The Last Don

by Mario Puzo

  Gronevelt noted that male gamblers called for hookers before they set out to gamble. Women, however, preferred sex after they gambled. Since the Hotel had to cater to the sexual needs of everyone and there were no male hookers, just gigolos, the Hotel used barmen croupiers and junior pit boys for the women, and that was their report. So Gronevelt made a jump. Males need sex to prepare them to go into battle with confidence. Women need sex to assuage the sorrow of losing or as part of the reward for their victory.

  It was true that Big Tim called for a hooker an hour before his party and then went to bed with his two waitresses in the early morning after losing a big sum of money. They were reluctant, they were straight girls. Big Tim solved the problem in his own particular way. He put up ten thousand dollars worth of black chips and told them it was theirs if they spent the night with him. Accompanied with his usual vague promise of more if they had a really good night. He loved the way they studied the chips thoughtfully before agreeing. The joke was they got him so drunk that he fell asleep, gorged with food and drink, before he got past the fondling stage. He fell asleep between the two of them, his huge frame pushing them to the edges, both girls clinging to him until finally they fell on the floor to sleep.

  Late that night Cross received a call from Claudia. “Athena disappeared,” she said. “The Studio is frantic and I’m worried. Except ever since I’ve known her Athena has disappeared at least one weekend a month. But this time I thought you should know. You better do something before she runs away forever.”

  “It’s OK,” Cross said. He didn’t tell her he had his own men covering Skannet.

  But that call focused his mind on Athena. That magical face, which seemed to show her every emotion; the long, beautiful stretch of her legs. And the intelligence of her eyes, the vibration from some invisible instrument of inner being.

  He picked up the phone and called a chorus girl he sometimes dated called Tiffany.

  Tiffany was the captain of the chorus line of the Xanadu’s big cabaret show. This entitled her to extra pay and perks for keeping discipline and preventing the usual quarrels and outright fights the girls fell into. She was a statuesque beauty who had failed screen tests because she simply was too big for celluloid. Where on the stage her beauty was commanding, on film she looked huge.

  When she arrived, she was surprised at the quickness of Cross’s lovemaking. He simply grabbed her and stripped her of her clothes and then seemed to devour her body with kisses. He entered her quickly and came to a climax quickly. This was so different from his usual style that she said, almost ruefully, “This time it must be true love.”

  “It sure is,” Cross said, and began to make love to her again.

  “Not me, you dope,” Tiffany said. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

  Cross was annoyed that he was so easy to read. And yet he could not stop his devotion to the flesh beside him. He could not have enough of her succulent breasts, her silky tongue, the velvet mound between her thighs, all radiating an irresistible heat. When finally, hours later, the lustful fever was gone, he could not stop thinking about Athena.

  Tiffany picked up the phone and ordered room service for them both. “I pity that poor girl when you finally get her,” Tiffany said.

  After she left, Cross felt free. It was a weakness to be so much in love, but satisfied lust gave him confidence. At three in the morning he made his last tour of the casino.

  In the coffee shop he saw Dante with three good-looking, vivacious women. Though one of them was Loretta Lang, the singer he had helped to break her contract, he did not recognize her. Dante waved him over, but he declined with a shake of his head. Up in his penthouse suite he took two sleeping pills before going to bed, but he still dreamed of Athena.

  The three women at Dante’s table were famous ladies of Hollywood, wives of Bankable Stars and minor stars in their own right. They had been guests at Big Tim’s party, not by invitation but by having wangled their way in on their charms.

  The oldest was Julia Deleree, who was married to one of the most famous Bankable Stars in the movies. She had two children, and the family often appeared in magazines as the exceptional couple that had no problems, were ecstatic with their marriage.

  The second was Joan Ward. She was still very attractive, nearly fifty. She played second leads now, usually as the intelligent woman, the suffering mother of a doomed child, or in the role of a deserted woman whose tragedy leads to a second happy marriage. Or as a fiery fighter for the feminist viewpoint. She was married to the head of a studio who paid her charge cards without complaint, no matter how huge, and whose only demand on her was to be the hostess for the many social-business parties he gave. She had no children.

  The third star was Loretta, who by now was first choice as the comedy lead in kooky comedies. She, too, had married well, to a Bankable Star of empty-headed action films that took him on location in other countries for the best part of the year.

  These three had become friends by being cast in the same movies and by shopping on Rodeo Drive and having lunches at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge, where they compared notes on their husbands and their charge cards. About the cards, they had no complaints. It was like having a shovel to dig in a gold mine, and their husbands never questioned their bills.

  Julia complained that her husband didn’t spend enough time with her kids. Joan, whose husband was acclaimed as a discoverer of new stars, complained she was childless. Loretta complained that her husband should branch out into more serious roles. But there came a day when Loretta, with her usual vivaciousness, said, “Let’s stop bullshitting ourselves. We’re all happily and very suitably married to very important guys. What we really hate is that our husbands send us out on Rodeo Drive so they feel less guilty about fucking other women.” The three of them laughed. It was so true.

