Out Of Order
Two:
THE ONE TO TURN TO
After hours of endless struggling, the light bulb finally quit its service. It flickered, then faded, then died out with a feeble crack. The room went dark black.
The man at the desk didn´t care. He didn´t notice.
He was a solitary, hunched figure, his head resting on his arms, his arms resting on a pile of legal paperwork, altogether looking more dead than asleep.
He would´ve remained like this for hours, unnoticed, undisturbed, and above all unconscious, if it hadn´t been for the phone next to him to start ring like mad.
The cruel, frantic sound shattered the silence inside the heavy wooden office walls, and made his mind collide with reality again.
In one painful second, he was thrown back into consciousness only to be greeted by an approaching headache and the constant ringing.
He straightened, blinked, and waited patiently until the blurry spot on his desk had transformed itself into the shapes of a telephone again before finally picking it up.
"Yes?" he whispered quietly, concentrating on blocking the Scotch intoxication out of his calm, low voice, holding the receiver very close to his ear.
But he was, in no way, prepared for what was coming out of it.
A loud shriek pierced his ear.
"TOM?!" Connie Corleone yelped. "Tom, is that YOU?!"
Considering that she had just dialed the private number of his private telephone standing in his private office in his home, this was sort of a pitiable question.
Let alone the fact that he had absolutely no idea how she had gotten her hands on this number, he certainly hadn´t given it to her. It was reserved for urgent matters.
Connie Corleone, as far as he knew her, and he knew her pretty well, never had any urgent matters. She only had irritable matters. Loads of.
Anyway, this one time in his life, Tom Hagen was actually glad to speak to her.
He was awake and sober within a second. His heart skipped a beat. Connie...at last...it was the first time she called someone from the family since she had left without a note four weeks ago.
...if he could pursue her to tell him her whereabouts...Mike would be pleased...he needed a pen and a piece of paper....he needed it NOW....
But why was it so damn dark in here....?
Still fumbling with numerous shapeless items on his desk, he sensed that Connie made no attempt to speak up, and was more likely to sob madly into the receiver.
Good thing too. If Tom knew one thing, he knew how to handle Connie when she was like this.
He took the chance and started to talk, in a certain fashion, making no full sentences but instead uttering gentle, comforting bits in a very low, calming voice.
He had found out that this tactic always worked on two sorts of creatures: the few animals he had encountered - and Connie Corleone.
"Connie...Connie...it´s all right, Connie...everything´s gonna be fine...now shh... calm down...it´s ok...I´m listening...."
It worked. The gentle stream of his words seemed to encourage her to burst in a new fit of tears combined with a very fast and simpering dribble.
"O - o - o - o God, nothing´s ok, you h-have to help me out Tom, y - you really have to, I - I dunno what to do anymore, I´m so scared, it´s the horror, i - it´s about life or death, o God it´s so good to talk to you...I was so desperate, I - I simply dunno what to do and...and I didn´t know who to call, but then I knew you´d be there for me, ain´t you Tom, a-and you´ll help me...y-you know you´ve always been the one to turn to, and y-ou´re so c-completely wonderf-ful a-and...."
Tom noticed that, although Connie sounded as if a nervous breakdown was just about to strike her flat on her back, she still had the sense to flatter him.
He was, however, not the kind of man that could easily be flattered. And most of all not by that little drama queen, Constanzia Corleone, his younger sister.
His hand wandered slowly to his temple, attending the massive headache her voice was giving him.
"Connie," he said, in the most patient tone he could offer right now, "now calm down, whatever it is, we sort it out, it can´t be that bad..."
"But it IS!" she squealed.
Tom closed his eyes in distress. It was as if Carlo Rizzi - or more likely the endless domestic battle between Carlo Rizzi and Connie Corleone - had risen from the dead to haunt him.
The whining turned into a series of little hiccups. "I....I....y´know Tom, I....sort of...made a little MESS recently..." These words were followed by an hysterical outburst of giggles that unmistakeably told him that "mess" must´ve been a hell of an understatement.
His hands had finally gotten grip of a pen, or at least something that strongly resembled a pen.
