emilio Barzini. He had some of the
gambling in Brooklyn and some in Queens. He had some prostitution. He had strong-
114
arm. He completely controlled Staten Island. He had some of the sports betting in the
Bronx and Westchester. He was in narcotics. He had close ties to Cleveland and the
West Coast and he was one of the few men shrewd enough to be interested in Las
Vegas and Reno, the open cities of Nevada. He also had interests in Miami Beach and
Cuba. After the Corleone Family, his was perhaps the strongest in New York and
therefore in the country. His influence reached even to Sicily. His hand was in every
unlawful pie. He was even rumored (о нем даже ходили слухи; rumor [‘ru:m∂] – слух,
молва) to have a toehold (точка опоры /напр. для ноги, когда взбираешься на гору/,
зацепка; toe – палец ноги) in Wall Street. He had supported the Tattaglia Family with
money and influence since the start of the war. It was his ambition to supplant
(вытеснить, занять чье-то место [s∂’plα:nt]) Don Corleone as the most powerful and
respected Mafia leader in the country and to take over part of the Corleone empire. He
was a man much like Don Corleone, but more modern, more sophisticated, more
businesslike. He could never be called an old Moustache Pete and he had the
confidence of the newer, younger, brasher (brashy – щетинистый, шероховатый)
leaders on their way up. He was a man of great personal force in a cold way, with none
of Don Corleone's warmth and he was perhaps at this moment the most "respected"
man in the group.
The last to arrive was Don Phillip Tattaglia, the head of the TattagIia Family that had
directly challenged the Corleone power by supporting Sollozzo, and had so nearly
succeeded. And yet curiously enough he was held in a slight contempt by the others.
For one thing, it was known that he had allowed himself to be dominated by Sollozzo,
had in fact been led by the nose by that fine Turkish hand. He was held responsible for
all this commotion (волнение /моря/; смятение; суматоха, суета), this uproar that had
so affected the conduct of everyday business by the New York Families. Also he was a
sixty-year-old dandy (щеголь, франт) and woman-chaser. And he had ample
(обширный, достаточный) opportunity to indulge his weakness.
For the Tattaglia Family dealt in women. Its main business was prostitution. It also
controlled most of the nightclubs in the United States and could place any talent
anywhere in the country. Phillip Tattaglia was not above using strong-arm to get control
of promising singers and comics and muscling in on record firms. But prostitution was
the main source of the Family income.
His personality was unpleasant to these men. He was a whiner (to whine – скулить,
хныкать, плакаться), always complaining of the costs in his Family business. Laundry
bills, all those towels, ate up the profits (but he owned the laundry firm that did the work).
The girls were lazy and unstable, running off, committing suicide. The pimps were
115
treacherous and dishonest and without a shred (лоскуток, клочок) of loyalty. Good help
was hard to find. Young lads of Sicilian blood turned up their noses at such work,
considered it beneath their honor to traffic and abuse women; those rascals who would
slit a throat with a song on their lips and the cross of an Easter palm in the lapel of their
jackets. So Phillip Tattaglia would rant (говорить напыщенно, декламировать,
проповедовать) on to audiences unsympathetic and contemptuous. His biggest howl
(вой, завывание) was reserved for authorities who had it in their power to issue and
cancel liquor licenses for his nightclubs and cabarets. He swore he had made more
millionaires than Wall Street with the money he had paid those thieving guardians of
official seals.
In a curious way his almost victorious war against the Corleone Family had not won
him the respect it deserved. They knew his strength had come first from Sollozzo and
then from the Barzini Family. Also the fact that with the advantage of surprise he had
not won complete victory was evidence against him. If he had been more efficient, all
this trouble could have been avoided. The death of Don Corleone would have meant the
end of the war. It was proper, since they had both lost sons in their war against each
other, that Don Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia should acknowledge each other's
presence only with a formal nod. Don Corleone was the object of attention, the other
men studying him to see what mark of weakness had been left on him by his wounds
and defeats. The puzzling factor was why Don Corleone had sued for peace after the
death of his favorite son. It was an acknowledgment of defeat and would almost surely
lead to a lessening of his power. But they would soon know.
