Last Don

by Mario Puzo

  Finally it was time for dessert. Athena unwrapped one of the creamy cakes and offered it to Bethany, who refused it. She offered one to Cross and he shook his head. He was getting very nervous because, though Bethany had consumed an enormous amount of food, it was obvious she was very angry with her mother. He knew that Athena sensed it, too.

  Athena ate the pastry and exclaimed enthusiastically about how delicious it was. She unwrapped another two and set them before Bethany. The girl usually loved sweets. Bethany took them off the tablecloth and put them on the grass. In a few minutes they were covered with insects. Then Bethany picked up the two cakes and shoved one into her mouth. She handed the other to Cross. Without a moment’s hesitation, Cross put the pastry into his mouth. There was a tickling sensation all across his palate and on the sides of his gums. He quickly gulped some soda to wash it down. Bethany looked at Athena.

  Athena had the studied frown of an actress planning to do a difficult scene. Then she laughed, a wonderfully infectious laugh, and clapped her hands. “I told you it was delicious,” she said. She unwrapped another pastry, but Bethany refused and so did Cross. Athena threw the pastry onto the grass and then took her napkin and wiped Bethany’s mouth and then did the same to Cross. She was enjoying herself, it seemed.

  On the drive back to the hospital, she spoke to Cross with some of the same inflections she used with Bethany. As if he, too, were autistic. Bethany watched her carefully and then turned to stare at Cross.

  When they dropped the child off at the hospital, Bethany took Cross by the hand for a moment. “You’re beautiful,” she said, but when Cross tried to kiss her good-bye, she turned her head away. Then she ran.

  Driving back to Malibu, Athena said excitedly, “She responded to you, that’s a very good sign.”

  “Because I’m beautiful,” Cross said dryly.

  “No,” Athena said, “because you can eat bugs. I’m at least as beautiful as you are and she hates me . . .” She was smiling joyfully, and as always her beauty made Cross dizzy and alarmed him.

  “She thinks you’re like her,” Athena said. “She thinks you’re autistic.”

  Cross laughed, he enjoyed the idea. “She may be right,” he said. “Maybe you should put me in the hospital with her.”

  “No,” Athena said, smiling. “Then I couldn’t have your body whenever I wanted it. Besides, I’m going to take her out after I finish Messalina.”

  When they arrived at her Malibu house, Cross went in with her. They had planned for him to spend the night. By this time he had learned to read Athena: The more vivacious she acted, the more disturbed she was.

  “If you’re upset, I can go back to Vegas,” he said.

  Now she looked sad. Cross wondered how he loved her most, when she was naturally exuberant, when she was stern and serious, or when she was melancholy. Her face changed so magically in its beauty that he always found his feelings matching hers.

  She said to him fondly, “You’ve had a terrible day and you shall have your reward.” There was a mocking tone to her voice, but he understood it was a mockery of her own beauty, she knew her magic was false.

  “I didn’t have a terrible day,” Cross said. And it was true. The joy he felt that day, with the three of them alone by the lake in the vast forest, reminded him of his childhood.

  “You love ants on your pastry . . .” Athena said sadly.

  “They weren’t bad,” Cross said. “Can Bethany get better?”

  “I don’t know but I’ll keep searching until I find out,” Athena said. “I have a long weekend coming up when they won’t need to shoot Messalina. I’m going to fly to France with Bethany. There’s a great doctor in Paris and I’m going to take her for another evaluation.”

  “What if he says there’s no hope?” Cross said.

  “Maybe I won’t believe him. It doesn’t matter,” Athena said. “I love her. I’ll take care of her.”

  “Forever and ever?” Cross asked.

  “Yes,” Athena said. Then she clapped her hands together, her green eyes shining. “Meanwhile, let’s have some fun. Let’s take care of ourselves. We’ll go upstairs and shower and jump into bed. We’ll make mad passionate love for hours. Then I’ll cook us a midnight supper.”

