- •Voice as an aging, balding man running to fat feels about showing pictures of himself as
- •Very deliberate, and yet tender. There was nothing sly or lecherously lascivious
- •Intelligent. She hadn't fallen all over herself to screw for him or try to hustle (толкать,
- •I don't have the money. No bank would finance me. It takes millions to support a movie."
- •Impossible to avoid in his business and the temptations to which he was continually
- •In the sack (гамак; койка) anyway. You could tell (можно различить, распознать) a girl
- •Voice had gone to hell, his family life had gone to hell. And there had come the day
- •I'll be too hoarse to even talk. Do you think we'll have to fix up much of the stuff we did
- •In fact that was the excuse for the party itself. People would say, "Let's go over to see
- •Voracious [V∂’reı∫∂s] – прожорливый; жадный, ненасытный; plummet – свинцовый
- •Voice imaginable, "This looks like a pretty good movie."
- •I can say Deanna Dunn had me."
- •In the California moonlight. "Fuck you," he said gently, and they both laughed together
- •In had finished his new novel and came west on Johnny's invitation, to talk it over
- •In Sicily at the turn of the century the Mafia was the second government, far more
- •Vito was hidden by relatives and shipped to America. There he was boarded with the
- •Irish and American and abused the workmen in the foulest language, which Vito always
- •Vito was astonished but was careful not to show his astonishment. "Why do we have
- •It was from this experience came his oft-repeated belief that every man has but one
- •Vito Corleone told his wife to take the two children, Sonny and Fredo, down into the
- •Intelligence and courage.
- •Into barrel and handle, two separate pieces. He used a separate air shaft for each. They
- •Vito Corleone asked her gently, "Why do you ask me to help you?"
- •Inquiries about Vito Corleone. He did not wait until the next morning. He knocked on the
- •Imported Italian oil in America, his organization mushroomed (быстро росла;
- •It started casually enough. By this time the Genco Pura Oil Company had a fleet of six
- •Illicit gambling houses that ran poker games, the policy or numbers racket of Harlem.
- •Independent operation.
- •Vito Corleone was a man with vision. All the great cities of America were being torn by
- •It was typical of the young Santino, before he became older and crueler, that he
- •Identification card. "I'm Detective John Phillips from the New York Police Department,"
- •Is looking for him, everybody is looking for him. So far, no luck, so we thought you might
- •I'm just telling her she can get into serious trouble unless she cooperates with us. But
- •In anything so sordid (грязный, низкий, подлый)."
- •If my wife had been as presumptuous (самонадеянный, дерзкий, нахальный
- •In the streets, on playgrounds, etc., in which a rubber ball and a broomstick or the like
- •Virgin Mary with their red-glassed candles flickering on the sideboard, Bonasera lit a
- •Into fresh linen, white gleaming shirt, the black tie, a freshly pressed dark suit, dull black
- •Voice made it a question.
- •In the rear of the building, cut off from the funeral parlor and reception rooms by a
- •Vengeance. He cursed the day his wife and the wife of Don Corleone had become
- •In addition to this Sonny was under the enormous strain of being a marked man. He
- •I'll kill you, you bastard." She rushed at him, kicking and scratching.
- •In them and finally Connie was truly afraid.
- •It was nearly ten o'clock at night when the kitchen phone in Don Corleone's house
- •In front held up their guns now, the man in the darkened tollbooth cut his fire, and
- •It was almost five minutes before Carlo's voice came over the phone, a voice half
- •Inquiries to track down the murderers of my son without my express command. There
- •It looked like nothing could stop the dam from being built and supplies and equipment
- •Institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the
- •Incidence of physical violence of any of the cities controlled by the Families; there had
- •In his empire. The Boston area had too many murders, too many petty wars for power,
- •In a curious way his almost victorious war against the Corleone Family had not won
- •Influence but many of the people who respect my counsel might lose this respect if
- •Into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal
- •In short, I wish now to live in a fortress. Let me say to you now that I will never go into
- •Important left out. Hagen knew what it was but he knew it was not his place to ask. He
- •Initiated that made the day's happenings no more than a tactical retreat. And there was
- •It was Hagen who brought this case to the attention of the Don at the request of one
- •It loverlike but really to feel her pulse. It was galloping. He'd get her tonight and he'd
- •In the next instant she let out a yell as he brought down the heavy medical volume on
- •It. She found herself quite interested.
