The Godfather's Revenge Page 11

  As they were having their coffee and waiting for dessert—a sfogliatella they were going to split—Lisa started to say something but stopped herself. Johnny asked what it was, and she said it was nothing. If there was one thing Johnny Fontane had learned about women, it was that it was never nothing. “Aw, c’mon,” he said. “You know you can tell your ol’ dad anything.”

  Only after he said it did he realize that it was a line from an audition, a TV show that would have had him playing a folksy suburban father. He hadn’t gotten the part.

  Johnny persisted. Finally, Lisa put her hands on the table and closed her eyes. She stayed like that for a while. He let her. Another thing about women: let them have their silences.

  “Daddy,” she finally said, barely in a whisper. “Is it true? Even a little bit true?”

  It broke his heart that she thought she had to ask this. At the same time, he admired the brass it took. She was his daughter, all right.

  “No,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. I’m not a gangster. I’m not a front for gangsters.”

  She nodded. It looked like she was trying to make herself believe him.

  “If a Jew or an Irishman or a Polack comes to this country and works hard—street jobs, the kind immigrants get—and he builds that up into a big business or a political career, that fella’s an example of the American dream come true. But when it’s an Italian, he’s a gangster.”

  “Not every Italian.”

  “Yes,” Johnny said. “Wise up. Every Italian. Every one of us who gets anywhere near the top, it happens. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.”

  “But some of those people, y’know, are.” She didn’t seem to want to say gangsters.

  “Are they?” Johnny said. “Vito Corleone, for example, was my godfather. He stood up in church and took a sacred oath that he’d look after me, which he did, no different than your ma’s uncle. The plumber, what’s his face.”

  “Paulie.”

  “Right. Paulie. Same as Paulie did for you. His foundation—Vito Corleone’s, I’m talking about—gives millions of dollars to poor kids, hospitals, the arts, including, come to think of it, grants to some of the professors at your school. He was never charged with any crime whatsoever. As for Michael Corleone, Vito’s son, who runs their family business now—who’s also never been issued so much as a parking ticket—Michael’s a gentleman who attended both Columbia and Dartmouth and is also a decorated Marine Corps hero from I forget which battle. Maybe Iwo Jima. Or, no. That other one. Point being that despite what certain reporters and such want you to believe, a business that Michael Corleone has stock in—that’s all, just stock, he’s not the chairman of the board or anything—that business gave me a chance to invest in a resort in Lake Tahoe—”

  “The Castle in the Clouds.”

  “Yep. It was the same as if Howard Johnson sold me a piece of his next motor lodge. The only difference is, Johnson doesn’t end in a vowel.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t the chairman of the board.”

  “He’s a big stockholder. He’s how I heard about the investment. The son of my godfather pulled strings to get me in, and I got in.”

  “It’s a casino, though, right? Not just a resort.”

  “It has a casino in it, but it’s a big resort. They’ve got golf, tennis, the works. We ought to go sometime.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He felt like a shit for never taking her before. “Look, though: Nevada, you’ve been there, and it’s the same all over. Slots in the airport, the filling stations. You start up a resort in Nevada with no casino, you’ll go down the tubes fast.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, trust me, you will.”

  “What I mean is, I’ve never been to Nevada.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  It didn’t seem possible. “I’m sure I had you girls up to see me.”

  Again she shook her head. “I’ve never seen you sing outside L.A. and here.”

  “Huh.” Johnny Fontane finished the final gulp of his wine. “Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is that unlike some other investments of mine I could name, this particular venture has done great.” Money was a bigger issue with him than he’d have wanted her or anyone to know. He’d had trouble with various accountants, not to mention three divorces, two from slutty, bloodsucking actresses. Also, in good times and bad, for better and for worse, he lived big, tipped big, and bet big. Johnny lowered his voice. “That place is puttin’ you through Juilliard, with enough left over to send your sisters anywhere they want to go, too. That’s how great it’s done.”

