The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
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the New York Families. Also he was a sixty-year-old dandy and woman-chaser. And he 
had ample opportunity to indulge his weakness. 
For the Tattaglia Family dealt in women. Its main business was prostitution. It also 
controlled most of the nightclubs in the United States and could place any talent 
anywhere in the country. Phillip Tattaglia was not above using strong-arm to get control 
of promising singers and comics and muscling in on record firms. But prostitution was 
the main source of the Family income. 
His personality was unpleasant to these men. He was a whiner, always complaining of 
the costs in his Family business. Laundry bills, all those towels, ate up the profits (but he 
owned the laundry firm that did the work). The girls were lazy and unstable, running off, 
committing suicide. The pimps were treacherous and dishonest and without a shred of 
loyalty. Good help was hard to find. Young lads of Sicilian blood turned up their noses at 
such work, considered it beneath their honor to traffic and abuse women; those rascals 
who would slit a throat with a song on their lips and the cross of an Easter palm in the 
lapel of their jackets. So Phillip Tattaglia would rant on to audiences unsympathetic and 
contemptuous. His biggest howl was reserved for authorities who had it in their power to 
issue and cancel liquor licenses for his nightclubs and cabarets. He swore he had made 
more millionaires than Wall Street with the money he had paid those thieving guardians 
of official seals. 
In a curious way his almost victorious war against the Corleone Family had not won him 
the respect it deserved. They knew his strength had come first from Sollozzo and then 
from the Barzini Family. Also the fact that with the advantage of surprise he had not won 
complete victory was evidence against him. If he had been more efficient, all this trouble 
could have been avoided. The death of Don Corleone would have meant the end of the 
war. 
It was proper, since they had both lost sons in their war against each other, that Don 
Corleone and Phillip Tattaglia should acknowledge each other’s presence only with a 
formal nod. Don Corleone was the object of attention, the other men studying him to see 
what mark of weakness had been left on him by his wounds and defeats. The puzzling 
factor was why Don Corleone had sued for peace after the death of his favorite son. It 
was an acknowledgment of defeat and would almost surely lead to a lessening of his 
power. But they would soon know. 
There were greetings, there were drinks to be served and almost another half hour went 

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