Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“I’d say yeah,” Lampone finally said, “we got a peace. We got the word of, what? Joe Zaluchi, that’s a given. Molinari, Leo the Milkman, Black Tony Stracci. All but Molinari are on the Commission, right? Forlenza’s leaning our way, right? Any word yet from the Ace?”

“Not yet,” Hagen said. “Geraci’s supposed to call in after they get to that fight.”

“That’s a sure thing,” Rocco said. “Geraci, not the fight. The fight, I like that half-breed nigger lefty, what a sweet cross he’s got. Ain’t even human how fast and smooth it is.”

Clemenza slapped the top of the metal desk four times and arched his eyebrows.

“Anyway, Forlenza makes five,” Rocco said. “We still think Paulie Fortunato’s the new Don of the Barzinis?”

“We do,” Hagen said.

“Then six. He’s a reasonable man, and in addition to that he’s closer to Cleveland than Barzini was. In other words, he’ll do what the Jew does. So that just leaves the other ones.” In lieu of pronouncing the name Tattaglia, Rocco made a filthy Sicilian gesture. His differences with the Tattaglias were personal, visceral, complicated, and many. He’d been the one who burst in on Phillip Tattaglia, surprising him in a bungalow off Sunrise Highway, out on Long Island. Tattaglia was standing there naked except for his gartered silk socks, a hairy man in his seventies, with this teenage prostitute spread out on the bed in front of him, squeezing back tears while he tried to jack off into her open mouth. Lampone put four rounds into the man’s soft gut. The Tattaglias’ organization was in shambles, and the man who’d taken over, Phillip Tattaglia’s brother Rico, had come out of a comfortable retirement in Miami. It seemed unlikely a man like that would have the stomach for more vendettas, but a Tattaglia was still a Tattaglia.

When Mike said nothing, Lampone frowned like a determined schoolkid working to please the teacher. Mike was the youngest man in the room, the youngest Don in America, yet all the others were straining to prove themselves to him. He stood and walked to the place on the wall where a window would have been if there had been a window. “What do you think, Tom?”

“No Commission meeting,” Hagen said, “not if we can avoid it.” Hagen, as Vito’s consigliere, was the only one of them ever to attend such a meeting. He was also the only one ever to attend an even more rare meeting of all the Families, which is what a call for a meeting of the Commission would snowball into. “Reason being, three Commission members have died this year. With that many new men, if they meet, they’ll have to figure out whether to add Louie Russo. No matter what anyone thinks of him personally, with Chicago what it is, they have to say yes. They don’t meet, they can keep him on the hook and say they’ll get to it next time they do meet. Once they meet, Russo’s got to be a part of it, which means a lot of different things could happen. Unpredictable things.”

“Older that guy gets,” Clemenza said, “the more his nose looks like a pecker.”

This made Mike smile. Clemenza had had the same knack with Vito, though, truth be told, it had been a hell of a lot easier to get a smile out of Vito than it was Mike.

“When he got the nickname, his nose was just big,” Clemenza said, inserting toothpick number nine into his little round mouth. “Now the end’s red and shaped exactly like a dickhead. And those eyebrows? Pubic hair. Am I right? All he needs is a vein to stand out on the side of his nose, and Fuckface’ll get thrown in the joint for indecent exposure. Shit, they got Capone for tax evasion.” He shook his head. “Pantywaist arrests”-and here Clemenza grabbed his balls and put on a good Chicago accent-“it’s da Chiacahgo way.”

Everyone laughed, even Hagen, though he privately believed that the reason Irish and Jewish gangsters had managed to move from most-wanted lists to ambassadorships was that they (like Hagen himself) paid their taxes, to a point anyway. It was understandable that many Sicilians, whose distrust of a central government had run through their veins for centuries, did not. And it was also true that theirs was a cash business with nothing of importance written down. A hundred IRS agents working around the clock for a hundred years couldn’t figure out one percent of what went on. Still: Governments were no different from anyone or anything wielding great power. They wanted what was theirs. You had to wet their beak. Or kill them.

They discussed a host of practical matters that had to be addressed so that the Family and its interests could again become fully operational. Only near the end did Michael discuss the ambitious long-term plans that he and his father, in the months Vito had spent as Michael’s consigliere, had envisioned. Hagen let everyone know about his discussions with the Ambassador and the Family’s role in James Kavanaugh Shea’s plan for the White House in 1960. They already knew about Hagen ’s own, not-unrelated plan: to run for the Senate next year and lose (that senator was in the Corleones’ pocket anyway), then use the legitimacy garnered by a respectable loss to make it easy for the governor to appoint him to a cabinet position. By 1960, Hagen could run for governor and win. Which brought Michael to the last order of business.

“Before we take care of our shorthandedness in other areas, we need to fix it at the top. First, there’s the matter of Tessio’s old regime. Any thoughts before I make my choice?”

They shook their heads. The choice was obvious: Geraci would be a popular pick, especially among those who resented what had happened with Tessio. True, there had been grumbling about him from some of the older men in New York. He was Tessio’s protégé, but Tessio had betrayed the Family. There was the issue of a narcotics operation Geraci had been allowed to have (though it was still only a rumor). There was his age (though he was older than Michael). He was from Cleveland. He had a college degree and a few law school classes. Hagen had first heard of him when Paulie Gatto had him beat up the punks who’d assaulted Amerigo Bonasera’s daughter. Three years later, after Gatto was killed, Geraci had been Pete’s second choice to take over as top button man, after Rocco. Rocco had made the most of that opportunity and was now a capo, but Geraci was Michael’s type of guy. He was also one of the best earners the family had ever had. There were other options, older guys like the Di-Miceli brothers, or maybe Eddie Paradise. Solid, loyal men, but not in the same league with the Ace.

“My only words of wisdom on this subject,” Pete said, “are that if Christ himself was ready to get promoted to capo, you’d hear complaints. I been around a long time, and I never seen a guy who can earn like this Geraci. Kid can swallow a nickel and shit a banded stack of Clevelands. I don’t know him in and out, but what I do know is good. He’s impressed me.”

Michael nodded. “Anything else?”

“Quick thing on Eddie Paradise,” Rocco said.

“Yes?” Michael said.

Rocco shrugged. “He’s a good man. Paid his dues. People know him.”

“All right,” Michael said. “Any other words on the subject?”

“Eddie’s my wife’s cousin is all,” Rocco said. “When she asks me if I vouched for him, well-you’re all married, you all got families. Nah, no other words.”

“Vouching duly noted,” Michael said. “All right. My choice is Fausto Geraci.”

This was greeted with hearty approval. Hagen had never heard anyone else call Geraci Fausto, but Michael rarely called anyone by his street name, a quirk he’d picked up from the old man. Sonny had been the opposite. He’d know someone for years, pull jobs with him, eat dinner in his home, and most of the time he didn’t know the guy’s last name until he saw it printed in the bulletin at a wedding or a funeral.