by Zev Chafets
“I understand that our friend is seriously ill,” said Sesti. It was a title of respect that Spadafore accorded to no outsider other than Grossman. The Don made a sad face and nodded gravely.
“May I ask, Don Spadafore, if you have made any decisions regarding the disposition of our friend’s interests?” Sesti inquired.
“They shall be guarded as my own,” said Spadafore with an understated smile.
For fifty years Max Grossman had been Luigi Spadafore’s partner, his confidant and, most remarkably for a Jew, his friend. Once, when they were young men in the Lower East Side of New York, Grossman had displayed a furious ruthlessness that matched his own; it had been Grossman, along with two of his Jewish cohorts, who had gunned down Marciani and opened the way for Spadafore’s control of Brooklyn and, eventually, of much of the Eastern seaboard.
But as the two men grew older, Grossman had drawn inward even as Spadafore expanded. Grossman’s Jewish colleagues were either jailed or killed, and he made no effort to rebuild his forces. Instead, he had become Spadafore’s partner, relying on the Family for whatever muscle was necessary, and leaving the work of running and administering the organization to the Sicilian. Grossman’s own contribution had been largely financial. He taught Spadafore how to hide and protect his money, how to invest it in profitable businesses far from the long arm of the IRS, the police or his rivals. For this, Max Grossman had been fully entitled to his share of the profits; but when he was gone, his interest would naturally revert to Spadafore himself.
“Just so,” said Sesti. “But is it not possible, Don Spadafore, that our friend may have other plans? Other, ah, commitments?”
“The wife is well provided for,” said Spadafore. “The brother is a wealthy fool. There is no one else.”
“There is the nephew,” said Sesti. “Gordon, the journalist.”
“The nephew is unconnected with his uncle’s affairs,” said Spadafore. “He is, as you say, a journalist. He is not of our world.”
“It has occurred to me, Don Spadafore, that he might be highly useful to us,” said Sesti. Speaking smoothly, he outlined his plan. Gordon would be seduced into entering the orbit of the Family, and into using his contacts and expertise to help open doors around the world. Sesti himself would remain in New York as consigliere, “until you no longer require my services”—a delicate euphemism for Spadafore’s death. At that time, he would move to London, where he would content himself with running the foreign operation, half of whose profits would go to the Don’s heirs, Mario and Pietro.
“You would willingly relinquish your part of the Family enterprises in the United States?” Spadafore asked, and Sesti smiled, tracing a small circle on the arm of his easy chair. “As you know, Don Spadafore, I was raised in London. I find it a congenial, salubrious climate,” he said, emphasizing ever so slightly the word “salubrious.” The Don had sighed with admiration; no Medici had ever had so diplomatic and subtle a counselor.
“What leads you to believe that Gordon could be enticed to join our enterprises? He is, after all, legitimate,” he said, using the English word.
A look of cunning came over Sesti’s face. The consigliere had anticipated the problem. “I have taken the liberty of gathering some information on our friend’s nephew,” he said. “William Gordon is a well-known journalist; a man who has lived in the large world. But he is not, I believe, a truly worldly man. In this, he is like many of his American contemporaries.” Sesti paused. The Don was aware that this was an allusion to his own younger son, and he appreciated the consigliere’s delicacy. “If he were to believe, be made to believe, that he had been made heir to his uncle’s fortune, it would, I think, awaken his greed. Of course, we would then make it clear that the fortune itself was not his. A legacy once offered and then withdrawn is a bitter medicine for any man.”
“Quite so,” said Spadafore.
“Ah, but in that frame of mind, he would then be given the chance to attain an even larger fortune, made an offer he could not refuse.” Both men smiled at the phrase. It was common knowledge in their world that the fictional Don Corleone had been based largely on Luigi Spadafore.
“How do you propose to convince Gordon that his uncle has left him a fortune?” Spadafore asked, certain that Sesti had an answer. What a fine fellow, he thought; how unfair that fate had given him Mario and Pietro, instead of this brilliant young Sicilian.
“Nathan Belzer will, I believe, cooperate in this small deception,” said Sesti.
“You have spoken to Belzer?”
