Voided itself. Clemenza kept the garrot tight for another few minutes to make sure, then

released the rope and put it back in his pocket. He relaxed himself against the seat

cushions as Carlo's body slumped against the door. After a few moments Clemenza

rolled the window down to let out the stink.

The victory of the Corleone Family was complete. During that same twenty-four-hour

period Clemenza and Lampone turned loose their regimes and punished the infiltrators

of the Corleone domains. Neri was sent to take command of the Tessio regime. Barzini

bookmakers were put out of business; two of the highest-ranking Barzini enforcers were

shot to death as they were peaceably picking their teeth over dinner in an Italian

restaurant on Mulberry Street. A notorious fixer of trotting races was also killed as he

returned home from a winning night at the track. Two of the biggest shylocks on the

waterfront disappeared, to be found months later in the New Jersey swamps.

With this one savage attack, Michael Corleone made his reputation and restored the

Corleone Family to its primary place in the New York Families. He was respected not

only for his tactical brillance but because some of the most important caporegimes in

both the Barzini and Tattaglia Families immediately went over to his side.

It would have been a perfect triumph for Michael Corleone except for an exhibition of

hysteria by his sister Connie.

Connie had flown home with her mother, the children left in Vegas. She had

restrained her widow's grief until the limousine pulled into the mall. Then, before she

could be restrained by her mother, she ran across the cobbled street to Michael

Corleone's house. She burst through the door and found Michael and Kay in the living

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room. Kay started to go to her, to comfort her and take her in her arms in a sisterly

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embrace but stopped short when Connie started screaming at her brother, screaming

curses and reproaches. "You lousy bastard," she shrieked. "You killed my husband. You

waited until our father died and nobody could stop you and you killed him. You killed

him. You blamed him about Sonny, you always did, everybody did. But you never

thought about me. You never gave a damn about me. What am I going to do now, what

am I going to do?" She was wailing. Two of Michael's bodyguards had come up behind

her and were waiting for orders from him. But he just stood there impassively and

waited for his sister to finish.

Kay said in a shocked voice, "Connie, you're upset, don't say such things."

Connie had recovered from her hysteria. Her voice held a deadly venom. "Why do you

think he was always so cold to me? Why do you think he kept Carlo here on the mall?

All the time he knew he was going to kill my husband. But he didn't dare while my father

was alive. My father would have stopped him. He knew that. He was just waiting. And

then he stood Godfather to our child just to throw us off the track. The coldhearted

bastard. You think you know your husband? Do you know how many men he had killed

with my Carlo? Just read the papers. Barzini and Tattaglia and the others. My brother

had them killed."

She had worked herself into hysteria again. She tried to spit in Michael's face but she

had no saliva.

"Get her home and get her a doctor," Michael said. The two guards immediately

grabbed Connie's arms and pulled her out of the house.

Kay was still shocked, still horrified. She said to her husband, "What made her say all

those things, Michael, what makes her believe that?"

Michael shrugged. "She's hysterical."

Kay looked into his eyes. "Michael, it's not true, please say it's not true."

Michael shook his head wearily. "Of course it's not. Just believe me, this one time I'm

letting you ask about my affairs, and I'm giving you an answer. It is not true." He had

never been more convincing. He looked directly into her eyes. He was using all the

mutual trust they had built up in their married life to make her believe him. And she

could not doubt any longer. She smiled at him ruefully and came into his arms for a kiss.

"We both need a drink," she said. She went into the kitchen for ice and while there

heard the front door open. She went out of the kitchen and saw Clemenza, Neri and

Rocco Lampone come in with the bodyguards. Michael had his back to her, but she

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moved so that she could see him in profile. At that moment Clemenza addressed her

husband, greeting him formally.

"Don Michael," Clemenza said.

Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He reminded her of

statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right,

held the power of life and death over their fel ow men. One hand was on his hip, the

profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his body was carelessly, arrogantly at

ease, weight resting on one foot slightly behind the other. The caporegimes stood

before him. In that moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of

was true. She went back into the kitchen and wept.

