The Godfather's Revenge

by Mark Winegardner

  Al Neri shook his head. Nothing in the bag except oranges. He began to peel one. Hagen showed Drago and his men to the back room.

  The last to arrive were the three remaining New York Dons—Ottilio Cuneo, Paul Fortunato, and Osvaldo Altobello.

  Altobello held the door for the other two Dons and their men. He’d been on the Commission for a year, but it had not met in that time. This gesture of humility drew approving nods from the wheezing Fortunato and the jolly-looking Cuneo.

  Sweating and breathless from the strain of the ten-foot walk from the curb to the restaurant door, Fat Paulie Fortunato, Don of the Barzini Family, sat heavily on a chair just inside the door and exchanged embraces with Michael and Tom Hagen from there. Fortunato looked fat enough to have eaten John Villone for breakfast. His eyes were slits in his doughy face, and his leonine head was perpetually bowed, as if his neck muscles couldn’t hold it up. Fortunato was the closest thing the Corleones had to an enemy among the Five Families. He’d been a devoted capo to Emilio Barzini, whose murder had never been pinned on the Corleones (or on Al Neri, who’d donned his old cop uniform to do the shooting), and he’d been close to Vince Forlenza in Cleveland, who—to be technical—had disappeared and was only presumed dead. Fortunato’s personal power base was the Garment District. He’d also been one of the Barzini men pushing to expand into narcotics, which, on Fat Paulie’s watch, the Family had done. He resented what he called the hypocrisy of the Corleones, who’d withheld their political support for the drug business while Vito was still running things, and then, under Michael’s reign, created a covert regime that seized a piece of the action. Despite these differences, Fortunato was not, by nature, a man who took offense or took the offensive. He’d been boss for eight peaceful years, ruling Staten Island the way the Barzinis had for decades.

  There might have been no greater testament to Michael Corleone’s power than Ozzie Altobello’s elevation to Don of what was still known as the Tattaglia Family. Once the Corleones’ bitter rivals, the Tattaglias were now headed by Connie Corleone’s literal godfather, a loyal friend of Vito Corleone’s since Prohibition. The Tattaglias—less diverse than most Families—specialized in prostitution, strip clubs, and pornography. This empire was built by Philip Tattaglia, who enjoyed its fruits with epic gluttony. After he was killed in 1955, his brother Rico came out of retirement to succeed him. The organization started falling apart. It was undercapitalized and increasingly vulnerable to police raids and the crusades of the self-righteous. When Rico died last year of natural causes, most expected the new Don to be one of the Family’s glorified pimps or, failing that, one of its young warriors. Instead, the courtly Altobello, a born consigliere, found himself thrust into the role of Don. Most saw him as a human olive branch extended toward the Corleones.

  Leo “the Milkman” Cuneo was a small old man who somehow had the presence of a large one, the way a skilled but tiny actor might. He wore a plain, sensible suit. He’d been given the honor of arriving last not in deference to his power but as a gesture of respect, now that, with Forlenza’s disappearance, Cuneo had become the senior member of the Commission.

  Michael Corleone, briefly, took Cuneo’s hat and coat himself, until a horrified waiter swooped in and relieved Michael of that imagined indignity. “On the contrary, it was my honor,” Michael said in Italian, “to touch the hem of Don Cuneo’s garment.”

  Michael forced a smile so that Cuneo would not think he was being sarcastic.

  Cuneo mumbled a few bars of a Sicilian song Michael didn’t know and didn’t understand. “Am I right?” he said in English, patting Michael on the cheek.

  “As rain,” Michael said, showing Cuneo toward the banquet room.

  The Cuneo Family had some business in New York City, mostly in Manhattan and the Bronx, but it ran up-state New York (and owned the biggest milk company in the region, too, which was how Ottilio Cuneo became Leo the Milkman). Leo Cuneo had played a key role in negotiating peace after the Five Families War, but his tenure as a statesman of the underworld had been short-lived. It had been his associate’s white farmhouse where the infamous raid had occurred. Half the mob bosses in America were caught as they tried to run away through the woods. How was it possible that no one from the Cuneo Family heard about the raid in advance or noticed the cars approaching? Michael had no idea; it passed beyond all human understanding. He’d noticed men in the bushes as he drove up, and he’d kept going. It was supposed to have been the meeting at which he negotiated his own retirement from all this, a goal that was not abandoned but was no longer even on the horizon, which Michael tried not to think about.

