The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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one offense. When they committed a second they simply disappeared. The flimflam 
home-improvement gyp artists, the door-to-door con men were politely warned that they 
were not welcome in Long Beach. Those confident con men who disregarded the 
warning were beaten within an inch of their lives. Resident young punks who had no 
respect for law and proper authority were advised in the most fatherly fashion to run 
away from home. Long Beach became a model city. 
What impressed the Don was the legal validity of these sales swindles. Clearly there 
was a place for a man of his talents in that other world which had been closed to him as 
an honest youth. He took appropriate steps to enter that world. 
And so he lived happily on the mall in Long Beach, consolidating and enlarging his 
empire, until after the war was over, the Turk Sollozzo broke the peace and plunged the 
Don’s world into its own war, and brought him to his hospital bed. 
Book Four 
Chapter 15 
In the New Hampshire village, every foreign phenomenon was properly noticed by 
housewives peering from windows, storekeepers lounging behind their doors. And so 
when the black automobile bearing New York license plates stopped in front of the 
Adams’ home, every citizen knew about it in a matter of minutes. 
Kay Adams, really a small-town girl despite her college education, was also peering 
from her bedroom window. She had been studying for her exams and preparing to go 
downstairs for lunch when she spotted the car coming up the street, and for some 
reason she was not surprised when it rolled to a halt in front of her lawn. Two men got 
out, big burly men who looked like gangsters in the movies to her eyes, and she flew 
down the stairs to be the first at the door. She was sure they came from Michael or his 
family and she didn’t want them talking to her father and mother without any 
introduction. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of any of Mike’s friends, she thought; it was 
just that her mother and father were old-fashioned New England Yankees and wouldn’t 
understand her even knowing such people. 
She got to the door just as the bell rang and she called to her mother, “I’ll get it.” She 
opened the door and the two big men stood there. One reached inside his breast pocket 
like a gangster reaching for a gun and the move so surprised Kay that she let out a little 
gasp but the man had taken out a small leather case which he flapped open to show an 

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