Читать интересную книгу Английский язык с Крестным Отцом - Илья Франк

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 [gr∂us]); 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

built men, obviously not counselors but bodyguards, though they would not dare to carry

arms to this meeting. It was general knowledge that these bodyguards knew karate, a

fact that amused the other Dons but did not alarm them in the slightest, no more than if

the California Dons had come wearing amulets blessed by the Pope. Though it must be

noted that some of these men were religious and believed in God.

Next arrived the representative from the Family in Boston. This was the only Don who

did not have the respect of his fellows. He was known as a man who did not do right by

his "people," who cheated them unmercifully. This could be forgiven, each man

measures his own greed. What could not be forgiven was that he could not keep order

in his empire. The Boston area had too many murders, too many petty wars for power,

too many unsupported free-lance activities; it flouted (to flout – попирать, глумиться)

the law too brazenly. If the Chicago Mafia were savages, then the Boston people were

gavones, or uncouth (неуклюжий, грубоватый, неотесанный [Λn'ku:θ]) louts (lout –

неуклюжий, неотесанный человек, деревенщина); ruffians. The Boston Don's name

was Domenick Panza. He was short, squat; as one Don put it, he looked like a thief.

The Cleveland syndicate, perhaps the most powerful of the strictly gambling

operations in the United States, was represented by a sensitive-looking elderly man with

gaunt (сухопарый; длинный, вытянутый в длину; мрачный) features and snow-white

hair. He was known, of course not to his face, as "the Jew" because he had surrounded

himself with Jewish assistants rather than Sicilians. It was even rumored that he would

have named a Jew as his Consigliori if he had dared. In any case, as Don Corleone's

Family was known as the Irish Gang because of Hagen's membership, so Don Vincent

Forlenza's Family was known as the Jewish Family with somewhat more accuracy. But

he ran an extremely efficient organization and he was not known ever to have fainted at

the sight of blood, despite his sensitive features. He ruled with an iron hand in a velvet

political glove.

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The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom

Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than

the out-of-towners, the hicks. For one thing, the five New York Dons were in the old

Sicilian tradition, they were "men with a belly" meaning, figuratively, power and courage;

and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have

done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine

heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded

cheeks. They were not too well tailored or barbered; they had the look of no-nonsense

busy men without vanity.

There was Anthony Stracci, who controlled the New Jersey area and the shipping on

the West Side docks of Manhattan. He ran the gambling in Jersey and was very strong

with the Democratic political machine. He had a fleet of freight hauling trucks that made

him a fortune primarily because his trucks could travel with a heavy overload and not be

stopped and fined by highway weight inspecton. These trucks helped ruin the highways

and then his road-building firm, with lucrative state contracts, repaired the damage

wrought. It was the kind of operation that would warm any man's heart, business of itself

creating more business. Stracci, too, was old-fashioned and never dealt in prostitution,

but because his business was on the waterfront it was impossible for him not to be

involved in the drug-smuggling traffic. Of the five New York Families opposing the

Corleones his was the least powerful but the most well disposed.

The Family that controlled upper New York State, that arranged smuggling of Italian

immigrants from Canada, all upstate (северная часть штата) gambling and exercised

veto power on state licensing of racing tracks, was headed by Ottilio Cuneo. This was a

completely disarming man with the face of a jolly round peasant baker, whose legitimate

activity was one of the big milk companies. Cuneo was one of those men who loved

children and carried a pocket full of sweets in the hopes of being able to pleasure one of

his many grandchildren or the small offspring (отпрыск) of his associates. He wore a

round fedora with the brim turned down all the way round like a woman's sun hat, which

broadened his already moon-shaped face into the very mask of joviality. He was one of

the few Dons who had never been arrested and whose true activities had never even

been suspected. So much so that he had served on civic committees and had been

voted as "Businessman of the Year for the State of New York" by the Chamber of

Commerce.

