The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
55
stable security force of no account. For by this time Woltz had learned that the horse’s 
body had obviously been heavily drugged before someone leisurely hacked the huge 
triangular head off with an ax. The men on night duty claimed that they had heard 
nothing. To Woltz this seemed impossible. They could be made to talk. They had been 
bought off and they could be made to tell who had done the buying. 
Woltz was not a stupid man, be was merely a supremely egotistical one. He had 
mistaken the power he wielded in his world to be more potent than the power of Don 
Corleone. He had merely needed some proof that this was not true. He understood this 
message. That despite all his wealth, despite all his contacts with the President of the 
United States, despite all his claims of friendship with the director of the FBI, an obscure 
importer of Italian olive oil would have him killed. Would actually have him killed! 
Because he wouldn’t give Johnny Fontane a movie part he wanted. It was incredible. 
People didn’t have any right to act that way. There couldn’t be any kind of world if 
people acted that way. It was insane. It meant you couldn’t do what you wanted with 
your own money, with the companies you owned, the power you had to give orders. It 
was ten times worse than communism. It had to be smashed. It must never be allowed. 
Woltz let the doctor give him a very mild sedation. It helped him calm down again and to 
think sensibly. What really shocked him was the casualness with which this man 
Corleone had ordered the destruction of a world-famous horse worth six hundred 
thousand dollars. Six hundred thousand dollars! And that was just for openers. Woltz 
shuddered. He thought of this life he had built up. He was rich. He could have the most 
beautiful women in the world by cooking his finger and promising a contract. He was 
received by kings and queens. He lived a life as perfect as money and power could 
make it. It was crazy to risk all this because of a whim. Maybe he could get to Corleone. 
What was the legal penalty for killing a racehorse? He laughed wildly and his doctor and 
servants watched him with nervous anxiety. Another thought occurred to him. He would 
be the laughingstock of California merely because someone had contemptuously defied 
his power in such arrogant fashion. That decided him. That and the thought that maybe, 
maybe they wouldn’t kill him. That they had something much more clever and painful in 
reserve. 
Woltz gave the necessary orders. His personal confidential staff swung into action. The 
servants and the doctor were sworn to secrecy on pain of incurring the studio’s and 
Woltz’s undying enmity. Word was given to the press that the racehorse Khartoum had 
died of an illness contracted during his shipment from England. Orders were given to 

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