Chapter 4

When Michael Corleone arrived at his father’s house in Long Beach he found the narrow entrance mouth of the mall blocked off with a link chain. The mall itself was bright with the floodlights of all eight houses, outlining at least ten cars parked along the curving cement walk.

Two men he didn’t know were leaning against the chain. One of them asked in a Brooklyn accent, “Who’re you?”

He told them. Another man came out of the nearest house and peered at his face. “That’s the Don’s kid,” he said. “I’ll bring him inside.” Mike followed this man to his father’s house, where two men at the door let him and his escort pass inside.

The house seemed to be full of men he didn’t know, until he went into the living room. There Michael saw Tom Hagen’s wife, Theresa, sitting stiffly on the sofa, smoking a cigarette. On the coffee table in front of her was a glass of whiskey. On the other side of the sofa sat the bulky Clemenza. The caporegime’s face was impassive, but he was sweating and the cigar in his hand glistened slickly black with his saliva.

Clemenza came to wring his hand in a consoling way, muttering, “Your mother is at the hospital with your father, he’s going to be all right.” Paulie Gatto stood up to shake hands. Michael looked at him curiously. He knew Paulie was his father’s bodyguard but did not know that Paulie had stayed home sick that day. But he sensed tension in the thin dark face. He knew Gatto’s reputation as an up-and-coming man, a very quick man who knew how to get delicate jobs done without complications, and today he had failed in his duty. He noticed several other men in the corners of the room but he did not recognize them. They were not of Clemenza’s people. Michael put these facts together and understood. Clemenza and Gatto were suspect. Thinking that Paulie had been at the scene, he asked the ferret-faced young man, “How is Freddie? He OK?”

“The doctor gave him a shot,” Clemenza said. “He’s sleeping.”

Michael went to Hagen’s wife and bent down to kiss her cheek. They had always liked each other. He whispered, “Don’t worry, Tom will be OK. Have you talked to Sonny yet?”

Theresa clung to him for a moment and shook her head. She was a delicate, very pretty woman, more American than Italian, and very scared. He took her hand and lifted her off the sofa. Then he led her into his father’s corner room office.

Sonny was sprawled out in his chair behind the desk holding a yellow pad in one hand and a pencil in the other. The only other man in the room with him was the caporegime Tessio, whom Michael recognized and immediately realized that it must be his men who were in the house and forming the new palace guard. He too had a pencil and pad in his hands.

When Sonny saw them he came from behind his desk and took Hagen’s wife in his arms. “Don’t worry, Theresa,” he said. “Tom’s OK. They just wanta give him the proposition, they said they’d turn him loose. He’s not on the operating end, he’s just our lawyer. There’s no reason for anybody to do him harm.”

He released Theresa and then to Michael’s surprise he too, got a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He pushed Sonny away and said grinning, “After I get used to you beating me up I gotta put up with this?” They had often fought when they were younger.

Sonny shrugged. “Listen, kid, I was worried when I couldn’t get ahold of you in that hick town. Not that I gave a crap if they knocked you off, but I didn’t like the idea of bringing the news to the old lady. I had to tell her about Pop.”

“How’d she take it?” Michael asked.

“Good,” Sonny said. “She’s been through it before. Me too. You were too young to know about it and then things got pretty smith while you were growing up.” He paused and then said, “She’s down at the hospital with the old man. He’s gonna pull through.”

“How about us going down?” Michael asked.

Sonny shook his head and said dryly, “I can’t leave this house until it’s all over.” The phone rang. Sonny picked it up and listened intently. While he was listening Michael sauntered over to the desk and glanced down at the yellow pad Sonny had been writing on. There was a list of seven names. The first three were Sollozzo, Phillip Tattaglia, and John Tattaglia. It struck Michael with full force that he had interrupted Sonny and Tessio as they were making up a list of men to be killed.

When Sonny hung up the phone he said to Theresa Hagen and Michael, “Can you two wait outside? I got some business with Tessio we have to finish.”

