The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
174
Fanucci’s body was still lying in the doorway but there was no sign of any other person. 
Two windows had gone up in the tenement and he could see dark heads poked out but 
since he could not see their features they had certainly not seen his. And such men 
would not give information to the police. Fanucci might lie there until dawn or until a 
patrolman making the rounds stumbled on his body. No person in that house would 
deliberately expose himself to police suspicion or questioning. They would lock their 
doors and pretend they had heard nothing. 
He could take his time. He traveled over the rooftops to his own roof door and down to 
his own flat. He unlocked the door, went inside and then locked the door behind him. He 
rifled the dead man’s wallet. Besides the seven hundred dollars he had given Fanucci 
there were only some singles and a five-dollar note. 
Tucked inside the flap was an old five-dollar gold piece, probably a luck token. If 
Fanucci was a rich gangster, he certainly did not carry his wealth with him. This 
confirmed some of Vito’s suspicions. 
He knew he had to get rid of the wallet and the gun (knowing enough even then that he 
must leave the gold piece in the wallet). He went up on the roof again and traveled over 
a few ledges. He threw the wallet down one air shaft and then he emptied the gun of 
bullets and smashed its barrel against the roof ledge. The barrel wouldn’t break. He 
reversed it in his hand and smashed the butt against the side of a chimney. The butt 
split into two halves. He smashed it again and the pistol broke into barrel and handle, 
two separate pieces. He used a separate air shaft for each. They made no sound when 
they struck the earth five stories below, but sank into the soft hill of garbage that had 
accumulated there. In the morning more garbage would be thrown out of the windows 
and, with luck, would cover everything. Vito returned to his apartment. 
He was trembling a little but was absolutely under control. He changed his clothes and 
fearful that some blood might have splattered on them, he threw them into a metal tub 
his wife used for washing. He took lye and heavy brown laundry soap to soak the 
clothes and scrubbed them with the metal wash board beneath the sink. Then he 
scoured tub and sink with lye and soap. He found a bundle of newly washed clothes in 
the corner of the bedroom and mingled his own clothes with these. Then he put on a 
fresh shirt and trousers and went down to join his wife and children and neighbors in 
front of the tenement. 
All these precautions proved to be unnecessary. The police, after discovering the dead 

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