The Godfather's Revenge Page 16

  “At Juilliard,” Michael said. “So I hear. Very impressive.”

  “How’s Rita?” Johnny said.

  At the sound of her name, Michael’s features softened. “She’s doing well,” he said. “She says hello.”

  “Look at this guy!” Johnny said to Tom Hagen, then turned back to Michael. “You’re crazy about her, aren’t you? I can tell. Don’t shit a shitter, pally.”

  Michael, blushing slightly, raised his arms in resignation. What can a man do?

  “I knew it,” Johnny said. “I told you, didn’t I? Those dancer’s legs, and not a phony bone in her body. What a great girl she is. I’m happy for you.”

  Marguerite Duvall owed much of her career to Johnny Fontane. When he’d met her, she was just another dancer in a classy nude review, a wholesome, high-kicking French kid who really liked to fuck. Johnny connected her with a singing coach and some other good people to know. Soon she had her own lounge act at the Kasbah. That led to a supporting role as the French madam in the Broadway show Cattle Call. Critics hated it, but the burning-bordello scene was a showstopper, and, to the surprise of the New York theater snobs, she walked off with a Tony Award. Johnny had also included her in some of his movies and on the bill at the inaugural ball, among much bigger stars. She was not sleeping with Jimmy Shea at the time; that had come earlier. Over the years, Johnny had introduced Rita to several of his pals. Squares wouldn’t understand, but in Johnny’s experience, sleeping with the same woman bonded pals closer together.

  Michael Corleone motioned for Johnny to have a seat on the sofa. Michael sat in a club chair beside him. Both were covered in the softest, finest Italian leather. Hagen perched on a chrome stool beside the bar.

  “You really think your father would have been proud of me?” Johnny asked.

  “I do,” Michael said. “When I was a boy, he took me to that parade many times. He’d always point out the big shots marching by and made a point of telling me that in America you can be anything you want to be. Christopher Columbus came here and found a place big enough to stage the biggest dreams. A new world.”

  “Christopher Columbus never set foot here,” Johnny blurted. “To be technical about it. But, uh, I see your point, which as a matter of fact I happen to agree with you about.”

  Hagen sighed heavily.

  “My father’s point,” Michael said.

  “No disrespect,” Johnny murmured.

  “So how can I help you, John? On your big day.”

  “I guess you saw the newspapers, huh?” Johnny said. He stared into the eyes of the son of his godfather. Michael Corleone had gone as still and cold as the marble floor beneath their feet. “It wasn’t…what I mean to say is, none of it…that those bloodsuckers…y’know? You do know. Right, Mike? What they don’t make up, they twist around, and…”

  Michael did not even blink.

  Johnny lowered his head. He started nodding and kept at it awhile. “I want to say,” he said, “that I take full responsibility for everything. I’ve made mistakes, plenty of ’em, especially with money. You and your family, my godfather…you’ve been great sources of…you could really call it wisdom. That includes you, Tom. I’ve had opportunities that a guy like me…”

  He finally looked up.

  “The long and the short of it,” Johnny said, “is this. I need to sell my share in your…in the casino out in Tahoe before I’m forced to do it. That may not come to pass, and, to be honest with you, I could use the dough this investment generates every month, but I’ll make some quick cash by selling. What I’m trying to say is, after all is said and done, I think it’s best for all parties involved if…if it looks like it’s my decision. To sell.”

  Michael rubbed his index and middle fingers back and forth across his lips. To Fontane, it might as well have been the report of a pistol.

  “I’m confused,” Michael said. “You’re asking my permission to sell your share of the Castle in the Clouds?”

  Fontane shrugged.

  “It’s an investment, John, just like any of your others. It’s just business, I assure you.”

  “Because if you want, out of loyalty to you and your family, I’ll fight those cowboy bastards on the Gaming—”

  “That’s entirely up to you, John.”

  Johnny hadn’t expected this response. He was the kind of man who worked things out by talking and doing, and he was facing down a man who was his polar opposite. Johnny scooted forward on the sofa and kept talking.

