“I know the story,” Nick said.
Greco looked surprised. “What are you, a reader?”
Nick took a deep breath, trying not to lose his patience. “I just know the story.”
Greco nodded. “Well, did you know Meucci and Garibaldi lived together? Not like faggots or nothing. Meucci was married, and Garibaldi apparently really liked going to the whores when he was here. But Garibaldi was between revolutions, or something, and came here for some reason. Because of his friend, I suppose.”
“Amazing,” Geraci said, his voice flat enough to cover the sarcasm. He’d read everything he could get his hands on about those two great, sad men, but they were hardly the topic of the day. “Look, let me cut to the last reel here. You wanted to see me about Don Stracci’s proposal?”
“I did,” he said. “I do.” He winced, as if from a stab of pain.
“You all right?” Nick said.
Frank the Greek rose and grabbed his crotch. “I have to take a leak,” he said, and headed toward the dark hallway in the back.
Nick glanced over and saw that at some point the bartender had slipped out.
Things started happening so fast, they started happening more slowly.
Geraci’s mod Sicilian stood up.
As if following his lead, the other bodyguard stood, too.
The needle dropped on “Night Train,” by James Brown and the Famous Flames.
Nick heard Greco’s cackling laughter. There was a glint of light down that dark hallway, and Nick got a glimpse of Greco heading not into the men’s room but outside into an alley.
Miami, Florida, screamed James Brown.
A split second later, over the honking saxophones, Geraci heard the front door opening. He leaped to his feet, and as he was spinning around he saw that his Sicilian, who should have been guarding that door, who maybe even should have locked it, had pulled out the M12. The other bodyguard had a plain old .38 special drawn. Nick found himself looking down the silencers screwed onto both weapons. It was the man he’d brought as his own bodyguard who shouted at Nick Geraci to freeze.
And he did.
Dear God, don’t let me die in Staten Island, Nick thought. Dear God, don’t let me wind up in the goddamned biggest fucking landfill in this, our fallen world.
Through the door staggered Momo Barone, with a gun shoved in his back, and behind the gun was Al Neri.
Behind Neri was Eddie Paradise, who locked the front door behind them.
Footsteps came from the dark hallway in the back. Michael Corleone emerged into the light, his hands clasped behind him. He looked like a disappointed officer reviewing his troops.
Philadelphia! screamed James Brown. New York City, take me home!
“Hello, Fausto,” Michael said. He was the only man alive who called Nick by his given name.
“Hello, Don Corleone.”
And don’t forget New Orleans, the home of the blues.
Michael walked over to the jukebox and unplugged it.
Then he turned toward Nick and smiled. “Sit down, Fausto.”
Nick Geraci glanced at the M12 and the resolute body language of the young man training it on him. That, alone, pretty much ruled out making a run for it. Geraci’s mind raced for a solution. Under no circumstances would he beg or show weakness.
Nick heaved a sigh and sat.
Eddie Paradise took his place against the wall, between the bodyguards and the bar. He folded his arms, exasperated-looking, like a man dragged along while his wife shopped for clothes.
Michael clasped his hands behind his back again and walked very slowly over to Geraci’s table. The Don had been hit in the face all those years ago by that police captain, and in certain half-light the plastic surgery he’d had to repair his cheek and jaw seemed to be sagging, almost falling away.
Geraci was nearly a foot taller than Michael. Seated, he wasn’t all that much shorter. Nick could grab him. Dive at him, tackle him. The bodyguards couldn’t open fire. They couldn’t be sure they’d hit Nick and not Michael.
“You were close, Fausto,” Michael said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I mean, you really almost did it. Years in caves and hovels, on the run, and yet against all goddamned odds, my former friend, you almost did it. I bet you could almost taste it.”
He paced back and forth past Geraci, but Nick ruled out grabbing him. What would that accomplish, in the end? He could punch the guy a couple times, but eventually they’d get separated, and that would be the end of things. Like most touchy situations, there was no way to get out of this with physical violence.
