The Godfather

As he washed his baby-blue Cadillac, Peter Clemenza pondered and rehearsed his lines, the expressions of his face. He would be curt with Paulie, as if displeased with him. With a man so sensitive and suspicious as Gatto this would throw him off the track or at least leave him uncertain. Undue friendliness would make him wary. But of course the curtness must not be too angry. It had to be rather an absentminded sort of irritation. And why Lampone? Paulie would find that most alarming, especially since Lampone had to be in the rear seat. Paulie wouldn’t like being helpless at the wheel with Lampone behind his head. Clemenza rubbed and polished the metal of his Cadillac furiously. It was going to be tricky. Very tricky. For a moment he debated whether to recruit another man but decided against it. Here he followed basic reasoning. In years to come a situation might arise where it might be profitable for one of his partners to testify against him. If there were just one accomplice it was one’s word against the other. But the word of a second accomplice could swing the balance. No, they would stick to procedure.

What annoyed Clemenza was that the execution had to be “public.” That is, the body was to be found. He would have much preferred having it disappear. (Usual burying grounds were the nearby ocean or the swamplands of New Jersey on land owned by friends of the Family or by other more complicated methods.) But it had to be public so that embryo traitors would be frightened and the enemy warned that the Corleone Family had by no means gone stupid or soft. Sollozzo would be made wary by this quick discovery of his spy. The Corleone Family would win back some of its prestige. It had been made to look foolish by the shooting of the old man.

Clemenza sighed. The Cadillac gleamed like a huge blue steel egg, and he was nowhere near the solving of his problem. Then the solution hit him, logical and to the point. It would explain Rocco Lampone, himself and Paulie being together and give them a mission of sufficient secrecy and importance.

He would tell Paulie that their job today was to find an apartment in case the Family decided to “go to the mattresses.”

Whenever a war between the Families became bitterly intense, the opponents would set up headquarters in secret apartments where the “soldiers” could sleep on mattresses scattered through the rooms. This was not so much to keep their families out of danger, their wives and little children, since any attack on noncombatants was undreamed of. All parties were too vulnerable to similar retaliation. But it was always smarter to live in some secret place where your everyday movements could not be charted either by your opponents or by some police who might arbitrarily decide to meddle.

And so usually a trusted caporegime would be sent out to rent a secret apartment and fill it with mattresses. That apartment would be used as a sally port into the city when an offensive was mounted. It was natural for Clemenza to be sent on such an errand. It was natural for him to take Gatto and Lampone with him to arrange all the details, including the furnishing of the apartment. Also, Clemenza thought with a grin, Paulie Gatto had proved he was greedy and the first thought that would pop into his head was how much he could get from Sollozzo for this valuable intelligence.

Rocco Lampone arrived early and Clemenza explained what had to be done and what their roles would be. Lampone’s face lit up with surprised gratitude and he thanked Clemenza respectfully for the promotion allowing him to serve the Family. Clemenza was sure he had done well. He clapped Lampone on the shoulder and said, “You’ll get something better for your living after today. We’ll talk about that later. You understand the Family now is occupied with more critical matters, more important things to do.” Lampone made a gesture that said he would be patient, knowing his reward was certain.

Clemenza went to his den’s safe and opened it. He took out a gun and gave it to Lampone. “Use this one,” he said.. “They can never trace it. Leave it in the car with Paulie. When this job is finished I want you to take your wife and children on a vacation to Florida. Use your own money now and I’ll pay you back later. Relax, get the sun. Use the Family hotel in Miami Beach so I’ll know where I can get you when I want.”

Clemenza’s wife knocked on the door of the den to tell them that Paulie Gatto had arrived. He was parked in the driveway. Clemenza led the way through the garage and Lampone followed him. When Clemenza got into the front seat with Gatto he merely grunted in greeting, an exasperated look on his face. He looked at his wristwatch as if he expected to find that Gatto was late.

The ferret-faced button man was watching him intently, looking for a clue. He flinched a little when Lampone got into the rear seat behind him and said, “Rocco, sit on the other site. A big guy like you blocks up my rear-view mirror.” Lampone shifted dutifully, so that he was sitting behind Clemenza, as if such a request was the most natural thing in the world.

