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Finally, the Ambassador got off the phone.
“Hey hey! It’s the Irish consigliere.” Cahn-sig-lee-airy.
Hagen wondered if the Ambassador really didn’t know how to pronounce the word or if the mispronunciation was willful, a joke on the “Irish” part of it.
“German-Irish,” Hagen corrected.
“Nobody’s perfect,” said the Ambassador.
“And I’m just a lawyer,” Hagen said.
“Even worse,” the Ambassador said-a strange thing to say, Hagen thought, for a man who’d sent four children to law school. “Drink?”
“Ice water,” Hagen said. Said, not asked. In public, the Ambassador was a famously charming man. The lack of any apology had to be both on purpose and purposeful.
“Nothing stronger?”
“Ice water will be fine.” As a chaser to a fistful of aspirin. “Heavy on the ice.”
“I quit boozing, too,” the Ambassador said, “other than a nip of Pernod from time to time.” He raised an iced half-empty glass. “Prune juice. Want some?” When Hagen shook his head, the Ambassador shouted for water. “My father went the same way as yours, you know? Drink. Curse of our people.”
A young Negro woman in a French maid costume brought out a silver pitcher of ice water and one small crystal class. Hagen downed his water and refilled the glass himself. “Sorry to have missed you on the court,” he said, pantomiming a ground stroke. “I’ve been hearing for years you have quite a game.”
The Ambassador looked at him as if he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“From other people,” Hagen said.
The Ambassador nodded, slapped together another sandwich, stood, waved for Hagen to follow him, walked to the side of the pool, and sat down on the top step of the shallow end of the circular part. His prick lolled in the water, half submerged before him. He tapped it, absently.
“I’m fine right here, sir,” Hagen said. “In the shade. If you don’t mind.”
“You’re missing out.” He held the sandwich in his teeth and made a show of splash-sprinkling water on himself, then bit off a chunk. As if it could see this, Hagen ’s stomach growled. “Refreshing,” the Ambassador said.
The Ambassador finished his sandwich. Hagen asked about his family. The Ambassador went on and on about them, especially Da
The Ambassador went on to ask about several of the men’s mutual associates and acquaintances. Hovering between and among their every chatty word were the recent events in New York. But neither man spoke the names of any of the dead-Tessio, Tattaglia, Barzini, nobody. Neither Hagen nor the Ambassador spoke specifically of those events, or had to.
The Ambassador stood, knee deep on a step of the pool, and stretched. He was a tall man, a giant by the standards of men of his generation. He’d claimed to have licked Babe Ruth in a fistfight when they were kids; this was a lie, but with the Babe dead for years now and the Ambassador standing there in his aging, ropy-penised glory, the story contained its own sort of truth. The Ambassador dove forward and began swimming laps. After ten he stopped.
“Fountain of youth, fella,” he said, not as breathless as Hagen would have thought. “Swear to you. Swear to fucking God.”
Had it not been for the beating sun, his headache, his irritation at being trifled with by the Ambassador, and his need to get home tonight, Hagen might have let things drag out.
“So, Mr. Ambassador. Do we have a deal?”
“Ho ho! You get right to the point there, don’t you?”
Hagen glanced at his watch. It was pushing four. “I’m like that.”
The Ambassador got out of the pool. How the woman in the maid outfit knew to appear from out of nowhere with a towel and a thick robe, Hagen couldn’t imagine. Hagen followed the Ambassador into a glassed-in porch, which was, thank God, both dark and air-conditioned.
“You flatter me. You and Mike do. Or rather you people flatter Da
All of which Hagen correctly understood to mean the opposite. What that little turn of phrase about Da
“We wouldn’t want anything called off,” Hagen said. “It’s important that justice be served. Moving forward, getting back to business without the disruption these false accusations have caused, that’s in the best interest of all involved.”
“Hard to argue with that,” said the Ambassador, nodding. They had a deal, presuming Hagen had come through.
“And you, sir, flatter me,” Hagen said. “Or rather, our business co
“Definite?”
Hagen nodded.
The old man shot a fist into the air, an oddly boyish gesture. This was terrific news for him, of course. Now, even if the more delicate aspects of this deal fell through, Governor Shea would, at minimum, be able to take credit for bringing the convention-and the conventioneers and their money-to his state.
“The location is a helpful sign,” Hagen agreed. “Having the governor of the host state deliver the nominating speech will strike a lot of people as a good idea. After that, who knows?”
After that, Hagen said, as if the speech were sure to happen, which the Ambassador now understood that it was.
“Theoretically speaking,” the Ambassador said. “Once Jimmy gives the speech-”
Hagen nodded. The list of ifs was long. “I’m a careful but optimistic man, sir. Let’s just call it a long haul to 1960.”
Haul being the operative word. If the most important ifs went right, the labor unions the Corleones controlled would support James Kavanaugh Shea’s bid for the White House.
“Rumor has it,” said the Ambassador, escorting Hagen though the house now and to the waiting golf cart, “you have political aspirations yourself.”
“You know how it is, sir,” Hagen said. “This is America. Land of opportunity. Any boy can grow up to be president.”
The Ambassador laughed like hell, handed him a cigar, and sent him on his way. “You’ll go far,” he shouted after him, as if Tom Hagen’s life up to now had been nothing, nowhere.