The Last Don

by Mario Puzo

  The problem now was how to get into Kenneth’s office at night and how to figure out how the controls operated. . . .

  He made an appointment with Kenneth for a checkup. While Kenneth was studying his X rays, Ernest told him that he was using a dentist as a character in his new novel and asked to be shown how the controls for the sweet air worked.

  Kenneth was a natural-born pedagogue and showed him how to work the controls on the tanks of nitrous oxide and oxygen, stressing the safe ratios, lecturing all the while.

  “But couldn’t it be dangerous?” Ernest asked. “What if you got drunk and screwed up? You could kill me.”

  “No, it’s automatically regulated so that you always get at least thirty percent oxygen,” Kenneth explained.

  Ernest hesitated a moment, trying to look embarrassed. “You know I enjoyed that party years ago. Now I have a beautiful girlfriend who is acting a little coy. I need some help. Could you let me have the key to your office so I could bring her here some night? The nitrous would just tip the balance.”

  Kenneth studied the X rays carefully. “Your mouth is in terrific shape,” he said. “I’m really a great dentist.”

  “The key?” Ernest said.

  “A really beautiful girl?” Kenneth asked. “Tell me which night and I’ll come and work the controls.”

  “No, no,” Ernest said. “This is a really straight girl. She wouldn’t do even the nitrous if you were around.” He paused for a moment. “She really is old-fashioned.”

  “No shit,” Kenneth said and looked directly into Ernest’s eyes. Then he said, “I’ll just be a minute,” and he left the treatment room.

  When he returned, he had a key in his hand. “Take this to a hardware store and get it duplicated,” Kenneth said. “Make sure you let them know who you are. Then come back and give me my key.”

  Ernest was surprised. “I don’t mean right now.”

  Kenneth packed away the X rays and turned to Ernest. For one of the few times since Ernest had known him, the cheerfulness in his face was gone.

  “When the cops find you,” Kenneth said, “dead in my chair, I don’t want to be implicated in any way. I don’t want my professional status jeopardized, or my patients deserting me. The cops will find the duplicate and track it down to the store. They will assume trickery on your part. I assume you’re leaving a note?”

  Ernest was stunned and then ashamed. He had not thought of harming Kenneth. Kenneth was looking at him with a reproachful smile tinged with sadness. Ernest took the key from Kenneth, then in a rare show of emotion, he gave Kenneth a tentative hug. “So you understand,” he said. “I’m being completely rational.”

  “Sure I do,” Kenneth said. “I’ve often thought about it for myself in my old age or if things go bad.” He smiled cheerfully and said, “Death is no competition.” They both laughed.

  “You really know why?” Ernest asked.

  “Everybody in Hollywood knows,” Kenneth said. “Skippy Deere was at a party and someone asked if he was really going to do the picture. He said, ‘I will try until Hell freezes over or Ernest Vail commits suicide.’ ”

  “And you don’t think I’m crazy?” Ernest said. “Doing it for money I can’t spend . . .”

  “Why not?” Kenneth said. “It’s smarter than killing yourself for love. But the mechanics are not that simple. You have to disconnect this hose in the wall that supplies the oxygen, that disables the regulator and you can make the mixture more than seventy percent. Do it on Friday night after the cleaning people leave so you won’t be discovered until Monday. There’s always a chance you can be revived. Of course if you use pure nitrous oxide you’ll be gone in thirty minutes.” Again he smiled a little sadly. “All my work on your teeth wasted. What a shame.”

  Two days later, on a Saturday morning, Ernest woke very early in his Beverly Hills Hotel room. The sun was just coming up. He showered and shaved and dressed in a T-shirt and comfortable jeans. Over them he wore a tan linen jacket. His room was strewn with clothes and newspapers, but it would be pointless to tidy up.

  Kenneth’s office was a half-hour walk from the hotel, and Ernest stepped out feeling a sense of freedom. Nobody walked in L.A. He was hungry but was afraid to eat anything because it might make him throw up when he was under the nitrous.