- •Innocent?"
- •Inoperable? Then there was other stuff.
- •Valenti, "I think it might be a long wait for you, you'd better leave."
- •Very spoiled guy. Do you think because you're Johnny Fontane you can't get cancer? Or
- •Vendettas or had also emigrated, either to America, Brazil or to some other province on
- •In every emergency. He was their social worker, their district captain ready with a
- •Its eighteen thousand people strung out (to string out – растягивать вереницей) in
- •Interpreters to the military government. This good fortune enabled the Mafia to
- •Intelligence and the polarity of the fair and dark. This was an overwhelming desire for
- •Very big eves, very dark eyes. Do you know a girl like that in the village?"
- •Impressed him even more, made it clear that Michael was the superior of the two men
- •Villa outside Corleone. The wedding feast went on until midnight but bride and groom
- •Into the furnace."
- •It was unheard of for one of the peasant women in Sicily to attempt driving a car. But
- •In her New Hampshire hometown. The first six months after Michael vanished she made
- •Italians liked that supposedly, though Michael had always said he loved her being so
- •Into the bedroom." Kay took a long pull from her drink and smiled at him. "Yes," she said.
- •I won't talk."
- •Its amusement. "But how can you say that?" she said. "Really."
- •Individual. Governments really don't do much for their people, that's what it comes down
- •Valenti's gestures.
- •It was almost fifteen minutes before Jules Segal came into the suite. Johnny noted
- •It was this that made Johnny sore enough to bring Nino his water glass of whiskey.
- •I'd tell them. My voice used to have expression in those days. And they'd smile at me
- •I slice off the other tit. A year after that, I scoop out her insides like you scoop the seeds
- •In tonight with Tom Hagen. Tom said they'll be seeing you, Lucy. You know what it's all
- •Virginia asked. "Everything is going so beautifully for you. I never dreamed you had it in
- •In Nino's suite they found Johnny Fontane sitting on the couch eating breakfast. Jules
- •Inclinations. Had done it because she had asked him to, and that she was the only
- •In hand. And with you gone from here the Barzini and the Tattaglia will be too strong for
- •In the library the three men had relaxed as only people can who have lived years
- •It brought back his childhood in Sicily sixty years ago, brought it back without the terror,
- •Including, of course, the Don's widow. Connie was so overcome with emotion that she
- •Virtue, as well as her dark prettiness.
- •I'll crucify you." He motioned with his flashlight and the youth walked quickly away. Neri
- •In check but had given his nephew warning. "Tommy, you make my sister cry over you
- •It was Pete Clemenza, with his fine nose for good personnel, who brought the Neri
- •I'm getting old, I want to retire, And he comes to me and he says he wants to interfere in
- •Instruct him personally. I don't want to see Tessio at all. Just tell him I'll be ready to go
- •Is wrong now?"
- •Voided itself. Clemenza kept the garrot tight for another few minutes to make sure, then
- •It, but people never forgive themselves and so they would always be dangerous.
In Nino's suite they found Johnny Fontane sitting on the couch eating breakfast. Jules
was examining Nino behind the closed drapes of the bedroom. Finally the drapes were
drawn back.
Michael was shocked at how Nino looked. The man was visibly disintegrating. The
eyes were dazed, the mouth loose, all the muscles of his face slack. Michael sat on his
bedside and said, "Nino, it's good to catch up with you. The Don always asks about
you."
Nino grinned, it was the old grin. "Tell him I'm dying. Tell him show business is more
dangerous than the olive oil business."
