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Just remember that I've done you a service."

Tessio came later. Tessio was more reserved than Clemenza, sharper, more clever

but with less force. He sensed something amiss, something not quite right. He was a

little worried. He said to Vito Corleone, "Watch yourself with that bastard of a Black

Hand, he's tricky as a priest. Do you want me to be here when you hand him the money,

as a witness?"

Vito Corleone shook his head. He didn't even bother to answer. He merely said to

Tessio, "Tell Fanucci I'll pay him the money here in my house at nine o'clock tonight. I'll

have to give him a glass of wine and talk, reason with him to take the lesser sum. "

Tessio shook his head. "You won't have much luck. Fanucci never retreats."

"I'll reason with him," Vito Corleone said. It was to become a famous phrase in the

years to come. It was to become the warning rattle (предупреждающий треск) before a

deadly strike. When he became a Don and asked opponents to sit down and reason

with him, they understood it was the last chance to resolve an affair without bloodshed

and murder.

Vito Corleone told his wife to take the two children, Sonny and Fredo, down into the

street after supper and on no account to let them come up to the house until he gave

her permission. She was to sit on guard at the tenement door. He had some private

business with Fanucci that could not be interrupted. He saw the look of fear on her face

and was angry. He said to her quietly, "Do you think you've married a fool?" She didn't

answer. She did not answer because she was frightened, not of Fanucci now, but of her

husband. He was changing visibly before her eyes, hour by hour, into a man who

radiated some dangerous force. He had always been quiet, speaking little, but always

gentle, always reasonable, which was extraordinary in a young Sicilian male. What she

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was seeing was the shedding (to shed – ронять, терять, сбрасывать /одежду, кожу/)

of his protective coloration of a harmless nobody now that he was ready to start on his

destiny (судьба). He had started late, he was twenty-five years old, but he was to start

with a flourish.

Vito Corleone had decided to murder Fanucci. By doing so he would have an extra

seven hundred dollars in his bankroll (roll – свиток, сверток; /сленг/ пачка денег). The

three hundred dollars he himself would have to pay the Black Hand terrorist and the two

hundred dollars from Tessio and the two hundred dollars from Clemenza. If he did not

kill Fanucci, he would have to pay the man seven hundred dollars cold cash. Fanucci

alive was not worth seven hundred dollars to him. He would not pay seven hundred

dollars to keep Fanucci alive. If Fanucci needed seven hundred dollars for an operation

to save his life, he would not give Fanucci seven hundred dollars for the surgeon. He

owed Fanucci no personal debt of gratitude, they were not blood relatives, he did not

love Fanucci. Whyfore, then, should he give Fanucci seven hundred dollars?

And it followed inevitably, that since Fanucci wished to take seven hundred dollars

from him by force, why should he not kill Fanucci? Surely the world could do without

such a person.

There were of course some practical reasons. Fanucci might indeed have powerful

friends who would seek vengeance. Fanucci himself was a dangerous man, not so

easily killed. There were the police and the electric chair. But Vito Corleone had lived

under a sentence of death since the murder of his father. As a boy of twelve he had fled

his executioners and crossed the ocean into a strange land, taking a strange name. And

years of quiet observation had convinced him that he had more intelligence and more

courage than other men, though he had never had the opportunity to use that

intelligence and courage.

And yet he hesitated before taking the first step toward his destiny. He even packed

the seven hundred dollars in a single fold of bills and put the money in a convenient side

pocket of his trousers. But he put the money in the left side of his trousers. In the right-

hand pocket he put the gun Clemenza had given him to use in the hijacking of the silk

truck.

Fanucci came promptly at nine in the evening. Vito Corleone set out a jug of

homemade wine that Clemenza had given him.

Fanucci put his white fedora on the table beside the jug of wine. He unloosened his

broad multiflowered tie, its tomato stains camouflaged by the bright patterns. The

summer night was hot, the gaslight feeble (слабый, хилый). It was very quiet in the

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apartment. But Vito Corleone was icy. To show his good faith he handed over the roll of

bills and watched carefully as Fanucci, after counting it, took out a wide leather wallet

and stuffed the money inside. Fanucci sipped his glass of wine and said, "You still owe

me two hundred dollars." His heavy-browed face was expressionless.

Vito Corleone said in his cool reasonable voice, "I'm a little short, I've been out of work.

Let me owe you the money for a few weeks."

This was a permissible (позволительный) gambit. Fanucci had the bulk (объем;

большие размеры; основная масса) of the money and would wait. He might even be

persuaded to take nothing more or to wait a little longer. He chuckled over his wine and

said, "Ah, you're a sharp young fellow. How is it I've never noticed you before? You're