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her sons; Freddie exiled to Nevada, Michael hiding for his life in Sicily, and now Santino

dead. Which of the three had she loved most of all? She had never shown.

It was no more than a few minutes, Hagen got control of himself again and picked up

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, дефекты, то, в чем «не

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