  Julia said, “I love my husband but he’s been in Tahiti for a month shooting a picture. And I know he’s not sitting on the beach masturbating. But I don’t want to spend a month in Tahiti, so he’s either screwing his leading lady or the local talent.”

  “Which he would be doing even if you were there,” Lor-etta said.

  Joan said wistfully, “And even though my husband hasn’t the sperm of a fucking ant, his cock is like a water wand. How come most of the stars he discovers are females? He screen-tests them by finding out how much of his cock they can swallow.”

  They were all half tipsy by now. They believed that wine had no calories.

  Loretta said crisply, “We can’t blame our husbands. The most beautiful women in the world show it to them. They really have no choice. But why should we suffer? Fuck the charge cards, let’s have some fun.”

  And so had followed their sacred once-a-month girl’s night out. When their husbands were gone, which was often, they would go on overnight adventures.

  Since they were recognizable to most Americans, they had to disguise themselves. This proved to be extraordinarily easy to do. They used wigs to change the style and color of their hair. They used makeup, thickened their lips or thinned them. They dressed in the style of middle-class women. They downgraded their beauty, which didn’t matter because, like most actresses, they could be enormously charming. And they delighted in the role playing. They loved to listen to different kinds of men bare their hearts to them in hope of getting into bed with them, often successfully. It was a breath of real life, the characters still mysterious, not doomed to a written script. And there were delightful surprises. Sincere offers of marriage and true love; men sharing their pain because they thought they would never see them again. The admiration they received not because of their hidden status, but because of their innate charms. And they loved creating new personas for themselves. Sometimes they would be computer operators on vacation, sometimes off-duty nurses or dental technicians or social workers. They would bone up for their parts by reading about their new professions. Sometimes they would pretend to be legal secretaries in the office of a big showbiz lawyer in L.A. and s
pread scandal about their own husbands and other of their actor friends. They had great times but always went out of town; Los Angeles was too dangerous, they might run into friends who would easily recognize them despite their disguise. They discovered that San Francisco was also risky. Some gay men seemed to know their true identity at a glance. Their favorite place was Las Vegas.

  Dante had picked them up at the Xanadu Club Lounge, where tired gamblers took a break and listened to a band, a comic, and a girl singer. Loretta had once performed there at the beginning of her career. There was no dancing. The Hotel wanted their customers to get back to the tables as soon as they were rested.

  Dante was attracted to them by their vivaciousness, their natural charm. They were attracted to him because they had watched him gamble and lose enormous amounts of money with his unlimited credit. After the drinks, he took them to the roulette wheel and staked them each to a thousand dollars’ worth of chips. They were charmed by his hat and the extravagant courtesy showed to him by the croupiers and the pit boss. And his sly charm, which was touched by a vicious humor. Dante was witty in a vulgar and sometimes chilling way. And the extravagance of his gambling excited them. Of course they themselves were rich, they earned enormous amounts of money, but his was hard cash and that had its own magic. Certainly they had spent tens of thousands on Rodeo Drive in one day, but they had received luxurious goods in return. When Dante signed a hundred-thousand-dollar marker, they were awed, though their husbands had bought them cars that cost more. But Dante was throwing away money.

  They didn’t always sleep with men they picked up, but when they went to the ladies room they conferred on which one would get Dante. Julia begged and she said she had a real yen to pee in Dante’s funny hat. The others gave in.

  Joan had hoped to score five or ten grand. Not that she really needed it, but it was cash, real money. Loretta was not as charmed as the others by Dante. Her life in Las Vegas cabaret had partly inured her to such men. They were too full of surprises, most of them not pleasant.

  The women had a three-bedroom suite in the Xanadu. They always stuck close together on these outings, for reasons of safety and so they could gossip together about their adventures. They made it a rule not to spend the entire night with the men they picked up.

  So Julia wound up with Dante, who had no say in the matter, though he preferred Loretta. But he insisted Julia go to his suite, which was just below hers. “I’ll walk you up to your suite,” he said coolly. “We’ll just be an hour. I have to get up early in the morning.” It was then Julia realized he thought they were soft hookers.

  “Come up to my suite,” Julia said. “I’ll walk you down.”

  Dante said, “You got your two horny buddies up there. How do I know you won’t all jump me and sodomize me? I’m just a little guy.”

  That amused Julia enough to go to his suite. She had missed the slyness of his smile. On their way to his room, she said jokingly, “I want to pee in your hat.”

  Dante said to her, stone-faced, “If it’s fun for you, it’s fun for me.”

  Once in his suite there was very little chitchat. Julia threw her purse on the sofa and then pulled down the top of her dress so that her breasts showed, they were her best feature. But Dante seemed to be the exception, a male who was not interested in breasts.

