Omerta - Mario Puzo [45]
“That’s an easy choice,” Valerius said. “Just sell the banks. The win-win.”
Marcantonio said, “We’re not Sicilians; we don’t want to throw everything away for the sake of vengeance.”
“We sell the banks and we’re throwing away our future,” Nicole said calmly. “Marc, someday you’d like your own network. Val, with big political donations you could become an ambassador or a secretary of defense. Astorre, you could sing with the Rolling Stones.” She smiled at him. “OK,that’s a little far-fetched,” she said, changing her tone. “Forget the jokes. Is killing our father nothing to us? Do we reward them for murder? I think we should help Astorre as much as we can.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” Valerius said.
“Yes,” Nicole said quietly.
Astorre said to them gently, “Your father taught me that you can’t let other men impose their will on you or life’s not worth living. Val, that’s what war is, right?”
“War is a lose-lose decision,” Nicole said sharply.
Valerius showed his irritation. “No matter what the liberals say, war is a win-lose situation. You are much better off to win a war. Losing is an unthinkable horror.”
“Your father had a past,” Astorre said. “That past now has to be reckoned with by all of us. So now I ask you for your help again. Remember, I am under your father’s orders, and my job is to protect the family, which means holding on to the banks.”
Valerius said, “I’ll have some information for you within a month.”
Astorre said, “Marc?”
Marcantonio said, “I’ll get to work on that program right away. Let’s say two months, three.”
Astorre looked at Nicole. “Nicole, have you completed the analysis of the FBI file on your father?”
“No, not yet.” She seemed upset. “Shouldn’t we get Cilke’s help on this?”
Astorre smiled. “Cilke is one of my suspects,” he said. “When I have all the information we can decide what to do.”
In a month Valerius came through with some informationunexpected, unwelcome. Through his CIA contacts, he had learned the truth about Inzio Tulippa. He had contacts in Sicily, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. He even had a relationship with the Corleonesi in Sicily and was more than their equal.
According to Valerius, it was Tulippa who was financing certain nuclear-research labs in South America. Tulippa who was desperately trying to set up a huge fund in America to buy equipment and material. Who, in his dreams of grandeur, wanted to possess an awful weapon of defense against the authorities if worse ever came to worst. It therefore followed that Timmona Portella was a front for Tulippa. This was happy news for Astorre. This was another player in the game, another front on which to have to fight.
“Is what Tulippa plans possible?” Astorre asked.
“He certainly thinks it is,” Valerius said. “And he has the protection of government officials where he’s located the labs.”
“Thanks, Val,” Astorre said, patting his cousin on the shoulder affectionately.
“Sure,” Valerius said. “But that’s all the help you get from me.”
It took six weeks for Marcantonio to research the network profile on Kurt Cilke. A huge file of information was given to Astorre by Marcantonio, hand to hand. Astorre kept it for twenty-four hours and returned it.
It was only Nicole who worried him. She’d lent him a copy of the FBI file on Don Aprile, but there was a whole section that was completely blacked out. When he questioned her about this she said, “That’s how I received it.”
Astorre had studied the document carefully. The blacked-out section seemed to be about the period of time when he was only two years old. “That’s OK,” he told Nicole. “It’s too long ago to be important.”
Now Astorre could no longer be put off. He had enough information