Hagen’s wife said, “Was that call about Tom?” She said it almost truculently but she was weeping with fright. Sonny put his arm around her and led her to the door. “I swear he’s going to be OK,” he said. “Wait in the living room. I’ll come out as soon as I hear something.” He shut the door behind her. Michael had sat down in one of the big leather armchairs. Sonny gave him a quick sharp look and then went to sit down behind the desk.

“You hang around me, Mike,” he said, “you’re gonna hear things you don’t wanta hear.”

Michael lit a cigarette. “I can help out,” he said.

“No, you can’t,” Sonny said. “The old man would be sore as hell if I let you get mixed up in this.”

Michael stood up and yelled. “You lousy bastard, he’s my father. I’m not supposed to help him? I can help. I don’t have to go out and kill people but I can help. Stop treating me like a kid brother. I was in the war. I got shot, remember? I killed some Japs. What the hell do you think I’ll do when you knock somebody off? Faint?”

Sonny grinned at him. “Pretty soon you’ll want me to put up my dukes. OK, stick around, you can handle the phone.” He turned to Tessio. “That call I just got gave me dope we needed.” Hd turned to Michael. “Somebody had to finger the old man. It could have been Clemenza, it could have been Paulie Gatto, who was very conveniently sick today. I know the answer now, let’s see how smart you are, Mike, you’re the college boy. Who sold out to Sollozzo?”

Michael sat down again and relaxed back into the leather armchair. He thought everything over very carefully. Clemenza was a caporegime in the Corleone Family structure. Don Corleone had made him a millionaire and they had been intimate friends for over twenty years. He held one of the most powerful posts in the organization. What could Clemenza gain for betraying his Don? More money? He was rich enough but then men are always greedy. More power? Revenge for some fancied insult or slight? That Hagen had been made the Consigliere? Or perhaps a businessman’s conviction that Sollozzo would win out? No, it was impossible for Clemenza to be a traitor, and then Michael thought sadly it was only impossible because he didn’t want Clemenza to die. The fat man had always brought him gifts when he was growing up, had sometimes taken him on outings when the Don had been too busy. He could not believe that Clemenza was guilty of treachery.

But, on the other hand, Sollozzo would want Clemenza in his pocket more than any other man in the Corleone Family.

Michael thought about Paulie Gatto. Paulie as yet had not become rich. He was well thought of, his rise in the organization was certain but he would have to put in his time like everybody else. Also he would have wilder dreams of power, as the young always do. It had to be Paulie. And then Michael remembered that in the sixth grade he and Paulie had been in the same class in school and he didn’t want it to be Paulie either.

He shook his head. “Neither one of them,” he said. But he said it only because Sonny had said he had the answer. If it had been a vote, he would have voted Paulie guilty.

Sonny was smiling at him. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Clemenza is OK. It’s Paulie.”

Michael could see that Tessio was relieved. As a fellow caporegime his sympathy would be with Clemenza. Also the present situation was not so serious if treachery did not reach so high. Tessio said cautiously, “Then I can send my people home tomorrow?”

Sonny said, “The day after tomorrow. I don’t want anybody to know about this until then. Listen, I want to talk some family business with my brother, personal. Wait out in the living room, eh? We can finish our list later. You and Ctemenza will work together on it.”

“Sure,” Tessio said. He went out.

“How do you know for sure it’s Paulie?” Michael asked.

Sonny said, “We have people in the telephone company and they tracked down all of Paulie’s phone calls in and out. Clemenza’s too. On the three days Paulie was sick this month he got a call from a street booth across from the old man’s building. Today too. They were checking to see if Paulie was coming down or somebody was being sent down to take his place. Or for some other reason. It doesn’t matter.” Sonny shrugged. “Thank God it was Paulie. We’ll need Clemenza bad.”

Michael asked hesitantly, “Is it going to be an all-out war?”

Sonny’s eyes were hard. “That’s how I’m going to play it as soon as Tom checks in. Until the old man tells me different.”

Michael asked, “So why don’t you wait until the old man can tell you?”

Sonny looked at him curiously. “How the hell did you win those combat medals? We are under the gun, man, we gotta fight. I’m just afraid they won’t let Tom go.”

