Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  “I’ll get a nurse,” he said.

  “The hell you will. Talk to me first.” Vittorio closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them. “How long have I been out?”

  “About eighteen hours.”

  “Jesus. What about the mob and the police?”

  “They came looking. But you’ve got a few friends here.”

  “Who?”

  “Lucia, her doctor cousin, and a nice lady in emergency who checked you in and later said all the right things when it was important to say them.”

  Battaglia stared at him from his pillow. “And I’ve got you.”

  Gianni was silent.

  “Is there any news about Paulie?”

  The artist shook his head.

  “What I hate most,” said Battaglia weakly, “is that I’m going to have to dump the whole load on you. While I goddamn lie here pissing through tubes.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Vittorio.”

  “You don’t really have to do this, you know.”

  “Like hell I don’t. There’s probably nothing I’ve ever had to do more.”

  Then a nurse heard them talking, berated Gianni for not calling her, and excitedly brought in a couple of doctors.

  It was more than an hour before they were alone and able to talk again.

  “Tell me what to do,” said Gianni.

  Vittorio’s breathing was labored. The doctors had exhausted him.

  “Get to Peggy at the safe house,” he said. “Fast. She probably thinks we’ve been killed by now, and I’m worried about what she might do.”

  “What if she’s not there?”

  “If she had to leave for some reason, there should be a message. There’s a bush just to the right of the back door. One of the wall stones behind the bush is loose. Pry it out. If there’s a note, that’s where it’ll be.”

  “And if she’s not there and there’s no message?”

  Vittorio met Gianni’s eyes above his sterile mask. “I’m not sure what to tell you.”

  Gianni was silent. It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember Vittorio ever having admitted to not being sure of something.

  “I was about to tell you to come back and we’d talk about it,” said Battaglia. “But we’d better do our talking now.”

  Vittorio sipped water through a straw. His face had good color. But Gianni knew it was part fever and part the new blood from his transfusions.

  “See Lucia and her cousin before you go,” said Battaglia. “Tell them you might be calling with messages for me. You think they can be trusted?”

  “You’d be dead this minute if it weren’t for them. And probably so would I.”

  Vittorio nodded. “I know. But an electric prod to their tits can still get whatever they’ve got. So you have to be careful what you say.”

  He stared at the ceiling as though everything he had in his mind was written there.

  “If Peggy’s at home, don’t tell her where I am or what’s happened. Tell her I’m fine and following up on some hot leads on Paulie. Tell her you’ve just come to give her a re port and keep her from worrying. Then you’ll be joining me again. Sound optimistic as hell.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Vittorio grimaced and closed his eyes as a spasm of pain gripped him totally for several moments, then eased off.

  “If Peggy’s not at the house and there’s a message,” he said in a strained voice, “call and tell Lucia or her cousin what it is. Unless it’s something so sensitive that you’d rather come back here and tell me about it in person.”

  Vittorio swallowed water with effort.

  “If she’s not at the house, and there’s no message, and she doesn’t appear for a few hours, come back here and we’ll try to figure out our next move.”

  Vittorio lay back on his pillow and turned his face to Gianni. The muscles in his jaw went slack and he seemed to diminish. Even the false color in his cheeks appeared to have been lost.

  “Listen,” he said dully. “This is all bullshit. Let’s get down to the bottom lines. If you end up with nothing. If you can’t get to me. If I’m dead or whatever. Just remember what you’ve got.”

  Vittorio Battaglia gasped for air.

  “You’ve got Durning himself behind the whole shitpot,” he said. “You’ve got our own Don Donatti kissing Durning’s ass and doing whatever else he wants him to do. And you’ve got this new siciliano prick, Michael, probably taking over Ravenelli’s end of things for Don Donatti. And all of them with just one thing in mind.”

  Vittorio’s eyes were two black holes. “To murder my wife.”

  As Gianni was about to leave moments later, Vittorio gripped his hand with surprising strength.

  “Give me your gun,” he said.

  Gianni looked at him. His fever must have started rising again because his face suddenly appeared sunburned.

  “If some siciliano walks in here in a doctor’s coat to do me,” said Battaglia, “I don’t want to be caught with just my cock in my hand.”

  “Where will you keep it?”

  “Between my legs. Where else?”

  Garetsky took out his automatic and made sure the safety was on.

  “The silencer, too,” said Vittorio.

  Gianni slipped the silencer from another pocket, attached it to the gun muzzle, and shoved the lengthened piece under Vittorio’s bedsheet.

  They looked at each other. Gianni stood there, hating to leave him alone like this.

  “What a great chance to knock off a few doctors,” he said.

  Gianni picked up his car from the municipal parking area and arrived at Dr. Curci’s house just as she and Lucia were having their morning espresso.

  “He came out of it about an hour and a half ago,” he told them.

  Lucia pressed her hands to her cheeks. “I lit a candle for him last night.”

  “Was he lucid?” the doctor asked.

  “Completely.”

  “Good. But there’s still the threat of infection. I’ll look in on him later.”