Clemenza said sourly to Gatto, “Damn that Sonny, he’s running scared. He’s already thinking of going to the mattresses. We have to find a place on the West Side. Paulie, you and Rocco gotta staff and supply it until the word comes down for the rest of the soldiers to use it. You know a good location?”

As he had expected, Gatto’s eyes became greedily interested. Paulie had swallowed the bait and because he was thinking how much the information was worth to Sollozzo, he was forgetting to think about whether he was in danger. Also, Lampone was acting his part perfectly, staring out the window in a disinterested, relaxed way. Clemenza congratulated himself on his choice.

Gatto shrugged. “I’d have to think about it,” he said.

Clemenza grunted. “Drive while you think, I want to get. to New York today.”

Paulie was an expert driver and traffic going into the city was light at this time in the afternoon, so the early winter darkness was just beginning to fall when they arrived. There was no small talk in the car. Clemenza directed Paulie to drive up to the Washington Heights section. He checked a few apartment buildings and told him to park near Arthur Avenue and wait. He also left Rocco Lampone in the car. He went into the Vera Mario Restaurant and had a light dinner of veal and salad, nodding his hellos to some acquaintances. After an hour had gone by he walked the several blocks to where the car was parked and entered it. Gatto and Lampone were still waiting. “Shit,” Clemenza said, “they want us back in Long Beach. They got some other job for us now. Sonny says we can let this one go until later. Rocco, you live in the city, can we drop you off?”

Rocco said quietly, “I have my car out at your place and my old lady needs it first thing in the morning.”

“That’s right,” Clemenza said. “Then you have to come back with us, after all.”

Again on the ride back to Long Beach nothing was said. On the stretch of road that led into the city, Clemenza said suddenly, “Paulie, pull over, I gotta take a leak.” From working together so long, Gatto knew the fat caporegime had a weak bladder. He had often made such a request. Gatto pulled the car off the highway onto the soft earth that led to the swamp. Clemenza climbed out of the car and took a few steps into the bushes. He actually relieved himself. Then as he opened the door to get back into the car he took a quick look up and down the highway. There were no lights, the road was completely dark. “Go ahead,” Clemenza said. A second later the interior of the car reverberated with the report of a gun. Paulie Gatto seemed to jump forward, his body flinging against the steering wheel and then slumping over to the seat. Clemenza had stepped back hastily to avoid being hit with fragments of skull bone and blood.

Rocco Lampone scrambled out of the back seat. He still held the gun and he threw it into the swamp. He and Clemenza walked hastily to a car parked nearby and got in. Lampone reached underneath the seat and found the key that had been left for them. He started the car and drove Clemenza to his home. Then instead of going back by the same route, he took the Jones Beach Causeway right on through to the town of Merrick and onto the Meadowbrook Parkway until he reached the Northern State Parkway. He rode that to the Long Island Expressway and then continued on to the Whitestone Bridge and through the Bronx to his home in Manhattan.

Chapter 7

On the night before the shooting of Don Corleone, his strongest and most loyal and most feared retainer prepared to meet with the enemy. Luca Brasi had made contact with the forces of Sollozzo several months before. He had done so on the orders of Don Corleone himself. He had done so by frequenting the nightclubs controlled by the Tattaglia Family and by taking up with one of their top call girls. In bed with this call girl he grumbled about how he was held down in the Corleone Family, how his worth was not recognized. After a week of this affair with the call girl, Luca was approached by Bruno Tattaglia, manager of the nightclub. Bruno was the youngest son, and ostensibly not connected with the Family business of prostitution. But his famous nightclub with its dancing line of long-stemmed beauties was the finishing school for many of the city hookers.

The first meeting was all above-board, Tattaglia offering him a job to work in the Family business as enforcer. The flirtation went on for nearly a month. Luca played his role of man infatuated with a young beautiful girl, Bruno Tattaglia the role of a businessman trying to recruit an able executive from a rival. At one such meeting, Luca pretended to be swayed, then said, “But one thing must be understood. I will never go against the Godfather. Don Corleone is a man I respect. I understand that he must put his sons before me in the Family business.”

Bruno Tattaglia was one of the new generation with a barely hidden contempt for the old Moustache Petes like Luca Brasi, Don Corleone and even his own father. He was just a little too respectful. Now he said, “My father wouldn’t expect you to do anything against the Corleones. Why should he? Everybody gets along with everybody else now, it’s not like the old days. It’s just that if you’re looking for a new job, I can pass along the word to my father. There’s always need for a man like you in our business. It’s a hard business and it needs hard men to keep it running smooth. Let me know if you ever make up your mind.”