  She nodded blankly. “It’s not just…well, them. You know a lot of, y’know. People. Those pictures—”

  “Honey, I’ve been in the public eye since I was your age. Do you realize how many times a day I get asked to pose for a picture with someone I barely met?”

  She looked him straight in the eye.

  He nodded. All right. Sure, he knew people. “I’m not going to lie to you, though. I’ve performed in places where I didn’t want to know any more than I had to know about the people in charge. Last I checked, in America, it’s still not a crime to know a person.”

  He took a sip of his coffee. Lisa clutched her napkin in her fist and held it over her mouth. Her brow was furrowed in what Johnny hoped was only confusion.

  “C’mon, sweetheart,” he said, louder now, dialing up the charm. “Think about it. I’m a nightclub singer. Who do you think owns nightclubs?”

  That wasn’t an original line. He’d gotten it from that finocchio actor, Ollie Smith-Christmas—Sir Oliver now, a grand old guy—who’d said it to get the reporters off Johnny’s ass during the rehearsals for Jimmy Shea’s inaugural ball. Lisa gave no indication that she’d heard it before. Johnny put up his hands in mock surrender, to indicate the pragmatics of his situation. What else could he have done? Nothing. What choice had he had? None.

  She put down her napkin. With her other hand, she pulled her hair from her face. A nervous gesture, Johnny thought at first, until he saw a smile start to spread across her face.

  He’d satisfied her, and it had the added benefit of being the truth.

  She leaned across the table and kissed him on the cheek.

  He was flooded with regret for all the moments he’d missed in the lives of his children. Lisa was a start. He had a ways to go with Angie and Trina. What Margot Ashton and Annie McGowan had done (much worse than breaking his heart or making off with his money) was drive a wedge between him and his family. He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

  “I love you, angel,” he said.

  “Shh,” Lisa said, but she kept on smiling.

  After dinner, Johnny dropped her off at her apartment and went out for a night on the town. He knew enough to spend it entirely in watering holes and clubs where he had friends who could be counted on to keep the public and the reporters away, who knew not to talk about his recent problems in Nevada or the collateral complaints in New York about naming him grand marshal. For a few blessed hours, he’d had a break from all that.

  The night stretched out, as such nights do. He’d had various chances to strike something up with various broads. But it became clear to him that he’d be facing the challenges of the next day on no sleep, and he opted to take a pass on the pussy. A man learns things. When he found himself facing the harsh light of morning in the back of a limo, alone, heading uptown to his suite at the Plaza Hotel, he was actually proud of himself.

  Johnny shaved and showered and felt neither drunk nor hungover. He was riding high. When he was a boy, if somebody had told him that one day he’d make records and movies, that he’d make girls scream and men jealous, he wouldn’t have been shocked. He was that kind of a kid: big balls, big dreams, and a mother who told him he could do anything he put his mind to. If he’d been told he’d help get a president elected and then throw the greatest inaugural ball in history, Johnny would have believed that, too—so long
as he got the whole story, which was that after giving Jimmy Shea his blood, sweat, and tears (not to mention more than a few lady friends), the ungrateful narrowback cut Johnny off because he’s Italian. Because the cunt-happy hypocrite wanted to hide the fact that his old man was a bootlegger and did what he had to do to get ahead in America. Because it wasn’t enough to go to Princeton and become an All-American diver and meet and marry an heiress. He had to pretend that he’d come from people like that. All too predictable.

  But grand marshal of the Columbus Day Parade, right up Fifth Avenue? That Johnny could have never imagined, not in a million years. It was the kind of honor that usually went to pezzonovanti like Fiorello La Guardia, Al Smith, or the pope. Johnny had marched in this thing while he was still in short pants, a little Italian flag in one fist, a little American one in the other. He’d played drums in his high school band and marched all the way from St. Patrick’s Cathedral to Seventy-ninth Street without taking his eyes off of Annamaria DiGregorio’s heart-shaped, cheerleader-skirted ass. And the year he’d had his first big hit with the Les Halley Band, he’d ridden on a float, clutching an oversize prop microphone.

