The Godfather's Revenge (17 page)

The guests were getting a kick out of all this and so, apparently, was Johnny. With her free arm, Connie Corleone started cutting the cake.

“Get down,” Francesca said to Sonny. “Now.”

“Yours?” Johnny said.

Francesca turned around. “I could be wrong,” she said, pointing, “but I think the honor of your presence is requested.”

Tom Hagen was now standing at the foot of the staircase to the top floor, his finger crooked, beckoning. He was making no effort to conceal his impatience. Johnny made eye contact with him, then broke from Connie’s grasp, backing away.

“Listen,” he said to Francesca. “Don’t go anywhere, OK? I wasn’t just…” He kept backing away. “All I’m trying to say is that I have an idea you can maybe help me with.”

“Where would I go?” Francesca said. “I live here.”

“Great,” Johnny said, and jogged toward Hagen with the same gait he used when he trotted back onstage for an encore.

“I’ll save you some chocolate cake, Johnny!” Connie called after him.

Francesca took her son off the table, set him down, then removed and folded up the robe. She turned around, and her eyes met Kathy’s. A look passed between the twins. Ordinary people would have taken an hour to say as much.

A
t the granite wet bar near his floor-to-ceiling living-room window, Michael Corleone lined up three cordial glasses and filled two of them with Strega. Michael’s own glass was mostly water, with just enough of the liqueur to be vaguely yellow.

Tom ushered Johnny into the room.

“Michael!” Johnny said, his arms extended in supplication. “I’m sorry as hell if I upstaged—”

Michael set the bottle down sharply enough to cut Johnny off. “Upstaged? This is your big day, John.”

He said it so flatly it would have been impossible to read anything into it and, therefore, impossible not to.

The men embraced.

Michael shook his head. “If it weren’t for my family, I’d probably forget my own birthday, as any grown man would. But you? This honor? I’m the one who owes you an apology.”

“Apology for what?”

Michael’s self-deprecating shrug had become a spooky echo of his father’s. “I wanted to go, to watch the parade, but I’ve been tied up in business meetings all day. On a Saturday. Terrible.” He patted Johnny on the back. “No rest for the wicked, right?”

Johnny Fontane strode to the window. “Nice view.” He circled the gleaming room like a man who’d never been in a penthouse.

“You’d never know from the street,” Johnny said, “that there’s a view up here like this.”

Hagen folded his arms and watched this performance through narrowed eyes. He had a low opinion of show business people in general and Fontane in particular. Go to the opera any night of the week, and you’ll hear better singers. Any night of the week, you could go see an off-Broadway play where every actor in the cast had more talent than Johnny. Dancing, telling jokes? Hagen’s little girls, in his opinion, were almost as good on both counts. Johnny was a punk, an irresponsible child whose problems were solved by others—too often by Hagen himself (it was Hagen who, on Don Vito’s orders, had made certain investments that got Fontane his Academy Award). Yet for reasons that escaped Tom Hagen, everybody treated Johnny Fontane as if he were an important man. Even Michael seemed to have a weak spot for the guy.

Michael handed out the glasses.

“My father would be proud of you, Johnny,” Michael said. “
Cent’anni.
”

They all three clinked glasses and drank.

Michael and Johnny asked about each other’s families. They were divorced fathers—common enough in Johnny’s circles but practically unknown in Michael’s. Divorced
Catholic
fathers. “How often do you get to see them?” Johnny said. “Anthony and Mary, right?”

“Often,” Michael said automatically. “I go up there as often as I can. They come here for school holidays.”

They hadn’t been here since the Fourth of July. Michael had his own airplane and yet had not flown himself to Maine in a month, since he’d gone to watch Anthony sing in a middle-school production of
Flower Drum Song
. And he’d been late for that.

“That’s good,” Johnny said. “Because a man who doesn’t spend time…” He stopped himself, gave his head a quick scratch and screwed up his face at this difficult situation. “The thing I’ve learned—from painful experience—is that if you aren’t around, you miss a lot. As you know. I’m not presuming to tell you anything, but I will say this: it gets better, if that’s any consolation. My daughter’s going to school in the city here and just last—”

“At Juilliard,” Michael said. “So I hear. Very impressive.”

“How’s Rita?” Johnny said.

At the sound of her name, Michael’s features softened. “She’s doing well,” he said. “She says hello.”