"You´ll be fine, Connie," he muttered absent-mindedly, yet kindly, while staring at his watch trying to figure out the time of the call.
"Go on and tell me what happened."
There was silence, only interrupted by little, girlish hiccups. Then, after a while, Connie replied, in an indignant tone, "I can´t tell you that on the phone."
He smiled slightly. They were getting to the point. If she couldn´t tell him on the phone...that meant she was calling because she wanted to meet him somewhere, meaning she was finally willing to talk to a member of the family again, meaning she might expose to him where she was hiding.
"All right then," he replied in his sweetest caring-brother voice, "wherever you are, we´ll send someone there within a minute to take you here. We can talk. We´ll fix it, be sure we´ll fix it a - ...."
"Tom, can´t you just CUT THAT CRAP, please?!"
She wasn´t sobbing or hiccuping now. She was positively screaming at him.
"I HATE it when you do that! You always do that! It´s not WE. It´s YOU! I´ve been wanting to talk to YOU, it´s none of this We Sort It Out and We´ll Fix It and We´ll Send Someone stuff, so stop talking in We-terms, will you, what are you, a freakin schizophrenic?!"
He wasn´t the least bit taken aback by her reaction. He had been used to be screamed at by Corleones all his life. And Connie was closer to Sonny´s temper as anyone else in the family. He was a little impressed Connie knew terms like schizophrenic, anyway.
"Fine, I´ll stop then," he said diplomatically. "Yeah." she replied, sounding satisfied. "You do that."
"But," he pointed out reasonably, stretching out in his chair, "you´ll have to tell me at least something, Connie, or else even I won´t be able help you. Now, will you tell where I can see you? Where are you?"
This question was followed by a long, dead silence that was so intense he feared she might have hung up. Had he gone too far?
Then, after some time, Connie´s voice came out of the phone again, now completely run out of sobs, hiccups and squeals, but sore and broken.
"Can´t tell you," she mumbled gravely. "I´m too ashamed." This statement was marked again by silence.
Tom´s mind started racing. The first thought that hit him was that the sister of Michael Corleone was about to tell him she had finally decided on doing the hustle and was now stuck in some fluffy Nevada brothel. He knew about Connie´s constant low of cash, and all the more about her enthusiasm for men in all shapes and sizes.
Goodness. The shame. The publicity. The horror.
But the second thought that hit him was even more scary than the image of Connie calling him in a frilly pale pink negligé, high heels and a whip.
It was so scary that he had to fake a cough to cover the large gulp that was mounting inside his throat.
He and Michael had discussed it. They knew, if there was one family member that was likely to run off and sell out to the cops, it was Connie.
Connie´s anger and frustration with her brother had built up with every tragedy that had marked her life, and might have exploded in a set up, he knew it. Connie was longing for respect, for shelter. To prevent her from running off, Mike had tried to usher her into the role of the family keeper, the surrogate mother of his kids, and had done anything to give her the feeling of being a trustworthy, highly regarded member of the family.
Which was quite a challenge for a man with the emotional warmth of a dentist´s chair.
And, of course, Connie wasn´t a trustworthy and highly regarded member of the family at all, and she knew it.
Tom closed his eyes. No. It was impossible. She couldn´t have....Connie wouldn´t...after all, she had accepted Carlo´s death....she had understood about Fredo... she had never since complained...she wouldn´t have...
"Tom?!" came a squeal. "Tom, you´re still there...? Say something."
Tom took a deep breath. "I. Er. Yes. I´m here. Look, Connie, there´s nothing to be ashamed of, I´m sure, you know you can tell me absolutely everything..."
Only don´t tell me you just had a chat with the FBI, he pleaded.
"All right..." Connie hesitated. He could almost see her gathering strength for the upcoming confession.
His hands started to anxiously whirl around the pen.
"Y-you remember that little Chinese Restaurant around the corner, Mr Fu´s Dragon Palace? Meet me there tomorrow about lunchtime. I´ll fill you in on everything. And," she added merrily, "we can have the special duck dish together."
