“You know where I come from,” Nero Golden said, narrowing his eyes. “I know you know. Nobody can keep things sub rosa these days.” Late at night he had brought me into his sanctum, wanting to talk. I was simultaneously excited and afraid.—Afraid, because was he about to confront me with information about what I’d been getting up to with Mrs. Golden? Had he had us followed, was there a private eye’s folder of photographs on his desk? The thought was profoundly disquieting.—And excited, because this could also be the opening up I’d hoped for, the confessional moment when an aging man, tiring of the unknown self he had wrapped around himself, wanted, once again, to be known.—“Yes, sir,” I said. “Don’t say that to me!” he shouted, mostly good-naturedly. “Just go on pretending you’re an ignorant little squirt and act surprised when I tell you something. Okay?” “Works for me,” I said.
During his wife’s pregnancy the deterioration in Nero Golden’s well-being gradually became apparent to us all. He was not so far from the end of his eighth decade and his mind was beginning its slow treason. He still went out at eight each morning dressed in immaculate tennis whites with a white baseball cap on his head, swishing his racket through the air with his usual I-mean-business air about him, and still returned sweaty and exuding a certain strong-jawed contentment ninety minutes later. But one day, just a few days before my late-night summons, there had been an unfortunate episode. He had been crossing the street when a car, a vintage Corvette, jumped the light at the Bleecker-Macdougal intersection and bumped into him. Just barely bumped into him, just hard enough to knock him over, not hard enough to break any bones. His response was to jump up, immediately forgive the driver, refuse to make any kind of report or complaint, and invite the driver, a careless white individual with a thick head of wavy white hair, back to the house for a coffee. This behavior was so outrageously out of character that everyone began to worry. It was a while however before the extent of the problem was diagnosed. “I’m fine, fine,” Nero said after the Corvette incident. “Stop making a fuss. I was just taking care of the guy because he was obviously shaken up. It was the right thing to do.”
And now I was alone with him in his lair after dark. What was in store for me now? He offered me a cigar; I refused. A cognac; I refused also. I’ve never been a brandy drinker. “Take something,” he commanded, so I accepted a vodka shot. “Prosit,” he said, raising his own glass imperiously. “Bottoms up.” I downed the shot, noting that he only applied his lips to the rim of his cognac balloon in the most perfunctory fashion. “Another one,” he said. I wondered if he was trying to get me drunk again. “In a little while,” I said, covering my shot glass with the palm of my left hand. “Let’s not rush things.” He leaned forward, slapped me on the knee and nodded. “Good, good. A sensible man.”
“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “Once upon a time in Bombay—you see? I name the old city by its old name, the first time that word passes my lips since I land in America, you should be honored by my intimacy—there was a man named Don Corleone. No, of course that wasn’t his name, but his name will mean nothing to you. Even the name he actually used wasn’t his name either. A name is nothing, it’s a handle, as they say here, just a way of opening a door. ‘Don Corleone’ gives you an idea of the kind of man he was. It’s my way of opening his door. Except this Don never killed a man or fired a gun. I want to tell you about this type. He came originally from the south but like everyone else ended up in the big city. Humble origins. Totally humble. Father ran cycle repair shop near Crawford Market. Boy helped daddy fix bikes, looked at big cars going past, vroom! Studebaker, vroom! Cadillac, and he thought, one day, one day—like everyone else. He grew up, worked at the docks unloading cargo. Simple porter, seventeen-eighteen years old, but with an eye for opportunity. Pilgrim ships came back from the Mussalman holy places, the pilgrims brought back contraband. Transistor radio, Swiss watch, gold coins. Dutiable items. Heavily dutiable. Don Corleone helped them smuggle the items, in his underwear, his turban, wherever. They rewarded him. He acquired some funds.
“Now a lucky meeting with a fisherman smuggler from Daman. One Mister Bakhia. At that time Daman was Portuguese colony. Slack scrutiny. Bakhia and Don Corleone started smuggling from Dubai and Aden, via Daman, loose borders, into India. Good business. Don Corleone moved up the social register. Made friends with heads of other crime families. V. Mudaliar, K. Lala, et cetera. Then pally with politicos, including one certain Sanjay Gandhi, son of Indira. These are facts. By the 1970s he was a big cheese, top banana. There was a young police officer on his tail who wouldn’t be bribed. Honest fellow. Honesty a disadvantage in that job. One Inspector Mastan. Don Corleone had him transferred to nowhere and when the officer was on the plane Don Corleone came aboard just to wave him goodbye. Safe travels Mastan. Have a good trip. Cheeky. Like that. So confident in those times.
“He lived both well and also abstemiously. The best suits, best ties, best cigarettes, State Express 555, and a Mercedes-Benz. A big house on Warden Road, like a palace, but he lived simply in one room on the terrace upstairs. Fifteen feet by ten feet. No more. Downstairs there were movie stars coming and going, and he put a lot of money into the motion pictures, you know. And at least three films made about his own life, featuring the top talent. Married a starlet also. Her name meant Goldie. But in the mid-seventies he fell. Sanjay Gandhi turned out to be a false friend and Don Corleone had a year and a half of incarceration. Knocked the stuffing out of him. Quit smuggling completely. First became a religious fellow like the smuggling pilgrims who gave him his first break. Afterwards tried politics. In the mid-nineties, after the rise of the top family, Zamzama Alankar’s Z-Company, there came the first terrorist attacks in Bombay, people thought he was involved, but he was too scared for that stuff. Innocent, innocent, innocent. Next year, heart attack, dead. Hell of a story.”
“Was it really a natural death?” I asked. “He must have had enemies?”
“By that time,” said Nero Golden, “he wasn’t worth killing anymore.”
A long silence.
“And this was the story you wanted to tell me,” I said finally. “Can I ask why?”
A long silence.
“No,” he said.
Cut.