  Nobody spent more than a few hours in jail. Lawyers pointed out that the United States Constitution guaranteed the right to free assembly. These points, however, came later in the story and were not featured on the cover of anything. They were also too complicated to be admissible in the court of public opinion.

  The fallout from the raid was still falling. Without all the publicity and public outrage, the FBI would have almost certainly continued to keep its distance. If not for the raid, the public—perfectly willing to ignore that its government killed innocent people all over the world, every day of the year—would have never felt so threatened by men like those on the Commission. What, after all, posed more of a threat to the average American: the business discussed at a meeting such as this one? Or—to cite only one current example—the CIA-sponsored efforts under way in the obscure nation of Vietnam? So why the public scrutiny of Michael’s business and the indifference to the larger-scale dangers carried out in the name of the American people? Simple. Look what made the most money in Hollywood, that whorehouse of the American dream: morally uncomplicated comic-book depictions of heroes and villains, simple stories for uncurious people. That raid had given the people what they wanted. Now, largely as a consequence of the hysteria the raid touched off, flawed and complicated men of goodwill like Michael Corleone and James K. Shea had been reduced in the public eye to the stuff of comic books. Never mind that both were sons of men who’d emigrated to this country as boys, men who’d been in business together, making their fortunes selling something that was no longer a crime. Michael Corleone and James K. Shea were both decorated war heroes. They both attended Ivy League schools and married a woman they met during those years (never mind that Michael, who had been resolutely faithful, was a Bad Man, or that Jimmy Shea, a cunt-drunk philanderer, was Prince Charming). They both had two young children, a boy and a girl. They were both Catholics who went to church only when appearances decreed. Their families had each suffered a series of operatic tragedies. Together, in Chicago and West Virginia and Florida, they stole the American presidency. Each man’s love for his country was deep and sincere.

  Never mind all that. All the public wanted was black hat/white hat.

  On one side, the public faced the threat of a vast, thrilling, and terrifying criminal conspiracy, conducted by the members of a secret society: nefarious super-fiends, swarthy men with foreign-sounding names. On the other side, protecting the public from evildoers everywhere, stood the fair-skinned and handsome Jimmy Shea, a square-jawed superhero from central casting, and his sidekick Danny, the toothy boy wonder.

  All of which came about only because Leo Cuneo bungled the security detail.

  Vito Corleone had taught his sons that great triumphs and great mistakes were rarely representative incidents in a man’s life, but only a child would think it unfair to judge a man by such things. The issue was not fairness. The issue was what it meant to be a man.

  In fairness, though, Leo Cuneo had taken responsibility for the security lapse. As he entered the banquet room, his fellow Dons greeted him with genuine warmth. But the blunder had cost him, in ways he had no doubt noticed and others he would never know about. Leo Cuneo had been a good friend to the Corleone Family. He had voted with Vito and then Michael on every important issue that came before the Commission. His people had even located the killer of Michael’s first wife, Apollonia,
a man named Fabrizzio, who’d been working under an assumed name at a pizzeria in Buffalo. Cuneo himself had made the arrangements to send Fabrizzio Michael Corleone’s regards, along with three shots from a 9mm pistol, two to the chest and one point-blank into his skull. Such loyalties had kept Leo the Milkman alive.

  ANOTHER HALF HOUR OF GREETINGS AND DRINKS went by. The preliminaries might have gone on even longer if not for Michael Corleone’s blood sugar. He’d eaten some olives and cheese and cappacolla off the antipasti plates, but that wasn’t going to cut it. He needed to really eat. He took his place at the table and gulped down some water. Tom Hagen slipped into the seat beside Michael, signaling Neri to corral the other bodyguards and go wait in the main dining room. The other Dons saw that Michael had taken his seat and quickly followed suit.

  As Neri stood in the doorway and watched, the waiters brought out steaming bowls of macaroni and scrambled around refilling the drinks and replenishing the bread. When the last waiter left, Al Neri gave Michael a nod and pulled the door closed.