“I would never do such a thing without your approval, Don Spadafore,” said Sesti. “My confidence is based entirely upon my appraisal of his character.”
“You may, in that case, approach him,” said Spadafore, mollified. “But there are three conditions. First, you must wait until our friend is no longer alive.” Sesti nodded; he had expected that. “Second, whatever impression you leave with the nephew, he must in no way receive any true information about the Family business. What you make up is your own affair.” Once again Sesti nodded, waiting, but the Don remained silent.
“And the third condition?” Sesti asked, once more tracing a small circle on the upholstered chair.
“The third condition is that you must limit our relationship with Gordon to one year,” said Spadafore. “One year will be sufficient time to open whatever doors and gain whatever knowledge he has. It will allow us to begin our overseas operations on, as the Americans say, the right foot. For one year, our friend’s nephew can be managed; beyond that, he will acquire too much information. He has not been raised in our traditions, in our world. He cannot be relied upon.”
“One year is a brief time, Don Spadafore,” said Sesti.
“Who is to say?” asked the old man, pursing his lips. “Life is precarious, is it not? Who of us is assured of even one more year?” He peered at Sesti through hooded eyes and saw that the message had registered.
That conversation had taken place four months ago, and tonight Don Spadafore recalled it pleasurably. Thus far, things had gone just as Sesti had predicted. Max Grossman had died. Nathan Belzer had been paid handsomely to dangle the bait in front of William Gordon. And Gordon had risen to the hook. Tonight they would cement the relationship with a ceremonial meal at Spadafore’s table.
The Don idly spun his diamond-studded globe. Like most of his business, the arrangement with Gordon could have been settled without any particular protocol. Strictly speaking, it was unnecessary; Sesti could just have easily done it with a handshake over lunch. But for Spadafore, the ceremonial aspects of his job were important, almost sacred.
Recently there had been a spate of books about Godfathers and Mafia chieftains, and Spadafore, who liked to read, had been secretly entertained and even delighted by several of them. He especially liked the way that Mario Puzo had captured the dignity and wisdom of the Man of Respect. But Puzo and the others misunderstood the inner motive of men like himself. Don Corleone, for example, had been portrayed as a solemn, somewhat lugubrious fellow entrapped by his old-fashioned nature. Luigi Spadafore, the model for Corleone, knew better.
The most basic truth, he reflected, was that being a don was endlessly entertaining. Like Shakespeare, Spadafore believed the world to be a stage, on which men, even the most successful, are consigned to dreary, tiresome parts. But his was a starring role, one that allowed him to indulge his imagination and his flair for the dramatic. He was no Mustache Pete, enslaved by ancestor worship and the ancient customs of Sicily. He had been born in America and, when the occasion called for it, he could be as contemporary and dry as the chairman of General Motors. But he was charmed by the opportunity to be more than simply a rich man; to become, in fact, royalty, a man whose ring was kissed on bended knee, to whom fealty was sworn in solemn candlelight ceremonies. It pleased him to live in his rarefied world, isolated by obsequious retainers from the humdrum necessities of daily life.
This had been his greatest disagreement with Max Grossman.
Grossman had been content to be merely a criminal and a businessman, a man whose personal life was devoid of drama and imagination. The wealthier he got, the more ordinary he became, like one of those contemptibly prosaic Scandinavian kings on a bicycle. When Grossman had, from time to time, witnessed the rituals of the Spadafore Family, he had reacted with a sardonic courtesy, as if humoring an eccentric friend. It gratified Spadafore to know that the shrewd old Jew, who had known him since boyhood, never guessed how detached he actually was from the ceremonial side of his life, or how calculated was the pleasure that he took in it.
Yes, being the Don was a wonderful role, he reflected, but it could only be sustained if it was taken seriously. Not so much by other men—he could bludgeon or frighten them into accepting his authority—but by himself. Spadafore allowed himself no secret deviations or inconsistencies, no private flights from the world he had created. He dressed like a don, in somber, dignified clothing; comported himself with a regal fastidiousness, even when he was alone; spoke like a don, in an old-fashioned, flowery style that had become second nature, the language of his very thoughts. His one hidden pleasure was his own awareness that it was a game; that the distant, self-possessed man on the throne was, in fact, little Luigi Spadafore, a kid from the Lower East Side who had collected baseball cards, worried about adolescent bad skin and cried in his bed the first night at reform school almost seventy years before.
