The Family Corleone (53 page)

“Yeah,” Michael’s voice came back, muffled. Then he peeled the covers back and stuck his head out. “I sneaked a newspaper from downstairs,” he said, and he showed Fredo a copy of the
Mirror
. On the cover was a picture of a little kid lying on the sidewalk, his arm hanging over the curb, and over the picture was the huge headline: “Gangland Massacre!”

“Holy cow!” Fredo said, and leapt out of his bed and onto Michael’s. “What’s it say?” He snatched the paper and the flashlight away from Michael.

“It says Pop’s a gangster. It says he’s a big shot in the Mafia.”

Fredo turned the page and saw a picture of his father being pushed into a paddy wagon. “Pop says there’s no such thing as the Mafia,” he said, and then he saw a picture of Richie Gatto on his face in the street, his arms and legs twisted, blood all around him. “That’s Richie,” he said, softly.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “Richie’s dead.”

“Richie’s dead?” Fredo said. “Did you see him get shot?” he asked, and then he dropped the newspaper as the bedroom door opened.

“What are you two doing?” Carmella demanded. She came into the bedroom wearing a blue robe over a white nightgown, her hair unpinned and falling to her shoulders. “Where did you get this?” She picked up the newspaper from the bed, folded it in half, and held it to her breast as if trying to hide it.

“Michael snuck it up from downstairs,” Fredo said.

Michael gave Fredo a look and then turned to his mother and nodded.

“Did you read it?” she asked.

“Michael did,” Fredo said. “Is Richie really dead?”

Carmella crossed herself and was silent, though her expression and the tears that came to her eyes were answer enough.

Fredo said, “But Pop’s okay, right?”

“Didn’t you see him yourself?” Carmella stuffed the folded newspaper into the pocket of her robe and then took Fredo by the arm and led him back to his bed. To Michael she said, “You can’t believe what you read in the newspapers.”

Michael said, “They say Pop’s a big shot in the Mafia. Is that true?”

“The Mafia,” Carmella said, pulling her robe tight. “Everything with Italians, it’s always the Mafia. Would a Mafia know congressmen like your father does?”

Michael pushed his hair off his forehead and seemed to think about this. “I’m not doing my report on Congress,” he said. “I changed my mind.”

“What are you talking about, Michael? All the work you’ve done!”

“I’ll find another subject.” Michael settled himself into his bed, pulling the covers up over him.

Carmella took a step back. She shook her head at Michael, as if disappointed in him. She wiped tears from her eyes. “I hear another sound from in here,” she said to Fredo, “I’ll tell your father.” She said it halfheartedly and then hesitated, watching her boys.

When she left the room, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her, she found Tom waiting at the head of the stairs. “
Madon’!
” she said, joining him. “Isn’t anybody sleeping tonight?”

Tom sat down on the top step and Carmella joined him. “Are the boys upset?” he asked.

“They know Richie’s dead,” she answered, and she pulled the
Mirror
from the pocket of her robe and looked at the picture of the dead child on the cover.

Tom took the newspaper from her. “I should be out on Long Island with the rest of the men.” He rolled the paper into a tight little tube and tapped the edge of the step with it. “They leave me here with the boys.”

“
Per caritá!
” Carmella said. “God forbid you’re out there too.”

“Sonny’s out there,” Tom said, and at that Carmella turned away. “Sonny wouldn’t let me fight,” he went on, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. He sounded as though he might be talking to himself. “He held me down like I was a kid.”

“Sonny was looking out for you,” Carmella said. She gazed off into the distance. “Sonny’s always looked out for you.”

“I know that,” Tom said. “I’d like to return the favor, now I’m grown. Sonny could use a little looking after himself now.”

Carmella took Tom’s hand and held it in both of hers. Her eyes filled again with tears.

“Mama,” Tom said. “I want to be there to help. I want to help the family.”

Carmella squeezed Tom’s hand. “Pray for them,” she said. “Pray for Vito and Sonny. It’s all in God’s hands,” she said. “Everything.”

L
uca parked on Tenth Street next to the river and walked past a line of shacks with wood and various junk piled on their makeshift roofs. The night was chilly, and a thin mist of smoke floated up from a crooked stovepipe sticking out of the last shack in the row. It was after two in the morning, and Luca was alone on the street. To one side of him were the shacks, and to the other, the river. He pulled his jacket tight and continued up the block, the shuffle of his footsteps the only sound other than wind over the water. When he turned the corner, JoJo and Paulie were waiting outside a busted door. They leaned against a brick wall, JoJo with a cigarette dangling from his lips, Paulie tapping the ash off a fat cigar.

