The Godfather
by Mario Puzo
(London: Arrow, 1991)
All his years in America, Amerigo Bonasera had trusted in law and order. And he had prospered thereby. Now, though his brain smoked with hatred, through wild visions of buying a gun and killing the two young men jangled the very bones of his skull, Bonasera turned to his still uncomprehending wife and explained to her, “They have made fools of us.” He paused and then made his decision, no longer fearing the cost. “For justice we must go on our kneed to Cond Corleone.”
Page 5.
The father of the bride, Don Vito Corleone, never forgot his old friends and neighbors though he himself now lived in a huge house on Long Island. The reception would be held in that house and the festivities would go on all day. There was no doubt it would be a momentous occasion. The war with the Japanese had just ended so there would not be any nagging fear for their sons fighting in the Army to clouds these festivities. A wedding was just what people needed to show their joy.
Pages 8-9.
Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody came for help, and never were they disappointed.
Page 9.
The eldest, baptized Santino but called Sonny by everyone except his father, was looked at askance by the older Italian men; with admiration by the younger. … He was built as powerfully as a bull and it was common knowledge that he was so enormously endowed by nature that his martyred wife feared the marriage bed as unbelievers once feared the rack.
Page 10.
Sonny Corleone had strength, he had courage. He was generous and his heart was admitted to be as big as his organ. Yet he did not have his father’s humility but instead a quick, hot temper that led him into errors of judgment.
Page 11.
When World War II broke out, Michael Corleone volunteered for the Marine Corps. He defied his father’s express command when he did so.
Page 13.
Don Corleone himself was not angry. He had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful.
Page 15.
The groom, Carlo Rizzi, was a half-breed, born of a Sicilian father and the North Italian mother from whom he had inherited his blond hair and blue eyes. His parents lived in Nevada and Carlo had left that state because of a little trouble with the law.
Page 15.
It was part of the Don’s greatness that he profited form everything.
Page 16.
“Nearly fifteen years ago some people wanted to take over my father’ oil importing business. They tried to kill him and nearly did. Luca Brasi went after them. The story is that he killed six men in two weeks and that ended the famous olive oil war.” He smiled as if it were a joke.
Page 22.
Luca Brasi was indeed a man to frighten the devil in hell himself. Short, squat, massive-skulled, his presence sent out alarm bells of danger. His face was stamped into a mask of fury. The eyes were brown but with none of the warmth of that color, more a deadly tan. The mouth was not so much cruel as lifeless; thin, rubbery and the color of veal.
Page 23.
Don Corleone gave a small sigh of relief. Brasi was the only man in the world who could make him nervous.
Page 24.
By tradition no Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter’s wedding day.
Page 26.
If he refused to be instructed, Santino could never run the Family business, could never become a Don. He would have to find somebody else. And soon. After all, he was not immortal.
Page 34.
“A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man.”
Page 40.
“Who says you can’t live in the same house? Who says you can’t life your life exactly as you want to life it?”
Page 40.
“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than government. It is almost the equal of family.”
Page 41.
Among reasonable men problems of business could always be solved.
Page 42.
“He’s a businessman,” the Don said blandly. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Page 43.
Only a Sicilian born to the ways of omerta, the law of silence, could be trusted in the key post of Consigliori.
Page 56.
Between the head of the Family, Don Corleone, who dictated policy, and the operating level of men who actually carried out the orders of the Don, there were three layers, or buffers. In that way nothing could be traced to the top. Unless the Consigliori turned traitor.
Page 56.
When his father died, Tom Hagen’s eleven-year-old mind had snapped in a curious way. He had roamed the streets like an animal waiting for death until the fateful day Sonny found him sleeping in the back of a hallway and brought him to his home. Saturday, November 20, 2021.
Page 61.
The Family empire, technically, did not extend beyond the New York area but Don Corleone had first become strong by helping labor leaders. Many of them still owed him debts of friendship.
Page 63.
Sometimes the Don’s success in keeping himself out of the limelight worked to the disadvantage of the Family business, in that his name did not mean anything to outside circles.
Page 63.
“Mr. Corleone is much too sensitive. He never asks a second favor where he has been refused the first.”
Page 71.
In Hagen’s world, the Corleone’s world, the physical beauty, the sexual power of women, carried not the slightest weight in worldly matters. It was a private affair, except, of course, in matters of marriage and family disgrace.
Page 73.
“Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news at once.”
Page 74.
Over the years he had learned that the Don’s values were so different from those of most people that his words also could have a different meaning.
Page 79.
Woltz had learned that the horse’s body had obviously been heavily drugged before someone leisurely hacked the huge triangular head off with an axe.
Page 83.
