The Godfather returns

Chapter 7

PHIL ORNSTEIN’S corner office on the forty-first floor was lined with gold records and pictures of Philly’s frankly unattractive family but none of famous people, which was either an affectation or a reason to love the guy. He ushered Joh

Halfway through, he stopped. Gi

He took out the pep pills, considered the label, then took one out and swallowed it dry.

Shit. What was he, some schoolboy segaiolo, afraid to ask out the prom queen? He’d known Gi

“It’s me,” he said.

“Hello, my life,” Gi

“God, it’s great to hear your voice,” Joh

They’d just gotten back from May Company, she told him. His oldest daughter had purchased her first brassiere.

“You can’t be serious,” Joh

“When’s the last time you saw her?” Gi

He’d had good-paying gigs in Atlantic City and at private clubs in the Jersey Palisades and the one Louie Russo had outside Chicago. He’d done a picture on location in New Orleans. The early scenes of it were shot here, on soundstages. Probably then. “Memorial Day?”

“Rhetorical question,” she said. “So where are you now?”

“Remember that one Labor Day, I don’t know what year,” he said. “We rented that place at Cape May, and we all went to that clambake?”

“No,” she said.

“You’re kidding,” he said. He could hear his girls in the background, arguing.

“Of course I’m kidding. Those were the times of my life. Back when I didn’t exist.”

Les Halley had insisted that Joh

“And you had your floozy across town so that every time you went out for cigarettes-”

“Remember when I burnt my hands trying to cook that corn and-”

“And then burnt them again on those firecrackers.”

“True.” He had to laugh.

“There’s a block party tomorrow,” she said. “We have to make pie. You want to come?”

“To the party?”

“You’re in town, right? You sound so close.”

He cradled the phone against his shoulder and covered his eyes with both hands. “No,” he said. “I’m not. It’s just a good co

“Oh,” she said. “Your loss. I’m making chicken scarpariello, too. Same recipe your ma showed me. Actually, the girls are. If they don’t kill each other first. They’re at that age.”

Joh

She asked if he wanted to talk to them. He said he did, but only his younger daughter would get on the phone. Philly came in, tapping his watch.

“Tell your mother,” Joh

“Okay,” she said. She’d convey the message-she was that kind of kid-but there was a note in her voice that made it clear she knew he’d never show.

The green pills had been prescribed by Jules Segal, the same doctor who’d diagnosed the warts on Joh

Joh

He’d have given anything to stop.

He’d have given anything to make this feeling last forever.

He’d come here thinking he’d lay down half a long-playing record. A few minutes into the session, he realized he’d be doing well to finish one song to both his and Cy Milner’s satisfaction. Yet, minutes before he’d have to catch a plane back to Vegas, he found himself doing the third song of the day so well he got to the end without stopping or being stopped.

As he finished, he opened his eyes and saw Jackie Ping-Pong and Gussie Cicero standing inside the far door to the studio. How long they’d been there, Joh

Milner had already whipped out a pad of paper. As a conductor, he was laconic and fluid, but he wrote charts the way a stray dog eats a pork chop. He was oblivious to anything else in the studio, even the intern standing next to him with a bottle of soda and a fistful of pencils.

Joh

“My friend!” Jackie said, waddling toward him. He was a hugely fat man, just an acquaintance, really. “You’re looking like a million bucks. You sound even better.”

Joh

“A million bucks and a blow job,” said Gussie Cicero, a pally from way back.

“Wrong,” Joh

“Those free blow jobs are the most expensive kind.”

That cracked Joh

Joh

“Frank Falcone sends his regards,” Gussie said. Gussie was said to be a made guy in the L.A. organization, which was co