by Peter Watson
“I have a better idea,” Nino said thoughtfully.
All eyes turned to him.
“They are Sicilians. There will be an elaborate funeral for Giancarlo Cataldo. Everyone will be there—except for very young children. They will be left at home. That’s when we hit them.”
“Yes!” Priola slammed his fist down on his desk. “They will want to get the funeral out of the way before they come at us. And that will make them careless!” His face lit up like a small boy’s at a fireworks display. “Giovanni will find out the date of the funeral. He will also provide you with expenses, as before. Nino, you and the kid work out the rest of the details. Now, is there anything else?”
Giovanni said nothing. Nino shook his head.
“Yes,” said Silvio.
They all looked at him.
“If this works, will you please stop calling me ‘kid.’”
Silvio ran a finger down Anna-Maria’s spine, and between her buttocks.
A sound gurgled in her throat. “I like that.”
He passed the flat palm of his hand back up the skin over her shoulders and massaged her neck.
“More.”
“Let’s have a drink. The more we delay the second time, the better it is. Have you noticed that?” He got off the bed and crossed the room to the bar.
“The sooner we do it the second time, the sooner we can do it a third time.”
Looking out across the Mississippi, pouring the wine, Silvio smiled to himself. It was midafternoon—broad daylight—and Anna-Maria had turned up unannounced. Nino had grinned when she arrived but soon made himself scarce. It was obvious what he thought: every time Silvio fucked her took him away from Annunziata.
He handed Anna-Maria her wine. “Sicilian wine, the best.”
“Bullshit!”
“It is!”
“Bullshit! Sicily’s a nice enough place, Silvio, but don’t be blinded to its shortcomings. Have you ever tried French wine?”
“It’s piss.”
She sat up. “Next time I come, I’ll bring some. You’ll see. It’s less harsh, more interesting. You’re bright, carissimo, but you’ve a lot to learn.”
“Who says I’m bright?” He thought briefly of his parents.
“Well, my father, for one.”
Silvio looked at her sharply. “Oh yes? What did he say?”
“I heard him tell one of his men—that you had the brains of a bishop.”
“When? When did he say this?”
“Couple of days ago. He also said you thought with your balls—it’s a phrase he uses, it means you have character, courage, but a thinking kind of courage.” Her expression changed. “Have you thought about what I said, about getting away from Nino?”
“That’s not easy, Anna-Maria, not just now.”
“Maybe not. But don’t delay forever. I’m not joking, Silvio.”
“I know. What does your father say about Nino?”
“That he understands violence, that he’s willing to go one step further than anyone else, but that he can never be Capo outside Sicily, he’s too much of a peasant.”
Silvio fell silent. Nino had told him never to let anyone drive a wedge between them. Anna-Maria was doing just that.
She looked at him levelly. “It’s not just Nino you have to put behind you, Silvio. It’s Sicily. Something’s making you look back, isn’t it? Is it a woman?”
Silvio colored and Anna-Maria nodded. “I thought so. Your first love, eh? Poor you. What’s her name?”
He looked away.
“Come on. What’s her name?”
“Annunziata.”
Anna-Maria let a silence elapse while she sipped her drink. “You’ll forget her, you know. Oh, not for three months, or six months, but you’ll forget her. Then, one day, you’ll suddenly be shocked by the fact that you haven’t thought about her for days.
“She’s part of Sicily, Silvio, part of your youth. But you’re a man now, with a future. You should use me to help forget her, to put Sicily behind you.”
He looked at her.
“You’re learning English, you must learn to read, learn how to think big, learn how to present yourself so people respect you. I can teach you some of that. I’m not just a body, you know. You never love anyone like your first love—nothing hurts quite so much as the first separation, but you’ll heal. You don’t want to heal right now, but you will.”
She put down her wine and lay back on the bed.
“If you want, just this once, you can imagine I’m Annunziata.”
Seven carriages were drawn up on Burgundy Street. The Cataldos lived in the Little Palermo district of the city, between Burgundy and Barracks streets. The carriages were all black, the horses with black plumes woven into their manes. A Negro brass band stood respectfully at the head of the procession.
