The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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uproariously. And of course later on, though his father wanted him to go to college first, 
he went right from high school to studying for the police force. 
He had been a good cop, a brave cop. The tough young punks terrorizing street corners 
fled when he approached and finally vanished from his beat altogether. He was a very 
tough cop and a very fair one. He never took his son around to the storekeepers to 
collect his money presents for ignoring garbage violations and parking violations; he 
took the money directly into his own hand, direct because he felt he earned it. He never 
ducked into a movie house or goofed off into restaurants when he was on foot patrol as 
some of the other cops did, especially on winter nights. He always made his rounds. He 
gave his stores a lot of protection, a lot of service. When winos and drunks filtered up 
from the Bowery to panhandle on his beat he got rid of them so roughly that they never 
came back. The tradespeople in his precinct appreciated it. And they showed their 
appreciation. 
He also obeyed the system. The bookies in his precinct knew he would never make 
trouble to get an extra payoff for himself, that he was content with his share of the 
station house bag. His name was on the list with the others and he never tried to make 
extras. He was a fair cop who took only clean graft and his rise in the police department 
was steady if not spectacular. 
During the time he was raising a large family of four sons, none of whom became 
policemen. They all went to Fordham University and since by that time Mark McCluskey 
was rising from sergeant to lieutenant and finally to captain, they lacked for nothing. It 
was at this time that McCluskey got the reputation for being a hard bargainer. The 
bookmakers in his district paid more protection money than the bookmakers in any other 
part of the city, but maybe that was because of the expense of putting four boys through 
college. 
McCluskey himself felt there was nothing wrong with clean graft. Why the hell should his 
kids go to CCNY or a cheap Southern college just because the Police Department didn’t 
pay its people enough money to live on and take care of their families properly? He 
protected all these people with his life and his record showed his citations for gun duels 
with stickup men on his beat, strong-arm protection guys, would-be pimps. He had 
hammered them into the ground. He had kept his little corner of the city safe for ordinary 
people and he sure as hell was entitled to more than his lousy one C note a week. But 
he wasn’t indignant about his low pay, he understood that everybody had to take care of 
themselves. 

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