There were greetings, there were drinks to be served and almost another half hour
went by before Don Corleone took his seat at the polished walnut table. Unobtrusively
(unobtrusive [Λn∂b’tru:sıv] – ненавязчивый, скромный), Hagen sat in the chair slightly
to the Don's left and behind him. This was the signal for the other Dons to make their
way to the table. Their aides sat behind them, the Consiglioris up close so that they
could offer any advice when needed.
Don Corleone was the first to speak and he spoke as if nothing had happened. As if
he had not been grievously wounded and his eldest son slain (to slay-slew-slain –
убивать /книжн./), his empire in a shambles (в развалинах, руинах), his personal
family scattered, Freddie in the West and under the protection of the Molinari Family
and Michael secreted in the wastelands (пустынные, невозделанные земли) of Sicily.
He spoke naturally, in Sicilian dialect.
"I want to thank you all for coming," he said. "I consider it a service done to me
personally and I am in the debt of each and every one of you. And so I will say at the
beginning that. I am here not to quarrel or convince, but only to reason and as a
116
reasonable man do everything possible for us all to part friends here too. I give my word
on that, and some of you who know me well know I do not give my word lightly. Ah, well,
let's get down to business. We are all honorable men here, we don't have to give each
other assurances as if we were lawyers."
He paused. None of the others spoke. Some were smoking cigars, others sipping their
drinks. All of these men were good listeners, patient men. They had one other thing in
common. They were those rarities, men who had refused to accept the rule of organized
society, men who refused the dominion of other men. There was no force, no mortal
man who could bend them to their will unless they wished it. They were men who
guarded their free will with wiles (wile – хитрость, уловка, обман) and murder. Their
wills could be subverted (to suvert [sΛb’v∂:t] – ниспровергнуть; разрушить) only by
death. Or the utmost reasonableness.
Don Corleone sighed. "How did things ever go so far?" he asked rhetorically. "Well, no
matter. A lot of foolishness has come to pass. It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary.
But let me tell what happened, as I see it."
He paused to see if someone would object to his telling his side of the story.
"Thank God my health has been restored and maybe I can help set this affair aright.
Perhaps my son was too rash, too headstrong, I don't say no to that. Anyway let me just
say that Sollozzo came to me with a business affair in which he asked me for my money
and my influence. He said he had the interest of the Tattaglia Family. The affair involved
drugs, in which I have no interest. I'm a quiet man and such endeavors (endeavor
[ın'dev∂] – попытка, старание, стремление) are too lively for my taste. I explained this
to Sollozzo, with all respect for him and the Tattaglia Family. I gave him my 'no' with all
courtesy. I told him his business would not interfere with mine, that I had no objection to
his earning his living in this fashion. He took it ill and brought misfortune down on all our
heads. Well, that's life. Everyone here could tell his own tale of sorrow. That's not to my
purpose."
Don Corleone paused and motioned to Hagen for a cold drink, which Hagen swiftly
furnished him. Don Corleone wet his mouth. "I'm willing to make the peace," he said.
"Tattaglia has lost a son, I have lost a son. We are quits. What would the world come to
if people kept carrying grudges against all reason? That has been the cross of Sicily,
where men are so busy with vendettas they have no time to earn bread for their families.
It's foolishness. So I say now, let things be as they were before. I have not taken any
117
steps to learn who betrayed and killed my son. Given peace, I will not do so. I have a
son who cannot come home and I must receive assurances that when I arrange matters
so that he can return safely that there will be no interference, no danger from the
authorities. Once that's settled maybe we can talk about other matters that interest us
and do ourselves, all of us, a profitable service today." Corleone gestured expressively,
submissively, with his hands. "That is all I want."
It was very well done. It was the Don Corleone of old. Reasonable. Pliant (гибкий,
податливый, уступчивый; to ply – сгибать, делать складку). Soft-spoken. But every
man there had noted that he had claimed good health, which meant he was a man not
to be held cheaply despite the misfortunes of the Corleone Family. It was noted that he
had said the discussion of other business was useless until the peace he asked for was
given. It was noted that he had asked for the old status quo, that he would lose nothing
despite his having got the worst of it over the past year. However, it was Emilio Barzini
who answered Don Corleone, not Tattaglia. He was curt and to the point without being
rude or insulting.