This self-awareness enabled Spadafore to see the world clearly. He knew, for example, that logic dictated that he turn his Family over to Carlo Sesti, and not to his doltish sons. But to do so would be to deny the very basis of his regime, a kind of self-regicide. It would be an admission that he was, in fact, a businessman and not an emperor. He cared little about Mario and Pietro; he had long since stopped believing in eternal life (although he attended mass every Sunday, as a duty of office), and he doubted that he would be forced to look down from heaven on the foolishness of his offspring. What mattered to him now was his place in history.
The Don’s speculations were interrupted by a knock on the heavy oak door of his study. It was Pietro’s knock. Spadafore spun his globe once more, and straightened his tie.
“It’s me, Pa,” said Pietro, entering the room with a boyish stride. He was dressed in evening clothes, and his longish hair hung over the collar. “I just wanted to say good night, I’m going out for the evening.”
“We have company for dinner tonight, Pietro,” said Spadafore evenly. “Have you forgotten?”
“Sorry, Pa, this is something I couldn’t get out of,” he said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, anxious to be done with the confrontation and on his way.
“Pietro, our dinner tonight is a business meeting. I want you there,” said Don Spadafore. “Whatever you were supposed to do, cancel it.”
“Pa, I’m going out tonight with Julie Morganfield,” he said in a proud tone. Spadafore kept his face blank. He knew perfectly well that Julie Morganfield was a blond actress, but it was a part of his old-world pose to pretend ignorance of such things. “She’s a movie star, Pa. You should see her.”
“It is not her I want to see, Pietro,” said Spadafore. “It is you, at my table this evening. There will be other nights for movie stars.”
“Come on, Pa, you were young once—”
“Thirty-four is not young, Pietro. When I was your age, I was a married man with children and responsibilities. You have no children but you do have obligations, and tonight is one of them. Cancel your appointment.”
“But, Pa. Mario will be here. He can fill me in tomorrow, OK?”
“Cancel your appointment, Pietro,” said Spadafore in the same even tone. He was struck by how handsome his younger son was, like a movie actor himself. It gave him an idea. “Remain in your tuxedo, and call Mario and Carlo. Tell them we are dressing for dinner,” he said. Normally Spadafore dined in a business suit, but tonight, when Gordon arrived, he would be greeted by four men in evening clothes; his first glimpse of Spadafore’s world would be one of memorable elegance. He had already instructed his cook on the menu and the wine, and reminded her to order flowers. The tuxedos would be the finishing touch.
“Pa, seriously, I gotta go tonight,” protested his son. “I’ll call Mario and Carlo, but I’m going. OK?”
“Pietro,” said Spadafore, speaking for the first time in Sicilian dialect. “Do not argue. Do as I say.” The young man flushed. “Yes, Father,” he said formally in Sicilian, leaving the room.
Sesti and Mario arrived separately but almost simultaneously at seven-fifteen. Both wore black tuxedos—Sesti slim and impeccably tailored, Mario red-faced, looking like a stuffed sausage. They sat in the formal salon, on heavy sofas, and made small talk. Spadafore remained alone in his study, unwilling to engage in idle familiarity, even with his sons and closest adviser.
At precisely seven-thirty, the doorbell chimed, and Sesti, by prearrangement, let Gordon in. The household staff—a butler and two maids, all Sicilians—had been given the night off. Only the cook, a cousin of Spadafore’s who had been taken on when the Don’s wife died, and a serving girl, another cousin from the old country who spoke no English, were present. The Don’s bodyguards were stationed, as usual, around the periphery of the house. They had been instructed to allow Gordon to enter without challenge; no one else was to be admitted that night, no matter how urgent his business.
Spadafore watched Sesti greet Gordon on a closed-circuit television screen. The journalist was dressed in a sport jacket and slacks, and a blue shirt open at the collar, an informality that, to the Don, implied disrespect. In his left hand Gordon held a bottle of wine.
