The Godfather Returns (51 page)

The cab merged into the traffic on Constitution. “Happy anniversary,” she whispered.

“What’s that, ma’am?” the cabbie said.

“Nothing,” she said, pulling Sonny closer, willing herself not to cry. “Nothing at all.”

That afternoon, Billy did in fact get in to see Danny Shea. According to the notes taken shorthand by the attorney general’s secretary, what happened was this:

At 15:37, AG [Attorney General Daniel Brendan Shea] fit junior staff attorney Bill V. Airdale [
sic
] into a ten minute break in his
P.M.
schedule so long as BVA could accompany AG as he went for his daily run 10X up and down the building’s main stairwell. [Many books about the Sheas include accounts of her trailing behind AG as he held meetings in this manner, though her technique for managing to take shorthand this way has been lost to history.] BVA agreed.

BVA discussed his qualifications for this job and his desire to be involved more with prosecutorial matters that would result in more time in the courtroom and less in the library. BVA wondered if his Harvard degree had anything to do with his present dissatisfactory assignment, seeing as so many top officials in AG’s office were from Princeton. AG categorically denied any such bias, citing several Jews and Negroes from state-supported schools who held high office in the JKS administration, as well as the job with Senator [censored] that AG personally helped secure for Miss [censored] from the University of Miami, whom the AG referred to as BVA’s “girlfriend.” BVA apologized. AG accepted.

BVA nonetheless expressed unhappiness with his current assignment and asked about the possibility of a transfer. AG referred BVA to BVA’s own unit supervisor. BVA expressed disappointment with AG’s reluctance to act personally in the matter, especially given [several heavily censored lines follow; among the few words not blacked out are “Van Arsdale Citrus Co.,” spelled correctly, despite the earlier gaffe with Billy’s name].

AG said he did not understand.

BVA explained that his parents [two more censored lines].

AG expressed surprise, insofar as no such factors had accompanied AG’s decision to hire BVA. AG admitted that MCS [his father, former ambassador to Canada M. Corbett Shea] was the first to urge AG to hire BVA. AG’s understanding was that this had primarily to do with BVA’s excellent record at Harvard but also was aided by BVA’s fine service alongside the aforementioned Miss [censored] during the JKS election campaign.

BVA, somewhat breathless and thus difficult to understand, seemed to express skepticism that family connections hadn’t played a role and couldn’t play a role now.

AG admitted that this was true, but that those connections existed between MCS and the family of BVA’s wife, whose maiden name was [censored].

BVA asked if he’d been “foisted off” on the AG.

AG said it was more complicated than that. While reminding BVA of his sworn responsibilities, vis-à-vis confidentiality, AG said that he was in fact preparing a comprehensive plan to [prosecute] “the [censored name of BVA’s wife’s family] and people like them.”

BVA responded that he fondly hoped for the same thing, and certainly would not pass said information on to his wife or any member of her family.

AG expressed surprise and asked if that was really true.

Exercise session was completed.

BVA said he was committed to doing “anything and everything” to see to it that any crimes being committed by his wife’s family be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that otherwise his own political future would be [nonexistent]. BVA said he had firsthand knowledge of secret aspects of her family’s illegal activities that could be of use in AG’s comprehensive prosecutorial plan.

AG expressed his pleasure at this news and said he was optimistic he could work something out, vis-à-vis BVA’s proposed reassignment. He handed BVA a fresh white towel and thanked him for his time and candor. Meeting concluded at 15:47 EST.

The airport Michael Corleone used when he came to New York was nearly at the end of Long Island. It had once been a private airport but had been under government control since World War II. Several years before, Nick Geraci, who of course no longer flew, had rigged it so that various planes owned or operated by the Corleone Family could land there.

Michael taxied toward the hangar where Geraci was waiting. He stopped about fifty yards short of it. Geraci walked across the tarmac alone. Al Neri got out and searched him. Geraci took a deep breath and climbed the stairs.

“Leave that door open,” Geraci said to Neri.

Neri glanced at Michael, who nodded. Neri left the door up and positioned himself outside it.

“So that’s how it is between us now?” Michael said.