"That is all true enough," Barzini said. "But there's a little more. Don Corleone is too
modest. The fact is that Sollozzo and the Tattaglias could not go into their new business
without the assistance of Don Corleone. In fact, his disapproval injured them. That's not
his fault of course. The fact remains that judges and politicians who would accept favors
from Don Corleone, even on drugs, would not allow themselves to be influenced by
anybody else when it came to narcotics. Sollozzo couldn't operate if he didn't have
some insurance of his people being treated gently. We all know that. We would all be
poor men otherwise. And now that they have increased the penalties the judges and the
prosecuting attorneys drive a hard bargain when one of our people get in trouble with
narcotics. Even a Sicilian sentenced to twenty years might break the omerta and talk his
brains out. That can't happen. Don Corleone controls all that apparatus. His refusal to
let us use it is not the act of a friend. He takes the bread out of the mouths of our
families. Times have changed, it's not like the old days where everyone can go his own
way. If Corleone had all the judges in New York, then he must share them or let us
others use them. Certainly he can present a bill for such services, we're not communists,
after all. But he has to let us draw water from the well. It's that simple."
When Barzini had finished talking there was a silence. The lines were now drawn,
there could be no return to the old status quo. What was more important was that
Barzini by speaking out was saying that if peace was not made he would openly join the
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Tattaglia in their war against the Corleone. And he had scored a telling point. Their lives
and their fortunes depended upon their doing each other services, the denial of a favor
asked by a friend was an act of aggression. Favors were not asked lightly and so could
not be lightly refused.
Don Corleone finally spoke to answer. "My friends," he said, "I didn't refuse out of
spite (назло, со злобы, с досады). You all know me. When have I ever refused an
accommodation (согласование, соглашение, компромисс)? That's simply not in my
nature. But I had to refuse this time. Why? Because I think this drug business will
destroy us in the years to come. There is too much strong feeling about such traffic in
this country. It's not like whiskey or gambling or even women which most people want
and is forbidden them by the pezzonovante of the church and the government. But
drugs are dangerous for everyone connected with them. It could jeopardize
(подвергнуть риску) all other business. And let me say I'm flattered by the belief that I
am so powerful with the judges and law officials, I wish it were true. I do have some
influence but many of the people who respect my counsel might lose this respect if
drugs become involved in our relationship. They are afraid to be involved in such
business and they have strong feelings about it. Even policemen who help us in
gambling and other things would refuse to help us in drugs. So to ask me to perform a
service in these matters is to ask me to do a disservice to myself. But I'm willing to do
even that if all of you think it proper in order to adjust other matters."
When Don Corleone had finished speaking the room became much more relaxed with
more whisperings and cross talk. He had conceded (to concede – уступать; допускать
/возможность, правильность чего-либо/ [k∂n'si:d]) the important point. He would offer
his protection to any organized business venture in drugs. He was, in effect, agreeing
almost entirely to Sollozzo's original proposal if that proposal was endorsed (to endorse
[ın’do:s] – расписываться на обороте документа; подтверждать, одобрять) by the
national group gathered here. It was understood that he would never participate in the
operational phase, nor would he invest his money. He would merely use his protective
influence with the legal apparatus. But this was a formidable concession.
The Don of Los Angeles, Frank Falcone, spoke to answer. "There's no way of
stopping our people from going into that business. They go in on their own and they get
in trouble. There's too much money in it to resist. So it's more dangerous if we don't go
in. At least if we control it we can cover it better, organize it better, make sure it causes
less trouble. Being in it is not so bad, there has to be control, there has to be protection,
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there has to be organization, we can't have everybody running around doing just what
they please like a bunch of anarchists."