Michael stopped pacing and faced him now. “I can only imagine how painful this must be for you, Fausto. It’s tragic, to come this close to regaining everything you’ve lost and in the same maneuver gaining everything you ever wanted. And have it all come down to this.”
Momo still wouldn’t look up. He’d been brought here to prove his loyalty by killing Nick—just as Nick had had to kill Tessio. But the Roach couldn’t have looked more like a guilty man. He was already blowing any chance he had of proving himself.
Neri was breathing hard and looked eager to see the killing start.
Eddie looked at his watch.
The bodyguards looked willing.
“For all our differences, Don Michael,” Nick said, “I had a higher opinion of you than this. You’re acting with your emotions and not your intellect. What I negotiated for you with our friends on the Commission gives you exactly what you’ve always said you wanted, to the letter, and it comes with a pledge from me to the other Dons that no harm will come to you or your family. It made me sick to give up on having my revenge against you, but I did so, because it’s the best thing for everybody. Nobody loses, nobody dies, nobody’s dealing with messy murder cases that might be surprisingly easy to pin on you. Or friends of yours. I’m not some bloodthirsty feudal lord, Michael, and neither are you. We’re modern men, modern businessmen. You’ll walk away from this thing a millionaire, Michael, a perfectly legitimate American millionaire. And when the dust settles, I will personally put a million dollars of my own money into the charity that bears your father’s name.”
Michael remained standing before Nick Geraci, silent and still, regarding the most talented man he’d ever had in his employ—the most talented, it would turn out, that he’d ever have.
“If you kill me,” Nick said, “everything you’ve ever wanted is a lie. You’ll be choosing revenge over what you’ve yearned for. Kill me, and you’ll never get out of this thing of ours. Even as you stand here, you know I’m right. If you don’t take this way out, the path I made for you, then from this day forward, every time you think you’re out, you’ll hear my voice in your head, telling you that you blew it. Kill me, and at your very core, you’re a liar and a hypocrite. And it doesn’t matter if anyone outside this room ever knows that, because you’ll know. In just a single puff of gunsmoke, your whole life will be reduced to one big fucking lie.”
Michael shook his head in what seemed like wonder. “You don’t understand,” he said.
Geraci waited out a long pause. “All right,” he said. “Enlighten me.”
“Your friend in New Orleans,” Michael said, “is in the process of setting you up as the fall guy in the plot to assassinate President Shea. There are pictures of you with Juan Carlos Santiago in New Orleans, evidence placing you both in Louisiana and in Miami at incriminating times and in incriminating places. I don’t know all the details, but I do know one thing: the government’s whole case is leading to you.”
This was, Geraci was all but certain, a bluff. “That’s going to be pretty easy to get out of,” Geraci said. “Since none of it is true.”
“I had a higher opinion of you,” Michael said, “than this. You’ve got half a law degree. The truth, as you must know, bows down before what the government can prove in court.”
Momo Barone lurched off his barstool, and Al Neri punched him in the face, and the Roach sat back down.
Eddie looked over as if what happened was a mother giving a misbehaving brat a flat-palmed swat to the bottom.
The bodyguards shifted from foot to foot but kept their guns pointed directly at Nick Geraci’s heart.
“Believe what you want,” Geraci said. “You’re just saying what you’re saying so that if what happens here gets out, you’ll sound noble. You’ll sound like you didn’t have any choice.” Nick forced a smile. “And that’s fine. Because in your heart you’ll always know otherwise.”
Michael closed his eyes and let out a long breath and looked like he was about to speak but did not. Instead, he looked over at Neri.
Neri handed the pistol to Momo the Roach, butt first, then pulled out that old steel flashlight and used it to shove the Roach up to the table. Momo, blood oozing from the corner of his mouth, aimed the gun—a .44—at Nick’s head.
“Good-bye, Fausto,” Michael said. “By the way, would you like to hazard a guess,” he asked, “what his last name is?”
“Whose?” Nick said.
Michael headed for the door and pointed toward the mod Sicilian with the M12.