Luca shrugged. “It’s not so bad where I’m at.” And so they left it.

The general idea had been to lead the Tattaglias to believe that he knew about the lucrative narcotics operation and that he wanted a piece of it free-lance. In that fashion he might hear something about Sollozzo’s plans if the Turk had any, or whether he was getting ready to step on the toes of Don Corleone. After waiting for two months with nothing else happening, Luca reported to the Don that obviously Sollozzo was taking his defeat graciously. The Don had told him to keep trying but merely as a sideline, not to press it.

Luca had dropped into the nightclub the evening before Don Corleone’s being shot. Almost immediately Bruno Tattaglia had come to his table and sat down.

“I have a friend who wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Bring him over,” Luca said. “I’ll talk to any friend of yours.”

“No,” Bruno said. “He wants to see you in private.”

“Who is he?” Luca asked.

“Just a friend of mine,” Bruno Tattaglia said. “He wants to put a proposition to you. Can you meet him later on tonight?”

“Sure,” Luca said. “What time and where?”

Tattaglia said softly, “The club closes at four in the morning. Why don’t you meet in here while the waiters are cleaning ups.

They knew his habits, Luca thought, they must have been checking him out. He usually got up about three or four in the afternoon and had breakfast, then amused himself by gambling with cronies in the Family or had a girl. Sometimes he saw one of the midnight movies and then would drop in for a drink at one of the clubs. He never went to bed before dawn. So the suggestion of a four A.M. meeting was not as outlandish as it seemed.

“Sure, sure,” he said. “I’ll be back at four.” He left the club and caught a cab to his furnished room on Tenth Avenue. He boarded with an Italian family to which he was distantly related. His two rooms were separated from the rest of their railroad flat by a special door. He liked the arrangement because it gave him some family life and also protection against surprise where he was most vulnerable.

The sly Turkish fox was going to show his bushy tail, Luca thought. If things went far enough, if Sollozzo committed himself tonight, maybe the whole thing could be wound up as a Christmas present for the Don. In his room, Luca unlocked the trunk beneath the bed and took out a bulletproof vest. It was heavy. He undressed and put it on over his woolen underwear, then put his shirt and jacket over it. He thought for a moment of calling the Don’s house at Long Beach to tell him of this new development but he knew the Don never talked over the phone, to anyone, and the Don had given him this assignment in secret and so did not want anyone, not even Hagen or his eldest son, to know about it.

Luca always carried a gun. He had a license to carry a gun, probably the most expensive gun license ever issued anyplace, anytime. It had cost a total of ten thousand dollars but it would keep him out of jail if he was frisked by the cops. As a top executive operating official of the Family he rated the license. But tonight, just in case he could finish off the job, he wanted a “safe” gun. One that could not possibly be traced. But then thinking the matter over, he decided that he would just listen to the proposition tonight and report back to the Godfather, Don Corleone.

He made his way back to the club but he did not drink any more. Instead he wandered out to 48th Street, where he had a leisurely late supper at Patsy’s, his favorite Italian restaurant. When it was time for his appointment he drifted uptown to the club entrance. The doorman was no longer there when he went in. The hatcheck girl was gone. Only Bruno Tattaglia waited to greet him and lead him to the deserted bar at the side of the room. Before him he could see the desert of small tables with the polished yellow wood dance floor gleaming like a small diamond in the middle of them. In the shadows was the empty bandstand, out of it grew the skeleton metal stalk of a microphone.

Luca sat at the bar and Bruno Tattaglia went behind it. Luca refused the drink offered to him and lit a cigarette. It was possible that this would turn out to be something else, not the Turk. But then he saw Soltozzo emerge out of the shadows at the far end of the room.

Sollozzo shook his hand and sat at the bar next to him. Tattaglia put a glass in front of the Turk, who nodded his thanks. “Do you know who I am?” asked Sollozzo.

Luca nodded. He smiled grimly. The rats were being flushed out of their holes. It would be his pleasure to take care of this renegade Sicilian.

“Do you know what I am going to ask of you?” Sollozzo asked.

Luca shook his head.

“There’s big business to be made,” Sollozzo said. “I mean millions for everybody at the top level. On the first shipment I can guarantee you fifty thousand dollars. I’m talking about drugs. It’s the coming thing.”

