The Godfather Returns (16 page)

Michael took his seat. Fredo had been meant to perform the next part. Despite what people like Nick Geraci thought, Michael’s installation of his older brother as
sotto capo
had been more a means of encouragement than a job. Fredo had been given a few narrowly defined responsibilities, a small crew of reliable but mediocre men, a whorehouse in the desert, and some symbolic responsibilities, which he was discharging with his usual inconsistency. Michael was resigned to this. No matter how hard you beat a donkey, it will never become a racehorse.

Clemenza planted his cane on the floor, grunted loudly, and stood.

Undoubtedly, each of the thirteen already understood the formalities of this arrangement. But there were conventions to observe. Clemenza began by explaining the structure of the Family. Michael Corleone was the Godfather, whose authority is absolute. Frederico Corleone was the
sotto capo.
Rocco Lampone and himself, Pete Clemenza, were the
caporegime
s. Clemenza made no mention of the role of
consigliere.
This had been the case since the death of Genco Abbandando, first because Hagen, who was not Sicilian, could never participate in, observe, or even be mentioned in these ceremonies, then because during Vito’s brief stint as
consigliere,
the books had remained closed. Clemenza made no mention of Nick Geraci at all.

“Before you join us,” Clemenza said, “you gotta be clear on some things.” He switched to Sicilian and continued, hobbling around the perimeter of the thirteen. “This thing we have is not a thing of business. It is a thing of honor. If you agree to join, this thing of ours must come before country. It must come before God. It must come before your own wife, your own mother, your own children. If you are summoned and your mother is on her deathbed, you will kiss her fevered brow and leave to do the bidding of your superiors.”

He stopped in front of the chair where he’d started. He leaned forward on his cane, so far it seemed he might topple over. “Do you understand? Do you agree?”

The men unhesitatingly gave their assent.

In return, Clemenza nodded slowly and sat.

Michael again stood and, as if to compensate for Clemenza’s frailty, approached the tables with great, vigorous strides. He’d had too much to eat, too much to drink, too much to do, and too little sleep. Acid rose in his throat.

“There are,” he said, “two laws you must obey without question. You must never betray the secrets of this society, observing the ancient tradition of
omertà.
The penalty for violating this law is death. You must never violate the wife or children of another member. The penalty for violating this law is death. Do you vow, with your very life, to keep these laws?”

They did.

The older men would have noted the absence of a third law, sworn in every initiation Vito Corleone had performed:
You must never get involved in the narcotics trade.
No one said anything about this, not even a murmur.

“You come in alive,” Michael said, “and you go out dead.”

The day I asked you to marry me, Kay, I said our businesses would be legitimate in five years.

Michael approached Tommy Neri. “The instruments by which you live and die are the gun”—here Michael bit down on the cigar and picked up the Colt with one hand—“and the knife.” He picked up the dagger with the other. He set the weapons back down in front of Tommy, crossed over each other.

“Do you agree,” Michael said, “that, when called upon, you will use the gun and the knife to help this Family?”

“Yes, Godfather.”

Michael took a puff on his cigar and used it to light Tommy Neri’s votive candle. Then he pointed to Tommy’s right hand. Tommy extended it. Michael picked up the dagger, pricked Tommy’s trigger finger, folded it into his palm, and squeezed his fist hard, careful to apply the pressure away from the wound and thus increase the amount of blood.

One by one, the other twelve men gave the same answer and submitted to the same ritual.

Michael returned to the end of the table. He tapped Tommy’s closed fist. Tommy opened it, then brought both hands together, the bloody right and the clean left, turned his palms up and cupped them. Michael picked up the holy card of Saint Leolucas, lit it with the votive candle, and dropped it into Tommy Neri’s hands. “Back and forth,” he whispered.

Tommy juggled the flaming saint from hand to hand.

“If you
ever
betray your friends,” Michael said, “you will burn.” He blew a small puff of cigar smoke into Tommy’s unflinching face. “Like the picture of our beloved patron saint now burns your bloodied palm. Do you agree to this?”

“Yes, Godfather.”

Michael watched the card turn fully to ash. Then, tenderly as a lover, he rubbed the ash into Tommy’s palms, then kissed him, softly, on each cheek.

One by one, the other twelve men submitted to the same ritual and gave the same answer.

“You are now qualified men,” Michael finally said, “
Gli uomini qualificati.
Gentlemen, please introduce yourself to your brothers.”