The Don of Detroit, more friendly to Corleone than any of the others, also now spoke
against his friend's position, in the interest of reasonableness. "I don't believe in drugs,"
he said. "For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business. But
it didn't matter, it didn't help. Somebody comes to them and says, 'I have powders, if
you put up the three-, four-thousand-dollar investment we can make fifty thousand
distributing.' Who can resist such a profit? And they are so busy with their little side
business they neglect the work I pay them to do. There's more money in drugs. It's
getting bigger all the time. There's no way to stop it so we have to control the business
and keep it respectable. I don't want any of it near schools, I don't want any of it sold to
children. That is an infamita. In my city I would try to keep the traffic in the dark people,
the colored. They are the best customers, the least troublesome and they are animals
anyway. They have no respect for their wives or their families or for themselves. Let
them lose their souls with drugs. But something has to be done, we just can't let people
do as they please and make trouble for everyone."
This speech of the Detroit Don was received with loud murmurs of approval. He had
hit the nail on the head. You couldn't even pay people to stay out of the drug traffic. As
for his remarks about children, that was his well-known sensibility, his
tenderheartedness speaking. After all, who would sell drugs to children? Where would
children get the money? As for his remarks about the coloreds, that was not even heard.
The Negroes were considered of absolutely no account, of no force whatsoever. That
they had allowed society to grind them into the dust proved them of no account and his
mentioning them in any way proved that the Don of Detroit had a mind that always
wavered (to waver – колебаться, колыхаться, развеваться) toward irrelevancies
(irrelevance – неуместность [ı'relıv∂ns]).
All the Dons spoke. All of them deplored the traffic in drugs as a bad thing that would
cause trouble but agreed there was no way to control it. There was, simply, too much
money to be made in the business, therefore it followed that there would be men who
would dare anything to dabble (плескаться, барахтаться; заниматься чем-либо
поверхностно) in it. That was human nature.
It was finally agreed. Drug traffic would be permitted and Don Corleone must give it
some legal protection in the East. It was understood that the Barzini and Tattaglia
Families would do most of the large-scale operations. With this out of the way the
conference was able to move on to other matters of a wider interest. There were many
complex problems to be solved. It was agreed that Las Vegas and Miami were to be
open cities where any of the Families could operate. They all recognized that these
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were the cities of the future. It was also agreed that no violence would be permitted in
these cities and that petty (мелкий, незначительный) criminals of all types were to be
discouraged. It was agreed that in momentous affairs, in executions that were
necessary but might cause too much of a public outcry, the execution must be approved
by this council. It was agreed that button men and other soldiers were to be restrained
from violent crimes and acts of vengeance against each other on personal matters. It
was agreed that Families would do each other services when requested, such as
providing executioners, technical assistance in pursuing certain courses of action such
as bribing jurors (juror ['dGu∂r∂] – присяжный), which in some instances could be vital.
These discussions, informal, colloquial and on a high level, took time and were broken
by lunch and drinks from the buffet bar.
Finally Don Barzini sought to bring the meeting to an end. "That's the whole matter
then," he said. "We have the peace and let me pay my respects to Don Corleone, whom
we all have known over the years as a man of his word. If there are any more
differences we can meet again, we need not become foolish again. On my part the road
is new and fresh. I'm glad this is all settled."
Only Phillip Tattaglia was a little worried still. The murder of Santino Corleone made
him the most vulnerable person in this group if war broke out again. He spoke at length
for the first time.
"I've agreed to everything here, I'm willing to forget my own misfortune. But I would
like to hear some strict assurances from Corleone. Will he attempt any individual
vengeance? When time goes by and his position perhaps becomes stronger, will he
forget that we have sworn our friendship? How am I to know that in three or four years
he won't feel that he's been ill served, forced against his will to this agreement and so
free to break it? Will we have to guard against each other all the time? Or can we truly
go in peace with peace of mind? Would Corleone give us all his assurances as I now
give mine?"
It was then that Don Corleone gave the speech that would be long remembered, and
that reaffirmed his position as the most far-seeing statesman among them, so full of
common sense, so direct from the heart; and to the heart of the matter. In it he coined a
phrase that was to become as famous in its way as Churchill's Iron Curtain, though not
public knowledge until more than ten years later.
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For the first time he stood up to address the council. He was short and a little thin from
his "illness," perhaps his sixty years showed a bit more but there was no question that
he had regained all his former strength, and had all his wits.
