Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“You went to one, too. You went to a better one.”

“You finished. They won’t need to leave for any reason, and certainly not to help with my business. They won’t be influenced by me the way I was by my father, and living here will be a part of that. We’re distancing the family-”

Kay arched an eyebrow.

“Define it however you want, all right? The family. Our family. Ourselves. We’re distancing ourselves from all the”-he picked up a half-empty milk bottle and chugged the rest of it-“from let’s just say New York. That alone is going to chart a new course for us. Our holdings in the state of Nevada -this isn’t a very populated state, Kay, not yet-our holdings here will give us a means of reorganizing my business in ways that would have been impossible in New York. We’re already done with the hardest part of this. Mark my words: five years from now, the Corleone Family should be every bit as legitimate as Standard Oil.”

“Should be,” Kay repeated.

He sighed. If this was what she was like as a teacher, her students had been both lucky and doomed. “I apologize for it not being one hundred percent certain. What in life is?”

“Family, right?”

Michael chose to take that as playful. “What else can I do? Walk away? Even if I could do that and not make a widow out of you, what then? Take a job selling shoes while I go to night school and finish college? People depend on me, Kay, and while you and the kids come first and always will, I have other people to consider, too. Fredo, Connie, my mother, and that’s just the immediate family, not the business. We sold the olive oil company because we needed a sizable and completely government-approved amount of cash, but even after that we still have controlling interests in all kinds of other completely legitimate businesses: factories, commercial real estate, dozens of restaurants and a chain of hamburger joints, various newspapers and radio stations and booking agencies, a movie studio, even a Wall Street investment firm. Our interests in gambling and lending money can all be operated where it’s legal. As for what we spend to help get politicians elected-that’s no different from what any big corporation or labor union does. I suppose I could stop and sit back and watch it all fall apart, watch us lose everything. Or. ” He raised an index finger. “Or. Instead, I could take a few more calculated risks and try to bring about a plan that’s already, I would say, eighty percent implemented. You know I can’t tell you the specifics of it, but I will tell you this, Kay: if you can just have faith in me, five years from now, we’ll be sitting on this very spot, watching our kids-Mary and Anthony and maybe a couple more-swimming in the lake, and Tom Hagen, my brother Tom, will be two months away from getting himself elected governor of the great state of Nevada, and the name Corleone will have started to mean the same sort of thing to most Americans as the names Rockefeller and Carnegie. I want to do great things, Kay. Great things. And the main reason for that, first and foremost, is you and the kids.”

They gathered up their lunch. Michael whistled, and Tommy Neri came out of the woods. He said he and the guys had already eaten, but a snack would be great, thanks.

Michael showed Kay into the boathouse. Inside was a Chris-Craft, aquamarine with spruce panels. He extended an arm. Kay got in. She expected Tommy Neri to follow her, but he released the boat and stayed behind.

“I was wondering,” Michael said, backing the boat out into the lake. “What’s the traditional fifth-anniversary present, anyway?”

“Wood. Which reminds me.” She pulled a card out of her purse and handed it to him.

“Really?” he said. “Wood?”

“Really,” she said. “Open that.”

Michael smiled and pointed at the tree-lined banks of the lake. “Behold,” he said. “Wood.”

“Open the card,” she said.

When he did, a brochure tumbled out. He picked it up.

“Behold,” she said. “Woods.”

It was from the pro shop of a country club in Las Vegas.

“Woods and irons both. I got you a set of golf clubs,” she said. She squeezed his right bicep. “You have to go in to get measured for them.”

“Golf, huh?”

“You don’t like it? You don’t want to take it up?”

“I do,” he said, rubbing the side of his face. “It’s perfect. Golf. Like any all-American executive. I love it. I do.”

Michael put the boat into gear, and they started across the lake to town. Kay slid next to him on the bench seat, and he looped his arm around her. He opened the throttle all the way. She lay her head on his shoulder and kept it there for the twenty-minute trip.

“Thank you,” she said when they got to shore. “I love the lot. I love your plan.” She leaned toward him. “And-” She kissed him. Michael did not usually like to show his emotions in public, but something in her kiss shot right through him, and as she started to pull away he pulled her back toward him and kept kissing her, harder now.

When they finally separated, breathless, they heard applause. It was two teenage boys onshore. They were each with a girl. The girls apologized. “They’re retards,” one said.

“Can’t take them anywhere,” said the other.

They were all dressed as if they’d just come from church.

“No apologies necessary,” Michael said. “Say, is there a movie theater around here?”

There was, and they got directions. The boys lagged behind the girls, laughing and punching each other on the arm.

“I was going to say-” Kay said.

“You love me,” Michael said.

“You’re as bad as those boys,” she said. “And you love me, too.”

The theater was closed. The picture they were showing was one produced by Johnny Fontane’s production company, which was sixty percent owned by a privately held Delaware-chartered corporation in which the stock was held by fronts for the Corleone Family. At some point, Michael would (for a purchase price of symbolic money) buy the whole shebang. That’s if there was anything worth buying. The company had once been fairly profitable. This picture, like most of the recent ones, did not star Johnny Fontane. Michael rapped on the window.

“It’s closed, Michael.”

He shook his head. He knocked harder. Before long, a bald man in a cowboy shirt and dungarees came into the lobby and mouthed that they were closed. Michael shook his head and knocked on the door again. The man came to the door. “Sorry, mister. Sundays all we got is the one show at seven-thirty.”

Michael motioned for the man to open the door, and he did.

“I understand,” Michael said. “It’s just that my wife and I are on a date, and this”-he turned and glanced at the movie poster-“Dirk Sanders, he’s just about her favorite movie star in the world, isn’t that right, honey?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

“Well, you can see it tonight. Seven-thirty.”

Michael looked at the man’s left hand. “You see, though, we need to be home by seven-thirty, and this, today, is our anniversary. Our fifth. You know how it is, right?”

“I’m the owner,” he said, “not a projectionist.”

“Which makes your time all the more worthwhile. I wouldn’t expect you to do a favor like this for a total stranger. You know how to operate the projector, though, am I right?”

“Of course I do.”

“Could I just have a word with you, then? Alone? Just for a second?”

The man rolled his eyes, but Kay could tell there was something in Michael’s cold stare that affected the man. He let Michael in. They exchanged some whispered words. Moments later, Michael and Kay sat in the middle of the theater as the movie started. “What did you say to him?”