Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“Something to do is all,” he said. “Look, Vincent, I love you like you was my godfather, I do, but you need to live in the present day. Out west, we got it all set up, foolproof, layers and layers of guys between all the suckers who use it-your niggers, your Mexicans, your artistic types, your hotshots-and the people who sell it to ’em and the people who sell it to them. And so forth. The way we do anything else, and it works fine. The cops or whatever, they can slow it down a bit, especially in troubled times like this here, but the number of things that’d have to go wrong for them to get any of us in legal problems? Forget it. Not a chance.”

The Cleveland Family, Geraci knew, had some dealings in narcotics but contented itself with tributes and left most of the profits to the Negroes, the Irish, and the miscellaneous. After Prohibition, Cleveland had simply taken its next best things, gambling and unions, and expanded those. It wasn’t an organization open to new ideas or even new men. Geraci’s father said it had been more than ten years since Cleveland had initiated a new member.

Forlenza forged ahead, repeating himself: booze was different-cops drank and didn’t really want to break that up-but drugs were something else.

As Falcone reached down, got a piece of glass from the floor, and held it up toward the chandelier, Molinari diplomatically pointed out that Forlenza might be slightly naive about the makeup of today’s young street cop.

“That’s it,” Forlenza said. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The waiters returned. He pointed at the glass and cookies. “Take that away.”

“Did I say I wanted that taken away?” Falcone set down the shard and looked at the waiters. “Take it away and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Chicago, right there, Geraci thought. Chicago in a fucking nutshell.

The waiters stood still. The one on the right-a Slavic-looking man with thick gray hair-had gone as white as his shirt. The one on the left, a man with a fringe of white hair and a tire black moustache, faced Forlenza, his head slightly bowed.

“Take it away,” Forlenza said.

“Just try it.” Falcone took the last biscotto and placed it like a cherry atop his pile.

“I got a grandkid going to some expensive school,” Narducci said. “Makes sculptures kind of like that. You two should meet.”

“Oh yeah?” Falcone swiveled in his chair to look at him. “Where at?”

“Where you going to meet or where does he go to school?”

“School.”

Narducci shrugged. “I just pay for it. To me, one kindergarten’s the same as another.”

Falcone leapt from his chair, and as he lunged toward the old consigliere, Geraci, still seated, hit Falcone squarely on the chin. His head snapped back. He staggered and fell.

The bodyguards rushed the table. Geraci stood. Time seemed to slow down. Amateurs had such bad footwork, he expected this to be over fast.

Molinari burst out laughing. Amazingly, a beat later, from the floor, so did Falcone. The bodyguards stopped. Geraci didn’t move.

“Kindergarten,” Molinari said. “That’s pretty funny.”

Falcone stood, rubbing his jaw. “Nice punch, O’Malley. Sittin’ down. Wow.”

“Instinct,” Geraci said. Narducci didn’t even say thank you. “Sorry. You all right?”

Falcone shrugged. “Forget about it.”

“What were you going to do,” Molinari said, “beat up an old man?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Falcone said, and now everyone laughed. Geraci took his seat, and the bodyguards took theirs. “I don’t give a fuck,” said Falcone. “Take it.”

The two visibly grateful waiters rushed to obey. The one with the dyed moustache even had the poise to return a moment later and refill everyone’s water glass.

“Blow their head off with what, Frank?” Forlenza asked.

“Figure of speech,” said Falcone, which got another big laugh.

Geraci had been looking for an opening, a chance to say what he’d come there to say, and this seemed like the time. He made eye contact with his godfather.

Forlenza nodded.

Again he cleared his throat as a call to order, and in the pause this created took a regally unhurried drink of water.

“Gentlemen,” Forlenza said. “Our guest unfortunately needs to go.” By which, everyone understood, he meant, should leave before certain things are discussed, not has somewhere else to be. “But he has come a long, long way, and before he leaves, he’d like to say a few words.”

Geraci, in addressing his superiors, stood. He thanked Don Forlenza and promised that his words would be few. “Though I am flattered to have been allowed at this table,” Geraci said, “Don Falcone is correct. This is not my place. As you point out”-indicating Falcone and thinking of Tessio, who always stressed the natural advantages of being underestimated-“I’m just someone’s wet-behind-the-ears soldato. ” A lie, but one Falcone had initiated.

Narducci’s echolalia had grown so faint that this time Geraci couldn’t guess at what he said.

“The Corleone organization,” Geraci said, “is not, I assure you, a threat to any of you. Michael Corleone wants peace. He’s determined that this cease-fire become permanent and has taken measures to achieve it. He never had any intention of running Las Vegas. After three or four years in this interim location, the Corleone Family will relocate to Lake Tahoe. Actually, it will cease to exist. Our New York operation will continue in some form, but everything in Lake Tahoe will be run by Michael Corleone like the affairs of any American business magnate-Carnegie, Ford, Hughes, whomever.”

“Law school,” Narducci said, presumably triggered by whomever.

“The Corleone Family,” said Geraci, “will not in the future initiate any more members.” Tonight, in other words, to be construed as the pres-ent. “Michael Corleone will retire from our way of life, and he will do so in a manner that will both be respectful of other organizations and, if anyone chooses, also provide a model for any of us who wishes to take a similar path.” He pushed his chair in. “Gentlemen, unless you have any questions or concerns…?”

He waited a moment. Falcone and Forlenza both looked at Molinari, who ever so slowly blinked. A known friend of the Corleones, he was prepared to elaborate and the more appropriate person to do so.

“In that case,” Geraci said, “I’m going to go check on the weather, in case we-”

“Fuck the weather,” Falcone said. He had a hundred grand on the fight. “When it’s time to go, hotshot, we’re going.”

Narducci muttered something that sounded like “acts of God.”

“Fuck God,” Falcone said. “Don’t take this wrong, Vincent, but I’m not getting stuck-”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Geraci said, and left.

Tom Hagen went back to his room to wait. He tossed his unused three-hundred-dollar tennis racquet onto the bed. He kept on his tennis shirt and changed from shorts into chinos, from sneakers into loafers. On the two different golf courses he could see from the air-conditioned splendor of his room, foursomes of brightly dressed men laughed and drank cocktails on the vast expanse of green where a few decades earlier there had been only cactus and sand, where anyone out there at midday would have been roasting, starving, dying of thirst, gleeful buzzards circling overhead. Instead, servants on golf carts bore cold beer and fresh towels. It reminded Hagen of the stories he’d read about ancient Rome, where the emperors cooled their palaces in the summertime by having slaves haul untold tons of heavy, melting snow down from the mountaintops. More slaves stood beside the mounds of snow night and day, drenched in sweat and waving big papyrus fans. For a king, no corner of the earth is inhospitable.