  The Commission had not met in two years and thus had a backlog of relatively routine matters to decide. “If no one objects,” Michael said, “I’d like to work while we eat, so we can maybe go see the fireworks or, at least, get home by dawn.”

  This inspired no objections. For all the lurid images people have of men like this—the beatings, extortion, and murder—this was in fact the kind of business where almost everything truly important got decided over a meal. Same as in real estate or publishing or out in Hollywood. But for these men it wasn’t just business. Some of them did practically everything while they ate. Paulie Fortunato, for example, regularly fucked two women at a time while eating beef-spleen sandwiches, the puzzling choreography of which Fredo Corleone—who’d claimed to have seen it with his own eyes—had once explained to Michael in foul and loving detail.

  The first order of business was the approval of the promotion of the new bosses, Greco and Villone, and also the new man out in Los Angeles, where Jackie “Ping-Pong” Pignatelli had stepped down for health reasons. Unanimous, no discussion, warm calls of welcome all around.

  Then came the approval of men who’d been put forth for membership by various Families. Families not represented here had to get permission to open their books in the first place and by how many. Then they had to find a Commission member to present the names. Families with seats at the table not only had a better chance of being allowed to open their books but also could speak up if anyone had a problem with one of their nominees. By and large, though, once names got this close to the table, the men in question had been vetted and the process was something of a formality—despite which, Michael thought, it took forever.

  As a courtesy to the new Dons, they were allowed to go first. Villone graciously deferred to Greco.

  “OK, so,” Greco said, “Vinnie Golamari. Some of you may know his family maybe, I don’t know. Good man. Good, good man.”

  “I know a Vicente Colamari,” said Black Tony Stracci, squinting and cocking his head as if at that angle some distant memory might emerge. “No disrespect, but if it’s the guy I’m thinking of, you gotta be kiddin’ me.”

  “It’s Golamari,” Greco said.

  “Because if it’s the same Vinnie Colamari I’m thinking of, he must be, forget about it. Old. Eighty, if he’s a day. Help me, Elio.” He turned to his consigliere, who shrugged.

  “You’re thinking of another gentleman, I’m afraid,” Greco said.

  Carlo Tramonti, frowning, drummed both hands on the table. He bent toward his brother’s ear and whispered something.

  “I may be wrong about this Vinnie,” the New Jersey Don admitted, “because who can be sure about everything, especially at my age? But isn’t he the fella they caught with the broad in the monkey house? Remember that? Young kid, the girl was, something like thirteen. Terrible.”

  “Different guy altogether. I know the guy you’re talking about and—”

  “Enough,” said Sam Drago. He pointed a breadstick at Stracci.

  “Wait,” Stracci said to Greco. “Golamari’s the one who did that job in the Pine Barrens with what’s-his-face, Publio something.”

  “Right!” Greco said, visibly relieved. “Yes. Publio Santini.”

  “Santini I can vouch for personally,” Ozzie Altobello said.

  Greco tapped the table with his index finger, as if at an invisible sheet of paper. “He’s the next guy on my list here.”

  There was no written list. Nothing was ever written down.

  Tony Stracci bobbed his head and pursed his lips in concession. “Those are good men, Vinnie and Publio. I hear good things.”

  Carlo Tramonti threw back his head and heaved a sigh.

  Several other men gave him a look. Augie Tramonti put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  Carlo looked like he was about to say something but didn’t.

  Things kept going like this: names tossed out, briefly discussed, and approved—one Family at a time. All the while, Carlo Tramonti did not disguise his impatience. His brother, a known hothead, kept trying to calm Carlo down. At one point Augie even cleared the dirty dishes in front of his brother and cleaned up the crumbs, too, like a busboy.

  Carlo Tramonti, of course, would not be proposing any names. He, alone, didn’t need such approval from the Commission.

  Leo Cuneo peppered Ozzie Altobello with questions about the Tattaglia nominees—even though at a benefit last week for a crippled children’s fund, he’d told Michael that everything he knew about everyone proposed for membership by the other New York Families was good.

  Carlo Tramonti put his face in his hands.

