“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.
On the way to the funeral, during a snowstorm, Fredo Corleone and Nick Geraci stopped for a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This had been Tessio’s favorite place to talk business, and it had become Geraci’s. The place was never so crowded on a weekday that it was hard to talk privately. Plus, it would have been an impossible place to bug.
The snow fell in wet flakes, four inches or more expected. The Rock Garden looked like the lumpy surface of the moon. Trailing several paces behind were four of Geraci’s men, Momo the Roach, Eddie Paradise, and two zips (recently arrived Sicilians, in other words, considered ruthless even by other wiseguys). Two others (Tommy Neri, who’d come with Fredo, and Geraci’s driver, Donnie Bags, so named for the colostomy bag he’d needed since he was gutshot by his own wife) had stayed with the cars.
“What I hear,” Fredo said, “is that maybe Pete’s heart attack was no heart attack.”
“The autopsy said heart attack,” Geraci said. “Making someone have a heart attack? Christ. Know what I think? People watch too much TV. Rots their brains. No offense.”
“None taken,” Fredo said. “Plus which you may be right.” The prevailing rumor was that the men who said they pulled Clemenza from the grill had actually pushed him onto it, that they were trying to burn him up and along with it, the diner, too, but lucked out: he had a heart attack, which streamlined things. There were men both inside and outside his own crew who were suspected of the killing, if there had been a killing, which was highly debatable.
That didn’t stop other rumors from flying. Many seemed to think Clemenza had been killed by Hyman Roth, the Jewish gang leader, if only because Roth was in the middle of negotiations with Michael Corleone for control of Cuba. Louie Russo’s Chicago outfit couldn’t be ruled out, either. If it had been murder, Geraci would have bet on the Rosato Brothers, a rogue element in Clemenza’s regime with ties to Don Rico Tattaglia. All that said, both Ockham’s razor and Clemenza’s diet pointed to an unadorned heart
attack. An autopsy showed that his heart was twice the size of a normal man’s.
“ Hagen said he thought that all the rumors were ridiculous, too,” Fredo said.
“What did the Don say?” asked Geraci.
“Mike agreed with Hagen,” Fredo said. “I talked to him personally about it.” He bounced on the balls of his feet as he said it.
A semi-illiterate reader of human beings could have guessed that this was a lie, though Geraci didn’t even have to guess. Fredo’s top bodyguard used to be Geraci’s barber. Everyone called him Figaro. Figaro’s cousin was a welder and fabricator-Geraci’s guy for tricking out storage spaces in cars and trucks to transport goods from the docks in Jersey. According to Figaro and the cousin, Fredo had barely said hello to Michael since Francesca’s wedding.
Fredo was shivering almost to the point of convulsion. He’d lived out west for twelve years and said he couldn’t handle the cold anymore. Pathetic. If he wanted to experience real cold, he ought to take the fucking train to Cleveland sometime. But out of pity, Geraci steered him into a greenhouse, full of orchids in full bloom and a troop of Girl Scouts.
“How’s your ma?” asked Geraci. “Doin’ all right?”
“She’s tough. The move was hard on her, though. Her place in Tahoe is a million times nicer than that house on the mall, but she and Pop built that place together. Lot of memories.”
“If she’s anything like my mother,” Geraci said, crossing himself and looking out at the falling snow, “the change of scenery might do her a world of good.”
“Not to mention the warmer weather,” Fredo said. “I never seen an orange orchid before,” he said, pointing.
The Girl Scouts left, and the two men were alone together in the greenhouse.
“Mike really wanted to come,” Fredo said, “but he’s all tied up with something big. He loved Pete like an uncle. Christ, we all did.”
Geraci nodded, willing his face into impassiveness. “I’m sure the Don knows what’s best.” Geraci presumed that the real reason Michael hadn’t come was that he didn’t want to be seen at the funeral by any New York reporters or the FBI. His mania to become quote-unquote legitimate overrode his loyalty to his father’s oldest friend, a man he himself had seemed to love-to the extent he was capable of love, or any other emotion. “Something big, huh?”
“To be honest with you,” Fredo said, “I don’t know much about it.”
That was probably true. But Geraci knew plenty. Michael and Roth were apparently unaware that their negotiations for control of Cuba were pointless, since the Batista government was doomed to fall, and had no real importance other than to make them cogs in a bigger wheel involving a coalition of the midwest Families, led by Chicago and Cleveland. Louie Russo had a deal worked out with the rebels. Even if Batista somehow stayed in power, Fredo’s weakness could be used to turn Roth and Michael against each other. All that would be left of their deal was the deal itself, the terms of which Russo and his associates were fully prepared to assume.
Geraci nodded toward the door. They had to keep moving.
He gave Fredo an update on the project they were calling Colma East. He’d worked out the turf issues in Jersey with the Straccis. He had a front, someone impossible to connect to the Corleone Family, who had a contract on a big swampy parcel of land. Also, since Geraci was already shipping most of his heroin from Sicily in between slabs of marble too heavy for customs inspectors to move, getting into the stonecutting business would be a snap. “What about on your end?”
“It’s in the bag. Me and Mike just need to sit down and hammer out a few particulars.”
“You haven’t done that yet?” Geraci said, pretending to be surprised. “Because this is as far as I can take this thing. Ordinances, rezoning, et cetera-those aren’t fields of the law I know about. I know who to ask, how to get all that rolling, but first you have to get the Don’s blessing. The politicians-again, his call and not mine. There’s also the matter of how the public might react to this, how to sell it to them. How to keep it off the ballot and so on. Fredo, I respect what you’re trying to do, but don’t you think that if the Don thought these problems were easy to fix, we’d probably be moving forward already?”