Tom was halfway through eagerly scribbling down "Mr Fu´s, lunchtime", when he suddenly stopped dead. He remembered Mr Fu´s. But it was only now that he realized where he remembered it from. And it wasn´t exactly around the corner.
"Connie," he said, "you don´t mean the Mr Fu´s Dragon Palace where we once went on Fredo´s birthday? The one where we were thrown out because Sandra started a fight over how to serve squid with the Cantonese cook and Fredo vomited the catfish over the table?"
"That´s exactly the one I mean," she said quietly.
"That," he said, even quiter, "was Sonny´s favorite place."
"I know," her voice was soft now. "I knew you´d remember."
Yes, he did. He and Sonny had spent lots of time there, back in the old times, whenever Sonny grew tired of their mother´s excellent Italian cooking, discussing business while having octopus, catfish and bottles and bottles of weird Chinese beer.
The memory hurt a little. But only a little. He fought off the memory and was back to the point within a second.
"You expect me to fly to New York tomorrow morning?"
"Sure," she replied, sounding puzzled, as if the mere thought he might turn her down sounded like Science Fiction to her.
"That´s the kind of thing you always do, don´t you, Tom?"
All right, but you´re not the Don, he thought.
"You´re in New York, then?" he asked aloud.
"Yeah...I mean, I´ll be there at Mr Fu´s tomorrow," she said quickly. "I- It´s not like I´m in New York all the time, I never said that, I never said I´m in New York. O-or did I?"
He couldn´t help but smile. "No. No, you didn´t say that."
"Does that mean you´ll come?" she asked in a small, girlish voice, as if she´d just invited him to her 11th birthday party.
This notion of childlike faith never completely failed to touch him.
"Sure, Connie. I´ll be there."
After I had a talk with our brother about this, he added in thought.
"Fine," she said, sounding relieved.
Tom didn´t say anything. He expected her to hang up after everything was settled.
He had always been confused when people used the phone not to sort out issues, but merely to CHAT. He thought it bizarre. He thought any kind of small talk bizarre, actually.
There was a moment of silence until Connie asked him, "What are you doing in your office at 4 am, anyway?"
"I...er," he looked around sheepishly, catching sight of the nearly empty bottle of Scotch next to him. He couldn´t believe it was empty. There was no way it could be empty. Again.
"I...I..I´ve some urgent stuff to do for Mike. Have to be finished at about 7 am. Very urgent. Up to my neck in work, to be honest...."
This lie was so feeble it caused him physical pain.
Connie, too, didn´t sound too convinced at all, when she replied, "Oh. Fine. You do that. As long as you make it to Mr Fu´s tomorrow."
"I will," he said. "Bye, Connie."
"Bye. And TOM?!"
"Yes?"
"D´you have milk in your fridge?"
Dumbfounded, he stared at the receiver as if it offered some answer to this mystifying question.
"What do you mean: milk?" he asked carefully.
"Oh, it´s very simple,actually" she explained, seemingly not quite as close to a nervous breakdown as he had though.
"When you get up, first thing in the morning, you have a glass of pure milk. The way you sound, it´ll help you. It takes the alcohol away, you know, dunno how it works, but it works. Oh, and before you go to bed, you have to drink at least one large glass of cold water, of course, so you won´t have a hangover." She paused.
Then she added kindly, "Y´know, that´s what Carlo used to do when he had too much booze, and now I do it myself. Trust me, it´ll help."
"Yeah, Connie," he said between clenched teeth, "Grazie. Very nice."
"You´re welcome," she said in a mocking, but pleasant voice, her nosey- little-sister´s voice"and, TOM?!"
"YES?Constanzia?"
"The way YOU sound," Connie snapped dissaprovingly, now every inch the snotty Long Island daddy´s girl she had been ever since, "it won´t hurt you if you go and throw up a little."
He didn´t answer, not knowing what to say, but then she added, in a soft voice: "Trust me on this one. At least these are the kinds of things I know about."
Tom opened his mouth to say, he didn´t really know what, but there was a sharp click, followed by a monotone humming sound.
Connie Corleone had hung up on him.
