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get himself in trouble or get killed. Get killed with just one of his wisecracks (удачная

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острота, саркастическое замечание). But how did the Don know that he would be an

artist? Because, goddamn it, he figured that someday I'd help Nino. And how did he

figure that? Because he would drop the word to me and I would try to show my gratitude.

Of course he never asked me to do it. He just let me know it would make him happy if I

did it. Johnny Fontane sighed. Now the Godfather was hurt, in trouble, and he could

kiss the Academy Award good-bye with Woltz working against him and no help on his

side. Only the Don had the personal contacts that could apply pressure and the

Corleone Family had other things to think about. Johnny had offered to help, Hagen had

given him a curt no.

Johnny was busy getting his own picture going. The author of the book he had starred

in had finished his new novel and came west on Johnny's invitation, to talk it over

without agents or studios getting into the act. The second book was perfect for what

Johnny wanted. He wouldn't have to sing, it had a good gutsy (отважный; сочный,

полнокровный, сильный) story with plenty of dames and sex and it had a part that

Johnny instantly recognized as tailor-made for Nino. The character talked like Nino,

acted like him, even looked like him. It was uncanny. All Nino would have to do would

be to get up on the screen and be himself.

Johnny worked fast. He found that he knew a lot more about production than he thought

he did, but he hired an executive producer, a man who knew his stuff but had trouble

finding work because of the blacklist. Johnny didn't take advantage but gave the man a

fair contract. "I expect you to save me more dough this way," he told the man frankly.

So he was surprised when the executive producer came to him and told him the union

rep (= representative – представитель) had to be taken care of to the tune (за сумму;

tune – мелодия) of fifty thousand dollars. There were a lot of problems dealing with

overtime and hiring and the fifty thousand dollars would be well spent. Johnny debated

whether the executive producer was hustling him and then said, "Send the union guy to

me."

The union guy was Billy Goff. Johnny said to him, "I thought the union stuff was fixed

by my friends. I was told not to worry about it. At all."

Goff said, "Who told you that?"

Johnny said, "You know goddamn well who told me. I won't say his name but if he

tells me something that's it."

Goff said, "Things have changed. Your friend is in trouble and his word don't go this

far west anymore."

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Johnny shrugged. "See me in a couple of days. OK?"

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Goff smiled. "Sure, Johnny," he said. "But calling in New York ain't going to help you."

But calling New York did help. Johnny spoke to Hagen at his office. Hagen told him

bluntly not to pay. "Your Godfather will be sore as hell if you pay that bastard a dime

(монета в 10 центов)," he told Johnny. "It will make the Don lose respect and right now

he can't afford that."

"Can I talk to the Don?" Johnny asked. "Will you talk to him? I gotta get the picture

rolling."

"Nobody can talk to the Don right now," Hagen said. "He's too sick. I'll talk to Sonny

about fixing things up. But I'll make the decision on this. Don't pay that smart bastard a

dime. If anything changes, I'll let you know."

Annoyed, Johnny hung up. Union trouble could add a fortune to making the film and

screw up the works generally. For a moment he debated slipping Goff the fifty grand on

the quiet. After all, the Don telling him something and Hagen telling him something and

giving him orders were two different things. But he decided to wait for a few days.

By waiting he saved fifty thousand dollars. Two nights later, Goff was found shot to

death in his home in Glendale. There was no more talk of union trouble. Johnny was a

little shaken by the killing. It was the first time the long arm of the Don had struck such a

lethal blow so close to him.

As the weeks went by and he became busier and busier with getting the script

(сценарий) ready, casting the movie and working out production details, Johnny

Fontane forgot about his voice, his not being able to sing. Yet when the Academy

Award nominations came out and he found himself one of the candidates, he was

depressed because he was not asked to sing one of the songs nominated for the Oscar

at the ceremony that would be televised nationally. But he shrugged it off and kept

working. He had no hope of winning the Academy Award now that his Godfather was no

longer able to put pressure on, but getting the nomination had some value.

The record he and Nino had cut, the one of Italian songs, was selling much better

than anything he had cut lately, but he knew that it was Nino's success more than his.

He resigned himself to never being able to again sing professionally.

Once a week he had dinner with Ginny and the kids. No matter how hectic

(лихорадочный, возбужденный: «чахоточный»; здесь: суетливый, оживленный)

things got he never skipped that duty. But he didn't sleep with Ginny. Meanwhile his

second wife had finagled a Mexican divorce and so he was a bachelor (холостяк

['bжt∫∂l∂]) again. Oddly enough he was not that frantic to bang starlets who would have

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been easy meat. He was too snobbish really. He was hurt that none of the young stars,

the actresses who were still on top, ever gave him a tumble (не проявляли к нему

интереса; to tumble – валиться вниз; понять что-либо /сленг/). But it was good to

work hard. Most nights he would go home alone, put his old records on the player, have

a drink and hum along with them for a few bars (несколько тактов). He had been good,

damn good. He hadn't realized how good he was. Even aside from the special voice,

which could have happened to anybody, he was good. He had been a real artist and

never knew it, and never knew how much he loved it. He'd ruined his voice with booze

and tobacco and broads just when he really knew what it was all about.

Sometimes Nino came over for a drink and listened with him and Johnny would say to

him scornfully, "You guinea bastard, you never sang like that in your life." And Nino

would give him that curiously charming smile and shake his head and say, "No, and I

never will," in a sympathetic voice, as if he knew what Johnny was thinking.

Finally, a week before shooting the new picture, the Academy Award night rolled

around. Johnny invited Nino to come along but Nino refused. Johnny said, "Buddy, I

never asked you a favor, right? Do me a favor tonight and come with me. You're the

only guy who'll really feel sorry for me if I don't win."