  “You’ve both been great. If it weren’t for you two, he’d be dead.”

  “He still could be,” said Dr. Curci.

  “I know. But right now he’s not.”

  Lucia poured Gianni some coffee and he drank it gratefully. These two strangers.

  “I have to ask one more favor,” he said. “I’m flying to the mainland this morning and I may need to get a message to Vittorio later in the day. May I call one of you?”

  “I’ll be right here in the house,” said Lucia, and wrote down the phone number for him.

  It required effort for Gianni not to hug her.

  Gianni parked at the Palermo airport, caught the 8:00 A.M. flight to Naples, and arrived there less than an hour later.

  The one disturbing thing was not being able to carry a piece past security. But since his face wasn’t known to any-one still alive in the Ravenelli famiglia, he hoped there would be no need for a gun.

  He rented a Ford at the Hertz counter and started the same beautiful drive south along the coast that he had taken with Mary Yung. It was only about four days ago but seemed more like a year.

  And where was Mary now and whom was she fucking and selling out now?

  Not that he gave a damn.

  But God, what she had set in motion for her lousy million.

  How did she live with it?

  A woman like that.

  And he had loved her.

  Parts of him probably still did.

  The trail to the entrance was so well camouflaged by trees, brush, and weeds that Gianni drove by twice before finally spotting it.

  Easing along the trail, he mentally prayed for a happy surprise, although he’d never been big on prayer. And what he really needed here was a miracle.

  But there were no visible miracles today. Only those of a brilliant sun catching the leaves, and a few bird calls, and the sight of a sky so deep and blue that you could almost swear it reached all the way to G
od.

  Gianni did see a car parked at the side of the house. Which meant that at least Peggy was there. Until he realized there should have been two cars, since Vittorio had left his own behind.

  Still, Peggy might have driven into Ravello for some reason. But it was not the most hopeful sign.

  Gianni climbed the steps, knocked on the door and waited. Then he knocked and waited twice more. He felt a threatening quiet.

  He tried the door and found it locked. But remembering Vittorio reaching over the lintel the night they arrived, Gianni did the same thing and touched a key.

  He opened the door and went in.

  “Peggy?”

  There was not even an echo.

  He went from one room to another of the small house. In the kitchen, there was a coffeepot on the wood stove. Gianni opened the grate and saw ashes. He touched the ashes and they were cold.

  In the bedroom that Peggy and Vittorio had used, the bed had been made and Peggy’s nightgown lay across it. Without knowing why, Gianni picked up the gown and breathed the faint scent of perfume. It was Peggy’s scent but it made him think of Mary Yung. As did the feel of the fabric. He was ready to spend an hour contemplating both.

  Idiot!

  Gianni put the gown back on the bed, left the room, and went out the back door.

  He saw the bush growing to the right of the door and in front of the stone house wall just as Vittorio had described it. Bending, he pushed and pulled at the individual stones until he located a loose one and removed it. In the hole was a pale-blue envelope wrapped in a clear, plastic bag. Gianni took out the bag, replaced the stone, and went back into the house.

  He sat with it in the kitchen. There was a tingling in his fingers where they touched the plastic, and an oppression close to strangling in his throat.

  Then suddenly disgusted with himself, he opened the plastic bag and took out the envelope. It was neither addressed nor sealed, and the stationery inside was of the same pale-blue color.

  The letter was headed with yesterday’s date, as well as the time, which was 6:00 P.M.

  My love,

  It’s been more than three days since you and Gianni left, and I’m writing this letter with the terrible feeling that you may never return to read it. But just in case I’m wrong and you do make it back, I want you to know what I’ve done, and why.

  All that matters to me now is Paulie. I want him out of the hands of these animals. I want this horror to be over for him. And as I finally see it, I’m the only one who can make that happen. So this is what I’m doing.

  I’m leaving here in a few minutes to call Henry Durning in Washington. I’m offering him a deal. Since the only thing Henry’s ever really been after in all this is me, I’m letting him have me in return for his getting Paulie safely to a division of the International Red Cross.

  In a way, I’m almost glad you’re not here. Because I know you would have stopped me. And I don’t want to be stopped.

  What hurts most is how much I love you. I’m just so sorry I had to put you and Paulie through all this. Loving you has been the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. It makes me less ashamed of everything I was before. If someone like you could have loved me, how bad could I have been?

  It’s just that I feel so cheated. I’d have loved at least another forty years with you. Or maybe I’m piggish. Maybe when you get ten years as lovely as we’ve had, you can’t expect any more. You can’t measure something like that in years anyway.

  Hey, love. I’d take those ten years with you over fifty years with any other man I’ve ever met. So don’t feel sorry for me. I can’t bear the idea of your feeling sorry for me. If you do, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you. Unless you’re dead ahead of me. Then you’ve got seniority and you can do the haunting first.

  But dear God, I hope you’re not dead. It would be terrible if our Paulie lost us both. You’re the one he’s always been most crazy about anyway. How he adores you. His papa. So please, please, don’t be dead, love.

