BELLA MAFIA

by Lynda La Plante

  Then Don Roberto mentioned a young don, Antonio Robello, nicknamed The Eagle, and explained how the young man had approached him, offering his condolences and the help of his family should the time arise for Luciano to need backing.

  "I decided to take the justice I had been refused. I had to plan with great care; if anyone in the organization were to hear of my intention, it would cause repercussions within my own business, my own family."

  Graziella felt chilled. All this had occurred when? After they had buried Michael? When they were still grieving? When? The tape gave the answer.

  "I arranged that in one day, beginning in the early hours of the fourth of November, 1963, Paul Carolla's refineries, factories, warehouses, and two fishing boats would be systematically destroyed. I had been a bomb disposal expert in the war; I knew what explosives and timing devices would be required. Robello was an avid pupil because I offered him, as an incentive, two years' free trading with my companies plus access to my cargo ships, my docks and warehouses. It was also agreed that he would inherit Carolla's territory.

  "The explosions were to go off at intervals throughout the day. I knew Carolla was staying in Palermo with his mistress, and I also knew he had just purchased a new Alfa Romeo. . . . I wanted Carolla to see, to know he was being wiped out before the last explosion, the bomb planted in his car that would kill him. Each device was to be meticulously timed, and I schooled Robello for two months before the day."

  Graziella turned off the tape and thumbed through her diary. The date, November 4, was familiar to her, but she could not at that moment recall why. She checked her notes at the front of the diary and discovered that it was the wedding anniversary of Filippo and Teresa. . . . The day Don Roberto had pinpointed for the destruction of Paul Carolla was his own son's wedding day.

  Graziella understood now why Filippo's wedding had been arranged in such a hurry, why he had chosen that mouse of a girl Teresa Scorpio. Teresa's family were nothing, dependent on a small bakery, and had no connection with any of the major families. She knew why the don himself had overseen the reception, specially invited the handful of guests. She had tried to persuade Filippo not to rush into a marriage with such a plain girl, a girl so much older than he, and had been unable to understand why he had even contemplated marrying her. Now she knew: Don Roberto had arranged Filippo's wedding as a cover for his attempt to destroy Paul Carolla. In his desire to avenge one son, he had used another.

  Graziella pressed her fingers to her temples. She recalled that the couple Don Roberto had hired to run the villa during their absence resembled the Lucianos so much that no one would even know they had left for New York. She remembered how her husband had laughed about it. She switched the tape on again and felt the hairs on her arms prickle; by coincidence, she heard Don Roberto's laugh again, this time emanating from the tape recorder.

  The laughter stopped. His voice was soft, menacing. "A perfect alibi in New York. The couple I had hired to take care of the villa were given my clothes and my wife's clothes to wear, always a hat, pulled down just so. . . . You see, I knew Robello did not trust me. He was too hungry. Foolishly he had already approached some of Carolla's contacts, who, in turn, became suspicious. This I knew, and I intended, should it become necessary, to use the information. So it was imperative that Robello should not discover that I was leaving Palermo. For obvious reasons we had previously arranged that there should be no further contact between us until one month after the bombings, after Paul Carolla was dead."

  Luciano fell silent. It was a few moments before he spoke again.

  "In one day my friend Paul Carolla lost millions, and more than fifteen of his men were arrested."

  "How many men died?" asked Emanuel.

  Luciano did not reply. He simply continued. "Carolla lost everything but his life. My plan backfired, leaving me in a very vulnerable position. I was, understandably, the most obvious suspect, but I was not even in Palermo. I had a perfect alibi. I was at my son's wedding in New York."

  There was another long pause on the tape. Graziella knew it had not been turned off; she could hear the rustle of papers.

  "Please continue. I have made a note on the dates and will verify that the police records of the explosions coincide—"

  The don interrupted, his voice harsh with controlled anger. "Understand, amico, I am not on trial, capich'!’ Be sure, my friend, if I incriminate myself, I am more than aware of it. I am here for one reason only: Paul Carolla. There are many who will be afraid, many, but I have no interest in any other man. I have waited more than twenty years."

  Emanuel interrupted hesitantly. "But you must understand my position. If you incriminate yourself, I must make—"

  "You make sure, my friend, that there are no repercussions either to myself or to my family, is that clear? Do I make myself clear? Now, do you wish me to continue?"

  There was a pause, and the tape clicked. Graziella knew there must have been some kind of agreement between the two men.

  Don Roberto's voice was calm and controlled. "Robello failed to assassinate Paul Carolla. I became the main suspect and was accused by Carolla. The outcome of his accusations was that we both were called before the commission. I can give no names, but the commission is made up of a select group of men, top organization men who are voted in by the members to act as jury and judge—"

  Emanuel interrupted. "The same men who refused you justice over your son's death?"

  "Yes, the same men. I gave them my information about Robello's intentions of taking over Carolla's business, told them that even before the bombing occurred, he had contacted Carolla's people in preparation for the take-over. Robello became the main suspect. On my return to Sicily he tried to extricate himself by making a disastrous attempt to assassinate me."