“What’s how it is?”

“I have you searched,” Michael said, “and you won’t meet with me behind closed doors.”

“The searching, I can’t speak to,” Geraci said, “though I have no argument with it. And since I’m sure the lovely and talented Mr. Al Neri out there is packing one or more deadly weapons, I think it’s clear that my trust in you remains as solid as ever. It’s just . . . I don’t know if you realize this, but this is the first time I’ve been inside an airplane since . . . you know.”

Michael did know. He said nothing. He filled out a flight plan for the next leg of his trip.

“Even when I take my kids to Coney Island,” Geraci said, “if a ride leaves the ground, it leaves without me. I’d consider it a personal favor if we could keep the door open and, if you don’t mind too much, while you’re sitting right there, if you could kill the engine.”

Michael had heard about Nick Geraci’s tremors, but this was the first time he’d seen them. They weren’t as bad as he’d imagined.

“We’ll split the difference,” Michael said, finishing the form and tossing it to Neri so he could run it over to the tower. “You keep the door open, and I’ll keep the engine running.”

Did Geraci really think that Michael would take off without Neri? With the door open? That Michael would be so reckless he’d try to pull something like that in an enclosed space with a former heavyweight boxer who, tremors notwithstanding, kept himself in good shape and looked like he could knock Michael Corleone into a brain-damaged tomorrow?

“All right,” Geraci agreed. “Let me just say this, and I’ll go. It’s just something that I wanted you to know about. I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just say it. I’ve worked out a deal for us to get back into Cuba.”

Michael’s surprise was genuine, even though nothing Geraci was saying came as any news. Not the offer from the one-eyed “Jewish” CIA agent, not fenced-off land in New Jersey, guarded by a crew of federal agents and a pack of rottweilers. Not the combustible mix of mercenary Sicilians and aggrieved, once-wealthy Cubans who’d overcome their differences (language, culture, motives, you name it) and an unfortunate stabbing incident (one of Geraci’s men, recuperating nicely back in Toledo, Ohio) and were only a few weeks away from trying to sneak onto the island, in assassin squads of two or three, in the hope that the killing of one man would produce certain desirable results. What shocked Michael was that Nick Geraci was telling him about it at all.

“When you say you’ve worked out a deal for
us,
” Michael said when Geraci finished, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Let it mean what you want it to mean. I know you’re out and all that bit, but I’m not in the casino business and you are. I thought you’d be interested to know in advance about the opportunities that might be coming up, and also to be sure you knew about the competition.”

Competition?
“Competition for what?”

“Well, this is where, if I’d have known everything that was going on, I’d have come to you right away. I was led to believe that my thing out in Jersey was the whole operation, but I started hearing different things. Come to find out, Sammy Drago down in Tampa’s got something just like it, training right on the beach way south of Miami. That didn’t bother me half as much as when I happen to learn that there’s fifty or so men training at a closed-off part of the navy base in Jacksonville, which I actually use from time to time in my own business. All the wiseguys I could find anything out about at that base are connected to Carlo Tramonti and New Orleans, but—” He turned his trembling palms over and smirked in an of-course way. “Tramonti’s a puppet. Drago’s an empty suit. Put it all together, what’s it spell?” Geraci spelled it out on the fingers and thumb of his left hand, as if he were counting. “R. U. S. S. O.”

Michael presumed that
come to find out
and
I happened to learn
were Geraci’s way of covering up his obvious sources for this—either Vincent Forlenza, who was down in Key Biscayne for the winter, or Louie Russo himself.

“Stop right there,” Michael said. “I know that you’re telling me these things out of your respect for me and for our friendship, and for that I’m grateful. But you’ve said too much already. I can’t be a part of this. I appreciate the awkward position that puts you in, but all I can tell you is that in spite of what you may have heard from your godfather in Cleveland, I assure you I’m doing everything I can to move this along so that you can have my seat on the Commission and I can be out altogether. I’m close. We’re close. You and I want the same things. This would be a terrible time to start up any trouble at all with any of the other Families.”

Michael couldn’t tell if Geraci was nodding or trembling.

