Blood alone bbwim-3 Page 22

  I sat back, drained the last bit of strong brew from my cup, and watched Don Calo. He drummed his fingers on the table, as if they were calculating the odds. The drumming stopped, and his lower lip thrust out as he slowly nodded his head. He'd decided something, maybe which of his henchmen should take me out and shoot me or maybe that I wasn't as dumb as I looked.

  "A true mafiusu would not weigh money against his people's welfare. And a man would be a fool to take such a chance, don't you think?"

  "Well, it is three million," I said, giving my best shot at that all-purpose Sicilian shrug. "A man would have to think about it, even if he was only promised a half share. It is still a lot of money. But no, it wouldn't be worth it."

  "You are sure about the amount?" Don Calo asked.

  "I saw it loaded into the field safes myself, nine of them," I lied.

  "You know all about this then. And you are certain the plan to take this money did not come from Salvatore?"

  I had to tone things down a bit. I didn't want Don Calo thinking Luciano was trying to put one over on him, or else he might not believe anything else I told him.

  "Don Calo, I was entrusted with this handkerchief as a symbol of Lucky Luciano's good wishes. There is only one message. Someone else is trying to use you for their own purposes, to manipulate you, to fool you into carrying out their plot. They threatened Nicholas Cammarata with the death of his relatives if he didn't bring that false message to you."

  "Who did this?" I knew I had him. He was angry, and now his anger was directed at someone else, for a breach of honor.

  "I will find out. Please don't blame Nick, he was in agony at the thought of his family being held hostage. They have threatened to kill all the men."

  "You must know the names of these others. Who made this threat?" "No names were given. I don't yet know who the guy at the top is. But here, I believe Vito Genovese, Joey Laspada, and a local man, a big fellow named Muschetto, are part of the scheme."

  "Ah, Vito. That disappoints me. About Laspada, I am not surprised. This Muschetto, he is a fuorilegge, a bandit, not even a member of our society. He is nothing. The one in charge, the unnamed one, must answer to me. Are you sure you can find out who he is?"

  "Don Calo, please don't hold this against me, but before the war, I was a police officer, a detective. I will find the person responsible and he will be brought to justice."

  "Hold it against you? Lieutenant Boyle, I own some of the finest carabinieri in all of Sicily! I have nothing against the profession of policemen. As long as they take my money and then leave me alone."

  "I do have a favor to ask," I said, ignoring the crack about owning cops.

  "You have done me a favor by alerting me to this foolish venture. What can I do for you?"

  "Give me a few men and transport. I want to pay a visit to Nick's relatives in Cammarata. Tonight."

  He drummed his fingers again, more slowly this time. The odds weren't as great, so he finished sooner than before.

  "Done. You will leave in the afternoon, to arrive well after dark. Now it is time we spoke of the message you do have."

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm my jitters. I'm not the kind of guy who gets the big picture. When Major Harding and the ONI guys had explained it all to me back in Algiers, I hadn't taken the idea of palling around with the Mafia all that seriously. The mobsters I knew, like Legs and his gang, wouldn't give two hoots for anyone or anything that didn't benefit them. So I thought this was a joke, or maybe one of Uncle Ike's deception plans. Maybe there was something wrong with me, but I had to have a thing right in front of my nose before I got it. I had to see those narrow mountain roads covered by machine guns set up outside packed ramshackle villages. Nothing Harding could have said in a briefing would have gotten to me the way those antitank guns covering that bridge had. I could still smell the burning Shermans. So that's what I told Don Calo about-the odor of burning flesh and fuel spiraling out of blasted turrets. About Sicilian troops digging in at every crossroad, before every small village that straddled a pitifully narrow road, the soldiers working cheerfully in the sunlight, mopping their brows as if they were sowing crops for harvest. About our heavy artillery and fighter-bombers with their rockets and machine guns, and about bullets in the air so thick they trimmed blossoms from the wildflowers in the meadows like a scythe.

