“It’s time,” Michael said to Hagen. “Go see Russo. This gives you a reason.”

“You’re sure?”

Michael nodded. “Geraci’s men are either going to succeed or fail, and we have it worked out either way. This news of Joe’s throws us a curve, but it’s nothing we need to worry about. It just means that we need to move forward. The only thing that’s not ready is our canary in the Justice Department, but we know Billy used the chance to betray us as a means of getting the attorney general’s trust. He needs a little more time there before he’ll know enough for it to be worth turning him to our advantage. So, yes. Start with Russo. Presuming you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“It’s a big step.”

“I’ve been waiting for this,” Tom said, “I don’t know how long. A long time.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” Michael said, kissing his older brother on the cheek and then trudging up the lawn to his empty house.

Chapter 30

LESS THAN a year after the facility on Geraci’s land was built, a crew came to tear it down. Your tax dollars at work. Geraci said he had demolition guys who could do the job for a reasonable price, but “Agent Ike Rosen” said they had to do it to certain specifications. Also, there were security issues. The remaining trainees had been sent home, to be called upon when needed to a staging area at a villa in the Bahamas.

Three Cuban expats were the first to be dispatched, apparently on the orders of CIA Director Allen Soffet himself, the logic being that the Cubans knew the country and if something went wrong they’d be better able to disappear than Geraci’s men would. Geraci was furious. He’d wanted a Cuban (for the language and general navigation) and two Sicilians (so the job would get done right the first time). Do it that way, Geraci told his contacts, and nothing will go wrong. The Cubans landed on an unnamed coral island just outside Cuban waters, were picked up in a speedboat that had been seized from the estate of Ernest Hemingway, and were killed on the way to shore, when the boat exploded under suspicious circumstances. The thinking was that the pilot had been a spy for the Cuban government, but everything Geraci heard about it was far from firsthand. Geraci told Agent Rosen he’d told him so. Geraci didn’t want to lose a man, but he also didn’t want one of the other operations to be the ones to murder that thieving dictator, and there seemed to be no reliable way to find out what was going on in those other camps. Why even train his men, Geraci said, if they were only going to send the Cubans to do the job?

About a week later, Rosen told Geraci he’d been authorized to send another three men in, this time on a low-flying seaplane, under the radar, delivered right to a trusted operative who’d be waiting on the beach. Geraci was told he could recommend one man. Geraci insisted on two. One or nothing, the agent said. Geraci picked Carmine. The Sicilian soldato told Geraci not to worry; he was as good as two men, any two.

A few days after that, Geraci was out in his office behind the pool, reading the same two-volume history of Roman warfare that had been defeating him off and on for seven years, when Charlotte knocked on the door. “There was a call.” She was ticked off. The longer they’d been married, the more she seemed to resent taking messages for him, especially from callers who didn’t identify themselves. “Whoever it was, he wanted me to tell you that they’re in. That’s it. ‘They’re in.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“Yes.” In Cuba, of course. And from where he sat it meant everything.

“How’s that book coming?” she said.

“Books,” Geraci said. “Two volumes. When’s the last time you read anything that wasn’t flashed up on a television screen? And as a matter of fact, I’m making headway.”

It was still dark outside as Tom Hagen left the Palmer House and caught a cab to go see Louie Russo. Theresa was asleep in their hotel room upstairs. Later this morning she had a meeting at the Art Institute of Chicago-some kind of national museum board consortium. Tomorrow they’d drive over to South Bend, to see not just Andrew but also Frankie Corleone, Sonny’s oldest kid, who was starting at middle linebacker for the Fighting Irish and had gotten them tickets for the last home game of the year, against Syracuse, Theresa’s alma mater. Hagen had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time.

Hagen would have rather taken a limo, but he couldn’t risk taking anything so prearranged. The cabbie was classic Chicago, spewing profanity and cheerful complaints about some sports team. Hagen had a lot on his mind. He’d had only two cups of coffee. He was sweating. He didn’t feel nervous, and it wasn’t hot in the car. Probably it had to do with his blood pressure, so high his doctor might not have been joking when he’d said that one day Hagen might just pop, like an engorged tick. The driver kept yapping. Hagen did nothing to discourage it. The more the guy talked, the less he’d remember his passenger.

Russo had a private supper club out in the sticks, almost in Wisconsin. Even against the flow of morning traffic, the drive took more than an hour. It seemed almost as long from the gate and across the expanse of parking lot to the club itself-a white barn made of painted cinder blocks. Though it didn’t seem like much, this place managed to book singers like Johnny Fontane, all the top comics, even the Ice Capades. A sign over the door read HECTOR SANTIAGO, THE KING OF RUMBA! The shows were never advertised but always sold out. Next to the barn was a square pond about the size of four city blocks and surrounded by pine trees. The water was barely visible and black as tar. On the other side of the pond was a nondescript, windowless, three-story warehouse that had been converted into a casino. At night, gondoliers poled guests back and forth across the pond. Russo was unduly proud of the place; by all accounts, it was impossible to come see him here on business and leave without getting a tour of his precious casino. Even so, Hagen had to admire the amount of work that had gone into bribing all the cops it would have taken so that Louie Russo’s customers could arrive at his illegal gambling joint right out in the open, in something as slow as a gondola.

Behind the club, an old farmhouse had been expanded and converted into a guesthouse. Russo kept an office in the biggest room upstairs. To get there, Hagen had to go through some kind of metal-detecting device and then though a steel door, the kind they have on bank vaults. As Hagen expected, two of Russo’s goons sat in an outer room, each with a tommy gun across his lap. One got up, gave him a lazy search, and waved him into his boss’s lair.

“If it ain’t the world’s only Mick consigliere!” Russo said. He had on a pair of diamond cuff links. “What an honor.”

Hagen thanked him and sat down in the offered seat. Russo remained standing, a crude and petty assertion of control.

“Michael Corleone,” Hagen said, “is prepared to support you as capo di tutti capi and to resign his seat on the Commission, which will go to Nick Geraci, so long as you and I can reach an understanding on a few small matters.”

“Hey, you hear this guy?’ Russo called down the hall to the men with guns. “Listen, Irish. Where I come from, we don’t get fucked without first we get kissed. Get my meaning?”

Hagen did. “I’m German-Irish,” he corrected. “And I meant no offense, Don Russo. I know you’re a busy man, and I thought you’d appreciate it if I got right to the point.”

“Coffee? Shit, where are my manners? How about a cocktail, Irish?”

“Coffee’s perfect,” Hagen said. It was from a percolator, but it would have to do. “Thank you.”

Russo frowned. “Hey, are you okay? Because it ain’t hot in here.”

“I’m fine.”