Илья Франк - Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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.
But he would settle this thing once and for all, Sonny thought, as he headed the Buick
toward the causeway (мостовая, мощеная дорожка, тротуар; дамба, гать) that would
take him over the water from Long Beach to the parkways on the other side of Jones
Beach. He always used this route when he went to New York. There was less traffic.
He decided he would send Connie home with the bodyguards and then he would have
a session with his brother-in-law. What would happen after that he didn't know. If the
bastard had really hurt Connie, he'd make a cripple out of the bastard. But the wind
coming over the causeway, the salty freshness of the air, cooled his anger. He put the
window down all the way.
He had taken the Jones Beach Causeway, as always, because it was usually
deserted this time of night, at this time of year, and he could speed recklessly until he hit
the parkways on the other side. And even there traffic would be light. The release of
driving very fast would help dissipate what he knew was a dangerous tension. He had
already left his bodyguards' car far behind.
The causeway was badly lit, there was not a single car. Far ahead he saw the white
cone of the manned tollbooth (будка для сбора дорожной пошлины: toll).
There were other tollbooths beside it but they were staffed only during the day, for
heavier traffic. Sonny started braking the Buick and at the same time searched his
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pockets for change. He had none. He reached for his wallet, flipped it open with one
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hand and fingered out a bill. He came within the arcade of light and he saw to his mild
surprise a car in the tollbooth slot (щелка, щель, прорезь; /здесь/ узкий проезд возле
будки) blocking it, the driver obviously asking some sort of directions from the toll taker.
Sonny honked (to honk – кричать /о диких гусях/; сигналить /авто/) his horn and the
other car obediently rolled through to let his car slide into the slot.
Sonny handed the toll taker the dollar bill and waited for his change. He was in a hurry
now to close the window. The Atlantic Ocean air had chilled the whole car. But the toll
taker was fumbling with his change; the dumb son of a bitch actually dropped it. Head
and body disappeared as the toll man stooped down in his booth to pick up the money.
At that moment Sonny noticed that the other car had not kept going but had parked a
few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught
sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to
think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked
toward him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then 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.
Even so, his huge body in a reflex for life crashed against the Buick door, bursting its
lock. The man in the darkened tollbooth opened fire and the shots caught Sonny
Corleone in the head and neck as his massive frame spilled out of the car. The two men
in front held up their guns now, the man in the darkened tollbooth cut his fire, and
Sonny's body sprawled on the asphalt with the legs still partly inside. 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.
Seconds afterward, all four men, the three actual assassins (assassin [∂'sжsın] –
/наемный, нападающий из-за угла/ убийца) and the bogus (поддельный, фиктивный)
toll collector, were in their car and speeding toward the Meadowbrook Parkway on the
other side of Jones Beach. Their pursuit was blocked by Sonny's car and body in the
tollgate slot but when Sonny's bodyguards pulled up a few minutes later and saw his
body lying there, they had no intention to pursue. They swung their car around in a huge
arc and returned to Long Beach. At the first public phone off the causeway one of them
hopped out and called Tom Hagen. He was very curt and very brisk. "Sonny's dead,
they got him at the Jones Beach toll."
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Hagen's voice was perfectly calm. "OK," he said. "Go to Clemenza's house and tell
him to come here right away. He'll tell you what to do."
Hagen had taken the call in the kitchen, with Mama Corleone bustling around
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preparing a snack for the arrival of her daughter. He had kept his composure and the
old woman had not noticed anything amiss. Not that she could not have, if she wanted
to, but in her life with the Don she had learned it was far wiser not to perceive. That if it
was necessary to know something painful, it would be told to her soon enough. And if it
was a pain that could be spared her, she could do without. She was quite content not to
share the pain of her men, after all did they share the pain of women? Impassively she
boiled her coffee and set the table with food. In her experience pain and fear did not dull
physical hunger; in her experience the taking of food dulled pain. She would have been
outraged if a doctor had tried to sedate her with a drug, but coffee and a crust of bread
were another matter; she came, of course, from a more primitive culture.
And so she let Tom Hagen escape to his corner conference room and once in that
room, Hagen began to tremble so violently he had to sit down with his legs squeezed
together, his head hunched into his contracted shoulders, hands clasped together
between his knees as if he were praying to the devil.
He was, he knew now, no fit Consigliori for a Family at war. He had been fooled,
faked out, by the Five Families and their seeming timidity. They had remained quiet,
laying their terrible ambush (засада ['жmbu∫]). They had planned and waited, holding
their bloody hands no matter what provocation they had been given. They had waited to
land one terrible blow. And they had. Old Genco Abbandando would never have fallen
for it, he would have smelled a rat, he would have smoked them out, tripled his
precautions. And through all this Hagen felt his grief. Sonny had been his true brother,
his savior; his hero when they had been boys together. Sonny had never been mean or
bullying (to bully – задирать; запугивать) with him, had always treated him with
affection, had taken him in his arms when Sollozzo had turned him loose. Sonny's joy at
that reunion had been real. That he had grown up to be a cruel and violent and bloody
man was, for Hagen, not relevant (уместный, относящийся к делу ['relıv∂nt]).
He had walked out of the kitchen because he knew he could never tell Mama
Corleone about her son's death. He had never thought of her as his mother as he
thought of the Don as his father and Sonny as his brother. His affection for her was like
his affection for Freddie and Michael and Connie. The affection for someone who has
been kind but not loving. But he could not tell her. In a few short months she had lost all
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102
her sons; Freddie exiled to Nevada, Michael hiding for his life in Sicily, and now Santino
dead. Which of the three had she loved most of all? She had never shown.