Michael was surprised at this. “Why not?”

Again Sonny’s voice was patient. “They snatched Tom because they figured the old man was finished and they could make a deal with me and Tom would be the sit-down guy in the preliminary stages, carry the proposition. Now with the old man alive they know I can’t make a deal so Tom’s no good to them. They can turn him loose or dump him, depending how Sollozzo feels. If they dump him, it would be just to show us they really mean business, trying to bulldoze us.”

Michael said quietly, “What made Sollozzo think he could get a deal with you?”

Sonny flushed and he didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “We had a meeting a few months ago, Sollozzo came to us with a proposition on drugs. The old man turned him down. But during the meeting I shot off my mouth a little, I showed I wanted the deal. Which is absolutely the wrong thing to do; if there’s one thing the old man hammered into me it’s never, to do a thing like that, to let other people know there’s a split of opinion in the Family. So Sollozzo figures he gets rid of the old man, I have to go in with him on the drugs. With the old man gone, the Family power is cut at least in half. I would be fighting for my life anyway to keep all the businesses the old man got together. Drugs are the coming thing, we should get into it. And his knocking off the old man is purely business, nothing personal. As a matter of business I would go in with him. Of course he would never let me get too close, he’d make sure I’d never get a clean shot at him, just in case. But he also knows that once I accepted the deal the other Families would never let me start a war a couple of years later just for revenge. Also, the Tattaglia Family is behind him.”

“If they had gotten the old man, what would you have done?” Michael asked.

Sonny said very simply, “Sollozzo is dead meat. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care if we have to fight all the five families in New York. The Tattaglia Family is going to be wiped out. I don’t care if we all go down together.”

Michael said softly, “That’s not how Pop would have played it.”

Sonny made a violent gesture. “I know I’m not the man he was. But I’ll tell you this and he’ll tell you too. When it comes to real action I can operate as good as anybody, short-range. Sollozzo knows that and so do Clemenza and Tessio, I ‘made my bones’ when I was nineteen, the last time the Family had a war, and I was a big help to the old man. So I’m not worried now. And our Family has all the horses in a deal like this. I just wish we could get contact with Luca.”

Michael asked curiously, “Is Luca that tough, like they say? Is he that good?”

Sonny nodded. “He’s in a class by himself. I’m going to send him after the three Tattaglias. I’ll get Sollozzo myself.”

Michael shifted uneasily in his chair. He looked at his older brother. He remembered Sonny as being sometimes casually brutal but essentially warmhearted. A nice guy. It seemed unnatural to hear him talking this way, it was chilling to see the list of names he had scribbled down, men to be executed, as if he were some newly crowned Roman Emperor. He was glad that he was not truly part of all this, that now his father lived he did not have to involve himself in vengeance. He’d help out, answering the phone, running errands and messages. Sonny and the old man could take care of themselves, especially with Luca behind them.

At that moment they heard a woman scream in the living room. Oh, Christ, Michael thought, it sounded like Tom’s wife. He rushed to the door and opened it. Everybody in the living room was standing. And by the sofa Tom Hagen was holding Theresa close to him, his face embarrassed. Theresa was weeping and sobbing, and Michael realized that the scream he had heard had been her calling out her husband’s name with joy. As he watched, Tom Hagen disentangled himself from his wife’s arms and lowered her back onto the sofa. He smiled at Michael grimly. “Glad to see you, Mike, really glad.” He strode into the office without another look at his still-sobbing wife. He hadn’t lived with the Corleone Family ten years for nothing, Michael thought with a queer flush of pride. Some of the old man had rubbed off on him, as it had on Sonny, and he thought, with surprise, even on himself.

Chapter 5

It was nearly four o’clock in the morning as they all sat in the corner room office— Sonny, Michael, Tom Hagen, Clemenza and Tessio. Theresa Hagen had been persuaded to go to her own home next door. Paulie Gatto was still waiting in the living room, not knowing that Tessio’s men had been instructed not to let him leave or let him out of their sight.