  I told him about Signora Patane dying in her bed, her kitchen left stocked and neat. I told him about the bombardment from the cruisers obliterating the militia emplacement outside Agrigento, leaving severed legs and puddles of gore spread over the hilltop. I told him about our forward observer teams-air corps and naval officers who went up front with the infantry and could instantly radio for air strikes or naval fire. I told him we would rain down fire and steel by the ton on any resistance, that we would not throw away our soldiers' lives to spare the enemy the suffering they would bring on themselves. I told him that once a town was taken, there would be food, medical care, and kindness, but that we would have no mercy beforehand. I told him the world had never seen a war with warriors so rich with the means of death and destruction, and never had so many factories labored so hard to produce so much to kill so many. I made us out to be vengeful prodigal sons, storming the Old World, ready to obliterate anyone who held up a hand to stop us. I felt righteous by the time I was done, and a little ashamed, but this was a mafiusu I was talking to, not some schmo from a street corner, so I had to lay it on heavy. Power. I wanted him to feel the power coming his way. The power to destroy and the power to elevate. They were one and the same.

  I sat back in my chair and watched his face. He looked older by a decade. Maybe he was thinking about life before the war and how it would never be the same. Maybe he was thinking about his own mother, dying a peaceful death. I don't know. I did know that there was no need to go on, to hold out promises of position and wealth. He'd see to that himself. He looked at me with expressionless eyes, granting me nothing. I had brought a terrible message-the truth.

  "A man does not live to rise to my position without being a good judge of other men," Don Calo said, after a minute of silence filled the space between us. "I am not surprised by the actions of Vito and his underlings. That is in character, all of it. It is an offense to me, but not a grave one."

  He sighed as he looked around the peaceful courtyard. His violent anger was gone, replaced by disappointment and a wistfulness that seemed to weigh on him.

  "And I think you have told me the truth about what will happen, to my island and to my children. We are a powerful society, my young policeman, you know that. We have strong hearts. But you, you bring a storm of steel, you and the tedeschi. I cannot let you sweep away the lives of my children and all that I have struggled for. The sooner you have your victory, the sooner you will leave us."

  He nodded and stood. I did too, pushing back my chair, the metal scraping harshly against stone. Don Calo grimaced. I thought he might shake my hand, but instead he steadied himself against the table, as if against the terrible forces standing ready to overcome him. He pulled out a pocket watch on a long chain, the end looped around his suspenders.

  "There is not much time," he said, and left me standing alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The days of rough travel had caught up with me. My legs felt like jelly, each step up the stairs winding me as I pulled myself along by the banister. I washed, cleaning the crusty lump on my head as best I could. I got rid of the bandage. I slept some more in my room behind barred windows. Later, I told Nick and Harry about what had happened, but I didn't feel like hashing it over. I wanted to get it done, and sleep some more. They asked me if Don Calo had decided to tell the Sicilian soldiers to desert, and I replied that I thought so. We ate, and I went into the courtyard and sat in the late afternoon sun, waiting. Nick and Harry followed, and Sciafani joined us.

  Cars and a truck pulled up outside the gate, the sound of slamming doors and creaking rusty iron signaling the arrival of our convoy to Cammarata. Half
a dozen men in white shirts with sleeves rolled up, black vests, and lupare slung over their shoulders, sauntered in. They were young and smooth skinned, thick dark hair curling from underneath their cloth caps. They watched us out of the corners of their eyes, two of them slowly walking around to where we sat, shotguns cradled in their arms. They stood behind Sciafani. Another guy, this one in a suit, about a decade older than the sawed-off gang, came through the gate. He didn't look at us as he hustled into the house, buttoning his jacket against his thick waist and pushing his slick hair back with his hands.

  "Che c'e?" Nick asked, the Italian equivalent of asking what's up.

  No reply. I threw Sciafani a look. It seemed like bad news had strolled in, and the worst news I could think of would come from Agrigento. He gave a nervous shrug, and grimaced. Not very Sicilian. More like Scollay Square after midnight, when a guy stops and asks you in a gruff voice for a light.

