The Godfather's Revenge

by Mark Winegardner

  Francesca tried not to take the bait. Women in her family had probably been saying this to their daughters and nieces for centuries. Francesca had heard it countless times from her own mother. She’d heard Grandma Carmela say it to Connie several times, too. “Maybe because everybody’s different from anybody else.”

  “Wrong,” Connie said. “Dead wrong. That’s what everybody wants to believe. But it’s just a technicality. I suppose maybe it’s true if you’re a man, but for women—”

  “Oh, Connie.”

  “Look, who do you think has got the sort of life they expect? Huh? Not even men, really. You think Mike or…” Connie stopped herself. She picked up the towel from the floor. “No. Nobody’s got that.”

  “That’s not what I see,” Francesca countered. “Maybe not exactly what they thought, but more or less. From what I can see, most people are like that.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like my mother. Just for example.”

  “Your mother? Your mother is a widow, too. Widowed young—same as you. You think she expected that? Did you expect that?”

  Francesca made a gesture of concession with the knife. “All right, fine, but other than that, she ended up having the kind of life her parents raised her to have, more or less what she would have expected, really. Same as you, too, in that regard.”

  “Same as me?” Connie laughed. “Oh, sure. Do you think I expected to have my first husband go out for cigarettes and never come back? Do you—”

  Francesca cocked her head skeptically.

  Connie closed her eyes and waved Francesca off.

  “I see your point,” Francesca said. Carlo’s disappearance remained the official story, though Francesca presumed that every adult member of the Corleone family knew the truth. His murder wouldn’t have been something Connie expected, either. “Go ahead. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you think I expected to grow up and get divorced?”

  “No, Aunt Connie, I don’t, but—”

  “Divorced!” She muttered something in Latin. “I can hardly believe it myself, and, oh, that poor, sweet man. Ed! Oh, my God.” She paused and swallowed hard, as if she might cry, though she did this every time her second husband came up, and she never cried.

  Ed Federici was from the neighborhood, an accountant, the man her father thought she should marry, whom she did marry, not long after Grandpa Vito died and right after the annulment of her marriage to Carlo came through. Ed was a kind man who made an honest living and never laid a hand on her in anger, but he’d bored her. Get a couple glasses of wine in Connie back then, and she’d go around talking about how Ed’s cazzo was the size of her thumb and to make matters worse, anytime she started to feel something down there, he’d go soft. Now, though, Ed Federici (happily remarried to a younger, heavyset woman and living in Providence, Rhode Island) was a saint her wickedness had helped martyr.

  Connie regained her composure.

  “I’m making it sound like it’s all bad, the surprises a person has in store, but obviously it’s not. Just look around. Every life has got problems, carissima, but we’ve been blessed. When I was a little girl growing up on Arthur Avenue, you think I expected to live in a penthouse in Manhattan? Do you think I expected to shop in the finest stores and eat in the finest restaurants and have drivers who squire me around and the best shoes on my feet, months before they even show up on the runways, like I was a princess in a fairy tale? Who could expect that?”

  “No, but I bet you expected to take care of your family, and you do. That’s a blessing, too, but it’s one you had to have expected. You’re, I don’t know, what Grandma was. A real matriarch.”

  “A matriarch? Is that how you see me? Like your grandmother? I’m only thirty-seven years old!”

  She was actually forty-one, Francesca knew. “Thirty-seven’s not young.”

  “Thirty-seven’s not old.”

  “If thirty-seven’s not old enough to be a matriarch, how old do you need to be?”

  “Older than thirty-seven. I know that much.”

  Maybe forty-one, then? But Francesca didn’t say it. “Well, Michael thinks of you as the matriarch.”

  “You don’t know what Michael thinks. It’s a bad idea for you to pretend like you do.”

  Francesca grabbed the tongs and tossed the salad. “Call it whatever you want to call it, but the way things are now, especially if Theresa doesn’t come back, it’s you that’s holding our family together, kind of the same way your mother did during some of the bad times in those days. Which is good. I mean it as a compliment.”