“Look at this guy!” Johnny said to Tom Hagen, then turned back to Michael. “You’re crazy about her, aren’t you? I can tell. Don’t shit a shitter, pally.”

Michael, blushing slightly, raised his arms in resignation. What can a man do?

“I knew it,” Johnny said. “I told you, didn’t I? Those dancer’s legs, and not a phony bone in her body. What a great girl she is. I’m happy for you.”

Marguerite Duvall owed much of her career to Johnny Fontane. When he’d met her, she was just another dancer in a classy nude review, a wholesome, high-kicking French kid who really liked to fuck. Johnny connected her with a singing coach and some other good people to know. Soon she had her own lounge act at the Kasbah. That led to a supporting role as the French madam in the Broadway show
Cattle Call.
Critics hated it, but the burning-bordello scene was a showstopper, and, to the surprise of the New York theater snobs, she walked off with a Tony Award. Johnny had also included her in some of his movies and on the bill at the inaugural ball, among much bigger stars. She was not sleeping with Jimmy Shea at the time; that had come earlier. Over the years, Johnny had introduced Rita to several of his pals. Squares wouldn’t understand, but in Johnny’s experience, sleeping with the same woman bonded pals closer together.

Michael Corleone motioned for Johnny to have a seat on the sofa. Michael sat in a club chair beside him. Both were covered in the softest, finest Italian leather. Hagen perched on a chrome stool beside the bar.

“You really think your father would have been proud of me?” Johnny asked.

“I do,” Michael said. “When I was a boy, he took me to that parade many times. He’d always point out the big shots marching by and made a point of telling me that in America you can be anything you want to be. Christopher Columbus came here and found a place big enough to stage the biggest dreams. A new world.”

“Christopher Columbus never set foot here,” Johnny blurted. “To be technical about it. But, uh, I see your point, which as a matter of fact I happen to agree with you about.”

Hagen sighed heavily.

“My father’s point,” Michael said.

“No disrespect,” Johnny murmured.

“So how can I help you, John? On your big day.”

“I guess you saw the newspapers, huh?” Johnny said. He stared into the eyes of the son of his godfather. Michael Corleone had gone as still and cold as the marble floor beneath their feet. “It wasn’t…what I mean to say is,
none
of it…that those bloodsuckers…y’know? You do know. Right, Mike? What they don’t make up, they twist around, and…”

Michael did not even blink.

Johnny lowered his head. He started nodding and kept at it awhile. “I want to say,” he said, “that I take full responsibility for everything. I’ve made mistakes, plenty of ’em, especially with money. You and your family, my godfather…you’ve been great sources of…you could really call it wisdom. That includes you, Tom. I’ve had opportunities that a guy like me…”

He finally looked up.

“The long and the short of it,” Johnny said, “is this. I need to sell my share in your…in the casino out in Tahoe before I’m forced to do it. That may not come to pass, and, to be honest with you, I could use the dough this investment generates every month, but I’ll make some quick cash by selling. What I’m trying to say is, after all is said and done, I think it’s best for all parties involved if…if it looks like it’s my decision. To sell.”

Michael rubbed his index and middle fingers back and forth across his lips. To Fontane, it might as well have been the report of a pistol.

“I’m confused,” Michael said. “You’re asking
my
permission to sell your share of the Castle in the Clouds?”

Fontane shrugged.

“It’s an investment, John, just like any of your others. It’s just business, I assure you.”

“Because if you want, out of loyalty to you and your family, I’ll fight those cowboy bastards on the Gaming—”

“That’s entirely up to you, John.”

Johnny hadn’t expected this response. He was the kind of man who worked things out by talking and doing, and he was facing down a man who was his polar opposite. Johnny scooted forward on the sofa and kept talking.

“I’ll be honest with you. I tried to see if Jimmy Shea would pull some strings for me there. With the Gaming Commission, but—”

“You went to them first?”

“I didn’t go to them at all, Mike. Those ungrateful Irish fucks—no offense, Tom—but damn their eyes, y’know?”

Hagen held up his hands to indicate no offense had been taken.

“After all the hard work I did for them,” Johnny said, “this is the first and only thing I asked for.”

“So I’m Plan B. Coming to me.”

