Johnny Fontane, along with his very special guests Buzz Fratello and the lovely and talented Miss Dotty Ames, finished their boffo show at the Beautiful Oasis Room at the Castle in the Sand with a lengthy and hilarious medley of songs about booze, performed for a crowd that didn’t yet know thing one about the crash. It was a crowd, invitation only, largely made up of Teamsters officials from all over America, along with their wives (or more youthful simulacra). Michael Corleone had also, as an olive branch, invited a few select others-food, lodging, and a thousand dollars worth of chips, all on the house. Because it was a private party, even those who were ordinarily unable to set foot in Las Vegas were able to attend. For example: right by the stage was Don Molinari’s brother Butchie (who’d done time for hijacking and extortion) and several other top men from San Francisco. In the men’s room, trying to urinate and cursing inventively at his prick in Italian, was Carlo Tramonti (manslaughter; grand theft; arson; insurance fraud), the boss of New Orleans and a rising power in Havana. There was at least one member representing each of the other New York Families, each accompanied by women and bodyguards. The pale man in the gigantic sunglasses in the booth all the way in the back was Chicago’s Louie “the Face” Russo (possession of stolen goods; aggravated assault; bribing a federal agent), believed by some members of the FBI to be “in line for the still vacant position of ‘capo di tutti i capi’ of the entire so-called La Cosa Nostra.” Together, the appearance of all these people had provided enough cover to fly in several of the Corleones’ own associates from New York without arousing suspicion. Also noteworthy-particularly since they were right by the stage and had come in for so much good-hearted innuendo-laden needling-were those blushing, happy honeymooners, the former Miss Susan Zaluchi and her new husband, Ray Clemenza. C’mon, folks: Put your hands together. Let’s hear it for ’em.
In his own black velvet booth, Michael Corleone leaned back and took a long drag of his cigarette. He looked at his watch. It was Swiss, more than fifty years old. It had once belonged to a marine named Vogelsong, who’d used his dying breath to say he wanted Michael to have it.
By now, if everything had gone right, everyone on that airplane should be dead.
Michael had seen planes crash. Up close. It was all too easy for him to picture the terror on the men’s faces as the plane went down. He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it.
Instead, he’d think about this: His plan had worked. He’d had setbacks, collateral damage, and midcourse corrections, but in the end, all had worked.
Now the Commission could meet. Hagen was wrong: no agreement would last unless it involved Chicago, but no peace involving Chicago would be in the Corleones’ best interest unless Louie Russo came to the table motivated. This crash should motivate him plenty.
Michael had probably never smoked a whole cigarette so fast or enjoyed one more. He lit another and inhaled deeply.
He’d done what he needed to do. Period. Because of that, he’d sleep just fine. After all this was wrapped up in a month or so, he’d take a vacation and sleep twelve hours a day. Had he ever, as an adult, taken a vacation? Those years he’d spent hiding in Sicily were a lot of things, but a vacation? No. During the war, he’d taken liberty- Hawaii, New Zealand. But a family vacation? Never. He and Kay and the kids should go to Acapulco. Maybe see Hawaii again, at peace. Why not? Clown around with Anthony and Mary the way Pop always made time to do, get buried in the sand, rub oil on Kay’s sexy back, maybe see if he could get her pregnant again. He’d wear flowery shirts and dance the mambo.
Michael lifted his half-full water glass. We did it, Pop, he thought. We won.
“God almighty,” Clemenza said, red-faced from laughter and pointing a fat thumb at Fratello, who was racing around the stage like some frantic pillhead. “He’s something, eh?”
“Something,” Michael said.
Fontane had held back, doing quiet numbers and joking around in the ones that would have made him push his voice, but the brilliance he exuded even when he wasn’t trying-maybe especially then-was a thing of beauty. He was a punk, but he was an artist, too. Michael couldn’t be talked to the way Fontane had this afternoon, but by the same token he couldn’t stay mad at the guy.
Fratello? An embarrassment. Here was a guy who’d knocked around for years as “the cafone on the saxophone.” Then he’d put down the sax, started singing like a Negro but with a mamma-mia Italian accent, married a leggy blonde half his age, and bam: Buzz Fratello and Dotty Ames, stars of The Starbright Soap Variety Hour.
Fratello finished the set by sprinting across the stage, diving to the floor, sliding ten feet or so through Dotty’s legs, coming to a stop perfectly timed so he could roll over, look up at her crotch, and rub his eyes in comic disbelief. Fontane cracked up. Dotty helped Buzz up, and they all took a bow. The crowd rose to its feet. The singers left the stage. The ovation continued. The orchestra members kept the fanfare going; clearly, there would be an encore.
Michael felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Phone,” Hal Mitchell whispered. “It’s Tom.”
Michael nodded and put out his cigarette. Showtime. He glanced at Louie Russo’s table. Someone was whispering something in his ear, too, and when Michael made eye contact with the whisperer, the man looked away. Michael reached over and tapped Clemenza.
Seconds later-as the orchestra launched into a vampy take on “Mala Femmina” and Buzz, Dotty, and Fontane locked arms and gamboled back onstage for their encore-some of the implications of what may or may not have happened on Lake Erie, sketchy as the details were, must have dawned on Louie Russo. But by the time he peered over his sunglasses at the black velvet booth in the corner, it was empty. Even the candle had been blown out.
Nick Geraci’s head broke the surface. He gasped for air, and it surged down his arms and legs, and then he screamed. It was the first time he felt the excruciating pain from his cracked ribs and broken leg.
About a hundred yards away, a flaming oil slick marked the spot where the plane had smashed into Lake Erie. Bobbing in the middle of it were one of the wings, a big chunk of the side of the fuselage with the painted lion logo on it, and the upper half of what turned out to be Frank Falcone’s corpse.
Geraci wasn’t sure what had happened or whose fault it had been, though the pain and adrenaline made it hard to think clearly. He was tethered to reason only by his conviction that if everyone back there was dead, he might as well be. Rescue could mean death.
Through the rain he could see the haze of the Cleveland skyline. He swam away from it. North. Back to Rattlesnake Island, to Canada, a passing boat. Someplace where he could buy himself some time to work things out. Someplace where he’d have a shot at controlling his own fate. His leg felt like it was on fire with pain and his cracked ribs made it almost impossible to breathe, yet by the time the Coast Guard speedboat spotted him, Geraci was about a quarter mile from the crash site, in extreme shock, unconscious, his lungs filling with water, going down.
Concealed behind the parapets of the highest of the Castle in the Sand’s three Moorish towers and encased in a spire of mirrored glass was an unnamed, revolving ballroom where the ceremony would be held.
“I bet you’re smelling printer’s ink right now,” said Clemenza, giving Michael a gentle elbow. “You can about taste it, am I right? In the back of your throat, eh? Like oil, but worse.”
The reflection of Michael in the shiny brass elevator doors was sipping a crystal goblet of ice water. He looked like a put-together, invulnerable, slick-haired man of respect, with the wind at his back and the world by the balls.