The room exploded in a cacophony of congratulations, popping champagne corks, Italian toasts and benedictions. The men in the outer circle maintained their positions to ensure that the new members did in fact dutifully go around the room introducing themselves, kissing the cheeks of every man in the outer circle, missing no one. Michael had already kissed them. He ducked out the back door and down the stairs. He knew that what might greet him at home was news of the escalation of his troubles. But there was a chance his day was over. There was a chance he could get some rest and fight his fights with a clear head tomorrow. Already, he felt better, getting out of that room, away from the smoke and the liquor fumes. The only kisses he wanted were from his wife, his son, his daughter.

You go out dead.

He made it to the car. While he waited for Al Neri to collect the empty pistols and catch up to him, Michael felt his stomach lurch. For a moment he fought it. Then he dropped to his knees and vomited. It all came up—the strega, the whiskey, the food Enzo had prepared so lovingly, everything from the picnic, and what looked like every last kernel of the movie popcorn.

“You okay, boss?” The pistols clanked against one another in the pillowcase Neri was using to carry them, like Jacob Marley’s chains in the production of
A Christmas Carol
Michael had been in as a kid. Neri was the chief of security here, but humping down fifteen flights of stairs and through various lobbies and hallways with a pillowcase full of thirteen pistols? Christ.

“Oh, yeah,” Michael said. He was drenched in sweat. He managed, however unsteadily, to stand up. He’d ripped the knee of his tux pants. “I’m perfect. Let’s go.”

The daggers that had been used to cut the men’s trigger fingers were theirs to keep. They were dazzling, jewel-handled things that had cost the Family nothing. Nick Geraci had a guy.

Chapter 11

F
REDO
C
ORLEONE
whipped his rented Chevrolet up the drive and slammed on the brakes under the valet parking overhang. In back, Figaro woke up cursing in English, Capra in Sicilian. “See you up there, fellas,” Fredo said, hopping out. He peeled off a twenty for the valet, then saw that he was a regular and paused. “Just curious. What’s the biggest tip you ever got?”

The man looked at him funny. “A hundred,” he said. “Once.”

Fontane,
Fredo thought. He just knew it. He peeled off two hundred. “Find me a good spot, okay, and get those bums out of the back first. So whose record did I break?”

“Yours, sir,” the valet said. “Just last week.”

Fredo laughed, went inside, and broke into a jog. Three in the morning, but inside the Castle in the Sand about the only way a person would know it wasn’t a more decent hour was the presence of hypnotized women in housecoats and curlers, cigarettes dangling from the corners of their grim, unmade mouths, feeding coins into the slot machines as if it were a part of making supper for an ungrateful family. Not a lot of people run through casinos, but none of those dames, and no one at the blackjack tables either, so much as looked up. The pit bosses looked, of course, and so did the eye in the sky if there was anyone up there, but these were men who’d seen Fredo Corleone hurry past them before, which is another way of saying that if anyone not associated with the security cameras or the Nevada Gaming Commission asked them if they’d seen Mr. Corleone go by, they’d have frowned and said “Who?”

He lived in a suite on the third floor—five rooms, including a den with a bar and a tournament-sized pool table. He’d been gone for two weeks, attending to business in New York and trying to help his mother get squared away for the move west. As soon as he opened the door, he knew in his gut that something was wrong. The first concrete thing he noticed was that the curtains were drawn and the place was inky dark. Fredo never closed his curtains, and he never turned off his television set, even when it went to the test pattern, even when he left town. When he slept during the day, he used one of those masks. He jumped back into the hall, out of the line of fire, and reached into his jacket for his gun.

No gun. That gorgeous Colt Peacemaker, the gun that had brought down ten thousand desperadoes in a thousand dusty movies, lost somewhere in the wilds of greater Detroit.

At the other end of the hall a door opened and some old frump in a hairnet and a housecoat came out, carrying a tin cup full of coins and an actual horseshoe. Behind her trailed some milquetoast in an undershirt, Bermuda shorts, and a shiny white cowboy hat he must have bought earlier that day. Fredo froze. There was no noise at all from his room. The frump must have seen Fredo crouching outside a door down the hall, but she kept her head down and headed straight for the stairs. The husband waved, his face contorted into a desperate rictus.

The stairwell door closed.

Fredo counted to ten. “Hello?” he called. “Who’s in there?”

He should have gone and gotten security. But he was exhausted and not thinking straight. He just wanted to grab a quick shower and get up to the ballroom. He did not want to be the candyass who called hotel security because some new maid hadn’t been told never to shut Mr. Corleone’s curtains or turn off his television set.

There was no noise at all. That had to be it, he thought: a new maid. As he walked in and reached for the light, the thought struck him that this was exactly the moment when guys got a slug right between the eyes, when they let down their guard and thought,
Ah, fuck it, it’s nothing.