"What manner of men are we then, if we do not have our reason," he said. "We are all
no better than beasts in a jungle if that were the case. But we have reason, we can
reason with each other and we can reason with ourselves. To what purpose would I
start all these troubles again, the violence and the turmoil? My son is dead and that is a
misfortune and I must bear it, not make the innocent world around me suffer with me.
And so I say, I give my honor, that I will never seek vengeance, I will never seek
knowledge of the deeds that have been done in the past. I will leave here with a pure
heart.
"Let me say that we must always look to our interests. We are all men who have
refused to be fools, who have refused to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by the
men on high. We have been fortunate here in this country. Already most of our children
have found a better life. Some of you have sons who are professors, scientists,
musicians, and you are fortunate. Perhaps your grandchildren will become the new
pezzonovanti. None of us here want to see our children follow in our footsteps, it's too
hard a life. They can be as others, their position and security won by our courage. I
have grandchildren now and I hope their children may someday, who knows, be a
governor, a President, nothing's impossible here in America. But we have to progress
with the times. The time is past for guns and killings and massacres. We have to be
cunning like the business people, there's more money in it and it's better for our children
and our grandchildren.
"As for our own deeds, we are not responsible to the .90 calibers, the pezzonovantis
who take it upon themselves to decide what we shall do with our lives, who declare
wars they wish us to fight in to protect what they own. Who is to say we should obey the
laws they make for their own interest and to our hurt? And who are they then to meddle
when we look after our own interests? Sonna cosa nostra," Don Corleone said, "these
are our own affairs. We will manage our world for ourselves because it is our world,
cosa nostra. And so we have to stick together to guard against outside meddlers.
Otherwise they will put the ring in our nose as they have put the ring in the nose of all
the millions of Neapolitans and other Italians in this country.
"For this reason I forgo my vengeance for my dead son, for the common good. I
swear now that as long as I am responsible for the actions of my Family there will not be
one finger lifted against any man here without just cause and utmost provocation. I am
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willing to sacrifice my commercial interests for the common good. This is my word, this
is my honor, there are those of you here who know I have never betrayed either.
"But I have a selfish interest. My youngest son had to flee, accused of Sollozzo's
murder and that of a police captain. I must now make arrangements so that he can
come home with safety, cleared of all those false charges. That is my affair and I will
make those arrangements. I must find the real culprits (culprit – Обвиняемый,
преступник, виновный ['kΛlprıt]) perhaps, or perhaps I must convince the authorities of
his innocence, perhaps the witnesses and informants will recant (отрекаться,
отказываться от своего мнения [rı'kжnt]) their lies. But again I say that this is my affair
and I believe I will be able to bring my son home.
"But let me say this. I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous failing but I must confess it
here. And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police
officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself in his cell, if new
witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the
result of the ill will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is
struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here. If his plane should fall
into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal
fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would
blame the ill will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill will, that bad luck, I could never
forgive. But aside from that let me swear by the souls of my grandchildren that I will
never break the peace we have made. After all, are we or are we not better men than
those pezzonovanti who have killed countless millions of men in our lifetimes?"
With this Don Corleone stepped from his place and went down the table to where Don
Phillip Tattaglia was sitting. Tattaglia rose to greet him and the two men embraced,
kissing each other's cheeks. The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake
hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on
their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would
not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other.
That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.
Since his son Freddie was under the protection of the Molinari Family in the West,
Don Corleone lingered with the San Francisco Don after the meeting to thank him.
Molinari said enough for Don Corleone to gather that Freddie had found his niche out
there, was happy and had become something of a ladies' man. He had a genius for
running a hotel, it seemed. Don Corleone shook his head in wonder, as many fathers do
when told of undreamed-of talents in their children. Wasn't it true that sometimes the
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greatest misfortunes brought unforeseen rewards? They both agreed that this was so.
Meanwhile Corleone made it clear to the San Francisco Don that he was in his debt for
the great service done in protecting Freddie. He let it be known that his influence would
be exerted so that the important racing wires (проволока, обозначающая финиш на
скачках /под которую забегают кони на финише/) would always be available to his
people no matter what changes occurred in the power structure in the years to come, an
important guarantee since the struggle over this facility was a constant open wound
complicated by the fact that the Chicago people had their heavy hand in it. But Don
Corleone was not without influence even in that land of barbarians and so his promise
was a gift of gold.