“This loyal man in my employ,” Michael said, “who was sent here at your request.” He glanced back at Momo. “You and a friend of yours.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick said.
Michael unlocked the door, shook his head, and then extended an arm, cuing the young Sicilian.
“My name,” he said, “it is Italo Bocchicchio.”
Geraci told himself that the shiver that went through him was just a tremor, and he regained his composure as swiftly as he’d lost it.
“Pleased to meet you,” Geraci said. “Call me Nick. Everyone does.” He smiled. “Everyone except the brother-murdering cocksucker you’ve chosen to work for.”
Michael slammed the door behind him.
The other bodyguard—presumably, not Greco’s man but rather a part of the Corleone Family as well—again clicked the dead bolt.
“In the face,” said Al Neri.
Sweat was pouring from Momo’s helmet of hair. His eyes shone with fear and self-pity, and his hands were shaking.
In this same situation, Sally Tessio had dropped to his knees and called Nick a pussy—a kindness, trying to make it easier for him to shoot. But the Roach had already screwed up. He had already shown weakness, and he thus was already believed to be the traitor. For all Nick knew, he’d already confessed. With utter clarity, Nick saw his way out of this.
“On your knees,” Neri said.
Nick obeyed.
The Roach pressed the gun unsteadily against Geraci’s forehead.
Why bring this Bocchicchio into this at all unless the presumption was that Momo wouldn’t have the nerve to do it? Unless he’d been promised he could do the job when the Roach failed?
Nick looked up from the gun barrel between his eyes and at Momo Barone’s bleeding face. “Roach,” he whispered. “Give me the gun, Roach.”
Momo was almost imperceptibly taken aback, but enough so that Nick was able to throw a quick left jab to the gut. The Roach gasped and doubled over, and Nick grabbed the .44 away with his right hand and fumbled with it and started firing, blindly in the general direction of the two bodyguards, and the air was filled with the sound of silenced bullets, and there was a burning in Nick’s leg and throat, and he could feel the warmth of his own hot blood on his skin.
He managed to stand.
As Al Neri was winding up to swing the flashlight, Geraci fired the .44 into Neri’s chest, and the ex-cop flew backward as if he’d been shot from a cannon.
Nick turned toward the bodyguards. The one with the .38 was hit in the hip, not dead but down. The Sicilian was shot but getting up now, swiveling the gun in Nick’s direction. The Sicilian let fly a few seconds of fire, but the .44 caught him in the throat and he was dead.
Nick Geraci crumpled to the floor, disoriented and in agonizing pain, aware of his vision blurring, the cold tile floor, willing himself to fight off unconsciousness, to fight off the darkness, and he tried to push up with his right leg, but there was nothing there, he had no right leg, it had been shot off, and the shard of thighbone buckled as he tried to plant it against something and white pain hit him like boiling water everywhere.
“Why me?” he heard Eddie Paradise say. “Why does this fucking shit always happen to me?”
Someone—it must have been Eddie—walked out from what must have been behind the bar, and Nick heard the Roach crying and Eddie sigh. “Ah, shit,” Eddie said, and fired.
There was no more crying.
Geraci took a deep breath and gritted his teeth and tried to see past the white light and the dizziness and managed to prop himself up very slightly on one arm. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything.
“Nothing personal, pally,” Eddie said.
“They’ll never,” Nick said, “give you. An even break.”
“Ain’t that what they say not to give a sucker?” Eddie said.
The pain was too much, but Nick clenched his eyes closed and took a breath and held it. And he could feel the darkness and the cold coming over him now, like a soft hood.
“That’s my point, Ed,” Nick said, collapsing backward, to the floor. “To them. You’ll always just be—”
“Aw, shut up,” Eddie said, and fired.
CODA
CHAPTER 32
When that suspension bridge was dedicated the next month, it would, after all, be named after Giovanni da Verrazano.
