The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
57
of his record. Also he has an American wife and three children and he is a good family 
man. He’ll stand still for any rap as long as he knows that they will be well taken care of 
for living money.” 
The Don puffed on his cigar and said, “Santino, what do you think?” 
Hagen knew what Sonny would say. Sonny was chafing at being under the Don’s 
thumb. He wanted a big operation of his own. Something like this would be perfect. 
Sonny took a long slug of scotch. “There’s a lot of money it that white powder,” he said. 
“But it could be dangerous. Some people could wind up in jail for twenty years. I’d say 
that if we kept out of the operations end, just stuck to protection and financing, it might 
be a good idea.” 
Hagen looked at Sonny approvingly. He had played his cards well. He had stuck to the 
obvious, much the best course for him. 
The Don puffed on his cigar. “And you, Tom, what do you think?” 
Hagen composed himself to be absolutely honest. He had already come to the 
conclusion that the Don would refuse Sollozzo’s proposition. But what was worse, 
Hagen was convinced that for one of the few times in his experience, the Don had not 
thought things through. He was not looking far enough ahead. 
“Go ahead, Tom,” the Don said encouragingly. “Not even a Sicilian Consigliere always 
agrees with the boss.” They all laughed. 
“I think you should say yes,” Hagen said. “You know all the obvious reasons. But the 
most important one is this. There is more money potential in narcotics than in any other 
business. If we don’t get into it, somebody else will, maybe the Tattaglia family. With the 
revenue they earn they can amass more and more police and political power. Their 
family will become stronger than ours. Eventually they will come after us to take away 
what we have. It’s just like countries. If they arm, we have to arm. If they become 
stronger economically, they become a threat to us. Now we have the gambling and we 
have the unions and right now they are the best things to have. But I think narcotics is 
the coming thing. I think we have to have a piece of that action or we risk everything we 
have. Not now, but maybe ten years from now.” 
The Don seemed enormously impressed. He puffed on his cigar and murmured, “That’s 
the most important thing of course.” He sighed and got to his feet. “What time do I have 
to meet this infidel tomorrow?” 

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