But Geraci talked Forlenza into keeping Narducci alive. For now.

First of all, if Narducci died or disappeared, Michael Corleone would be onto them. And Narducci hardly seemed to pose a threat. He’d made the most indirect move on Forlenza possible. Furthermore, as far as Geraci knew, no consigliere had ever betrayed his boss. This could be a terrible embarrassment to the Cleveland organization. Narducci would have to be disposed of in a way that wouldn’t look as if it had been ordered or even condoned by Don Forlenza.

Killing Michael Corleone would have been another option, and, like killing Narducci, a satisfying one. But where would it have led? Mayhem, war, millions of dollars in lost profits in the meantime. Even if they won, they’d lose.

For now, they’d keep a close eye on the men who’d betrayed them but turn their efforts to building a new set of allegiances. Geraci already worked with Black Tony Stracci and his organization. Forlenza had ties to Paulie Fortunato. With Clemenza’s death, Geraci would be controlling the day-to-day operations of the Corleone Family in New York. He was practically a boss himself now. So that was three of the five New York Families.

The key after that would be Chicago. Louie Russo already had a coalition involving Milwaukee, Tampa, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Dallas. Put that together with what Geraci and Forlenza could build, and Michael Corleone will wish he was dead.

The best revenge on Michael Corleone was tit for tat.

They would use Fredo as a pawn, the same way Michael had tried to use Nick Geraci.

They’d stay above the fray and let their enemies kill each other off.

They’d take it slowly. Carefully.

When it was over, Cleveland and Chicago and the other midwestern Families would again control the West. Nick Geraci would be the boss of what used to be the Corleone Family, doing business in and around New York. All they needed to do was put Fredo in the middle between Michael and Hyman Roth.

Don Forlenza shook his frail head. Morgues are full of new arrivals who look more vital than the ancient Don. “Tell me this, Fausto,” he said. “Why would this Fredo do it?”

Fausto. Only he and Michael Corleone called Geraci Fausto and it always threw him, just a little. The real Fausto called him no name at all, just names. Genius. Big shot. Ace.

“That time he cried on the street in New York after his father was shot?” Forlenza said. “Didn’t that come after his brother Sonny took sides against the Family on the issue of narcotics?”

Don Forlenza had no idea his own godson was the biggest heroin importer in the United States. “I don’t know,” Geraci said. Though he did, of course. “Something like that.”

“Sonny more or less got Vito shot, is the story I heard. I don’t see this Fredo, after an experience like that, doing something even worse.”

“First of all,” Geraci said, “Fredo’s on the booze and has an unbelievably bad marriage. He’s out of control. Second, and this is how we get him to hang himself-”

“Hang himself?”

“Figure of speech.”

Forlenza shrugged. “If he hangs himself, he hangs himself.”

“Right, well. Sure. Anyway. Here’s the deal: Fredo’s got this idea about building a city of the dead in New Jersey. He’s like a guy who had a religious vision or something.”

“City of the dead?”

“Big cemetery scam. Long story. Michael’s not for it, and he’s probably right. How is Fredo, out west and married to a movie star, going to run a big new operation-on another Family’s turf, more or less? Point is, Fredo thinks he came up with a billion-dollar business and that Mike’s too caught up in his Cuba thing to give him the time of day. Or too sick of what a fuckup Fredo is to give him more than a symbolic title and a legal whorehouse to run.”

Geraci heard himself say all this and knew there was no turning back. He was taking sides against the Family, too. Fuck it. Loyalty’s a two-way street. Nick Geraci never breathed a disloyal breath-up until the point Michael Corleone tried to kill him.

Revenge, in Nick Geraci’s book, was not the same thing as betrayal.

Don Forlenza closed his eyes and sat in silence so long that Geraci looked at the man’s chest to make sure he was still breathing.

“Hyman Roth’s been in partnership with the Corleones,” Geraci said, “even longer than he has with you, but the deal he and Mike are working on in Cuba is so big that they’ve reached some sort of stalemate.” Geraci came closer. He raised his voice, enough to wake Forlenza up if need be. “We can use Fredo to break it. Roth still has plenty of political pull in New York. If Fredo thinks that Roth will back this cemetery thing, it’ll get his attention in a hurry.”

Forlenza kept breathing. His fingers tugged ever so slightly at the blanket on his lap.

“What we do,” Geraci said, “is go through Louie Russo for everything. The L.A. guys are Russo’s puppets. Fredo’s chummy with a lot of ’em. What happens is, you get Russo to get the word to L.A. Gussie Cic-ero or somebody can set it up so that one of Roth’s guys-Mortie Whiteshoes, Johnny Ola, a party boy like that-just happens to bump into Fredo out in Beverly Hills. Fredo’ll give Roth’s guys any info about Mike they want so long as he thinks that the payoff will be that if you die in New York City, Fredo’ll get a piece of it.”

Finally, Forlenza looked up. “Why the fuck would I die in New York City?”

“Godfather, I have every confidence that you’ll never die anywhere.”

Forlenza waved him off and laughed. “La testa di cazzo, eh?” What makes you so sure Fuckface will want to go along with all this?”

“He’ll benefit from it. That’s the main thing. But the other reason is that the person he’ll be dealing with is you-the only Don who’s not Russo’s puppet or his enemy.”

“That’s what you think, huh?” Forlenza said, clearly flattered.

“I didn’t get as far as I have by being a guy who doesn’t do his homework, you know?”

Forlenza smiled. He knew. He agreed to the plan and sealed it with a kiss.

If anything went wrong, the blame would fall on Russo. If that layer of insulation failed, the blame would fall on Forlenza, who could be counted on, in his dealings with Russo, to leave all mention of Geraci out of it-both to protect his godson and because he’d want to take credit for the plan himself. Geraci didn’t want blame to fall on Forlenza, but better him than Nick Geraci.

At great length, they discussed the details.

“Trust me,” Geraci said as they were finishing. “Fredo’s so dumb, he’ll betray his brother and think he’s helping out.”

“Never say Trust me. Because no one will.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Trust me.”

Geraci grinned “You trust me, don’t you, Godfather?”

“I do, of course. Of course!”

“Enough to grant me a favor? One final detail we haven’t yet covered?”

Forlenza pursed his lips and turned his hands palms up, a let-me-hear-it gesture.

“When the time is right,” Geraci said, “I want to kill that rat Narducci myself.”

That rat. In his mind’s eye, Geraci saw the river rat slithering out of the rectum of that stiff Laughing Sal had planted down by the river, the corpse the world had mistaken for Gerald O’Malley.

“Let me be honest with you,” Forlenza said. “I was already gonna have you do it.”

Clemenza had been Vito Corleone’s oldest friend, but the only member of the late Don’s immediate family who went to New York for the funeral was Fredo. Carmela had had a flare-up of her blood clots-this time in her legs-and couldn’t travel. Michael had business. Kay, a lot of people seemed to think, was on the edge of leaving him. Connie had dumped her second husband, that sadsack accountant Ed Federici, and was off in Monaco, consorting naked on the beaches with Eurotrash. It was unclear-to Nick Geraci, anyway-why Hagen couldn’t come, but he wasn’t here. The same went for all the members of the organization out in Nevada, even Rocco Lampone, who’d made it all the way from a gimpy war vet with few prospects all the way to caporegime, every step of it with Clemenza’s backing. Nobody but Fredo, dispatched for symbolic value, presumably, though when Geraci picked him up at the airport, Fredo said he wouldn’t have missed the chance to pay his respects to Pete Clemenza for anything.