Английский язык с Крестным Отцом
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Sonny grinned. "I said sure, why not? Anytime he says, I'm in no hurry. I've got a hundred button men out on the street twenty-four hours a day. If Sollozzo shows one hair on his asshole he's dead. Let them take all the time they want."
Hagen said, "Was there a definite proposal?"
"Yeah," Sonny said. "He wants us to send Mike to meet him to hear his proposition. The negotiator guarantees Mike's safety. Sollozzo doesn't ask us to guarantee his safety, he knows he can't ask that. No point. So the meeting will be arranged on his side. His people will pick Mike up and take Mike to the meeting place. Mike will listen to Sollozzo and then they'll turn him loose. But the meeting place is secret. The promise is the deal will be so good we can't turn it down."
Hagen asked, "What about the Tattaglias! What will they do about Bruno?"
"That's part of the deal. The negotiator says the Tattaglia Family has agreed to go along with Sollozzo. They'll forget about Bruno Tattaglia. He pays for what they did to my father. One cancels out (to cancel –
Hagen said cautiously, "We should hear what they have to say."
Sonny shook his head from side to side. "No, no, Consigliori, not this time." His voice held a faint trace of Italian accent. He was consciously mocking his father just to kid around (высмеивать, подшучивать). "No more meetings. No more discussions. No more Sollozzo tricks. When the negotiator gets in touch with us again for our answer I want you to give him one message. I want Sollozzo. If not, it's all-out war. We'll go to the mattresses and we'll put all the button men out on the street. Business will just have to suffer."
"The other Families won't stand for an all-out war," Hagen said. "It puts too much heat on everybody."
Sonny shrugged. "They have a simple solution (решение /проблемы/). Give me Sollozzo. Or fight the Corleone Family." Sonny paused, then said roughly, "No more advice on how to patch it up (patch – клочок, лоскут; to patch up – латать, ставить заплаты), Tom. The decision is made. Your job is to help me win. Understand?"
Hagen bowed his head. He was deep in thought for a moment. Then he said, "I spoke to your contact in the police station. He says that Captain McCluskey is definitely on Sollozzo's payroll and for big money. Not only that, but McCluskey is going to get a piece of the drug operation. McCluskey has agreed to be Sollozzo's bodyguard. The Turk doesn't poke his nose out of his hole without McCluskey. When he meets Mike for the conference, McCluskey will be sitting beside him. In civilian clothes but carrying his gun. Now what you have to understand, Sonny, is that while Sollozzo is guarded like this, he's invulnerable. Nobody has ever gunned down a New York police captain and gotten away with it. The heat in this town would be unbearable what with the newspapers, the whole police department, the churches, everything. That would be disastrous. The Families would be after you. The Corleone Family would become outcasts. Even the old man's political protection would run for cover. So take that into consideration (прими в расчет, в размышление)."
Sonny shrugged. "McCluskey can't stay with the Turk forever. We'll wait."
Tessio and Clemenza were puffing on their cigars uneasily, not daring to speak, but sweating. It would be their skins that would go on the line if the wrong decision was made.
Michael spoke for the first time. He asked Hagen, "Can the old man be moved out of the hospital onto the mall here?"
Hagen shook his head. "That's the first thing I asked. Impossible. He's in very bad shape. He'll pull through but he needs all kinds of attention, maybe some more surgery (операция, хирургическое вмешательство). Impossible."
"Then you have to get Sollozzo right away," Michael said. "We can't wait. The guy is too dangerous. He'll come up with some new idea. Remember, the key is still that he gets rid of the old man. He knows that. OK, he knows that now it's very tough so he's willing to take defeat for his life. But if he's going to get killed anyway, he'll have another crack (нанесет удар) at the Don. And with that police captain helping him who knows what the hell might happen. We can't take that chance. We have to get Sollozzo right away."
Sonny was scratching his chin thoughtfully. "You're right, kid," he said. "You got right to the old nuts (совершенно /сленг/). We can't let Sollozzo get another crack at the old man."
Hagen said quietly, "What about Captain McCluskey?"
Sonny turned to Michael with an odd little smile. "Yeah, kid, what about that tough police captain?"
Michael said slowly, "OK, it's an extreme. But there are times when the most extreme measures are justified (средства
Hagen was smiling too a little and averting his head. Michael flushed. "Well, they want me to go to a conference with Sollozzo. It will be me, Sollozzo and McCluskey all on our own. Set up the meeting for two days from now, then get our informers to find out where the meeting will be held. Insist that it has to be a public place, that I'm not going to let them take me into any apartments or houses. Let it be a restaurant or a bar at the height of the dinner hour, something like that, so that I'll feel safe. They'll feel safe too. Even Sollozzo won't figure that we'll dare to gun the captain. They'll frisk me when I meet them so I'll have to be clean then, but figure out a way you can get a weapon to me while I'm meeting them. Then I'll take both of them."
All four heads turned and stared at him. Clemenza and Tessio were gravely astonished. Hagen looked a little sad but not surprised. He started to speak and thought better of it. But Sonny, his heavy Cupid's face twitching with mirth (веселье, чувство веселости), suddenly broke out in loud roars (рев; хохот) of laughter. It was deep belly laughter, not faking (без притворства; to fake – подделовать, фальсифицировать). He was really breaking up. He pointed a finger at Michael, trying to speak through gasps of mirth. "You, the high-class college kid, you never wanted to get mixed up in the Family business. Now you wanta kill a police captain and the Turk just because you got your face smashed by McCluskey. You're taking it personal, it's just business and you're taking it personal. You wanta kill these two guys just because you got slapped in the face. It was all a lot of crap. All these years it was just a lot of crap."
Clemenza and Tessio, completely misunderstanding, thinking that Sonny was laughing at his young brother's bravado for making such an offer, were also smiling broadly and a little patronizingly at Michael. Only Hagen warily (осторожно) kept his face impassive. Michael looked around at all of them, then stared at Sonny, who still couldn't stop laughing. "You'll take both of them?" Sonny said. "Hey, kid, they won't give you medals, they put you in the electric chair. You know that? This is no hero business, kid, you don't shoot people from a mile away. You shoot when you see the whites of their eyes like we got taught in school, remember? You gotta stand right next to them and blow their heads off and their brains get all over your nice Ivy League («Лига Плюща» – a group of colleges and universities in the northeastern U.S., consisting of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown, having a reputation for high scholastic achievement and social prestige) suit. How about that, kid, you wanta do that just because some dumb cop slapped you around?" He was still laughing.
Michael stood up. "You'd better stop laughing," he said. The change in him was so extraordinary that the smiles vanished (исчезли) from the faces of Clemenza and Tessio.
Michael was not tall or heavily built but his presence seemed to radiate danger. In that moment he was a reincarnation of Don Corleone himself. His eyes had gone a pale tan and his face was bleached (to bleach – белить, отбеливать; обесцвечивать) of color. He seemed at any moment about to fling himself on his older and stronger brother. There was no doubt that if he had had a weapon in his hands Sonny would have been in danger. Sonny stopped laughing, and Michael said to him in a cold deadly voice, "Don't you think I can do it, you son of a bitch?"