  Connie pulled out a stack of plates.

  “Michael thinks of me as his sister, all right?” Connie said. “Not his mother or some matriarch. And believe me, Theresa will come back. Tom didn’t do that nasty business, and we all know it.”

  Francesca started to say something, then caught a look from her aunt and stopped herself.

  She finished the salad, got the drinks, and helped finish setting the table. Eight places. The table could sit three times that many, but they’d taken some of the leaves out. The room looked cavernous.

  For a long time, Francesca and Connie careened from room to room with no noise but the clanging of plates and bowls and silverware, the banging of hip-checked drawers, getting everything to the table without ever for a split second getting in each other’s way, as if their moves had been choreographed and not merely practiced thousands of times.

  “Be honest,” Francesca finally said. “You know in your heart of hearts that Tom was with that woman for years. That’s also nasty business. And he did that. You know he did.”

  Connie looked around as if someone might be listening and then lowered her voice. “We don’t know what he did or didn’t do,” she said, pointing a wooden spoon at Francesca as if in accusation. “All right? But I’ll tell you something right now. If Tom says that the photos are doctored, that it’s all a big frame-up, then I believe him.”

  “No, you don’t. I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “I’m not having this conversation.”

  “You don’t believe him, Connie. I know you don’t.”

  “Tom’s a man, all right? We should just leave it at that.”

  “Being a man? That’s an excuse?”

  “It’s nothing, but you’re the one who thinks people have the lives they expect to have.”

  “I was only saying that some people do.”

  “Right, and I’m only saying that Tom and Theresa, both of them, are exactly the kind of people you’re talking about.”

  “I thought you said nobody has the kind of life he expects to have.”

  Connie ignored her. “Mark my words: Tom and Theresa will figure things out. That’s what people like them do. Theresa’s left Tom before, you know. Off and on, usually not for long. Did you know that? She has. She’s a college girl, and, no offense, a lot of times that’s what college girls do. They run.”

  “Wait, you’re saying this is Theresa’s fault? Her husband spoke vows before God and then he broke them. He cheated on her. Not only that, he humiliated her. His betrayal was written up in all the newspapers, on television. You know as well as I do that the men in this family, if they betray each other or their business associates, it’s, let’s just say, bad.”

  “Stop it. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.”

  “Those vows count, I guess, but if they break their vows to God and their wives, that’s OK? That’s nothing, right? Right. Because we’re nothing.”

  “It’s not OK, all right? But I hate to break it to you. It is expected.”

  “I thought you were arguing the other side of that point.”

  “I’m not arguing nothing. I’m making dinner for my family, is all I’m doing. All right?” She glanced at the oven clock and took out the manicotti. It looked a little overcooked but not bad. “All I can say is this,” Connie said. “You’re a young girl, carissima. So, fine, you think life don’t go where you expect, eh? But i
t goes where it goes, and what’s beautiful? What’s beautiful is that in the end, everybody winds up where they’re supposed to be.”

  Francesca grabbed the chef’s knife from out of the sink and raised it as if she were that madman in the shower scene from that movie. “Don’t think about a knife,” she said, and in frustration she drove it into the cutting board.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Connie said. “That’s hard on the point.”

  “That’s hardly the point,” Francesca said.

  She strode from the kitchen, shaking her head, to go tell the men and the children that it was time for dinner.

  As she came into the courtyard, her little boy saw her and his laugh was euphoric.

  “Mommy!” he shouted, patting his heartbreaking attempt at shoulder pads. “I’m Frankie the Hit Man!” It was her brother Frankie’s nickname when he played linebacker at Notre Dame. “And I’m gonna tackle you!”

  He came running.

  “Don’t you dare, buster,” she said, grinning.

  The tackle he applied was a bear hug around her waist.

  “I like your shoulder pads,” she said, which cracked him up again.