Woltz was not a stupid man, he was merely a supremely egotistical one. He had mistaken the power he wielded in his world to be more potent than the power of Don Corleone.
Page 83.
What really shocked him was the casualness with which this man Corleone had ordered the destruction of a world-famous horse worth six hundred thousand dollars.
Page 83.
He was notoriously straitlaced in mattes of sex.
Page 88.
Virgil “the Turk” Sollozzo was a powerfully built, medium-sized man of dark complexion who could have been taken for a true Turk. He had a scimitar of a nose and cruel black eyes. He also had an impressive dignity. … Hagen thought he had never seen a more dangerous-looking man except for Luca Brasi.
Page 88.
As a young girl Connie had been nice, as a married woman she was a nuisance. She made complaints about her husband. She kept gong home to visit her mother for two or three days. And Carlo Rizzi was turning out to be a real loser. He had been fixed up with a nice little business and was running it into the ground. He was also drinking, whoring around, gambling and beating his wife up occasionally.
Page 92.
Michael laughed. “I’m going to be a mathematics professor.”
Page 95.
Michael got his room key and looked around impatiently for Kay. She was standing by the newsstand, staring down at a newspaper she held in her hand. He walked toward her. She looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, Mike,” she said, “oh, Mike.” He took the paper form her hands. The first thing he saw was a photo of hies father lying in the street, his head in a pool of blood. A man was sitting on the curb weeping like a child. It was his brother Freddie. Michael Corleone felt his body turning to ice. There was no grief, no fear, just cold rage.
Pages 95-96.
He had known immediately that his as an attack by Sollozzo, but Sollozzo would never have dared to eliminate so high-ranking a leader as the Don unless he was backed by other powerful people.
Page 102.
He called the safety-valve caporegime in Brooklyn, a man of unquestioned loyalty to the Don. This man’s name was Tessio. Sonny told him what had happened and what he wanted. Tessio was to recruit fifty absolutely reliable men.
Page 105.
He realized how serious the situation was. It was the first challenge to the Corleone Family and their power in ten years. There was no doubt that Sollozzo was behind it, but he would never have dared attempt such a stroke unless he had support from at least one of the five great New York Families. And that support must have come from the Tattaglias. Which meant a full-scale war or an immediate settlement on Sollozzo’s terms.
Page 107.
“The other New York Families will go along with anything that will stop a full-scale war between us.”
Page 109.
“The Don was slipping. In the old days I could never have gotten to him. The other Families distrust him because he made you his Consigliori and you’re not even Italian, much less Sicilian.”
Page 109.
“I don’t like bloodshed, I’m a businessman and blood costs too much money.”
Page 111.
Sonny said very simply, “Sollozzo is dead meat. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care if we have to fight all the Five Families in New York. The Tattaglia Family is going to be wiped out. I don’t care if we all go down together.”
Page 118.
Blood was blood and nothing else was its equal.
Page 124.
Whenever a war between the Families became bitterly intense, the opponents would set up headquarters in secret apartments where the “soldiers” could sleep on mattresses scattered throughout the rooms. This was not so much to keep their families out of danger, their wives and little children, since any attack on noncombatants was undreamed of. All parties were too vulnerable to similar retaliation.
Pages 131-132.
On the stretch of road that led into the city, Clemenza said suddenly, “Paulie, pull over. I gotta take a leak.” From working together so long, Gatto knew the fat caporegime had a weak bladder. He had often made such a request. Gatto pulled the car off the highway on to the soft earth that led to the swamp. Clemenza climbed out of the car and took a few steps into the bushes. He actually relieved himself. Then as he opened the door to get back into the car he took a quick look up and down the highway. There were no lights, the road was completely dark. “Go ahead,” Clemenza said. A second later the interior of the car reverberated with the report of a gun. Paulie Gatto seemed to jump forward, his body flinging against the steering wheel and then slumping over to the seat. Clemenza had stepped back hastily to avoid being hit with fragments of skull bone and blood.
Pages 134-135.
Luca Brasi had made contact with the forces of Sollozzo several months before. He had done so on the orders of Don Corleone himself.
Page 136.
Luca reacted instantly, his body slipping off the bar stool and trying to twist away. But Sollozzo had grabbed his other hand at the wrist. Still, Luca was too strong for both of them and would have broken free except that a man stepped out of the shadows behind him and threw a thin silken cord around his neck. The cord pulled tight, choking off Luca’s breath. His face became purple, the strength in his arms drained away. Tattaglia and Sollozzo held his hands easily now, and they stood there curiously childlike as the man behind Luda pulled the cord around Luda’s neck tighter and tighter. Suddenly the floor was wet and slippery. Luca’s sphincter, no longer under control, opened, the waste of his body spilled out. There was no strength in him anymore and his legs folded, his body sagged. Sollozzo and Tattaglia let his hands go and only the strangler stayed with the victim, sinking to his knees to follow Luca’s falling body, drawing the cord so tight that it cut into the flesh of the neck and disappeared. Luca’s eyes were bulging out of his head as if in the utmost surprise and this surprise was the only humanity remaining to him. He was dead.
