The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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more gambling, no more prostitution, no more deals of any kind until the murderer of 
Captain McCluskey was caught. Massive raids began all over the city. All unlawful 
business activities came to a standstill. 
Later that day an emissary from the Families asked the Corleone Family if they were 
prepared to give up the murderer. They were told that the affair did not concern them. 
That night a bomb exploded in the Corleone Family mall in Long Beach, thrown from a 
car that pulled up to the chain, then roared away. That night also two button men of the 
Corleone Family were killed as they peaceably ate their dinner in a small Italian 
restaurant in Greenwich Village. The Five Families War of 1946 had begun. 
Book Two
 
Chapter 12 
Johnny Fontane waved a casual dismissal to the manservant and said, “See you in the 
morning, Billy.” The colored butler bowed his way out of the huge dining room-living 
room with its view of the Pacific Ocean. It was a friendly-goodbye sort of bow, not a 
servant’s bow, and given only because Johnny Fontane had company for dinner. 
Johnny’s company was a girl named Sharon Moore, a New York City Greenwich Village 
girl in Hollywood to try for a small part in a movie being produced by an old flame who 
had made the big time. She had visited the set while Johnny was acting in the Woltz 
movie. Johnny had found her young and fresh and charming and witty, and had asked 
her to come to his place for dinner that evening. His invitations to dinner were always 
famous and had the force of royalty and of course she said yes. 
Sharon Moore obviously, expected him to come on very strong because of his 
reputation, but Johnny hated the Hollywood “piece of meat” approach. He never slept 
with any girl unless there was something about her he really liked. Except, of course, 
sometimes when he was very drunk and found himself in bed with a girl he didn’t even 
remember meeting or seeing before. And now that he was thirty-five years old, divorced 
once, estranged from his second wife, with maybe a thousand pubic scalps dangling 
from his belt, he simply wasn’t that eager. But there was something about Sharon Moore 
that aroused affection in him and so he had invited her to dinner. 
He never ate much but he knew young pretty girls ambitiously starved themselves for 
pretty clothes and were usually big eaters on a date so there was plenty of food on the 
table. There was also plenty of liquor; champagne in a bucket, scotch, rye, brandy and 

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