The instant he flicked the switch, the toilet flushed. His heart nearly knocked the meat from his ribs, but before he had a chance to run or duck or even shout “Who’s there?,” out of the open door of the bathroom came a naked woman, platinum blond. She screamed.

“My
God,
” she said. “You scared the
crap
out of me!”

Zee crap.
Thick French accent. It sounded real. Fredo closed the hallway door behind him and felt his heart slow down a little. “Do I
know
you?”

She walked toward him and smiled. Her bush was jet black, though her eyebrows were also blond. “I’ve been waiting for you do you know how long?”

“Seriously, sweetheart. Who are you? What the hell is going on here? Who let you in?”

“Since five o’clock in the afternoon,” she said. She pointed to the champagne bucket next to his bed. “The ice, it finished melting hours ago.” She shrugged, which made her little tits bounce. She had dull red nipples so big around they practically covered the whole business. “I’m sorry, but the bottle, it is empty now, too.”

The accent was real. She was also slurring her words.

“Honey,” he said. “I don’t think you know who you’re dealing with, okay?”

“I think I might.”
I sink.
She jutted one of her hips and stuck out a pouty lower lip. “You’re Fredo Corleone, yes?”
Fraid.

“Why don’t you start by telling me who you are?”

She extended her hand and giggled. “My name is Rita. Marguerite. But”—she dipped a naked shoulder, shy now—“I use Rita now.”

Fredo didn’t shake her hand. “Hello, Rita. The reason I shouldn’t have you thrown in jail for breaking and entering is what?”

“It’s not enough that a naked woman is waiting in your room to make love to you, huh?”

“I’m losing my patience with you, doll.”

“Ah!” She threw back her head, exasperated. “You are no fun. Johnny Fontane sent me, all right? I am”—she laughed, as if at a rueful private joke—“I am a present for you, no? Johnny said, you know, that I was to be naked and in your bed, waiting.” She blushed. “But a girl, she drinks the champagne, she’s going to have to tee-tee.”

Tee-tee?
“That was real nice of Mr. Fontane, but it’s awful late, you’re awful drunk, and I’m awful tired, on top of which I still got one more thing to do tonight. This morning. Whatever. You should go, hon. If you need a cab or something, I got it.”

She nodded, turned around, and went to get her clothes, which she’d folded so neatly on the nightstand it broke his heart. She had nice muscular legs. First he’d noticed it.

He went into his closet to grab his own change of clothes. When he came back the only thing she’d managed to put on was a flowery cotton bra. He’d never understand that. You’d think they’d always cover up their snatch first, since that’s usually what came off last, but leave a woman alone to get dressed, and most of them start with the bra. She had her head in her hands, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, crying.

Drunk broads,
he thought, shaking his head.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Sorry, nothin’,” Fredo said. “Look, it’s not any sort of, I don’t know—” He put his hand on her cheek. She looked up at him. Real tears, and she was fighting them. She looked mad at herself. “You’re a beautiful girl, okay? It’s just that it’s late, and I got someplace to be. It’s business. I mean, I guess if you really want to wait here, I—”

She shook her head. “You do not understand.” She wiped her face with her underpants. They matched the bra. He caught a glimpse of the label: Sears. “I don’t do this. I mean—” She rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “I mean, I do
this,
just not—” She let out a deep breath. “I’m a dancer, okay? I’m in a show, now, a tasteful one, too. Not even topless. This was supposed to be—a lark. That’s the word, yes? A dare I made to myself. I’m not a—”

Fredo got her a handkerchief. He’d been with a lot of broads since he’d moved to Las Vegas, and the one thing he’d learned about their crying is that it was always better to shut up and give them a nice handkerchief than to tell them everything would be okay.

He sat down next to her. He needed to get going. He ran his hand over her back. The little bit of her round ass he could see had skin tighter and smoother than most women, even really young ones, managed to have on their faces. Got to hand it to dancers, their bottom halves were something else. Finally, he just couldn’t take any more time for this. Johnny was just trying to be a good guy, but it was probably true he’d done her first and turned her head all around and gotten her to agree to do something that she wouldn’t have done in a million years back in whatever village in France she came from. “I got an idea,” he said.

She looked up at him. It looked like she’d gotten the tears under control.

“How much did Johnny pay you to come up here?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“Wait right here.”