“I know I don’t need your blessing,” Geraci said, getting up to leave. “I’m just trying to make sure I avoid the opposite. Your curse, I guess.”

Michael would have thought that a move that cravenly defensive was beneath him. “Good luck to you and your men in Cuba,” Michael said. “Say hello to all the things that were stolen from us. Are we clear?”

“Will do,” Geraci said, descending the stars. “And yes.”

A week later, back in Lake Tahoe, Joe Lucadello showed up alone, as promised, in a crummy little boat and tied up to the Corleone dock. Capra and Tommy Neri met him and frisked him and gave Michael the all clear. Michael called Tom Hagen and told him Joe had arrived, then waited until Hagen was already out there before making his own way down the sloping lawn to the aluminum bench at the end of the dock, taking his place in the middle.

“Tom didn’t seem to want to tell me,” Joe said. “Maybe you know, Mike. Who thought up that pizza parlor trick? Because I must say, I’m impressed.”

It had been Geraci’s idea, but Michael couldn’t see anything to gain by telling this to Joe. “Tell me if what Fausto Geraci said is true,” Michael said.

“That always throws me,” Joe said. “No one else calls him that.”

Michael stared his old friend down.

“All right, yes,” he said. “There are others. I mean, I never said there
weren’t
others.”

“You
knew
about this, and—”

“No, I didn’t. Not at first. The more I learn about your . . . whadda-yacallit,” Joe Lucadello said. “Your tradition. The more similarities I see. Secret societies, with vows of silence and a code of honor, et cetera. But this situation here is a way we differ. You seem to have ways of finding out everything you need to know, but in my line of work, nobody knows everything about anything.”

“That’s not acceptable,” Michael said.

“I don’t make the rules. Though, honestly, I don’t think it affects you. You’re part of the project. Once anybody gets the job done, it’s safe to say that everyone on the project will get a big dose of Christmas for their troubles. Plus, our operation is
by far
the best. They’re not willing to lose a few men if necessary as part of the war on communism, and because of your military training, you are, which gives us an enormous advantage. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the other plans, but I hear stories. They’re talking about going to the radio station where our target gives his speeches to the Cuban people and putting aerosol spray in the air, some hallucinogenic drug called LSD that’ll make him sound crazy. They’re working on ways of poisoning his cigars or shining his shoes with a chemical that’ll seep into his skin and make his hair fall out, beard included, to embarrass him that way. They’ve killed a hundred pigs and monkeys field-testing pills that are supposed to dissolve right away in frozen daiquiris. The newest idea I heard about was having a midget submarine drop a pretty seashell on the reef where the guy goes scuba diving. The seashell will be attached to a bombshell, and when he picks the thing up, he’ll be hamburger. In other words, they’re a bunch of pussies. We’re taking a straightforward route. We’re going to shoot the Commie bastard.”

The men sat silently on the bench for a long time.

“So what’s the deal?” Joe said. “You want to pull the plug? Because the others won’t, I can tell you that.”

“Can you guarantee us that our people will be the first ones in?”

“Guarantee?” Joe said. “What do I look like, Sears and Roebuck? I can tell you that your man Geraci is the best person we have on this, though. He was the first to get his facility organized, and he has the best people. I have it from the top that they’re the most ready to go. I have to be honest with you, I’m wondering if some of your competition here is just taking the money with no intention of doing anything ever. So, yes, I’m confident our people will be first, but I won’t
guarantee
you the sun will come up in the morning. If and when Geraci’s men are dispatched, I’ll let you know. A promise, not a guarantee.”

“Understood,” Michael said.

They discussed the details of what would happen when the men got to Cuba until Michael was satisfied that he should go ahead and let what was going to happen happen.

“I never thought we’d have men on our side as good as the ones we’re going up against in Cuba,” Joe said. “Not because our men are inferior—they’re not—but because our people just work for money. If something goes wrong, they’re out some cash, a promotion, what have you. But the men that SOB in Cuba has, if they fuck up, they know he’ll kill them. That’s what makes his intelligence so good. But
your
people?” Joe shook his head in admiration. “With them, we’ve got the best of both worlds.”