Pages 140-141.
Everyone knew that the Don had given up on this middle son ever being important to the business. He wasn’t quite smart enough, and failing that, not quite ruthless enough. He was too retiring a person, did not have enough force.
Page 143.
Like the Don, Michael never told hie real business and now he didn’t want to tell Sonny he was seeing Kay Adams. There was no reason not to tell him, it was just habit.
Page 151.
There was a loud murmur of voices in the kitchen. Clemenza went out to see what was happening. When he came back he was holding Luca Brasi’s bulletproof vest in his hands. Wrapped in the vest was a huge dead fish.
Clemenza said dryly, “The Turk has heard about his spy Paulie Gatto.”
Tessio said just as dryly, “And now we know about Luca Brasi.”
Sonny lit a cigar and took a shot of whiskey. Michael, bewildered, said, “What the hell does that fish mean?” It was Hagen the Irisher, the Consigliori, who answered him. “The fish means that Luca Brasi is sleeping on the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “It’s an old Sicilian message.”
Page 151.
In a curious way Michael, better than anyone else, understood when Tom had said it was just business, not personal.
Page 153.
He was surprised to find himself so secretive with Kay. He loved her, he trusted her, but he would never tell her anything about his father or the Family. She was an outsider.
Page 154.
Michael, still thinking clearly, not angry, said with deliberate malice. “How much is the Turk paying you to set my father up, Captain?”
The police captain turned to him. He said to the two burly patrolmen, “Hold him.” Michael felt his arms pinned to his sides. He saw the captain’s massive fist arching towards his face. He tried to weave away but the fist caught him on the cheekbone. A grenade exploded in his skull. His mouth filled with blood and small hard bones that he realized were his teeth.
Page 163.
“The Corleone Family has hired a firm of private detectives to guard Mr. Corleone. Those men with me are licensed to carry firearms, Captain. If you arrest them, you’ll have to appear before a judge in the morning and tell him why.”
Page 164.
The police captain, McCluskey, is a guy who’s been on the take very heavy ever since he’s been a patrolman. Our Family has paid him quite a bit. And he’s greedy and untrustworthy to do business with. But Sollozzo must have paid him a big price. McCluskey had all Tessio’s men around and in the hospital arrested right after visiting hours. It didn’t help that some of them were carrying guns. Then McCluskey pulled the official guard detectives off the Don’s door. Claimed he needed them and that some other cops were supposed to go over and take their place but they got their assignments bollixed.
Page 165.
“No more advice on how to patch it up, Tom. The decision is made. Your job is to help me win. Understand?”
Page 169.
“OK, it’ an extreme. But there are times when the most extreme measures are justified. Let’s think now that we have to kill McCluskey. The way to do it would be to have him heavily implicated so that it’s not an honest police captain doing his duty but a crooked police official mixed up in the rackets who got what was coning to him, like any crook. We have newspaper people on our payroll we can give that story to, with enough proof so that they can back it up.”
Pages 170-171.
“This is no hero business, kid, you don’t shoot people form a mile away. You shoot when you see the whites of their eyes like we got taught in school, remember? You gotta stand right next to them and blow their heads off and their brains get all over your nice Ivy League suit. How about that, kid, you wanta do that just because some dumb cop slapped you around?” He was still laughing.
Page 172.
Michael was not tall or heavily built but his presence seemed to radiate danger.
Page 172.
Corleone was one of the biggest Mafia men in the country with more political connections than Capone had ever had.
Page 180.
McCluskey didn’t ask questions, since he knew all the answers. He just made sure of his price. It never occurred to him that he himself could be in any danger. That anyone would consider even for a moment killing a New York City police captain was too fantastic.
Page 181.
There was absolutely no percentage in killing cops. Because then all of a sudden a lot of hoods were killed resisting arrest or escaping the scene of a crime, and who the hell was going to do anything about that?
Page 181.
The trigger was tight but Clemenza worked on this with some tools so that it pulled easier. They decided to leave it noisy. They didn’t want an innocent bystander misunderstanding the situation and interfering out of ignorant courage. The report of the gun would keep them away from Michael.
Pages 182-183.
“These things have to happened once every ten years or so. It gets rid of the bad blood. And then if we let them push us around on the little things they wanta take over everything. You gotta stop them at the beginning, like they shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they were just asking for big trouble when they let him get away with that.”
