1 Peter Clemenza slept badly that night. In the morning he got up early and

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made his own breakfast of a glass of grappa, a thick slice of Genoa salami with a

chunk of fresh Italian bread that was still delivered to his door as in the old days.

Then he drank a great, plain china mug filled with hot coffee that had been lashed

with anisette. But as he padded about the house in his old bathrobe and red felt

slippers he pondered on the day's work that lay ahead of him. Last night Sonny

Corleone had made it very clear that Paulie Gatto was to be taken care of

Immediately. It had to be today.

2 Clemenza was troubled. Not because Gatto had been his protйgй and had

turned traitor. This did not reflect on the caporegime's judgment. After all,

Paulie's background had been perfect. He came from a Sicilian family, he had

grown up in the same neighborhood as the Corleone children, had indeed even

gone to school with one of the sons. He had been brought up through each level

in the proper manner. He had been tested and not found wanting. And then after

he had "made his bones" he had received a good living from the Family, a

percentage of an East Side "book" and a union payroll slot. Clemenza had not

been unaware that Paulie Gatto supplemented his income with free-lance

stickups, strictly against the Family rules, but even this was a sign of the man's

worth. The breaking of such regulations was considered a sign of high-

spiritedness, like that shown by a fine racing horse fighting the reins.

3 And Paulie had never caused trouble with his stickups. They had always been

meticulously planned and carried out with the minimum of fuss and trouble, with

no one ever getting hurt: a three-thousand-dollar Manhattan garment center

payroll, a small chinaware factory payroll in the slums of Brooklyn. After all, a

young man could always use some extra pocket money. It was all in the pattern.

Who could ever foretell that Paulie Gatto would turn traitor?

4 What was troubling Peter Clemenza this morning was an administrative

problem. The actual execution of Gatto was a cut-and-dried chore. The problem

was, who should the caporegime bring up from the ranks to replace Gatto in the

Family? It was an important promotion, that to "button" man, one not to be

handed out lightly. The man had to be tough and he had to be smart. He had to be

safe, not a person who would talk to the police if he got in trouble, one well

saturated in the Sicilians' law of omerta, the law of silence. And then, what kind of

a living would he receive for his new duties? Clemenza had several times spoken

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to the Don about better rewards for the all-important button man who was first in

the front line when trouble arose, but the Don had put him off. If Paulie had been

making more money, he might have been able to resist the blandishments of the

wily Turk, Sollozzo.