Two:
THE ONE TO TURN TO
After hours of endless struggling, the light bulb finally quit its service. It flickered, then faded, then died out with a feeble crack. The room went dark black.
The man at the desk didn´t care. He didn´t notice.
He was a solitary, hunched figure, his head resting on his arms, his arms resting on a pile of legal paperwork, altogether looking more dead than asleep.
He would´ve remained like this for hours, unnoticed, undisturbed, and above all unconscious, if it hadn´t been for the phone next to him to start ring like mad.
The cruel, frantic sound shattered the silence inside the heavy wooden office walls, and made his mind collide with reality again.
In one painful second, he was thrown back into consciousness only to be greeted by an approaching headache and the constant ringing.
He straightened, blinked, and waited patiently until the blurry spot on his desk had transformed itself into the shapes of a telephone again before finally picking it up.
"Yes?" he whispered quietly, concentrating on blocking the Scotch intoxication out of his calm, low voice, holding the receiver very close to his ear.
But he was, in no way, prepared for what was coming out of it.
A loud shriek pierced his ear.
"TOM?!" Connie Corleone yelped. "Tom, is that YOU?!"
Considering that she had just dialed the private number of his private telephone standing in his private office in his home, this was sort of a pitiable question.
Let alone the fact that he had absolutely no idea how she had gotten her hands on this number, he certainly hadn´t given it to her. It was reserved for urgent matters.
Connie Corleone, as far as he knew her, and he knew her pretty well, never had any urgent matters. She only had irritable matters. Loads of.
Anyway, this one time in his life, Tom Hagen was actually glad to speak to her.
He was awake and sober within a second. His heart skipped a beat. Connie...at last...it was the first time she called someone from the family since she had left without a note four weeks ago.
...if he could pursue her to tell him her whereabouts...Mike would be pleased...he needed a pen and a piece of paper....he needed it NOW....
But why was it so damn dark in here....?
Still fumbling with numerous shapeless items on his desk, he sensed that Connie made no attempt to speak up, and was more likely to sob madly into the receiver.
Good thing too. If Tom knew one thing, he knew how to handle Connie when she was like this.
He took the chance and started to talk, in a certain fashion, making no full sentences but instead uttering gentle, comforting bits in a very low, calming voice.
He had found out that this tactic always worked on two sorts of creatures: the few animals he had encountered - and Connie Corleone.
"Connie...Connie...it´s all right, Connie...everything´s gonna be fine...now shh... calm down...it´s ok...I´m listening...."
It worked. The gentle stream of his words seemed to encourage her to burst in a new fit of tears combined with a very fast and simpering dribble.
"O - o - o - o God, nothing´s ok, you h-have to help me out Tom, y - you really have to, I - I dunno what to do anymore, I´m so scared, it´s the horror, i - it´s about life or death, o God it´s so good to talk to you...I was so desperate, I - I simply dunno what to do and...and I didn´t know who to call, but then I knew you´d be there for me, ain´t you Tom, a-and you´ll help me...y-you know you´ve always been the one to turn to, and y-ou´re so c-completely wonderf-ful a-and...."
Tom noticed that, although Connie sounded as if a nervous breakdown was just about to strike her flat on her back, she still had the sense to flatter him.
He was, however, not the kind of man that could easily be flattered. And most of all not by that little drama queen, Constanzia Corleone, his younger sister.
His hand wandered slowly to his temple, attending the massive headache her voice was giving him.
"Connie," he said, in the most patient tone he could offer right now, "now calm down, whatever it is, we sort it out, it can´t be that bad..."
"But it IS!" she squealed.
Tom closed his eyes in distress. It was as if Carlo Rizzi - or more likely the endless domestic battle between Carlo Rizzi and Connie Corleone - had risen from the dead to haunt him.
The whining turned into a series of little hiccups. "I....I....y´know Tom, I....sort of...made a little MESS recently..." These words were followed by an hysterical outburst of giggles that unmistakeably told him that "mess" must´ve been a hell of an understatement.
His hands had finally gotten grip of a pen, or at least something that strongly resembled a pen.
