The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
214
could not take any steps to remedy them. He was not the Don and only the Don could 
replace the caporegimes and the Consigliere. And the very act of replacement would 
make the situation more dangerous, might precipitate some treachery. At first, Sonny 
had thought of fighting a holding action until the Don could become well enough to take 
charge, but with the defection of the policy bankers, the terrorization of the bookmakers, 
the Family position was becoming precarious. He decided to strike back. 
But he decided to strike right at the heart of the enemy. He planned the execution of the 
heads of the five Families in one grand tactical maneuver. To that purpose he put into 
effect an elaborate system of surveillance of these leaders. But after a week the enemy 
chiefs promptly, dived underground and were seen no more in public. 
The Five Families and the Corleone Empire were in stalemate. 
Chapter 18
Amerigo Bonasera lived only a few blocks from his undertaking establishment on 
Mulberry Street and so always went home for supper. Evenings he returned to his place 
of business, dutifully joining those mourners paying their respects to the dead who lay in 
state in his somber parlors. 
He always resented the jokes made about his profession, the macabre technical details 
which were so unimportant. Of course none of his friends or family or neighbors would 
make such jokes. Any profession was worthy of respect to men who for centuries 
earned bread by the sweat of their brows. 
Now at supper with his wife in their solidly furnished apartment, gilt statues of the Virgin 
Mary with their red-glassed candles flickering on the sideboard, Bonasera lit a Camel 
cigarette and took a relaxing glass of American whiskey. His wife brought steaming 
plates of soup to the table. The two of them were alone now; he had sent his daughter 
to live in Boston with her mother’s sister, where she could forget her terrible experience 
and her injuries at the hands of the two ruffians Don Corleone had punished. 
As they ate their soup his wife asked, “Are you going back to work tonight?” 
Amerigo Bonasera nodded. His wife respected his work but did not understand it. She 
did not understand that the technical part of his profession was the least important. She 
thought, like most other people, that he was paid for his skill in making the dead look so 
lifelike in their coffins. And indeed his skill in this was legendary. But even more 
important, even more necessary was his physical presence at the wake. When the 

---