Thirteen years earlier, while the project was still on the drawing board, the Italian Historical Society of America approached the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority with the idea of honoring this explorer—not only because he was the first to sail these waters but also because the bridge connected two Italian-American enclaves, Bay Ridge and Staten Island. It would be a dignified way of combating those who had already begun to refer to the proposed bridge as the “guinea gangplank.” Robert Moses, Triborough’s emperor, fought the Verrazano name at every turn. He’d never heard of Verrazano, he repeatedly said. The name was too long, too foreign. Even after the new governor of New York had been convinced to champion and sign a law that named the bridge after the explorer, Moses kept fighting it. Most recently, he’d backed the petition drive to name the bridge after James K. Shea and then cited the importance of honoring the “will of the people” to anyone with a notebook or a microphone.
The Commission members in general and Paulie Fortunato in particular were pleased when Michael Corleone informed everyone that tomorrow, prior to Daniel Brendan Shea’s resignation, the outgoing attorney general would also release a statement citing his admiration for the accomplishments of that great Italian explorer and Danny’s wish that the bridge, as planned, be named not after his brother but after Verrazano. Michael thanked Don Stracci and Don Greco for their support as well. The offer of a New Jersey senate seat in 1966 had been one Danny Shea couldn’t refuse.
Not only that, Michael announced, Moses himself was finished. The New York governor was thrilled at the prospect of being the man who’d get credit for forcing the despot out.
In the context of a long and difficult series of issues, the Commission members enjoyed this bit of comic relief. They held their sides in laughter at the knowledge that they would remain in power after the supposedly most powerful man in New York fell, his final public-works project graced by the name of an Italian hero.
NICK GERACI’S BULLET-RIDDLED CORPSE WAS FOUND on a boat cast adrift in New York Harbor, his shot-off leg wrapped in newspapers and tossed on board as an apparent afterthought. Authorities soon learned that the boat belonged to former Corleone soldato Cosimo “Momo the Roach” Barone, who was missing (and whose body, as it turned out, would never be found). This sensational news almost immediately shifted away from the Corleone Family, though. The special bipartisan investigation into the death of President Shea had already learned that Geraci was in Miami at the time of the assassination, and it had placed h
is name on the list of witnesses it wished to call. It had also learned that Geraci had spent the months leading up to the assassination in New Orleans, in the employ of underworld kingpin Carlo “the Whale” Tramonti—another name on the investigation’s list. In addition, photographs and eyewitness testimony showed Momo Barone meeting with Carlo Tramonti and his brother Agostino during a visit to New York the previous year. In both the media and in various court documents, Geraci and Barone were portrayed as defectors to the Tramonti syndicate—often, even members of it. If there had been a conspiracy to kill the president, common sense seemed to decree that Nick Geraci was at the center of it.
(And most people didn’t even know about Geraci’s involvement in the Carmine Marino affair, the still-classified attempts to kill the leader of Cuba.)
The bipartisan investigation would drag on for months. Its final report was more than four thousand pages long and ruled that Juan Carlos Santiago acted alone.
Still, many continued to believe that the assassin was sent to the Fountainebleau by the CIA. Or the FBI. Or the vice president. Or the Cuban government. Or the Mafia (if there was a Mafia). Or some combination of the above. Or all of the above.
The century would be buried long before this, its greatest mystery.
No hard evidence would ever come to light that the bipartisan investigation was a cover-up or less than scrupulously executed. No conclusive proof of any sort of conspiracy surfaced—either to kill the president or to cover up the truth behind the killing. Nonetheless, suspicion remained that the public had not learned—and might not ever learn—the whole story. This possibly paranoid notion—fostered over the years by a library-wing’s worth of books—was, from the outset, fed by the bizarre chain of coincidence that claimed the lives of so many of those who were allegedly involved, either directly or tangentially, with that great national tragedy. Even more suspiciously, many of these people died days, sometimes even hours, before testifying about what they knew.
For example, former CIA agent Joseph P. Lucadello died in a hotel room in Arlington, Virginia, two days before his scheduled closed-door meeting with the bipartisan investigation. The death was ruled a suicide, but many found it hard to believe that a one-eyed man would choose to kill himself by ramming an ice pick through his remaining eye.
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