Page 184.
Once anybody makes up their mind to kill them there’s no other problem. That’s the hard part, making up your mind.
Page 185.
“They got an old-fashioned toilet with a space between the water container and the wall. Have your man tape the gun behind there.”
Page 188.
“Tom, don’t let anybody kid you. It’s all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it’s personal as hell.”
Page 189.
“There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don’t try to justify them. They can’t be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it.”
Page 190.
Underneath the table his right hand moved to the gun tucked into his waistband and he drew it free. At that moment the waiter came to take their order and Sollozzo turned his head to speak to the waiter. Michael thrust thew table away from him with his left hand and his right hand shoved the gun almost against Sollozzo’s head. The man’s coordination was so acute that he had already begun to fling himself away at Michael’s motion. But Michael, younger, his reflexes sharper, pulled the trigger. The bullet caught Sollozzo squarely between his eye and his ear and when it exited on the other side blasted out a huge gout of blood and skull fragments on too the petrified waiter’s jacket. Instinctively Michael knew that one bullet was enough. Sollozzo had turned his head in that last moment and he had seen the light of life die in the man’s eyes as clearly as a candle goes out.
Only one second had gone by as Michael pivoted to bring the gun to bear on McCluskey. The police captain was staring at Sollozzo with phlegmatic surprise, as if this had nothing to do with him. He did not seem to be aware of his own danger. His veal-covered fork was suspended in his hand and his eyes were just turning on Michael. And the expression on his face, in his eyes, held such confident outrage, as if now he expected Michael to surrender or to run away, that Michael smiled at him as he pulled the trigger. This shot was bad, not mortal. It caught McCluskey in his thick bull-like throat and he started to choke loudly as if he had swallowed too large a bite of the veal. Then the air seemed to fill with a fine mist of sprayed blood as he coughed it out of his shattered lungs. Very coolly, very deliberately, Michael fired the next shot through the top of his white-haired skull.
Pages 196-197.
There was a change of clothes for Michael in the car. Twenty minutes later he was on an Italian freighter slated for Sicily. Two hours later the freighter put out to sea and from his cabin Michael could see the lights of New York City burning like the fires of hell.
Pahe 198.
On the day after the murder of Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey, the police captains and lieutenants in every station house in New York City sent out the word: there would be no more gambling, no more prostitution, no more deals of any kind until the murderer of Captain McCluskey was caught. Massive raids began all over the city. All unlawful business activities came to a standstill.
Pahe 199.
He felt the same shyness about hearing his youthful passionate voice as an aging, balding man running to fat feels about showing pictures of himself as a youth in the full bloom of manhood.
Page 205.
Hagen never made excuses for his actions. He could not. It was part of his job to act as a lightning rod for resentments which people were too awed to feel toward the Don himself though he had earned them.
Page 218.
That was one thing he had salvaged out of his fall from the top. He had grown a thick skin about the hurts he gave women.
Page 233.
He had been born Vito Andolini, but when strange men came to kill the son of the man they had murdered, his other sent the young boy to America to stay with friends. And in the new land he changed his name to Corleone to preserve some tie with his native village.
Page 255.
At the age of eighteen Vito married an Italian girl freshly arrived form Sicily, a girl of only sixteen but a skilled cook, a good housewife.
Page 256.
They found each other congenial. Clemenza was a storyteller; Vito Corleone was a listener to storytellers. They became casual friends.
Page 259.
He thought them of good, sound character. Peter Clemenza, already burly, inspired a certain trust, and the lean saturnine Tessio inspired confidence.
Page 261.
As was his habit, Vito Corleone did not answer. He understood the implication immediately and was waiting for a definite demand.
Page 262.
Tessio was more reserved than Clemenza, sharper, more clever but with less force.
Page 266.
“I’ll reason with him,” Vito Corleone said. It was to became a famous phrase in the years to come. It was to become the warning rattle before a deadly strike. When he became a Don and asked opponents to sit down and reason with him, they understood it was the last chance to resolve an affair without bloodshed and murder.
Page 266.
They all understood each other. They knew he had killed Fanucci and though they never spoke about it to anyone the whole neighborhood, within a few weeks, also knew. Vito Corleone was treated as a “man of respect” by everyone.
Page 274.
Vito Corleone was not a “man of respect” in the neighborhood. He was reputed to be a member of the Mafia of Sicily. One day a man who ran card games in a furnished room came to him and voluntarily paid him twenty dollars each week for his “friendship.”
Page 278.
Since Clemenza and Tessio were his friends, his allies, he had to give them each part of the money, but this he did without being asked. Finally he decided to go into the olive oil importing business with his boyhood chum, Genco Abbandando.
