Omerta - Mario Puzo [124]
“We will plant this in our garden. So when we have a child, he will have happy memories too.”
One year later, Astorre and Rosie celebrated the birth of their son, Raymonde Zeno. And when it came time to baptize him, they invited Astorre’s family to join them at the Church of Saint Sebastian.
After Father Del Vecchio had finished, Valerius, as the eldest of the Aprile children, lifted a glass of wine and made a toast. “May you all thrive and live joyfully. And may your son grow up with the passion of Sicily and the romance of America beating in his heart.”
Marcantonio lifted his glass and added, “And if he ever wants to be on a sitcom, you know who to call.”
Now that the Aprile banks were so profitable, Marcantonio had established a twenty-million-dollar line of credit to develop his own dramatic properties. He and Valerius were working together on a project based on their father’s FBI files. Nicole thought it was a terrible idea, but they all agreed that the Don would have appreciated the idea of receiving large sums of money for dramatizing the legend of his crimes.
“Alleged crimes,” Nicole added.
Astorre wondered why anyone still cared. The old Mafia was dead. The great Dons had accomplished their goals and blended gracefully into society, as the best criminals always do. The few pretenders who remained were a disappointing assortment of dim, second-class felons and impotent thugs. Why would anyone want to bother with the rackets when it was much easier to steal millions by starting your own company and selling shares to the public?
“Hey Astorre, do you think you could be our special consultant on the movie?” Marcantonio asked. “We want to make sure it’s as authentic as possible.”
“Sure,” Astorre said, smiling. “I’ll have my agent get back to you.”
Later that night, in bed, Rosie turned to Astorre. “Do you think you’ll ever want to go back?”
“Where?” Astorre asked. “To New York? To America?”
“You know,” Rosie said hesitantly. “To your old life.”
“This is where I belong, with you, here.”
“Good,” Rosie said. “But what about the baby? Shouldn’t he have the chance to experience everything America has to offer?”
Astorre pictured Raymonde, running through the hills of the country, eating olives from barrels, hearing tales of the great dons and the Sicily of old. He looked forward to telling his son those stories. And yet he knew that those myths would not be enough.
One day his son would go to America, a land of vengeance, mercy, and magnificent possibility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Very special thanks to Carol Gino; my literary agents, Candida Donadio and Neil Olson; my attorneys, Bert Fields and Arthur Altman; my brother, Anthony Cleri; my editor at Random House, Jonathan Karp; and my children and grandchildren.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARIO PUZO was born in New York and, following military service in World War II, attended New York’s New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His bestselling novel The Godfather was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, The Dark Arena (1955) and The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965). In 1978, he published Fools Die, followed by The Sicilian (1984), The Fourth K (1991), and the second installment in his Mafia trilogy, The Last Don (1996), which became an international bestseller and the highest-rated TV miniseries of 1997. Mario Puzo also wrote many screenplays, including Earthquake, Superman, and all three Godfather movies, for which he received two Academy Awards. He died in July 1999 at his home on Long Island, New York, at the age of seventy-eight.
ALSO BY MARIO PUZO
F I C T I O N
The Dark Arena
The Fortunate Pilgrim
The Godfather
Fools Die
The Sicilian
The Fourth K
The Last Don
N O N F I C T I O N
The Godfather Papers
Inside Las Vegas
C H I L D R E N ’ S BOOKS
The Runaway Summer of Davie Shaw
Copyright © 2000 by Mario Puzo
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American