“Why don’t you ask that to Michael Corleone, huh?” Johnny said. “Better yet, why don’t you ask all the sick kids Mr. Corleone’s hospital and charities have helped? Look, folks, this is an exciting time for our country. I think I can speak for everyone up here when I say that we’re behind President Shea one hundred percent. But let’s keep the questions a little more on the subject of the inaugural ball itself, all right?”

“You grew up in New York,” the jerk-off shouted, “but you’re friendly with Louie Russo in Chicago and Ignazio Pignatelli in Los Angeles.” The shithead pronounced it Pig-natelli, rather than Peenyatelli. “Pignatelli’s sister is listed as a shareholder in the new record label you started. My question is, is it possible to transfer your membership-”

“Don’t make me come down from here and show you some manners,” Johnny said.

“Are you going to have me whacked? That’s the Mafia word for it, right? Whacked?”

“Now, how the fuck would I know that?” Johnny said. Obviously, everyone knew that, but that wasn’t the point.

A murmur went through the room.

“How on earth,” Johnny rephrased it, “would I know that?”

After Kay Corleone left her husband and left Nevada, she landed a teaching job at a first-rate boarding school in Maine. She and her children lived in a stone cottage on the grounds of the school. Michael didn’t like it, but she needed a job, not financially but as a means of creating an identity separate from all she’d been with him. She’d applied only to schools thousands of miles from Lake Tahoe. She hadn’t expected Michael to fight so hard for custody and had been even more surprised when out of the blue he told her he’d looked into the school where she was teaching and decided that the children’s education would be best served by going there. Kay had no idea what changed his mind. He claimed he simply realized he was using the kids as pawns in the divorce and putting his feelings ahead of what they really needed. She wanted to believe that. She’d curbed her impulse to tell him that if he’d paid more attention to his heart than his cold mind, he might not have found himself in this mess in the first place.

Michael didn’t see Tony and Mary often. When he did, he usually picked them up in his plane and flew them to New York for a weekend of frenzied activity: ice-skating, carriage rides, museums, movies, the zoo-everything he could cram in. They’d come home exhausted. For weeks afterward, Mary, who was seven now and worshiped her father, would tell endless stories about their time together. Tony, who was nine, rarely talked about him at all.

When Michael first told Kay his schedule was tight and asked her to take the kids to New York herself this time, she’d said it was impossible. When he told her about the inaugural ball and said Kay could go, too, she declined. Washington had a lot of bad memories for her. Though she hoped he’d find a way to make it work so he could take Mary and Tony. And, no, having some button man come to Maine and drive them to New York was not an option.

Everything changed when Kay heard about Jules Segal. He’d been her doctor in Nevada. She’d recommended him to a friend who’d moved there and learned that he’d been shot more than a year ago-the victim of a botched burglary, according to the newspapers.

So now, the day of the ball, Kay waited in a room at the Essex House, in a suite overlooking Central Park. The kids were watching TV. They didn’t have a set at home anymore. Seeing them transfixed by it here confirmed for her that this had been a good idea. She looked at her watch. He was late. Some things never changed.

Finally, she heard voices in the hall. Michael and-of course!-Al Neri opened the door.

“Why isn’t he dressed?” Michael asked, pointing at Tony. Michael already had his tux on.

“I’m not going to your stupid ball,” Tony said.

Kay had been so distracted that she hadn’t noticed that Tony had taken off his suit and changed back into the blue shirt and chinos he wore to school every day.

Mary leapt from the bed to go hug her father. “I’m going!” Mary said. “Don’t I look like a beautiful princess? Because that’s who goes to balls is why.”

“You do, sweetheart. You really do. C’mon, Tony. You’re going. You’ll love it.”

Kay told Tony to put his suit back on. The boy snatched it up and trudged to the bathroom, muttering. Neri sat down on the sofa, apparently content with the cartoon program that was on. Mary twirled around, showing off her dress. Kay told her to go watch the rest of the show on TV, she needed to have a word alone with Daddy. Then she steered Michael into the adjoining bedroom and closed the door.

“I did it, Kay. I’ve retired from-well, from the dangerous aspects of the business I inherited from my father. I promised you that I’d make all my business dealings legitimate, and I’ve done it.”

She frowned. “You made that promise ten years ago.” She presumed it was a clumsy ploy to get her to come back to him. Still, she hoped for the kids’ sake he was telling the truth. Sooner or later, he was going to be killed or go to jail, and she hated to think how it would affect Tony and Mary when he did. “I’m happy for you, though, Michael. I really am.”

“You look great, Kay. Maine, teaching: it’s really agreeing with you.”

“Michael, I have to ask you something. I want you to tell me the truth.”

In a split second, his face became an expressionless mask.

“Did you have Jules Segal killed?”

“No.”

No hesitation. Just no. Isn’t that exactly what a liar would do when the answer is yes?

“I don’t think I believe you,” Kay said.

“I told you a long time ago not to ask me about my business, Kay.”

“This isn’t your business, it’s our business. You had Dr. Segal killed because of me, didn’t you? Because of the-”

“Don’t say it.” At least now he had an expression on his face. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Abortion. Are you going to slap me again?” The way he had when she’d told him: the slap that had ended their marriage, in a different hotel, but in Washington, where he was about to go.

“No, Kay,” he said. “I’m not.”

“Because if that burglary was your handiwork-”

“I don’t want to talk about this subject.”

“-you should know that it wasn’t him.”

“Kay, stop it. We both know that when you-when that happened, he was the doctor you went to. We own that hospital, Kay.”

“So it shouldn’t have been too hard to get my records and see that I had a miscarriage.”

“Oh, sure. You flew to Las Vegas so you could have a miscarriage, and the attending doctor just happened to be the same man who performed the abortions every time Fredo-”

Her stomach felt like it had been twisted by a pair of strong hands. “Oh, God, Michael. I knew it. I knew it. You just… I was so angry. I was scared. It was terrible to live in fear of what might happen to you, but I realized there was nothing I was more afraid of than you-”

“Me? I have protected this family, our family, ahead of anything and everything else.”

“Michael, you married into another kind of family a long time before we started ours. Even your first wife was your second wife. I was your third.”

“Nothing could have ever happened to you. Or our children. Nothing ever will.”

“Come on, Michael. Our house in Nevada was attacked, like some target in a war zone. Did you promise Apollonia nothing would ever happen to her, too? I suppose we should count our blessings we weren’t blown to smithereens.”

“Kay-”

“And what do you mean, Nothing ever will? What sort of protection, what kind of goons do you command in your capacity as a legitimate businessman? Legitimate businessman. We’ll see. Do you really expect me to believe that anything about you has changed, that anything about you will ever change? Calling yourself legitimate won’t change what you’ve done.”