Page 279.
As Genco Pura olive oil grew to become the gest-selling imported Italian oil in America, his organization mushroomed. Like any good businessman he came to understand the benefits of undercutting his rival sin price, barring them from distribution outlets by persuading store owners to stock less of their brands. Like any good businessman he aimed at holding a monopoly by forcing his rivals to abandon the field or by merging with his own company. However, since he had started off relatively helpless, economically, since he did not believe in advertising, relying on word of mouth, and since if truth be told, his olive il was no better than his competitors’, he could not use the common strangleholds of legitimate businessmen. He had to rely on the force of his own personality and his reputation as a ‘man of respect.”
Pages 279-280.
Vito Corleone became known as a “man of reasonableness.” He never uttered a threat. He always used logic that proved to the irresistible.
Page 280.
When Prohibition came to pass and alcohol forbidden to be sold, Vito Corleone made the final step from a quite ordinary, somewhat ruthless businessman to a great Don in the world of criminal enterprise.
Page 281.
He made himself the protector of the Italian families who set themselves up as small speakeasies in their homes, selling whiskey at fifteen cents a glass to bachelor laborers.
Page 282.
The whole thing was becoming unwieldy. Finally Vito Corleone worked out a system of organization. He gave Clemenza and Tessio each the title of caporegime, or captain, and the men who worked beneath them the rank of soldier. He named Genco Abbandando his counselor, or Consigliori. He put layers of insulation between himself and any operational act. When he gave an order it was to Genco or to one of the caporegimes alone.
Page 282.
Vito gave Tessio a free hand in Brooklyn while he kept Clemenza’s Bronx fief very much under his thumb. Clemenza was the braver, more reckless, the crueler man despite his outward jollity, and needed a tighter rein.
Page 283.
An employee sent to prison knew he had only to keep his mouth shut and his wife and children would be cared for. He knew that if he did not inform to the police a warm welcome would be his when he left prison.
Page 284.
The Don knew, in fact was positive, that without political influence, without the camouflage of society, Capone’s world, and others like it, could be easily destroyed. He knew Capone was on the path to destruction. He also knew that Capone’s influence did not extend beyond the boundaries of Chicago, terrible and all-pervading as that influence there might be.
Page 288.
In 1939, Don Corleone had decided to move his family out of the city. Like any other parent he wanted his children to go to better schools and mix with better companions. For his own personal reasons he wanted the anonymity of suburban life where his reputation was not known.
Page 297.
It was typical of the young Santino, before he became older and crueler, that he extended his protection to the community he lived in.
Page 299.
When Sonny Corleone learned of the beatings he had flown into a murderous rage and had been restrained only by the sternest and most imperious command of the Don himself, a command that even Sonny dared not disobey. Which was why Sonny avoided Rizzi, not trusting himself to control his temper.
Page 319.
Sonny began beating the cowering Carlo with his fists, cursing him in a thick, rage-choked voice. Carlo, despite his tremendous physique, offered no resistance, gave no cry for mercy or protest.
Page 324.
What made the sight sickening was Carlo’s complete subjection, but it was perhaps this that saved his life. He clung to the iron railings with his hands so that Sonny could not drag him into the street and despite his obvious equal strength, still refused to fight back. He let the blows rain on his unprotected head and neck until Sonny’s rage ebbed. Finally, his chest heaving, Sonny looked down at him and said, “You dirty bastard, you ever beat up my sister again I’ll kill you.”
Page 325.
Freddie Corleone had been sent to Las Vegas to recuperate and also to scout out the ground for a Family operation in the luxury hotel-gambling casino complex that was springing up. Las Vegas was part of the West Coast empire still neutral and the Don of that empire had guaranteed Freddie’s safety there. the New York Five Families had no desire to make more enemies by going into Vegas after Freddie Corleone. They had enough trouble on their hands in New York.
Page 331.
The last ten years of peace had seriously eroded the fighting qualities of the two caporegimes, Clemenza and Tessio. Clemenza was still a competent executioner and administrator but he no longer had the energy or the youthful strength to lead troops. Tessio had mellowed with age and was not ruthless enough. Tom Hagen, despite his abilities, was simply not suited to be a Consigliori in a time of war. His main fault was he was not a Sicilian.
Page 335.
Carlo had the sense to realize that Sonny would kill him, that Sonny was a man who could, with the naturalness of an animal, kill another man, while he himself would have to call up all his courage, all his will, to commit murder. it never occurred to Carlo that because of this he was a better man than Sonny Corleone.
Page 346.
The paradox in Sonny’s violent nature was that he could not hit a woman and had never done so. That he could not harm a child or anything helpless. When Carlo had refused to fight back against him that day, it had kept Sonny from killing him, complete submission disarmed his violence. As a boy, he had been truly tenderhearted. That he had become a murderer as a man was simply his destiny.
