Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

Again on the ride back to Long Beach nothing was said. On the stretch of road (на отрезке дороги; to stretch – тянуть/ся/, растягивать/ся/) that led into the city, Clemenza said suddenly, "Paulie, pull over (останови машину: «отъезжай-ка к обочине»), I gotta take a leak (мне надо спустить; leak – течь, утечка; to leak – просачиваться)." From working together so long, Gatto knew the fat caporegime had a weak bladder (мочевой пузырь). He had often made such a request (просьба, требование, заявка [ri'kwest]). Gatto pulled the car off the highway onto the soft earth that led to the swamp (вела к болоту). Clemenza climbed out of the car and took a few steps into the bushes. He actually relieved himself (и в самом деле облегчился). Then as he opened the door to get back into the car he took a quick look up and down the highway. There were no lights, the road was completely dark. "Go ahead," Clemenza said. A second later the interior of the car reverberated with the report of a gun (to reverberate – отражаться, отдаваться /о звуке/; report – звенящее эхо /выстрела/). Paulie Gatto seemed to jump forward, his body flinging against the steering wheel and then slumping over to the seat (осев, резко упав). Clemenza had stepped back hastily to avoid being hit with fragments of skull bone and blood.

Rocco Lampone scrambled out (выкарабкался, вылез) of the back seat. He still held the gun and he threw it into the swamp. He and Clemenza walked hastily to a car parked nearby and got in. Lampone reached underneath the seat and found the key that had been left for them. He started the car and drove Clemenza to his home. Then instead of going back by the same route, he took the Jones Beach Causeway right on through to the town of Merrick and onto the Meadowbrook Parkway until he reached the Northern State Parkway. He rode that to the Long Island Expressway and then continued on to the Whitestone Bridge and through the Bronx to his home in Manhattan.

Peter Clemenza slept badly that night. In the morning he got up early and made his own breakfast of a glass of grappa, a thick slice of Genoa salami with a chunk of fresh Italian bread that was still delivered to his door as in the old days. Then he drank a great, plain china mug filled with hot coffee that had been lashed with anisette. But as he padded about the house in his old bathrobe and red felt slippers he pondered on the day's work that lay ahead of him. Last night Sonny Corleone had made it very clear that Paulie Gatto was to be taken care of immediately. It had to be today.

Clemenza was troubled. Not because Gatto had been his prot'eg'e and had turned traitor. This did not reflect on the caporegime's judgment. After all, Paulie's background had been perfect. He came from a Sicilian family, he had grown up in the same neighborhood as the Corleone children, had indeed even gone to school with one of the sons. He had been brought up through each level in the proper manner. He had been tested and not found wanting. And then after he had "made his bones" he had received a good living from the Family, a percentage of an East Side "book" and a union payroll slot. Clemenza had not been unaware that Paulie Gatto supplemented his income with free-lance stickups, strictly against the Family rules, but even this was a sign of the man's worth. The breaking of such regulations was considered a sign of high-spiritedness, like that shown by a fine racing horse fighting the reins.

And Paulie had never caused trouble with his stickups. They had always been meticulously planned and carried out with the minimum of fuss and trouble, with no one ever getting hurt: a three-thousand-dollar Manhattan garment center payroll, a small chinaware factory payroll in the slums of Brooklyn. After all, a young man could always use some extra pocket money. It was all in the pattern. Who could ever foretell that Paulie Gatto would turn traitor?

What was troubling Peter Clemenza this morning was an administrative problem. The actual execution of Gatto was a cut-and-dried chore. The problem was, who should the caporegime bring up from the ranks to replace Gatto in the Family? It was an important promotion, that to "button" man, one not to be handed out lightly. The man had to be tough and he had to be smart. He had to be safe, not a person who would talk to the police if he got in trouble, one well saturated in the Sicilians' law of omerta, the law of silence. And then, what kind of a living would he receive for his new duties? Clemenza had several times spoken to the Don about better rewards for the all-important button man who was first in the front line when trouble arose, but the Don had put him off. If Paulie had been making more money, he might have been able to resist the blandishments of the wily Turk, Sollozzo.