by James R Benn
"It's not what you think," Nick said, rubbing his throat.
"Do you still have the handkerchief?" Harry asked me as he guided Nick to a chair. I looked around the room and noticed their windows had iron bars like mine. The whole house was a prison. I nodded, thinking there might be someone listening outside.
I asked Nick in a whisper, "Are you working for Vito Genovese? He wants this handkerchief too. Pulled a gun on me like you did. Didn't get it like you won't."
"Then my family is dead," Nick replied in a whisper.
I backed away. There was sadness and resignation in Nick's voice. "Sit down, Billy," Harry said. His was the only calm voice in the room. "I'll explain."
There were a couple of chairs around the small table where Nick sat. Harry pulled up one and I took another, wondering what could possibly come next. He pulled the cork from a bottle and poured three glasses.
"Grappa," Nick said, tossing his back and pouring himself another. "Made from the residue of grapes after they've been pressed. A bit like the war, isn't it? Just when you think the life has been drained out of you, someone else puts another squeeze on."
"Billy," Harry began, watching Nick warily, as if he'd been hitting the grappa too hard lately. "We can still salvage what's left of this mission, but Nick has a problem."
"Don't we all," I said, but decided to shut up until I knew more.
"They threatened Nick's family unless he cooperated with them," Harry said. "They said they'd kill all the men-his grandfather, uncles, cousins-unless he went along."
"They? Who are you talking about? And go along with what?"
"The heist," Nick said, looking into his empty glass.
"What heist, and who the hell are you talking about?"
"Someone in AMGOT, but we don't know who," Harry said. "And this Vito Genovese character you just mentioned, along with another gangster, Joseph Laspada."
"And their pal Muschetto, a local guy," I said.
"How do you know that?" Harry asked.
"They came looking for me. Or you, actually," I said, pointing to Nick. "You're their yegg."
He ignored my assertion and poured another drink for himself.
"What's a yegg?" Harry asked, moving the bottle out of Nick's reach. "A safecracker. All you Naval Intelligence guys were taught the fine art of safecracking, weren't you, Nick?"
"Yeah," he said. "I'm pretty good at it too."
"Are you talking about a threat to your relatives here in Sicily?" I asked.
"My family name comes from the village of Cammarata. It's east of here, on the road to Palermo. They're holding my people there, every one. If I don't come through, they'll start killing the men."
"Come through with what?" I asked.
"I was supposed to eliminate both of you, take the handkerchief, and carry out your mission to Don Calo, with one little addition."
"What's that?"
" I have to steal two million dollars from the U. S. Army."
I drank down the grappa, felt it burn my throat and warm my stomach.
"Tell me everything from the very beginning," I said to Nick. I shoved my glass toward Harry and he poured. Nick talked, I drank.
"When I was a kid, I used to run errands for Luciano's gang in New York. Nothing illegal-getting coffee and sandwiches, delivering messages, stuff like that. I became a numbers runner for a while. Then I got serious about school and wanted to go to college, so I gave it up. I stayed in touch with my pals, and they knew I'd joined the navy right after Pearl Harbor. I was an ensign, and all of a sudden I get pulled from a cruiser and sent to the Office of Naval Intelligence. I took some tests, was promoted to lieutenant, and then they told me I'd been recommended by Lucky Luciano to work for them and infiltrate Sicily, since I spoke the language like a native."
"Most of that I knew," I said, getting impatient. "Who asked you to steal two million bucks? When? And whose money is it?"
"That's the funny part. I don't know. They had drummed security into us, so I never tried to find out. One day in Algiers, I got a memo on ONI stationery. No name or signature, just a notification that I'd be getting top-secret communications in the near future that I was not to discuss with anyone. And to burn each message, starting with that one. So I did."
Nick pushed his glass toward Harry, who shook his head.
