“It’s worse than stray bullets, Fredo. Those guns-”

“They’re clean. Neri said they were as clean as they come.”

“They better be, because the LAPD is bringing in the FBI to help check ’em out.”

“They’re clean.”

They got into Hagen ’s Buick-everyone in the Family was driving boring cars all of sudden-and they drove in silence to the Château Marmont. Not only hadn’t the management kicked Fredo out, but Hagen had taken a room there, too. There’s a lot to be said for a place with a discreet staff. There was also a lot to be said for tipping well, paying for one’s room in advance, and being married to a VIP. Hagen and Fredo took a walk together on the secluded tropical grounds.

“So what about those pills they found in your pocket?” Hagen said.

“Prescription. Segal gave ’em to me.” That was true, at least indirectly. He’d sent Figaro, his guy in Vegas, out to get the pills. Jules Segal, an old friend of the family, was head of surgery at the hospital the Corleones had built.

“They tell me they were in an aspirin bottle.”

“I dumped ’em in there and then took all the aspirin. There’s no law that says you gotta carry pills a certain way.”

“I don’t know. Segal got suspended once for that, a long time ago, and before he worked at our hospital. But now… well, the hospital makes us look good, and if-”

“Get a different doc at that hospital to say he prescribed it, then. Make it worth his while. You’ve fixed problems a hundred times worse than this. Jesus, Tommy. Pop always called you the most Sicilian one. What the fuck happened? They remove that from you with a special act of Congress? I told you what that guy did! It was my wife!”

“You told me on the phone. Which wasn’t smart, Fredo.”

Fredo shrugged, in concession. “ Marshall didn’t die or nothin’, did he?”

“No, thank God.” Hagen said. “He’ll be fine. His face is another matter, though.”

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“Pretty bad. Matt Marshall makes a living with his cheekbones, one of which is now more of a liquid than a solid. Which would be bad enough, but as you know he’s in the middle of shooting a movie. They don’t seem to think they can finish it without him. It’s possible we can take care of things, but L.A. is a tough town for us anymore, with the Chicago -”

“We got peace with those guys. They know me, they like me. I can handle ’em.”

“At any rate, you’ve given me a lot of things to take care of.”

“C’mon, Tom. What would you have done if it had been Theresa?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Kill a car, a poodle, and a major motion picture?”

“At least you didn’t say it would never be Theresa.”

“It would never be Theresa.”

“Fuck you, you fucking holier-than-thou fuck.”

“How many pills you take today, Fredo?”

“None.” He didn’t think like that, about the number. “I only take ’em off and on.” He didn’t want to go by Bungalow 3, and he didn’t wasn’t to go by the pool. “Better view this way,” he said. “Of Sunset Boulevard and all.”

“I know,” Hagen said. “I’ve stayed here. I was the one who told you about this place.”

“So you know, then. Better view this way.”

They went that way.

“I been meaning to ask,” Fredo said. “Did Kay go nuts when you told her about the bugs?”

“She doesn’t know,” Hagen said.

Fredo had guessed right: Mike hadn’t even told her himself. He’d have Tom do it. There was some pilgrim who’d lost his woman. “Kay’s smart. She knows things. Even if she don’t know, sooner or later but probably sooner you’ll tell her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not saying you’re sweet on her or nothin’, but everyone knows she’s got a way of getting things out of you.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”

“You told me my idea about cornering the cemetery racket in New York like out in Colma was the most ridiculous thing you ever heard.”

“That cemetery idea? You’re still talking about that? Mike told you, it’s not a project we can get into now. We’re staying away from rackets of any sort. We don’t want to be beholden to the Straccis for anything. We’d need to call in favors from all kinds of politicians in New York, and the last thing we want to do right now is spend those kind of favors on a project like this-one that has a lot of holes in it, I might add.”

They rounded a corner and ran into Alfred Hitchcock, out for a walk along with Annie McGowan and her agent. Fredo introduced Hagen as “Congressman Hagen.” Annie asked Fredo if he was okay. Fredo said it was a long story and he’d give her a call later. No, Johnny wasn’t in town, Annie said. He was in Chicago. Hitchcock insisted he had to go, and they went.

“What holes?” Fredo said, again alone with Hagen.

“It’s got holes,” Hagen said. “Look, the way things are is this: The operation in New York is going to maintain things as is. The only new ventures have to be legitimate businesses.”

“That’s the beauty of my plan, Tom. It’s no racket. It’ll all be completely legal.”

“Fredo, you can’t have this both ways. You can’t on the one hand be in the public eye, married to a movie star, running the entertainment side of our hotels in Las Vegas, and starting up your own television show-which I hear went well, by the way.”

“Thanks. We try.”

“But you can’t do all that and at the same time be the force behind something like your cemetery plan. And you can’t do any of it if you don’t clean up your act. Wake up, huh?”

Waking up would be great, except that the cops had taken his fucking pills. “So let someone else take care of the dirty work,” Fredo said. “Rocco could do it. Or you know who’d be perfect? Nick Geraci. After it’s all legit, I’d be in charge. It was my idea, Tom.”

“Ideas,” Hagen said, “are shit. It’s knowing what to do with an idea that matters.”

“I know what to fucking do with my idea, okay? I know how to put it in place. I know how to run the fucking operation once it’s in place. My problem is, you won’t let me do it.”

Hagen started to say something.

“Say it,” Fredo said. “Say it’s not you stopping me, it’s Mike. Goddamn it, Tom, he takes advantage of you worse than he does me. We’re both older than him. We both got passed over, and why?”

Hagen frowned.

“You’re not Italian,” Fredo said, “and you’re not blood either, so fine, that complicates things, but not to the point of making you automatically into his errand boy.”

“I should have let you cool your heels in there, you ungrateful prick. Maybe you’d like it in jail.”

“Fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Hagen closed his eyes. “Nothing.”

“What’s wrong, you afraid?”

Hagen didn’t say anything.

“I asked you a question, goddamnit.”

“Are you going to hit me, Fredo? Go ahead.”

“I know what you’re trying to say, Tom. Just say it. This is about that kid, the thief in San Fran.” Fredo hadn’t had to kill a guy to get initiated into the business. Dean the beatnik was the first person Fredo had ever killed. If only the kid hadn’t remembered that old photo of Fredo crying on the curb. Fredo had pretended not to know anything about it. He had the kind of face that looked like a lot of people, he’d told Dean. But the kid wouldn’t drop it. Fredo smothered the kid with a pillow, got him dressed, and beat up the corpse to make it look good. Nice kid, but the fact remained, he was a pervert. Not someone just messing around but a guy who thought of himself as a faggot. It was sick. At the time, Fredo had been in such a panic about being recognized that the whole business had been easy. Getting out of it had been harder, but that had come out all right, too. “Don’t keep looking at me like that. Say it.”

“I’m not trying to say a goddamned thing,” Hagen said. “ San Francisco, as far as I’m concerned, is ancient history.”

“You’re really starting to piss me off, Tom.”