The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
202
He dressed quickly and then saw she was in her slip. He wanted her to go visit her 
father, he hoped she would bring back information. “What’s the matter, a few slaps take 
all the energy out of you?” She was a lazy slut. 
“I don’t wanna go.” Her voice was tearful, the words mumbled. He reached out 
impatiently and pulled her around to face him. And then he saw why she didn’t want to 
go and thought maybe it was just as well. 
He must have slapped her harder than he figured. Her left cheek was blown up, the cut 
upper lip ballooned grotesquely puffy and white beneath her nose. “OK,” he said, “but I 
won’t be home until late. Sunday is my busy day.” 
He left the apartment and found a parking ticket on his car, a fifteen-dollar green one. 
He put it in the glove compartment with the stack of others. He was in a good humor. 
Slapping the spoiled little bitch around always made him feel good. It dissolved some of 
the frustration he felt at being treated so badly by the Corleones. 
The first time he had marked her up, he’d been a little worried. She had gone right out to 
Long Beach to complain to her mother and father and to show her black eye. He had 
really sweated it out. But when she came back she had been surprisingly meek, the 
dutiful little Italian wife. He had made it a point to be the perfect husband over the next 
few weeks, treating her well in every way, being lovey and nice with her, banging her 
every day, morning and night. Finally she had told him what had happened since she 
thought he would never act that way again. 
She had found her parents coolly unsympathetic and curiously amused. Her mother had 
had a little sympathy and had even asked her father to speak to Carlo Rizzi. Her father 
had refused. “She is my daughter,” he had said, “but now she belongs to her husband. 
He knows his duties. Even the King of Italy didn’t dare to meddle with the relationship of 
husband and wife. Go home and learn how to behave so that he will not beat you.” 
Connie had said angrily to her father, “Did you ever hit your wife?” She was his favorite 
and could speak to him so impudently. He had answered, “She never gave me reason 
to beat her.” And her mother had nodded and smiled. 
She told them how her husband had taken the wedding present money and never told 
her what he did with it. Her father had shrugged and said, “I would have done the same 
if my wife had been as presumptuous as you.” 
And so she had returned home, a tittle bewildered, a little frightened. She had always 
been her father’s favorite and she could not understand his coldness now. 

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