One thing he knew for certain: if what his father said was indeed true, Nick Geraci would figure out how to do something to Michael Corleone that would do more harm than death.

They made it to Troy. The cockfights were in an old icehouse. The front of the place had been turned into a bar. There was a huge gravel parking lot behind the building and out of sight from the road.

“How’d you know about this place, Dad?”

Fausto Geraci rolled his eyes. “You know all the ins and outs and what-have-yous, right? But your old man, he don’t know his ass from his elbow.”

Nick let it go. They got out. His father complained about the cold. He’d been the toughest sonofabitch there was about the cold back in Cleveland.

“It’s March in New York, Dad.”

“Your blood thins.” He nonetheless stopped to light one of Charlotte ’s cigarettes, gave a little scornful chuckle, muttered something, and headed for the door.

“What’s that?”

“I said, ‘I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder.’ ” He was moving pretty fast for an old guy.

“You can what now?”

“From your Eddie Rickenbacker book, genius,” Fausto said. “He said it. You left it. The book. Do me a favor, stop looking at me like you think I can’t read.”

Nick seemed to remember that the line had been on the book’s flyleaf.

Inside, men Nick didn’t know recognized him and made way for him. This happened a lot in New York, but it was nice to see it here, through his father’s eyes.

They went to the men’s room. “Last words on the subject,” Fausto whispered, his eyes on the wall above the urinal trough. “You want me to take care of you-know-who”-he let go of his dick, turned to his son, and snapped his fingers, both hands-“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Nick smiled. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Don’t take him lightly,” Fausto said, zipping up. “In his day he sent more men to meet the Devil than-”

“I won’t.” Nick washed his hands and held the door for his father. “First bet’s on me.”

He placed it with the same five his father had left under Charlotte ’s purse. It went on a big ugly Blueface stag, a ten-to-one underdog that they first saw in its pen, shitting all over itself. Fausto looked at the diarrhea and even stuck his finger into a gob that had fallen on the floor and smelled it. Thirty seconds in, the shit-tailed cock leapt up and hit the other bird’s carotid artery. As Fausto the Driver had guessed, the diarrhea had been a sham, induced with Epsom salts.

The Geracis were fifty to the good, playing it cool, trying to find the angles that would decide the next deadly fight, no matter how much rage beat in the hearts of the next two chickens.

PETE CLEMENZA was holding court at a diner just outside the Garment District, a place with a back dining room where no one who was not with Clemenza was ever seated. The man who owned the place was old enough to be Pete’s father, and Pete was seventy. They’d been friends longer than either man could remember. This particular morning, the boss was home sick and Pete was in the kitchen, an apron tied over his silk suit, cooking peppers and eggs, redoing the chopped onions (the ones already prepared were “a million times too coarse”), and showing the ropes to the punks who worked for his friend, keeping them in line. Two of Clemenza’s men sat at a metal table crammed in the corner, listening to Clemenza do what he’d done for the better part of his waking life, which was tell a story. It had been what had sealed his bond with Vito Corleone. Pete was a born storyteller, Vito a born listener.

This one happened five years ago, right after Pete got out of prison for a short stretch he’d had to do for extortion (the case was overturned on appeal). Pete had gone to see Tessio’s new TV. “Compared to the TV sets in the joint,” Pete said, “this one’s got a picture so pretty it made your dick hard. It’s Friday night, and Tessio’s got a few of us over to watch the fights, hoist a couple, place a friendly wager or two. Tessio had inside dope on every fight in creation, but he’s extending his hospitality, so losing money to him, it’s like slipping the house a little something for a good seat. Only guy there I don’t know is this one kid-new guy, wound tight as a squirrel. For somebody who’s not well known, he’s asking a lot of questions, and at a certain point I say something about it. Kid goes white, but Sally says, ‘Let him ask, how else does a guy learn?’ A little later I’m in the hall comin’ out of the can when Richie Two Guns asks what the squirrel’s story was. I didn’t know shit, I said, which maybe oughta be on my tombstone. The first fight starts, and Sally tells Richie to turn the sound off, that he can’t stand the announcer. Then Sally tells the squirrel to announce the fight. Kid laughs, but Sally pulls out a gun and waves it at him like get on with it. Kid looks like he might piss himself. ‘Welcome to Madison Square Garden,’ he says, and, I shit you not, his voice comes out of the TV! ‘Who’s in the dark trunks?’ Sally says. The squirrel says, ‘In the dark trunks, we have Beau Jack,’ which again comes through the TV. Sally smiles and says he don’t like this announcer, either. Richie rips the squirrel’s shirt off, and damned if this hairy bastard ain’t wearing a wire. First one I ever saw with a transmitter. Primitive government piece of shit played right through Sally’s new TV. Sally goes over, leans into the microphone part, and says, ‘Fatta la legge, trovato l’inganno.’ For every law, there’s a loophole, I guess you’d say. Anyway, this cop or whatever he was must have known Italian and figured out that despite the rule against killing cops, Sally was going to get the job done anyway. So then the squirrel really does piss himself. It shorts out the fucking transmitter. Squirrel starts jerking and screaming. Swear to God, his nuts are on fire. His nuts!”

Everyone in that cramped kitchen laughed.

Clemenza keeled over onto the grill.

They must have thought he was going for a bigger laugh yet. For a moment-as the big man’s great big heart blew like a bald truck tire-he got one. Then the flesh of his fat face seared and crackled and his suit coat burst into flame. His men leapt up and pulled him from the grill. They smothered the fire in no time.

All the last original employees of Genco Pura Olive Oil-its president, Vito Corleone; its manager, Genco Abbandando; and its two salesmen, Sal Tessio and Pete Clemenza-were dead.

The train station in Cleveland was near enough to the lake that gusts of icy wind were knocking down disembarking passengers. Nick Geraci fell, as did two of his men. Eddie Paradise broke his arm, though it was a few days before he figured that out.

The Polack was out by the Thinker.

It was the day before Clemenza’s funeral and an hour after the Cleveland Museum of Art closed. Geraci was shown into a white room, utterly empty except for Vincent Forlenza-the largest anonymous donor in the history of that great museum-and his wheelchair. He called to his men to get Mr. Geraci a chair or a bench, but Geraci insisted that it was fine, he’d stand. Forlenza’s nurse and all the bodyguards waited at the end of a long hall.

Geraci admitted that his first impulse had been to have Laughing Sal’s car sabotaged and make it look like an accident. Tit for tat, more or less. Forlenza’s idea had been to car-bomb Narducci into a hundred corners of oblivion. Car bombing was the midwestern Families’ style. It was a labor saver, eliminating any need to dispose of the bodies.

They discussed the merits of torturing Narducci, as Forlenza had the dead pal of the dead mechanic. But there was nothing Narducci could tell them that they hadn’t already confirmed. If they were going to kill him, they might as well just give him two to the head or, sure, wire up his car.