Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“I should go, Fredo.”

“You ever meet her?”

“Once,” Hagen said. “She wouldn’t remember me.”

Finally Jimmy Shea made his entrance, flanked by his father and brother. The room exploded in applause and a recorded version of “Into the Wild Blue Yonder.”

“Shea and Hagen in 1960!” Fredo yelled.

As far as Hagen could tell, Fredo was drowned out.

Hagen slipped away. By now the room was packed. He tried to shake hands with the right people, but it was tough. He did what he could, but there were more than a few times he extended his hand toward someone he thought he recognized as a senator or congressman or top aide and got a blank stare in return. He tried to find members of the Nevada delegation-the only people, presumably, who’d have noticed he wasn’t there. The only one he saw was a schoolteacher from Beatty, wherever that was.

“Gateway to Death Valley,” she said, shouting over the din.

“Oh, right,” he said. They brag about that in Beatty?

“Mines,” she said, “that’s what we have there. Though several have closed.”

“That’s why we need to vote the bastards out,” Hagen blurted out.

She frowned. Maybe it was the word bastards, maybe because he was one of the bastards she’d like to vote out, but before he could apologize, her face brightened. “You’re wonderful!” she screamed in obvious delight.

It took Hagen a second to realize that behind him Governor Shea was drawing near, using his big smile like a snowplow. Shea directed the smile at the teacher, gave her a thumbs-up, said, “Thank you, good to see you,” and patted her on the shoulder. Then the governor shook Hagen ’s hand-they’d never met-and before his grip even eased he was moving his eyes to the next person in the crowd. That was it. But the postcoital look on the schoolteacher’s face gave Hagen an immediate lesson about politics. Being young and attractive had nothing to do with being president but a lot to do with getting elected.

Hagen leaned toward her ear. “So I take it you saw Governor Shea’s speech?”

“One hears a speech,” she said, frowning again.

“Right,” he said.

She put her mouth next to Hagen ’s ear. “Allow me to save you some time, sir,” she said. “I’ve never crossed party lines in my life, but I’m doing so in November, to vote against you.”

She pulled back from him, batting her eyes to underscore the sarcasm.

What was he supposed to say, Lady, my opponent’s dead ? “Well, okay,” he said, patting her on the shoulder, unconsciously mimicking Shea. “Good to see you.”

Hagen slithered through the crowd. Packed as the ballroom was, there was hardly anyone in line at the bar. Nearly everyone was gawking at the many celebrities.

Fontane, Shea, and Annie McGowan had climbed up on a table. Fontane and Shea were arm in arm and Annie was off to the side, her hands clasped in front of her, fig-leaf style. The Ambassador, standing on the floor beside them, stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was hard for Hagen to look at him and not think of him standing naked and sunburned in his swimming pool. Fontane asked everyone to please join in as they sang “ America the Beautiful.”

A few years ago, Hagen had taken Andrew to FAO Schwartz to see Annie McGowan, back when Andrew was still little and her puppet show, Jojo, Mrs. Cheese amp; Annie, was just starting. Last year, about the time Annie left Danny Shea (who was married anyway) and she and Johnny Fontane became an item, she’d quit her TV show to become a singer.

Shea climbed down from the table, waving. Fontane and Annie stayed, belting out a show tune that originally had celebrated another state and now sported lyrics extolling the virtues of New Jersey.

Hagen pulled out the index card on which his chief of staff had-in tiny, perfect handwriting-listed what parties to attend tonight, including meticulous directions, names of people to see, even conversational prompts. Screw it. He’d seen enough, had enough. Hagen was going back to Asbury Park to see his family.

On his way out, he saw Fredo sitting in the lobby, talking with the two Chicago guys and a man in a plaid coat, Morty Whiteshoes, who worked mostly in Miami.

“You leaving, Tom?” Fredo called out.

Tom motioned for him to stay seated. “Catch you later tonight.”

“No, hold on,” Fredo said, excusing himself. “I’ll walk with you. Be right back, guys.”

Fredo fell in beside him on the crowded boardwalk. Hagen walked faster than he would have needed to.

“I need to ask you something.”

“It’s taken care of,” Hagen said, presuming this was about the mess last year in San Francisco. “Forgotten, okay? So forget it.”

“Look, did Mike ever say anything to you about this idea I had?” Fredo said. “This vision really, where we’d get a law passed so you couldn’t bury nobody in New York -any of the boroughs and Long Island, too?”

“Keep it down.” Instinctively Hagen looked around.

“I don’t mean that kind of body burying,” Fredo said. “I’m talking about regular, you know? Everybody. You get a zoning thing passed so that-”

“No,” Hagen said. “You know I’m out of that end of things. Listen, I really have to go.” He cut in front of Fredo and walked backward, hoping to put an end to this. “Tell Deanna I said hello, all right?”

Fredo stopped and looked puzzled. Though it might have been the sunglasses. Hagen couldn’t see his eyes.

“Deanna,” Hagen said. “Your wife. Ring any bells?”

Fredo nodded. “Tell Theresa and the kids I love them,” he said. “Don’t forget, okay?”

There was something about the way he said it that Hagen didn’t like. He pulled him aside, into an alley. “You okay, Fredo?”

Fredo looked down and shrugged, like one of Hagen ’s sulky teenage boys.

“Do you want to tell me more about what happened in San Francisco?”

Fredo looked up and took off his sunglasses. “Fuck you, okay? I’m not answerable to you, Tommy.”

“What sort of twisted Hollywood bullshit have you gotten yourself into, Fredo?”

“What did I just say? I don’t have to answer to you, all right?”

“Why the hell are all of Fontane’s friends either sleeping with women he used to sleep with or else used to sleep with the women he’s sleeping with?”

“Say what now?”

Hagen repeated himself.

“That’s low, Tommy.”

It was. “Forget it,” Hagen said.

“No, I know you,” Fredo said, closing in on Hagen, backing him against the wall of the alley. “You don’t forget jack shit. You’ll keep turning it over in your mind until you think you got a solution, even if there is no solution, or the solution’s so simple you couldn’t stand it because then you wouldn’t get to think about it over”-and here he jabbed Hagen in the breastbone-“and over”-again-“and over”-and again-“and over again.”

Hagen had his back against a sooty brick wall. Fredo had been a violent little kid for a while, and then that part of him just disappeared. Until he beat up that queer in San Francisco.

“I should go,” Hagen said. “All right? I need to go.”

“You think you’re so fucking smart.” He gave Hagan’s chest a little shove. “Don’t you?”

“C’mon, Fredo. Easy, huh?”

“Answer me.”

“Do you have a gun, Fredo?”

“What’s wrong, you afraid of me?”

“Always have been,” Hagen said.

Fredo laughed, low and mirthless. He reached up, open-handed, and gave Hagen ’s cheek something harder than a pat and softer than a slap. “Look, Tommy,” Fredo said. “It’s not complicated.”

What isn’t? Hagen pursed his lips and nodded. “It’s not, huh?”