Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”

“You told me my idea about cornering the cemetery racket in New York like out in Colma was the most ridiculous thing you ever heard.”

“That cemetery idea? You’re still talking about that? Mike told you, it’s not a project we can get into now. We’re staying away from rackets of any sort. We don’t want to be beholden to the Straccis for anything. We’d need to call in favors from all kinds of politicians in New York, and the last thing we want to do right now is spend those kind of favors on a project like this-one that has a lot of holes in it, I might add.”

They rounded a corner and ran into Alfred Hitchcock, out for a walk along with Annie McGowan and her agent. Fredo introduced Hagen as “Congressman Hagen.” Annie asked Fredo if he was okay. Fredo said it was a long story and he’d give her a call later. No, Johnny wasn’t in town, Annie said. He was in Chicago. Hitchcock insisted he had to go, and they went.

“What holes?” Fredo said, again alone with Hagen.

“It’s got holes,” Hagen said. “Look, the way things are is this: The operation in New York is going to maintain things as is. The only new ventures have to be legitimate businesses.”

“That’s the beauty of my plan, Tom. It’s no racket. It’ll all be completely legal.”

“Fredo, you can’t have this both ways. You can’t on the one hand be in the public eye, married to a movie star, running the entertainment side of our hotels in Las Vegas, and starting up your own television show-which I hear went well, by the way.”

“Thanks. We try.”

“But you can’t do all that and at the same time be the force behind something like your cemetery plan. And you can’t do any of it if you don’t clean up your act. Wake up, huh?”

Waking up would be great, except that the cops had taken his fucking pills. “So let someone else take care of the dirty work,” Fredo said. “Rocco could do it. Or you know who’d be perfect? Nick Geraci. After it’s all legit, I’d be in charge. It was my idea, Tom.”

“Ideas,” Hagen said, “are shit. It’s knowing what to do with an idea that matters.”

“I know what to fucking do with my idea, okay? I know how to put it in place. I know how to run the fucking operation once it’s in place. My problem is, you won’t let me do it.”

Hagen started to say something.

“Say it,” Fredo said. “Say it’s not you stopping me, it’s Mike. Goddamn it, Tom, he takes advantage of you worse than he does me. We’re both older than him. We both got passed over, and why?”

Hagen frowned.

“You’re not Italian,” Fredo said, “and you’re not blood either, so fine, that complicates things, but not to the point of making you automatically into his errand boy.”

“I should have let you cool your heels in there, you ungrateful prick. Maybe you’d like it in jail.”

“Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Hagen closed his eyes. “Nothing.”

“What’s wrong, you afraid?”

Hagen didn’t say anything.

“I asked you a question, goddamnit.”

“Are you going to hit me, Fredo? Go ahead.”

“I know what you’re trying to say, Tom. Just say it. This is about that kid, the thief in San Fran.” Fredo hadn’t had to kill a guy to get initiated into the business. Dean the beatnik was the first person Fredo had ever killed. If only the kid hadn’t remembered that old photo of Fredo crying on the curb. Fredo had pretended not to know anything about it. He had the kind of face that looked like a lot of people, he’d told Dean. But the kid wouldn’t drop it. Fredo smothered the kid with a pillow, got him dressed, and beat up the corpse to make it look good. Nice kid, but the fact remained, he was a pervert. Not someone just messing around but a guy who thought of himself as a faggot. It was sick. At the time, Fredo had been in such a panic about being recognized that the whole business had been easy. Getting out of it had been harder, but that had come out all right, too. “Don’t keep looking at me like that. Say it.”

“I’m not trying to say a goddamned thing,” Hagen said. “ San Francisco, as far as I’m concerned, is ancient history.”

“You’re really starting to piss me off, Tom.”

“Starting?”

Fredo threw a punch. Tom caught it with his left hand, wrenched Fredo’s arm around, then buried his fist in Fredo’s gut with such force Fredo left his feet. Tom let go of the arm. Fredo staggered and then fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

“I fucking hate you, Tom,” Fredo finally said, still panting.

“You what?”

“The minute you walked in our house,” Fredo said, “you were Pop’s favorite.”

“C’mon, Fredo. How old are you?”

“Mike was Ma’s,” he said, his breathing slowing. “Sonny didn’t need nobody, and Connie’s a girl. You know, I was Pop’s favorite until you got there. Did you know that? You ever think of that? Did you ever care? What you took was mine. ”

“This is a hell of a thing to say to the guy you’re counting on to fix the mess you made.”

“What’s it matter what I say?” Fredo said. “You’ll do it anyway. You’ll do whatever Mike tells you to.”

“I’m loyal to this family.”

“Bullshit. You’re just loyal to him.”

“Listen to yourself, Fredo.”

He stood up, then charged. Hagen ’s second punch caught Fredo square on the chin and dropped him flat on his back in a bed of Asian jasmine.

“Had enough?”

Fredo sat up and rubbed his hands over his gray, stubbly face. He took several deep breaths. “I haven’t slept,” he said, “y’know, really slept, for I don’t know. Days.”

Hagen took out a cigar and lit it. He got a good draw going and then extended his hand. Fredo, still kneeling, looked up at it for a long time, then finally took it.

“Cigar?” Hagen asked, reaching for his breast pocket.

“No thanks,” Fredo said.

Hagen nodded. “Go up and see your wife, Fredo.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Anyway, she’s not up there.”

“Where else would she be? They’re not filming today.”

“She’s up there?”

Hagen patted Fredo on the shoulder. “I love you, Fredo. You know that, right?”

Fredo shrugged. “I love you, too, Tommy,” he said, “but at the same time-”

“We’ve been over that,” Tom said. “Forget about it.”

“I guess how could it be any other way, with brothers, huh?”

Hagen cocked his head in a way that indicated maybe, maybe not.

“Nice reflexes, by the way,” Fredo said. “Catching that punch.”

“Lots of coffee,” Hagen said.

“Oughta cut back on that stuff,” Fredo said. “It’ll kill you.”

“Just go. Rest up. Everything’s going to be fine.”

For a time, however briefly, Hagen was right.

Deanna greeted him at the door. She kissed him again and again and ran a hot bath in the huge tub. He soaked in it as she shaved him.

She was, yes, one of the most honored actresses of her generation, but Fredo was convinced that the ardor he’d sparked by standing up for her, by fighting for her, couldn’t be faked. In their whole time together, they’d never had a better time in bed.

“So how’d a bum like me wind up with you, huh?” he asked afterward.

She sighed in a way that sounded happy. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” she said.

“What about here?” he said.

“ Definitely look there. Get close and take a good lick around. I mean look.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re right,” she purred, hands pressed firmly against the back of his head. “I don’t.”