"At first they were about the mission, the same stuff I was hearing every day. Then they mentioned the handkerchief, how I had to get it and present it to Don Calo. I thought it was just an ONI-versus-the-army thing, that maybe ONI thought it would be better to use a Sicilian-American to approach Don Calogero. Then, when we moved to the advance base in Tunisia, they hit me with the real reason. Someone was going to arrange for the Thirty-fourth Division payroll to come ashore with the first wave of the invasion. Six field safes, two million dollars in occupation lire. All I had to do was tell Don Calo that this had been arranged by Lucky Luciano as a gift to him. He'd get half. Don Calo would supply the men to take me there, and in the confusion I was supposed to hit the paymaster and open the safes."
"That's crazy," I said. "No one would ever send a division payroll in with the first wave. Paymasters arrive days later, when the area is secure."
"Whoever sent me the messages made it happen."
"You didn't…?"
"No," Nick said, shaking his head. "First of all, Don Calo wouldn't bite, not without that damn handkerchief. Harry and I tried to convince him to use his influence to get the Sicilian troops to desert too. He wouldn't listen, not until he knew either or both plans had the blessing of Luciano."
"He puts a lot of store in a piece of cloth," Harry said.
"He's used them himself, it's a custom here. It means the owner trusts the person carrying it with his life, and that person will die rather than give it up, so that when the messenger delivers it, he can be vouched for."
"Lucky Luciano doesn't know me," I said.
"That's why it made sense to me at first. The army knew what they were doing when they gave you the handkerchief, they understood the tradition."
"How did you get these messages?"
"Each one was in a plain envelope. They'd show up under my door, stuck in my gear, on my pillow. Any number of people could have left them. Along with the note about the payroll, there was a threat. If I told anyone or didn't steal it, they'd kill my relations in Cammarata."
"Wait a minute," I said. "How could someone in Tunisia get to these thugs in Sicily to make all this happen? There had to be somebody already here to carry out the threat to your relatives." I stood then paced back and forth, trying to think things through.
"I guess someone high up enough could arrange phony orders to have the payroll go ashore early. The army issues enough screwy orders to make that plausible. But what happened when you didn't steal the money? You didn't, did you? That should've happened by now, right?"
"Fortunes of war, Billy," Harry said. "The surf was rough, and the landing craft carrying the safes capsized. They went in the drink, about a thousand yards offshore of Gela. We heard about it yesterday."
"So you're off the hook?"
"Oh no," Harry said. "Now we have to steal the money soaking wet, after it's salvaged."
"Are you still getting messages here?"
"Here I get instructions direct from Legs Laspada," Nick said.
"Does Don Calo know about the threat to your family?"
"No, he's supposed to think it's Luciano's plan, and that I'm in on it. He doesn't know I told Harry about the scheme. I had to, it was eating me up."
"I have a feeling that if you managed to pull this off, Don Calo would never see his cut," I said. If Vito Genovese was in on this, what was Rocko's part? Evidently he'd no longer been important to Vito. It was probably Legs who'd murdered Rocko. What had Rocko offered that Genovese no longer needed? Supplies? Something was starting to make sense, but I couldn't quite put it into words yet. I kept pacing, tapping my finger on my lips.
"Billy?" Harry asked.
/> "I haven't had a chance to tell you yet, but I woke up in a field hospital with no memory at all. No idea who I was, or why I was here."
"From that knock on the head?" Harry asked, pointing to my bandage.
"Yeah," I said quickly, not wanting to talk about rolling that grenade and thinking I had killed him. Time enough for that later. "I woke up and this supply sergeant, Rocko Walters, was there. He was looking out for me, helping me, but he was after the handkerchief too. He tried not to tip his hand, since he was also trying to find out what had happened to their yegg."
"He was waiting for your memory to return," Nick said.
"Yes. But he waited too long. Someone killed him. That night at the Valley of the Temples, an Italian soldier led me back to the American lines. He only wanted to give up and get to America. I must've told him I'd help him. By the time I found him among the POWs, his throat had been slit."
"So there's someone back at HQ who both knew about the payroll and could manage to get orders changed so that the paymaster went ashore early. And a supply sergeant was in on it and a couple of mobsters who were already on the island," Harry said, summing up.
"Whoever is behind this had to be working with Vito and Legs from the outset. He'd have to, to get information to them," I added.
"How?" Nick asked. "I mean, how could he get all this dope to either of them? Who would have that kind of pull?"
