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
inclinations. Had done it because she had asked him to, and that she was the only
person in the world who could make him act against his own nature.
On the afternoon of Michael's return from Vegas, Rocco Lampone drove the limousine
to the mall to pick up Kay so that she could meet her husband at the airport. She always
met her husband when he arrived from out of town, mostly because she felt lonely
without him, living as she did in the fortified mall.
She saw him come off the plane with Tom Hagen and the new man he had working
for him, Albert Neri. Kay didn't care much for Neri, he reminded her of Luca Brasi in his
quiet ferociousness. She saw Neri drop behind Michael and off to the side, saw his
quick penetrating glance as his eyes swept over everybody nearby. It was Neri who first
spotted Kay and touched Michael's shoulder to make him look in the proper direction.
Kay ran into her husband's arms and he quickly kissed her and let her go. He and
Tom Hagen and Kay got into the limousine and Albert Neri vanished. Kay did not notice
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that Neri had gotten into another car with two other men and that this car rode behind
the limousine until it reached Long Beach.
Kay never asked Michael how his business had gone. Even such polite questions
were understood to be awkward, not that he wouldn't give her an equally polite answer,
but it would remind them both of the forbidden territory their marriage could never
include. Kay didn't mind anymore. But when Michael told her he would have to spend
the evening with his father to tell him about the Vegas trip, she couldn't help making a
little frown of disappointment.
"I'm sorry," Michael said. "Tomorrow night we'll go into New York and see a show and
have dinner, OK?" He patted her stomach, she was almost seven months pregnant.
"After the kid comes you'll be tied down again. Hell, you're more Italian than Yankee.
Two kids in two years."
Kay said tartly, "And you're more Yankee than Italian. Your first evening home and
you spend it on business." But she smiled at him when she said it. "You won't be home
late?"
"Before midnight," Michael said. "Don't wait up for me if you feel tired."
"I'll wait up," Kay said.
At the meeting that night, in the corner room library of Don Corleone's house, were
the Don himself, Michael, Tom Hagen, Carlo Rizzi, and the two caporegimes, Clemenza
and Tessio.
The atmosphere of the meeting was by no means so congenial as in former days.
Ever since Don Corleone had announced his semiretirement and Michael's take-over of
the Family business, there had been some strain. Succession in control of such an
enterprise as the Family was by no means hereditary. In any other Family powerful
caporegimes such as Clemenza and Tessio might have succeeded to the position of
Don. Or at least they might have been allowed to split off and form their own Family.
Then, too, ever since Don Corleone had made the peace with the Five Families, the
strength of the Corleone Family had declined. The Barzini Family was now indisputably
the most powerful one in the New York area; allied as they were to the Tattaglias, they
now held the position the Corleone Family had once held. Also they were slyly whittling
down the power of the Corleone Family, muscling into their gambling areas, testing the
Corleones' reactions and, finding them weak, establishing their own bookmakers.
The Barzinis and Tattaglias were delighted with the Don's retirement. Michael,
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formidable as he might prove to be, could never hope to equal the Don in cunning and
influence for at least another decade. The Corleone Family was definitely in a decline.
It had, of course, suffered serious misfortunes. Freddie had proved to be nothing more
than an innkeeper and ladies' man, the idiom for ladies' man untranslatable but
connotating a greedy infant always at its mother's nipple – in short, unmanly. Sonny's
death too, had been a disaster. Sonny had been a man to be feared, not to be taken
lightly. Of course he had made a mistake in sending his younger brother, Michael, to kill
the Turk and the police captain. Though necessary in a tactical sense, as a long-term
strategy it proved to be a serious error. It had forced the Don, eventually, to rise from his
sickbed. It had deprived Michael of two years of valuable experience and training under
his father's tutelage. And of course an Irish as a Consigliori had been the only
foolishness the Don had ever perpetrated. No Irish man could hope to equal a Sicilian
for cunning. So went the opinion of all the Families and they were naturally more
respectful to the Barzini-Tattaglia alliance than to the Corleones. Their opinion of
Michael was that he was not equal to Sonny in force though more intelligent certainly,
but not as intelligent as his father. A mediocre successor and a man not to be feared too
greatly.
Also, though the Don was generally admired for his statesmanship in making the
peace, the fact that he had not avenged Sonny's murder lost the Family a great deal of
respect. It was recognized that such statesmanship sprang out of weakness.
All this was known to the men sitting in the room and perhaps even believed by a few.
Carlo Rizzi liked Michael but did not fear him as he had feared Sonny. Clemenza, too,
though he gave Michael credit for a bravura performance with the Turk and the police
captain, could not help thinking Michael too soft to be a Don. Clemenza had hoped to
be given permission to form his own Family, to have his own empire split away from the
Corleone. But the Don had indicated that this was not to be and Clemenza respected
the Don too much to disobey. Unless of course the whole situation became intolerable.
Tessio had a better opinion of Michael. He sensed something else in the young man:
a force cleverly kept hidden, a man jealously guarding his true strength from public gaze,
following the Don's precept that a friend should always underestimate your virtues and
an enemy overestimate your faults.
The Don himself and Tom Hagen were of course under no illusions about Michael.
The Don would never have retired if he had not had absolute faith in his son's ability to
retrieve the Family position. Hagen had been Michael's teacher for the last two years
and was amazed at how quickly Michael grasped all the intricacies of the Family
business. Truly his father's son.
Clemenza and Tessio were annoyed with Michael because he had reduced the
strength of their regimes and had never reconstituted Sonny's regime. The Corleone
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Family, in effect, had now only two fighting divisions with less personnel than formerly.
Clemenza and Tessio considered this suicidal, especially with the Barzini-Tattaglia
encroachments on their empires. So now they were hopeful these errors might be
corrected at this extraordinary meeting convened by the Don.
Michael started off by telling them about his trip to Vegas and Moe Greene's refusing
the offer to buy him out. "But we'll make him an offer he can't refuse," Michael said.
"You already know the Corleone Family plans to move its operations West. We'll have
four of the hotel casinos on the Strip. But it can't be right away. We need time to get