Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

She took Francesca’s hand.

Deanna Dunn, so magnetic Francesca felt dizzy. Yesterday in Jacksonville had only in the most indirect way unleashed last night’s exchange with Kathy. It had nothing to do with the surreal sight of Deanna Dunn in this old, familiar kitchen. Francesca’s life had been seized by dream-and-nightmare logic.

The rich boy Francesca loved calmly served black coffee to a two-time Oscar-winning actress. Francesca’s grandmother sang a Christmas carol-not a hymn, but one about Santa Claus. Francesca’s dead father had been both a murderer and murdered. Uncle Fredo slouched against the doorframe, staring at his shoes. He looked like he’d eaten some bad clams. Behind him, as if someone had given a signal, came an explosion of flashbulbs. Francesca expected to see men with visors and big cameras jostling for position, shooting them as if from the edge of the red carpet. Fredo didn’t even look up.

From the next room, over shouted thank-yous and the shredding of gift wrap, came the voice of her mother-the voice that had been lying to Francesca all her life.

“If you people don’t hurry up,” Sandra called, “you’re going to miss Christmas.”

“Christmas!” cried Deanna Dunn, hurrying past Uncle Fredo. Deanna Dunn was not tall. She’d only come off that way standing next to Uncle Fredo, who was short, and because she had a tall woman’s walk and also a colossal head. The eye is passive. Only the brain can see. “How marvelous !”

T HAT SPRING, after months of negotiation, the Commission finally agreed to meet. Its first order of business would be to add Chicago ’s Louie Russo as its eighth member. Next would be the formal approval of the peace agreement. The heads of all twenty-four Families were invited. Every effort would be made to ensure that this time, peace would last.

Michael Corleone flew to New York on the red-eye, accompanied only by three bodyguards. Hagen, a declared candidate for the U.S. Senate, could not be a part of this. Since every important item of business had already been decided, for today, what Michael needed at his side was not a brilliant strategist but rather a man whose very presence suggested stability and respect for tradition. Clemenza was the perfect consigliere for such an occasion.

Michael had no intention of ever choosing a permanent consigliere. The job required an elusive set of contradictory skills. A schemer who’s also loyal. A Machiavellian negotiator who’s also guileless. A driven man with no personal ambition. The plan had been for Vito to be the last to hold the job. A CEO has a board and a battalion of lawyers. The president has a staff, a cabinet, judges whose places on the bench they owe to him, and the control of the world’s mightiest army. The Corleone organization would develop in the open and along such lines.

Clemenza picked them up at the airport himself. The very sight of the fat man was reassuring. He’d quit chewing toothpicks and gone back to cigars. All that had changed about him since Michael was a boy was that now he walked with a cane.

They drove into Manhattan, stopping at a bakery on Mulberry for a box of pastries, then on to the apartment on West Ninety-third where the Corleones were holding a Bocchicchio hostage-some baby-faced third cousin who’d gotten in from Sicily yesterday. He was playing dominos with Frankie Pants, Little Joe Bono, and Richie “Two Guns” Nobilio-Clemenza’s men. Kid couldn’t have been more than fifteen. They stood. Michael and Pete embraced and kissed each in turn. In halting English, the kid, whose name was Carmine Marino, addressed Michael as “Don Corleone” and thanked him for the chance to see America. The only window in the apartment was blackened with what looked like tar. “ Prego, ” Michael said. “Fa niente.”

“You didn’t bring coffee?” said Richie Two Guns, opening the box.

“ Make coffee, you lazy fuck,” Clemenza said. “Or go downstairs to some deli. Good bakery can be hard to find, but you can get coffee anyplace. What, I’m supposed to slosh coffee all over my clean car while I drive it up here and deliver it to you, half spilled and cold?”

Clemenza winked, gave Frankie’s shoulders a quick rub, set out the pastries, and, like a tour guide, pointed out some of their finer points.

The peace talks started at two. By now, each Family coming to the table was holding a Bocchicchio hostage. The hostages went willingly. It was how the Bocchicchios made their money. If, for example, anything happened to Michael or Clemenza, one of their men would kill this boy. No Bocchicchio would rest until the boy’s murder was avenged-not on his killer but rather on those who’d harmed the killer’s associates. The Bocchicchios were the most single-mindedly vengeful clan Sicily had ever seen, wholly undeterred by prison or death. There was no defense against them. Bocchicchio insurance was better than a hundred bodyguards. The men who came to the table would do so with just their consigliere s.

Back in the car, Michael asked Clemenza how old he thought that baby-faced Bocchicchio kid was.

“Carmine?” The fat man considered this for a long time. “I’m not so good at this no more. All of a sudden everybody seems like a kid to me.”

“He looked like he was all of fifteen.”

“I hear there ain’t a whole lot of Bocchicchios left,” Clemenza said. “On the other hand, at my age, sometimes you look like you’re only fifteen. No disrespect or nothin’.”

“Of course.” Fifteen. When Michael was fifteen, he’d stood up at the dinner table, looked his father in the eye, and said he’d rather die than grow up to be a man like him. What happened after that still gave Michael chills, all these years later. Without that moment of stupid, boyish pride, Michael wondered, would he himself even be in this business? “I wouldn’t have thought,” Michael said, “that a kid that young would even be allowed to fly here alone.”

“I don’t know about that,” Clemenza said, “but he didn’t fly. He came over on a boat, along with most of the other hostages. In steerage. They still have that on boats? Whatever the cheapest one’s called. I doubt if the Bocchicchios are even paying him. Lot of times, they just send over shoestring relatives who want to come live in America. We’re paying a king’s ransom for this, y’know, but how they spread the wealth? Forget about it.”

Clemenza shook his big, sad head. They crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge and headed north.

“So tell me,” Michael said after a long silence. “What were those rumors you heard about Fredo?”

“What rumors?” Pete said.

Michael stared straight ahead at the road.

“I told you,” Pete said. “Drinking too much, and the rest of it comes from bad sources.”

Michael took a deep breath. “Did you hear that he’s a homosexual?”

“What’s wrong with you? You think that’s what I heard?”

“The man he beat up in San Francisco was a homosexual.”

“Don’t mean he wasn’t also a robber. A guy can be a robber and a queer both. If everybody who killed a queer turned queer, there’d be a lot of queers out there.”

Fredo’s story was that he’d been out for a walk to clear his head after Molinari’s funeral and stopped for a drink. A kid from the bar followed him to his hotel and later broke into his room to rob him. Fredo beat the kid up and he died. It was a ridiculous story-why, for example, didn’t the kid just rob Fredo on the street? Why wait until it was necessary to pick the lock on the door to Fredo’s room? On top of that, the kid’s parents had recently died and left him almost thirty thousand dollars-no fortune, but why was he robbing anyone? Hagen -acting strictly as a lawyer-had managed to keep the matter out of the newspapers and see to it that no charges were filed, but he’d returned from San Francisco with several matters of concern.