Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“Don’t get pregnant,” Kathy said.

Their mother let this go, did not even express feigned decorous shock.

I won’t become a WASP either, Francesca thought. Or a dumb blonde. Or anyone else’s sister. She squeezed Kathy’s hand. “Don’t wreck your eyes reading,” Francesca said.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Kathy said.

“Maybe I am you,” Francesca said.

It was an old joke. They’d always wondered how their mother had kept them straight as babies, always presumed they’d been mixed up a few times until they were old enough to assert their own identities.

They kissed each other on both cheeks, the way men would, and Kathy got into the car.

As Francesca hugged her mother good-bye, Sandra managed it at last. “I only wish,” she whispered, “that your father could be here to see this.” Sandra stepped back, triumphant. She looked from one daughter to the other. “His college girls.” She blew her nose. It was very loud.

“Pop never liked us to cry,” Francesca said.

“Who likes to see his family cry?” Kathy said.

“He wasn’t exactly one for tears himself,” Francesca said, wiping her face on the sleeve of her raincoat.

“Are you kidding? ” her mother said. “Sonny? He was the biggest baby of us all. At movies he’d cry. Corny old Italian songs made him blubber like a baby. Don’t you remember?”

Seven years later, and Francesca was already starting not to.

She watched the Roadmaster nose its way through the clogged, narrow, palm-lined drive. As the car pulled around the corner, Francesca silently mouthed the word good-bye. She had no way of knowing this for sure, but she’d have bet her life her sister did the same.

N ICK GERACIheard footsteps coming from across the darkness of the abandoned casino. A heavy limping man in squeaky shoes. “Sorry to hear about your ma, kid,” a voice called.

Geraci stood. It was Laughing Sal Narducci, Forlenza’s ancient consigliere, dressed in a mohair sweater with diamond-shaped panels. When Geraci was growing up, Narducci was one of those guys you saw sitting out in front of the Italian-American Social Club, smoking harsh black cigars. The nickname was inevitable. A local amusement park had this motorized mannequin woman at the gate called Laughing Sal. Its recorded laughter sounded like some woman who’d just had the best sex of her life. Every Sally, every Salvatore in Cleveland, and half the Als and Sarahs, got called Laughing Sal.

“Thanks,” Geraci said. “She’d been sick a long time. It was kind of a mercy.”

Narducci embraced him. As he let go, he gave Geraci a few quick pats, though of course Falcone and Molinari’s bodyguards had frisked him back in Detroit. Then Narducci opened the wall. Laughing Sal saw the bag, lifted it, and nodded. “ Arizona didn’t help her none, huh?” He put the bag down without even opening it, as if he could count money purely by weight. A half million in hundreds weighs ten and a quarter pounds. “Bein’ away from this fucking weather?”

“That definitely helped,” Geraci said. “She liked it there. She had a pool and everything. She was always a big swimmer.”

Narducci closed the wall. “Her people were from by the sea, you know. Milazzo, same as mine. Me, I can’t swim farther than from here to the far side of a whiskey glass. Ever been?”

“To the far side of a whiskey glass?”

“Milazzo. Sicily.”

“ Sicily yes, Milazzo I never quite made it to,” he said. He’d been in Palermo only last week, working out minor personnel issues with the Indelicato clan.

Narducci put a hand on Geraci’s shoulder. “Well, like they say, she’s in a better place.”

“Like they say,” Geraci said.

“Jesus Christ, look at you.” Narducci squeezed Geraci’s biceps, as if they were fruit he might buy. “Ace Geraci! Looks like you could still go twenty rounds in the Garden.”

“Nah,” Geraci said. “Probably just ten, eleven.”

Narducci laughed. “You know how much money I lost on you over the years? A bundle, my friend. A bundle.”

“Should have bet against me. That’s what I usually did.”

“I tried that,” Narducci said. “Then you’d always win. And your father? How’s he?”

“Getting by.” Fausto Geraci, Sr., had been a truck driver and a Teamsters official. Connected but never inducted, he’d driven cars and done various favors for the Jew. “He’s got my sister there.” And the Mexican woman on the other side of Tucson he thinks no one knows about. “He’ll be fine. He misses going to work, if you want to know the truth.”

“Retirement don’t suit some people. But he should give it time, the retirement.”

Not a problem Nick Geraci ever expected to face. You come in alive, Vito Corleone had said at Geraci’s initiation, and you go out dead. “We ready?” Geraci said.

“Ready.” Narducci slapped him on the ass and escorted him back through the casino. Geraci looked for an exit route, a flight of stairs. Just in case.

“How long since that casino was in business?” Geraci asked.

“Back in the Italian navy days,” Narducci said, meaning the fleet of speedboats they’d operated on the Great Lakes during Prohibition. “Now we got these ships. Best things to have. No local fuck has the resources to raid ships. Plus, your guests are stuck out on the lake all night. Give ’em a show, set up a few rooms with some girls, then drop ’em back off at their cars. You’ve taken all their money, and they’re happy you did it.”

The Stracci Family had huge secret casinos in the Jersey Palisades, but as far as Geraci knew, none of the Families in New York had gambling ships like that. Maybe he’d look into developing a few, once the peace was solid and things cooled down.

“Other than legal joints in Vegas and Havana, we’re out of the on-land stuff altogether,” Narducci said. “Except down in West Virginia, which don’t really count. You can buy off that whole state for less than the heating bill on this place here.”

He ushered Geraci into a dank room and pulled open the door to an old cage elevator.

“Relax, kid,” Narducci said. “Who’s going to kill you here?”

“I get any more relaxed,” Geraci said, “I’ll need you to tuck me in and read me a story.”

They got in. Narducci smiled and hit the button. He’d called it right, though; it was how Geraci had been trained: elevators are death traps.

“Changing the subject,” Narducci said, “I gotta ask. How’d a big cafone like you get through law school?”

“I know people.” He’d done it on his own steam, night school, busted his ass. He still had a few classes to go. But Nick Geraci knew the right answers to things. “I have friends.”

“Friends,” Narducci repeated. “Attaboy.” He put his hands on Geraci’s shoulders and gave him a quick rub, the way a cornerman might.

The door opened. Geraci braced himself. They stepped into a dark, carpeted hallway crowded with chairs and settees and little carved tables that were probably worth a mint. At the end of the hall was a bright marble-floored room. A young redheaded nurse pushed Vincent “the Jew” Forlenza toward them in a wheelchair. Narducci left to go get Falcone and Molinari.

“ Padrino, ” said Geraci. “How are you feeling?” His speech and probably brain were fine, but he wasn’t going to walk again.

“Eh,” Forlenza said. “What do doctors know?”

Geraci kissed Forlenza on each cheek and then on his ring. Forlenza had stood as godfather at his christening.