  Oh, shit. Now I’m starting to cry. I was doing great, but now I’m starting to piss-ass cry. I can’t even leave you a decent posthumous farewell note without messing it up with tears.

  But I guess I’ve said it all, anyway. And what I haven’t said, you already know.

  If you’re alive, you can pick up Paulie at the International Red Cross in Naples. If you’re dead, he’ll know to get in touch with my sister in Vermont. I’ve talked to him about her enough just in case something like this ever happened. But, God. Who had ever really expected it?

  Please, please… remember me with joy.

  Love,

  Me

  Gianni sat there for a while with the letter.

  He guessed that some hearts just put out more love than others.

  Vittorio could do better with it than he.

  60

  THE GALATEA CORPORATION’S long-range executive jet took off from JFK International Airport at exactly 7:18 P.M. New York time. On board, besides a flight crew of four, were only Don Carlo Donatti and two personal bodyguards.

  The plane’s passenger cabin had been custom designed to provide the utmost in luxury and comfort, and Donatti was able to sleep for much of the smooth eight-hour flight on a full-size bed in the privacy of his own enclosed bedroom. So that when he stepped off the plane at the Palermo Municipal Airport, he appeared rested, refreshed and perfectly groomed, all of which Donatti considered important to his image.

  It was 9:35 A.M. Palermo time.

  Don Michael Sorbino was waiting for him on the tarmac with three black, low-profile, armor-plated sedans and a retinue of half-a-dozen men. The two capi embraced and went through the usual amenities. Moments later, the three-car convoy left the airport and headed south in the general direction of Partinico.

  * * *

  Only Sorbino and Carlo Donatti entered the classic white villa half an hour later. The others remained outside, either waiting near the cars or strolling about the grounds.

  One of Sorbino’s interior guards handed Donatti a large brass key, and the don went upstairs alone and unlocked a tall set of double doors. Then he closed the doors behind him and approached Vittorio Battaglia’s wife, a slender, dark-haired woman sitting beside a window with an open book in her lap.

  So this is the one, he thought, and felt the faint stir of an excitement he had long ago given up for dead. It was nothing sexual. Although she was certainly attractive enough as a woman. The feeling was more in the realm of who and what she was, and of all she had caused to happen. But most importantly, of course, it was born out of what she had it within her to do for him.

  “I’m Carlo Donatti,” he told her.

  He spoke in English and waited for her response.

  But there was none. All Peggy did was sit and stare at him.

  “You don’t know who I am?” he said.

  “Should I?”

  Her voice was flat, her face devoid of all expression.

  “Vittorio never mentioned my name?”

  Peggy shook her head.

  Donatti pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. He was stunned that Vittorio Battaglia had never broken his oath of silence. And after all that had taken place. It pleased Don Carlo Donatti.

  “You had good reason to know my name,” he said. “Ten years ago, I was the one who gave Vittorio the contract to kill you.”

  Peggy sat there as it entered her. “You were his capo?”

  “I was. And I was also the one who saved your life yesterday.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “By not having you shot. As I’d been ordered to do.”

  “Who ordered you?”

  “You should know by now who wants you dead.”

  She was silent.

  “Henry Durning,” he told her.

  Peggy frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was to arrange for your second call to Henry to be traced, and then have you shot. But I had you brought here instead.�
�

  “What did you tell Henry?”

  “That you were finally dead. This time, for real.”

  She sat looking at Carlo Donatti. “All right. Now tell me the important parts.”

  “Which are they?”

  “The ones you’ve left out.”

  Donatti smiled. “What did I leave out?”

  “Two things,” she said. “Why someone like you would be taking orders from Henry Durning. And why you’re suddenly so interested in saving my life.”

  The don nodded. “You must have been a very good lawyer, Mrs. Battaglia.” It was the first time anyone had ever addressed her as Mrs. Battaglia, and it was not without effect. There was a whole life out there that she had not even begun to live.

  “I tried my best, Don Donatti.”

  Carlo Donatti put on a pair of glasses and looked at Peggy more closely. Was there something about her he might be missing?

  “The answers to your two questions are almost pathetically simple. I take orders from Henry Durning because he holds hard evidence that can put me away forever. And I’m interested in saving your life, because I’ve finally stopped being brain dead long enough to realize just how valuable you can probably be to me.”

  Peggy sat wordless.

  “I’ve been a fool,” said Donatti. “Durning himself told me he wanted you dead because you could effectively ruin him anytime you chose. And that was weeks ago. Yet until now, it never even crossed my mind to use you.”

  He paused to consider her.

  “And, of course, let you use me in return.”

  Peggy didn’t move. She was almost afraid to breathe. It might change something. And at this moment she wanted nothing changed.

  “I’m not your enemy, Mrs. Battaglia. I never was. It’s never been part of my code to make war on women and children. I sent Vittorio to kill you nine years ago only because Henry Durning, as district attorney, offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse. Your life in return for quashing a murder indictment against me. Now that you have suddenly turned up alive nine years later, it’s come back to haunt us all.”