“Are you sure—they’re in there?” Luca asked when he reached the boys.

“They already took some shots at us,” Paulie said, and he stuck the cigar in his mouth.

“We’re sittin’ ducks in there,” JoJo added. “Take a look.” He gestured to the door.

“What is this—place?”

“Slaughterhouse.”

Luca snorted. “Just like micks. Makin’ their stand—in a slaughterhouse. It’s only two of them?”

“Yeah, it’s the Donnellys,” Paulie said, the cigar still in his mouth.

“We chased ’em here,” JoJo said.

“They figure they just got to hold out a couple more hours.” Paulie chewed on his cigar.

“Then the workers start showing up,” JoJo said, finishing Paulie’s thought for him.

Luca peeked into the slaughterhouse. The floor was mostly empty, with a web of hooks dangling over conveyor belts. Catwalks crisscrossed the building, midway up the walls. “Where are they?” he asked.

“Somewhere up there,” JoJo said. “Poke your head in, they’ll start shooting at you.”

“You got—no idea?”

“They’re moving around,” Paulie said. “They got the advantage up there.”

Luca looked into the slaughterhouse again and found a ladder against a near wall that led up to the catwalks. “There another—way in?”

“Other side of the building,” JoJo said. “Vinnie’s over there.”

Luca pulled a .38 out of his shoulder holster. “Go with Vinnie—When you’re ready—bust in firing. Don’t have to aim at nothing—don’t have to hit nothing.” Luca checked his gun. “Just make sure—you’re shooting up—not across—so you don’t hit me.”

“You want us to keep them distracted,” JoJo said, “and you come at ’em from this side?”

Luca snatched the cigar out of Paulie’s mouth and stubbed it out against the wall. “Go on,” he said to both of them. “Hurry up. I’m startin’ to get tired.”

When the boys were out of sight, Luca took a second pistol from his jacket pocket and looked it over. It was a new gun, a .357 Magnum with a black cylinder and long barrel. He removed a bullet from one of the chambers, popped it back in, and then looked into the slaughterhouse again. The interior of the building was dimly lit by a series of lights hanging from the ceiling. They cast a puzzle of shadows over the walls and floor. While he watched, a door on the opposite side of the building flew open and a storm of muzzle flashes
sparked out of the darkness. Up on the catwalks, Luca spotted more barrel flashes coming from opposite sides of the building, and he made a dash for the ladder. He was already up on the catwalk and halfway across the space between him and a pile of crates barricading one of the Donnellys when Rick yelled from the other side of the building, warning Billy of Luca’s approach. Billy managed to get off two shots, the second of which hit Luca in the chest, over his heart, nearly knocking the wind out of him. It felt like a big man landing a solid punch, though it wasn’t enough to bring him down, and a second later Luca was on top of Billy, knocking the gun out of his hand and wrapping his arm around his neck so that he couldn’t speak or make a sound other than a panicked guttural rumble. Luca gave himself a minute to recover as he held Billy in front of him like a shield.

“Billy!” Rick called from across the wide space between them.

JoJo and the boys had backed out onto the street. The slaughterhouse was quiet, Billy’s ragged breathing the only noise other than a constant low hum coming from someplace out of sight.

“Your brother’s okay,” Luca yelled. He knocked the piled-up crates aside with his free arm, sending a few tumbling the twenty or so feet to the floor below. “Come on out—Rick.” With the crates out of the way, he pushed Billy in front of him to the edge of the catwalk, up against the railing. He had one arm around Billy’s neck, the other dangling at his side, the revolver in his hand. When Rick didn’t answer or show himself, he said, “Jumpin’ Joe wants—to see you. He wants—to talk to you and Billy.”

“Ah, you’re so full of shit,” Rick said, “y’twisted freak.” He spoke as if Luca was sitting across the table from him. If not for a loud note of weariness, he would have sounded amused.

Luca pushed Billy against the railing, lifting him a little. Billy had relaxed a bit, and Luca loosened his grip, making it easier for the kid to breathe. “Come out now,” he said to Rick. “Don’t make me put—a bullet in your little brother. Giuseppe only—wants to talk.”

“Ah, you’re lyin’,” Rick said, still hidden behind a pile of crates. “You work for the Corleones now and everyone knows it.”

“I work for myself,” Luca said. “You Irish—should know that.”

Billy squirmed in Luca’s grasp and shouted, “He’s lying, Rick. Shoot the son of a bitch.”