Luca said, “Why come to me? You want me to talk to my Don?”

Sollozzo grimaced. “I’ve already talked to the Don. He wants no part of it. All right, I can do without him. But I need somebody strong to protect the operation physically. I understand you’re not happy with your Family, you might make a switch.”

Luca shrugged. “If the offer is good enough.”

Sollozzo had been watching him intently and seemed to have come to a decision. “Think about my offer for a few days and then we’ll talk again,” he said. He put out his hand but Luca pretended not to see it and busied himself putting a cigarette in his mouth. Behind the bar, Bruno Tattaglia made a lighter appear magically and held it to Luca’s cigarette. And then he did a strange thing. He dropped the lighter on the bar and grabbed Lucas right hand, holding it tight.

Luca reacted instantly, his body slipping off the bar stool and trying to twist away. But Sollozzo had grabbed his other hand at the wrist. Still, Luca was too strong for both of them and would have broken free except that a man stepped out of the shadows behind him and threw a thin silken cord around his neck. The cord pulled tight, choking off Lucas breath. His face became purple, the strength in his arms drained away. Tattaglia and Sollozzo held his hands easily now, and they stood there curiously childlike as the man behind Luca pulled the cord around Lucas neck tighter and tighter. Suddenly the floor was wet and slippery. Luca’s sphincter, no longer under control, opened, the waste of his body spilled out. There was no strength in him anymore and his legs folded, his body sagged. Sollozzo and Tattaglia let his hands go and only the strangler stayed with the victim, sinking to his knees to follow Lucas falling body, drawing the cord so tight that it cut into the flesh of the neck and disappeared. Lucas eyes were bulging out of his head as if in the utmost surprise and this surprise was the only humanity remaining to him. He was dead.

“I don’t want him found,” Sollozzo said. “It’s important that he not be found right now.” He turned on his heel and left, disappearing back into the shadows.

Chapter 8

The day after the shooting of Don Corleone was a busy time for the Family. Michael stayed by the phone relaying messages to Sonny. Tom Hagen was busy trying to find a mediator satisfactory to both parties so that a conference could be arranged with Sollozzo. The Turk had suddenly become cagey, perhaps he knew that the Family button men of Clemenza and Tessio were ranging far and wide over the city in an attempt to pick up his trail. But Sollozzo was sticking close to his hideout, as were all top members of the Tattaglia Family. This was expected by Sonny, an elementary precaution he knew the enemy was bound to take.

Clemenza was tied up with Paulie Gatto. Tessio had been given the assignment of trying to track down the whereabouts of Luca Brasi. Luca had not been home since the night before the shooting, a bad sign. But Sonny could not believe that Brasi had either turned traitor or had been taken by surprise.

Mama Corleone was staying in the city with friends of the Family so that she could be near the hospital. Carlo Rizzi, the son-in-law, had offered his services but had been told to take care of his own business that Don Corleone had set him up in, a lucrative bookmaking territory in the Italian section of Manhattan. Connie was staying with her mother in town so that she too could visit her father in the hospital.

Freddie was still under sedation in his own room of his parents’ house. Sonny and Michael had paid him a visit and had been astonished at his paleness, his obvious illness. “Christ,” Sonny said to Michael when they left Freddie’s room, “he looks like he got plugged worse than the old man.”

Michael shrugged. He had seen soldiers in the same condition on the battlefield. But he had never expected it to happen to Freddie. He remembered the middle brother as being physically the toughest one in the family when all of them were kids. But he had also been the most obedient son to his father. And yet everyone knew that the Don had given up on this middle son ever being important to the business. He wasn’t quite smart enough, and failing that, not quite ruthless enough. He was too retiring a person, did not have enough force.

Late in the afternoon, Michael got a call from Johnny Fontane in Hollywood. Sonny took the phone. “Nah, Johnny, no use coming back here to see the old man. He’s too sick and it would give you a lot of bad publicity, and I know the old man wouldn’t like that. Wait until he’s better and we can move him home, then come see him. OK, I’ll give him your regards.” Sonny hung up the phone. He turned to Michael and said. “That’ll make Pop happy, that Johnny wanted to fly from California to see how he was.”

Late that afternoon, Michael was called to the listed phone in the kitchen by one of Clemenza’s men. It was Kay.

