Institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the

atmosphere of money.

The arrival time had been staggered (to stagger – шататься, колебаться;

регулировать часы работы) for between nine-thirty to ten A.M. Don Corleone, in a

sense the host since he had initiated the peace talks, had been the first to arrive; one of

his many virtues was punctuality. The next to arrive was Carlo Tramonti, who had made

the southern part of the United States his territory. He was an impressively handsome

middle-aged man, tall for a Sicilian, with a very deep sunburn, exquisitely tailored and

barbered. He did not look Italian, he looked more like one of those pictures in the

magazines of millionaire fishermen lolling (to loll – сидеть развалясь; стоять

/облокотясь/ в ленивой позе) on their yachts. The Tramonti Family earned its

livelihood from gambling, and no one meeting their Don would ever guess with what

ferocity he had won his empire.

Emigrating from Sicily as a small boy, he had settled in Florida and grown to manhood

there, employed by the American syndicate of Southern small-town politicians who

controlled gambling. These were very tough men backed up by very tough police

officials and they never suspected that they could be overthrown by such a greenhorn

(новичок, неопытный человек) immigrant. They were unprepared for his ferocity and

could not match it simply because the rewards being fought over were not, to their

minds, worth so much bloodshed. Tramonti won over the police with bigger shares of

the gross (общая масса [gr∂us]); he exterminated those redneck (неотесанный

человек, деревенщина) hooligans who ran their operation with such a complete lack of

imagination. It was Tramonti who opened ties with Cuba and the Batista regime and

eventually poured money into the pleasure resorts of Havana gambling houses,

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whorehouses, to lure (завлекать, заманивать [lu∂]) gamblers from the American

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mainland. Tramonti was now a millionaire many times over and owned one of the most

luxurious hotels in Miami Beach.

When he came into the conference room followed by his aide, an equally sunburned

Consigliori, Tramonti embraced Don Corleone, made a face of sympathy to show he

sorrowed for the dead son.

Other Dons were arriving. They all knew each other, they had met over the years,

either socially or when in the pursuit of their businesses. They had always showed each

other professional courtesies and in their younger, leaner (lean – тощий, худой) days

had done each other little services. The second Don to arrive was Joseph Zaluchi from

Detroit. The Zaluchi Family, under appropriate disguises and covers, owned one of the

horse-racing tracks in the Detroit area. They also owned a good part of the gambling.

Zaluchi was a moon-faced, amiable-looking man who lived in a one-hundred-thousand-

dollar house in the fashionable Grosse Point section of Detroit. One of his sons had

married into an old, well-known American family. Zaluchi, like Don Corleone, was

sophisticated (скушенный, изощренный, сложный, непростой). Detroit had the lowest