The Last Don - Mario Puzo [172]
Giorgio agreed.
Cross said laughing, “Dante, neither one of us can run a movie studio. We’re not ruthless enough.”
Pippi studied all of them. He was good at scenting danger. That’s why he had lived so long. But this he couldn’t figure out. Maybe the Don was just getting old.
Petie drove Redfellow back to Kennedy Airport where his private jet waited. Cross and Pippi had used a chartered jet from Vegas. Don Clericuzio absolutely forbade the owning of a jet by the Xanadu or any of his enterprises.
Cross drove their rented car to the airport. During the drive, Pippi said to Cross, “I’m going to spend some time in New York City. I’ll just keep the car when we get to the airport.”
Cross saw that his father was worried. “I didn’t do well in there,” he said.
“You were OK,” Pippi said. “But the Don was right. You can’t let anybody screw you twice.”
When they arrived at Kennedy, Cross got out and Pippi slid across the seat to get behind the wheel. Through the open window, they shook hands. In that moment Pippi looked up at his son’s handsome face and felt an enormous wave of affection. He tried to smile as he slapped Cross gently on the cheek and said, “Be careful.”
“Of what?” Cross asked, his dark eyes searching his father’s.
“Everything,” Pippi said. Then, startling Cross, he said, “Maybe I should have let you go with your mother but I was selfish. I needed you around.”
Cross watched his father drive away and for the first time he realized how much his father worried about him, how much his father loved him.
CHAPTER 15
MUCH TO HIS own dismay, Pippi De Lena decided to get married, not for love but for companionship. True, he had Cross, he had the cronies at the Xanadu Hotel, he had the Clericuzio Family and a vast network of relatives. True, he had three mistresses and he ate with good and sincere appetite; he enjoyed his golf and was down to a ten handicap, and he still loved to dance. But as the Don would say, he could go dancing to his coffin.
So in his late fifties, robust in health, sanguine in temperament, rich, semiretired, he longed for a settled home life and perhaps a new batch of kids. Why not? The idea appealed to him more and more. Surprisingly, he yearned to be a father again. It would be fun to raise a daughter, he had loved Claudia as a child, though they no longer spoke. She had been so cunning and so forthright at the same time, and she had made her way in the world as a successful screenplay writer. And who knows, maybe someday they would make up. In some ways she was as stubborn as he was, so he under-stood her and he admired the way she stood up for what she believed in.
Cross had lost the gamble he had taken in the movie business, but one way or another his future was assured. He still had the Xanadu and the Don would help him recover from the risk he had taken with his new venture. He was a good kid, but he was young and the young must take risks. That’s what life was all about.
After dropping off Cross at the airport, Pippi drove to New York City to spend a few days with his East Coast mistress. She was a good-looking brunette, a legal secretary with a sharp New York wit, and a great dancer. True, she had a tongue that lashed out, she loved to spend money, she would be an expensive wife. But she was too old, over forty-five. And she was too independent, a great quality for a mistress but not for the kind of marriage that Pippi would demand.
It was a pleasurable weekend with her, though she spent half the Sunday reading the Times. They ate in the finest restaurants, went dancing in the nightclubs, and had great sex in her apartment. But Pippi needed something more placid.
Pippi flew to Chicago. His mistress there was the sexual equivalent of that brawling city. She drank a little too much, she partied too exuberantly, she was happy-go-lucky and a lot of fun. But she was a little lazy, a little too messy, Pippi liked a clean home. Again, she was too old to start a family, at least forty, she said. But