Silvio watched from down the street. A small crowd had gathered to see the funeral of a man who had met such a spectacular end, so there was no danger of Silvio being spotted or standing out in any way. It was still raining and the streets were turning muddy. Silvio had been drinking in Madge Leigh’s the evening before when he heard that a number of crevasses, or breaks, in the levee had formed above New Orleans, at Bell’s Plantation. The fire department, several police forces, and many other volunteers had been called out to help with the repairs. As far as he could see, there were no police attending the funeral.
The coffin appeared from the entrance to the courtyard where the Cataldos lived, carried by four strapping Negroes. Idly, Silvio wondered why so many men were needed—or perhaps this was for show. There couldn’t have been much left of Giancarlo after Nino’s explosives had done their work.
Nino was farther down Burgundy, on the corner of St. Philip Street, hidden in a carriage with its curtains drawn. These carriages were common in New Orleans, as Silvio had discovered, used by women of finery who didn’t want to be gaped at, or robbed if they were wearing jewelry.
The coffin was maneuvered into the front wagon and the mourners, led by Alfredo Cataldo and his wife, climbed into the carriages. A man from Leclair’s funeral parlor, dressed in a black frock coat and a tall top hat, visited each carriage to ensure that everyone was ready to start. Then he walked forward and gave the leader of the band a firm nod.
The brass immediately struck up a dirge and began to move forward. At the sound of the music, more people came to stare. Silvio stood his ground as the procession went by. His job was to follow at a distance, all the way to Metairie Cemetery. As the youngest, fittest, and fastest runner among the small team Nino had assembled, he was to watch for any deviation in the funeral routine. If there was any move that could result in Nino being surprised or trapped in the Cataldo courtyard, he would dash back to Burgundy Street to sound the alert.
The procession wound its slow way down Burgundy, turned right on St. Peter’s, then left onto Rampart. The cortege made another right on Toulouse, which brought the coffin and the mourners to the basin, at Basin Street. All along the route the music attracted onlookers. Some of the men took off their hats as the procession went by. Others just glared, or even turned their backs. They knew what Cataldo had been and why he had been killed, and they shared the view of the police: good riddance. At the corner of Basin and Conti, the cortege passed Mary O’Brien’s and the sound of the brass band was almost drowned by the early-morning session of Mike Gillin and George Filhe, who were already playing there.
As the procession went along it picked up a handful of extra mourners, who walked behind the carriages. These appeared to be mainly Sicilians, anxious to pay their last respects to a powerful man. They all knew, or thought they knew, that retribution for the murder was coming and they had to show allegiance.
After some forty minutes the mourners arrived at the cemetery. Cemeteries, Silvio already knew, were special places in New Orleans. Metairie Cemetery was sited very carefully. Metairie Ridge was the only raised ground for miles around, and even this was scarcely fifty feet above sea leve
l. In all other parts of New Orleans the soil was so waterlogged, so much a part of the great Mississippi delta, that bodies couldn’t be buried; sooner or later the remains of cadavers simply floated to the surface. Even here, in Metairie, bodies were interred in sarcophagi aboveground. The appearance of the cemeteries, row upon row of small stone resting places, some elaborately carved or decorated with bright flowers, had given these places their nicknames: Cities of the Dead.
The Cataldo sarcophagus, Silvio was not surprised to note, was elaborately ornate. Giancarlo would leave one underworld for another in grand style.
Silvio still kept his distance. By now, Nino should be in the Cataldo house. The plan was simple. He was to arrive in the carriage, dressed as a priest. He would explain to the guard that he was a friend of Giancarlo’s, from upriver, from Natchez, that he had been in New Orleans when the killing took place, and had rushed into the remains of the room in Lulu White’s to try to administer the last rites. Alas, he had been too late. He was unable, unfortunately, to attend the funeral, as he was obliged to catch a steamer upriver, taking him home. But as a priest, he would like to do the next best thing to attending the funeral, he would like to bless a blood relative of Giancarlo. He had been told that Giancarlo’s nephew, Ranuccio, was considered too young to attend the funeral: could he please bless the child? Underneath his cassock Nino carried a lupara, the traditional Sicilian shotgun, from which both the barrel and the stock had been sawn off. Once inside the house, the rest should be easy. An easy raccolto, as they said in Sicily, an easy harvest.
