КсюChapter 6 Nothing Personal
The entrance to the private road where the Corleone family lived was crowded with cars and men with guns. As Michael and Clemenza got out of the car together and walked in, Tessio came to meet them.
'Why all the guns?' Clemenza asked.
'We'll need them,' Tessio said. 'After Sollozzo tried to kill the Don at the hospital, Sonny got angry. We killed Bruno Tattaglia at four o'clock this morning.'
Inside the house, Sonny was in an excited, happy mood. He held Michael's badly bruised face in his hands and laughed.
'Hey Mikey, you look beautiful!'
Michael pushed his brother's hands away and went to pour himself a drink to take away the pain.
'Hey, Tom,' Sonny said, turning to the Consigliori. 'Listen to this. Sollozzo wants to talk. He wants us to send Michael to hear his offer.'
Tom looked worried. Sonny was talking and laughing as if it was all a joke. 'Perhaps we should hear what Sollozzo has to say,' he said, 'We don't want another war.'
Sonny stopped smiling at once. 'No!' he said, suddenly angry. 'No more.
Not this time. No more meetings. No more Sollozzo tricks. I want Sollozzo dead. If not, we'll have a war!'
'You're taking things too personally,' Tom said, getting angry too. 'This is business.'
'I don't want your advice,' Sonny said.'I just want you to help me win, all right?'
When everybody had calmed down, Tom explained to Sonny why he thought killing Sollozzo was a bad idea. 'Sollozzo's paying the police captain who hit Michael a lot of money. His name's McCluskey. He's agreed to be Sollozzo's bodyguard at the meeting. Now you must understand, Sonny, that you can't kill Sollozzo while he's with McCluskey. Nobody's ever shot a New York police captain. It would be a disaster. All the five families would come after you. All our important friends would disappear. We'd have no friends in the world. We'd be finished!'
Sonny listened to Tom carefully, and finally agreed to wait. But
Michael, who had heard the whole conversation from his armchair said: