The Family Corleone (14 page)

Mariposa was dapper as always in a rose-colored dress shirt with a white collar and a gold stickpin instead of a tie. His hair was parted in the middle and snow white in contrast to a black jacket and vest. He was slim and in his early sixties, though he looked
younger. Tomasino was fifty-four, a hairy, lumbering hulk who gave the appearance of a dressed-up ape. Alongside him, Ettore and Carmine were a couple of skinny kids.

Frankie Pentangeli leaned forward over the table. Balding and round faced with bushy eyebrows and a mustache that covered his lip, he had a voice that sounded like it originated in a gravel pit. “Hey, Tomasino,” he said. He opened his mouth and pointed to one of his back teeth. “I think I got a cavity back here.”

The table broke into laughter.

“You want me to fix it for you?” Tomasino said. “You tell me when.”

“No, thank you,” Frankie said. “I got my own dentist.”

Giuseppe picked up his drink and pointed to the canary on the bandstand. “You think I should take that one home with me tonight?” he asked, speaking to the whole table.

Frankie twisted around to get a look.

“I think maybe I need a backrub,” Giuseppe said. He massaged one of his shoulders. “I’m a little sore right here,” he added, drawing laughs.

Emilio said, “The boyfriend won’t like it.” With one hand, he played with a tumbler of bourbon, which he’d been nursing for an hour, and with the other he tugged at his wing collar and straightened out a black bow tie. He was a handsome man with dark hair he wore brushed back off his forehead in a pompadour.

Giuseppe asked, “Which one’s the boyfriend?”

“The little guy,” Carmine Rosato said. “The guy with the clarinet.”

“Huh…” Mariposa watched the clarinet player and then turned abruptly to face Emilio. “What are we doing about this Corleone business?” he asked.

Emilio said, “I sent a couple of my boys to talk to Clemenza and—”

“And still we got another shipment ’jacked.” Mariposa gripped his whiskey glass as if he might throw it at someone.

“They swear they have nothing to do with it,” Emilio said. He sipped his bourbon, looking over the glass at Mariposa.

“It’s either Clemenza or else Vito himself. It’s got to be one of them,” Giuseppe said. “Who else?”

Frankie said, “Hey, Joe. Don’t you listen to our
paisan’
runnin for mayor? Crime’s rampant in the city.” He drew a laugh from Tomasino.

Mariposa looked at Tomasino and back to Frankie. He smiled and then laughed. “Fiorello LaGuardia,” he said, “that fat Neapolitan pig can kiss my Sicilian ass.” He pushed his drink away. “When I’m finished with LaConti, I’m going after that smooth-talkin’ piece of shit, Corleone.” He paused and looked around the table. “I’m takin’ care of Corleone and Clemenza now, before they get big enough to cause me serious trouble.” Mariposa blinked and then blinked again, which was something he did when he was nervous or angry. “They’re buyin’ up cops and judges like there’s a fire sale. An organization like that’s got plans.” He shook his head. “Those plans aren’t going to pan out.”

Ettore Barzini glanced across the table at his older brother. Emilio nodded to him, almost imperceptibly, a gesture between brothers. Ettore said, “It could be Tessio that’s ’jackin’ us, Joe.”

Mariposa said, “I’ll get around to Tessio.”

Tony Rosato, seated next to Emilio, cleared his throat. He’d been quiet most of the night, and the others all turned to look at him. He was a bruiser, an athletic, muscular figure with short, dark hair and blue eyes. “Forgive me, Don Mariposa,” he said, “but I don’t understand. Why don’t we make this punk Brasi tell us what he knows?”

Frankie Pentangeli snorted and Mariposa answered quickly, “I don’t want to be fuckin’ around with Luca Brasi. I hear stories about him gettin’ shot and walkin’ away.” He finished off his drink, his eyelids fluttering, and said, “I don’t want anything to do with him.”

Giuseppe had raised his voice enough to catch the attention of the musicians. They stopped what they were doing to look toward the booth before catching themselves and quickly getting back to their own conversation.

Tomasino unbuttoned his collar, loosened his tie, and scratched his neck. “I know where I can find Luca Brasi,” he said, and then
stopped and put his hand over his heart as if something had suddenly pained him. “
Agita
,” he said to the others, who were watching him. “I know some birds did business with him, ” he went on. “You want me to, I’ll go talk to him.”

