The Godfather

 “The Godfather” By Mario Puzo
 
66
The proprietor sprang to serve him. Don Corleone did not handle the fruit. He pointed. 
The fruit man disputed his decisions only once, to show him that one of his choices had 
a rotten underside. Don Corleone took the paper bag in his left hand and paid the man 
with a five-dollar bill. He took his change and, as he turned to go back to the waiting car, 
two men stepped from around the corner. Don Corleone knew immediately what was to 
happen. 
The two men wore black overcoats and black hats pulled low to prevent identification by 
witnesses. They had not expected Don Corleone’s alert reaction. He dropped the bag of 
fruit and darted toward the parked car with startling quickness for a man of his bulk. At 
the same time he shouted, “Fredo, Fredo.” It was only then that the two men drew their 
guns and fired. 
The first bullet caught Don Corleone in the back. He felt the hammer shock of its impact 
but made his body move toward the car. The next two bullets hit him in the buttocks and 
sent him sprawling in the middle of the street. Meanwhile the two gunmen, careful not to 
slip on the rolling fruit, started to follow in order to finish him off. At that moment, 
perhaps no more than five seconds after the Don’s call to his son, Frederico Corleone 
appeared out of his car, looming over it. The gunmen fired two more hasty shots at the 
Don lying in the gutter. One hit him in the fleshy part of his arm and the second hit him in 
the calf of his right leg. Though these wounds were the least serious they bled profusely, 
forming small pools of blood beside his body. But by this time Don Corleone had lost 
consciousness. 
Freddie had heard his father shout, calling him by his childhood name, and then he had 
heard the first two loud reports. By the time he got out of the car he was in shock, he 
had not even drawn his gun. The two assassins could easily have shot him down. But 
they too panicked. They must have known the son was armed, and besides too much 
time had passed. They disappeared around the corner, leaving Freddie alone in the 
street with his father’s bleeding body. Many of the people thronging the avenue had 
flung themselves into doorways or on the ground, others had huddled together in small 
groups. 
Freddie still had not drawn his weapon. He seemed stunned. He stared down at his 
father’s body lying face down on the tarred street, lying now in what seemed to him a 
blackish lake of blood. Freddie went into physical shock. People eddied out again and 
someone, seeing him start to sag, led him to the curbstone and made him sit down on it. 
A crowd gathered around Don Corleone’s body, a circle that shattered when the first 

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