  The office was on the fifteenth floor of a sixteen-story building. There was only a single civilian guard in the lobby and no one in the elevator. Ernest turned the key in the door of the dental suite and entered. He locked the door behind him and put the key in his jacket pocket. The suite of rooms was ghostly still, the receptionist’s window glinted in the early morning sun and her computer was ominously dark and silent.

  Ernest opened the door that led to the work area. As he walked down the corridor, he was greeted by the photos of Bankable Stars. There were six treatment rooms, three on each side of the corridor. At the end was Kenneth’s office and conference room where they had chatted many times. Kenneth’s own treatment room was attached, with his special hydraulic dental chair, where he cared for his high-ranking patients.

  That chair was extra luxurious, the padding thicker and the leather softer. On the mobile table beside the chair was the sweet air mask. The console, with its hose linked to the hidden nitrous oxide and oxygen tanks, had its two control knobs turned to zero.

  Ernest adjusted the dials so that he would get half nitrous oxide and half oxygen. Then he sat in the chair and put the mask over his face. He relaxed. After all, Kenneth would not be sticking knives into his gums now. All the aches and pains left his body, his brain roamed over the entire world. He felt wonderful, it was ridiculous to think of death.

  Ideas for future novels floated through his head, insights into many people he knew, none of them malicious, which was what he loved about nitrous. Shit, he had forgotten to rewrite the suicide notes, and he realized how, despite his good intentions and language, they were in essence insulting.

  Ernest was now in a huge, sailing colored balloon. He floated over the world he had known. He thought about Eli Marrion, who had followed his destiny, achieved great power, was regarded with awe for his ruthless intelligence in using that power. And yet, when Ernest’s best book came out and was bought for the movies, the one that earned him the Pulitzer, Eli had come to the cocktail party his publishers gave him.

  Eli had put out his hand and said, “You are a very fine writer.” His coming to the party was sensational Hollywood gossip. And the great Eli Marrion had shown him the final and absolute mark of respect, he had given him gross. No matter that Bantz had taken it away after Marrion died.

  And Bantz was not a villain. His relentless pursuit of profit was a result of his experience in a special world. If truth be told, Skippy Deere was worse, because Deere, with his intelligence, his charm and his elemental energy, and his instinctive moves to betrayal in a personal sense, was more lethal.

  Another insight came to Ernest. Why was he always knocking Hollywood and films, sneering at them? It was jealousy. Film was now the most revered art form, and he himself loved movies, good ones anyway. But he envied more the relationships in making a movie. The cast, the crew, the director, the Bankable Stars and even the “Suits,” those crass execs, seemed to come together in a close if not ever-loving family, at least until the picture was finished. They gave each other presents then and kissed and hugged and swore eternal devotion. What a wonderful feeling that must be to have. He remembered when he wrote his first script with Claudia, he thought he might be admitted to this family.

  But how could that be with his personality, his malicious wit, his constant sneering? But under the sweet nitrous oxide, he could not even judge himself harshly. He had a right, he had written great books (Ernest was an oddity among novelists because he really loved his books), and he had deserved to be treated with more respect.

  Benignly saturated with forgiving nitrous, Ernest decided he really didn’t want to die. Money was not that important, Bantz would relent or Claudia and Mo
lly would find a way out.

  Then he remembered all his humiliation. None of his wives had ever truly loved him. He had always been the mendicant, never enjoyed requited love. His books had been respected but never aroused the adoration that made a writer rich. Some critics had reviled him and he had pretended to take it in good sport. After all, it was wrong to get angry with critics, they were only doing their job. But their remarks hurt. And all his male friends, though they sometimes enjoyed his company, his wit and honesty, never became close, not even Kenneth. While Claudia was truly fond of him, he knew Molly Flanders and Kenneth felt pity for him.

  Ernest reached over and turned off the sweet air. It took just a few minutes for his head to clear and then he went to sit in Kenneth’s office.