Tom Hagen relayed the deal Sollozzo offered. He told how after Sollozzo had learned the Don still lived, it was obvious that he meant to kill Hagen. Hagen grinned. “If I ever plead before the Supreme Court, I’ll never plead better than I did with that goddamn Turk tonight. I told him I’d talk the Family into the deal even though the Don was alive. I told him I could wrap you around my finger, Sonny. How we were buddies as kids; and don’t get sore, but I let him get the idea that maybe you weren’t too sorry about getting the old man’s job, God forgive me.” He smiled apologetically at Sonny, who made a gesture signifying that he understood, that it was of no consequence.

Michael, leaning back in his armchair with the phone at his right hand, studied both men. When Hagen had entered the room Sonny had come rushing to embrace him. Michael realized with a faint twinge of jealousy that in many ways Sonny and Tom Hagen were closer than he himself could ever be to his own brother.

“Let’s get down to business,” Sonny said. “We have to make plans. Take a look at this list me and Tessio made up. Tessio, give Clemenza your copy.”

“If we make plans,” Michael said, “Freddie should be here.”

Sonny said grimly, “Freddie is no use to us. The doctor says he’s in shock so bad he has to have complete rest. I don’t understand that. Freddie was always a pretty tough guy. I guess seeing the old man gunned down was hard on him, he always thought the Don was God. He wasn’t like you and me, Mike.”

Hagen said quickly, “OK, leave Freddie out. Leave him out of everything, absolutely everything. Now, Sonny, until this is all over I think you should stay in the house. I mean sever leave it. You’re safe here. Don’t underrate Sollozzo, he’s got to be a pezzonovante, a real.90 caliber. Is the hospital covered?”

Sonny nodded. “The cops have it locked in and I got my people there visiting Pop all the time. What do you think of that list, Tom?”

Hagen frowned down at the fist of names: “Jesus Christ, Sonny, you’re really taking this personal. The Don would consider it a purely business dispute. Sollozzo is the key. Get rid of Sollozzo and everything falls in line. You don’t have to go after the Tattaglias.”

Sonny looked at his two caporegimes. Tessio shrugged. “It’s tricky,” he said. Clemenza didn’t answer at all.

Sonny said to Clemenza, “One thing we can take care of without discussion. I don’t want Paulie around here anymore. Make that first on your list.” The fat caporegime nodded.

Hagen said, “What about Luca? Sollozzo didn’t seem worried about Luca. That worries me. If Luca sold us out, we’re in real trouble. That’s the first thing we have to know. Has anybody been able to get in touch with him?”

“No,” Sonny said. “I’ve been calling him all night. Maybe he’s shacked up.”

“No,” Hagen said. “He never sleeps over with a broad. He always goes home when he’s through. Mike, keep ringing his number until you get an answer.” Michael dutifully picked up the phone and dialed. He could hear the phone ringing on the other end but no one answered. Finally he hung up. “Keep trying every fifteen minutes,” Hagen said.

Sonny said impatiently, “OK, Tom you’re the Consigliere, how about some advice? What the hell do you think we should do?”

Hagen helped himself to the whiskey bottle on the desk. “We negotiate with Sollozzo until your father is in shape to take charge. We might even make a deal if we have to. When your father gets out of bed he can settle the whole business without a fuss and all the Families will go along with him.”

Sonny said angrily, “You think I can’t handle this guy Sollozzo?”

Tom Hagen looked him directly in the eye. “Sonny, sure you can outfight him. The Corleone Family has the power. You have Clemenza and Tessio here and they can muster a thousand men if it comes to an all-out war. But at the end there will be a shambles over the whole East Coast and all the other Families will blame the Corleones. We’ll make a lot of enemies. And that’s something your father never believed in.”

Michael, watching Sonny, thought he took this well. But then Sonny said to Hagen, “What if the old man dies, what do you advise then, Consigliere?”

Hagen said quietly, “I know you won’t do it, but I would advise you to make a real deal with Sollozzo on the drugs. Without your father’s political contacts and personal influence the Corleone Family loses half its strength. Without your father, the other New York Families might wind up supporting the Tattaglias and Sollozzo just to make sure there isn’t a long destructive war. If your father dies, make the deal. Then wait and see.”

