Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

ROBERT CHADWICK: I do. I certainly hope so. I’ve actually known him since prep school. He’s a great leader, a great friend. A war hero, as you may know. He’s done wonderful things for New Jersey, and I think in all honesty that America needs a man like this, someone young and smart who can inspire people and take us into the space age. Not to get on a soapbox, but you asked.

FRED CORLEONE: What? Oh. I did. No, I agree with you. This is not a political show, but I’m an American, and so I have my opinions. The opinions expressed by guests on this show or even the host do not necessarily represent blah, blah, blah. However that goes. Anyway, maybe we should get into another topic.

ROBERT CHADWICK: I’m an American, too, old boy.

FRED CORLEONE: You are? I thought-

ROBERT CHADWICK: Since I was twelve years old.

FRED CORLEONE: That’s tremendous. I want to hear about how it is that you and Fontane and all your buddies-Gene Jordan, J. J. White, Jr.-

ROBERT CHADWICK: Morrie Streator, Buzz Fratello.

FRED CORLEONE: Right. You guys are staying up all night doing your act onstage at that casino which I don’t want to name right now-

ROBERT CHADWICK: The Kasbah.

FRED CORLEONE: -and then filming a movie all day?

ROBERT CHADWICK: It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s been a total gas.

FRED CORLEONE: What do you do in a nightclub act?

ROBERT CHADWICK ( laughing ): Precious little.

FRED CORLEONE: Seriously?

ROBERT CHADWICK: I don’t sing, and I certainly can’t dance. What I do is, I go up onstage, have a few drinks, and tell a few blue jokes. I assure you, they’re ba-a-a-a-a-ad jokes. People laugh, though. When you’re having that much fun, it’s contagious.

FRED CORLEONE: I’ll get back to that in a minute, but before we go to commercial, I want to ask you about the movie you’re making, because I hear that you and Fontane, Gino, Buzz, all your friends-that you think you’re gonna rob all the casinos in Vegas.

ROBERT CHADWICK: It’s only a movie, old boy.

FRED CORLEONE: No, I understand that, obviously, having-

ROBERT CHADWICK: You were brilliant in Ambush at Durango, by the way. Gave me chills.

FRED CORLEONE: Thank you. What I’m saying is that I wonder how you’re going to pull off your big caper. My thinking is that either you’ll do it in a way that could never work in real life, in which case it’ll seem ridiculous to people. Or else- and here’s my question-you do have a realistic way of doing it, but then you run the risk of someone copying you.

ROBERT CHADWICK: You’re having me on, right? Is that a question?

FRED CORLEONE ( shrugging ): It’s a valid point, I think.

ROBERT CHADWICK: You want me to tell you how we do it? How they do it? In the movie?

FRED CORLEONE: I do. That would be interesting.

ROBERT CHADWICK: It would be. But then who’d go see the movie?

FRED CORLEONE: Lots of people would see a movie like that. Whattaya say, folks, you want to hear how they pull their, whatever. Their heist, I think is the right word. How ’bout it?

(Recorded applause)

ROBERT CHADWICK: Cute. The problem is, Freddie-and all you good people out there, too-the problem is that I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

FRED CORLEONE ( stares at him, frowning; an excruciatingly long silence )

ROBERT CHADWICK: Yikes. ( Calling out. ) Footwear! Bring me a 12D Italian loafer in a nice gray cement, extra heavy. Send the bill to this fellow.

FRED CORLEONE: We’ll be right back.

ROBERT CHADWICK: At least one of us will.

Two days later, Fredo Corleone went to Lake Tahoe to attend to some details in the wake of his mother’s death. He had also promised to take his nephew Anthony fishing.

The boy lived on a lake, but his own father never took him. Uncle Fredo took him whenever he was in town. Anthony was eight years old and crazy about Uncle Fredo.

Anthony loved to fish, but he’d never wanted to go fishing more than he did that day. His parents were splitting up, and he had a sneaking suspicion that it was somehow his fault. If he’d been a better boy, maybe none of the bad things that happened would have happened. Now he and his little sister weren’t even allowed to stay with their mother. She was moving away. He was staying here, with his father who was gone all the time, in this scary house that a few months earlier had been fired upon by men with tommy guns. A lot of the bullet holes were still there if a person knew where to look. Anthony was the kind of boy who knew where to look.

An hour after his mother said good-bye to him, Anthony got into the boat with Uncle Fredo and Al Neri, who worked for Anthony’s father. Mr. Neri had said to call him Uncle Al, but he wasn’t really Anthony’s uncle. Anthony thought that might be a sin and so never did it. That was how the Devil caught you, he’d learned at Sunday school. With little tricks like that.

Mr. Neri fired up the motor. Uncle Fredo had a secret way of catching fish that they were going to try out. Anthony didn’t like the idea of letting Mr. Neri in on the secret, but he was so eager to get out on the water he wasn’t about to complain. Anthony was as happy as a completely miserable little boy could be.

Right as they were about to shove off, Aunt Connie came running down the dock, shouting that Anthony’s father needed to take him to Reno. Anthony started to complain, but Uncle Fredo got a hard look on his face and said that Anthony had to go. He promised to take him tomorrow instead. The boy, devastated, nodded and tried not to let on.

Aunt Connie took Anthony back to the house. Everyone had said bad things about her until a few months ago. Now she was going to be the person who took care of Anthony and his little sister every day. She was no good at taking care of her own kids, as far as Anthony could see.

Once they got inside, Aunt Connie sent him to his room. He asked about Reno. She said she didn’t know about Reno, just go. He went.

From his bedroom window, the boy watched Mr. Neri and Uncle Fredo ride away. After they disappeared from view, he stayed there, even though there was nothing to see. Anthony was alone. He didn’t cry. He promised himself he’d never cry, no matter what happened to him. He would be a good boy always, and maybe his parents would love each other again.

Minutes later, he heard a gunshot.

Soon after that, Mr. Neri came back in the boat alone.

Anthony sobbed. He didn’t stop crying for days.

During his parents’ contentious divorce, the boy summoned the courage to confront his father with what he’d seen. Michael Corleone dropped his demand for custody of his two children, which was awarded to Kay Adams Corleone.

The cold waters of Lake Tahoe often prevent the formation of the internal gases that make corpses float. The body of Frederico Corleone was never found. His nephew never again went fishing.

I T IS SAID that babies bring their own luck, and so it was with Michael Corleone. The Corleones were mired in poverty, living in a Hell’s Kitchen tenement. Railroad tracks ran right down the middle of the street. Day and night, freight trains rumbled by, loaded with animals headed for slaughter. Children clamored for the chance to play cowboy, to mount a horse and warn pedestrians to get out of the way. Every week, one or two failed to hear.

Since Santino’s birth ten years earlier, Carmela had suffered four miscarriages. The baby who’d survived, Frederico, had been sickly all five years of his life. Vito was working six days a week in a corner grocery store owned by his adoptive parents. To make ends meet, he’d helped his friends Clemenza and Tessio hijack a truck, only to find that a bullying neighborhood dandy named Fanucci expected an extortionist portion of the proceeds. Weeks before Michael was born, Vito’s murder of Fanucci-widely suspected but only furtively discussed-brought Vito the respect of a grateful neighborhood. With a minimum of words, he began sorting out conflicts and protecting store owners from hoodlums and the police.