"I don't know," I said. "Rocko was a classic wheeler-dealer, but he wasn't a headquarters guy. He ran the show at divisional supply. He's the one who could requisition the field safes. Maybe they recruited him then, or he smelled something fishy and cut himself in. He could get most anything, and knew how to work around officers. I heard him give a Signals lieutenant holy hell for not finding Roberto fast enough."
"Who's Roberto?" Nick asked.
"The Italian kid who saved my neck after the fight at the temple. He was bringing me back to our lines."
"Why would a Signals officer be looking for a POW?" Harry asked.
"I guess because he was in on the… wait a minute," I said, stopping in midsentence. My memory still felt as if rusty gears were grinding against each other. "Rocko had a corporal working for him. He was a technician fifth class, assigned to Rocko from the Signals Company. When he was killed at Biazza Ridge, Rocko was real shook up about it, which wasn't his style. He wasn't the sentimental kind."
"Billy, you may have gotten hit on the head harder than you realize. You're not making any sense," Harry said.
I tried to slow myself down, to lay it out step by step, but I was worried that if I didn't get it all out now it wouldn't make sense to me either. "Rocko didn't give a hoot about anyone but himself, but he took it hard when I told him Corporal Hutton was dead. That's because Hutton was a communications specialist. I overheard Rocko tell Vito that they had to get some sort of German piece of equipment working. A dialer of some sort, I can't remember its designation."
"So the plan called for a communications specialist. Hutton must have had the job of splicing into the local telephone wires. If he had had the right kind of equipment, he could have placed a call anywhere," Nick said. "Hell, he could have called Mussolini if he'd known the number."
"Hutton set up his equipment as soon as they landed and sent a message from Rocko to Vito, or maybe to Legs," Harry contributed.
"I'd bet on that," I said. "And when Hutton was killed, Vito and his pals had no further use for Rocko. He was just another loose end, like Roberto. Rocko hadn't gotten the handkerchief from me, so they came after me themselves."
"Well," Harry said with a tired sigh, "we still have a job to do. You've got to convince Don Calo to work with us, to tell the Sicilian soldiers to surrender, and you've got to do it tomorrow."
"One more thing," I said. "Is there a woman named Charlotte anywhere in this mess?"
They looked at each other blankly. "Why?" Harry asked.
"Something else I overheard. Vito told Rocko that Charlotte was worried."
"Did he ever refer to Charlotte as she?" Nick asked. "Like, 'I spoke to Charlotte and she's worried about you'?"
"No," I said. "it was, 'Charlotte is worried about you.'"
"I don't know if this means a thing," Nick said. "But ONI sent me to take a course at the Judge Advocate General school of military government, out in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most of the guys were from AMGOT, but there were a few other Sicilian-and Italian-Americans. Everyone called the place Charlotte. Don't know why, but they did."
"What the bloody hell is AMGOT?" Harry asked.
"American Military Government of Occupied Territories," I said. "The guys who take over after the fighting's done. They're the ones in charge of occupation currency."
"Right," said Nick. "They're planning on exchanging all the lire in Sicily for occupation lire, to keep inflation and black marketeering down. Someone high up in AMGOT would have access to the paymaster's orders."
"How much money are we talking about, in occupation scrip?" I asked.
"Nobody knows for sure. We're bringing enough in for divisional payrolls and for exchanging at the first couple of big banks we find. That will give AMGOT time to set up printing presses on the island, for turning out everything from newspapers to more lire."
"I hope they get your 45th Division News going first, if they are going to print newspapers. I do like the Willie and Joe cartoons," Harry said. "The blokes on my boat can't get enough of them."
"Patton hates them," Nick said. "I doubt that Mauldin kid will get much ink while he's in Patton's army."
I wasn't thinking about Bill Mauldin, who drew Willie and Joe, or the Sad Sack character, or Georgie Patton. I was thinking about Charlotte, a code name for someone in AMGOT, someone who'd attended a course at the JAG school in Charlottesville and probably knew Nick from there. Someone asleep in a warm cot right now, safe in Algiers or at the advance base for the invasion of Sicily, Amilcar, in Tunisia. He had two deaths on his hands already-Rocko and Roberto-and he'd nearly ruined this mission. No, make that three deaths.