At the cemetery, the band had stopped playing and the coffin was being taken from the wagon. The mourners were stepping down from their carriages and gathering around the sarcophagus. Silvio noticed that two or three of them were girls from Lulu White’s. A priest—a real one, Silvio hoped—stood ready to begin the ceremony.
Silvio edged away now. He pretended to be studying the inscriptions on the various sarcophagi, as if looking for one in particular. Gradually, however, he worked his way back to the main gate, where the flower sellers were located. From here he could keep an eye on the funeral, able to see if anyone suddenly detached himself from the group of mourners.
The plan, once the child had been abducted, was to sail up the Mississippi with him in a small lugger, a fishing boat used on the river and in the Gulf of Mexico. Two men and a woman, Sicilians brought in specially from Baton Rouge, had been chosen for this task. Afterward they would return to Baton Rouge and the child would never be able to identify his abductors. The lugger would sail upstream for as long as the negotiations between the Priolas and the Cataldos went on, putting ashore each evening to send a telegraph to Angelo Priola with further instructions.
Silvio had transferred his attention from the sarcophagi to the flower seller outside the cemetery, trying to guess her nationality. This was a game he often played since he had been in America. Suddenly he noticed a man he recognized running in the street. He knew where he had seen the man before—at Lulu White’s. He was one of Giancarlo’s bodyguards. The man was panting and sweating and had a wild expression on his face. Silvio turned his back on the man, quickly approached the flower seller, and bought some carnations. As he did so the bodyguard ran on through the gate and straight for the funeral party. Silvio eased himself away from the gate and began to head south, back toward town. But he still lingered; he wanted to see what happened.
The bodyguard approached the mourners. He sought out Alfredo and pulled him to one side. Their heads were bent together in conversation. Then Alfredo put his hand to his head and cried out. All the other mourners turned to look at him. Quickly, he dragged three men from the rear of the group and spoke to them urgently. They immediately sprinted for the gate. The other mourners were confused. Alfredo went to his wife and put his arm around her. He whispered into her ear, then she screamed, and sagged in his arms.
Silvio didn’t dare wait any longer. The first three men were almost at the gate of the cemetery. As Silvio began to stroll south along Conti Street, Alfredo’s men ran past him.
He dumped the flowers in the first trash bin he came to.
PART TWO
Caporegime
1880
10
Father Ignazio Serravalle looked around the Church of the Madonna dell’Olio and beamed. This was a delightful little church where he had carried out many baptisms, weddings, and funerals. It was simple, built of the local Calandrella quarry stone, with two rows of columns supporting a terracotta roof and a small gallery over the main entrance. The windows were plain, the apse undecorated, and there was no art of any kind to alleviate the stark whitewash with which the interior was painted. But this sheer simplicity, among the olive and almond groves of the Casino mountain, was effective. The church was a jewel.
More to the point, for many of those present, it lay at the end of a simple track. No one could be surprised, or ambushed, in this church, and it was precisely for this reason that it was preferred by many of the local Mafia families in central Sicily. That, and the fact that it was only used once a year by the bishop, to bless the olive harvest in mid-March.
But the chapel was full today. Weddings were more important than baptisms and more pleasurable than funerals. As the singing came to an end, Serravalle brought his gaze back to the couple in front of him. Annunziata and Gino made a handsome pair, he thought.
“Will you please be seated,” he said when the music stopped. He waited while they all settled themselves.
