The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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few feet ahead, still blocking his way. At that same moment his lateral vision caught 
sight of another man in the darkened tollbooth to his right. But he did not have time to 
think about that because two men came out of the car parked in front and walked toward 
him. The toll collector still had not appeared. And then in the fraction of a second before 
anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man. And in that 
moment his mind was lucid, drained of all violence, as if the hidden fear finally real and 
present had purified him. 
Even so, his huge body in a reflex for life crashed against the Buick door, bursting its 
lock. The man in the darkened tollbooth opened fire and the shots caught Sonny 
Corleone in the head and neck as his massive frame spilled out of the car. The two men 
in front held up their guns now, the man in the darkened tollbooth cut his fire, and 
Sonny’s body sprawled on the asphalt with the legs still partly inside. The two men each 
fired shots into Sonny’s body, then kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even 
more, to show a mark made by a more personal human power. 
Seconds afterward, all four men, the three actual assassins and the bogus toll collector, 
were in their car and speeding toward the Meadowbrook Parkway on the other side of 
Jones Beach. Their pursuit was blocked by Sonny’s car and body in the tollgate slot but 
when Sonny’s bodyguards pulled up a few minutes later and saw his body lying there, 
they had no intention to pursue. They swung their car around in a huge arc and returned 
to Long Beach. At the first public phone off the causeway one of them hopped out and 
called Tom Hagen. He was very curt and very brisk. “Sonny’s dead, they got him at the 
Jones Beach toll.” 
Hagen’s voice was perfectly calm. “OK,” he said. “Go to Clemenza’s house and tell him 
to come here right away. He’ll tell you what to do.” 
Hagen had taken the call in the kitchen, with Mama Corleone bustling around preparing 
a snack for the arrival of her daughter. He had kept his composure and the old woman 
had not noticed anything amiss. Not that she could not have, if she wanted to, but in her 
life with the Don she had learned it was far wiser not to perceive. That if it was 
necessary to know something painful, it would be told to her soon enough. And if it was 
a pain that could be spared her, she could do without. She was quite content not to 
share the pain of her men, after all did they share the pain of women? Impassively she 
boiled her coffee and set the table with food. In her experience pain and fear did not dull 
physical hunger; in her experience the taking of food dulled pain. She would have been 
outraged if a doctor had tried to sedate her with a drug, but coffee and a crust of bread 

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