"Harry, there's something else I need to tell you. Banville didn't make it. He and Kaz found me, and we were on our way here when the Germans showed up. Kaz and I escaped, but he didn't."
"Was he captured?" I saw the faintest hope in Harry's eyes and felt like a heel for not saying it straight out.
"No. He's dead."
"Bloody hell. There's going to be a score settled, the sooner the better. Get us out of here, Billy, first thing tomorrow."
I knew what he meant. I felt it myself, the urge for swift violence to right a wrong done to me. Sciafani had held on to his hate for too long, and when he'd finally done something about it, he'd found vengeance was darker and more haunting than he'd ever imagined. As I had in my own struggle with la vendetta. A knife in the ribs eliminated one problem, but another appeared in its place, one that all the violence I could ever summon up would never touch. I felt an overwhelming desire to sit on the front porch stoop with Dad and shoot the breeze for a while, the way we did when he had something important to say. He'd talk around it for a while, circling, easing into it. Maybe he could tell me something more about revenge than having to dig two graves. Or maybe he'd end up saying there simply wasn't any way around it. If that was true, it would be nice at least to hear it from him. But I wasn't anywhere near that front stoop in Southie, and I had to get the job done here and now. I had to convince Don Calo to support the Allies, I had to figure out how to get Nick out of this mess, and I had to find the greedy bastard who'd taken three lives. Graves were going to be dug.
"I'll do my best, Harry. Nick, how far is Cammarata from here?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Don Calo was waiting for me in the small courtyard, drinking espresso in the early morning sun. I wondered if I was supposed to bow, kiss his ring, or give the secret Mafia handshake. I decided to use one of my few Italian phrases and then get to the point.
" Buon giorno, Don Calo. I have something for you."
&n
bsp; "That is refreshing. People usually want something from me."
I drew out the handkerchief by an edge, and held it up so he could see the L. "From Salvatore Lucania."
Don Calo took it, rubbing the silk between his fingers. "He was born less than thirty kilometers from here, and he has never forgotten his home. Salvatore Lucania is a good man. Sit, please, have some caffe while we talk."
He snapped his fingers and a moment later a woman brought out a small silver pot and poured hot, thick coffee into a tiny cup. As I took my first sip, I watched Don Calo run the fabric through his hands. His fingernails were manicured. Once his hands had probably been rough and callused, when he was on his way up, hunting men in the hills. Now he had others around him with rough, hard hands, and he sat in the sun, pressing silk against his palms. I figured a guy like that would want to stay on top, and that he'd go along with whoever could keep him there.
"We call him Lucky Luciano in the states, Don Calo, and I have a message from him for you but first I should tell you about the message I do not have."
"There are many messages you do not have, my American friend. Why should I care about those?"
"Because there are men who wish to use you, to put you in danger, with plans to steal from the American army. Lucky Luciano has no part in that."
"What do you mean?" He spoke with the calm, innocent assurance of a master liar.
"Money. Three million dollars in occupation scrip."
That made him flinch. He was ready to deny anything, but by adding the extra million to the haul I caught him off guard and made him wonder if Vito was holding out on him.
"Three million dollars? That is a lot of money. How could someone steal that much from your army?"
"Actually, I doubt if anyone could. But if someone happened to pull off such a thing, they would only come to ruin."
"How?" His tone was belligerent now, and I knew I had to convince him or this might be my last cup of joe.
"Don Calo," I said, leaning over the table, closer to him so I could speak in a whisper. "What do you think would happen to three million dollars' worth of stolen lire on an island, in the middle of a war? When thousands of armed men are moving through villages and towns? They would search for it. We're not just talking about the official search by the army, but every GI and probably every tedesco ripping this island to pieces to find three million in cash. There'd be no place to run. Every village would be torn apart. The simple people you protect would be the ones to suffer. They would lose far more than my army would. Anyone under even a hint of suspicion would be tracked down. And, it goes without saying, no one under suspicion could ever be trusted, after the fighting is over, in any position of authority."