Read Online The Godfather Returns by Mark Winegardner - Free Book Online Page A

they look at you. Not that he was going to say anything. You don’t say anything bad to or about anyone who’s been loyal to you. “What’s your wife’s name?” Johnny asked.
    “Irene.”
    “You and Irene ever get over to Vegas?”
    The cop shook his head. “We’ve talked about it.”
    “You got to see it to believe it. Look, I’m at the Castle in the Sand all month. Classy joint. You want to come, I’ll get you in.”
    The cop thanked him.
    “Fucking guy,” he said to Phil in the elevator up to the studio. “Bet he pulls over all your talent, eh? Bet he’s got an autograph collection that’d fill a garage.”
    “You’re a cynical man, Mr. Fontane.”
    “Loosen up, Philly, you’re too serious.” Though Johnny caught sight of his own mug in the shiny steel walls of the elevator, and he looked nothing if not serious. He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced it. “Everything all set?”
    “For over an hour now,” Phil said. “There’s just one thing. Hear me out, okay?”
    Johnny poker-faced him and said nothing, but he’d listen. It was Phil Ornstein who—after every other major label had passed—had given Johnny a seven-year contract (for lousy dough, but so what? dough wasn’t an issue). It was Phil Ornstein who had insisted that Johnny Fontane’s voice was back and that his public image as a boozing, brawling thug was both unwarranted and would only enhance sales.
    “I know you wanted Eddie Neils for musical director, and if that’s what you really want, fine, we’ll try it.”
    Johnny hit the
stop
button on the elevator. Eddie Neils had arranged and recorded Johnny the last time he’d had any hits. Johnny went to his house and wouldn’t leave until the old man gave him an audition right in his marble-floored hallway, among statues of eagles and naked people, and, when Johnny overcame the shitty acoustics and sounded like a little bit of something, Eddie had finally agreed to work with him again.
    “You’re telling me Eddie’s not here?”
    “That’s what I’m telling you,” Phil said, tapping his gut. “Bleeding ulcer. Had to go to the hospital last night. He’ll be fine. But—”
    “He’s not here.”
    “He’s not. Right. Here’s the thing, though. He was never our choice for you anyhow.”
    That Phil was classy enough to say
for you
instead of
for your comeback
wasn’t lost on Johnny. “You always wanted the other guy,” Johnny said. “The kid. Trombone man.”
    “Yes. Cy Milner. He’s not a kid. He’s forty, forty-five years old. We took the liberty of hiring him to write a couple new charts.”
    Milner had been a ’bone man with Les Halley, but after Johnny had left the band. They’d never met. “Since when? Since yesterday?”
    “Since yesterday. He works fast. He’s a legend for the fast-working.”
    The kid’s a legend, and I’m One-Take Johnny.
“What about the charts Eddie already did?”
    “We can use those, too. Either way.”
    Phil ran his hands through the hair he mostly didn’t have. He was the sort of man who unconsciously took on other people’s mannerisms.
    “What do you think I am, difficult?” Johnny yanked the
stop
button. “C’mon, Philly. I’m a pro. We’ll give old Cy a whirl, try some things, see if we can kick up a little magic, eh?”
    “Thank you, Johnny.”
    “I always liked a Jew with manners.”
    “Fuck you, Johnny.”
    “And guts.”
    Johnny got off the elevator and strode down the hall toward 1A, the only studio big enough for the string setup he wanted. He burst through the doors and made a beeline to the gray-blond man across the room. He had on a British tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses, one lens so thick it made the eye look funny. Broad-shouldered, like someone who’d played football, not what you expected from a man with a baton. He looked like a kindly headmaster from some movie. Johnny and Cy Milner made each other’s acquaintance with the bare minimum exchange of words.