The Godfather Part IV

Book I: Summer 1990

Chapter I

"'Hey, Enzo!" a teenager called from his seat in Juanito's Delicatessen. "Enzo, where's my spaghetti?" He looked as if he was still in high school, but already in his senior years. He wore a black leather jacket with a red-and-white striped shirt underneath. His pants made him look like someone out of Grease or Fonzie from Happy Days. He looked towards the kitchen door, from where a chubby Italian-Mexican emerged. He was entering the twilight of his years, but looked able enough to work around.

The chubby man had a graying mustache and a clean bald head with some wrinkles showing up around the forehead. His eyes were pure proof of his Italian origins. Many people had said they came from his father.

"Wait a minute!" the chubby man called out to the teenager and went back through the kitchen door. A minute later, he was out again of the kitchen with a white plate of spaghetti in his hands. He handed the spaghetti over to the teenager, who looked very pleased and satisfied upon sight of the plate.

The teen tossed a nickel or two to the chubby man, to which he replied, "Grazie…" The chubby man returned to his kitchen and decided a smoke would do him some good.

Lorenzo Miguel Juanito walked out of his delicatessen kitchen door with two large garbage bags in his hands and a stained white apron tied around his neck. He walked over to the side of the door, where two equally large garbage cans sat quietly in the strong winds of the Little Italy evening.

Juanito, along with his family, was Italian-Mexican, but lived mainly in Italy. The family had many good businesses in Venice, and decided to try their luck in the United States. So, when Juanito's father got the chance, he and his two eldest sons immigrated to New York in 1947. Juanito's father was the person who established the deli after immigrating into the United States from Italy. Juanito and his brother, Antonio helped around the back of the deli. They were the master cooks of the deli.

At first, Antonio was the rightful heir of the deli, since he was the eldest child. However, he was found guilty of smuggling heroin in a drug ring with the Barzini crime family. Antonio was disgraced and sent to prison, thus leaving his father and brother to work together in the deli.

When Juanito's father died in 1963, Juanito was tasked to keep his father's good name. He took charge of the deli, and was first approached by the Corleone extortionists in 1964. He paid regularly to the family, and was visited once by Don Michael Corleone.

Juanito was also visited by the other families or other various Italian-American crime families, but it seemed that his influence was with the Corleone family.

The last few years had become much better for Juanito and his business as mob violence had reduced in New York during the Vincent Mancini-Corleone's rule as Don Corleone. Their usual business of extortion around Little Italy had slowly halted and let Juanito keep his money rather than pay the Corleone family for 'protection.'

Vincent had graced his presence around the Juanito's deli a few times, but either for a personal collection of money or just lunch. He complimented Juanito on his Italian salads and how they "set Little Italy's food choices to live up to its name." Whenever he said this though, he said this with a tone that obviously told Juanito that he was lying just to keep the Corleone influence over the restaurant.

Then, Vincent decided to shift the Corleone business over to sleaze and corruption. Juanito never saw the Don in his deli again. He did see though one or two of his cronies usually come over to collect the weekly collection. They stopped coming over to the deli over three weeks back.

Since then, Juanito's business boomed again and he no longer worried about the Corleone family coming to threaten his fine establishment ever again.

Before opening the door to the kitchen once again, Juanito reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin and fresh cigarette. He put it in between his lips and reached again into his pockets to pull out a lighter. At this point, he left the door and decided to walk deeper into the alleyway.

He ignited the lighter and brought it up to the cigarette butt and carefully tried to light the cigar. The wind, strong as ever though, blew the light out. Juanito groaned in disbelief and cursed silently in Italian.

The wind became weaker as he got deeper into the back of the alley. He walked all the way to the end of the alley, where a number of black trash bags sat. There was a foul smell around the bags. "Smells like somebody died here," Juanito even commented. Flies flew busily over these bags and bugged Juanito as he tried to light his cigar.

One of the flies landed on the lighter hand and caused Juanito to drop the lighter on the ground. But it did not land on the concrete ground as Juanito expected. It landed on something else. It was a long and thin item like a fattened stick or an extremely thin pig. At the end of the item, there were multiple tips. There were five of them.

The cigarette lighter landed on something organic. The lighter landed on a human arm.

Juanito stumbled back in horror. Who in the right mind would dump a body behind his deli? More importantly, whose body was this? The horrors of a dead man's rotting body stashed away behind his deli gave fearful thoughts to Juanito. How would he ever explain this to the police?