  There was that laugh again, a cold, hard laugh. "Robello's attempt on my life made Carolla offer me his friendship, a truce. Now I will tell you why I have mentioned this entire episode. This was given to me by none other than Paul Carolla, a gift to show his good intentions. The box was delivered to my home with this note."

  Graziella could hear something being placed onto Emanuel's desk.

  "It is not a bomb, my friend, it is the severed hand of Antonio Robello. You will see, still attached to the finger, his family ring. It resembles a bird's claw, no? His nickname was most apt, no? The remains of Antonio Robello were never discovered, but the note, in Paul Carolla's handwriting, is all the evidence you need."

  The tape was switched off and then started again. Emanuel asked, "What was your relationship with Paul Carolla? He offered a truce. Did you take it?"

  "On the surface, of course. I had no option, but I was in a stronger position than ever. He had lost millions and owed millions more, but that was not enough. I continued to wait for my opportunity. I swore to avenge my son, no matter how long it took, how many years. You see, my friend, my son is still alive in my heart."

  Graziella couldn't listen to any more. She ordered her car and left immediately for the library in the center of Palermo.

  Graziella was in the library for three hours, reading newspapers dating back to the time of Filippo and Teresa's wedding. She read about the destruction of Paul Carolla's refineries. The headlines screamed of a Mafia vendetta and the biggest-ever narcotics haul. She also read that twelve men had lost their lives in the series of bombings.

  She found the issue that covered the assassination attempt on her husband. Paper after paper named Don Roberto Luciano as a hero, described how he had cooperated with the police, and in one statement after another, Luciano denied all knowledge of a vendetta. Yet again, there was the evidence of her husband's powers of manipulation; the fact that Luciano himself had attempted to defuse the bomb Robello planted in his Mercedes seemed enough, even to Graziella, to connect him with the spate of bombings. Luciano was quoted as saying that he had not even been in Palermo at the time of the previous bombings but at his son's wedding in America. There were letters of thanks to the don fro
m the widows of the police officers killed in the assassination attempt, gratefully accepting his donations. Only one paragraph in each of two papers described the pitiful deaths of two little sisters who had been riding their bicycles past Luciano's Mercedes when the bomb exploded. The grief-stricken parents also thanked Don Luciano for his generosity.

  Graziella returned to the Villa Rivera, feeling tainted. Behind the facade of husband and father had been a man she did not know existed. She had never allowed herself to suspect; she had lived surrounded by death and murders.

  Graziella looked at her driver, who had worked for her husband for many years. She leaned forward and tapped his broad shoulder.

  "Diego . . . how long did you drive for Don Roberto?"

  "For twenty-five years, signora." He adjusted the rearview mirror to see her more clearly.

  "Then you must have seen much? Met many people?"

  "Si, signora."

  "Did you ever meet Gennaro Baranza?'"

  "I don't recall his name, signora."

  "He was a bodyguard to my son, Michael. Do you remember my son?"

  "Si, signora, I remember him well. . . ."

  "Eduardo Lorenzi, Niccolo Pecorelli and Giulio Carboni. Did you ever drive these men? See them with my husband?"

  He gave a furtive look into the driving mirror. Her blue eyes held his for a moment before he looked back to the road. "I was just a driver, signora, I'm sorry."

  They did not speak again until he opened the door for her on their arrival at the villa. The man towered above her, and she looked up into his gnarled, heavily lined face. "For twenty-five years you worked for Don Roberto. Look around you. . . . See? Everyone has gone; there is nothing to be afraid of."

  "Signora, I was just one of the drivers, that is all, nothing more."

  "But you were his driver on the night of the murders; you were the one to find him."

  He made the sign of the cross and bowed his head. Graziella asked him to accompany her into the house, but he refused. She could hardly conceal the anger in her voice.

  "I need to talk with someone, I need to ask questions, I need . . . can't you understand? I will pay you, whatever you ask."

  He stepped away from her, and she threw up her hands in a gesture of impatience. Turning from him, she walked up the white steps leading to the porch.

  His voice made her turn. "I have a family. . . ."

  She faced him. "So had I, Diego, so had I."

  Graziella phoned Mario Domino, who was greatly relieved to hear her voice. He had tried to reach her for weeks, but she had refused to answer his calls. She had not checked the piles of work he had been diligently overseeing or answered any of his hand-delivered letters.

  "Are you well?"

  "Yes, Mario. . . . Will you find a man called Gennaro Baranza? I must meet with him as soon as possible."

  He felt the chill in her voice. "Graziella? You must meet with me! I have done considerable work on the tax situation, but we must discuss the sales of the companies.-"

  "Another time. I have to go to court. Remember Mario, Gennaro Baranza, he used to work for Don Roberto. It is very important."

  "But, Graziella, this must be given precedence over everything else! You must consider—"

  "Mario, I leave everything to you."

  "You cannot, Graziella. I cannot take the responsibility. Perhaps you should call your daughters-in-law—"

  There was a silence on the line.

  "Graziella, are you there? Please, this is insanity! I have laid off all the men as you instructed, but don't you understand what you are doing? All Roberto built, everything he spent his life building—"

  Her voice was harsh. "I want to speak with Gennaro Baranza. I will call you this evening."