  Michael Corleone was sympathetic. He might have tried to streamline the process, too, except that people already spoke behind his back about him being a college boy, too American, a modernizer who just pretended to embrace tradition, somebody who never wanted to be here in the first place, who wanted out from the moment he was in. The one time he’d even brought up his desire to make the process more professional, it was to Tom Hagen. Tom told him to let it go. These men were friends, Tom had pointed out, who don’t get to see each other so much. They want to talk, let ’em talk. The tide of Tom’s disappointment had drowned out anything else Michael might have said or done.

  AFTER THE PASTA COURSE CAME A STANDING RIB roast. Over exclamations about how tender it was, the men settled various disputes—conflicts that couldn’t be settled simply with a sit-down with the right two or three men. As Michael’s father had explained it, the Commission existed for two things only: opening the books and making peace. On Michael’s watch, it had branched out into the realm of politics, but even if the problems with the Shea administration had become the elephant in this particular room, Michael still tried to stick to the fundamentals.

  Tramonti gave Michael a look. Michael shook his head. Not yet.

  The conflict that had provoked this particular meeting in the first place was not the Danny Shea situation or even the need to initiate new members and confirm the new Dons. The conflict was about pushcarts.

  It had started as an argument between two hot-dog vendors over a street corner on the Upper West Side, one vendor who was under the protection of the Barzinis, another whose cart was sharecropped from a man who reported to Eddie Paradise. The corner had been worthless, but then two new office buildings opened, and now it was a gold mine. Each man claimed to have been the first to stake his claim. After a few days, the vendor who worked for Eddie’s soldier threw boiling hot-dog water on the other vendor, who nearly died from the burns.

  In retaliation, the Barzinis sent someone to break the first vendor’s arm. Then they parked a brand-new cart a few feet away from a different cart, one they thought belonged to the Corleones, undercutting the prices for everything, but in fact that cart belonged to the Cuneos, and the soldier who watched over it retaliated by having two of his men blow up the encroaching Barzini pushcart (with the advent of propane tanks, the carts were rolling bombs)
. But the Cuneo men got their wires crossed—literally—and blew themselves sky-high instead, along with a pushcart that was under the protection of the Tattaglias.

  One thing led to another.

  By the time any of the Dons caught wind of these squabbles, they were no longer petty. The newspapers weren’t covering this yet—other than the one mysterious explosion—but that wasn’t going to last much longer. All five Families had pushcarts jockeying for position, and the ad hoc decisions that had been made about who got what corner were proving inadequate. They were also being ignored. There was no systematic way in place about how to divide up the turf, and the Commission had been charged with developing one. This was not an uncomplicated matter, but they’d come to the table with a basic plan, hatched in various small conversations over the last few months. All the Commission needed to do was approve it.

  As the plan was explained, Carlo Tramonti, red-faced, gathered enough composure to excuse himself in a level voice to go use the john, though he practically leaped from his chair. Michael knew Neri could be counted on to keep an eye on the guy.

  The other out-of-town Dons patiently listened, perhaps counting their blessings that each had a city all to himself, even if that meant it was a second-rate place, less lucrative than what a fifth of New York was.

  But it was unlikely that anyone there thought that pushcarts were, in and of themselves, a trivial or even tedious matter. This humble business was a gangster cash cow everywhere. The carts were pricey enough—several grand, the last Michael heard—so that average citizens had a hard time affording them. Instead, they’d sharecrop the carts from someone else. Everybody made out. Some hardworking immigrant got a small business to run, and his benefactor got two-thirds of everything and didn’t have to pay out one dime in salary. Permits the immigrants would have otherwise struggled to get from the city magically appeared. Other Family businesses supplied the pushcarts with food, beverages, condiments, paper napkins, butane, umbrellas, tires—the works. A good pushcart, bottom line, could be as profitable as a restaurant but with none of the risk. No taxes to speak of, no utilities, nothing much in the way of maintenance, none of the headaches that go along with having a payroll, and none of the paper trails that go along with owning or leasing real estate (or getting a front to own or lease it). Plus, if a neighborhood goes bad, a restaurant goes bad with it. But a pushcart just moves on. Pushcarts made money: every cart, year in and year out. The only thing that could mess up a good thing like that would be if the men bankrolling the system started fighting among themselves.