Mariposa eyed Tomasino for a moment, and then turned to Emilio and Tony. “Corleone and Clemenza—and Genco Abbandando. I’m gonna get them all now, while they’re still easy to get. A lot of their income comes from things other than hooch—and that’s gonna make them a problem after repeal.” He shook his head again, meaning that’s not how things were going to turn out. “I want their businesses, including Vito’s olive oil business,” he said. “When this crap with LaConti is over, they’re next.” He turned to Frankie Pentangeli. “You know Vito. You worked with him coming up, no?”

Frankie closed his eyes and turned his head slightly, a gesture that admitted to knowing Vito but equivocated. “Sure I know Vito,” he said.

“You have any problem with this?”

“Vito’s an arrogant son of a bitch. He’s stuck-up, like he’s better than the rest of us. The stupid bastard thinks he’s the Italian Vanderbilt or some such baloney.” Frankie stirred his drink with his finger. “I got no use for him.”

“Good!” Mariposa slapped the table, closing the subject. He turned to Tomasino. “Go visit this evil son of a bitch, Luca Brasi,” he said, “but take a couple of the boys with you. I don’t like the stories I hear about this
bastardo
.”

Tomasino pulled at his collar and dug down to scratch at the straps of his undershirt. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Giuseppe pointed at Carmine and Ettore. “See this?” he said. “You boys can learn something.” He poured himself a fresh drink from a bottle of Canadian whiskey. “Emilio,” he said, “do me a favor. Go have a little talk with that clarinet player.” He gestured across the table. “And you, Carmine. Go bring that broad over here.” To the rest of them he said, “All right, boys. Find something to keep you busy.”

Giuseppe sipped his drink while the table cleared. He watched as
the clarinet player disappeared through a doorway with Emilio. Carmine talked to the canary in the red sequined dress, and the singer looked behind her, where her boyfriend had been. Carmine said a few more words to her. When she looked to the table, Giuseppe raised his glass and smiled. Carmine put his hand on the girl’s back and guided her across the room.

Donnie O’Rourke waited under the green awning of Paddy’s Bar while a sudden downpour washed over the sidewalk and a little river of rainwater rushed along the curb and cascaded into a sewer that was rapidly getting clogged with newspapers and trash. He took off his derby and brushed away beads of water. Across the street two older women with brown paper bags in their arms were chatting in an open doorway, while a child ran up and down the stairs behind them. One of the women looked in his direction and then quickly looked away. The sun, which had been shining a few minutes earlier, looked like it would make a triumphant return once the storm clouds passed. When he saw his younger brother turn the corner and approach at a jog under a black umbrella, Donnie put his hands on his hips and turned to face him. He said, “You’d be late to your own funeral,” as soon his brother was out of the rain and under the awning.

Willie O’Rourke closed up the umbrella and shook it off. He was an inch or so shorter than his brother and as thin and frail as Donnie was thick and brawny. Willie’d been sickly as a child and a young man, and only now, in his early thirties, had he come into relatively good health, though he was still prone to catching whatever illness was going around—and there was always something going around. Donnie was seven years older than Willie, as much a father to him as a brother—and to their youngest brother, Sean, too, who was still in his twenties. Their parents were drunks who had made the children’s lives miserable until Donnie put an end to the beatings and abuse when he turned fifteen and gave his father a shellacking that landed the old man in the hospital overnight. After that there was never any question about who ran things in the house. Neither Sean
nor Kelly, the baby of the family, had ever gone to bed bruised and hungry—something that had been common for Donnie and Willie.

Willie said, “I had to go back for the umbrella, didn’t I? You know how easily I take cold.” He closed up the umbrella and hooked it over his arm.

Behind them, Sean came out of Paddy’s with a big smile on his face. The boy was always smiling. He was the only handsome one of the three of them, having inherited his mother’s good looks. “You’d better get in there,” he said to Donnie. “Rick Donnelly and Corr Gibson are about to kill each other over something or other that happened twenty years ago. Jesus,” he added, “if you don’t get in there soon the shootin’s bound to start.”

“We’re comin’,” Donnie said. “Go pour everyone another round.”

“Sure,” Sean said, “that’s just what they need, another round of drinks.” He disappeared into the bar. The O’Rourke brothers, Donnie and Willie, were famous teetotalers. Sean took a drink now and then, but nothing more. Kelly, however, inherited her parents’ disposition toward liquor, and Donnie and his brothers had never been able to do a thing about it. She’d been beyond anyone’s control since she turned into a beauty by the age of sixteen.

