Vito Corleone told his wife to take the two children, Sonny and Fredo, down into the

street after supper and on no account to let them come up to the house until he gave

her permission. She was to sit on guard at the tenement door. He had some private

business with Fanucci that could not be interrupted. He saw the look of fear on her face

and was angry. He said to her quietly, "Do you think you've married a fool?" She didn't

answer. She did not answer because she was frightened, not of Fanucci now, but of her

husband. He was changing visibly before her eyes, hour by hour, into a man who

radiated some dangerous force. He had always been quiet, speaking little, but always

gentle, always reasonable, which was extraordinary in a young Sicilian male. What she

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was seeing was the shedding (to shed – ронять, терять, сбрасывать /одежду, кожу/)

of his protective coloration of a harmless nobody now that he was ready to start on his

destiny (судьба). He had started late, he was twenty-five years old, but he was to start

with a flourish.

Vito Corleone had decided to murder Fanucci. By doing so he would have an extra

seven hundred dollars in his bankroll (roll – свиток, сверток; /сленг/ пачка денег). The

three hundred dollars he himself would have to pay the Black Hand terrorist and the two

hundred dollars from Tessio and the two hundred dollars from Clemenza. If he did not

kill Fanucci, he would have to pay the man seven hundred dollars cold cash. Fanucci

alive was not worth seven hundred dollars to him. He would not pay seven hundred

dollars to keep Fanucci alive. If Fanucci needed seven hundred dollars for an operation

to save his life, he would not give Fanucci seven hundred dollars for the surgeon. He

owed Fanucci no personal debt of gratitude, they were not blood relatives, he did not

love Fanucci. Whyfore, then, should he give Fanucci seven hundred dollars?

And it followed inevitably, that since Fanucci wished to take seven hundred dollars

from him by force, why should he not kill Fanucci? Surely the world could do without

such a person.

There were of course some practical reasons. Fanucci might indeed have powerful

friends who would seek vengeance. Fanucci himself was a dangerous man, not so

easily killed. There were the police and the electric chair. But Vito Corleone had lived

under a sentence of death since the murder of his father. As a boy of twelve he had fled

his executioners and crossed the ocean into a strange land, taking a strange name. And

years of quiet observation had convinced him that he had more intelligence and more

courage than other men, though he had never had the opportunity to use that

Intelligence and courage.

And yet he hesitated before taking the first step toward his destiny. He even packed

the seven hundred dollars in a single fold of bills and put the money in a convenient side

pocket of his trousers. But he put the money in the left side of his trousers. In the right-

hand pocket he put the gun Clemenza had given him to use in the hijacking of the silk

truck.

Fanucci came promptly at nine in the evening. Vito Corleone set out a jug of

homemade wine that Clemenza had given him.

Fanucci put his white fedora on the table beside the jug of wine. He unloosened his

broad multiflowered tie, its tomato stains camouflaged by the bright patterns. The

summer night was hot, the gaslight feeble (слабый, хилый). It was very quiet in the

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apartment. But Vito Corleone was icy. To show his good faith he handed over the roll of

bills and watched carefully as Fanucci, after counting it, took out a wide leather wallet

and stuffed the money inside. Fanucci sipped his glass of wine and said, "You still owe

me two hundred dollars." His heavy-browed face was expressionless.

Vito Corleone said in his cool reasonable voice, "I'm a little short, I've been out of work.

Let me owe you the money for a few weeks."

This was a permissible (позволительный) gambit. Fanucci had the bulk (объем;

большие размеры; основная масса) of the money and would wait. He might even be

persuaded to take nothing more or to wait a little longer. He chuckled over his wine and

said, "Ah, you're a sharp young fellow. How is it I've never noticed you before? You're

too quiet a chap for your own interest. I could find some work for you to do that would

be very profitable."

Vito Corleone showed his interest with a polite nod and filled up the man's glass from

the purple jug. But Fanucci thought better of what he was going to say and rose from his

chair and shook Vito's hand. "Good night, young fellow," he said. "No hard feelings (без

обиды), eh? If I can ever do you a service let me know. You've done a good job for

yourself tonight."

Vito let Fanucci go down the stairs and out the building. The street was thronged with

witnesses to show that he had left the Corleone home safely. Vito watched from the

window. He saw Fanucci turn the comer toward 11th Avenue and knew he was headed

toward his apartment, probably to put away his loot before coming out on the streets

again. Perhaps to put away his gun. Vito Corleone left his apartment and ran up the

stairs to the roof. He traveled over the square block of roofs and descended down the

steps of an empty loft (чердак; верхний этаж /торгового помещения, склада/)

building fire escape that left him in the back yard. He kicked the back door open and

went through the front door. Across the street was Fanucci's tenement apartment house.