  Now this. Grand Marshal John Fontane.

  When the hotel sent up his breakfast along with complimentary copies of the morning newspapers, though, Johnny’s elation came to a rude end. The holier-than-thou coglioni who were planning to stage some cockamamie protest along the parade route had gotten themselves—and Johnny—on the goddamned front page.

  “Slow news day,” Johnny muttered. He felt like he’d taken a hard right cross to the gut.

  “What’s that, sir?” The waiter was finished setting up.

  Sources said Fontane and a much younger woman were seen canoodling at a posh uptown eatery known to be frequented by underworld figures.

  Johnny sat heavily down on the edge of his still-made bed. His ears were getting hot. “I said thanks, kid.”

  Fontane was overheard bragging to his date about performing in nightclubs with ties to organized crime.

  Johnny tossed the papers aside and closed his eyes.

  “There’s also this, sir.” The waiter handed him a phone message from Ginny. Please call.

  The tip Johnny gave was lavish even by his standards. It still meant something to be Johnny Fontane. None of this garbage was going to get to him. No chance.

  The foolish young punk that Johnny used to be would have called Ginny back and screamed at her for wanting to deny him the pleasure of having Lisa march beside him in the parade. (What else could she be calling about? She had a sixth sense for everything bad that happened to him.) Then he’d have slammed down the receiver and ripped the phone from the wall. He’d have smashed dishes against the walls, kicked in the TV. And then? He’d have started plotting revenge on those reporters. Sources said? Canoodling? Goddamn. Nightclubs with ties to organized crime. Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn. He’d kill them.

  Believe it: Johnny still had those impulses. In mother-fucking spades.

  But.

  Deep breath.

  He was sweating from the effort of what he wasn’t doing.

  Another deep breath.

  The same breathing regimen he used before recording sessions.

  He wasn’t some punk anymore. He was fifty-two jam-packed years old. His public looked to him as someone who’d fought and loved and lost and lived to tell about it, sing about it, on records that kept right on spinning in battered jukeboxes and lonely living rooms all around the world. Life had given him his share of raw deals, and he’d endured. Pain left a mark on him, but what could a man expect? He was just a regular Joe—like you, pally, only more so.

  Breathe.

  Johnny could feel his rage subsiding. He looked at his omelet cooling on the plate. He poked at it with a coffee stirrer. He wasn’t hungry. The early signs of a hangover were asserting themselves. He downed a small fistful of aspirin, chased it with a milky-white slug of antacid, and lit up a menthol cigarette. Both the aspirin and the antacid came from very large bottles.

  It was the middle of the night in L.A., too early to call Ginny back. If he didn’t talk to her before the parade, how was that his fault? Blame the time zones. Blame the bigness of America.

  And it was still more than two hours before his appointment with Michael Corleone.

  He grabbed the satchel of movie scripts he’d brought with him from California and sprawled across the suite’s long red sofa.

  By rights, this should have been one of the great days of his life. But instead of savoring it, Johnny Fontane was looking for redemption somewhere in a two-foot-high stack of screenplays and trying not to think too much about the day he had before him. He didn’t want to think about what to say to Michael Corleone. Johnny was a performer; he’d do better if he just let a thing like that happen. It was a business meeting, but Johnny’s business was show. Same for the parade, right?

  He began to guzzle coffee and skim movie scripts, looking for a vehicle that would be good for his image. To his dismay (but not his surprise), most of the scripts came from people who wanted him to play a glamorous criminal—even though it was a kind of role he’d done only once, in a lighter-than-air musical. Two different pictures, in fact, were about the late Hyman Roth—one a straightforward biographical picture, the other about a character patterned on Roth. Both wanted Johnny for the lead, as if the audience would accept a mook like him as a ruthless Jew mastermind. He tossed them both into the trash.

