The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner Read Free Book Online Page B

Corleones had something on him, continued to maintain that the so-called Mafia was a myth). For most of the summer, even corner-bar shylocks had had to close things down. The other two New York Dons, Ottilio “Leo the Milkman” Cuneo and Anthony “Black Tony” Stracci, had overseen a cease-fire. Whether this would mean an end to the war, no one knew.
    “Excuse me, but I meant the real storm,” said Falcone. “The storm out there. The fucking storm.”
    Molinari shook his head. “Jokes are wasted on you, my friend.”
    Their bodyguards, noticeably more pale now, looked down at the floor of the plane. “Lake effect,” said Geraci. “The way it works is that the air and the water are sharply different temperatures.” He tried to make his voice sound the way a pilot’s would, in a movie where the pilot was the lead. He relaxed his grip. “That’s what makes it possible for storms to come from any direction, and all of a sudden. Keeps things interesting, eh?”
    Molinari put a hand on Geraci’s shoulder. “Thank you, Mister fucking Science.”
    “You’re welcome, sir,” Geraci said.
    Falcone had been a top connection guy in Chicago—buying politicians, judges, and cops—and now ran his own thing in Los Angeles. Molinari had a four-star dockside restaurant in San Francisco, plus a piece of anything there he wanted a piece of. According to the briefing Michael had given Geraci, Falcone and Molinari had always had their differences, particularly when it came to the New York Families. Falcone saw them as snobbish, Molinari as recklessly violent. Molinari had also felt a personal attachment to the late Vito Corleone that Falcone had never shared. But the last few years, the two West Coast Dons had forged a wary, effective allegiance, particularly in organizing the importation and distribution of narcotics from the Philippines and Mexico (another reason, Michael did not have to say, that Geraci was being sent to meet them). Until Michael had taken over the Corleone Family, they’d been the two youngest Dons in America.
    “O’Malley, eh?” said Falcone.
    Geraci nosed the plane up through the thunderhead, seeking better air. He knew what Falcone meant: the name on his pilot’s license. The flight was obviously challenging enough that Falcone accepted it when Geraci didn’t answer. It’s not the eyes that see, it’s the brain. As Michael had predicted, Falcone put an Irish name together with a broad-shouldered, fair-haired Sicilian, a man he naturally presumed worked for the Cleveland operation, and what he saw was an Irishman. Why not? Cleveland worked with so many Jews, Irish, and Negroes that the men in it called it the Combination. People outside of it called its Don, Vincent Forlenza, “the Jew.”
    It was a necessary deception. Rattlesnake Island was not an easy place to get to. Falcone might not have boarded a plane owned by the Corleones. Don Forlenza had hoped to come to the wedding, but his health had precluded it.
    The plane finally rose above the clouds. The men were bathed in blinding sunlight.
    “So, O’Malley,” Falcone said, “you’re from Cleveland, huh?”
    “Yes, sir, born and raised.” Misleading, but true.
    “Guess our DiMaggio and his Yanks were too much for the Indians this year.”
    “We’ll get you next year,” Geraci said.
    Molinari started talking about watching DiMaggio play for the San Francisco Seals and how even then he was a god among men. Over the years Molinari had made a bundle fixing Seals games, but never once the whole time DiMaggio had been there. “People have these ideas about Italians, am I right, O’Malley?”
    “I’m not sure I have any ideas at all, sir.”
    “We got us a
cacasangue,
” Falcone said.
    “Pardon me?” Geraci said, though he knew full well what the word meant.
    “Smart-ass,” said Falcone’s bodyguard.
    “
Wiiiiise guy, eh?
” said Geraci, in the manner of Curly from the Three Stooges.
    Molinari and the two bodyguards laughed.