The Last Don - Mario Puzo [90]
Giorgio was astonished by this outburst. He was also made wary by its truth. “You’re wrong about the Don, he cares about you just as much. The same with Petie, Vincent, and me. Have we ever not treated you with the respect of family? Sure, the Don is a little remote but the man is very old. As for me, I’m just giving you a caution for your own safety. You’re in a very dangerous business, you have to be careful. You cannot let personal emotions in. That’s disaster.”
“Do Vinnie and Pete know all this stuff?” Dante asked.
“No,” Giorgio said. Which was another lie. Vincent had also spoken to Giorgio about Dante. Petie had not, but Petie was a born assassin. Yet he, too, had shown a distaste for Dante’s company.
“Any other complaints about how I do my job?” Dante asked.
“No,” Giorgio said, “and don’t be so tough about this. I’m advising you as your uncle. But I’m telling you from my place in the Family. You do not anymore make anybody do their Communion or Confirmation without the Family OK. Got it?”
“OK,” Dante said, “but I’m still the number one Hammer, right?”
“Until Pippi comes back from his little vacation,” Giorgio said. “Depends on your work.”
“I’ll enjoy my work less if that’s what you want,” Dante said. “OK?” He tapped Giorgio on the shoulder affectionately.
“Good,” Giorgio said. “Tomorrow night take your mother out to eat. Keep her company. Your grandfather will like that.”
“Sure,” Dante said.
“Vincent has one of his restaurants out by East Hampton,” Giorgio said. “You could take your mother there.”
Dante said suddenly, “Is she getting worse?”
Giorgio shrugged. “She can’t forget the past. She holds on to old stories that she should forget. The Don always tells, ‘The world is what it is and we are what we are,’ his old line. But she cannot accept it.” He gave Dante an affectionate hug. “Now let’s just forget this little talk. I hate doing this stuff.” As if he had not been specifically instructed by the Don.
After Dante left on Monday morning, Giorgio reported the whole conversation to the Don. The Don sighed. “What a lovely little boy he was. What could have happened?”
Giorgio had one great virtue. He spoke his mind when he really wanted to, even to his father, the great Don himself. “He talked too much to his mother. And he has bad blood.” They were both silent for a time after this.
“And when Pippi comes back, what do we do with your grandson?” Giorgio asked.
“Despite everything, I think Pippi should retire,” the Don said. “Dante must have his chance to be foremost, after all he is a Clericuzio. Pippi will be an advisor to his son’s Bruglione in the West. If necessary he can always advise Dante. There is no one better versed in those matters. As he proved with the Santadio. But he should end his years in peace.”
Giorgio muttered sarcastically, “The Hammer Emeritus.” But the Don pretended not to understand the joke.
He frowned and said to Giorgio, “Soon you will have my responsibilities. Remember always that the task is that the Clericuzio must one day stand with society, that the Family must never die. No matter how hard the choice.”
And so they left. But it was to be two years before Pippi returned from Sicily, the killing of Ballazzo receding into the bureaucratic mist. A mist manufactured by the Clericuzio.
BOOK V
Las Vegas
Hollywood
Quogue
CHAPTER 7
CROSS DE LENA received his sister, Claudia, and Skippy Deere in the executive penthouse suite of the Xanadu Hotel. Deere was always impressed by the difference between the two siblings. Claudia, not quite pretty and yet so likable, and Cross, so conventionally handsome with a slim but athletic body. Claudia, so naturally amiable, and Cross, so rigidly affable and distant. There was a difference between amiable and affable, Deere thought. One was in the genes, the other, learned.