The Last Don - Mario Puzo [4]
Gronevelt said, “I’ll be getting back to Vegas. I don’t think it’s wise to let everyone know I’m a guest here.”
The Don nodded. “Petie, have someone drive Mr. Grone-velt to New York.”
Now, besides the Don, only his sons, Pippi De Lena, and Virginio Ballazzo were left in the room. They looked slightly stunned. Only Giorgio had been his confidant. The others had not known the Don’s plans.
Ballazzo was young for a Bruglione, only a few years older than Pippi. He had control over unions, garment center transportation, and some drugs. Don Domenico informed him that from now on he was to operate independently of the Clericuzio. He had only to pay a tribute of 10 percent. Otherwise, he had complete control over his operations.
Virginio Ballazzo was overcome by this largesse. He was usually an ebullient man who expressed his thanks or complaints with brio, but now he was too overcome with gratitude to do anything but embrace the Don.
“Of that ten percent, five will be reserved by me for your old age or misfortune,” the Don told Ballazzo. “Now forgive me, but people change, they have faulty memories, gratitude for past generosities fades. Let me remind you to be accurate in your accountings.” He paused for a moment. “After all, I am not the tax people, I cannot charge you those terrible interests and penalties.”
Ballazzo understood. With Don Domenico, punishment was always swift and sure. There was not even a warning. And the punishment was always death. After all, how else could one deal with an enemy?
Don Clericuzio dismissed Ballazzo, but when the Don escorted Pippi to the door, he paused for a moment, thenpulled Pippi close to him and whispered in his ear, “Remem-ber, you and I have a secret. You must keep it a secret forever. I never gave you the order.”
On the lawn outside the mansion, Rose Marie Clericuzio waited to speak to Pippi De Lena. She was a very young and very pretty widow, but black did not suit her. Mourning for her husband and brother suppressed the natural vivacity so necessary to her particular kind of looks. Her large brown eyes were too dark, her olive skin too sallow. Only her newly baptized blue-ribboned son, Dante, resting in her arms, gave her a splash of color. All through this day she had maintained a curious distance from her father, Don Clericuzio, and her three brothers, Giorgio, Vincent, and Petie. But now she was waiting to confront Pippi De Lena.
They were cousins, Pippi ten years older, and when she was a teenager, she had been madly in love with him. But Pippi was always paternal, always off-putting. Though a man famous for his weakness of the flesh, he had been too prudent to indulge that weakness with the daughter of his Don.
“Hello Pippi,” she said. “Congratulations.”
Pippi smiled with a charm that made his brutal looks attractive. He bent down to kiss the infant’s forehead, noticing with surprise that the hair, which still held the faint smell of incense from the church, was thick for a child so young.
“Dante Clericuzio, a beautiful name,” he said.
It was not so innocent a compliment. Rose Marie had taken back her maiden name for herself and her fatherless child. The Don had convinced her to do this with an impeccable logic, but still she felt a certain guilt.
Out of this guilt, Rose Marie said, “How did you convince your Protestant wife to have a Catholic ceremony and such a religious name?”
Pippi smiled at her. “My wife loves me and wants to please me.”
And it was true, Rose Marie thought. Pippi’s wife loved him because she did not know him. Not as she herself had known him and once loved him. “You named your son Croccifixio,” Rose Marie said. “You could have pleased her at least with an American name.”
“I named him after your grandfather, to please your father,” Pippi said.
“As we all must,” Rose Marie said. But her bitterness was masked by her smile, her bones structured in such a way that a smile appeared naturally on her face and gave her an air of sweetness that took the sting out of anything she said. She paused now, faltering. “Thank you for