Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

the dark paneled walls. They were mostly portraits of fabulous financial figures done in

rich oils. One was of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Hagen could not help thinking

that Hamilton might have approved of this peace meeting being held in a banking

institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the

atmosphere of money.

The arrival time had been staggered (to stagger – шататься, колебаться;

регулировать часы работы) for between nine-thirty to ten A.M. Don Corleone, in a

sense the host since he had initiated the peace talks, had been the first to arrive; one of

his many virtues was punctuality. The next to arrive was Carlo Tramonti, who had made

the southern part of the United States his territory. He was an impressively handsome

middle-aged man, tall for a Sicilian, with a very deep sunburn, exquisitely tailored and

barbered. He did not look Italian, he looked more like one of those pictures in the

magazines of millionaire fishermen lolling (to loll – сидеть развалясь; стоять

/облокотясь/ в ленивой позе) on their yachts. The Tramonti Family earned its

livelihood from gambling, and no one meeting their Don would ever guess with what

ferocity he had won his empire.

Emigrating from Sicily as a small boy, he had settled in Florida and grown to manhood

there, employed by the American syndicate of Southern small-town politicians who

controlled gambling. These were very tough men backed up by very tough police

officials and they never suspected that they could be overthrown by such a greenhorn

(новичок, неопытный человек) immigrant. They were unprepared for his ferocity and

could not match it simply because the rewards being fought over were not, to their

minds, worth so much bloodshed. Tramonti won over the police with bigger shares of

the gross (общая масса [grus]); he exterminated those redneck (неотесанный

человек, деревенщина) hooligans who ran their operation with such a complete lack of

imagination. It was Tramonti who opened ties with Cuba and the Batista regime and

eventually poured money into the pleasure resorts of Havana gambling houses,

whorehouses, to lure (завлекать, заманивать [lu]) gamblers from the American

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mainland. Tramonti was now a millionaire many times over and owned one of the most

luxurious hotels in Miami Beach.

When he came into the conference room followed by his aide, an equally sunburned

Consigliori, Tramonti embraced Don Corleone, made a face of sympathy to show he

sorrowed for the dead son.

Other Dons were arriving. They all knew each other, they had met over the years,

either socially or when in the pursuit of their businesses. They had always showed each

other professional courtesies and in their younger, leaner (lean – тощий, худой) days

had done each other little services. The second Don to arrive was Joseph Zaluchi from

Detroit. The Zaluchi Family, under appropriate disguises and covers, owned one of the

horse-racing tracks in the Detroit area. They also owned a good part of the gambling.

Zaluchi was a moon-faced, amiable-looking man who lived in a one-hundred-thousand-

dollar house in the fashionable Grosse Point section of Detroit. One of his sons had

married into an old, well-known American family. Zaluchi, like Don Corleone, was

sophisticated (скушенный, изощренный, сложный, непростой). Detroit had the lowest

incidence of physical violence of any of the cities controlled by the Families; there had

been only two executions in the last three years in that city. He disapproved of traffic in

drugs.

Zaluchi had brought his Consigliori with him and both men came to Don Corleone to

embrace him. Zaluchi had a booming American voice with only the slightest trace of an

accent. He was conservatively dressed, very businessman, and with a hearty goodwill

to match. He said to Don Corleone, "Only your voice could have brought me here." Don

Corleone bowed his head in thanks. He could count on Zaluchi for support.

The next two Dons to arrive were from the West Coast, motoring from there in the

same car since they worked together closely in any case. They were Frank Falcone and

Anthony Molinari and both were younger than any of the other men who would come to

the meeting; in their early forties. They were dressed a little more informally than the

others, there was a touch of Hollywood in their style and they were a little more friendly

than necessary. Frank Falcone controlled the movie unions and the gambling at the

studios plus a complex of pipeline (трубопровод, нефтепровод) prostitution that

supplied girls to the whorehouses of the states in the Far West. It was not in the realm

of possibility for any Don to become "show biz" but Falcone had just a touch. His fellow

Dons distrusted him accordingly.

Anthony Molinari controlled the waterfronts of San Francisco and was preeminent

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(выдающийся, превосходящий других) in the empire of sports gambling. He came of

Italian fishermen stock and owned the best San Francisco sea food restaurant, in which

he took such pride that the legend had it he lost money on the enterprise by giving too

good value for the prices charged. He had the impassive face of the professional

gambler and it was known that he also had something to do with dope smuggling over

the Mexican border and from the ships plying (to ply – курсировать, совершать рейс /о

корабле/) the lanes (lane – узкая дорога, тропинка /особ. между живыми

изгородями/; морской путь) of the oriental oceans. Their aides were young, powerfully