The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
166
Together they rolled the rug into a pile and Clemenza took one end while Vito took the 
other. They lifted it and started carrying it toward the door. 
At that moment the apartment bell rang. Clemenza immediately dropped the rug and 
strode to the window. He pulled the drape aside slightly and what he saw made him 
draw a gun from inside his jacket. It was only at that moment the astonished Vito 
Corleone realized that they were stealing the rug from some stranger’s apartment. 
The apartment bell rang again. Vito went up alongside Clemenza so that he too could 
see what was happening. At’ the door was a uniformed policeman. As they watched, the 
policeman gave the doorbell a final push, then shrugged and walked away down the 
marble steps and down the street. 
Clemenza grunted in a satisfied way and said, “Come on, let’s go.” He picked up his end 
of the rug and Vito picked up the other end. The policeman had barely turned the corner 
before they were edging out the heavy oaken door and into the street with the rug 
between them. Thirty minutes later they were cutting the rug to fit the living rooms of 
Vito Corleone’s apartment. They had enough left over for the bedroom. Clemenza was 
an expert workman and from the pockets of his wide, ill-fitting jacket (even then he liked 
to wear loose clothes though he was not so fat), he had the necessary carpet-cutting 
tools. 
Time went on, things did not improve. The Corleone family could not eat the beautiful 
rug. Very well, there was no work, his wife and children must starve. Vito took some 
parcels of food from his friend Genco while he thought things out. Finally he was 
approached by Clemenza and Tessio, another young tough of the neighborhood. They 
were men who thought well of him, the way he carried himself, and they knew he was 
desperate. They proposed to him that he become one of their gang which specialized in 
hijacking trucks of silk dresses after those trucks were loaded up at the factory on 31st 
Street. There was no risk. The truck drivers were sensible workingmen who at the sight 
of a gun flopped on the sidewalk like angels while the hijackers drove the truck away to 
be unloaded at a friend’s warehouse. Some of the merchandise would be sold to an 
Italian wholesaler, part of the loot would be sold door-to-door in the Italian 
neighborhoods– Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, Mulberry Street, and the Chelsea district in 
Manhattan– all to poor Italian families looking for a bargain, whose daughters could 
never be able to afford such fine apparel. Clemenza and Tessio needed Vito to drive 
since they knew he chauffeured the Abbandando grocery store delivery truck. In 1919, 
skilled automobile drivers were at a premium. 

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