  She staggered a step and sat down in a tulip-backed metal chair. Dread rolled over her in what seemed like a literal wave. If Francesca was ever away from this boy, from that laugh, if for any reason she was separated from him, she couldn’t bear it.

  But no.

  She couldn’t think about that.

  “Go wash your hands,” she said. “That goes for you two, too,” she said to Little Mike and Victor. “Go.”

  She stood, went to the wall phone just inside the door, and pressed the intercom button.

  “Dinner,” she said.

  “Be right down,” said Michael Corleone. “Hey, Francie? What are we having?”

  She watched Sonny run down the hall, away from her, following his cousins.

  “Manicott’,” Francesca said. She tried to think about whether they’d made enough.

  WHEN KATHY GOT HOME THAT NIGHT—LATE, WHICH had become the norm—Francesca was still awake, on the couch in the living room of their suite. The TV stations had signed off the air, and she was reading Pylon, by William Faulkner.

  “What are you doing up?” Kathy said.

  By way of an answer, Francesca held up the book.

  “Oh,” Kathy said. “Well. G’night.” She’d been drinking, and she smelled like an ashtray.

  “You have a minute? A few minutes?” She hadn’t stayed up to read. She didn’t know why she’d held up the book to answer that question.

  “What is it? Because if it’s more bad news, I’m not sure if I can—”

  “No,” Francesca said. “It’s not. Not really. There’s just some things I’m worried about. Ongoing situations, you know?”

  Kathy nodded. “Do I.”

  She wasn’t weaving, wasn’t drunk. She came over and kissed Francesca on the forehead. Francesca could smell the sex on her.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?” Kathy said. “I still need to read the last hundred pages of a novel I’m teaching at ten in the morning.”

  So when exactly would they talk? But Francesca let that go, too.

  “What novel?” Francesca said. Topic number fifty-one plus.

  “It’s actually a friend’s. I’m not teaching it, that’s not what I meant, I’m just reading it, giving him my two cents’ worth. I’m not thinking straight. It’s been a long day.” She turned and walked away. “It’s been a long everything.”

  Why she was reading some man’s stupid unpublished book when she should be writing her own—that was a top-fifty topic.

  “So guess what?” Francesca said as Kathy was turning the corner toward her room.

  “Really, Francie. I’m on fumes. Tomorrow, I’ll guess.”

  “Aunt Connie said…a certain word.”

  “She did what?”

  Francesca mouthed fuck.

  “Who made her do that?”

  “Me.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

  “Not really.”

  “OK, I’ll bite,” Kathy said. “What in the hell did you do to make Connie say that?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Francesca said.

  “Touché,” Kathy said, and then bowed. “And good night.”

  AN HOUR LATER, FRANCESCA CHECKED ON SONNY again. He was still sound asleep, clutching the GI Joe doll her brother sent him for his birthday. Behind the closed door to Kathy’s bedroom, the light was still on. Francesca called to her that she’d be right back.

  “Right back?” Kathy said, her voice groggy. “Where you going?”

  “For a walk,” Francesca said. “I can’t sleep.”

  “Be careful,” Kathy said. “Go walk in the courtyard, maybe.”

  This from a woman who’s going to bed with God knows who, God knows where, and toward God knows what end. “OK,” Francesca said. “See you.”

  Going up, it was impossible to bypass security, but going down, there were several ways. Francesca took the elevator a few floors down and then got out, walked to the other end of the hall, and took the back stairs. They didn’t go all the way to the top, and the security guards didn’t monitor them. She went out through the parking garage, down a narrow alley to the next street over, then headed west toward York Avenue. It would have been the path Tom Hagen took, too. It must have been a perfect setup, until whatever went wrong went wrong.

  One thing that Francesca had learned during the time she’d lived in Washington was that once the federal government got involved for any reason in an essentially local criminal investigation, the investigation could go haywire. One day it’s about apples, and the next it’s about oranges—probably a whole grove’s worth. In this particular case, Francesca was certain, the reason Danny Shea wouldn’t let things drop was that he was avenging the death of his own staffer, Billy Van Arsdale, who had, in fact, been feeding him information about Francesca’s family—a file Francesca had found, stolen, and destroyed. Billy had even told her himself that he was afraid his own political ambitions could never survive being related by marriage to the so-called Mafia.