“Is your father all right?” she asked. Her voice was a little strained, a little unnatural. Michael knew that she couldn’t quite believe what had happened, that his father really was what the newspapers called a gangster.

“He’ll be OK,” Michael said.

“Can I come with you when you visit him in the hospital?” Kay asked.

Michael laughed. She had remembered him telling her how important it was to do such things if you wanted to get along with the old Italians. “This is a special case,” he said. “If the newspaper guys get ahold of your name and background you’ll be on page three of the Daily News. Girl from old Yankee family mixed up with son of big Mafia chief. How would your parents like that?”

Kay said dryly, “My parents never read the Daily News.” Again there was an awkward pause and then she said, “You’re OK, aren’t you, Mike, you’re not in any danger?”

Mike laughed again. “I’m known as the sissy of the Corleone family. No threat. So they don’t have to bother coming after me. No, it’s all over, Kay, there won’t be any more trouble. It was all sort of an accident anyway. I’ll explain when I see you.”

“When will that be?” she asked.

Michael pondered. “How about late tonight? We’ll have a drink and supper in your hotel and then I’ll go to the hospital and see my old man. I’m getting tired of hanging around here answering phones. OK? But don’t tell anybody. I don’t want newspaper photographers snapping pictures of us together. No kidding, Kay, it’s damned embarrassing, especially for your parents.”

“All right,” Kay said. “I’ll be waiting. Can I do any Christmas shopping for you? Or anything else?”

“No,” Michael said. “Just be ready.”

She gave a little excited laugh. “I’ll be ready,” she said. “Aren’t I always?”

“Yes, you are,” he said. “That’s why you’re my best girl.”

“I love you,” she said. “Can you say it?”

Michael looked at the four hood sitting in the kitchen. “No,” he said. “Tonight, OK?”

“OK,” she said. He hung up.

Clemenza had finally come back from his day’s work and was bustling around the kitchen cooking up a huge pot of tomato sauce. Michael nodded to him and went to the corner office where he found Hagen and Sonny waiting for him impatiently. “Is Clemenza out there?” Sonny asked.

Michael grinned. “He’s cooking up spaghetti for the troops, just like the army.”

Sonny said impatiently, “Tell him to cut out that crap and come on in here. I have more important things for him to do. Get Tessio in here with him.”

In a few minutes they were all gathered in the office. Sonny said curtly to Clemenza, “You take care of him?”

Clemenza nodded. “You won’t see him anymore.”

With a slight electric shock, Michael realized they were talking about Paulie Gatto and that little Paulie was dead, murdered by that jolly wedding dancer, Clemenza.

Sonny asked Hagen, “You have any luck with Sollozzo?”

Hagen shook his head. “He seems to have cooled off on the negotiation idea. Anyway he doesn’t seem to be too anxious. Or maybe he’s just being very careful so that our button men won’t nail him. Anyway I haven’t been able to set up a top-notch go-between he’ll trust. But he must know he has to negotiate now. He missed his chance when he let the old man get away from him.”

Sonny said, “He’s a smart guy, the smartest our Family ever came up against. Maybe he figured we’re just stalling until the old man gets better or we can get a line on him.”

Hagen shrugged. “Sure, he figures that. But he still has to negotiate. He has no choice. I’ll get it set up tomorrow. That’s certain.”

One of Clemenza’s men knocked on the office door and then came in. He said to Clemenza, “It just came over the radio, the cops found Paulie Gatto. Dead in his car.”

Clemenza nodded and said to the man, “Don’t worry about it.” The button man gave his caporegime an astonished look, which was followed by a look of comprehension, before he went back to the kitchen.

The conference went on as if there had been no interruption. Sonny asked Hagen, “Any change in the Don’s condition?”

Hagen shook his head. “He’s OK but he won’t be able to talk for another couple of days. He’s all knocked out. Still recovering from the operation. Your mother spends most of the day with him, Connie too. There’s cops all over the hospital and Tessio’s men hang around too, just in case. In a couple of days he’ll be all right and then we can see what he wants us to do. Meanwhile we have to keep Sollozzo from doing anything rash. That’s why I want to start you talking deals with him.”

Sonny grunted. “Until he does, I’ve got Clemenza and Tessio looking for him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and solve the whole business.”