“Okay, Billy,” Luca whispered into his ear. He jerked the kid off his feet and over the railing, and dangled him off the catwalk, where he squealed and kicked. To Rick, Luca said, “Say good-bye—to your kid brother,” and in that same instant, Rick knocked a pair of crates to the ground and showed himself with hands up over his head, palms facing Luca.

“Good,” Luca said. He let Billy drop as he raised his revolver and emptied the cylinder into Rick’s chest and guts. Rick jerked back and then forward and over the railing, where he landed in a heap on a conveyor belt.

On the floor beneath Luca, Billy groaned and tried to pick himself up, but his leg had broken ugly, part of the bone sticking out through his thigh. He puked and then passed out.

“Put ’em in cement shoes,” Luca said as JoJo stepped onto the floor of the slaughterhouse, followed by Paulie and Vinnie. “Drop ’em in the river,” he added, on his way to the ladder. He was tired and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

On the Romeros’ stoop, a half dozen or so men in cheap dark suits were talking to a pair of young women in cloche hats and clingy dresses inappropriate for a funeral. The girls’ outfits, Sonny figured, were probably all they owned in the way of anything dressy. He had parked around the corner and had watched the block for a half hour before deciding it was safe to make an appearance at Vinnie’s wake. The Corleone family had sent a wreath to the funeral parlor, and Sonny had five thousand dollars in a fat envelope in his jacket pocket that he wanted to deliver personally, though he had been ordered to stay away from the funerals, especially Vinnie’s funeral. Mariposa, according to Genco, wasn’t above snatching him at a wake. Sonny took a deep breath and felt the comforting bind of his shoulder holster.

Before he reached the stoop, the two girls noticed him approaching and hurried back into the building. By the time Sonny climbed
the front steps and started up a flight of stairs to the Romeros’ second-floor apartment, Angelo Romero and Nico Angelopoulos were waiting on the landing. In the dim light of the stairwell, Angelo’s face looked as though it had aged a dozen years. His eyes were bloodshot, red around the eyelids, and surrounded by dark circles the color of bruises. He looked as though he hadn’t slept since the parade. People’s voices speaking in hushed tones floated down the stairs. “Angelo,” Sonny said, and then he was surprised by the knot in his throat that made it impossible to say anything more. He hadn’t let himself think about Vinnie. The fact of his death was there in his mind like a checkmark. Check, Vinnie is dead. But there was nothing more than that, nothing he felt and nothing he’d let himself think about. As soon as he spoke Angelo’s name, though, something rushed up inside him and lodged in his throat and he couldn’t say anything more.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Angelo rubbed his eyes so hard he looked more like he was trying to crush them than trying to comfort himself. “I’m tired,” he said, and then, announcing the obvious, added, “I haven’t slept much.”

“He’s having dreams,” Nico said. He put his hand on Angelo’s shoulder. “He can’t sleep because of the dreams.”

Sonny managed to say, “I’m sorry, Angelo,” though he had to struggle to get the words out.

“Yeah,” Angelo said, “but you shouldn’t be here.”

Sonny swallowed hard and looked down the stairs to the street, where the dreary and overcast day was visible through a window in the front door. He found it easier to think about business, about details. “I checked things out before I came up,” he said. “There’s nobody watching the place or anything. I’ll be all right.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Angelo said. “I meant my family doesn’t want you here, my parents. You can’t come up to the wake. They won’t have it.”

Sonny gave himself a moment to let that sink in. “I brought this.” He pulled the envelope out of his jacket pocket. “It’s something,” he said, and extended the envelope to Angelo.

Angelo crossed his hands over his chest and ignored the offering. “I’m not coming back to work for your family,” he said. “Am I gonna have trouble?”

“Nah,” Sonny said, and he pulled the envelope away, let his hand drop to his side. “Why would you think that?” he said. “My father will understand.”

“Good,” Angelo said, and then he stepped closer to Sonny. He looked as though he might embrace him, but he stopped. “What were we thinking?” he asked, and the words came out of him like a plea. “That we were in the comic books, that we couldn’t really get hurt?” He waited, as if he truly hoped that Sonny might have an answer. When Sonny was silent, he continued. “I must have been dreamin’, that’s what it feels like, like we all must have been dreamin’, like we couldn’t really get hurt. We couldn’t really get killed, but…” He stopped and sighed, the long breath coming out of him as much a moan as a sigh, and the sound itself seemed to acknowledge Vinnie’s death, to accept it. He moved away, toward the stairs, his eyes still on Sonny. “I curse the day I met you,” he said, “you and your family,” and he said it evenly, without malice or anger. He walked back up the stairs and out of sight.