"You'll be OK," Michael said. "If there's anything bothering you that the Family can
help, just tell me."
Nino shook his head. "There's nothing," he said. "Nothing."
Michael chatted for a few more moments and then left. Freddie accompanied him and
his party to the airport, but at Michael's request didn't hang around for departure time.
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As he boarded the plane with Tom Hagen and Al Neri, Michael turned to Neri and said,
"Did you make him good?"
Neri tapped his forehead. "I got Moe Greene mugged and numbered up here."
Chapter 28
On the plane ride back to New York, Michael Corleone relaxed and tried to sleep. It
was useless. The most terrible period of his life was approaching, perhaps even a fatal
time. It could no longer be put off. Everything was in readiness, all precautions had
been taken, two years of precautions. There could be no further delay. Last week when
the Don had formally announced his retirement to the caporegimes and other members
of the Corleone Family, Michael knew that this was his father's way of telling him the
time was ripe.
It was almost three years now since he had returned home and over two years since
he had married Kay. The three years had been spent in learning the Family business.
He had put in long hours with Tom Hagen, long hours with the Don. He was amazed at
how wealthy and powerful the Corleone Family truly was. It owned tremendously
valuable real estate in midtown New York, whole office buildings. It owned, through
fronts, partnerships in two Wall Street brokerage houses, pieces of banks on Long
Island, partnerships in some garment center firms, all this in addition to its illegal
operations in gambling.
The most interesting thing Michael Corleone learned, in going back over past
transactions of the Corleone Family, was that the Family had received some protection
income shortly after the war from a group of music record counterfeiters. The
counterfeiters duplicated and sold phonograph records of famous artists, packaging
everything so skillfully they were never caught. Naturally on the records they sold to
stores the artists and original production company received not a penny. Michael
Corleone noticed that Johnny Fontane had lost a lot of money owing to this
counterfeiting because at that time, just before he lost his voice, his records were the
most popular in the country.
He asked Tom Hagen about it. Why did the Don allow the counterfeiters to cheat his
godson? Hagen shrugged. Business was business. Besides, Johnny was in the Don's
bad graces, Johnny having divorced his childhood sweetheart to marry Margot Ashton.
This had displeased the Don greatly.
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"How come these guys stopped their operation?" Michael asked. "The cops got on to
them?"
Hagen shook his head. "The Don withdrew his protection. That was right after
Connie's wedding."
It was a pattern he was to see often, the Don helping those in misfortune whose
misfortune he had partly created. Not perhaps out of cunning or planning but because of
his variety of interests or perhaps because of the nature of the universe, the interlinking
of good and evil, natural of itself.
Michael had married Kay up in New England, a quiet wedding, with only her family
and a few of her friends present. Then they had moved into one of the houses on the
mall in Long Beach. Michael was surprised at how well Kay got along with his parents
and the other people living on the mall. And of course she had gotten pregnant right
away, like a good, old-style Italian wife was supposed to, and that helped. The second
kid on the way in two years was just icing.
Kay would be waiting for him at the airport, she always came to meet him, she was
always so glad when he came back from a trip. And he was too. Except now. For the
end of this trip meant that he finally had to take the action he had been groomed for
over the last three years. The Don would be waiting for him. The caporegimes would be
waiting for him. And he, Michael Corleone, would have to give the orders, make the
decisions which would decide his and his Family's fate.
Every morning when Kay Adams Corleone got up to take care of the baby's early
feeding, she saw Mama Corleone, the Don's wife, being driven away from the mall by
one of the bodyguards, to return an hour later. Kay soon learned that her mother-in-law
went to church every single morning. Often on her return, the old woman stopped by for
morning coffee and to see her new grandchild.
Mama Corleone always started off by asking Kay why she didn't think of becoming a
Catholic, ignoring the fact that Kay's child had already been baptized a Protestant. So
Kay felt it was proper to ask the old woman why she went to church every morning,
whether that was a necessary part of being a Catholic.