  His depression came back. He tilted back in Kenneth’s lounge chair and watched the sun rise over Beverly Hills. He was so angry at the studio screwing him out of his money that he couldn’t enjoy anything. He hated the dawning of a new day; at night he took sleeping pills early and tried to sleep as long as he could. . . . That he could be humiliated by such people, people he held in contempt. And now he could no longer even read, a pleasure that had never before betrayed him. And of course, he could no longer write. That elegant prose, so often praised, was now false, inflated, pretentious. He no longer enjoyed writing it.

  For a long time now, he had awakened every morning dreading the coming day, too tired to even shave and shower. And he was broke. He had earned millions and had pissed it away on gambling, women, and booze. Or given it away. Money had never been important until now.

  The last two months he had not been able to send his kids their support payments or his wives their alimony. Unlike most men, sending those checks made Ernest happy. He had not published a book for five years, and his personality had become less pleasant even to himself. He was always whining about his fate. He was like a sore tooth in the face of society. And this image itself depressed him. What kind of soapy metaphor was this for a writer of his talent? A wave of melancholy swept over him; he was completely powerless.

  He sprang up and walked into the treatment room. Kenneth had told him what he must do. He pulled out the cable that held the two plugs, one for oxygen and one for the nitrous oxide. Then he plugged back only one. Nitrous. He sat in the dental chair, reached over and turned the dial. At that moment he thought that there must be some way to get at least a ten percent oxygen flow so that death would not be so certain. He picked up the mask and put it over his face.

  The pure nitrous hit his body and he experienced a moment of ecstasy, a washing away of all pain and a dreamy content. The nitrous hit and scrubbed out the brain in his skull. There was one last moment of pure pleasure before he ceased to exist, and in that moment, he believed there was a God and a Heaven.

  Molly Flanders savaged Bobby Bantz and Skippy Deere; she would have been more careful if Eli Marrion was still alive.

  “You have a new sequel to Ernest’s book coming out. My injunction will stop that. The property now belongs to Ernest’s heirs. Sure, maybe you can override the injunction and release the picture but then I sue. If I win, Ernest’s estate will own that picture and most of what it earns. And for a certainty we can prevent you from making other sequels based on the characters in his books. Now, we can save all that and years of trouble in court. You pay five million up front and ten percent of the gross of each picture. And I want a true and certified account of the money on home video.”

  Deere was horrified and Bantz enraged. Ernest Vail, a writer, would have a greater percentage of the profit on the pictures than anyone except a Bankable Star ever got, and that was a fucking outrage.

  Bantz immediately called Melo Stuart and the chief counsel for LoddStone Pictures. They were in the meeting room within a half hour. Melo was necessary to the meeting because he was the packager of the sequels and earned a commission on the Bankable Star, the director, and the rewriter, Benny Sly. This was a situation that could require him to give up some points.

  The chief counsel said, “We studied the situation when Mr. Vail made his first threat against the Studio.”

  Molly Flanders broke in angrily. “You call killing himself a threat to the Studio?”

  “And blackmail,” the chief counsel said smoothly. “Now we’ve completely researched the law in this situation, which is very tricky, but even then I advised the Studio we could fight your claim in court and win. In this particular case, the rights to the property do not revert back to the heirs.”

  “What can you guarantee?” Molly asked the counsel. “To a ninety-five percent certainty?”

  “No,” the counsel said. “Nothing is that certain in the law.”

  Molly was delighted. She would retire with the fee she earned when she won this case. She got up to go and said, “Fuck you all, I’ll see you in court.”

  Bantz and Deere were so terrified they could not speak. Bantz wished with all his heart that Eli Marrion were still alive.

  It was Melo Stuart who rose and restrained Molly with an affectionate and imploring hug. “Hey,” he said, “we’re just negotiating. Be civilized.”

  He led Molly back to her chair, noticing there were tears in her eyes. “We can make a deal, I’ll give up some points in the package.”

  Molly said quietly to Bantz, “Do you want to risk losing everything? Can your counsel guarantee that you will win? Of course he can’t. Are you a fucking businessman or some degenerate gambler? To save a fucking lousy twenty to forty mil, you want to risk losing a billion?”

