The Godfather returns

“Should be,” Kay repeated.

He sighed. If this was what she was like as a teacher, her students had been both lucky and doomed. “I apologize for it not being one hundred percent certain. What in life is?”

“Family, right?”

Michael chose to take that as playful. “What else can I do? Walk away? Even if I could do that and not make a widow out of you, what then? Take a job selling shoes while I go to night school and finish college? People depend on me, Kay, and while you and the kids come first and always will, I have other people to consider, too. Fredo, Co

They gathered up their lunch. Michael whistled, and Tommy Neri came out of the woods. He said he and the guys had already eaten, but a snack would be great, thanks.

Michael showed Kay into the boathouse. Inside was a Chris-Craft, aquamarine with spruce panels. He extended an arm. Kay got in. She expected Tommy Neri to follow her, but he released the boat and stayed behind.

“I was wondering,” Michael said, backing the boat out into the lake. “What’s the traditional fifth-a

“Wood. Which reminds me.” She pulled a card out of her purse and handed it to him.

“Really?” he said. “Wood?”

“Really,” she said. “Open that.”

Michael smiled and pointed at the tree-lined banks of the lake. “Behold,” he said. “Wood.”

“Open the card,” she said.

When he did, a brochure tumbled out. He picked it up.

“Behold,” she said. “Woods.”

It was from the pro shop of a country club in Las Vegas.

“Woods and irons both. I got you a set of golf clubs,” she said. She squeezed his right bicep. “You have to go in to get measured for them.”

“Golf, huh?”

“You don’t like it? You don’t want to take it up?”

“I do,” he said, rubbing the side of his face. “It’s perfect. Golf. Like any all-American executive. I love it. I do.”

Michael put the boat into gear, and they started across the lake to town. Kay slid next to him on the bench seat, and he looped his arm around her. He opened the throttle all the way. She lay her head on his shoulder and kept it there for the twenty-minute trip.

“Thank you,” she said when they got to shore. “I love the lot. I love your plan.” She leaned toward him. “And-” She kissed him. Michael did not usually like to show his emotions in public, but something in her kiss shot right through him, and as she started to pull away he pulled her back toward him and kept kissing her, harder now.

When they finally separated, breathless, they heard applause. It was two teenage boys onshore. They were each with a girl. The girls apologized. “They’re retards,” one said.

“Can’t take them anywhere,” said the other.

They were all dressed as if they’d just come from church.

“No apologies necessary,” Michael said. “Say, is there a movie theater around here?”

There was, and they got directions. The boys lagged behind the girls, laughing and punching each other on the arm.

“I was going to say-” Kay said.

“You love me,” Michael said.

“You’re as bad as those boys,” she said. “And you love me, too.”

The theater was closed. The picture they were showing was one produced by Joh

“It’s closed, Michael.”

He shook his head. He knocked harder. Before long, a bald man in a cowboy shirt and dungarees came into the lobby and mouthed that they were closed. Michael shook his head and knocked on the door again. The man came to the door. “Sorry, mister. Sundays all we got is the one show at seven-thirty.”

Michael motioned for the man to open the door, and he did.

“I understand,” Michael said. “It’s just that my wife and I are on a date, and this”-he turned and glanced at the movie poster-“Dirk Sanders, he’s just about her favorite movie star in the world, isn’t that right, honey?”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.”

“Well, you can see it tonight. Seven-thirty.”

Michael looked at the man’s left hand. “You see, though, we need to be home by seven-thirty, and this, today, is our a

“I’m the owner,” he said, “not a projectionist.”

“Which makes your time all the more worthwhile. I wouldn’t expect you to do a favor like this for a total stranger. You know how to operate the projector, though, am I right?”

“Of course I do.”

“Could I just have a word with you, then? Alone? Just for a second?”

The man rolled his eyes, but Kay could tell there was something in Michael’s cold stare that affected the man. He let Michael in. They exchanged some whispered words. Moments later, Michael and Kay sat in the middle of the theater as the movie started. “What did you say to him?”

“Turns out we have some mutual friends.”

A few minutes in, as the lead characters literally bumped into each other in a Technicolor soundstage version of Paris, the theater owner brought them two sodas and a bucket of fresh popcorn. The man and the woman in the movie took an instant dislike to each other, signaling the dull inevitability of their falling in love. Soon Kay and Michael began making out in the dark, like kids. They couldn’t leave, not after getting the owner to show the movie just for them. They kept at it. Things escalated. “Behold,” Kay whispered, grabbing his cock. “Wood.”

Michael burst out laughing.

“Shhh,” Kay said.

“We’re alone,” Michael said. “All alone.”

A year ago, one of the two men pacing near the ticket counter at Gate 10B of the Detroit City Airport was a barber on Court Street in Brooklyn who made book on the side, reporting to a guy who reported to a guy who reported to Pete Clemenza. The other one had been a goat farmer in Sicily, near Prizzi. In the intervening years, loyalty and battlefield promotions and a frank shortage of labor had caused them to come up through the ranks more swiftly than a person could in times of peace. The barber was third generation, with terrible Italian; the goatherd still struggled with English. Their flight to Las Vegas was boarding now. There was no sign of Fredo Corleone. The goatherd held a phantom telephone to his ear. The barber sighed and nodded. What choice did he have? He went to a pay phone and started dumping quarters into it.