and silver service coffeepots. They took a portable table from the bottom of the cart and
set it up. Then Johnny dismissed them.
They sat at the table and ate the hot sandwiches Lucy had ordered and drank the
coffee. Johnny leaned back and lit up a cigarette. "So you save lives. How come you
became an abortionist?"
Lucy spoke up for the first time. "He wanted to help girls in trouble, girls who might
commit suicide or do something dangerous to get rid of the baby."
Jules smiled at her and sighed. "It's not that simple. I became a surgeon finally. I've
got the good hands, as ballplayers say. But I was so good I scared myself silly. I'd open
up some poor bastard's belly and know he was going to die. I'd operate and know that
the cancer or tumor would come back but I'd send them off home with a smile and a lot
of bullshit. Some poor broad comes in and I slice off one tit. A year later she's back and
I slice off the other tit. A year after that, I scoop out her insides like you scoop the seeds
out of a cantaloupe. After all that she dies anyway. Meanwhile husbands keep calling up
and asking, 'What do the tests show? What do the tests show?'
"So I hired an extra secretary to take all those calls. I saw the patient only when she
was fully prepared for examination, tests or operation. I spent the minimum possible
time with the victim because I was, after all, a busy man. And then finally I'd let the
husband talk to me for two minutes. 'It's terminal,' I'd say. And they could never hear
that last word. They understood what it meant but they never heard it. I thought at first
that unconsciously I was dropping my voice on the last word, so I consciously said it
louder. But still they never heard it. One guy even said, 'What the hell do you mean, it's
germinal?'" Jules started to laugh. "Germinal, terminal, what the hell. I started to do
abortions. Nice and easy, everybody happy, like washing the dishes and leaving a clean
sink. That was my class. I loved it, I loved being an abortionist. I don't believe that a
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two-month fetus is a human being so no problems there. I was helping young girls and
married women who were in trouble, I was making good money. I was out of the front
lines. When I got caught I felt like a deserter that had been hauled in. But I was lucky, a
friend pulled some strings and got me off but now the big hospitals won't let me operate.
So here I am. Giving good advice again which is being ignored just like in the old days."
"I'm not ignoring it," Johnny Fontane said. "I'm thinking it over."
Lucy finally changed the subject. "What are you doing in Vegas, Johnny? Relaxing
from your duties as big-time Hollywood wheel or working?"
Johnny shook his head. "Mike Corleone wants to see me and have a talk. He's flying
in tonight with Tom Hagen. Tom said they'll be seeing you, Lucy. You know what it's all
about?"
Lucy shook her head. "We're all having dinner together tomorrow night. Freddie too. I
think it might have something to do with the hotel. The casino has been dropping money
lately, which shouldn't be. The Don might want Mike to check it out."
"I hear Mike finally got his face fixed," Johnny said. Lucy laughed. "I guess Kay talked
him into it. He wouldn't do it when they were married. I wonder why? It looked so awful
and made his nose drip. He should have had it done sooner." She paused for a moment.
"Jules was called in by the Corleone Family for that operation. They used him as a
consultant and an observer."
Johnny nodded and said dryly, "I recommended him for it."
"Oh," Lucy said. "Anyway, Mike said he wanted to do something for Jules. That's why
he's having us to dinner tomorrow night."
Jules said musingly, "He didn't trust anybody. He warned me to keep track of what
everybody did. It was fairly straight, ordinary surgery. Any competent man could do it."
There was a sound from the bedroom of the suite and they looked toward the drapes.
Nino had become conscious again. Johnny went and sat on the bed. Jules and Lucy
went over to the foot of the bed. Nino gave them a wan grin. "OK, I'll stop being a wise
guy. I feel really lousy. Johnny, remember about a year ago, what happened when we
were with those two broads down in Palm Springs? I swear to you I wasn't jealous
about what happened. I was glad. You believe me, Johnny?"
Johnny said reassuringly, "Sure, Nino, I believe you."
