“They came with the place, too.” Forlenza took a sip of his cappuccino. “Before we get started,” he said, “you must all understand that the decision to invite an emissary from Don Corleone was mine alone.”
Geraci doubted this but had no way of knowing for certain.
“No offense, Vincent,” said Falcone, “or, what’s-your-face? Geraci. No offense, but I still can’t get used to calling that little pezzonovante Michael Don Corleone.” Falcone had ties with the Barzini Family and also with a Hollywood union guy named Billy Goff whom the Corleones had supposedly clipped. On top of which, he had made his bones in Chicago, under Capone.
“Frank,” said Molinari. “Please. This accomplishes nothing.”
Forlenza asked them to sit, and they did. Narducci sat in a leather armchair a few feet away. The bodyguards took seats on a sofa against the far wall. As they all watched, the nurse, without a cue, turned and walked out of the room.
Falcone gave a low whistle. “It’s that white uniform. You could put any dame in one of those, I’d want to bend her over a gurney, hike it up, and screw her silly. Every time I go to the hospital, my dick gets so hard and stays so hard they got to give me extra blood.”
“Frank,” said Molinari.
“What? Jokes are fucking wasted on you, my friend.”
Forlenza asked Molinari and Falcone about the wedding of Joe Zaluchi’s daughter and Pete Clemenza’s son, who wasn’t in the business per se (he built shopping centers). They also asked how it was that a Cleveland boy had come to fall in with the Corleones. Geraci said that after his boxing career didn’t work out, he was stuck in New York with a wife and kids, and his godfather made some calls. Some expression returned to Falcone’s face. Forlenza cleared his throat in a way everyone understood as a call to order, took a long drink of water, and began.
“Sangu sciura sangu,” he said. “Blood cries for blood. This has been the undoing of our tradition in Sicily. An endless spiral of vendettas has left our friends there less powerful than any time in a century. Yet here in America we are flourishing as never before. There is enough money, enough power, for everyone. We have legal operations in Cuba and, particularly in the case of the Families represented here, Nevada. The amount we can make from this is, if I may be honest, limited only by our imaginations and-” he held up one finger-“and by our unfortunate tradition of riding the runaway train of vendetta to oblivion.”
Forlenza looked toward the high white ceiling and continued in Sicilian, which Geraci understood though couldn’t really speak. “Perhaps there are men in this room who know who is responsible for the killings in New York.” He gave Geraci, Falcone, and Molinari each a glance of precisely equivalent duration, then took a long, strategic sip of his cappuccino. “Emilio Barzini, a great man and one of my oldest, dearest friends, has been killed. Phillip Tattaglia is dead.” Forlenza paused to eat one of the tiny biscotti, underscoring all that was implied in his lack of any encomium to describe the weak and whiny Don Tattaglia. “Michael Corleone’s oldest, wisest caporegime, Tessio, was killed. Don Corleone’s brother-in-law, the father of his baby godson, was killed. Five other amici nostri, dead. What happened? Maybe one of you knows. I for one do not. My sources tell me that Barzini and Tattaglia, frustrated by the weak protection their narcotics business got from the Corleones’ judges and politicians, went after the Corleones and were killed in return. Perhaps. Others say Michael Corleone killed Barzini and Tattaglia so he could transfer his base of operation west and have it not seem to be a move made out of weakness. A possibility, no question. Could it be that we are witnessing revenge for the deaths seven years ago of the eldest sons of Vito Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia? Why not? In such matters, seven years can be but the flick of a fish’s tail. Or”-and here he took another cookie and took his time munching it-“perhaps-who knows?-this is all a plot by Don Stracci and Don Cuneo, whose families have never had the power held by either the Barzinis or the Corleones, to seize control of New York. Their quick negotiations for peace have, in the minds of many people, added force to this speculation. Even the newspapers are adopting this wild guess and promulgating it to the stupid masses as fact.”
This inspired knowing chuckles. The newspaper stories were plants. The Straccis’ power base was New Jersey, and the Cuneos ran upstate New York (and the biggest milk company in the region, which was how Ottilio Cuneo had become “Leo the Milkman”). Neither was believed to be powerful or ambitious enough to make an attack on the three stronger families.
“Or maybe,” Falcone said in English, “who knows? The Corleones killed ’em all.”
Falcone, Geraci was fairly certain, would have been surprised to learn that his angry hyperbole was one hundred percent correct.
“Even their own men?” Molinari said. Though a friend of the Corleones, Molinari, too, almost certainly did not know what had really happened in New York. “C’mon, Frank.”
Falcone shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m like Vincent, I can’t unravel this fuckin’ thing. I hear people talkin’, that’s all. But a lot of what I hear is that even though Don Vito, may he rest in peace, pledged on his life that he would not avenge his son’s death, what’s-his-face-”
“Santino,” Geraci said.
“Another country heard from.” He raised his cappuccino cup in a mock toast. “Thanks, O’Malley. Yeah: Santino. He said he wouldn’t avenge it or even look into it. The way we understood it was that his Family wouldn’t do that, but, see, it was all a bunch of fucking double-talk. All he meant was that he personally wouldn’t do it. Vito stepped down so that Michael could plot revenge and carry it out as soon as the old man died.”
“Forgive me,” Geraci said. “It’s not double-talk. It didn’t happen that way.”
“Look, Vincent,” Falcone said, “why are the Corleones the only New York Family represented here, huh? Why am I having a sit-down with you two and someone else’s wet-behind-the-ears soldato? Even your consigliere’s not at the table.”
“No one ever called it a sit-down,” Molinari said. “It’s just a few friends talking is all. The weather clears, maybe Don Forlenza will loan us some clubs, we can grab some golf-”
“Very comfortable chair,” said Narducci, rubbing its arms.
“-or take a boat and go fishing,” Molinari continued. “Maybe have a cocktail with your nurse friend and a lovely afternoon of buttfucking.”
Falcone frowned. “I don’t do that-there. In culo? Did somebody say I did that?”
“Hit a nerve, did I?” Molinari said.
Don Forlenza drained his cappuccino and set his mug down so hard it shattered. No one at the table reacted. At first no one made any attempt to pick up the mess.
A door opened. The bodyguards leapt to their feet and faced it. Two of Forlenza’s men entered. Laughing Sal motioned for them to go. They went.
“We are not clever little policemen trying to solve crimes,” Forlenza said. He said “solve crimes” as if it were a fresh cat turd in his mouth and switched back to Sicilian. “I have my own problems and so, I gather”-he motioned toward Falcone and Molinari-“do you. If I have trouble in Cleveland, this affects no one in New York. No one there is concerned. The trouble is mine, as it should be. Yet if New York has problems, too often this, of no concern whatsoever to me, becomes my problem. The papers are filled with speculation. The police have questioned and harassed friends of ours far from the scenes of those crimes in New York-even our partners, people handling the money, running the businesses, fronting the investments. Some in Washington are pressuring the FBI to take agents away from their war on communism and send them after us and our interests. Senators are threatening to hold hearings. Even our legitimate businesses may be targeted by the IRS. I have grandchildren going to college, buying their first houses, and the complications I have had to endure simply to get my own money to them-”