“I wish you had told me you were dressing for dinner,” he heard Gordon say to Sesti. “I would have worn a tie.”
“Not at all,” said Sesti smoothly, taking the bottle and guiding Gordon into the sitting room, where he introduced the journalist to Mario and Pietro. Sesti did not thank Gordon for the wine; as host, that would be Don Spadafore’s prerogative.
The Don watched Gordon take a seat and cross his right leg over his left. He seemed to be at ease. Spadafore saw a strong resemblance between the journalist and his father, a vulgar man for whom he had scant regard. Of the uncle he saw nothing.
“Do you get dressed up like this every night?” Gordon asked, genuinely curious. Mario, who had no conversation, grunted. Pietro looked petulant and remained silent. It fell to Sesti to answer. “This is a special occasion for all of us,” he said in his British accent. “It isn’t often that we are visited by such an illustrious figure as yourself.”
Gordon ignored the compliment. “Is it all right if I smoke?” he asked. He already had the Winstons out.
“Of course,” said Sesti, producing a gold Dunhill lighter. Spadafore smiled. Sesti did not smoke; he carried the lighter for others. It was the kind of attention to small detail that the Don appreciated and that made the consigliere so valuable.
Spadafore hauled his bulk out of the padded chair, smoothed his hair in the mirror and entered the sitting room. All four men rose. Spadafore opened his arms to Gordon in a gesture of welcome.
“Mr. Spadafore, this is Mr. William Gordon,” said Sesti, doing the honors. “Mr. Gordon, Luigi Spadafore.”
“You grace my home with your presence,” said Spadafore formally, taking the younger man’s hand in his. “Please accept my condolences on the death of your uncle.”
“Good to meet you, Mr. Spadafore,” said Gordon lightly. “I should be offering you my condolences. You were much closer to my uncle than I was.”
“Yes, your uncle Max was my brother,” said Spadafore.
“In that case, perhaps I should call you Uncle Luigi,” said Gordon with a smile. For a moment there was a shocked silence at the lèse-majesté; Mario and Pietro exchanged looks, and even Sesti seemed taken aback. Spadafore regarded the reporter gravely, and then laughed. “Uncle Luigi? Yes, and I will call you Velvel.”
Gordon laughed too. “How’d you know about th
at?” he asked.
“Max spoke of you often,” said Spadafore. “And he always referred to you as Velvel.”
“A nickname?” asked Sesti brightly, relieved that the tense moment had passed.
“Yiddish,” said Gordon.
“A fine Jewish name for a fine Jewish boy,” said Spadafore in fluent, Russian-accented Yiddish.
Gordon’s eyes widened in surprise. “You speak Yiddish?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Spadafore, still speaking in Yiddish. “Where I grew up, it was a common language. Your uncle and I sometimes spoke it together.”
“I’m afraid you lost me,” said Gordon in English. “I really don’t know very much Yiddish.”
“That’s a pity,” Spadafore said. “Such an expressive language. Mamma-loshen.”
Gordon reached for the bottle of Barolo that was sitting on the end table next to the couch. “I hope you like it,” he said, handing it to Spadafore. “I brought it back with me from a trip to Sicily.”
“You have excellent taste in wine,” said Spadafore. “May I ask what you were doing in Sicily?”
“I was there working on a piece about NATO’s naval preparedness in the Mediterranean,” said Gordon. “It was last year, I think, or the year before. I can’t really remember. It didn’t turn out to be much of a story.”
“Please, tell us about Sicily,” said Spadafore, taking Gordon’s arm and moving him in the direction of the dining room. “It has been almost ten years since my last visit.” The Don seated Gordon to his right, and took his place at the head of the table. Like a headwaiter, Sesti helped the old man into his chair, and then seated himself across from Gordon. The two sons sat at the foot of the table, opposite each other.
The serving girl, Marianna, appeared with an antipasto of smoked beef, artichoke hearts and white beans in olive oil. She handed Sesti a corkscrew, and he effortlessly opened Gordon’s bottle, pouring the red liquid into shining crystal goblets.