  They cut the deal. Ernest’s estate got four million up front and 8 percent of the gross on the picture about to be released. He would get two million and 10 percent of adjusted gross on any other sequels. Ernest’s three ex-wives and his children would be rich.

  Molly’s parting shot was, “If you think I was tough, wait until Cross De Lena hears how you screwed him.”

  Molly savored her victory. She remembered how one night she had taken Ernest home from a party. She was pretty drunk and extremely lonely and Ernest was witty and intelligent and she thought it might be fun to spend a night with him. Then when they arrived at her home, sobered up by the drive, and she took him to her bedroom, she had looked around despairingly. Ernest was such a shrimp and so obviously sexually shy and he was really a homely man. At that point he was tongue-tied.

  But Molly was too fair a person to dismiss him at such a critical time. So she got drunk again and they went to bed. And really, in the dark, it hadn’t been too bad. Ernest enjoyed it so much that she was flattered and brought him breakfast in bed.

  He gave her a sly grin. “Thank you,” he said. “And thank you again.” And she perceived that he understood everything she had felt the previous night and was thanking her not only for bringing him breakfast but also as his sexual benefactress. She had always been regretful that she had not been a better actress, but what the hell, she was a lawyer. And now she had performed for Ernest Vail an act of requited love.

  Dottore David Redfellow received Don Clericuzio’s summons while attending an important meeting in Rome. He was advising the prime minister of Italy on a new banking regulation that would impose severe penal sentences on corrupt bank officials, and naturally he was advising against it. He immediately wound up his arguments and flew to America.

  In the twenty-five years of his exile in Italy, David Redfellow had prospered and changed beyond his wildest dreams. At the beginning, Don Clericuzio helped him buy a small bank in Rome. With the fortune he had made in the drug trade and deposited in Swiss banks, he bought more banks and television stations. But it was Don Clericuzio’s friends in Italy who helped guide him and build his empire, helped him to acquire the magazines, the newspapers, the TV stations, in addition to his string of banks.

  But David Redfellow was pleased also by what he had done on his own. A complete transformation of character. He acquired Italian citizenship, an Italian wife, Italian children, and the standard Italian mistress as well as an honorar
y doctorate (cost, two million) from an Italian university. He wore Armani suits, spent an hour every week at his barber, acquired a circle of all-male cronies at his coffee bar (which he bought), and entered politics as advisor to the cabinet and the prime minister. Still, once a year he made his pilgrimage to Quogue to fulfill any wishes of his mentor, Don Clericuzio. So this special summons filled him with alarm.

  Dinner was waiting for him at the Quogue mansion when he arrived, and Rose Marie had outdone herself because Redfellow was always rapturous about the restaurants of Rome. Assembled to honor him was the entire Clericuzio clan: the Don himself; his sons, Giorgio, Petie, and Vincent; his grandson, Dante; and Pippi and Cross De Lena.

  It was a hero’s welcome. David Redfellow, the college-dropout drug king, the louche dresser with an earring in his ear, the hyena riding the kills of sex, had transformed himself into a pillar of society. They were proud of him. Even more, Don Clericuzio felt he was in Redfellow’s debt. For it was Redfellow who had taught him a great lesson in morality.

  In his early days Don Clericuzio had suffered a strange sentimentality. He had believed that the forces of law could not be generally corrupted in the matter of drugs.

  David Redfellow was a twenty-year-old college student in 1960 when he first started dealing drugs, not for profit but simply so he and his friends could have a steady cheap supply. An amateur endeavor, just cocaine and marijuana. In a year it had grown so big he and his classmate partners owned a small plane that brought goods over the Mexican and South American borders. Quite naturally they soon ran afoul of the law, and that was where David first showed his genius. The six-man partnership was earning vast amounts of money, and David Redfellow laid on such massive bribes that he soon had on his payroll a roster of sheriffs, district attorneys, judges, and hundreds of police along the Eastern seaboard.