"You´ll be fine, Connie," he muttered absent-mindedly, yet kindly, while staring at his watch trying to figure out the time of the call.
"Go on and tell me what happened."
There was silence, only interrupted by little, girlish hiccups. Then, after a while, Connie replied, in an indignant tone, "I can´t tell you that on the phone."
He smiled slightly. They were getting to the point. If she couldn´t tell him on the phone...that meant she was calling because she wanted to meet him somewhere, meaning she was finally willing to talk to a member of the family again, meaning she might expose to him where she was hiding.
"All right then," he replied in his sweetest caring-brother voice, "wherever you are, we´ll send someone there within a minute to take you here. We can talk. We´ll fix it, be sure we´ll fix it a - ...."
"Tom, can´t you just CUT THAT CRAP, please?!"
She wasn´t sobbing or hiccuping now. She was positively screaming at him.
"I HATE it when you do that! You always do that! It´s not WE. It´s YOU! I´ve been wanting to talk to YOU, it´s none of this We Sort It Out and We´ll Fix It and We´ll Send Someone stuff, so stop talking in We-terms, will you, what are you, a freakin schizophrenic?!"
He wasn´t the least bit taken aback by her reaction. He had been used to be screamed at by Corleones all his life. And Connie was closer to Sonny´s temper as anyone else in the family. He was a little impressed Connie knew terms like schizophrenic, anyway.
"Fine, I´ll stop then," he said diplomatically. "Yeah." she replied, sounding satisfied. "You do that."
"But," he pointed out reasonably, stretching out in his chair, "you´ll have to tell me at least something, Connie, or else even I won´t be able help you. Now, will you tell where I can see you? Where are you?"
This question was followed by a long, dead silence that was so intense he feared she might have hung up. Had he gone too far?
Then, after some time, Connie´s voice came out of the phone again, now completely run out of sobs, hiccups and squeals, but sore and broken.
"Can´t tell you," she mumbled gravely. "I´m too ashamed." This statement was marked again by silence.
Tom´s mind started racing. The first thought that hit him was that the sister of Michael Corleone was about to tell him she had finally decided on doing the hustle and was now stuck in some fluffy Nevada brothel. He knew about Connie´s constant low of cash, and all the more about her enthusiasm for men in all shapes and sizes.
Goodness. The shame. The publicity. The horror.
But the second thought that hit him was even more scary than the image of Connie calling him in a frilly pale pink negligé, high heels and a whip.
It was so scary that he had to fake a cough to cover the large gulp that was mounting inside his throat.
He and Michael had discussed it. They knew, if there was one family member that was likely to run off and sell out to the cops, it was Connie.
Connie´s anger and frustration with her brother had built up with every tragedy that had marked her life, and might have exploded in a set up, he knew it. Connie was longing for respect, for shelter. To prevent her from running off, Mike had tried to usher her into the role of the family keeper, the surrogate mother of his kids, and had done anything to give her the feeling of being a trustworthy, highly regarded member of the family.
Which was quite a challenge for a man with the emotional warmth of a dentist´s chair.
And, of course, Connie wasn´t a trustworthy and highly regarded member of the family at all, and she knew it.
Tom closed his eyes. No. It was impossible. She couldn´t have....Connie wouldn´t...after all, she had accepted Carlo´s death....she had understood about Fredo... she had never since complained...she wouldn´t have...
"Tom?!" came a squeal. "Tom, you´re still there...? Say something."
Tom took a deep breath. "I. Er. Yes. I´m here. Look, Connie, there´s nothing to be ashamed of, I´m sure, you know you can tell me absolutely everything..."
Only don´t tell me you just had a chat with the FBI, he pleaded.
"All right..." Connie hesitated. He could almost see her gathering strength for the upcoming confession.
His hands started to anxiously whirl around the pen.
"Y-you remember that little Chinese Restaurant around the corner, Mr Fu´s Dragon Palace? Meet me there tomorrow about lunchtime. I´ll fill you in on everything. And," she added merrily, "we can have the special duck dish together."