The village of tenements extended only as far west as Tenth Avenue. Eleventh

Avenue was mostly warehouses and lofts rented by firms who shipped by New York

Central Railroad and wanted access to the freight (фрахт, груз) yards (that

honeycombed (honeycomb – медовые соты; to honeycomb – изрешетить,

продырявить) the area from Eleventh Avenue to the Hudson River. Fanucci's

apartment house was one of the few left standing in this wilderness and was occupied

mostly by bachelor trainmen, yard workers, and the cheapest prostitutes. These people

did not sit in the street and gossip like honest Italians, they sat in beer taverns guzzling

(to guzzle – жадно глотать; пропивать) their pay. So Vito Corleone found it an easy

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matter to slip across the deserted Eleventh Avenue and into the vestibule of Fanucci's

apartment house. There he drew the gun he had never fired and waited for Fanucci.

He watched through the glass door of the vestibule, knowing Fanucci would come

down from Tenth Avenue. Clemenza had showed him the safety on the gun and he had

triggered it empty. But as a young boy in Sicily at the early age of nine, he had often

gone hunting with his father, had often fired the heavy shotgun called the lupara. It was

his skill with the lupara even as a small boy that had brought the sentence of death

upon him by his father's murderers.

Now waiting in the darkened hallway, he saw the white blob (капля; маленький

шарик /земли, глины/) of Fanucci crossing the street toward the doorway. Vito stepped

back, shoulders pressed against the inner door that led to the stairs. He held his gun out

to fire. His extended hand was only two paces from the outside door. The door swung in.

Fanucci, white, broad, smelly, filled the square of light. Vito Corleone fired.

The opened door let some of the sound escape into the street, the rest of the gun's

explosion shook the building. Fanucci was holding on to the sides of the door, trying to

stand erect, trying to reach for his gun. The force of his struggle had torn the buttons off

his jacket and made it swing loose. His gun was exposed but so was a spidery vein

(вена; жилка [veın]) of red on the white shirtfront of his stomach. Very carefully, as if he

were plunging a needle into a vein, Vito Corleone fired his second bullet into that red

web.

Fanucci fell to his knees, propping the door open. He let out a terrible groan. the

groan of a man in great physical distress that was almost comical. He kept giving these

groans; Vito remembered hearing at least three of them before he put the gun against

Fanucci's sweaty, suety (сальный; suet [sjuıt] – почечное или нутряное сало) cheek

and fired into his brain. No more than five seconds had passed when Fanucci slumped

(to slump – резко падать, тяжело опускаться) into death, jamming (to jam – зажимать;

впихивать) the door open with his body.

Very carefully Vito took the wide wallet out of the dead man's jacket pocket and put it

inside his shirt. Then he walked across the street into the loft building, through that into

the yard and climbed the fire escape to the roof. From there he surveyed the street.

Fanucci's body was still lying in the doorway but there was no sign of any other person.

Two windows had gone up in the tenement and he could see dark heads poked out but

since he could not see their features they had certainly not seen his. And such men

would not give information to the police. Fanucci might lie there until dawn or until a

patrolman making the rounds stumbled on his body. No person in that house would

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deliberately (сознательно, осознанно; нарочно = по собственной воле) expose

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himself to police suspicion or questioning. They would lock their doors and pretend they

had heard nothing.

He could take his time. He traveled over the rooftops to his own roof door and down to

his own flat. He unlocked the door, went inside and then locked the door behind him. He

rifled (to rifle – обыскивать в целях грабежа) the dead man's wallet. Besides the seven

hundred dollars he had given Fanucci there were only some singles and a five-dollar

note.

Tucked (to tuck – делать складки /на платье/; подгибать; засовывать, прятать;

tuck – складка) inside the flap (клапан, заслонка, /боковое/ отделение) was an old

five-dollar gold piece, probably a luck token (знак, примета; здесь: талисман). If

Fanucci was a rich gangster, he certainly did not carry his wealth with him. This

confirmed some of Vito's suspicions.

He knew he had to get rid of the wallet and the gun (knowing enough even then that

he must leave the gold piece in the wallet). He went up on the roof again and traveled

over a few ledges (ledge – планка, рейка). He threw the wallet down one air shaft and

then he emptied the gun of bullets and smashed its barrel against the roof ledge. The

barrel wouldn't break. He reversed it in his hand and smashed the butt against the side

of a chimney. The butt split into two halves. He smashed it again and the pistol broke