  For Cross, he was a child again waking up with a day of pleasure before him, the breakfast his mother prepared, the playing of games with his friends, the hunting trips with his father, then supper with his family, Claudia, Nalene, and Pippi. The card games afterward. It was that innocent a feeling. Before him was making love to Athena in the twilight, watching the sun disappear over the Pacific from the balcony, the sky painted with marvelous reds and pinks, the touch of her warm flesh and silky skin. Her beautiful face and lips to kiss. He smiled and led her up the stairs.

  The phone in the bedroom rang, and Athena ran up ahead of Cross to answer it. She covered the mouthpiece and in a startled voice said, “It’s for you. A man named Giorgio.” He had never received a phone call at her house before.

  This could only be trouble, Cross thought, and so he did something he never thought he was capable of doing. He shook his head.

  Athena said into the phone, “He’s not here. . . . Yes, I’ll tell him to call you when he comes.” She hung up the phone and asked, “Who’s Giorgio?”

  “Just a relative,” Cross said. He was stunned by what he had done, and why: because he could not give up a night with Athena. That was a grievous crime. And then he wondered how Giorgio knew he would be here and what Giorgio wanted. It must be something important, he thought, but still it could wait until morning. More than anything else he was desperate for the hours of making love to Athena.

  It was the moment they’d been waiting for all day, all week; they were stripping off their clothes before showering together but he couldn’t resist embracing her, their bodies still sweaty from the picnic. Then she took his hand and led him under the spraying water.

  They dried each other with the large orange towels and, wrapped in them, stood on the balcony to watch the sun slide gradually behind the horizon. Then they went inside to lay on the bed.

  When Cross made love to her, it seemed that all the cells of his brain and body flew out and he was left in some feverish dream; he was a ghost whose wisps were filled with ecstasy, a ghost who entered her flesh. He lost all his caution, all his reason, he didn’t even study her face to see if she was acting, if she truly loved him. It seemed to go on forever, until they fell asleep in each other’s arms. When they woke they were still entwined, lit by a moon whose light seemed brighter than the sun’s. Athena kissed him and said, “Did you really like Bethany?”

  “Yes,” Cross said. “She’s part of you.”

  “Do you think she can get better?” Athena asked. “Do you think I can help her get better?”

  At that moment Cross felt as though he would give up his life to make the girl well. He felt the urge to sacrifice for the woman he loved, which many men feel but which until that time had been completely alien to him.

  “We can both try to help,” Cross said.

  “No,” Athena said, “I have to do it by myself.”

  They fell asleep again, and when the phone rang the air was misty with the newly born dawn. Athena picked up the phone, listened, and then said to Cross, “It’s the guard at the gate. He says four men in a car want to come and see you.”

  Cross felt a shock of fear. He took the phone and said to the guard, “Put one of them on the phone.”

  The voice he heard was Vincent’s. “Cross, Petie is with me. We got some really bad news.”

  “OK, put the guard on,” Cross said, and then, to the guard, “They can come in.”

  He had completely forgotten about Giorgio’s call. That’s what love does, he thought contemptuously. I won’t live a year if I keep this up.

  He slipped on his clothes quickly and ran downstairs. The car was just pulling up to the front of the house, the sun, still half hidden, threw its light from over the horizon.

&
nbsp; Vincent and Petie were getting out of the back of a long limousine. Cross could see the driver and another man in front. Petie and Vincent walked the long garden path to the door and Cross opened it for them.

  Suddenly Athena was standing beside him, clad in slacks and a pullover, nothing beneath. Petie and Vincent were staring at her. She had never looked more beautiful.

  Athena led them all into the kitchen and started making coffee, and Cross introduced them as his cousins.

  “How did you guys get here?” Cross asked. “Last night you were in New York.”

  “Giorgio chartered us a plane,” Petie said.

  Athena was studying them as she made the coffee. Neither of them showed any emotion. They looked like brothers, both were big men, but Vincent was pale as granite, while Petie’s leaner face was tanned red with weather or drink.

  “So what’s the bad news?” Cross said. He expected to hear that the Don had died, that Rose Marie had really gone crazy, or that Dante had done something so terrible that the Family was in crisis.