  “I’ll be honest with you. I tried to see if Jimmy Shea would pull some strings for me there. With the Gaming Commission, but—”

  “You went to them first?”

  “I didn’t go to them at all, Mike. Those ungrateful Irish fucks—no offense, Tom—but damn their eyes, y’know?”

  Hagen held up his hands to indicate no offense had been taken.

  “After all the hard work I did for them,” Johnny said, “this is the first and only thing I asked for.”

  “So I’m Plan B. Coming to me.”

  “No. God, no.” Fontane could feel himself redden. “Plan A was to keep my share, any way I could. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to go to you when the Gaming Commission has an issue with me being associated with you in the first place. If I handled it in a way that was less than perfect, Mike, from my heart, I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you about it, but you weren’t available, which Tom can vouch for. I had commitments, too. This was the first time it was possible for us to talk face-to-face.”

  Michael shrugged in concession—again that spooky echo of Vito.

  “My fear,” Johnny said, “is that if I don’t sell, they’ll drag this out just to see their names in the papers. These guys are politicians. They think that if they repeat a lie loud enough and often enough the public will believe it. And the newspapers, they print the accusations on page one, but the day it turns out it’s all a bunch of nothing, just watch: they’ll run a little mention next to the funny pages. The problem, as I see it, is that if I do sell, it puts an end to the investigation but it also looks like I’m telling the bastards that the lies they’re spreading are true. I have to think everyone will forget about it once it’s out of the headlines. But there’s the risk that because it looks like I admitted to something, they’ll keep on investigating and—”

  Michael closed his eyes and held up his hand to halt. Johnny did. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “Forgive me,” Michael said, “but there’s something I don’t understand.” Most people, when discussing something they don’t understand, will look at the ceiling or off in the distance. Michael stared right at Johnny. “Money’s an issue with you? How is that possible?”

  Johnny frowned. “How’s it possible? I got overhead like you can’t believe. My last concert tour, we had to take a forty-piece orchestra on the road, which means not just meals and hotels but also trucks, crew, a traveling secretary, even—get this, Tom—a lawyer. Just what we paid every night for the Teamsters who stood around watching other Teamsters work—it’d blow your mind. Blow it. The shows drew great, and—knock wood—my records keep selling, but a lot of people wet their beaks on the way from each concert ticket or record album I sell to any sort of check that comes my way. Then there’s taxes. Uncle Sugar’d be half as sweet if it wasn’t for yours truly. Out of what’s left, I’ve got to pay the expenses on the house in Palm Springs plus the one in Vegas. I’ve got all the various bills for my kids—a college education ain’t cheap, by the way—which I can afford, but affording it is expensive. Then there’s being in the public eye. Fame doesn’t just bring money in. Fame needs to be fed, which means managers, publicists, security, a valet, clothes, cars, gifts, what have you, not to mention the way you’re a target for every supposedly good cause under the sun. Then toss in an accountant who disappeared on me. On top of which, imagine taking everything that’s a challenge with one ex-wife like you got, huh? And multiply it times three. Still, I’m not complaining. Believe me, I’m blessed. In
the scheme of things, things are so jake they’re Jacob. But you asked.”

  Michael and Tom exchanged a look. “Disappeared?” Michael said.

  “That guy? Somewhere in the tropics sipping mai tais, I bet, and—”

  “You bet?” Hagen said.

  Johnny turned around. “Excuse me? Was I talking to you?”

  Tom lit a fresh cigarette. “How much would you say your gambling debts were last year, Johnny?”

  “Because I wasn’t aware that I was talking to you.”

  Johnny turned back to face Michael, whose face had once again gone cold.

  “I see your point, counselor,” Johnny said. “But I’m way ahead of you. I’ve cut back on all that. For a while there, everything I touched was charmed, including my efforts on behalf of our friend the president, but also the records and pictures I was making, my investments, so on and so forth. When a fella’s on a roll like that, it stands to reason he’d want to try his luck at the track or playing hunches on various ball games and fights. When my luck started going south, I cut back on risks like that. Not that it’s any of your business, but you asked.”