Book 9

Chapter 32

The bloody victory of the Corleone Family was not complete until a year of delicate

political maneuvering established Michael Corleone as the most powerful Family chief in

the United States. For twelve months, Michael divided his time equally between his

headquarters at the Long Beach mall and his new home in Las Vegas. But at the end of

that year he decided to close out the New York operation and sell the houses and the

mall property. For that purpose he brought his whole family East on a last visit. They

would stay a month, wind up business, Kay would do the personal family's packing and

shipping of household goods. There were a million other minor details.

Now the Corleone Family was unchallengeable, and Clemenza had his own Family.

Rocco Lampone was the Corleone caporegime. In Nevada, Albert Neri was head of all

security for the Family-controlled hotels. Hagen too, was part of Michael's Western

Family.

Time helped heal the old wounds. Connie Corleone was reconciled to her brother

Michael. Indeed not more than a week after her terrible accusations she apologized to

Michael for what she had said and assured Kay that there had been no truth in her

words, that it had been only a young widow's hysteria.

Connie Corleone easily found a new husband; in fact, she did not wait the year of

respect before filling her bed again with a fine young fellow who had come to work for

the Corleone Family as a male secretary. A boy from a reliable Italian family but

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graduated from the top business college in America. Naturally his marriage to the sister

of the Don made his future assured.

Kay Adams Corleone had delighted her in-laws by taking instruction in the Catholic

religion and joining that faith. Her two boys were also, naturally, being brought up in that

church, as was required. Michael himself had not been too pleased by this development.

He would have preferred the children to be Protestant, it was more American.

To her surprise, Kay came to love living in Nevada. She loved the scenery, the hills

and canyons of garishly red rock, the burning deserts, the unexpected and blessedly

refreshing lakes, even the heat. Her two boys rode their own ponies. She had real

servants, not bodyguards. And Michael lived a more normal life. He owned a

construction business; he joined the businessmen's clubs and civic committees; he had

a healthy interest in local politics without interfering publicly. It was a good life. Kay was

happy that they were closing down their New York house and that Las Vegas would be

truly their permanent home. She hated coming back to New York. And so on this last

trip she had arranged all the packing and shipping of goods with the utmost efficiency

and speed, and now on the final day she felt that same urgency to leave that longtime

patients feel when it is time to be discharged from the hospital.

On that final day, Kay Adams Corleone woke at dawn. She could hear the roar of the

truck motors outside on the mall. The trucks that would empty all the houses of furniture.

The Corleone Family would be flying back to Las Vegas in the afternoon, including

Mama Corleone.

When Kay came out of the bathroom, Michael was propped up on his pillow smoking

a cigarette. "Why the hell do you have to go to church every morning?" he said. "I don't

mind Sundays, but why the hell during the week? You're as bad as my mother." He

reached over in the darkness and switched on the tablelight.

Kay sat at the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings. "You know how converted

Catholics are," she said. "They take it more seriously."

Michael reached over to touch her thigh, on the warm skin where the top of her nylon

hose ended. "Don't," she said. "I'm taking Communion this morning."

He didn't try to hold her when she got up from the bed. He said, smiling slightly, "If

you're such a strict Catholic, how come you let the kids duck going to church so much?"

She felt uncomfortable and she was wary. He was studying her with what she thought

of privately as his "Don's" eye. "They have plenty of time," she said. "When we get back

home, I'll make them attend more."

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She kissed him good-bye before she left. Outside the house the air was already

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getting warm. The summer sun rising in the east was red. Kay walked to where her car

was parked near the gates of the mall. Mama Corleone, dressed in her widow black,

was already sitting in it, waiting for her. It had become a set routine, early Mass, every

morning, together.

Kay kissed the old woman's wrinkled cheek, then got behind the wheel.

Mama Corleone asked suspiciously, "You eata breakfast?"

"No," Kay said.

The old woman nodded her head approvingly. Kay had once forgotten that it was

forbidden to take food from midnight on before receiving Holy Communion. That had

been a long time ago, but Mama Corleone never trusted her after that and always

checked. "You feel all right?" the old woman asked.

"Yes," Kay said.

The church was small and desolate in the early morning sunlight. Its stained-glass

windows shielded the interior from heat, it would be cool there, a place to rest. Kay

helped her mother-in-law up the white stone steps and then let her go before her. The

old woman preferred a pew up front, close to the altar. Kay waited on the steps for an

extra minute. She was always reluctant at this last moment, always a little fearful.