“You won’t get lucky,” Hagen said. “Sollozzo is too smart.” Hagen paused. “He knows once he comes to the table he’ll have to go our way mostly. That’s why he’s stalling. I’m guessing he’s trying to line up support from the other New York Families so that we won’t go after him when the old man gives us the word.”

Sonny frowned. “Why the hell should they do that?”

Hagen said patiently, “To avert a big war which hurts everybody and brings the papers and government into the act. Also, Sollozzo will give them a piece of the action. And you know how much dough there is in drugs. The Corleone Family doesn’t need it, we have the gambling, which is the best business to have. But the other Families are hungry. Sollozzo is a proven man, they know he can make the operation go on a big scale. Alive he’s money in their pockets, dead he’s trouble.”

Sonny’s face was as Michael had never seen it. The heavy Cupid mouth and bronzed skin seemed gray. “I don’t give a fuck what they want. They better not mess in this fight.”

Clemenza and Tessio shifted uneasily in their chairs, infantry leaders who hear their general rave about storming an impregnable hill no matter what the cost. Hagen said a little impatiently, “Come on, Sonny, your father wouldn’t like you thinking that way. You know what he always says, ‘That’s a waste.’ Sure, we’re not going to let anybody stop us if the old man says we go after Sollozzo. But this is not a personal thing, this is business. If we go after the Turk and the Families interfere, we’ll negotiate the issue. If the Families see that we’re determined to have Sollozzo, they’ll let us. The Don will make concessions in other areas to square things. But don’t go blood crazy on a thing like this. It’s business. Even the shooting of your father was business, not personal. You should know that by now.”

Sonny’s eyes were still hard. “OK. I understand all that. Just so long as you understand that nobody stands in our way when we want Sollozzo.”

Sonny turned to Tessio. “Any leads on Luca?”

Tessio shook his head. “None at all. Sollozzo must have snatched him.”

Hagen said quietly, “Sollozzo wasn’t worried about Luca, which struck me as funny. He’s too smart not to worry about a guy like Luca. I think he maybe got him out of the picture, one way or the other.”

Sonny muttered, “Christ, I hope Luca isn’t fighting against us. That’s the one thing I’d be afraid of. Clemenza, Tessio, how do you two guys figure it?”

Clemenza said slowly, “Anybody could go wrong, look at Paulie. But with Luca, he was a man who could only go one way. The Godfather was the only thing he believed in, the only man he feared. But not only that, Sonny, he respected your father as no one else respected him and the Godfather has earned respect from everyone. No, Luca would never betray us. And I find it hard to believe that a man like Sollozzo, no matter how cunning, could surprise Luca. He was a man who suspected everyone and everything. He was always ready for the worst. I think maybe he just went off someplace for a few days. We’ll be hearing from him anytime now.”

Sonny turned to Tessio. The Brooklyn caporegime shrugged. “Any man can turn traitor. Luca was very touchy. Maybe the Don offended him some way. That could be. I think though that Sollozzo gave him a little surprise. That fits in with what the Consigliere says. We should expect the worst.”

Sonny said to all of them, “Sollozzo should get the word soon about Paulie Gatto. How will that affect him?”

Clemenza said grimly, “It will make him think. He will know the Corleone Family are not fools. He will realize that he was very lucky yesterday.”

Sonny said sharply, “That wasn’t luck. Sollozzo was planning that for weeks. They must have tailed the old man to his office every day and watched his routine. Then they bought Paulie off and maybe Luca. They snatched Tom right on the button. They did everything they wanted to do. They were unlucky, not lucky. Those button men they hired weren’t good enough and the old man moved too quick. If they had killed him, I would have had to make a deal and Sollozzo would have won. For now. I would have waited maybe and got him five, ten years from now. But don’t call him lucky, Pete, that’s underrating him. And we’ve done that too much lately.”

One of the button men brought a bowl of spaghetti in from the kitchen and then some plates, forks and wine. They ate as they talked. Michael watched in amazement. He didn’t eat and neither did Tom, but Sonny, Clemenza and Tessio dug in, mopping up sauce with crusts of bread. It was almost comical. They continued their discussion.

Tessio didn’t think that the loss of Paulie Gatto would upset Sollozzo, in fact he thought that the Turk might have anticipated it, indeed might have welcomed it. A useless mouth off the payroll. And he would not be frightened by it; after all, would they be in such a situation?