As if she thought that this might have stopped Kay from converting the old woman
said, "Oh, no, no, some Catholics only go to church on Easter and Christmas. You go
when you feel like going."
Kay laughed. "Then why do you go every single morning?"
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In a completely natural way, Mama Corleone said, "I go for my husband," she pointed
down toward the floor, so he don't go down there." She paused. "I say prayers for his
soul every day so he go up there." She pointed heavenward. She said this with an
impish smile, as if she were subverting her husband's will in some way, or as if it were a
losing cause. It was said jokingly almost, in her grim, Italian, old crone fashion. And as
always when her husband was not present, there was an attitude of disrespect to the
great Don.
"How is your husband feeling?" Kay asked politely.
Mama Corleone shrugged. "He's not the same man since they shot him. He lets
Michael do all the work, he just plays the fool with his garden, his peppers, his tomatoes.
As if he were some peasant still. But men are always like that."
Later in the morning Connie Corleone would walk across the mall with her two
children to pay Kay a visit and chat. Kay liked Connie, her vivaciousness, her obvious
fondness for her brother Michael. Connie had taught Kay how to cook some Italian
dishes but sometimes brought her own more expert concoctions over for Michael to
taste.
Now this morning as she usually did, she asked Kay what Michael thought of her
husband, Carlo. Did Michael really like Carlo, as he seemed to? Carlo had always had a
little trouble with the Family but now over the last years he had straightened out. He was
really doing well in the labor union but he had to work so hard, such long hours. Carlo
really liked Michael, Connie always said. But then, everybody liked Michael, just as
everybody liked her father. Michael was the Don all over again. It was the best thing that
Michael was going to run the Family olive oil business.
Kay had observed before that when Connie spoke about her husband in relation to
the Family, she was always nervously eager for some word of approval for Carlo. Kay
would have been stupid if she had not noticed the almost terrified concern Connie had
for whether Michael liked Carlo or not. One night she spoke to Michael about it and
mentioned the fact that nobody ever spoke about Sonny Corleone, nobody even
referred to him, at least not in her presence. Kay had once tried to express her
condolences to the Don and his wife and had been listened to with almost rude silence
and then ignored. She had tried to get Connie talking about her older brother without
success.
Sonny's wife, Sandra, had taken her children and moved to Florida, where her own
parents now lived. Certain financial arrangements had been made so that she and her
children could live comfortably, but Sonny had left no estate.
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Michael reluctantly explained what had happened the night Sonny was killed. That
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Carlo had beaten his wife and Connie had called the mall and Sonny had taken the call
and rushed out in a blind rage. So naturally Connie and Carlo were always nervous that
the rest of the Family blamed her for indirectly causing Sonny's death. Or blamed her
husband, Carlo. But this wasn't the case. The proof was that they had given Connie and
Carlo a house in the mall itself and promoted Carlo to an important job in the labor
union setup. And Carlo had straightened out, stopped drinking, stopped whoring,
stopped trying to be a wise guy. The Family was pleased with his work and attitude for
the last two years. Nobody blamed him for what had happened.
"Then why don't you invite them over some evening and you can reassure your
sister?" Kay said. "The poor thing is always so nervous about what you think of her
husband. Tell her. And tell her to put those silly worries out of her head."
"I can't do that," Michael said. "We don't talk about those things in our family."
"Do you want me to tell her what you've told me?" Kay said.
She was puzzled because he took such a long time thinking over a suggestion that
was obviously the proper thing to do. Finally he said, "I don't think you should, Kay. I
don't think it will do any good. She'll worry anyway. It's something nobody can do
anything about."
Kay was amazed. She realized that Michael was always a little colder to his sister
Connie than he was to anyone else, despite Connie's affection. "Surely you don't blame
Connie for Sonny being killed?" she said.
Michael sighed. "Of course not," he said. "She's my kid sister and I'm very fond of her.