Finally she entered the cool darkness. She took the holy water on her fingertips and

made the sign of the cross, fleetingly touched her wet fingertips to her parched lips.

Candles flickered redly before the saints, the Christ on his cross. Kay genuflected

before entering her row and then knelt on the hard wooden rail of the pew to wait for her

call to Communion. She bowed her head as if she were praying, but she was not quite

ready for that.

It was only here in these dim, vaulted churches that she allowed herself to think about

her husband's other life. About that terrible night a year ago when he had deliberately

used all their trust and love in each other to make her believe his lie that he had not

killed his sister's husband.

She had left him because of that lie, not because of the deed. The next morning she

had taken the children away with her to her parents' house in New Hampshire. Without

a word to anyone, without really knowing what action she meant to take. Michael had

immediately understood. He had called her the first day and then left her alone. It was a

week before the limousine from New York pulled up in front of her house with Tom

Hagen.

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She had spent a long terrible afternoon with Tom Hagen, the most terrible afternoon

of her life. They had gone for a walk in the woods outside her little town and Hagen had

not been gentle.

Kay had made the mistake of trying to be cruelly flippant, a role to which she was not

suited. "Did Mike send you up here to threaten me?" she asked. "I expected to see

some of the 'boys' get out of the car with their machine guns to make me go back."

For the first time since she had known him, she saw Hagen angry. He said harshly,

"That's the worst kind of juvenile crap I've ever heard. I never expected that from a

woman like you. Come on, Kay."

"All right," she said.

They walked along the green country road. Hagen asked quietly, "Why did you run

away?"

Kay said, "Because Michael lied to me. Because he made a fool of me when he stood

Godfather to Connie's boy. He betrayed me. I can't love a man like that. I can't live with

it. I can't let him be father to my children."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hagen said.

She turned on him with now-justified rage. "I mean that he killed his sister's husband.

Do you understand that?" She paused for a moment. "And he lied to me."

They walked on for a long time in silence. Finally Hagen said, "You have no way of

really knowing that's all true. But just for the sake of argument let's assume that it's true.

I'm not saying it is, remember. But what if I gave you what might be some justification

for what he did. Or rather some possible justifications?"

Kay looked at him scornfully. "That's the first time I've seen the lawyer side of you,

Tom. It's not your best side."

Hagen grinned. "OK. Just hear me out. What if Carlo had put Sonny on the spot,

fingered him. What if Carlo beating up Connie that time was a deliberate plot to get

Sonny out in the open, that they knew he would take the route over the Jones Beach

Causeway? What if Carlo had been paid to help get Sonny killed? Then what?"

Kay didn't answer. Hagen went on. "And what if the Don, a great man, couldn't bring

himself to do what he had to do, avenge his son's death by killing his daughter's

husband? What if that, finally, was too much for him, and he made Michael his

successor, knowing that Michael would take that load off his shoulders, would take that

guilt?"

"It was all over with," Kay said, tears springing into her eyes. "Everybody was happy.

Why couldn't Carlo be forgiven? Why couldn't everything go on and everybody forget?"

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She had led across a meadow to a tree-shaded brook. Hagen sank down on the grass

and sighed. He looked around, sighed again and said, "In this world you could do it."

Kay said, "He's not the man I married."

Hagen laughed shortly. "If he were, he'd be dead now. You'd be a widow now. You'd

have no problem."

Kay blazed out at him. "What the hell does that mean? Come on, Tom, speak out

straight once in your life. I know Michael can't, but you're not Sicilian, you can tell a

woman the truth, you can treat her like an equal, a fellow human being."

There was another long silence. Hagen shook his head. "You've got Mike wrong.

You're mad because he lied to you. Well, he warned you never to ask him about

business. You're mad because he was Godfather to Carlo's boy. But you made him do

that. Actually it was the right move for him to make if he was going to take action

against Carlo. The classical tactical move to win the victim's trust." Hagen gave her a

grim smile. "Is that straight enough talk for you?" But Kay bowed her head.

Hagen went on. "I'll give you some more straight talk. After the Don died, Mike was

set up to be killed. Do you know who set him up? Tessio. So Tessio had to be killed.

Carlo had to be killed. Because treachery can't be forgiven. Michael could have forgiven