The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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hell, it might help and he wanted all the percentages with him, now that he had a fighting 
chance. 
Now with the house quiet, his divorced wife sleeping, his beloved daughters sleeping, 
he could think back to that terrible time in his life when he had deserted them. Deserted 
them for a whore tramp of a bitch who was his second wife. But even now he smiled at 
the thought of her, she was such a lovely broad in so many ways and, besides, the only 
thing that saved his life was the day that he had made up his mind never to hate a 
woman or, more specifically, the day he had decided he could not afford to hate his first 
wife and his daughters, his girl friends, his second wife, and the girl friends after that, 
right up to Sharon Moore brushing him off so that she could brag about refusing to 
screw for the great Johnny Fontane. 
* * *
He had traveled with the band singing and then he had become a radio star and a star 
of the movie stage shows and then he had finally made it in the movies. And in all that 
time he had lived the way he wanted to, screwed the women he wanted to, but he had 
never let it affect his personal life. Then he had fallen for his soon to be second wife, 
Margot Ashton; he had gone absolutely crazy for her. His career had gone to hell, his 
voice had gone to hell, his family life had gone to hell. And there had come the day 
when he was left without anything. 
The thing was, he had always been generous and fair. He had given his first wife 
everything he owned when he divorced her. He had made sure his two daughters would 
get a piece of everything he made, every record, every movie, every club date. And 
when he had been rich and famous he had refused his first wife nothing. He had helped 
out all her brothers and sisters, her father and mother, the girl friends she had gone to 
school with and their families. He had never been a stuck-up celebrity. He had sung at 
the weddings of his wife’s two younger sisters, something he hated to do. He had never 
refused her anything except the complete surrender of his own personality. 
And then when he had touched bottom, when he could no longer get movie work, when 
he could no longer sing, when his second wife had betrayed him, he had gone to spend 
a few days with Ginny and his daughters. He had more or less flung himself on her 
mercy one night because he felt so lousy. That day he had heard one of his recordings 
and he had sounded so terrible that he accused the song technicians of sabotaging the 
record. Until finally he had become convinced that that was what his voice really 

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