It was evening before Don Corleone, Tom Hagen and the bodyguard-chauffeur, who
happened to be Rocco Lampone, arrived at the mall in Long Beach. When they went
into the house the Don said to Hagen, "Our driver, that man Lampone, keep an eye on
him. He's a fellow worth something better I think." Hagen wondered at this remark.
Lampone had not said a word all day, had not even glanced at the two men in the back
seat. He had opened the door for the Don, the car had been in front of the bank when
they emerged, he had done everything correctly but no more than any well-trained
chauffeur might do. Evidently the Don's eye had seen something he had not seen.
The Don dismissed Hagen and told him to come back to the house after supper. But
to take his time and rest a little since they would put in a long night of discussion. He
also told Hagen to have Clemenza and Tessio present. They should come at ten P.M.,
not before. Hagen was to brief Clemenza and Tessio on what had happened at the
meeting that afternoon.
At ten the Don was waiting for the three men in his office, the corner room of the
house with its law library and special phone. There was a tray with whiskey bottles, ice
and soda water. The Don gave his instructions.
"We made the peace this afternoon." he said. "I gave my word and my honor and that
should be enough for all of you. But our friends are not so trustworthy so let's all be on
our guard still. We don't want any more nasty little surprises." Then Don turned to
Hagen. "You've let the Bocchicchio hostages go?"
Hagen nodded. "I called Clemenza as soon as I got home."
Corleone turned to the massive Clemenza. The caporegime nodded. "I released them.
Tell me, Godfather, is it possible for a Sicilian to be as dumb as the Bocchicchios
pretend to be?"
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Don Corleone smiled a little. "They are clever enough to make a good living. Why is it
so necessary to be more clever than that? It's not the Bocchicchios who cause the
troubles of this world. But it's true, they haven't got the Sicilian head."
They were all in a relaxed mood, now that the war was over. Don Corleone himself
mixed drinks and brought one to each man. The Don sipped his carefully and lit up a
cigar.
"I want nothing set forth to discover what happened to Sonny, that's done with and to
be forgotten. I want all cooperation with the other Families even if they become a little
greedy and we don't get our proper share in things. I want nothing to break this peace
no matter what the provocation until we've found a way to bring Michael home. And I
want that to be first thing on your minds. Remember this, when he comes back he must
come back in absolute safety. I don't mean from the Tattaglias or the Barzinis. What I'm
concerned about are the police. Sure, we can get rid of the real evidence against him;
that waiter won't testify, nor that spectator or gunman or whatever he was. The real
evidence is the least of our worries since we know about it. What we have to worry
about is the police framing false evidence because their informers have assured them
that Michael Corleone is the man who killed their captain. Very well. We have to
demand that the Five Families do everything in their power to correct this belief of the
police. All their informers who work with the police must come up with new stories. I
think after my speech this afternoon they will understand it is to their interest to do so.
But that's not enough. We have to come up with something special so Michael won't
ever have to worry about that again. Otherwise there's no point in him coming back to
this country. So let's all think about that. That's the most important matter.
"Now, any man should be allowed one foolishness in his life. I have had mine. I want
all the land around the mall bought, the houses bought. I don't want any man able to
look out his window into my garden even if it's a mile away. I want a fence around the
mall and I want the mall to be on full protection all the time. I want a gate in that fence.
In short, I wish now to live in a fortress. Let me say to you now that I will never go into
the city to work again. I will be semiretired. I feel an urge to work in the garden, to make
a little wine when the grapes are in season. I want to live in my house. The only time I'll
leave is to go on a little vacation or to see someone on important business and then I
want all precautions taken. Now don't take this amiss. I'm not preparing anything. I'm
being prudent, I've always been a prudent man, there is nothing I find so little to my
taste as carelessness in life. Women and children can afford to be careless, men cannot.
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Be leisurely in all these things, no frantic (неистовый, безумный) preparations to alarm
our friends. It can be done in such a way as to seem natural.