Page 353.
In the fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man. And in that moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and present had purified him.
Pages 354-355.
The two men each fired shots into Sonny’s body, then kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even more, to show a mark made by a more personal human power.
Page 355.
In a few short months she had lost all her sons; Freddie exiled to Nevada, Michael hiding for his life in Sicily, and now Santino dead.
Page 357.
Since the New York Families ere the most powerful in the country, it was understood that their welfare affected the welfare of the country as a whole.
Page 367.
Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money.
Page 373.
The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperil noses, thick mouths, heavy folded cheeks. They were not too well tailored or barbered; they had the look of no-nonsense busy men without vanity.
Page 377.
“Don Corleone controls all that apparatus. His refusal to let us use it is not the act of a friend. He takes the bread out of the mouths of our families. Times have changed, it’s not like the old days where everyone can go his own way. If Corleone has all the judges in New York, then he must share them or let us others use them. Certainly he can present a bill for such services, we’re not communists, after all. But he has to let us draw water from the well. It’s that simple.”
Page 384.
The denial of a favor asked by a friend was an act of aggression. Favors were not asked lightly and so could not be lightly refused.
Page 384.
The Negroes were considered of absolutely no account, of no force whatsoever. That they had allowed society to grind them into the dust proved them of no account.
Page 386.
It was finally agreed. Drug traffic would be permitted and Don Corleone must give it some legal protection in the East.
Page 387.
We will manage our world for ourselves because it is our world, cosa nostra.
Page 390.
“Freddie Corleone is a real terror. By my count he’s knocked up fifteen girls while I’ve been here. I’ve seriously considered giving him a father-to-son talk about sex. Especially since I’ve had to treat him three times for clap and once for syphilis. Freddie is the original bareback rider.”
Page 417.
Truth telling and medicine just didn’t go together except in dire emergencies, if then.
Page 425.
Michael was installed as a guest in the home of a bachelor uncle of the capo-mafioso.
Page 432.
Justice had never been forthcoming form the authorities and so the people had always gone to the Robin Hood Mafia.
Page 434.
His flight to Sicily had prevented him from getting proper medical treatment for his smashed jaw and he now carried a memento from Captain McCluskey on the left side of his face. The bones had knitted badly, throwing his profile askew, giving him the appearance of depravity when viewed from that side. He had always been vain about his looks and this upset him more than he thought possible.
Page 435.
The Mafia in Sicily was cancerous to the society it inhabited. Merit meant nothing. Talent meant nothing. Work meant nothing. The Mafia Godfather gave you your profession as a gift.
Page 436.
During the day he took walks in the countryside, always accompanied by two of the shepherds attached to Don Tommasino’s estate. The shepherds of the island were often recruited to act as the Mafia’s hired killers and did their job simply to earn money to live.
Page 436.
His two bodyguards always carried their luparas with them when accompanying Michael on his walks. The deadly Sicilian shotgun was the favorite weapon of the Mafia.
Page 437.
When the island of Sicily was liberated by the Allied Armies, the military government officials believed that anyone imprisoned by the Fascist regime was a democrat and many of these mafiosi were appointed as mayors of villages or interpreters to the military government. This good fortune enabled the Mafia to reconstitute itself and become more formidable than ever before.
Page 437.
In Sicily the peasant does not live on the land he cultivates. It is too dangerous and any arable land if he owns it, is too precious. Rather, he lives in his village and at sunrise begins his voyage out to work in distant fields, a commuter on foot.
Page 439.
Michael had expected a barren land because of the legendary poverty of Sicilians. And yet he had found it a land of gushing plenty, carpeted with flowers scented by lemon blossoms. It was so beautiful that the wondered how its people could bear to leave it. How terrible man had been to his fellow man could be measured by the great exodus from what seemed to be a Garden of Eden.
Page 441.
She was all ovals - oval-shaped eyes, the bones of her face, the contour of her brow. Her skin was an exquisite dark creaminess and her eyes, enormous, dark violet or brown but dark with long heavy lashes shadowing her lovely face. Her mouth was rich without being ross, sweet without being weak and dyed dark red with the juice of the grapes.
Page 443.
He had learned that the girl’s name was Apollonia and every night he thought of her lovely face and her lovely name.
Page 451.
It was impossible for the two young people to keep their bodies from brushing against each other and once Apollonia stumbled and fell against him so he had to hold her and her body so warm and alive in his hands started a deep wave of blood rising in his body. They could not see the mother behind them smiling because her daughter was a mountain goat and had not stumbled on this path since she was an infant in diapers.
Page 455.