  Vincent said with his usual curtness, “We have to talk to you alone.”

  Athena poured them coffee. “I tell you all my bad news,” she said to Cross. “I should hear yours.”

  “I’ll just leave with them,” Cross said.

  “Don’t you be so fucking condescending,” Athena said. “Don’t you dare leave.”

  At this Vincent and Petie reacted. Vincent’s granite face flushed with embarrassment, Petie gave Athena a speculative grin, as if she was someone to be watched. Cross, seeing this, laughed and said, “OK, let’s hear it.”

  Petie tried to soften the blow. “Something happened to your father,” he said.

  Vincent broke in savagely, “Pippi got shot by some punk eggplant mugger. He’s dead. So is the mugger, a cop named Losey shot him as he was running away. They need you in L.A. to identify the body and do the paperwork. The old man wants him buried in Quogue.”

  Cross lost his breath. He wavered for a moment, trembling in some dark wind, then he felt Athena holding his arm with both her hands.

  “When?” Cross asked.

  “About eight last night,” Petie said. “Giorgio called for you.”

  Cross thought, While I was making love, my father was lying in the morgue. He felt an extraordinary contempt for his moment of weakness, an overwhelming shame. “I have to go,” he said to Athena.

  She looked at his stricken face. She had never seen him so.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Call me.”

  In the backseat of the limousine, Cross heard the other two men offering condolences. He recognized them as soldiers from the Bronx Enclave. As they moved through the Malibu Colony gate and then onto the Pacific Coast Highway, Cross detected a sluggishness of movement. The car they were riding in was armored.

  Five days later the funeral of Pippi De Lena was held in Quogue. The Don’s estate held its own private cemetery as the mansion held its own private chapel, and Pippi was buried in the grave next to Silvio, to show the Don’s respect.

  Only the Clericuzio clan and the most valued soldiers of the Bronx Enclave attended. Lia Vazzi came from the Hunting Lodge in the Sierras at the request of Cross. Rose Marie was not present. On hearing of Pippi’s death, she had one of her fits and was taken to the psychiatric clinic.

  But Claudia De Lena was there. She flew in to comfort Cross and to say good-bye to her father. What she had not been able to do when Pippi was alive, she felt she must do after his death. She wanted to claim a part of him for herself, to show the Clericuzio that he was as much her father as he was part of their Family.

  The lawn in front of the Clericuzio mansion was decorated with a huge floral wreath the size of a billboard, and there were buffet tables and waiters and a bartender at a makeshift table to serve the guests. It was strictly a day of mourning, and no Family business was discussed.

  Claudia cried bitter tears for all the years she’d been forced to live without her father, but Cross received condolences with a quiet dignity and showed no signs of grief.

  The next night he was on the balcony of his suite in the Xanadu Hotel watching the riot of colors on the neoned Strip. Even this far up he could hear the sounds of music, the buzz of gamblers crowding the Strip looking for a lucky casino. But it was quiet enough for him to analyze what had happened in the last month. And to reflect on the death of his father.

  Cross did not believe for a moment that Pippi De Lena had been shot down by a punk mugger. It was impossible for a Qualified Man to meet such a fate.

  He reviewed all the facts he had been told. His father had been shot by a black mugger named Hugh Marlowe. The mugger was twenty-three years old, with a record as a drug dealer. Marlowe had been killed while fleeing the scene by Detective Jim Losey, who had been trailing Marlowe in a drug case. Marlowe had a gun in his hand and pointed it at Losey who had therefore shot him down, a clean shot through the bridge of his nose. When Losey investigated, he discovered Pippi De Lena, and immediately called Dante Clericuzio. Before he notified even the police. Why would he do so even if he was on the Family payroll? A great irony—Pippi De Lena, the ultimate Qualified Man, the Clericuzio Number One Hammer for over thirty years, murdered by a raggedy drug-dealing mugger.

