Fredo embraced his brother. They held it longer than Fredo could remember ever doing before, then pulled each other even closer. It was Sonny they were thinking about, which they both seemed to know without saying anything. His spirit had been there all day, more present than any live guest. Both Fredo and Mike had been on the edge of breaking down when they’d stood in line to hand Francesca their envelopes. Now, when they let go, the brothers’ faces were slick with unashamed tears. They patted each other on the shoulders and said no more.
It was a rough thing to handle, though. Who could blame a guy for wanting to drown his sorrows? Fredo knew even as it was happening that he was drinking too much, but under the circumstances it didn’t seem like a federal offense. Also, there was the matter of that priest at the ceremony-a dead ringer for Father Stefano, the priest who’d made Fredo want to be a priest: same lopsided smile, a plume of black hair combed just the same way, same slim-hipped build, like a long-distance runner’s. Fredo tried not to think about Father Stefano, and most of the time he succeeded-months passed without so much as a momentary image-but at those rare times he did think of him, Fredo wound up drinking too much.
If people everywhere didn’t drink to forget, half the songs on the radio and three fourths of the world’s distilleries would disappear. Fredo stayed at the wedding and didn’t make a scene and didn’t go out anywhere afterward. He and Deanna started dancing together to every song, and she did seem happy, though they were both too drunk for any emotion to be above suspicion.
Back in the room, he gave it to her in the ass, something he’d have never done sober, and she didn’t complain, which was also the doing of all that booze.
When he woke up the next morning, Fredo had no memory of how he’d gotten to his room. He lifted Deanna’s limp arm to look at her Cartier watch. His head pounded. He struggled to get his bleary eyes to focus. It was almost eleven. In a panic, Fredo called Michael’s room. “I’m sorry, sir,” said the operator. “Mr. Corleone and his entire family checked out hours ago.”
(The Fred Corleone Show aired irregularly, usually on Monday nights on a UHF station in Las Vegas, from 1957 until its host’s disappearance in 1959. It was broadcast from the lounge at the Castle in the Sand on a minimal set: a low round table flanked by the host and a guest on leopard-print chairs. On a board behind them, white lights spelled out “ FRED !” Behind the board was a dark curtain. The following is from the show’s debut on September 30, 1957 [transcript courtesy of the Nevada Museum of Radio and Television].)
FRED CORLEONE: This first show, I expect it to be real mothery. If you don’t know what that means, I guess call it a gasser. I see these other shows with everything-girls, jokes, little skits, whatnot. Music. So on and so forth. Sometimes these guys got so many guest stars they need a traffic cop in the wings, y’know? The fellas who do those shows are good men, but, personally, I think maybe they’re not sure they can grab you, so they keep throwing acts at you. More guests than they got folks at home watching. Tonight we’re takin’ a different road, and I hope you’ll sit back and join us. One guest, that’s it, but he’s a major leaguer: a star of stage and screen and of course a singer like none other, not to mention being a fellow paesano. Ladies and gents, Mr. John Fontane.
(Corleone stands and applauds. Fontane nods toward the audience. The men sit, and both take their time lighting cigarettes and getting started.)
FRED CORLEONE: They tell me Groovesville could wind up being the biggest long-player in history. The rock-and-roll fad is dying, and you’re on top, number one across the land.
JOHNNY FONTANE: Thank you. My recording career had a bad case of pavement rash for a while there, but I picked myself up and caught a few breaks. In all modesty, the records I’ve been fortunate enough to make with the genius Cy Milner-not just Groovesville but also The Last Lonely Midnight, Johnny Sings Hoagy, and starting with Fontane Blue-those may very well be the best records I’ve ever done.
FRED CORLEONE: Those are maybe the best sides anyone ever did.
JOHNNY FONTANE: You should have Cy on your show. He’s doing my next record, too, which is sort of a dream project for me, a duets record with Miss Ella Fitzgerald.
FRED CORLEONE: I’ll do that. (Looks offstage.) Somebody write that down. Cy Milner, genius, and, um, y’know. Book him on the show I guess is the good word.
JOHNNY FONTANE: You should have Ella on, also. Like the song says, she’s the top.
FRED CORLEONE: Sure.
JOHNNY FONTANE: I don’t use the word genius lightly.
