The Last Don - Mario Puzo [170]
But David Redfellow was pleased also by what he had done on his own. A complete transformation of character. He acquired Italian citizenship, an Italian wife, Italian children, and the standard Italian mistress as well as an honorary doctorate (cost, two million) from an Italian university. He wore Armani suits, spent an hour every week at his barber, acquired a circle of all-male cronies at his coffee bar (which he bought), and entered politics as advisor to the cabinet and the prime minister. Still, once a year he made his pilgrimage to Quogue to fulfill any wishes of his mentor, Don Clericuzio. So this special summons filled him with alarm.
Dinner was waiting for him at the Quogue mansion when he arrived, and Rose Marie had outdone herself because Redfellow was always rapturous about the restaurants of Rome. Assembled to honor him was the entire Clericuzio clan: the Don himself; his sons, Giorgio, Petie, and Vincent; his grandson, Dante; and Pippi and Cross De Lena.
It was a hero’s welcome. David Redfellow, the college-dropout drug king, the louche dresser with an earring in his ear, the hyena riding the kills of sex, had transformed himself into a pillar of society. They were proud of him. Even more, Don Clericuzio felt he was in Redfellow’s debt. For it was Redfellow who had taught him a great lesson in morality.
In his early days Don Clericuzio had suffered a strange sentimentality. He had believed that the forces of law could not be generally corrupted in the matter of drugs.
David Redfellow was a twenty-year-old college student in 1960 when he first started dealing drugs, not for profit but simply so he and his friends could have a steady cheap supply. An amateur endeavor, just cocaine and marijuana. In a year it had grown so big he and his classmate partners owned a small plane that brought goods over the Mexican and South American borders. Quite naturally they soon ran afoul of the law, and that was where David first showed his genius. The six-man partnership was earning vast amounts of money, and David Redfellow laid on such massive bribes that he soon had on his payroll a roster of sheriffs, district attorneys, judges, and hundreds of police along the Eastern seaboard.
He always claimed it was quite simple. You learned the official’s yearly salary and offered him five times that amount.
But then the cartel of Colombians appeared on the scene, wilder than the wildest of the Old West movie Indians, not just taking scalps but whole heads. Four of Redfellow’s partners were killed, and Redfellow made contact with the Clericuzio Family and asked for protection, offering 50 percent of his profits.
Petie Clericuzio and a crew of soldiers from the Bronx Enclave became his bodyguards, and this arrangement lasted until the Don exiled Redfellow to Italy in 1965. The drug business had become too dangerous.
Now, gathered together over dinner, they congratulated the Don on the wisdom of his decision many years before. Dante and Cross heard the story of Redfellow for the first time. Redfellow was a good storyteller and he praised Petie to the skies. “What a fighter,” he said. “If it wasn’t for him I would never have lived to go to Sicily.” He turned to Dante and Cross and said to them, “It was the day you both were christened. I remember you both never flinched when they almost drowned you in Holy Water. I never dreamed that someday we would be doing business together, as grown men.”
Don Clericuzio said drily, “You will not be doing business with them, you will do business only with me and Giorgio. If you need help you can call on Pippi De Lena. I have decided to go on with the business I spoke to you about. Giorgio will tell you why.”
Giorgio told David the latest developments, that Eli Marrion was dead and Bobby Bantz had taken over the Studio, that he had taken away all the points Cross owned in Messalina, and returned his money with interest.
Redfellow enjoyed that story. “He is a very clever man. He knows you will not go to court so he takes away your money. That’s good business.”
Dante was drinking