Fredo went into the den, pulled back the hinged oil painting replica of the
Mona Lisa,
opened his safe, and got out two thousand-dollar bills. She’d probably never seen one of these before in her life, much less two. The government had hardly bothered to design it. The back just said
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
And Cleveland on the front? What the fuck had Cleveland ever done? He folded the bills in half, came back out, and pressed them into her hand.

“Keep the thousand you already got,” he said, “and keep these, too. You don’t gotta feel bad you’re a whore, right, because how can you be a whore if we don’t, you know?”

“Fuck?” she said.

There was a hopeful tone in her voice that confused Fredo, as if fucking would cheer her up or something. He’d been trying not to even say
fuck,
since she was all bent out of shape about maybe being a fucking hooker. “Sure,” he said. “If we don’t fuck. Just one catch.”

She nodded, taking the money and slipping it into a pocket in the red dress beside her.

“All you have to do is go back to Johnny and, when he asks you how it was”—and he would, Fredo knew, that was just how Johnny was—“you got to promise to tell him”—Fredo paused to wink and flash her a grin—“that I was hands down the best you ever had.”

“Hands down,” she repeated, slipping on her underpants now. She seemed sad about it. “All right.”

“Attagirl,” he said.

The phone rang. It was Figaro, which is what he’d been calling the new bodyguard, whose name it embarrassed him not to be able to keep straight. Yes, Fredo said. He was fine.

As he watched her get dressed, he took off his shoes and socks and shirt.

He’d be up in no time, he said. Figaro said there were still guys up there. Fredo said that was good. Was Michael still there? He wasn’t. “Too bad.” Relieved, Fredo hung up.

He had stopped wearing undershirts a long time ago, after that one movie. After that, a guy wears an undershirt and these modern girls think he’s just off the boat. Only after he was standing there bare-chested in just his pants did it occur to him that if he was half the gentleman he was pretending to be, he’d either have waited for her to go or else himself gone into another room. Her dress was red satin. Somehow, with it on, seeing her like that and knowing about the cheap underwear underneath, he felt differently about her. He felt something.

“That’s a nice painting,” she said. She pointed to the Madonna in the small pine frame over his bed. The painting that had come with the room was a huge thing with an Indian on a white horse, slumped in the saddle, watching the sun set. “Did you paint it?”

“What? No.”

“Do you know the artist?”

“It’s just a painting, okay?”

“I had a long time to look at it. That model, she has no vanity. It’s a good piece.”

“A good piece?”

“I studied art.” She looked down. Her toenail polish was chipped. “A long time ago.”

“It is a good piece,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing her purse.

“Okay,” he said, walking her to the door.

She pulled out a cigarette. He reached in his pocket. “Shit,” he said. “I lost my lighter.”

“You’re sweet,” she said, tucking the cigarette behind his ear.

“Not really,” he said. He gave her back the cigarette. “Not my brand, honey.”

She leaned toward him. It had all the makings of a peck on the cheek, but something else Fredo had learned about these girls on the make in the west, a lot of things at three in the morning that have the look of something that would make sense by the rules of three in the afternoon turn into things the men asleep in their beds on Long Island would never believe. Her lips parted. His tongue obeyed, driving into her little wet mouth, sliding his hands through her coarse platinum hair. A tiny gasp came out of her that seemed to startle them both.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Hers grew wide, as if she’d just found an earring she’d lost. She was right, she wasn’t a pro. They don’t look at you like that.

“My life,” she said, “it is so fucking complicated.”

“Everybody thinks that,” Fredo said. “Probably you’re right, though. About you.”

This Rita had a crooked grin.

“Oh?” she said. “And what about you, eh?”

“I can’t complain,” he said. “Though I still do. I guess I got it all under control, though.”

“You think so?” With her index finger she touched his bare rib cage and did a little screwdriver thing.

They kissed again. Her mouth was sour from all that champagne, but he stayed with it.

“Fray-die Cor-le-o-ne,” she said.

If this hadn’t been three in the morning, it would have occurred to him right away that it was stupid to run the risk that someday this girl would blab about how she was bare-ass naked in front of Fredo Corleone and he paid her two grand
not
to fuck her. Why was he in any hurry to get upstairs? Anything worth being there for was over. “At your service,” he said.

“You dirty rat,” she said. She said it weird.

“Say what?”

“Nothing,” she said. She sighed heavily and reached for the doorknob. “See you in the funny papers, okay?”

Oh, right.
She’d been doing an impression of some movie gangster. He put his hand on her hand. “Stay,” he said.

She screwed up that funny lopsided mouth. “I don’t know,” she said. “Will you take your money back?”

“I never paid you for that,” he said. “I paid you to give Johnny Fontane nightmares.”