"Now I'm going to leave things more and more up to each of you three. I want the
Santino regime disbanded and the men placed in your regimes. That should reassure
our friends and show that I mean peace. Tom, I want you to put together a group of men
who will go to Las Vegas and give me a full report on what is going on out there. Tell me
about Fredo, what is really happening out there, I hear I wouldn't recognize my own son.
It seems he's a cook now, that he amuses himself with young girls more than a grown
man should. Well, he was always too serious when he was young and he was never the
man for Family business. But let's find out what really can be done out there."
Hagen said quietly, "Should we send your son-in-law? After all, Carlo is a native of
Nevada, he knows his way around."
Don Corleone shook his head. "No, my wife is lonely here without any of her children.
I want Constanzia and her husband moved into one of the houses on the mall. I want
Carlo given a responsible job, maybe I've been too harsh on him, and" – Don Corleone
made a grimace – "I'm short of sons. Take him out of the gambling and put him in with
the unions where he can do some paper work and a lot of talking. He's a good talker."
There was the tiniest note of contempt in the Don's voice.
Hagen nodded. "OK, Clemenza and I will go over all the people and put together a
group to do the Vegas job. Do you want me to call Freddie home for a few days?"
The Don shook his head. He said cruelly, "What for? My wife can still cook our meals.
Let him stay out there." The three men shifted uneasily in their seats. They had not
realized Freddie was in such severe disfavor with his father and they suspected it must
be because of something they did not know.
Don Corleone sighed. "I hope to grow some good green peppers and tomatoes in the
garden this year, more than we can eat. I'll make you presents of them. I want a little
peace, a little quiet and tranquillity for my old age. Well, that's all. Have another drink if
you like."
It was a dismissal. The men rose. Hagen accompanied Clemenza and Tessio to their
cars and arranged meetings with them to thrash out (тщательно обсудить, выяснить,
проработать; to thrash – бить, пороть; /молотить = to thresh/) the operational details
that would accomplish the stated desires of their Don. Then he went back into the
house where he knew Don Corleone would be waiting for him.
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The Don had taken off his jacket and tie and was lying down on the couch. His stern
face was relaxed into lines of fatigue. He waved Hagen into a chair and said, "Well,
Consigliori, do you disapprove of any of my deeds today?"
Hagen took his time answering. "No," he said. "But I don't find it consistent
(последовательный, стойкий; совместимый, согласующийся), nor true to your nature.
You say you don't want to find out how Santino was killed or want vengeance for it. I
don't believe that. You gave your word for peace and so you'll keep the peace but I can't
believe you will give your enemies the victory they seem to have won today. You've
constructed a magnificent riddle that I can't solve, so how can I approve or disapprove?"
A look of content came over the Don's face. "Well, you know me better than anyone
else. Even though you're not a Sicilian, I made you one. Everything you say is true, but
there's a solution and you'll comprehend it before it spins out to the end. You agree
everyone has to take my word and I'll keep my word. And I want my orders obeyed
exactly. But, Tom, the most important thing is we have to get Michael home as soon as
possible. Make that first in your mind and in your work. Explore all the legal alleys, I
don't care how much money you have to spend. It has to be foolproof when he comes
home. Consult the best lawyers on criminal law. I'll give you the names of some judges
who will give you a private audience. Until that time we have to guard against all
treacheries."
Hagen said, "Like you, I'm not worried so much about the real evidence as the
evidence they will manufacture. Also some police friend may kill Michael after he's
arrested. They may kill him in his cell or have one of the prisoners do it. As I see it, we
can't even afford to have him arrested or accused."
Don Corleone sighed. "I know, I know. That's the difficulty. But we can't take too long.
There are troubles in Sicily. The young fellows over there don't listen to their elders
anymore and a lot of the men deported from America are just too much for the old-
fashioned Dons to handle. Michael could get caught in between. I've taken some
precautions against that and he's still got a good cover but that cover won't last forever.
That's one of the reasons I had to make the peace. Barzini has friends in Sicily and they
were beginning to sniff Michael's trail. That gives you one of the answers to your riddle.
I had to make the peace to insure my son's safety. There was nothing else to do."
Hagen didn't bother asking the Don how he had gotten this information. He was not
even surprised, and it was true that this solved part of the riddle. "When I meet with
Tattaglia's people to firm up the details, should I insist that all his drug middlemen
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(посредники) be clean? The judges will be a little skittish (норовистый или пугливый
/о лошади/; капризный) about giving light sentences to a man with a record."