I feel sorry for her. Carlo straightened out, but he's really the wrong kind of husband. It's
just one of those things. Let's forget about it."
It was not in Kay's nature to nag; she let it drop. Also she had learned that Michael
was not a man to push, that he could become coldly disagreeable. She knew she was
the only person in the world who could bend his will, but she also knew that to do it too
often would be to destroy that power. And living with him the last two years had made
her love him more.
She loved him because he was always fair. An odd thing. But he always was fair to
everybody around him, never arbitrary even in little things. She had observed that he
was now a very powerful man, people came to the house to confer with him and ask
favors, treating him with deference and respect but one thing had endeared him to her
above everything else.
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Ever since Michael had come back from Sicily with his broken face, everybody in the
Family had tried to get him to undergo corrective surgery. Michael's mother was after
him constantly; one Sunday dinner with all the Corleones gathered on the mall she
shouted at Michael, "You look like a gangster in the movies, get your face fixed for the
sake of Jesus Christ and your poor wife. And so your nose will stop running like a
drunken Irish."
The Don, at the head of the table, watching everything, said to Kay, "Does it bother
you?"
Kay shook her head. The Don said to his wife. "He's out of your hands, it's no concern
of yours." The old woman immediately held her peace. Not that she feared her husband
but because it would have been disrespectful to dispute him in such a matter before the
others.
But Connie, the Don's favorite, came in from the kitchen, where she was cooking the
Sunday dinner, her face flushed from the stove, and said, "I think he should get his face
fixed. He was the most handsome one in the family before he got hurt. Come on, Mike,
say you'll do it."
Michael looked at her in an absentminded fashion. It seemed as if he really and truly
had not heard anything said. He didn't answer.
Connie came to stand beside her father. "Make him do it," she said to the Don. Her
two hands rested affectionately on his shoulders and she rubbed his neck. She was the
only one who was ever so familiar with the Don. Her affection for her father was
touching. It was trusting, like a little girl's. The Don patted one of her hands and said,
"We're all starving here. Put the spaghetti on the table and then chatter."
Connie turned to her husband and said, "Carlo, you tell Mike to get his face fixed.
Maybe he'll listen to you." Her voice implied that Michael and Carlo Rizzi had some
friendly relationship over and above anyone else's.
Carlo, handsomely sunburned, blond hair neatly cut and combed, sipped at his glass
of homemade wine and said, "Nobody can tell Mike what to do." Carlo had become a
different man since moving into the mall. He knew his place in the Family and kept to it.
There was something that Kay didn't understand in all this, something that didn't quite
meet the eye. As a woman she could see that Connie was deliberately charming her
father, though it was beautifully done and even sincere. Yet it was not spontaneous.
Carlo's reply had been a manly knuckling of his forehead. Michael had absolutely
ignored everything.
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Kay didn't care about her husband's disfigurement but she worried about his sinus
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trouble which sprang from it. Surgery repair of the face would cure the sinus also. For
that reason she wanted Michael to enter the hospital and get the necessary work done.
But she understood that in a curious way he desired his disfigurement. She was sure
that the Don understood this too.
But after Kay gave birth to her first child, she was surprised by Michael asking her,
"Do you want me to get my face fixed?"
Kay nodded. "You know how kids are, your son will feel bad about your face when he
gets old enough to understand it's not normal. I just don't want our child to see it. I don't
mind at all, honestly, Michael."
"OK." He smiled at her. "I'll do it."
He waited until she was home from the hospital and then made all the necessary
arrangements. The operation was successful. The cheek indentation was now just
barely noticeable.
Everybody in the Family was delighted, but Connie more so than anyone. She visited
Michael every day in the hospital, dragging Carlo along. When Michael came home, she
gave him a big hug and a kiss and looked at him admiringly and said, "Now you're my
handsome brother again."
Only the Don was unimpressed, shrugging his shoulders
and remarking, "What's the difference?"
But Kay was grateful. She knew that Michael had done it against all his own