  At some point, he’d apparently decided to address the situation. At another point, distraught and betrayed, in the heat of emotion, Francesca had retaliated.

  The simple fact was that Francesca had been backed into a corner and she’d done what strong people backed into corners do. She’d bulled her way out. She’d acted. She’d survived. And she would continue to survive and to live with it. She was a member of the Corleone family. That was her blood. Then, when she had called upon Tom and Michael to protect her, she had become something else. In some small way she was one of them now, and for the rest of her life she’d be beholden to them, and that was that.

  She’d come to Judy Buchanan’s apartment.

  It was on the other side of the street from where she’d pictured it. At this hour, no one seemed to be around, other than an occupied squad car at the curb. The sidewalk was strewn with flowers and trash.

  From the outside, the place looked like nothing—a turn-of-the-century brick three-story like thousands of others in the city. She tried to transform this in her mind’s eye into the images she’d seen on TV and really couldn’t do it.

  She tried to conjure up the murder scene upstairs, and that, for her, was a little easier.

  She crossed the street.

  As she was looking at some of the discarded placards, a gray-haired Chinese man in a tuxedo seemed to materialize from thin air with a tin bucket half full of wilting yellow roses.

  “How much?” she asked.

  He told her. It was a reasonable price for dead flowers.

  The cop rolled down his window. “What’d I tell you, huh, Hop Sing?”

  The Chinese man muttered something she couldn’t understand, then handed her the rest of the flowers. “No charge,” he said in obvious disgust. “You enjoy.” He dumped the water from his bucket and started w
alking downtown.

  She waggled the flowers in her hand. Dozens of petals fell.

  “Your lucky night, I guess,” the cop said, chuckling. “You come here often?”

  She shook her head.

  He was about her age but had gone soft. He looked like the sort of man who still wore his letterman’s sweater sometimes, even though it didn’t button over his gut. Who did it hurt, that man selling flowers? He was a man out to make an honest living, and the cop was flexing his cop muscles just because he could.

  “Sad situation,” the cop said. “Inside this place, I mean. Not the flowers. The flowers were just something that worked out for you. Fell in your lap, as it were.”

  “You want these?” she said, extended them toward him.

  “What would I do with flowers?” the cop said. “They’re for you people.”

  “What do you mean, you people?”

  “The I don’t know what you’d call it. The mourners.”

  “Give ’em to somebody. Your wife, your girlfriend, your mother, anybody.”

  “My ma’s in Florida,” he said. “The other two things I’m still looking for. You should keep ’em.”

  “Fine,” she said. She walked to the corner and put the roses in a trash can. “I was just out for a walk,” Francesca said to the cop on her way back. “I’m not a mourner. I don’t want anything to do with that dead whore.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the cop said. “I do understand. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Am I going to be?” she said. “Who can predict the future? Not me, I’ll tell you that. I’m trying not to think too much.”

  “I know some people you should meet,” he said. “Some of ’em barely think at all.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a withering stare and started home, whistling past the garbage trucks, which had materialized as suddenly as the Chinaman with the yellow roses, and were out in force now, down every street. She was whistling just to whistle. Her mind was elsewhere. She’d gone through the tune who knew how many times before it clicked that she was whistling a real song, one she’d obviously heard before but couldn’t place. Even if someone had identified the tune for her (“Ridin’ High,” by Cole Porter), it might not have clicked how or where she’d heard it before. Wherever it had come from, the song’s melody had wormed its way into Francesca’s brain and taken root there, unnoticed. It was a standard; it could have come from anyplace, the radio or one of Kathy’s records, and not necessarily the second of the three songs Johnny Fontane had performed in a striped tux at President Shea’s inaugural ball.