“I won’t keep you because it’s hot and we are all longing for some cool wine. But this is an important day for Annunziata and Gino—Signor and Signora Alcamo—and I think we should dwell for a moment on the big step they are taking. Marriage is the most beautiful thing we can do in this life, the union of one man with one woman, symbolizing the indissoluble bond between man and God, the foundation of the church. Nothing we mortals do can approach the mystery that is God, but marriage certainly offers deep satisfaction, the chance to experience love in all its guises, the opportunity it offers for children, new individuals to glorify the Lord.”
Father Ignazio himself derived considerable satisfaction from this marriage today. After all, it had been his comments—his falsehood, if he was honest, acting under the guidance of the Lord—that had caused Annunziata to turn away from the wretched Sylvano. It was a blessing, a divine spark, that had given him the idea to tell her that Sylvano had wanted to go to America. His remarks had devastated Annunziata; but that, he told himself, was in the short term. He, Ignazio Serravalle, had interpreted God’s law properly. The relationship between Sylvano and Annunziata was unnatural, and that was that. It had taken Annunziata months to get over what the abbot had said, but she was over it, now, and much the better for having divested herself of all feeling for Silvio. Because Father Ignazio was an abbot, Annunziata had never questioned the truthfulness of what he had said. She had believed him implicitly.
And, he was pleased to note, she had gradually adjusted. It had taken time, but eventually she had begun to show an interest in other young men. They, of course, had shown an interest in her all along; she was a highly attractive young woman. For a time the abbot—and others—had been unsure which of the Alcamo brothers, Gino or Alessandro, she had preferred. When Gino asked him to get word to Nino, to ask if he might marry Annunziata, the abbot had been as pleased as everyone else. Privately he thought that Annunziata still looked sad from time to time. He suspected that deep inside she was still in love with Sylvano. Fifteen minutes ago, however, she and Gino had been married. Love no longer mattered. She was out of harm’s way.
“I say to the young couple …” He raised his voice, for emphasis. “I say … remember that marriage is a sacrament, a holy thing. Treat each other with love, respect, and gentleness and you will be repaid many times over in good fortune, no matter what happens in the world outside.” He smiled at the congregation. “Now we will sing a final, joyful hymn and after that we can all go out into the sunshine to d
rink and eat and sing and dance, and enjoy all those good things that God, in his mercy and wisdom, has provided.”
As the people stood for the hymn Father Ignazio looked down again at the newlywed couple. Annunziata looked more beautiful than ever in white. He hoped she would soon have babies. With babies to love, she could put Sylvano behind her forever.
New Orleans, Silvio had decided, had very little in common with Sicily, save in one respect: rain was welcome. True, it turned the unpaved roads into quagmires, and if it went on long enough, the river rose and the levees were threatened. But showers cooled the air, kept the mosquitoes down, at least for a time, and brought out the scent of the bougainvillea that festooned so many balconies in the French Quarter.
Not that he was smelling the bougainvillea just now. Like many other New Orleans people, when it rained he took shelter in the French Market, which had a roof of terracotta tiles, supported on stone pillars. There he surrendered himself not to the scent of flowers but to the smells of the market—baking fish, tobacco, melons, pineapples, and above all, roasting coffee.
In the last six months Silvio’s circumstances had changed more than he could ever have hoped. The kidnapping of Alfredo Cataldo’s son had gone better than any of them had envisaged. It turned out that Marina Cataldo, Alfredo’s wife, had nearly died giving birth to her only son, and as a result could have no more children. Barren as a biscuit, as they said back home. On being told of the kidnapping, she had become hysterical and insisted Alfredo accede to all Priola’s demands. Being Sicilian, Alfredo was by no means used to taking his wife’s views into account, but the boy was his only son, too.
Silvio had also gotten the psychology right. Coming so soon after Giancarlo’s brutal death, and with the kidnapping and mutilation of the English priest in Sicily so fresh in everyone’s mind, Alfredo was not about to take any risks. On condition that his brothels and gambling joints would remain under his complete control, he agreed to withdraw from the fruit wharves. The boy was returned unharmed. The beautiful part was that the New Orleans police were not even aware that the kidnapping had taken place. The Priolas and the Cataldos settled their differences entirely outside the law.