“I’ll do all the talkin’,” Donnie said.

“And when’s that ever been different?”

“Are you heeled?”

“Sure,” Willie said, and he touched the gun he was carrying snug under his jacket. “You thinkin’ I’ll need it?”

“Nah,” Donnie said, “just for safety’s sake.”

“I still think you’re out of your mind. You’re hell-bent to get us all killed, is what I think.”

“Never mind what you think,” Donnie said.

Once inside Paddy’s, Donnie pulled down green shades over plate-glass windows and locked the door, while Willie joined the others at the bar. Rick Donnelly and Corr Gibson were laughing and patting each other on the back. Donnie watched as they clinked their beer mugs, sloshing foam over the rims, and downed their pints in a few swallows, followed by their own and the others’ laughter. Whatever
they’d been arguing about had been happily resolved, to the relief of everyone, especially Rick’s brother Billy, who was sitting across the bar. Rick, in his early forties, was several years older than Billy, but they looked so alike they could have been mistaken as twins. Billy took his hand out of his jacket pocket and sipped his beer. Pete Murray and Little Stevie Dwyer were seated in front of the bar, facing the mirrors and shelves of liquor, and then Corr Gibson, finished with Rick Donnelly, joined them and sat beside Murray. Pete was the old man among them at fifty. An on-and-off dockworker all his life, he had arms like cannons. Little Stevie Dwyer, seated on the other side of Pete, looked like a choirboy in comparison. Between all of them, Corr Gibson best played the part of an Irish gangster, in his swank suit and spats, and with his black lacquered shillelagh, which he held by the knot at the top of it, like a gentleman’s cane.

“Boys!” Donnie shouted as he made his way to the bar. He slapped Billy Donnelly on the shoulder as he walked past him. When he was behind the bar and facing everyone, he put his hands together as if in prayer and intoned solemnly, “We’re all gathered together this day—” When he got the roar of laughter he expected, he took the moment to draw himself a pint of beer.

“Father O’Rourke,” Corr Gibson said, and he tapped his shillelagh on the bar top. “Will you be deliverin’ a speech to us now, Father?”

“No speeches,” Donnie said, and he took a small sip of beer. Everyone knew he didn’t drink, but they seemed to appreciate the gesture of camaraderie offered by his holding a mug in his hand and pretending. “Listen, boys,” he said, “I didn’t ask all you birds to take time out of your busy days and pay me a visit here at Paddy’s because I want money from you, so you should know that to begin with.”

“Then what are we doing here?” Corr asked. “Don’t tell me you’re running for city alderman, now, Donnie.”

“Nah,” Donnie said, “I’m not runnin’ for nothin’, Corr—and isn’t that exactly the point, though?” He looked at the faces of the men surrounding him. They were all quiet, waiting to hear what he’d say next. The sound of rain against the building and on the street mixed with the swish of the ceiling fans. “Isn’t that exactly the point,” he
repeated, liking the sound of it. “I’m here because I’m done runnin’,” he said, “and what I’m doing here today is letting you—my esteemed colleagues—in on my plans. I’ve already talked to Pete Murray and the Donnelly boys, and I’ve had a word here and there with the rest of you.” He gestured to each of the men at the bar with his mug. “You all know my mind,” he said, raising his voice. “It’s time we showed these wops who’ve been taking away our businesses one by one, till all we’re left with is whatever dirty work they don’t want, or whatever rackets they haven’t gotten around to takin’ from us yet. It’s time we showed ’em what’s what and kicked their guinea asses back into their own dago neighborhoods and out of ours.”

Around the bar, the men were solemn. They looked down at their beers or blankly back at Donnie.

“Listen,” Donnie said, all the speech making vanished from him. “We’ve let Luca Brasi and Pete Clemenza and the rest of those dagos come into our neighborhoods and take over the policy business, the gamblin’, the women, the booze—everything. They did it by bustin’ heads and puttin’ a few guys in the ground, like Terry O’Banion and Digger McLean. And the rest of us stood for it. We didn’t want a bloodbath and we figured we could still make a good living—but I tell you, these guineas won’t be satisfied till they’re runnin’ every fuckin’ thing in the whole city. And what I’m sayin’ is, all we got to do to keep our piece of the action is quit lyin’ down and show ’em we’re willing to fight.” Donnie paused before he spoke again into the silence. “My brothers and I plan to take on Luca Brasi and his boys. We’re set on it,” he said, and he placed his beer mug down on the bar.