On the way to the funeral, during a snowstorm, Fredo Corleone and Nick Geraci stopped for a walk through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This had been Tessio’s favorite place to talk business, and it had become Geraci’s. The place was never so crowded on a weekday that it was hard to talk privately. Plus, it would have been an impossible place to bug.

The snow fell in wet flakes, four inches or more expected. The Rock Garden looked like the lumpy surface of the moon. Trailing several paces behind were four of Geraci’s men, Momo the Roach, Eddie Paradise, and two zips (recently arrived Sicilians, in other words, considered ruthless even by other wiseguys). Two others (Tommy Neri, who’d come with Fredo, and Geraci’s driver, Donnie Bags, so named for the colostomy bag he’d needed since he was gutshot by his own wife) had stayed with the cars.

“What I hear,” Fredo said, “is that maybe Pete’s heart attack was no heart attack.”

“The autopsy said heart attack,” Geraci said. “Making someone have a heart attack? Christ. Know what I think? People watch too much TV. Rots their brains. No offense.”

“None taken,” Fredo said. “Plus which you may be right.” The prevailing rumor was that the men who said they pulled Clemenza from the grill had actually pushed him onto it, that they were trying to burn him up and along with it, the diner, too, but lucked out: he had a heart attack, which streamlined things. There were men both inside and outside his own crew who were suspected of the killing, if there had been a killing, which was highly debatable.

That didn’t stop other rumors from flying. Many seemed to think Clemenza had been killed by Hyman Roth, the Jewish gang leader, if only because Roth was in the middle of negotiations with Michael Corleone for control of Cuba. Louie Russo’s Chicago outfit couldn’t be ruled out, either. If it had been murder, Geraci would have bet on the Rosato Brothers, a rogue element in Clemenza’s regime with ties to Don Rico Tattaglia. All that said, both Ockham’s razor and Clemenza’s diet pointed to an unadorned heart attack. An autopsy showed that his heart was twice the size of a normal man’s.

“ Hagen said he thought that all the rumors were ridiculous, too,” Fredo said.

“What did the Don say?” asked Geraci.

“Mike agreed with Hagen,” Fredo said. “I talked to him personally about it.” He bounced on the balls of his feet as he said it.

A semi-illiterate reader of human beings could have guessed that this was a lie, though Geraci didn’t even have to guess. Fredo’s top bodyguard used to be Geraci’s barber. Everyone called him Figaro. Figaro’s cousin was a welder and fabricator-Geraci’s guy for tricking out storage spaces in cars and trucks to transport goods from the docks in Jersey. According to Figaro and the cousin, Fredo had barely said hello to Michael since Francesca’s wedding.

Fredo was shivering almost to the point of convulsion. He’d lived out west for twelve years and said he couldn’t handle the cold anymore. Pathetic. If he wanted to experience real cold, he ought to take the fucking train to Cleveland sometime. But out of pity, Geraci steered him into a greenhouse, full of orchids in full bloom and a troop of Girl Scouts.

“How’s your ma?” asked Geraci. “Doin’ all right?”

“She’s tough. The move was hard on her, though. Her place in Tahoe is a million times nicer than that house on the mall, but she and Pop built that place together. Lot of memories.”

“If she’s anything like my mother,” Geraci said, crossing himself and looking out at the falling snow, “the change of scenery might do her a world of good.”

“Not to mention the warmer weather,” Fredo said. “I never seen an orange orchid before,” he said, pointing.

The Girl Scouts left, and the two men were alone together in the greenhouse.

“Mike really wanted to come,” Fredo said, “but he’s all tied up with something big. He loved Pete like an uncle. Christ, we all did.”

Geraci nodded, willing his face into impassiveness. “I’m sure the Don knows what’s best.” Geraci presumed that the real reason Michael hadn’t come was that he didn’t want to be seen at the funeral by any New York reporters or the FBI. His mania to become quote-unquote legitimate overrode his loyalty to his father’s oldest friend, a man he himself had seemed to love-to the extent he was capable of love, or any other emotion. “Something big, huh?”

“To be honest with you,” Fredo said, “I don’t know much about it.”

That was probably true. But Geraci knew plenty. Michael and Roth were apparently unaware that their negotiations for control of Cuba were pointless, since the Batista government was doomed to fall, and had no real importance other than to make them cogs in a bigger wheel involving a coalition of the midwest Families, led by Chicago and Cleveland. Louie Russo had a deal worked out with the rebels. Even if Batista somehow stayed in power, Fredo’s weakness could be used to turn Roth and Michael against each other. All that would be left of their deal was the deal itself, the terms of which Russo and his associates were fully prepared to assume.

Geraci nodded toward the door. They had to keep moving.

He gave Fredo an update on the project they were calling Colma East. He’d worked out the turf issues in Jersey with the Straccis. He had a front, someone impossible to connect to the Corleone Family, who had a contract on a big swampy parcel of land. Also, since Geraci was already shipping most of his heroin from Sicily in between slabs of marble too heavy for customs inspectors to move, getting into the stonecutting business would be a snap. “What about on your end?”

“It’s in the bag. Me and Mike just need to sit down and hammer out a few particulars.”

“You haven’t done that yet?” Geraci said, pretending to be surprised. “Because this is as far as I can take this thing. Ordinances, rezoning, et cetera-those aren’t fields of the law I know about. I know who to ask, how to get all that rolling, but first you have to get the Don’s blessing. The politicians-again, his call and not mine. There’s also the matter of how the public might react to this, how to sell it to them. How to keep it off the ballot and so on. Fredo, I respect what you’re trying to do, but don’t you think that if the Don thought these problems were easy to fix, we’d probably be moving forward already?”

“Nah. The problem is the timing. Mike’s focus for the time being is on other things. Knowing you’re on board, though, that’ll get it done. From Mike’s way of thinking, me and you are perfect for a thing like this. His brother and the guy he’s got the highest opinion of.”

Geraci put his big hand on Fredo’s shoulder. “Mike never said that, Fredo.”

It was a show of disrespect, a calculated risk, but of course Geraci was right.

“Did I say he said that?” Fredo said. “What I said was what his way of thinking was.”

“I’m just a mook from Cleveland.” Geraci tightened his grip; Fredo flinched. “I do what I’m told, run my own things, spread the wealth, everybody’s happy. Here and there, I see an opportunity, and I take it. But don’t make me into more than I am. I’m not on board, either. You asked me to look into some things, and I looked. Period. We clear?”

Fredo nodded. Geraci let go of his shoulder. They started walking again. The sun came out, but the snow kept falling.

“I hate that,” Fredo said. “The snow and the sun. It’s unnatural. Like the bomb’s been dropped and the world’s gone screwy on us.”

“I need to be clear on something else, Fredo,” Geraci said. “I don’t want to get into the middle of things between you and your brother.”

“Things are fine between me and my brother.”

“Just so it’s understood. I’m not taking sides. Under no circumstances.”

“There’s no sides to take. C’mon. We’re on the same side about everything. Anybody says different, they don’t know me. They don’t know Mike.”