FRED CORLEONE: The way Hollywood phonies do. I know. You don’t.
JOHNNY FONTANE: Any singer who works with Milner will tell you he’s a genius, for the simple reason that during his years as a ’bone man with the Les Halley Band, he-
FRED CORLEONE: That would be the trombone, folks.
JOHNNY FONTANE: -played it so much like the human voice that he knows how to take a singer into the studio and make him or her feel better than the proverbial million bucks.
FRED CORLEONE: What’s better than a million bucks?
JOHNNY FONTANE: A million bucks and… (Takes a long drag from his cigarette. Shrugs.)
FRED CORLEONE: Your records make millions, though. And not proverbial.
JOHNNY FONTANE: What I’ve learned, in all my years in this business we call show, is that whatever amount of success I’ve had-
FRED CORLEONE: Lots of success.
JOHNNY FONTANE: -I owe to the people. (Acknowledges applause.) Thank you. It’s true.
FRED CORLEONE: Am I right that this rock and roll has gone about as far as it can go? To me it ain’t… you know, it isn’t music. And also, if I may say so, it doesn’t have a lot of class.
JOHNNY FONTANE: That stuff all comes from a primitive side of people. It was dead artistically from the get-go, so all that’s really left is for it to get gone.
FRED CORLEONE: Good to hear. Your opinion, I mean. So let me-let’s really get into it, all right? Things the people want to know.
JOHNNY FONTANE: Let ’er rip.
FRED CORLEONE: In your experience, in all of show business and including all of the women, right? Out of them all. Rating them that way one to ten, ten being high-
JOHNNY FONTANE: (pointing to the host’s coffee cup): That ain’t the only thing that’s high.
FRED CORLEONE: -and in two categories, looks and then also talent. So one to twenty. Or else one to ten, then add the two and divide for the average. The scale’s not important.
JOHNNY FONTANE: You never told me I’d need a Ph.D. in mathematics to do this show.
FRED CORLEONE: For objectivity let’s say excepting your fiancée, Miss Annie McGowan, who can do it all, by the way-sing, dance, tell jokes, even act. Plus there’s the puppets, which I never saw but I heard good things about. Hold on, though. I need to stop right here.
JOHNNY FONTANE: I didn’t know you started.
FRED CORLEONE: So, Annie. You know what they say. About… them. Help me out, John. We got the family market to consider. People know what I’m talking about, believe me. How should I say it? Her what?
JOHNNY FONTANE (grinning): Her chest?
FRED CORLEONE: Chest! Right. It’s a very famous chest, no disrespect to you or her in any way.
JOHNNY FONTANE: None taken. What was the question?
FRED CORLEONE: Who’s the best combination of talent and looks in all of Hollywood?
JOHNNY FONTANE (performing an exaggerated double-take): Your interview style’s gonna give me whiplash.
FRED CORLEONE: Hoo boy! The razzing, giving folks the business, just like from your stage show. We need to get you back onstage here at the world-famous Castle in the Sand.
JOHNNY FONTANE: Thanks. Thank you. I haven’t been able to do shows in Vegas for a while. I do have some gigs locked up in L.A. and Chicago, if people want to come see me there.
FRED CORLEONE: Our show just goes to here in Vegas, and not even all of it, either. This channel doesn’t quite make it to my
own house, can you believe that?
JOHNNY FONTANE: You got a tower or just the rabbit ears?
FRED CORLEONE: You kidding? Tower. Back to business matters, though, if you will. All kidding aside, you’re telling me you’re not singing here? Today? For us? I was told we had a little combo coming in to back you.
JOHNNY FONTANE: I’d love to, but I gotta rest the pipes. Those are big shows comin’ up. Sorry.
FRED CORLEONE: That’s disappointing. Really disappointing. You’re making me look bad.
JOHNNY FONTANE: That ship already sailed before I came on deck.
FRED CORLEONE (cracking up): Funny guy!
JOHNNY FONTANE: I try.
FRED CORLEONE (to someone offstage): Did anyone call that combo and… Right. You did? You did. Why am I the last to know these things? (Turns to Fontane.) So, all right, what? Let’s start. Any thoughts on the Dodgers and Giants moving to California?
JOHNNY FONTANE: Nothing that’ll fly with the family market. That ripped people’s hearts out.
