Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

He surfaced. He swam a couple laps to limber up, then took a deep breath and went under again. He repeated the drill three more times and got out. At the end of the deck, on the far edge of the roof, was a billboard: HAVE A BLAST! BEST VIEW OF THE BOMB IN LAS VEGAS! Underneath a painting of a purple-orange mushroom cloud, on movable letters, was a time, tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning. Johnny had heard they were going to set up a bar, a breakfast buffet, even crown some broad Miss Atomic Bombshell. What sort of sucker would get up at dawn to watch a bomb go off sixty miles away? Maybe they think they’ll start to glow and set off the slot machines. People want to pay to watch a bomb, they ought to go see Johnny’s last picture. He grabbed his robe and took the stairs two at a time, down to his room.

She was gone. Rita. Good kid. The room still smelled like whiskey, smokes, and pussy. The statue of the naked lady in the fountain, whose outflung arm had seemed at the time like it was made to hold on to, needed repairs. He got dressed and-just to make sure he didn’t nod off on the way to L.A.-took one of the little green pills Dr. Jules Segal had prescribed.

Johnny Fontane emerged into the brutal sunlight of the Castle’s VIP parking lot and did not flinch. He grabbed his lapels, so sharp they could cut meat, straightened his jacket, and climbed into his new red Thunderbird. The cops here knew this car. He had that ’Bird going over a hundred before he even left town. He checked his watch. In a couple hours, the musicians would start trickling into the studio. They’d spend an hour tuning and gassing, then for another hour or so Eddie Neils, his musical director this time out, would have them rehearsing. Johnny should make it in time. Lay down the first few tracks, get to the airport by six, hop on the charter along with Falcone and Gussie Cicero, and be back here in plenty of time for the private show he said he’d do for Michael Corleone.

It wasn’t until four in the morning-after he arrived, exhausted, at the guest suites at the Vista del Mar Golf and Racquet Club-that Tom Hagen realized he’d forgotten his racquet. The pro shop didn’t open until nine, the same time Hagen was supposed to meet the Ambassador on Court 14. Hagen couldn’t bear to be late. He asked the desk clerk if he might borrow a racquet, and the clerk looked at him as though he’d tracked mud on the lobby’s white carpeting. He told the man he had an early court time and asked if there was any way to get in the pro shop now, and the clerk shook his head and said he didn’t have a key. Hagen asked if there was anything that could be done, either now or at some time before eight-thirty tomorrow, and the clerk apologized and said no. Hagen took out two hundred-dollar bills and told the clerk he’d be grateful if there was anything humanly possible that could be done, and the man just smirked.

Hagen had begun yesterday in his own bed in Las Vegas, then, before dawn, flown with Michael Corleone to Detroit, first for a meeting with Joe Zaluchi on his daughter’s wedding day, then the wedding itself, an appearance at the reception, and finally a flight back to Vegas. Mike had been able to go home and go to sleep. Hagen went to the office for an hour of paperwork and then a quick stop home, to change and to kiss his sleeping daughter, Gianna, who’d just turned two, and his wife, Theresa, who’d become an art collector and was excited about a Jackson Pollock that had just arrived from her dealer in New York. His boys, Frank and Andrew, were teenagers, each behind a closed door in a bedroom strewn with science fiction paperbacks and records by Negroes, both of them unkissable now.

As Tom Hagen packed his tennis gear, Theresa walked around their new house holding the gorgeous, paint-splattered thing in front of various white walls. She’d taken advantage of the move to Las Vegas and the expanses of blank surfaces to go on a buying spree. The paintings were worth several times more than the house itself. He loved being married to a woman with taste. “What about opposite the red Rothko in the center hallway?” she called.

“What about the bedroom?” he said.

“You think?” she said.

“Just a thought,” he said. He met her gaze and cocked an eyebrow to indicate that it wasn’t the location of the painting he was talking about.

She sighed. “Maybe you’re right.” She set down the painting and took his hand.

Marriage.

But he’d been far too tired, and things hadn’t gone particularly well.

Hagen was no longer the Corleone consigliere, but with the death of Vito Corleone-who’d succeeded Hagen in the job-and with Tessio dead, too, and Clemenza in the process of taking over in New York, Michael needed an experienced hand. He was waiting to announce a new consigliere until he felt sure the war with the Barzinis and Tattaglias was definitely over. Michael had something up his sleeve, but all Hagen had been able to figure out was that it had something to do with Cleveland. In the meantime, Hagen was still doing his old job and trying to move on to his next thing, too. He was forty-five years old, older than either of his parents had been when they’d died and definitely too old for this shit.

Now he rose to the knock of the room service he’d had the foresight to order before going to bed. He downed the first cup of coffee before the door closed behind the bellboy. Weak. The way it was everywhere out here. Hagen congratulated himself for guessing beforehand that he’d need two carafes. He took the first one out on the balcony. Eight A.M., the sun barely over the mountains, and already it was baking hot. Who needed a sauna? By the time Hagen finished the first pot of coffee-ten minutes, give or take-the robe that had come with the room was soaked.

Hagen shaved, showered, dressed in his tennis clothes, and was standing outside the pro shop at eight-thirty, waiting for someone to arrive. After a few interminable minutes, he went back to the desk. A different clerk said that the manager was here now and he’d page him.

Hagen went back outside the pro shop. The wait was excruciating. If there was one thing he’d learned from Vito Corleone-and what hadn’t he learned from him?-it was promptness. He paced back and forth and dared not go to the men’s room for fear he’d miss the manager or some other arriving employee. When finally someone came to open up-a Slavic woman who looked more like a masseuse than a manager or club pro-it was nine on the dot.

Hagen grabbed a racquet, slapped two hundred dollars on the front counter, and told her to keep the change.

“We don’t take cash,” she said. “You have to sign for it.”

“Where do I sign?”

“Are you a member? I don’t recognize you.”

“I’m a guest of Ambassador Shea’s.”

“He needs to be the one to sign for it. Him or a family member or his valet.” She pronounced it to rhyme with mallet.

Hagen took out another hundred and said that if she could find it in her heart to straighten all this out, there was more than enough money here for the racquet and her time.

She looked at him the same way last night’s clerk had, but she took the money.

Hagen thought his bladder would burst, but by now it was five after nine. He tore the cardboard off the racquet and broke into a dead sprint. Those exact words occurred to him -dead sprint.

When he got to Court 14, ten minutes late, there was no one there. He was so rarely late that he had no idea what to do. Had the Ambassador already been here and left? Was he late, too? How long should Hagen wait? Would it make sense to go take a leak and come back? He looked around. A lot of bushes, but this wasn’t the sort of place where a guy ought to be pissing in the bushes. So he stood there, hopping from foot to foot, holding it. Surely, the Ambassador had come and gone. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, and he ran to the nearest men’s room. When he got back to the Court 14, a note was pinned to the net. Ambassador Shea-unable to play tennis this a.m. Late brunch? 2. Poolside. A man will pick you up.