Sunburn(46)

"Who wit'?"

"Some friends from New York."

"Wha' friends, Cholly?"

Ponte sighed, sucked his teeth, and when he spoke again his voice was harried, whiny. "Vincente, I'm just a guy tryin'a make a living. Don't put me inna fuckin' middle a this."

"Middle a what?"

"This New York bullshit."

"Explain 'at, Cholly. You're talkin' out your ass."

"I'm talkin' union  s, jurisdiction," Ponte said.

"You ain't talkin' nothin' so far," Vincente said, but a dread suspicion was clawing at him, it raked over him the way a dull knife frets the surface before it slashes through.

"Look," said Ponte, "ya wanna change the game wit' the Fabrettis, I don't give a fuck, it's alla same ta me. But work it out with the Fabrettis, don't send me Gino ta tell me things are back the way they were."

The Godfather held the phone a few inches from his hairy ear. The nostrils flared in his bridgeless nose, his thin cheeks went sickly yellow. He found he had nothing more to say; there was nothing more he could ask. To ask more would be to let this stranger know that his own son had lied to him, misrepresented him, had borne false witness to his words and wishes. It would be both useless and impossibly humiliating to let Charlie Ponte, or anyone beyond the tight circle of family, find that out.

Slowly, dazedly, Vincente put the phone back in its cradle.

———

"Pop?" said Joey Goldman. He said it very softly, the way you talk to someone when you're not sure he's awake. A minute had passed since the old man hung up the phone, and his lean form had remained unnaturally rigid, his sallow face impassive.

"Hm?" The Godfather gave a little jerk, then turned his head slowly toward the younger man and spoke in a quiet monotone. "He went against me, Joey."

" 'Zee alive?"

His father took a deep breath. It seemed to be the first air he'd had in a while. "I don't know. I don't think Ponte clipped 'im. Doesn't have the balls. I think it's like he says—he just passed 'im along ta the Fabrettis."

Joey paced. The evening light had faded, the study was nearly dark, but he didn't turn a light on. "Should we call New Yawk?"

In the dimness the Godfather allowed himself the beginnings of a bitter smile. He shouldn't need to consult, he shouldn't need advice, but there was something sweet as well as galling in this talking as equals in judgment, equals in bafflement, with his younger son. "Ya know somethin', Joey?" he murmured. "I just don't fuckin' know. I need ta go outside."

He put his palms flat on the desk and used his arms to help him get up from the chair. Less than steadily, he moved to the door, opened it, and went down the hallway to the living room.

The light there seemed very bright after the dimness of the study. It was mostly a white room to begin with, and now everything looked bleached out, as in an overexposed snapshot. It took the old man a moment to realize that Arty Magnus was sitting there, along with Debbi and Sandra.

"Ahty," said the Godfather, "I fuhgot all about—"

"No problem," said the ghostwriter. "If it's a bad time—"

Joey had followed his father down the hall and now stood at the old man's shoulder. "Maybe it is, Arty. 'S'been kind of a hectic day."

"No problem," the writer said again, and he stood up with the blushing quickness of a man who's just walked in on someone naked. "We can talk tomorrow, whenever."

"Hey," said Sandra, "we're not chasing you away. Sit awhile, have a glass of wine."

Arty stood with his calves against the couch and did an awkward little pirouette. Too many people were talking at once and in his shy desire to get along he wanted to please them all.

A long and indecisive moment passed and then a low rumble moved the air, got it ready to carry sound. "Nah, stay," said the Godfather. He'd realized that he wanted, needed, to sit quietly under starlight with a sympathetic or at least a tactful listener and to think aloud, to open the valves and tell his version of how things should be. Too much evil stuff had been forced into him today; he doubted whether his insides were still elastic enough to contain it. He had to bleed some pressure out, stay within a certain range, like an old and rusty boiler. "If Joey and the ladies will excuse us, Ahty, you and me, we'll sit outside and talk awhile."





27


The Godfather dove into his ramblings the way some other men, faced with grinding insurmountable sorrows, dive into drink.

"So here's the difference," he was saying, when he and his ghost had setded in around the low metal table on the patio. "Most people—prob'ly you too, Ahty—they believe that friends, associates, come and go, but what's right is always right and what's wrong is always wrong. Am I right?"