Tom was halfway through eagerly scribbling down "Mr Fu´s, lunchtime", when he suddenly stopped dead. He remembered Mr Fu´s. But it was only now that he realized where he remembered it from. And it wasn´t exactly around the corner.
"Connie," he said, "you don´t mean the Mr Fu´s Dragon Palace where we once went on Fredo´s birthday? The one where we were thrown out because Sandra started a fight over how to serve squid with the Cantonese cook and Fredo vomited the catfish over the table?"
"That´s exactly the one I mean," she said quietly.
"That," he said, even quiter, "was Sonny´s favorite place."
"I know," her voice was soft now. "I knew you´d remember."
Yes, he did. He and Sonny had spent lots of time there, back in the old times, whenever Sonny grew tired of their mother´s excellent Italian cooking, discussing business while having octopus, catfish and bottles and bottles of weird Chinese beer.
The memory hurt a little. But only a little. He fought off the memory and was back to the point within a second.
"You expect me to fly to New York tomorrow morning?"
"Sure," she replied, sounding puzzled, as if the mere thought he might turn her down sounded like Science Fiction to her.
"That´s the kind of thing you always do, don´t you, Tom?"
All right, but you´re not the Don, he thought.
"You´re in New York, then?" he asked aloud.
"Yeah...I mean, I´ll be there at Mr Fu´s tomorrow," she said quickly. "I- It´s not like I´m in New York all the time, I never said that, I never said I´m in New York. O-or did I?"
He couldn´t help but smile. "No. No, you didn´t say that."
"Does that mean you´ll come?" she asked in a small, girlish voice, as if she´d just invited him to her 11th birthday party.
This notion of childlike faith never completely failed to touch him.
"Sure, Connie. I´ll be there."
After I had a talk with our brother about this, he added in thought.
"Fine," she said, sounding relieved.
Tom didn´t say anything. He expected her to hang up after everything was settled.
He had always been confused when people used the phone not to sort out issues, but merely to CHAT. He thought it bizarre. He thought any kind of small talk bizarre, actually.
There was a moment of silence until Connie asked him, "What are you doing in your office at 4 am, anyway?"
"I...er," he looked around sheepishly, catching sight of the nearly empty bottle of Scotch next to him. He couldn´t believe it was empty. There was no way it could be empty. Again.
"I...I..I´ve some urgent stuff to do for Mike. Have to be finished at about 7 am. Very urgent. Up to my neck in work, to be honest...."
This lie was so feeble it caused him physical pain.
Connie, too, didn´t sound too convinced at all, when she replied, "Oh. Fine. You do that. As long as you make it to Mr Fu´s tomorrow."
"I will," he said. "Bye, Connie."
"Bye. And TOM?!"
"Yes?"
"D´you have milk in your fridge?"
Dumbfounded, he stared at the receiver as if it offered some answer to this mystifying question.
"What do you mean: milk?" he asked carefully.
"Oh, it´s very simple,actually" she explained, seemingly not quite as close to a nervous breakdown as he had though.
"When you get up, first thing in the morning, you have a glass of pure milk. The way you sound, it´ll help you. It takes the alcohol away, you know, dunno how it works, but it works. Oh, and before you go to bed, you have to drink at least one large glass of cold water, of course, so you won´t have a hangover." She paused.
Then she added kindly, "Y´know, that´s what Carlo used to do when he had too much booze, and now I do it myself. Trust me, it´ll help."
"Yeah, Connie," he said between clenched teeth, "Grazie. Very nice."
"You´re welcome," she said in a mocking, but pleasant voice, her nosey- little-sister´s voice"and, TOM?!"
"YES?Constanzia?"
"The way YOU sound," Connie snapped dissaprovingly, now every inch the snotty Long Island daddy´s girl she had been ever since, "it won´t hurt you if you go and throw up a little."
He didn´t answer, not knowing what to say, but then she added, in a soft voice: "Trust me on this one. At least these are the kinds of things I know about."
Tom opened his mouth to say, he didn´t really know what, but there was a sharp click, followed by a monotone humming sound.
Connie Corleone had hung up on him.