FRED CORLEONE: I don’t know. Businesses relocate all the time. My brother’s business, which I am also a partner in, that business-hotels and entertainment, construction, cement-it moved west, too. That move led to us being here together on this show. Why is baseball different? I got sentimental feelings about New York just like you, but at the same time, why should the national pastime operate in a way that’s not un-American?
JOHNNY FONTANE: Baseball’s tied in to neighborhoods and with the faith of the common people. All the times I been to Ebbets Field… well, I can’t imagine that place empty or torn down. They tear it down, and a piece of me’ll get torn down, too.
FRED CORLEONE: You yourself relocated from New York to the West.
JOHNNY FONTANE: That’s different. People can play my records anywhere, see my pictures anywhere. Sooner or later I end up performing everywhere.
FRED CORLEONE: I bet you’ll go. To Dodgers games out in Los Angeles. These days, you’ve got more ties to L.A. than you do New York.
JOHNNY FONTANE (pausing to light another cigarette): I’ll go, sure. But they’ll never be the real Dodgers. They cut themselves off from what made them the real Dodgers.
FRED CORLEONE: Okay, look, no more about that touchy subject. We could talk about politics. I hear you already got a fella you’re backing for president next time. Little bird tells me.
JOHNNY FONTANE: How’s Deanna?
FRED CORLEONE: She’s fine. Though that ain’t the bird I’m talkin’ about.
JOHNNY FONTANE (winking at the camera): Because to answer your previous question, I think that if both looks and talent are the categories used, I can’t think of anyone who outclasses Deanna Dunn. No disrespect to you or her, but she’s a real barn burner.
FRED CORLEONE: Thank you, Johnny. That’s very kind and not to mention in my opinion also a true fact. For those of you who may have just joined us, this lucky bum here, yours truly, is happily married to the lovely and talented Deanna Dunn.
JOHNNY FONTANE: Academy Award-winning.
FRED CORLEONE: Two times, though you won one also. Were you surprised how heavy it was?
JOHNNY FONTANE: An honor like that, coming from your peers, that’s what this cat found heavy.
FRED CORLEONE: Speaking of awards, you’re backing Governor Shea from New Jersey for president? He won that big award for his book, you know the one I mean.
JOHNNY FONTANE: If he runs, I’m leaning that way, yes. I hope he does run. He’s a good man, and he’d be good for our country. Did you read his book?
FRED CORLEONE: It’s on my nightstand as we speak. I’ll read it before he comes on the show.
JOHNNY FONTANE: He’s coming on the show?
FRED CORLEONE: We’re working on it. Listen, John, let me ask you something. You ever see a picture called Ambush in Durango?
JOHNNY FONTANE: Did I see it? (Laughing) Are you for real?
FRED CORLEONE: Johnny was in that picture, folks, in case you got there after the first reel.
JOHNNY FONTANE: You were in it, too. And also your wife.
FRED CORLEONE: Blink, and you missed me. Blink twice, and folks missed you, too.
JOHNNY FONTANE: In which case they’d be in good company. Most people missed the movie altogether. They can’t all be masterpieces, y’know. Or big hits at the box office.
FRED CORLEONE: I hear you may be getting away from making motion pictures?
JOHNNY FONTANE: No, not at all.
FRED CORLEONE: But it’s not where your heart is anymore, is it? You’ve got your own production company, and yet-
JOHNNY FONTANE: There’s pictures in the works that should be hits. A gladiator movie, for one.
FRED CORLEONE: A musical?
JOHNNY FONTANE: That’s right. Top songs. How’d you hear that?
FRED CORLEONE: I know half of the songwriting team a little. Listen, we gotta pay some bills.
JOHNNY FONTANE: You’re not paying your bills?
FRED CORLEONE: I meant going to commercial, as you know.
JOHNNY FONTANE: We’ll be right back.
FRED CORLEONE: Whose show is this, huh?
JOHNNY FONTANE: So you say it. How’d a bum like you get a television show in the first place, not to mention a chick like Deanna Dunn?
FRED CORLEONE: See what I mean, everybody? You’re a national treasure! We’ll be right back.