Lucy and Jules looked at each other. From everything they had heard and knew about
Johnny Fontane it seemed impossible that he would take a girl away from a close friend
like Nino. And why was Nino saying he wasn't jealous a year after it happened? The
same thought crossed both their minds, that Nino was drinking himself to death
romantically because a girl had left him to go with Johnny Fontane.
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Jules checked Nino again. "I'll get a nurse to be in the room with you tonight," Jules
said. "You really have to stay in bed for a couple of days. No kidding."
Nino smiled. "OK, Doc, just don't make the nurse too pretty."
Jules made a call for the nurse and then he and Lucy left. Johnny sat in a chair near
the bed to wait for the nurse. Nino was falling asleep again, an exhausted look on his
face. Johnny thought about what he had said, about not being jealous about what had
happened over a year ago with those two broads down in Palm Springs. The thought
had never entered his head that Nino might be jealous.
A year ago Johnny Fontane had sat in his plush office, the office of the movie
company he headed, and felt as lousy as he had ever felt in his life. Which was
surprising because the first movie he had produced, with himself as star and Nino in a
featured part, was making tons of money. Everything had worked. Everybody had done
their job. The picture was brought in under budget. Everybody was going to make a
fortune out of it and Jack Woltz was losing ten years of his life. Now Johnny had two
more pictures in production, one starring himself, one starring Nino. Nino was great on
the screen as one of those charming, dopey lover-boys that women loved to shove
between their tits. Little boy lost. Everything he touched made money, it was rolling in.
The Godfather was getting his percentage through the bank, and that made Johnny feel
really good. He had justified his Godfather's faith. But today that wasn't helping much.
And now that he was a successful independent movie producer he had as much
power, maybe more, than he had ever had as a singer. Beautiful broads fell all over him
just like before, though for a more commercial reason. He had his own plane, he lived
more lavishly even, with the special tax benefits a businessman had that artists didn't
get. Then what the hell was bothering him?
He knew what it was. The front of his head hurt, his nasal passages hurt, his throat
itched. The only way he could scratch and relieve that itch was by singing and he was
afraid to even try. He had called Jules Segal about it, when it would be safe to try to
sing and Jules had said anytime he felt like it. So he'd tried and sounded so hoarse and
lousy he'd given up. And his throat would hurt like hell the next day, hurt in a different
way than before the warts had been taken off. Hurt worse, burning. He was afraid to
keep singing, afraid that he'd lose his voice forever, or ruin it.
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And if he couldn't sing, what the hell was the use of everything else? Everything else
was just bullshit. Singing was the only thing he really knew. Maybe he knew more about
singing and his kind of music than anybody else in the world. He was that good, he
realized now. All those years had made him a real pro. Nobody could tell him the right
and the wrong, he didn't have to ask anybody. He knew. What a waste, what a damn
waste.
It was Friday and he decided to spend the weekend with Virginia and the kids. He
called her up as he always did to tell her he was coming. Really to give her a chance to
say no. She never said no. Not in all the years they had been divorced. Because she
would never say no to a meeting of her daughters and their father. What a broad,
Johnny thought. He'd been lucky with Virginia. And though he knew he cared more
about her than any other woman he knew it was impossible for them to live together
sexually. Maybe when they were sixty-five, like when you retire, they'd retire together,
retire from everything.
But reality shattered these thoughts when he arrived there and found Virginia was
feeling a little grouchy herself and the two girls not that crazy to see him because they
had been promised a weekend visit with some girl friends on a California ranch where
they could ride horses.
He told Virginia to send the girls off to the ranch and kissed them good-bye with an
amused smile. He understood them so well. What kid wouldn't rather go riding horses
on a ranch than hang around with a grouchy father who picked his own spots as a
father. He said to Virginia, "I'll have a few drinks and then I'll shove off too."
"All right," she said. She was having one of her bad days, rare, but recognizable. It
wasn't too easy for her leading this kind of life.
She saw him taking an extra large drink. "What are you cheering yourself up for?"
Virginia asked. "Everything is going so beautifully for you. I never dreamed you had it in