  Johnny sifted through the other scripts, making notes about good parts not intended for him but that he thought he could play. The crusading cop, for whom it’s now personal. The gun for hire who wins over the schoolmarm by saving the town from a fellow Union cavalry veteran, a swarthy outlaw named Covelli ( J. Fontane? someone had scrawled on page 1). The retarded gardener who rises up at the end and kills the corrupt, wife-beating senator (who is revealed to be the gardener’s own brother). Johnny’s agent said nobody in Hollywood would cast him in roles like that right now. Yes, he had his own production company, but he still needed help to get a picture made and more help yet to get it distributed. That’s leaving aside whether Mr. and Mrs. America would fork over their hard-earned cash to see it. These days, the only people who went to the movies were teenagers who needed a place to sit in the dark and feel each other up. To get a bigger crowd than that, you had to give the people a big spectacle they couldn’t see on TV or else put out pictures that were made quickly and cheaply, featuring big stars in the same kind of roles they’d played a hundred times before. As a wise man once said, if the crowds don’t show up, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

  That was the conventional wisdom, anyway.

  But if Johnny Fontane had been a big believer in the conventional wisdom, he’d probably still be back in the old neighborhood, waiting tables or selling shirts or walking a beat.

  He stared at the scripts. Johnny was sure he could play a hero, given the right epic. Maybe not Jesus or King Arthur, but he could be as good as the next guy commanding an army in a just war or saving orphans from the ravages of the Great Chicago Fire—something along those lines. He could also do a great job in something classy but not too artsy, playing the little guy who’s down on his luck and gets one last shot at redemption, something that could earn Johnny good notices from the critics and maybe make a buck or two.

  There were ways of getting the big shots in Hollywood to think differently.

  But of course resorting to those tactics, calling in those favors, was what had gotten Johnny into the mess he was in now.

  Johnny did believe what he’d told Lisa, every word of it. At the same time, it was also true that he’d never asked his godfather precisely what he meant when he said he was going to make Jack Woltz an offer he couldn’t refuse. Woltz, then as now the head of Woltz International Pictures, had vowed that over his dead body would Johnny get that part. There were wild rumors about why Woltz changed his mind, but Johnny dismissed them, then more or less forgot all about them. Joh
nny took the part, nailed the shit out of it, took his on-screen beating, and then took home the Oscar. When the Corleones bankrolled Johnny’s movie production company, he didn’t ask questions. When there were rumors that the Chicago outfit had a stake in his record label, Johnny’s accountants asked him if he really wanted to know what there was to know about that. He’d just laughed—laughed—and walked out of the office.

  Still, that didn’t mean that any of these people were gangsters.

  To get big things done, big people do things John Q. Public never sees. The inside dope on how the Plaza Hotel came to be would probably make your toes curl. Same with New York City itself. America? Stolen. Same with every great empire. If the thieves responsible are smart enough to build an organization around themselves and go to the trouble of sewing a flag, they go into the history books as heroes.

  Johnny looked at his watch. Still too early to call. Much as he hated to give up on the idea of sharing this honor with his daughter, he was having second thoughts.

  He picked up the next script from the pile. The Discovery of America. It was twice as long as most of the others: one of those big epics. For a few pages, he wondered if he could play Columbus, then he pitched it aside and looked for something that had a ghost of a chance. He pulled out a script called Trimalchio Rex. What caught Johnny’s eye was the Italian name of the screenwriter, Sergio Lupo. Two pages in, through no fault of the screenplay itself, sleep fell on Johnny Fontane like a silk sheet.

  He drifted off thinking Ginny was probably right, that she’d always been right, that nothing had been perfect in his life since the summer they were falling in love. His coffee cup slipped from his hand and hit the floor. It took a tiny chip out of the thing. Only at a joint like the Plaza could it qualify as broken.