  Michael offered Johnny a cigarette. Johnny quit a year earlier on the advice of his doctor. The pipes. He took one anyway.

  “The reason Tom and I were curious about your financial situation,” Michael said, lighting up, “was that if you’re expecting to sell your portion of the Tahoe property, it might not provide the return you’re looking for. In fact, you’re not going to recoup your initial investment or anything close to it.”

  “You’re joking, right? That joint’s a goddamned gold mine. A mint.”

  “John, this can’t be the first time you’ve noticed that the value of a privately held business sometimes has little to do with the company’s revenue stream.” Michael flicked his ash in a floor ashtray and gave his father’s powerless to do anything shrug. “With publicly traded stocks, it’s even worse.” He laughed. “Now, there’s a racket, don’t you think? There’s not a trader on Wall Street who could survive the kind of investigation you’re under in Nevada, John.”

  Fontane looked tortured by everything he wasn’t saying. He couldn’t remember ever smoking a cigarette any faster. “Not anything close to my initial investment?” Johnny finally managed to say. “It’s hard for me to believe that—”

  “It’s a fairly new venture,” Michael said. “New ventures have various expenses older ones don’t. Then there’s also the bad publicity, the lawyers’ fees. So no.” He looked at Hagen. “Nothing close.”

  Johnny nodded, resigned. His whole body seemed to shrink.

  Tom Hagen stifled a laugh.

  Johnny reached into his coat pocket for the aspirin bottle he’d taken from his daughter, refused Michael’s offer of a glass of water, shook out four pills, and dry-swallowed them. “I would,” he said, “take another cigarette, though. If you have one.”

  Michael tossed Johnny the pack. “With my compliments,” he said. “But before you go, there’s something else I need you to understand,” Michael said. “Your share in the Castle in the Clouds is, as I’ve said, your business. But our share in your movie company? That,” Michael said, “is mine.”

  He did not need to mention that it was—in fact if not entirely on paper—a majority share.

  Johnny frowned. “I don’t know why you’d be unhappy about that. Nearly every picture we’ve put out the last few years—well, they aren’t going to win any awards. But they do all right by the standards of today. Last year was the worst year for Hollywood productions in fifty years. With television and everything, I don’t know if you’re ever again going to see a motion picture business like what you saw back in the glory days.”

  Michael and Hagen exchanged a look.

  “I’m not talking about profit, John.” Michael smiled. This smile matched the look in his eyes perfectly. Both belonged to a man about to say checkmate. “I’m talking about control.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “I’ll bite,” Johnny Fontane finally said. “Control of what?”

  At first, Michael Corleone didn’t answer. He was tempted to say dreams. Didn’t people sometimes call the movie studios dream factories? Other people’s dreams. Talking about dreams wasn’t something he was up to. Control of everything, a younger version of himself might have said. But life had long ago humbled him too much for that.

  “Let me ask you this,” Michael said. “When was the last time you had a meeting with Jack Woltz?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Johnny said. “Him?” He sized up Michael’s face and then looked over at Tom Hagen, then sighed, resigned. “Woltz,” Johnny said. “Well, Hollywood’s a small town. I see him at events, but it’s been a long time since I did anything with his studio. If there was a project we helped produce, it wasn’t one I, personally, had anything to do with.”

  “We’ve done some research,” Hagen said. “There are two kinds of pictures that seem to be making money now. One is the sort that your company, to your credit, has been doing—star vehicles with responsible budgets. The other kind, though, are the big spectacles. With the, uh, anamorphic…the—”

  “CinemaScope,” Johnny said.

  “Right. CinemaScope. The thinking here is—correct me if I’m wrong—that these are event movies. People will turn off the TV and go see them.”

  Fontane nodded. “That’s the thinking. But it’s Hollywood, so don’t be surprised when what everybody’s thinking today is what nobody remembers tomorrow.”