  Before Domino could say another word, she had hung up. She was making it impossible for him to negotiate the sales he had set up on many of the companies. Her only instruction to him had been "Get rid of everything, sell everything." She wanted nothing, no part of the Luciano holdings. She wished only for the cash to be accumulated for her daughters-in-law and her granddaughter. Domino had begged her to wait, to get some advice, but she was adamant that nothing must remain. She even instructed him to include the Villa Rivera in the sale price.

  Graziella clenched one hand in fury as Adina entered the study. "You may go, Adina, I'll fix myself something to eat later."

  "Diego asked me to give you this. He's waiting in the kitchen."

  Graziella tore open the cheap white envelope. There was a short note, written on ruled paper.

  Dear Signora Luciano,

  I am sixty-four years old. I would like to retire, go and live with my son and daughter. I beg you to release me.

  Yours with great respect, D. Caruso

  Graziella picked up her checkbook. "He's still waiting, you say?"

  "Si, signora."

  Graziella wrote out a check and put it in one of her husband's crested manila envelopes. She handed it to Adina.

  "Tell Signor Caruso he has nothing to fear. He is free, and I wish him a happy and peaceful retirement."

  The following morning Mario Domino set out early to drive to the Villa Rivera in the hope of catching Graziella before she left for the trial. There was only one guard at the wrought-iron gates, and he opened up without even asking Domino's name.

  Mario noticed that the gardens were already looking neglected; the hot weather had dried the grass quickly. The swimming pool was a dark, murky green, and decay was sweeping through the orchards. Around the trees, laden with their rotting fruit, the flies swarmed in clouds. The tennis court had begun to sprout weeds; the net hung limply, and a racket that had belonged to Michael lay abandoned on the grass.

  The villa was shuttered, every window closed. Domino parked his car behind the Mercedes, which still stood in the driveway, and walked around the back to the kitchen. Adina was hanging out some wash.

  They sat in the kitchen. Adina told Mario that Graziella rarely, if ever, ate and most nights never slept.

  "She plays the tapes over and over. ... I hear his voice, like a ghost through the house, and she has taken every photograph down. I don't know what to do, she is making herself ill, she is so thin, so—"

  "Has the doctor been to see her recently?"

  "No, signor, she sees no one. The phone she will not allow me to answer. . . . And look, see all these letters and cables? She does not even open them. She listens only to the tapes.

  Yesterday Diego Caruso left. She has no one to drive her now; she took a taxi into town."

  Domino decided he would return that evening with the doctor.

  Adina wept, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "It is as if she hates the don. All his clothes, everything that belonged to him she has made me give to the missions. . . . Signor, what is on those tapes? What makes her act this way?"

  Domino sighed, patting the servant's shoulder. "Perhaps the truth."

  Going down the long drive, Domino remembered the day Don Roberto had discovered his wife's visits to his office. At first Domino had tried to deny that they were a regular occurrence, and Don Roberto had snapped that there was nothing that was not reported back to him. Domino had been afraid; this man for whom he had worked all his adult life still terrified him.

  "Your wife, Roberto, feels greatly that she is in some way to blame for Michael's death, that you did not allow her to nurse him. If she knew more . . ."

  "Understand this, Mario. Graziella is my wife; she is the mother of my sons. You will tell her nothing, nothing, unless I give you permission." Then he had given that charming smile of his. "You may call it jealousy; even after all these years I have not forgotten you were once to be married. I am sorry if I spoke curtly, forgive me. . . . She may come to you once a month. I will give you certain information she may be told, no more, no less."

  The spectators were always seated at the trial before the prisoners were brought up from their cells below the court. This was often a long procedure. The cage
s ranged along one entire wall of the massive courtroom, like a zoo; the bars reached from floor to ceiling, and as many as thirty men at a time were herded inside, in handcuffs and sometimes leg irons. Each cage was locked, and a guard positioned at the door, before the next group of prisoners was led in. In each cage was a microphone that could be turned on if a prisoner requested to speak with the defense counsel.

  The lawyers always remained outside the court until all prisoners were locked in. The judge entered last, taking his seat on the high rostrum facing the horseshoe of counsel.

  When a prisoner was required to take the stand, he was led by armed guards to the bulletproof glass booth that served as the witness box. Advisers ranged alongside the judge, and there were microphones in front of each man. The courtroom was filled with earsplitting calls for order. When things got out of hand, the judge threatened that the trial would continue without the presence of the prisoners, a maneuver that gained a brief silence.

  For Graziella, the prisoners in their cages grew to be a sickening fascination. Had any of these men worked for her husband, carried out the terrible crimes the prosecuting counsel accused them of? How many of these men who had come in chained to each other like animals were linked to the Lucianos?

  Carolla's sweating face, his obsession with cleaning his nails, filing and picking at the cuticles, drew her attention. She stared, kept on staring. Had Michael's death, in the end, joined Luciano and Carolla together? If she had known the truth, known the way her son had died, nothing would have stood in her way, no matter what the cost. She could not, like her husband, have waited. Why had he waited? And why, if Carolla was unlikely ever to be freed, had Roberto chosen to be a witness? He must have known the dangers, not only to himself but to his family.