They could never meet without a chaperone being present. She was just a village girl, barely literate, with no idea of the world, but she had a freshness, an eagerness for life that, with help of the language barrier, made her seem interesting.
Page 456.
Michael Corleone came to understand the premium put on virginity by socially primitive people. It was a period of sensuality that he had never before experienced, a sensuality mixed with a feeling of masculine power.
Page 459.
Don Tommasino took Michael aside and explained that the marriage had made his presence and identity common knowledge in that part of Sicily and precautions had to be taken against the enemies of the Corleone Family.
Page 460.
Michael passed the time by teaching Apollonia to read and write English and to drive the car along the inner walls of the villa.
Page 460.
“I won’t be telling you what happened ta the office very day. I won’t be telling you anything about my business. You’ll be my wife but you won’t be my partner in life, as I think they say. Not an equal partner. That can’t be.”
Page 483.
Women really hated seeing their men doing too well. It irritated them. It made them less sure of the hold they exerted over them through affection, sexual custom or marriage ties.
Page 505.
Freddie was much stouter, more benevolent-looking, cheerful, and far more dandified. He wore an exquisitely tailored gray silk suit and accessories to match. His hair was razor cut and arranged as carefully as a movie star’s, his face glowed with perfect barbering and his hands were manicured. He was an altogether different man than the one who had been shipped out of New York four years before.
Page 511.
The Don did not give voice to specific grievances. He just made his displeasure felt.
Page 512.
“The Corleone Family has pulled some strings for you. Do you think I’m so stupid I’d ask you to do things you’d hate to do?”
Page 515.
There was no chance of any violence, not in Vegas itself. That was strictly forbidden as fatal to the whole project of making Vegas the legal sanctuary of American gamblers.
Page 517.
“You took Freddie in because the Corleone Family gave you a big chunk of money to finish furnishing your hotel. And bankroll your casino. And because the Molinari Family on the Coast guaranteed his safety and gave you some service for taking him in. the Corleone Family and you are evened out.”
Page 518.
This was perhaps the real reason the Don was displeased with Freddie. The Don was straitlaced about sex. He would consider such cavorting by his son Freddie, two girls at a time, as degeneracy. Allowing himself to be physically humiliated by a man like Moe Green would decrease respect for the Corleone Family.
Page 519.
“The Don has sort of semiretired,” he said. “I’m running the Family business now. And I’ve removed tom from the Consigliori spot. He’ll be strictly my lawyer here in Vegas. He’ll be moving out with his family in a couple of months to get all the legal work started. So anything you have to say, say it to me.”
Page 520.
As they boarded the plane with tom Hagen and Al Neri, Michael turned to Neri and said, “Did you make him good?”
Neri tapped his forehead. “I got Moe Greene mugged and numbered up here.”
Page 521.
Michael had married Kay up in New England, a quiet wedding, with only her family and a few of her friends present. Then they had moved into one of the houses on the mall in Long Beach.
Page 523.
No Irishman could hope to equal a Sicilian for cunning. So went the opinion of all the Families and they were naturally more respectful to the Barzini-Tattaglia alliance than to the Corleones. Their opinion of Michael was that he was not equal to Sonny in force though more intelligent certainly, but not as intelligent as his father. A mediocre successor and a man not to be feared too greatly.
Also, though the Don was generally admired for his statesmanship in making the peace, the fact that he had not avenged Sonny’s murder lost the Family a great deal of respect. It was recognized that such statesmanship sprang out of weakness.
Page 533.
The Don’s precept that a friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults.
Page 534.
Clemenza and Tessio were annoyed with Michael because he had reduced the strength of their regimes and had never reconstituted Sonny’s regime. The Corleone Family, in effect, had now only two fighting divisions with less personnel than formerly. Clemenza and Tessio considered this suicidal, especially with the Barzini-Tattalia encroachments on their empire.
Page 534.
Moe Greene was shot to death in the Hollywood home of his movie-star mistress; Albert Neri did not reappear in New York until almost a month later.
Page 542.
Michael’s oldest boy came running through the garden toward where the Don knelt and the boy was enveloped by a yellow shield of blinding light. But the Don was not to be tricked, he was too old a hand. Death hid behind that flaming yellow shield ready to pounce out on him and the Don with a wave of his had warned the boy away from his presence. Just in time. The sledgehammer blow inside his chest made him choke for air. The Don pitched forward into the earth.
Page 544.
He was spared the sight of his women’s tears, dying before they came back from church, dying before the ambulance arrived, or the doctor. He died surrounded by men, holding the hand of the son he had most loved.
Page 545.
His father dying had said, “Life is beautiful.” Michael could never remember his father ever having uttered a word about death, as if the Don respected death too much to philosophize about it.