Sonny was white-faced with anger. “That’s easy for you to say, it’s not your father they killed.”

Hagen said quickly and proudly, “I was as good a son to him as you or Mike, maybe better. I’m giving you a professional opinion. Personally I want to kill all those bastards.” The emotion in his voice shamed Sonny, who said, “Oh, Christ, Tom, I didn’t mean it that way.” But he had, really. Blood was blood and nothing else was its equal.

Sonny brooded for a moment as the others waited in embarrassed silence. Then he sighed and spoke quietly. “OK, we’ll sit tight until the old man can give us the lead. But, Tom, I want you to stay inside the mall, too. Don’t take any chances. Mike, you be careful, though I don’t think. even Sollozzo would bring personal family into the war. Everybody would be against him then. But be careful. Tessio, you hold your people in reserve but have them nosing around the city. Clemenza, after you settle the Paulie Gatto thing, you move your men into the house and the mall to replace Tessio’s people. Tessio, you keep your men at the hospital, though. Tom, start negotiation over the phone or by messenger with Sollozzo and the Tattaglias the first thing in the morning. Mike, tomorrow you take a couple of Clemenza’s people and go to Luca’s house and wait for him to show up or find out where the hell he is. That crazy bastard might be going after Sollozzo right now if he’s heard the news. I can’t believe he’d ever go against his Don, no matter what the Turk offered him.”

Hagen said reluctantly, “Maybe Mike shouldn’t get mixed up in this so directly.”

“Right,” Sonny said. “Forget that, Mike. Anyway I need you on the phone here in the house, that’s more important.”

Michael didn’t say anything. He felt awkward, almost ashamed, and he noticed Clemenza and Tessio with faces so carefully impassive that he was sure that they were hiding their contempt. He picked up the phone and dialed Luca Brasi’s number and kept the receiver to his ear as it rang and rang.

Chapter 6

Peter Clemenza slept badly that night. In the morning he got up early and made his own breakfast of a glass of grappa, a thick slice of Genoa salami with a chunk of fresh Italian bread that was still delivered to his door as in the old days. Then he drank a great, plain china mug filled with hot coffee that had been lashed with anisette. But as he padded about the house in his old bathrobe and red felt slippers he pondered on the day’s work that lay ahead of him. Last night Sonny Corleone had made it very clear that Paulie Gatto was to be taken care of immediately. It had to be today.

Clemenza was troubled. Not because Gatto had been his protege and had turned traitor. This did not reflect on the caporegime’s judgment. After all, Paulie’s background had been perfect. He came from a Sicilian family, he had grown up in the same neighborhood as the Corleone children, had indeed even gone to school with one of the sons. He had been brought up through each level in the proper manner. He had been tested and not found wanting. And then after he had “made his bones” he had received a good living from the Family, a percentage of an East Side “book” and a union payroll slot. Clemenza had not been unaware that Paulie Gatto ‘supplemented his income with free-lance stickups, strictly against the Family rules, but even this was a sign of the man’s worth. The breaking of such regulations was considered a sign of high-spiritedness, like that shown by a fine racing horse fighting the reins.

And Paulie had never caused trouble with his stickups. They had always been meticulously planned and carried out with the minimum of fuss and trouble, with no one ever getting hurt: a three-thousand-dollar Manhattan garment center payroll, a small chinaware factory payroll in the slums of Brooklyn. After all, a young man could always use some extra pocket money. It was all in the pattern. Who could ever foretell that Paulie Gatto would turn traitor?

What was troubling Peter Clemenza this morning was an administrative problem. The actual execution of Gatto was a cut-and-dried chore. The problem was, who should the caporegime bring up from the ranks to replace Gatto in the Family? It was an important promotion, that to “button” man, one not to be handed out lightly. The man had to be tough and he had to be smart. He had to be safe, not a person who would talk to the police if he got in trouble, one well saturated in the Sicilians’ law of omerta, the law of silence. And then, what kind of a living would he receive for his new duties? Clemenza had several times spoken to the Don about better rewards for the all-important button man who was first in the front line when trouble arose, but the Don had put him off. If Paulie had been making more money, he might have been able to resist the blandishments of the wily Turk, Sollozzo.