The closest ally to the Tattaglia Family was Don Emilio Barzini. He had some of the

gambling in Brooklyn and some in Queens. He had some prostitution. He had strong-

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arm. He completely controlled Staten Island. He had some of the sports betting in the

Bronx and Westchester. He was in narcotics. He had close ties to Cleveland and the

West Coast and he was one of the few men shrewd enough to be interested in Las

Vegas and Reno, the open cities of Nevada. He also had interests in Miami Beach and

Cuba. After the Corleone Family, his was perhaps the strongest in New York and

therefore in the country. His influence reached even to Sicily. His hand was in every

unlawful pie. He was even rumored (о нем даже ходили слухи; rumor [‘ru:m∂] – слух,

молва) to have a toehold (точка опоры /напр. для ноги, когда взбираешься на гору/,

зацепка; toe – палец ноги) in Wall Street. He had supported the Tattaglia Family with

money and influence since the start of the war. It was his ambition to supplant

(вытеснить, занять чье-то место [s∂’plα:nt]) Don Corleone as the most powerful and

respected Mafia leader in the country and to take over part of the Corleone empire. He

was a man much like Don Corleone, but more modern, more sophisticated, more

businesslike. He could never be called an old Moustache Pete and he had the

confidence of the newer, younger, brasher (brashy – щетинистый, шероховатый)

leaders on their way up. He was a man of great personal force in a cold way, with none

of Don Corleone's warmth and he was perhaps at this moment the most "respected"

man in the group.

The last to arrive was Don Phillip Tattaglia, the head of the TattagIia Family that had

directly challenged the Corleone power by supporting Sollozzo, and had so nearly

succeeded. And yet curiously enough he was held in a slight contempt by the others.

For one thing, it was known that he had allowed himself to be dominated by Sollozzo,

had in fact been led by the nose by that fine Turkish hand. He was held responsible for

all this commotion (волнение /моря/; смятение; суматоха, суета), this uproar that had

so affected the conduct of everyday business by the New York Families. Also he was a

sixty-year-old dandy (щеголь, франт) and woman-chaser. And he had ample

(обширный, достаточный) opportunity to indulge his weakness.

For the Tattaglia Family dealt in women. Its main business was prostitution. It also

controlled most of the nightclubs in the United States and could place any talent

anywhere in the country. Phillip Tattaglia was not above using strong-arm to get control

of promising singers and comics and muscling in on record firms. But prostitution was

the main source of the Family income.

His personality was unpleasant to these men. He was a whiner (to whine – скулить,

хныкать, плакаться), always complaining of the costs in his Family business. Laundry

bills, all those towels, ate up the profits (but he owned the laundry firm that did the work).

The girls were lazy and unstable, running off, committing suicide. The pimps were

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treacherous and dishonest and without a shred (лоскуток, клочок) of loyalty. Good help

was hard to find. Young lads of Sicilian blood turned up their noses at such work,

considered it beneath their honor to traffic and abuse women; those rascals who would

slit a throat with a song on their lips and the cross of an Easter palm in the lapel of their

jackets. So Phillip Tattaglia would rant (говорить напыщенно, декламировать,

проповедовать) on to audiences unsympathetic and contemptuous. His biggest howl

(вой, завывание) was reserved for authorities who had it in their power to issue and

cancel liquor licenses for his nightclubs and cabarets. He swore he had made more

millionaires than Wall Street with the money he had paid those thieving guardians of

official seals.

In a curious way his almost victorious war against the Corleone Family had not won

him the respect it deserved. They knew his strength had come first from Sollozzo and

then from the Barzini Family. Also the fact that with the advantage of surprise he had

not won complete victory was evidence against him. If he had been more efficient, all

this trouble could have been avoided. The death of Don Corleone would have meant the

end of the war. It was proper, since they had both lost sons in their war against each

other, that Don Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia should acknowledge each other's

presence only with a formal nod. Don Corleone was the object of attention, the other

men studying him to see what mark of weakness had been left on him by his wounds

and defeats. The puzzling factor was why Don Corleone had sued for peace after the

death of his favorite son. It was an acknowledgment of defeat and would almost surely

lead to a lessening of his power. But they would soon know.

There were greetings, there were drinks to be served and almost another half hour

went by before Don Corleone took his seat at the polished walnut table. Unobtrusively

(unobtrusive [Λn∂b’tru:sıv] – ненавязчивый, скромный), Hagen sat in the chair slightly

to the Don's left and behind him. This was the signal for the other Dons to make their