The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
15
The hell with it, he thought. He said, straight out, “Nearly fifteen years ago some people 
wanted to take over my father’s oil importing business. They tried to kill him and nearly 
did. Luca Brasi went after them. The story is that he killed six men in two weeks and that 
ended the famous olive oil war.” He smiled as if it were a joke. 
Kay shuddered. “You mean your father was shot by gangsters?” 
“Fifteen years ago,” Michael said. “Everything’s been peaceful since then.” He was 
afraid he had gone too far. 
“You’re trying to scare me,” Kay said. “You just don’t want me to marry you.” She smiled 
at him and poked his ribs with her elbow. “Very clever.” 
Michael smiled back at her. “I want you to think about it,” he said. 
“Did he really kill six men?” Kay asked. 
“That’s what the newspapers claimed,” Mike said. “Nobody ever proved it. But there’s 
another story about him that nobody ever tells. It’s supposed to be so terrible that even 
my father won’t talk about it. Tom Hagen knows the story and he won’t tell me. Once I 
kidded him, I said, ‘When will I be old enough to hear that story about Luca?’ and Tom 
said, ‘When you’re a hundred.’ ”Michael sipped his glass of wine. “That must be some 
story. That must be some Luca.” 
Luca Brasi was indeed a man to frighten the devil in hell himself. Short, squat, 
massive-skulled, his presence sent out alarm bells of danger. His face was stamped into 
a mask of fury. The eyes were brown but with none of the warmth of that color, more a 
deadly tan. The mouth was not so much cruel as lifeless; thin, rubbery and the color of 
veal. 
Brasi’s reputation for violence was awesome and his devotion to Don Corleone 
legendary. He was, in himself, one of the great blocks that supported the Don’s power 
structure. His kind was a rarity. 
Luca Brasi did not fear the police, he did not fear society, he did not fear God, he did not 
fear hell, he did not fear or love his fellow man. But he had elected, he had chosen, to 
fear and love Don Corleone. Ushered into the presence of the Don, the terrible Brasi 
held himself stiff with respect. He stuttered over the flowery congatulations he offered 
and his formal hope that the first grandchild would be masculine. He then handed the 
Don an envelope stuffed with cash as a gift for the bridal couple. 
So that was what he wanted to do. Hagen noticed the change in Don Corleone. The 

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