Clemenza finally narrowed down the list of candidates to three men. The first was an enforcer who worked with the colored policy bankers in Harlem, a big brawny brute of a man of great physical strength, a man with a great deal of personal charm who could get along with people and yet when necessary make them go in fear of him. But Clemenza scratched him off the list after considering his name for a half hour. This man got along too well with the black people, which hinted at some flaw of character. Also he would be too hard to replace in the position he now held.

The second name Clemenza considered and almost settled on was a hard-working chap who served faithfully and well in the organization. This man was the collector of delinquent accounts for Family-licensed shylocks in Manhattan. He had started off as a bookmaker’s runner. But he was not quite yet ready for such an important promotion.

Finally he settled on Rocco Lampone. Lampone had served a short but impressive apprenticeship in the Family. During the war he had been wounded in Africa and been discharged in 1943. Because of the shortage of young men, Clemenza had taken him on even though Lampone was partially incapacitated by his injuries and walked with a pronounced limp. Clemenza had used him as a black-market contact in the garment center and with government employees controlling OPA food stamps. From that, Lampone had graduated to trouble-shooter for the whole operation. What Clemenza liked about him was his good judgment. He knew that there was no percentage in being tough about something that would only cost a heavy fine or six months in jail, small prices to pay for the enormous profits earned. He had the good sense to know that it was not an area for heavy threats but light ones. He kept the whole operation in a minor key, which was exactly what was needed.

Clemenza felt the relief of a conscientious administrator who has solved a knotty personnel problem. Yes, it would be Rocco Lampone who would assist. For Clemenza planned to handle this job himself, not only to help a new, inexperienced man “make his bones,” but to settle a personal score with Paulie Gatto. Paulie had been his protege, he had advanced Paulie over the heads of more deserving and more loyal people, he had helped Paulie “make his bones” and furthered his career in every way. Paulie had not only betrayed the Family, he had betrayed his padrone, Peter Clemenza. This lack of respect had to be repaid.

Everything else was arranged. Paulie Gatto had been instructed to pick him up at three in the afternoon, and to pick him up with his own car, nothing hot. Now Clemenza took up the telephone and dialed Rocco Lampone’s number. He did not identify himself. He simply said, “Come to my house, I have an errand for you.” He was pleased to note that despite the early hour, Lampone’s voice was not surprised or dazed with sleep and he simply said, “OK.” Good man. Clemenza added, “No rush, have your breakfast and lunch first before you come see me. But not later than two in the afternoon.”

There was another laconic OK on the other end and Clemenza hung up the phone. He had already alerted his people about replacing caporegime Tessio’s people in the Corleone mall so that was done. He had capable subordinates and never interfered in a mechanical operation of that kind.

He decided to wash his Cadillac. He loved the car. It gave him such a quiet peaceful ride, and its upholstery was so rich that he sometimes sat in it for an hour when the weather was good because it was more pleasant than sitting in the house. And it always helped him think when he was grooming the car. He remembered his father in Italy doing the same thing with donkeys.

Clemenza worked inside the heated garage, he hated cold. He ran over his plans. You had to be careful with Paulie, the man was like a rat, he could smell danger. And now of course despite being so tough he must be shitting in his pants because the old man was still alive. He’d be as skittish as a donkey with ants up his ass. But Clemenza was accustomed to these circumstances, usual in his work. First, he had to have a good excuse for Rocco to accompany them. Second, he had to have a plausible mission for the three of them to go on.

Of course, strictly speaking, this was not necessary. Paulie Gatto could be killed without any of these frills. He was locked in, he could not run away. But Clemenza felt strongly that it was important to keep good working habits and never give away a fraction of a percentage point. You never could tell what might happen and these matters were, after all, questions of life and death.