Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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the phone. He called Connie's number. It rang for a long time before Connie answered
in a whisper.
Hagen spoke to her gently. "Connie, this is Tom. Wake your husband up, I have to
talk to him."
Connie said in a low frightened voice, "Tom, is Sonny coming here?"
"No," Hagen said. "Sonny's not coming there. Don't worry about that. Just wake Carlo
up and tell him it's very important I speak to him."
Connie's voice was weepy. "Tom, he beat me up, I'm afraid he'll hurt me again if he
knows I called home."
Hagen said gently, "He won't. He'll talk to me and I'll straighten him out. Everything
will be OK. Tell him it's very important, very, very important he come to the phone. OK?"
It was almost five minutes before Carlo's voice came over the phone, a voice half
slurred by whiskey and sleep. Hagen spoke sharply to make him alert.
"Listen, Carlo," he said, "I'm going to tell you something very shocking. Now prepare
yourself because when I tell it to you I want you to answer me very casually as if it's less
than it is. I told Connie it was important so you have to give her a story. Tell her the
Family has decided to move you both to one of the houses in the mall and to give you a
big job. That the Don has finally decided to give you a chance in the hope of making
your home life better. You got that?"
There was a hopeful note in Carlo's voice as he answered, "Yeah, OK."
Hagen went on, "In a few minutes a couple of my men are going to knock on your
door to take you away with them. Tell them I want them to call me first. Just tell them
that. Don't say anything else. I'll instruct them to leave you there with Connie. OK?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Carlo said. His voice was excited. The tension in Hagen's voice
seemed to have finally alerted him that the news coming up was going to be really
important. Hagen gave it to him straight. "They killed Sonny tonight. Don't say anything.
Connie called him while you were asleep and he was on his way over there, but I don't
want her to know that, even if she guesses it, I don't want her to know it for sure. She'll
start thinking it's all her fault. Now I want you to stay with her tonight and not tell her
anything. I want you to make up with her. I want you to be the perfect loving husband.
And I want you to stay that way until she has her baby at least. Tomorrow morning
somebody, maybe you, maybe the Don, maybe her mother, will tell Connie that her
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brother got killed. And I want you by her side. Do me this favor and I'll take care of you
in the times to come. You got that?"
Carlo's voice was a little shaky. "Sure, Tom, sure. Listen, me and you always got
along. I'm grateful. Understand?"
"Yeah," Hagen said. "Nobody will blame your fight with Connie for causing this, don't
worry about that. I'll take care of that." He paused and softly, encouragingly, "Go ahead
now, take care of Connie." He broke the connection.
He had learned never to make a threat, the Don had taught him that, but Carlo had
gotten the message all right: he was a hair away from death.
Hagen made another call to Tessio, telling him to come to the mall in Long Beach
immediately. He didn't say why and Tessio did not ask. Hagen sighed. Now would come
the part he dreaded.
He would have to waken the Don from his drugged slumber. He would have to tell the
man he most loved in the world that he had failed him, that he had failed to guard his
domain and the life of his eldest son. He would have to tell the Don everything was lost
unless the sick man himself could enter the battle. For Hagen did not delude himself.
Only the great Don himself could snatch even a stalemate from this terrible defeat.
Hagen didn't even bother checking with Don Corleone's doctors, it would be to no
purpose. No matter what the doctors ordered, even if they told him that the Don could
not rise from his sickbed on pain of death, he must tell his adopted father and then
follow him. And of course there was no question about what the Don would do. The
opinions of medical men were irrelevant now, everything was irrelevant now. The Don
must be told and he must either take command or order Hagen to surrender the
Corleone power to the Five Families.
And yet with all his heart, Hagen dreaded the next hour. He tried to prepare his own
manner. He would have to be in all ways strict with his own guilt. To reproach himself
would only add to the Don's burden. To show his own grief would only sharpen the grief
of the Don. To point out his own shortcomings (недостатки,
дотягивает») as a wartime Consigliori, would only make the Don reproach himself for
his own bad judgment for picking such a man for such an important post.
He must, Hagen knew, tell the news, present his analysis of what must be done to
rectify (исправить, выпрямить) the situation and then keep silent. His reactions
thereafter must be the reactions invited by his Don. If the Don wanted him to show guilt,
he would show guilt; if the Don invited grief, he would lay bare his genuine sorrow.
Hagen lifted his head at the sound of motors, cars rolling up onto the mall. The
caporegimes were arriving. He would brief them first and then he would go up and
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wake Don Corleone. He got up and went to the liquor cabinet by the desk and took out
a glass and bottle. He stood there for a moment so unnerved he could not pour the
liquid from bottle to glass. Behind him, he heard the door to the room close softly and,
turning, he saw, fully dressed for the first time since he had been shot, Don Corleone.
The Don walked across the room to his huge leather armchair and sat down. He