It was no more than a few minutes, Hagen got control of himself again and picked up
the phone. He called Connie's number. It rang for a long time before Connie answered
in a whisper.
Hagen spoke to her gently. "Connie, this is Tom. Wake your husband up, I have to
talk to him."
Connie said in a low frightened voice, "Tom, is Sonny coming here?"
"No," Hagen said. "Sonny's not coming there. Don't worry about that. Just wake Carlo
up and tell him it's very important I speak to him."
Connie's voice was weepy. "Tom, he beat me up, I'm afraid he'll hurt me again if he
knows I called home."
Hagen said gently, "He won't. He'll talk to me and I'll straighten him out. Everything
will be OK. Tell him it's very important, very, very important he come to the phone. OK?"
It was almost five minutes before Carlo's voice came over the phone, a voice half
slurred by whiskey and sleep. Hagen spoke sharply to make him alert.
"Listen, Carlo," he said, "I'm going to tell you something very shocking. Now prepare
yourself because when I tell it to you I want you to answer me very casually as if it's less
than it is. I told Connie it was important so you have to give her a story. Tell her the
Family has decided to move you both to one of the houses in the mall and to give you a
big job. That the Don has finally decided to give you a chance in the hope of making
your home life better. You got that?"
There was a hopeful note in Carlo's voice as he answered, "Yeah, OK."
Hagen went on, "In a few minutes a couple of my men are going to knock on your
door to take you away with them. Tell them I want them to call me first. Just tell them
that. Don't say anything else. I'll instruct them to leave you there with Connie. OK?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Carlo said. His voice was excited. The tension in Hagen's voice
seemed to have finally alerted him that the news coming up was going to be really
important. Hagen gave it to him straight. "They killed Sonny tonight. Don't say anything.
Connie called him while you were asleep and he was on his way over there, but I don't
want her to know that, even if she guesses it, I don't want her to know it for sure. She'll
start thinking it's all her fault. Now I want you to stay with her tonight and not tell her
anything. I want you to make up with her. I want you to be the perfect loving husband.
And I want you to stay that way until she has her baby at least. Tomorrow morning
somebody, maybe you, maybe the Don, maybe her mother, will tell Connie that her
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103
brother got killed. And I want you by her side. Do me this favor and I'll take care of you
in the times to come. You got that?"
Carlo's voice was a little shaky. "Sure, Tom, sure. Listen, me and you always got
along. I'm grateful. Understand?"
"Yeah," Hagen said. "Nobody will blame your fight with Connie for causing this, don't
worry about that. I'll take care of that." He paused and softly, encouragingly, "Go ahead
now, take care of Connie." He broke the connection.
He had learned never to make a threat, the Don had taught him that, but Carlo had
gotten the message all right: he was a hair away from death.
Hagen made another call to Tessio, telling him to come to the mall in Long Beach
immediately. He didn't say why and Tessio did not ask. Hagen sighed. Now would come
the part he dreaded.
He would have to waken the Don from his drugged slumber. He would have to tell the
man he most loved in the world that he had failed him, that he had failed to guard his
domain and the life of his eldest son. He would have to tell the Don everything was lost
unless the sick man himself could enter the battle. For Hagen did not delude himself.
Only the great Don himself could snatch even a stalemate from this terrible defeat.
Hagen didn't even bother checking with Don Corleone's doctors, it would be to no
purpose. No matter what the doctors ordered, even if they told him that the Don could
not rise from his sickbed on pain of death, he must tell his adopted father and then
follow him. And of course there was no question about what the Don would do. The
opinions of medical men were irrelevant now, everything was irrelevant now. The Don
must be told and he must either take command or order Hagen to surrender the
Corleone power to the Five Families.
And yet with all his heart, Hagen dreaded the next hour. He tried to prepare his own
manner. He would have to be in all ways strict with his own guilt. To reproach himself
would only add to the Don's burden. To show his own grief would only sharpen the grief
of the Don. To point out his own shortcomings (недостатки, дефекты, то, в чем «не
дотягивает») as a wartime Consigliori, would only make the Don reproach himself for
his own bad judgment for picking such a man for such an important post.
He must, Hagen knew, tell the news, present his analysis of what must be done to
rectify (исправить, выпрямить) the situation and then keep silent. His reactions
thereafter must be the reactions invited by his Don. If the Don wanted him to show guilt,
he would show guilt; if the Don invited grief, he would lay bare his genuine sorrow.
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Hagen lifted his head at the sound of motors, cars rolling up onto the mall. The
caporegimes were arriving. He would brief them first and then he would go up and
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wake Don Corleone. He got up and went to the liquor cabinet by the desk and took out
a glass and bottle. He stood there for a moment so unnerved he could not pour the
liquid from bottle to glass. Behind him, he heard the door to the room close softly and,
turning, he saw, fully dressed for the first time since he had been shot, Don Corleone.
The Don walked across the room to his huge leather armchair and sat down. He
walked a little stiffly, his clothes hung a little loosely on his frame but to Hagen's eyes he
looked the same as always. It was almost as if by his will alone the Don had discarded
all external evidence of his still weakened frame. His face was sternly set with all its old
force and strength. He sat straight in the armchair and he said to Hagen, "Give me a