  “Be that as it may,” Tom said. “You’re in a position to make both kinds of pictures, John, but you don’t. All we see are those small ones.”

  “Right, because you need much more involvement from a studio to make epics like that,” Johnny said. “Money’s only part of it. It’s more because of all the people involved, the locations, the sets—everything. The kind of control you’re talking about? That’s exactly what you have to give up to put together something on such a big scale. Don’t forget, too, by the way, that spectacles can make you a king’s ransom, but they can lose just as much. The kind of projects we’ve been doing are just better bets.”

  “Exactly,” Michael said. “Bets. In all your unlucky trips to the racetrack, did you ever see anyone get ahead who played nothing but the favorites?”

  “No, you’re right,” Johnny said. “You’re speaking my language here. To be honest with you, I always thought of you gentlemen as different. Everything you have a business interest in—or your father before you, may he rest in peace—seems like a sure thing.”

  “There’s a world of difference,” Michael said, “between a favorite and a sure thing.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Johnny said. “You know, your timing’s perfect on this. I was just reading some scripts this morning and thinking along these same lines. For example, there was a great one I read about a Roman slave. Big story. Huge. Or Columbus. There’s never really been a great movie done about Columbus. But here’s what I need help understanding. Even if it was possible to develop a project like that with my company, our company, whichever, why would you, would we, want to work with Jack Woltz? The man’s almost eighty years old and oobatz. He brags at screenings that he’s got a magic bladder, that he can tell how much money a movie’s going to make by how often he’s got to get up and go piss. The less, the better, obviously, but this is the last guy in the industry I’d want to be making a big, long, expensive movie with. Not to mention that Woltz International ain’t exactly the hottest studio in town.” Johnny turned to face Tom. “In your research, Tom, you probably came across that.”

  “We have a relationship with Mr. Woltz,” Michael said. “Whenever possible, I prefer doing business with people I’ve done business with before. The trust is already established.”

  Hagen nodded, slowly, in corroboration.

  Also, Woltz had a relationship with the Sheas and could probably still get in to see them on Michael’s behalf. And he could get the Corleones at the table with the Russian Jews who we
re the secret power behind everything in California. Even the Los Angeles and San Francisco Families essentially answered to them. Woltz’s lawyer, a man named Ben Tamarkin, was, for the Jewish syndicate there, a more powerful version of what Tom was for the Corleone Family.

  “The kind of business venture I’m interested in building here,” Michael said, “is more complicated than just getting one picture made. Increasingly, movies are being filmed out of the country, and we can help with that. People we know in Italy, for example, who can keep the cost of shooting on location to a minimum. Also, the studios had to sell off their distribution companies, but we can help with that, too. The big, downtown movie theaters are struggling because of the crime in the inner cities, but we have interests in shopping malls in the suburbs, and nearly all of them have movie theaters in them.”

  “With all due respect,” Johnny said. “That’s a problem. Nobody wants to see a spectacle on one of those little screens out in East Jesus.”

  “They do if they already live in East Jesus,” Michael said. “If the reason they moved to East Jesus in the first place was to get away from the problems of the modern city. The screen may be a little smaller, but it’s new, it’s clean, it’s safe, there’s plenty of free parking, and on the way in or out you can duck into a store and buy shoes. It’s a vertically integrated business, or rather several businesses, completely separate from one another, working out of mutual interest. You’re not going to have any of the problems you had with the casino, because first of all Hollywood, as you know, is hardly regulated at all, at least in comparison with something like legalized gambling. And, second, because we’re going to help you. Tom will work with you. When the time is right—and I expect that will be very soon—he’ll go with you to meet with Mr. Woltz.”

  Johnny looked over at Tom.

  Tom shrugged. “The trust is already established.”

  MICHAEL CORLEONE STOOD BY HIS KITCHEN WINDOW, peeling an orange and looking down at Johnny Fontane as he crossed the courtyard.