The Family Corleone Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking about the Giants. Connie wrapped her little girl’s skinny arms around Sonny’s neck and planted a loud, wet kiss on his cheek. Michael jumped up from the game of checkers he was playing with Paulie Gatto, and Fredo came tearing in from the kitchen, and then everyone in the apartment—and there was a crowd this Sunday afternoon—seemed all at once to recognize Sonny and Tom’s arrival as a roar of loud greetings was shouted through the rooms.
    Upstairs, in a study at the head of a flight of wooden steps, Genco Abbandando rose from his seat in a tufted leather chair and closed the door. “Looks like Sonny and Tommy just showed up,” he said. Since anyone who wasn’t deaf would have heard both the boys’names called out a dozen times, the announcement was unnecessary. Vito, in a straight-backed chair beside his desk, his black hair slicked back, tapped his fingers on his knees and said, “Let’s move this along. I want to see the boys.”
    “Like I was sayin’,” Clemenza continued, “Mariposa’s gonna bust a blood vessel.” He took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and blew his nose. “I got a little cold,” he said, waving the handkerchief at Vito as if offering proof. Clemenza was a heavy man with a round face and a rapidly retreating hairline. His stout body filled the leather chair beside Genco’s. Between them was a table with a bottle of anisette and two glasses.
    Tessio, the fourth man in the room, was standing in front of a window seat that looked out across Hughes Avenue. “Emilio sent one of his boys to see me,” he said.
    Clemenza said, “Me too.”
    Vito looked surprised. “Emilio Barzini thinks we’re hijacking his whiskey?”
    “No,” Genco said. “Emilio’s smarter than that. Mariposa thinks we’re ’jackin’ his whiskey, and Emilio thinks maybe we might know who is.”
    Vito ran the backs of his fingers along his jaw. “How does a man so stupid,” he said, meaning Giuseppe Mariposa, “rise to such heights?”
    “He’s got Emilio workin’ for him,” Tessio said. “That helps.”
    Clemenza added, “He’s got the Barzini brothers, the Rosato brothers, Tomasino Cinquemani, Frankie Pentangeli—
Madon’!
His
capos
…” Clemenza waved his fingers, meaning Mariposa’s
capos
were tough guys.
    Vito reached for the glass of yellow Strega on his desk. He took a sip and put the glass down. “This man,” he said, “he’s friends with the Chicago Outfit. He has the Tattaglia family in his pocket. He’s got politicians and business leaders behind him…” Vito opened his hands to his friends. “Why would I make such a man my enemy by stealing a few dollars from him?”
    Tessio added, “He’s personal friends with Capone. They go way back.”
    Clemenza said, “Frank Nitti’s running Chicago now.”
    “Nitti thinks he’s running Chicago,” Genco said. “Ricca’s the one’s calling the shots since Capone’s in the big house.”
    Vito sighed loudly and the three men in front of him were instantly quiet. At forty-one Vito still retained much of his youth: his dark hair and muscular chest and arms, his olive skin that remained unmarred by lines and wrinkles. Though roughly the same age as Clemenza and Genco, Vito looked younger than both—and much younger than Tessio, who had been born looking like an old man. “Genco,” he said. “
Consigliere
. Is it possible he’s this
stupido
? Or”—Vito punctuated his question with a shrug—“or is he up to something else?”
    Genco considered the possibility. A slender man with a nose like a beak, he always looked at least a little nervous. He had a constant case of
agita
and was forever plopping two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and drinking it down like a whiskey shooter. “Giuseppe’s not too stupid he can’t read the writing on the wall,” he said. “He knows Prohibition’s on the way out, and I think this thing with LaConti, I think it’s about setting himself up to be the one