  He led her into the bedroom and then pulled off her dress and underclothes. When she was naked, he shed his own clothes. She could see his penis was short, stubby, and uncircumcised. “You have to use a condom,” she said.

  Dante threw her on the bed. Julia was a robust woman, but he picked her up and threw her without seeming to make an effort. Then he straddled her.

  “I insist you use a condom,” she said. “I mean it.”

  In the next moment there was an explosion of light in her head. She realized he had slapped her so hard that she had almost lost consciousness. She tried to wriggle away but for so small a man he was incredibly strong. She felt two more slaps that suffused her face with a hot glow and made her teeth ache. Then she felt him enter her. His driving thrusts lasted for only a few seconds and then he slumped over her.

  They lay entwined and then he began to turn her over. She could see that he still had an erection and she knew he wanted to penetrate her anally. She whispered to him, “I love that but I have to get some Vaseline from my purse.”

  He let her slide out from under him and she went into the living room. Dante came to the door of the bedchamber. They were both still naked and he still had an erection.

  Julia fumbled in her purse and then, with a dramatic flourish, took out a tiny silver handgun. It was a prop from a movie she had worked in and she had always fantasized about using it in a real-life situation. She pointed it at Dante, took the crouch stance she had been taught in the movie, and said, “I’m going to dress and leave. If you try to stop me, I’ll shoot.”

  To her surprise, the naked Dante burst out in a good-humored laugh. But Julia noted with satisfaction that he immediately lost his erection.

  She was enjoying the situation. She was imagining that she was back upstairs with Joan and Loretta and how they would laugh about this. She tried to get up the courage to ask for his hat so she could pee in it.

  But now Dante surprised her. He started walking toward her slowly. He was smiling, he said gently, “That’s such a small caliber, it won’t even stop me unless you get a lucky shot to the head. Never use a small gun. You can put three bullets to my body and then I’ll strangle you. Also, you’re holding that gun wrong, you don’t need that stance, there’s no kick in it. Plus the chances are you won’t even hit me, those little bitty things are inaccurate. So throw it away and we’ll talk this over. Then you can leave.”

  He continued walking toward her so she threw the gun on the sofa. Dante picked it up and looked at it, shook his head. “A fake gun?” he said. “That’s the sure way to get killed.” He shook his head in an almost affectionate disapproval. “Well, if you were a real hooker, this would be a real gun. So who are you?”

  He pushed Julia down on the sofa and imprisoned her there with his leg, his toes pushed against her pubic hair. Then he opened her purse and spilled the contents onto the coffee table. He fished into the purse pockets and took out her wallet of credit cards and her driver’s license. He studied them carefully and then grinned in pure delight. He said to her, “Take off that wig.” Then he reached over with a doily from the sofa and wiped her face clean of makeup.

  “Jesus Christ, you are Julia Deleree,” Dante said. “I’m fucking a movie star.” He gave another delighted laugh. “You can pee in my hat anytime.”

  His toes were searching her crotch. Then he pulled her to her feet. “Don’t be scared,” he said. He kissed her and then turned her around and pushed her so that she was bent over the back of the sofa, breasts hanging down, her buttocks presented, tilted up to him.

  Julia said to him tearfully, “You promised to let me leave.”

  Dante was kissing her buttocks, his fingers probing. Then he entered her savagely and she gave a yell of pain. When he finished, he patted her buttocks tenderly.

  “You can get dressed now,” he said. “I’m sorry I broke my word. I just couldn’t miss the chance of telling my friends that I fucked Julia Deleree up her great ass.”

  The next morning Cross had a wakeup call push him out of bed early. It would be a busy day. He had to pull all of Dante’s markers out of the casino cage and do the necessary paperwork to make them disappear. He had to get the pit bosses’ marker books out of their hands and have them redone. Then he had to make arrangements so that the papers on the Rolls for Big Tim would be revoked. Giorgio had had the legal papers prepared so that the official change of ownership would not be valid until a month in the future. That was vintage Giorgio.

  In the middle of all this he was interrupted with a call from Loretta Lang. She was in the Hotel and urgently wanted to see him. Because he thought it might be something about Claudia, he had Security bring her up to
the penthouse.

  Loretta kissed him on both cheeks and then told him the whole story about Julia and Dante. She said the man had introduced himself as Steve Sharpe and had lost a hundred grand at the crap table. They were impressed, and Julia decided to sleep with him. The three of them had only come to relax and have a night of gambling. Now they were terrified that Steve might cause a scandal.

  Cross nodded sympathetically. He was thinking, What a stupid thing for Dante to do before a big operation, and the son of a bitch was giving away black chips for his pickups to gamble with. He said to Loretta calmly, “I know the man, of course. Who are the two women with you?”

  Loretta knew better than to dally with Cross. She told him the two names. Cross smiled. “Do you three do this often?”

  “We have to have a little fun,” Loretta said. Cross gave her a sympathetic smile.