“Nah. The problem is the timing. Mike’s focus for the time being is on other things. Knowing you’re on board, though, that’ll get it done. From Mike’s way of thinking, me and you are perfect for a thing like this. His brother and the guy he’s got the highest opinion of.”
Geraci put his big hand on Fredo’s shoulder. “Mike never said that, Fredo.”
It was a show of disrespect, a calculated risk, but of course Geraci was right.
“Did I say he said that?” Fredo said. “What I said was what his way of thinking was.”
“I’m just a mook from Cleveland.” Geraci tightened his grip; Fredo flinched. “I do what I’m told, run my own things, spread the wealth, everybody’s happy. Here and there, I see an opportunity, and I take it. But don’t make me into more than I am. I’m not on board, either. You asked me to look into some things, and I looked. Period. We clear?”
Fredo nodded. Geraci let go of his shoulder. They started walking again. The sun came out, but the snow kept falling.
“I hate that,” Fredo said. “The snow and the sun. It’s unnatural. Like the bomb’s been dropped and the world’s gone screwy on us.”
“I need to be clear on something else, Fredo,” Geraci said. “I don’t want to get into the middle of things between you and your brother.”
“Things are fine between me and my brother.”
“Just so it’s understood. I’m not taking sides. Under no circumstances.”
“There’s no sides to take. C’mon. We’re on the same side about everything. Anybody says different, they don’t know me. They don’t know Mike.”
“ ‘Methinks thou dost protest too much.’ ”
“What the fuck?”
Geraci jerked his thumb toward where they came from. “Shakespeare. The garden back there made me think of it. You’re an actor now, Fredo. Maybe you should learn that stuff.”
“Don’t college-boy me, Mr. Just-a-mook-from-Cleveland. You think you’re better than me?”
“Easy,” Geraci said. “I don’t think anything. Shakespeare was just on my mind.”
“Because I’ve been to see Shakespeare. I’ve even seen Shakespeare in Italian.”
“Which ones? Which plays?”
“I don’t know which ones, right off. What are you, my fucking En-glish teacher? Don’t tell me what I need to learn. It may come as news to you that I got a lot of different things going on. I’m not sittin’ on my ass sipping sherry and making lists of all the plays I ever been to. I’ve been to plays. All right? Smart guy? Plays.”
“Fine,” Geraci said.
They kept walking. He gave Fredo time to calm down.
“Look,” Geraci finally said. “I’m edgy, all right? I don’t like to go behind Michael’s back even to take a leak.”
“Don’t worry about it. Our operation’s too big for any one man to be aware of every little thing or even want to.”
If Fredo really believed that, he certainly didn’t know his brother.
“Problem with Mike,” Fredo said, “he’s smart but he’s bad with people. He don’t understand, it’s natural for people to want to do things for themselves, create things. All I want is to have something that’s mine. My legacy, if you will. If you didn’t feel the same way-”
“This is getting us nowhere, Fredo. I’ve said what I have to say.” Geraci had been right. Fredo was a sweet guy but dumb enough to take his thirty pieces of silver and betray his brother without even knowing that was what he’d done. It was a sad moment. Despite everything, he really liked Fredo. “The next step is one hundred percent between you and Mike. End of story.”
Fredo shrugged, then looked down at his loafers. “I tell you what,” he said. “These sure aren’t the right shoes for this slop.”
“Should�
�ve worn your cowboy boots,” Geraci said.
“What cowboy boots?”
“I thought all you guys out there wore cowboy boots, carried six-shooters, the whole bit. Shoot up cars and little dogs.”
Fredo laughed. He usually took it well when you needled him, further proof what a good guy he really was. How sad using him as a pawn in all this was going to be. “If there were ever two cars that had it coming,” Fredo said, “those were it. Too bad about the dog, though.”
“True it took the head right off?”
Fredo raised his eyes in woe and lamentation. “Clean. I couldn’t have made that shot in a million years if I was trying.”
“We need to get going,” Geraci said, pointing toward the lot where they’d parked. “This is not a thing I’m going to be late to.”
“We’re a lot alike,” Fredo said, “you know that?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Geraci said, looping an arm around him, cuffing him playfully, the way a brother or an old friend would.
They crossed a small wooden bridge across a barely frozen pond.
“You should see this place in the spring,” Geraci said. “Cherry blossoms like you can’t believe, pinker than pink.”
“I probably should.”
“You know,” Geraci said, “I’ve always wanted to ask you something.”
“Anything, my friend.”
“Tell me if I’m out of line for even asking, but what exactly are your responsibilities as sotto capo? What did Mike tell you they were?”
“Are you serious? What are you talkin’ about? What are you askin’ me here?”
“Because I don’t think it’s clear to anyone. To a lot of people, and here I confess that what I really mean is to me, but I’m not alone, no offense, but it seems mostly symbolic.”
“Symbolic? What the fuck you talking about, symbolic? I got a lot of different things I do. How is it that you don’t understand that there’s a bunch of it I can’t talk about?”
“That, I understand. It’s just that-”
“I imagine that, with Pete gone, I’ll even be going along with Mike to the meeting of the heads of all the Families, in upstate New York there.”
The Godfather returns Page 35