For one moment Nino looked startled. Then he said, "Sure, old buddy, I can make it."

He paused for a moment and said, "If you don't win, forget it. Just get as drunk as you

can get and I'll take care of you. Hell, I won't even drink myself tonight. How about that

for being a buddy (ну как, разве я не настоящий друг)?"

"Man," Johnny Fontane said, "that's some buddy."

The Academy Award night came and Nino kept his promise. He came to Johnny's

house dead sober and they left for the presentation theater together. Nino wondered

why Johnny hadn't invited any of his girls or his ex-wives to the Award dinner.

Especially Ginny. Didn't he think Ginny would root for (поддерживать, ободрять) him?

Nino wished he could have just one drink, it looked like a long bad night.

Nino Valenti found the whole Academy Award affair a bore until the winner of the best

male actor was announced. When he heard the words "Johnny Fontane," he found

himself jumping into the air and applauding. Johnny reached out a hand for him to

shake and Nino shook it. He knew his buddy needed human contact with someone he

trusted and Nino felt an enormous sadness that Johnny didn't have anyone better than

himself to touch in his moment of glory.

What followed was an absolute nightmare. Jack Woltz's picture had swept all the

major awards and so the studio's party was swamped (to swamp [swomp] – заливать,

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затоплять; swamp – болото, топь) with newspaper people and all the on-the-make

(старающийся улучшить свое положение /обычно за счет других/; ищущий

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любовного приключения) hustlers, male and female. Nino kept his promise to remain

sober, and he tried to watch over Johnny. But the women of the party kept pulling

Johnny Fontane into bedrooms for a little chat and Johnny kept getting drunker and

drunker.

Meanwhile the woman who had won the award for the best actress was suffering the

same fate but loving it more and handling it better. Nino turned her down (отверг), the

only man at the party to do so.

Finally somebody had a great idea. The public mating (совокупление; to mate –

сочетаться /браком/; спариваться /о птицах/) of the two winners, everybody else at

the party to be spectators in the stands. The actress was stripped down and the other

women started to undress Johnny Fontane. It was then that Nino, the only sober person

there, grabbed the half-clothed Johnny and slung (to sling – швырять; вешать через

плечо) him over his shoulder and fought his way out of the house and to their car. As

he drove Johnny home, Nino thought that if that was success, he didn't want it.

Book 3

Chapter 14

The Don was a real man at the age of twelve. Short, dark, slender, living in the

strange Moorish-looking (выглядящий по-мавритански, напоминающий что-то

мавританское) village of Corleone in Sicily, he had been born Vito Andolini, but when

strange men came to kill the son of the man they had murdered, his mother 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. It was one of the few gestures of

sentiment he was ever to make.

In Sicily at the turn of the century the Mafia was the second government, far more

powerful than the official one in Rome. Vito Corleone's father became involved in a feud

(наследственная вражда, междоусобица; кровная месть [fju:d]) with another villager

who took his case to the Mafia. The father refused to knuckle under (покориться) and in

a public quarrel killed the local Mafia chief. A week later he himself was found dead, his

body torn apart by lupara blasts. A month after the funeral Mafia gunmen came inquiring

after the young boy, Vito. They had decided that he was too close to manhood, that he

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might try to avenge the death of his father in the years to come. The twelve-year-old

Vito was hidden by relatives and shipped to America. There he was boarded with the

Abbandandos, whose son Genco was later to become Consigliori to his Don.

Young Vito went to work in the Abbandando grocery store on Ninth Avenue in New

York's Hell's Kitchen. At the age of eighteen Vito married an Italian girl freshly arrived

from Sicily, a girl of only sixteen but a skilled cook, a good housewife. They settled

down in a tenement (многоквартирный дом, сдаваемый в аренду ['tenım∂nt]) on

Tenth Avenue, near 35th Street, only a few blocks from where Vito worked, and two

years later were blessed with their first child, Santino, called by all his friends Sonny

because of his devotion to his father.

In the neighborhood lived a man called Fanucci. He was a heavy-set, fierce-looking

Italian who wore expensive light-colored suits and a cream-colored fedora. This man

was reputed to be of the "Black Hand," an offshoot (ответвление, боковая ветвь) of

the Mafia which extorted money from families and storekeepers by threat of physical

violence. However, since most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood were violent

themselves, Fanucci's threats of bodily harm were effective only with elderly couples

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without male children to defend them. Some of the storekeepers paid him trifling sums

as a matter of convenience. However, Fanucci was also a scavenger (уборщик мусора;

животное или птица, питающееся падалью ['skжvındG∂]) on fellow criminals, people

who illegally sold Italian lottery or ran gambling games in their homes. The Abbandando

grocery gave him a small tribute, this despite the protests of young Genco, who told his

father he would settle the Fanucci hash (заставит его замолчать, разделается с ним;

hash – блюдо из мелко нарезанного мяса и овощей; мешанина, путаница). His

father forbade him. Vito Corleone observed all this without feeling in any way involved.

One day Fanucci was set upon by three young men who cut his throat from ear to ear,

not deeply enough to kill him, but enough to frighten him and make him bleed a great

deal. Vito saw Fanucci fleeing from his punishers, the circular slash flowing red. What

he never forgot was Fanucci holding the cream-colored fedora under his chin to catch

the dripping blood as he ran. As if he did not want his suit soiled or did not want to leave

a shameful trail of carmine.

But this attack proved a blessing in disguise for Fanucci. The three young men were not

murderers, merely tough young boys determined to teach him a lesson and stop him