  Footsteps pounded toward us from the house as we were each prodded to our feet by the hard end of a double-barrel. No one argued. Don Calo advanced on us, followed by the guy in the suit, whose lips were pinched tight into a thin line of anger. Don Calo clutched something in his hands, and the bottom fell out when I saw what it was. A burlap bag. The bag I'd left stuck under the seat of the car that brought us here.

  Most people slow down as they get close to another person. Don Calo didn't. His rapid pace brought him right up to Sciafani as he drew the sacristan's big revolver from the bag and slammed it into the side of Sciafani's face, sending him crashing to the ground. Don Calo's momentum carried him right over Sciafani, so that he stood astride him as he lay on his side, holding both hands to his face. Blood leaked from between Sciafani's fingers.

  "Why did you do it?" Don Calo demanded, his voice booming with violence. "Why?"

  Sciafani, pulling one hand away, stared at his blood.

  Don Calo kicked him, a vicious blow to the ribs. "Tell me!"

  Sciafani opened his mouth, unable to take in enough air to breathe, much less speak. Don Calo brought his foot back again, but Sciafani rolled over, holding up one hand.

  "I did it to hurt you, to take something away from you," he said between gasps. "I was going to kill you too, for my father. After all the death I have seen, I thought I could do it. But killing that man sickened me. I am a coward." Tears flowed from his eyes, mixing with his blood.

  "My caporegime is dead, all because you wanted to try your hand at killing?"

  Don Calo clenched his fists, fury knitting his brow. Sciafani's admission enraged him, and I could see him performing a cold, hard calculation, finding no solution that would make sense of his man's death. It was alien to him, and perhaps he saw Tommy the C's death as a waste, having come at the hands of a novice who found he didn't have the calling.

  Don Calo raised the revolver and cocked the hammer. He aimed directly at Sciafani's head. Sciafani covered his eyes with blood-streaked hands, turning away from the sight of the barrel pointing at him. He offered no resistance. Don Calo's face was grim, and I saw the muscles tense in his forearm. He pulled the trigger.

  The explosion in the enclosed courtyard rang from the walls. Birds rose up in flight from the roof. Don Calo stepped back, the revolver hanging limply from his hand. Sciafani looked up in shock and surprise. One of the lupara boys laughed and Don Calo silenced him with a look that could have cut glass. Sciafani got up, staring at the wisp of smoke curling up from a hole in the hard ground, next to where his head had been.

  The guy in the suit snapped his fingers, and the others followed him out, casting backward glances at the man Don Calo hadn't killed.

  "Come, sit, Enrico," Don Calo said, his voice calm and gentle.

  Setting the pistol on the table, he guided Sciafani to a seat, taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to Sciafani's cheek, guiding his hand to hold it there. Don Calo sat down heavily, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, a streak of Sciafani's blood leaving a thin trail over his eyes.

  "They said I should have killed you years ago,"Don Calo said. "But that was one death I could not cause either."

  " Perche?" Sciafani said, one palm outstretched. Why? Why not then, why not now?

  "I have done things that the law, and your American friend Billy, would call wrong. I call them natural to a man of our honored society. I have no regrets. But I do regret leaving you, a child, without parents. And some days, I regret the absence of men like your father, men who did not fear me. I am not a monster, and I could not solve the problem you presented by killing you, then or now. But, as of today, we are even. I regret the death of Tommaso, but it allows me to give you your life. I had to strike you, for the sake of appearances, you understand?"

  " Si."

  "Good," Don Calo said, standing and holding Sciafani by the shoulders. "Now go with these men tonight, and never return. If you do, I will kill you."

  Sciafani stood, and I'll be damned if he didn't give the bastard who killed his father a double-cheek kiss, and if that Sicilian crime boss who promised to kill him if he ever saw him again didn't clasp him by the shoulders as he did.

