Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

The lake, much bigger than Kay had imagined, was dotted with fishing boats and ringed by mountains. Around most of it, thick dark pine forest extended to the banks. The surface of the water looked as smooth as a lacquered table.

“It is,” he said. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful place.”

He glanced at her. She was swiveling around in her seat, craning her neck to see the splendor into which they were descending. She seemed happy.

Michael came in low, near the shore, and landed the plane not far from a dock and boathouse. There seemed to be nothing else around but woods and a clearing nearby, where a point of land jutted into the lake.

“This is pretty far from the town part,” Kay said.

“I know a great place for lunch,” he said, “right near here.”

As the plane approached the dock, three men in dark suits emerged from the woods.

Kay drew in a breath and pulled back in her seat. The men came out on the dock, and she called her husband’s name.

Michael shook his head. The implication was clear: Don’t worry. They work for me.

The men climbed out onto the floats and tethered the plane to the dock. The one in charge was Tommy Neri, Al’s nephew. Al-who, in his old NYPD uniform, had emptied a service revolver into Don Emilio Barzini’s chest, and who, with a steak knife taken right from the man’s kitchen, had disemboweled Phillip Tattaglia’s top button man and urinated into the man’s steaming body cavity-was in charge of security for all of the Family-controlled hotels. Like Al, Tommy had been a New York cop. All three looked to be barely out of high school. They said almost nothing and headed back into the woods.

As they did, Kay faced Michael at the foot of the dock. There was both a world of things to say about that and nothing whatsoever.

“Wait right here,” Michael said. He touched the side of his face where it had once been crushed, which he did, probably unconsciously, when he was nervous. For years after that cop had punched him, he’d done nothing, blowing his nose constantly and talking about his ruined looks until finally, for Kay’s sake, he’d had it fixed, after which he’d looked better, but not exactly like before, never again exactly like himself. She had never once told him this.

He walked to the door of the boathouse, reached up onto a ledge, found a key, and went in.

Kay both did and didn’t want to ask whose boathouse this was. What stopped her wasn’t fear of the answer. It was fear of Michael not wanting to be asked.

A moment later, he emerged, thrusting a dozen roses toward her. She moved backward a step. Then she reached forward and accepted them. They kissed.

“Happy anniversary,” Michael said.

“I thought this trip was my present.”

“All part of the same package.”

He ducked back into the boathouse and came out carrying a striped beach blanket and a huge picnic basket covered with a red-checked tablecloth. Two long loaves of Italian bread poked out of the basket, like crossed swords. “Voilà!” he said. With his head, he pointed toward the clearing. “Lunch at the beach.”

Kay led. She set down her flowers and spread out the blanket.

They sat down Indian-style, facing each other. They were both overcome by hunger, and they dug in. At one point Michael dangled a bunch of grapes over Kay’s head.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll bite.” She bit off a grape.

“Nicely done,” Michael said.

She looked into the woods but could not see the men. “That wasn’t what I meant. That wasn’t only what I meant.” She paused. But why not ask? It wasn’t a question about business. He’d brought her here on a date. For their anniversary. “Where’d this food come from?”

He pointed across the lake. “I had it delivered.”

“Whose land is this?”

“This land? Here?”

She frowned.

“Oh,” he said. “I guess it’s yours.”

“You guess?”

“It’s yours.” He stood. He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. It was a photostat of the deed. Like everything they owned, it had her name on it and not his. “Happy anniversary,” he said.

Kay picked up her roses. That they could afford this, on top of the house in Las Vegas, both appalled her and thrilled her. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.

Michael knew he shouldn’t have called this land an anniversary pres-ent, too. He was overdoing it. “Your last present,” he said. He put his right hand on an imaginary Bible and raised his left. “I swear. No more surprises.”

She looked up at him. She ate a strawberry. “You bought land here without telling me?”

He shook his head. “I have an interest in a real estate company that bought it. It’s an investment. I was thinking we could develop the land here, for us. For the family.”

“For the family?”

“Right.”

“Define family,” she said.

He turned around and faced the lake. “Kay, you have to trust me. Things are in a delicate place right now, but nothing’s changed.”

Everything has changed. But she knew better than to say this. “You move us to Las Vegas and then, before we even unpack, you move us again, up here?”

“Fredo already had things set up for us in Las Vegas. But in the long run Lake Tahoe is a better opportunity. For us, Kay. You can work with the architect, build your dream house. It may take a year, even two. Take your time. Get it right. The kids can grow up swimming in this lake, exploring the woods, riding horses, skiing.” He turned to face her. “The day I asked you to marry me, Kay, I said that if everything went right, our businesses would be completely legitimate in five years.”

“I remember,” she said, though this was the first time they’d spoken of this since then.

“That still holds. We’ve had to make some adjustments, it’s true, and not everything went right. I hadn’t counted on losing my father. There were other things, too. A person can’t expect everything in a plan that features human beings to go right. But”-he held up his index finger-“but: We’re close. Despite some setbacks, Kay, we are very, very close.” He smiled and went down on his knees. “ Las Vegas already has a certain reputation. In any version of this plan, we’ll retain our hotel and casino businesses there. But Lake Tahoe is different. This is a place that can work for us all, indefinitely. We have enough land here to build any kind of house you want. My mother, your folks if they want. Anybody who wants to be here, there’s room.”

He did not mention his sister or his brother. Kay knew him well enough to be sure this was probably not an accident.

“I can fly the seaplane in and out of here, and any size jet can fly into Reno, which is just up the road. Carson City is less than an hour from here. San Francisco is three.”

“ Carson City?”

“The capital.”

“I thought Reno was the capital.”

“Everyone thinks that. It’s Carson City.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve been there on business, to the capitol building itself. You want me to prove it?”

“Sure.”

“It’s Carson City, Kay, believe me. How do you propose I prove it?”

“You’re the one who proposed proving it.”

He picked up an egg. He held it like a dart and flicked it at her.

She caught it and in the same motion threw it back at him. She missed. It sailed past him and two-hopped into the lake, and he laughed.

“It’s nice to see you like this,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t explain it.”

He sat down beside her. “There’s a lot I can’t explain, too, Kay. But I have a vision. It’s the same vision I always had, only now it’s a hell of a lot closer to reality, with our children growing up more the way you did than I did, all-American kids who can grow up to be anything they want. You grew up in a small town; so will they. You went to a good college; so can they.”