  But then why had the Don sent Vincent and Petie to transport him with an armored car and guarded him until the funeral? Why had the Don taken such elaborate precautions? During the funeral he had asked the Don. But the Don said only that it was wise to be prepared until all the facts were known. That he had made a full investigation and it seemed all the facts were true. A petty thief had made a mistake and a foolish tragedy had ensued, but then, the Don said, most tragedies were foolish.

  There was no doubting the Don’s grief. He had always treated Pippi as one of his sons, had indeed given him some preference, and had said to Cross, “You shall have your father’s place in the Family.”

  But now Cross on his balcony overlooking Vegas pondered the central issue. The Don never believed in coincidence and yet here was a case bursting with coincidence. Detective Jim Losey was on the Family payroll and out of the thousands of detectives and policemen in Los Angeles, it was he who stumbled on the killing. What were the odds on that? But put that aside. Even more important, Don Domenico Clericuzio well knew it was impossible for a street mugger to get that close to Pippi De Lena. And what mugger fired six shots before fleeing? Never would the Don believe such a case.

  So the question came. Had the Clericuzio decided that their greatest soldier was a danger to them? For what reason? Could they disregard his loyalty and devotion as well as their own affection for him? No, they were innocent. And the strongest evidence in their favor was that Cross himself was still alive. The Don would never allow that if they had killed Pippi. But Cross knew that he himself must be in danger.

  Cross thought about his father. He had truly loved him, and Pippi was hurt that Claudia had refused to speak to him while he was alive. Yet she went to the funeral. Why? Could it be that she had finally remembered how good he was to both of them before their family fell apart?

  He thought of that terrible day when he had chosen to go with his father because he realized what his father really was, knew that he could really kill Nalene if she took both children. But he had stepped up and taken his father’s hand, not because of love but because of the fear in Claudia’s eyes.

  Cross had always thought his father was protection against the world they lived in, always thought his father invulnerable. A giver of death, not a receiver. Now he himself would have to guard against his enemies, even perhaps the Clericuzio. After all, he was rich, he owned half a billion worth of the Xanadu, his life was now worth taking.

  And that made him think of the life he was now leading. To what purpose? To grow old like his father, taking all risks and then still to be killed? True, Pippi had enjoyed his life, the power, the money, but now to Cross it seemed to have been an empty life. His father had never known the happiness of loving a wo
man like Athena.

  He was only twenty-six years old; he could make a new life. He thought of Athena and that he would see her tomorrow working for the first time, observe her make-believe life and see all the masks she could wear. How Pippi would have loved her, he loved all beautiful women. But then he thought of the wife of Virginio Ballazzo. Pippi had been fond of her, eaten at her table, hugged her, danced with her, played boccie with her husband, then planned the killing of them both.

  He sighed and rose to go back into his suite. Dawn was breaking, and its light misted the neon that hung like a great theater curtain over the Strip. He could look down and see the flags of all the great casino hotels, the Sands, Caesars, the Flamingo, the Desert Inn, and the shooting volcano of the Mirage. The Xanadu was greater than them all. He watched the flags flying over the Xanadu Villas. What a dream he had lived in, and now it was dissolving, Gronevelt dead and his father murdered.

  Back in his room he picked up the phone and called Lia Vazzi to come up and have breakfast with him. They had traveled from the funeral in Quogue to Vegas together. Then he called for breakfast for both of them. He remembered that Lia was fond of pancakes, an exotic dish to him still after all his years in America. The security guard arrived with Vazzi the same time as breakfast did. They ate in the kitchen of the suite.

  “So what do you think?” Cross asked Lia.

  “I think we should kill this detective Losey,” Lia said. “I told you that a long time ago.”

  “So you don’t believe his story?” Cross asked.

  Lia was cutting his pancakes into strips. “It’s a disgrace, that story,” he said. “There is no way a Qualified Man like your father would let a rascal get that close to him.”

  “The Don thinks it’s true,” Cross said. “He investigated.”

  Lia reached for one of the Havana cigars and the glass of brandy Cross had set out for him. “I would never contradict Don Clericuzio,” he said. “But let me kill Losey just to make sure.”