  Don Calo hollered into the house, and two old ladies came out to lead Sciafani away, dabbing at his cut cheek like cleaning up blood was a regular afternoon chore. I was speechless, and for me to admit that is saying something.

  "There are weapons for you in the truck," Don Calo said, strictly business. "You are free to go."

  "Are you with us then, Don Calo?" Harry asked, a little nervously, I thought.

  "No, my English friend," he said, with a wink in my direction. "You are with me."

  Don Calo led us to the gate. The little Fiat Balilla was there, with the older guy wearing the tight suit in the passenger's seat.

  "This is Gaetano Fiore," Don Calo said, gesturing to him. He nodded to me as Don Calo spoke to him in Italian. All I heard was my name, but it sounded like it was said in a nice way. Bill-lee, just like Roberto had said it, stretching out those two syllables into something more Italian. Gaetano had a pencil-thin mustache surrounded by pudgy cheeks and a double chin. A British Sten gun rested on his lap, and it looked completely natural in his meaty hands.

  "Gaetano," I said, sticking my hand out to shake his. I wanted to get some sense of the man before we roared off into the dark with him.

  "Bill-lee," he said back, grinning as he shook my hand in a grip that could crush walnuts. " Ci diverticemo."

  "He says this will be fun," Don Calo translated. "He never liked Laspada."

  "A man of good taste. Thank you, Don Calo, for everything." I offered my hand but he ignored it, instead giving me a pair of kisses, just like the ones he'd traded with Sciafani. I was honored, since he hadn't even killed anyone in my immediate family.

  The lupara boys cheered and Gaetano shouted my name. I mumbled my thanks again and tried to look as heroic as the situation called for. I climbed into the back of the truck with the others as the ancient engine rumbled into life, and after one of the mafiusu opened a crate of Sten guns and handed them around, off we went. Through the open canvas back I saw Don Calo waving, like a friendly relation after you've paid a visit and stayed a day too long.

  It was after dark when we stopped. The drivers killed their engines at the same moment. A profound silence draped itself around us, broken too soon by the sound of men walking on gravel, the crunching of stones beneath booted feet ominously mixed with metallic echoes of bolts snapping back and driving home the first bullet into the chamber. Gaetano signaled us to stay quiet and stay put. One finger to the lips, then down to the ground, then two fingers to the eyes. No sounds, wait here, let your eyes grow accustomed to the dark.

  I watched details emerge from the pitch-black night, hills and trees taking shape and showing detail beneath the cloud-darkened sky. A half moon glowed behind a break in the clouds, a sliver of silver light cascading over us. Breezes gusted and swayed the trees, leaves rustling and branches creaking, the perfect cover for approaching Cammarata; sounds and shadows we coul
d get lost in as we descended on the village like ghosts with steel in our hands.

  Gaetano nodded. We left the road and scrambled up a rocky hill, each man staying close to the one in front of him so we'd know who was who when the time came for it to matter. Sciafani stayed with the vehicles that had been pulled off the road in a grove of orange trees. I could tell he had no desire to kill again, to take part in this. The journey of revenge had broken him, uncovering his strength and his weakness, leaving him stranded in that second grave. For the rest of his life, the death of the sacristan would haunt him, a mortal sin he could never absolve himself of.

  As I gripped the hard, cold metal of the Sten gun, the leather strap biting into my shoulder, I saw Villard, eyes wide open, mouth formed to ask a question I never heard. Why hadn't his death broken me? Was I too far gone for guilt and atonement? I envied Sciafani in a way. He'd gone as far as he dared, and now he knew he'd never go a step farther. And here I was, creeping through the night with an intent to leave men bleeding or dead. Out there, ahead of Gaetano, someone didn't yet know he had seen the sun for the last time. He might be an evil man, cruel to his wife and children. Or maybe he loved them and kissed his children on the forehead before he went out with his shotgun. Either way, they would never see him again.

  I wondered if Dad had ever thought about Basher like that. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Uncle Dan hadn't, and that Dad had never told him about digging two graves. But he'd told me, and right now I wished he hadn't.