Don Corleone shrugged. "They should be smart enough to figure that out themselves.
Mention it, don't insist. We'll do our best but if they use a real snowbird (дрозд-
рябинник; кокаинист) and he gets caught, we won't lift a finger. We'll just tell them
nothing can be done. But Barzini is a man who will know that without being told. You
notice how he never committed himself in this affair. One might never have known he
was in any way concerned. That is a man who doesn't get caught on the losing side."
Hagen was startled. "You mean he was behind Sollozzo and Tattaglia all the time?"
Don Corleone sighed. "Tattaglia is a pimp. He could never have outfought Santino.
That's why I don't have to know about what happened. It's enough to know that Barzini
had a hand in it."
Hagen let this sink in. The Don was giving him clues but there was something very
important left out. Hagen knew what it was but he knew it was not his place to ask. He
said good night and turned to go. The Don had a last word for him.
"Remember, use all your wits for a plan to bring Michael home," the Don said. "And
one other thing. Arrange with the telephone man so that every month I get a list of all
the telephone calls, made and received, by Clemenza and Tessio. I suspect them of
nothing. I would swear they would never betray me. But there's no harm in knowing any
little thing that may help us before the event."
Hagen nodded and went out. He wondered if the Don was keeping a check on him
also in some way and then was ashamed of his suspicion. But now he was sure that in
the subtle and complex mind of the Godfather a far-ranging plan of action was being
initiated that made the day's happenings no more than a tactical retreat. And there was
that one dark fact that no one mentioned, that he himself had not dared to ask, that Don
Corleone ignored. All pointed to a day of reckoning (to reckon – считать, подсчитывать;
сводить счеты, рассчитываться) in the future.
Chapter 21
But it was to be nearly another year before Don Corleone could arrange for his son
Michael to be smuggled back into the United States. During that time the whole Family
racked their brains (ломали голову; to rack – пытать, мучить; заставлять работать
изо всех сил, изнурять) for suitable schemes. Even Carlo Rizzi was listened to now
128
that he was living in the mall with Connie. (During that time they had a second child, a
boy.) But none of the schemes met with the Don's approval.
Finally it was the Bocchicchio Family who through a misfortune of its own solved the
problem. There was one Bocchicchio, a young cousin of no more than twenty-five years
of age, named Felix, who was born in America and with more brains than anyone in the
clan had ever had before. He had refused to be drawn into the Family garbage hauling
business and married a nice American girl of English stock to further his split from the
clan. He went to school at night, to become a lawyer, and worked during the day as a
civil service post office clerk. During that time he had three children but his wife was a
prudent manager and they lived on his salary until he got his law degree.
Now Felix Bocchicchio, like many young men, thought that having struggled to
complete his education and master the tools of his profession, his virtue would
automatically be rewarded and he would earn a decent living. This proved not to be the
case. Still proud, he refused all help from his clan. But a lawyer friend of his, a young
man well connected and with a budding (подающий надежды, многообещающий)
career in a big law firm, talked Felix into doing him a little favor. It was very complicated,
seemingly legal, and had to do with a bankruptcy fraud. It was a million-to-one shot
against its being found out. Felix Bocchicchio took the chance. Since the fraud involved
using the legal skills he had learned in a university, it seemed not so reprehensible
(предосудительный; to reprehend – делать выговор, порицать), and, in an odd way,
not even criminal.
To make a foolish story short, the fraud was discovered. The lawyer friend refused to
help Felix in any manner, refused to even answer his telephone calls. The two principals
(главные виновники) in the fraud, shrewd middle-aged businessmen who furiously
blamed Felix Bocchicchio's legal clumsiness (неуклюжесть, неловкость; clumsy –
неуклюжий, неловкий) for the plan going awry (окончился неудачей; awry [∂ ‘raı] –
кривой; косо, набок), pleaded guilty (признали себя виновными) and cooperated with
the state, naming Felix Bocchicchio as the ringleader (зачинщик) of the fraud and
claiming he had used threats of violence to control their business and force them to