But then again, Juanito knew from recent experiences that the police forces usually disregarded any low-life murders. Basically, they disregarded the no-bodies. Juanito figured that if this was somebody lowly, the police would just leave him be.

The corpse could've been why the garbage people haven't picked up the trash in days now.

Juanito slowly crouched on the ground and took the lighter from the ground. He placed it back in his pocket and reached for the arm. The arm was dressed in a black silk sleeve and thus told Juanito that the corpse still had a suit on.

Low-lives cannot afford suits, Juanito thought. Maybe he stole it…

Juanito tugged on the arm and used all his strength to pull out the entire body from the large pile of garbage bags. He pulled the whole corpse out into the light to gaze on the stature and form.

The corpse was a man in his middle years. His hair hadn't begun graying yet, but his short Dali mustache seemed to have shown signs of twilight age. His hair seemed clean despite the pieces of dirt and trash; it was brushed back the way Italian hair usually was. Juanito figured that when he was young, the man had been very handsome. He figured that this man was a ladies' man. But that couldn't be anymore since pieces of his face had been bruised and chewed on by parasites; his left ear was missing. There were gunshot wounds on his back and leg.

"Fottuto…" Juanito practically yet silently shrieked at the sight of the corpse. The face was horribly damaged. Any joker could go now and tell anyone that this dead man's face was one only a mother could love.

But however, there was something in the man's features that made him recognizable. Juanito had seen him once or twice, but could not exactly figure out who he was. Perhaps he was a customer around the deli, but Juanito couldn't be sure because of his face damage.

Juanito closed in on the corpse's mutilated face and examined it for any distinct features. And then, Juanito's jaw dropped. His mouth came agape in realization. He would be in big trouble if anyone saw this corpse. To be frank, he knew he was already in trouble for discovering it.

The corpse belonged to Vincent Mancini-Corleone, the Godfather.

Juanito stumbled backwards and tried to crawl away as quick as he could. He left the corpse in the light of the alley and ran back into his deli kitchen. He picked up the phone and began rolling his chubby fingers through various numbers.

The dial tone rang thrice, and ended when the sound of a phone being picked up came on the line. "Hello?" the person on the other line asked.

"Andrew?" Juanito asked. Andrew was his friend in the Corleone family. He operated as a soldier under the family's capo di tutti. He knew Juanito when they were just kids, playing on the streets around the corner of the deli.

"This is he," Andrew answered Juanito.

"It's Juanito," Juanito said quickly. "Listen carefully, I found a dead man in the back of the deli."

"What?" Andrew asked in a tone that made it seem as if he couldn't understand a word his friend said.

"A dead guy…" Juanito repeated to Andrew. "Behind my deli, I found a dead guy."

"Why'd you call me?"

"I think…" Juanito took a moment's hesitation to answer. "I think…" He started breathing heavily in obvious worry. He relaxed and tried to compose himself over the phone. "Where's the Don?"

"Missing," Andrew replied. "He's been missing for a day or two now. No one knows where he is."

"I think… I think…" Juanito hesitated again. Then, he blurted it out, "I think the Don's dead. I think I found him in the garbage."

"Are you sure?" Andrew asked with a now-shocked tone. "How… Are you sure that it's Vincent you found?"

"His face has been half-eaten. He's missing an ear," Juanito informed. "Please don't bring anyone else. Come alone." He then began to sob. Those panic attacks got easy to him.

"OK… You wait right there," Andrew answered. "I'll be right over." He put the phone down quickly and left Juanito slowly shedding tears of panic.

Juanito put the phone back into the holder and turned to lean his back against the wall. He slowly untied the apron and put it on the kitchen counter. He slid down and buried his teary face in his large hands.

Andrew arrived two minutes after. He, along with Juanito, confirmed the corpse as that of Vincent Mancini-Corleone and called the Corleone compound thereafter. A ceremony was held in his honor three days after, and three days after that, a funeral.

Among the many visitors in the funeral were Vincent's close relatives and even some of his enemies. Andrew and Juanito came, of course, but the most distinguished guest seemed to be Vincent's mentor and uncle, Michael. Also present were the new heads of the other Crime Families; they were direct descendants of those who Michael had killed many years ago when he became Don. And although they all exchanged glances, they did not mention any words towards each other, nor express any form of personal anger or vendetta concerning the incident in which the other Dons were killed so many years ago.

Michael shed no tears during the funeral, but said some words for his fallen nephew. Right after the eulogy, Michael left and mentioned nothing about the next Don. As far as he was concerned, Michael was already out of the business.