From the penthouse window of the Château Marmont, Fredo Corleone stood alone in the dark and looked down at the Sunset Strip, waiting for his wife to come home. This place cost Fredo more each week than what his pop had paid for that whole mall of houses back on Long Island, but it was probably worth it. He could stay here without fans bugging Deanna or bodyguards breathing down his neck. He looked at his watch. Almost two. They’d had dinner reservations at eleven. Shooting usually finished around nine, though he’d been in three movies himself (all bit parts) and knew that you could never tell. Deanna hadn’t been in a hit for five years-which in Hollywood time might as well have been five hundred. She’d landed this part after several younger actresses had passed, and every day she came back from shooting talking about what a dog the movie was going to be, what a horrible actor her pretty-boy costar was.
Even as Fredo turned away from the window and toward the phone, he told himself he wasn’t going to dial it, he was just going to test himself. He dialed. The switchboard put him through to Bungalow 3. The deep, sleepy voice that answered belonged to Wally Morgan, half of one of the most in-demand songwriting teams in the business. He’d been in the navy, raced motorcycles, liked to hunt: no one you’d have figured for a fairy. Fredo was learning that you can’t go by that. Guy paints a room in his house, it doesn’t make him a painter. Just a guy who painted a room is all. Also, this was Hollywood. Things were different here. Fontane called fags buttfuckers, right to their face, but he always had plenty of them at his parties to keep conversation with the ladies moving when he and the boys were talking football or chucking M-80s into the ravine behind his house. And where was Fredo when this was happening? With the boys, maligning quarterbacks and pissing off the neighbors. So he was certainly no fag.
Fredo cleared his voice and asked if it would be okay if he swung by for a drink.
“Swung by?” Morgan chuckled. “Nice euphemism, tiger. But sure. I’ll make some martinis. Be a sport and bring a few of our green friends, too, mmkay?”
Euphemism. Our green friends. Tiger. It was hard for Fredo to believe he had anything to do with anyone who talked like that. He grabbed his bathing suit and a bottle of pills and left. The trunks were for later, afterward, a swim to clear his head.
By the time he finally did get to the pool, it was four in the morning and there was a couple fucking in the deep end. No lights. Fredo changed in the bathhouse, hoping that while he did they’d finish, but when he opened the door they were still there. He hadn’t taken a shower back in Bungalow 3. He had to do something before he went back to the penthouse, to clean up, just in case. T
he couple had stayed more or less in the same place-against the wall, next to a ladder-and seemed to be in no hurry. What did Fredo care? He jumped into the shallow end and swam back and forth a few times. He hadn’t eaten anything, but the pills had given him all the energy in the world. As he was gathering up his clothes, he glanced over at the couple, still going at it in the deep end. That was when he realized that the woman was his wife.
“Dee Dee?”
She laughed. The man laughed, too. The man was her costar, Matt Marshall. “Be right with you,” Deanna called. “Little busy right now.”
Fredo put his head down and strode to the elevator. In the penthouse, he strapped on the gun belt he’d stolen from the set of Apache Creek (his second movie; he’d played an Indian) and two loaded Colt Peacemakers. Despite the pills, he felt an abiding calm. Revenge was justified, and in a few moments he’d have it.
But when he got back to the pool, they were gone.
The next thing Fredo knew, he was standing in the garage of the Château Marmont, leveling a pistol at the Regal Turquoise 1958 Corvette he’d bought Deanna for their first anniversary. He heard his heart beating. He took several deep breaths, keeping his arm steady, squeezing but not quite pulling the trigger. They’d gone to Flint together to pick up the car. Their publicist had gotten the photos of that smiling moment into newspapers and magazines across the world-good ink for all involved.
Fredo opened fire: into the rear window, the left rear tire, two in the driver’s door, one through the driver’s window and out the passenger’s, one in the windshield. It felt good to kill a car. Glass shattered, and tires and upholstery exploded. The echoes of metal on metal and the aftershock tinkling of who knew what.
He holstered the first Colt, opened the Corvette’s hood, and took out the other. The hotel manager and several of his people showed up, but they knew Fredo and knew that this was Deanna Dunn’s car. They’d seen many more famous people engaging in stranger and more clearly criminal behavior. In an even voice the manager asked if there was anything he could do.
“Nope.” Fredo fired a slug into the four-barrel carburetor. “Got it covered, thanks.”
The Godfather returns Page 32