“No. God, no.” Fontane could feel himself redden. “Plan A was to keep my share, any way I could. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to go to you when the Gaming Commission has an issue with me being associated with you in the first place. If I handled it in a way that was less than perfect, Mike, from my heart, I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you weren’t available, which Tom can vouch for. I had commitments, too. This was the first time it was possible for us to talk face-to-face.”

Michael shrugged in concession—again that spooky echo of Vito.

“My fear,” Johnny said, “is that if I
don’t
sell, they’ll drag this out just to see their names in the papers. These guys are politicians. They think that if they repeat a lie loud enough and often enough the public will believe it. And the newspapers, they print the accusations on page one, but the day it turns out it’s all a bunch of nothing, just watch: they’ll run a little mention next to the funny pages. The problem, as I see it, is that if I
do
sell, it puts an end to the investigation but it also looks like I’m telling the bastards that the lies they’re spreading are true. I have to think everyone will forget about it once it’s out of the headlines. But there’s the risk that because it looks like I admitted to something, they’ll keep on investigating and—”

Michael closed his eyes and held up his hand to halt. Johnny did. Some things were better left unsaid.

“Forgive me,” Michael said, “but there’s something I don’t understand.” Most people, when discussing something they don’t understand, will look at the ceiling or off in the distance. Michael stared right at Johnny. “Money’s an issue with you? How is that possible?”

Johnny frowned. “How’s it possible? I got overhead like you can’t believe. My last concert tour, we had to take a forty-piece orchestra on the road, which means not just meals and hotels but also trucks, crew, a traveling secretary, even—get this, Tom—a lawyer. Just what we paid every night for the Teamsters who stood around watching
other
Teamsters work—it’d blow your mind. Blow it. The shows drew great, and—knock wood—my records keep selling, but a lot of people wet their beaks on the way from each concert ticket or record album I sell to any sort of check that comes my way. Then there’s taxes. Uncle Sugar’d be half as sweet if it wasn’t for yours truly. Out of what’s
left
, I’ve got to pay the expenses on the house in Palm Springs plus the one in Vegas. I’ve got all the various bills for my kids—a college education ain’t cheap, by the way—which I can afford, but affording it is expensive. Then there’s being in the public eye. Fame doesn’t just bring money in. Fame needs to be fed, which means managers, publicists, security, a valet, clothes, cars, gifts, what have you, not to mention the way you’re a target for every supposedly good cause under the sun. Then toss in an accountant who disappeared on me. On top of which, imagine taking everything that’s a challenge with one ex-wife like you got, huh? And multiply it times three. Still, I’m not complaining. Believe me, I’m blessed. In the scheme of things, things are so jake they’re Jacob. But you asked.”

Michael and Tom exchanged a look. “Disappeared?” Michael said.

“That guy? Somewhere in the tropics sipping mai tais, I bet, and—”

“You
bet
?” Hagen said.

Johnny turned around. “Excuse me? Was I talking to you?”

Tom lit a fresh cigarette. “How much would you say your gambling debts were last year, Johnny?”

“Because I wasn’t
aware
that I was talking to you.”

Johnny turned back to face Michael, whose face had once again gone cold.

“I see your point, counselor,” Johnny said. “But I’m way ahead of you. I’ve cut back on all that. For a while there, everything I touched was charmed, including my efforts on behalf of our friend the president, but also the records and pictures I was making, my investments, so on and so forth. When a fella’s on a roll like that, it stands to reason he’d want to try his luck at the track or playing hunches on various ball games and fights. When my luck started going south, I cut back on risks like that. Not that it’s any of your business, but you asked.”

Michael offered Johnny a cigarette. Johnny quit a year earlier on the advice of his doctor. The pipes. He took one anyway.

“The
reason
Tom and I were curious about your financial situation,” Michael said, lighting up, “was that if you’re expecting to sell your portion of the Tahoe property, it might not provide the return you’re looking for. In fact, you’re not going to recoup your initial investment or anything close to it.”

“You’re joking, right? That joint’s a goddamned gold mine. A mint.”

“John, this can’t be the first time you’ve noticed that the value of a privately held business sometimes has little to do with the company’s revenue stream.” Michael flicked his ash in a floor ashtray and gave his father’s
powerless to do anything
shrug. “With publicly traded stocks, it’s even worse.” He laughed. “Now,
there’s
a racket, don’t you think? There’s not a trader on Wall Street who could survive the kind of investigation you’re under in Nevada, John.”