Page 547.
Michael took a phone call in the library, and when he came back to the kitchen, he said to Hagen, “It’ all set up. I’m going to meet Barzini a week from now. To make a new peace now that the Don is dead.” Michael laughed.
Hagen asked, “Who phoned you, who made the contact?” They both knew that whoever in the Corleone Family had made the contact had turned traitor.
Michael gave Hagen a sad regretful smile. “Tessio,” he said.
They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. Over coffee Hagen shook his head. “I could have sworn it would have been Carlo or maybe Clemenza. I never figured Tessio. He’s the best of the lot.”
“He’s the most intelligent,” Michael said. “And he did what seems to him to be the smart thing. He sets me up for the hit by Barzini and inherits the Corleone Family. He sticks with me and he gets wiped out; he’s figuring I can’t win.”
Pages 550-551.
And so the day before the meeting with the Barzini Family, Michael Corleone stood Godfather to the son of Carlo and Connie Rizzi.
Page 552.
The night before Michael had also sent word to Carlo Rizzi that he would require his presence on the mall for a few days, that he could join his wife and children later that week.
Page 570.
He escorted Tessio out of the kitchen and on to the mall. They walked toward Michael’s house. At the door they were stopped by one of the bodyguards. “The boss says he’ll come in a separate car. He says for you two to go on ahead.”
Tessio frowned and turned to Hagen. “Hell, he can’t do that; that screws up all my arrangements.”
At that moment three more bodyguards materialized around them. Hagen said gently, “I can’t go with you either, Tessio.”
The ferret-faced caporegime understood everything in a flash of a second. And accepted it. There was a moment of physical weakness, and then he recovered. He said to Hagen, “Tell Mike it was business, I always liked him.”
Hagen nodded. “He understands that.”
Tessio paused for a moment and then said softly, “Tom, can you get me off the hook? For old times’ sake?”
Hagen shook his head. “I can’t,” he said.
Pages 578-579.
Michael said quietly, “Barzini is dead. So is Phillip Tattaglia. I want to square all the Family accounts tonight. So don’t tell me you’re innocent. It would be better for you to admit what you did.”
Page 580.
The car pulled away, moving swiftly towards the gate. Carlo started to turn his head to see if he knew the man sitting behind him. At that moment, Clemenza, as cunningly and daintily as a little girl slipping a ribbon over the head of a kitten, threw his garrotte around Carlo Rizzi’s neck. The smooth rope cut into the skin with Clemenza’s powerful yanking throttle, Carlo Rizzi’s body went leaping into the air like a fish on a line, but Clemenza held him fast, tightening the garrotte until the body went slack. Suddenly there was a foul odor in the air of the car. Carlo’s body, sphincter released by approaching death, had voided itself. Clemenza kept the garrotte tight for another few minutes to make sure, then released the rope and put it back in his pocket. He relaxed himself against the seat cushions as Carlo’s body slumped against the door. After a few moments Clemenza rolled the window down to let out the stink.
Pages 581-582.
With this one savage attack, Michael Corleone made his reputation and restored the Corleone Family to its primary place in the New York Families. He was respected not only for his tactical brilliance but because some of the most important caporegimes in both the Barzini and Tattaglia Families immediately went over to his side.
Page 582.
“We both need a drink,” she said. She went into the kitchen for ice and while there heard the front door open. She went out of the kitchen and saw Clemenza, Neri and Rocco Lampone come in with the bodyguards. Michael had his back to her, but she moved so that she could see him in profile. At that moment Clemenza addressed her husband, greeting him formally.
“Don Michael,” Clemenza said.
Page 584.
In that moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true. She went back into the kitchen and wept.
Page 584.
Now the Corleone Family was unchallengeable, and Clemenza had his own Family. Rocco Lampone was the Corleone caporegime. In Nevada, Albert Neri was head of all security for the Family-controlled hotels. Hagen too, was part of Michael’s Western Family.
Page 587.
Connie Corleone easily found a new husband; in fact, she did not wait the year of respect before filling her bed again with a fine young fellow who had come to work for the Corleone Family as a male secretary. A boy from a reliable Italian family but graduated form the top business college in America. Naturally his marriage to the sister of the Don made his future assured.
Page 588.
Kay Corleone had delighted her in-laws by taking instruction in the Catholic religion and joining that faith. Her two boys were also, naturally, being brought up in that Church, as was required. Michael himself had not been too pleased by this development. He would have preferred the children to be Protestant, it was more American.
Page 588.
Treachery can’t be forgiven.
Page 593.
As she had done every day sine the murder of Carlo Rizzi, she said the necessary prayers for the soul of Michael Corleone.
Page 595.