In The Hour Before Midnight aka The Sicilian Heritage

by Jack Higgins

She was bitterly angry. “I don’t need your regrets. At least he only speaks from ignorance, but you and your kind – you and Mafia – are responsible for most of this.”

  So, I was still mafioso? I turned away and she leaned across and touched me on the shoulder. “No, I am angry with him and I place it on you. You will forgive me?”

  I couldn’t tell what was going on behind the dark glasses. Did she imagine she had gone too far and was trying to recover her ground or was she afraid at the very thought of offending Vito Barbaccia’s grandson? Or was it at all possible that she was just sorry?

  My answer amply fitted every contingency. “That’s all right.”

  Burke was on his third large glass. He finished it, stood up and sat down abruptly, looking surprised.

  “You warned him about passito?” Rosa asked.

  “He isn’t in the mood for advice.”

  She started to laugh. Revenge, particularly where women are concerned, is always sweet.

  We moved into the high country now, the great craggy solitudes around Monte Cammarata, the mountain itself towering almost six thousand feet into the sky.

  Burke had lapsed into a kind of stupor and Rosa leaned her arms on the back of my seat and we talked softly, our voices dropping a degree or two as the crags closed in around us.

  We turned off the main road, zig-zagging up into the hills, the valley deepening beneath us. A hell of a country, home of runaway slaves and bandits since Roman times.

  During the war this had been the most strategic point in the Italian-German defence system when the Allies invaded the island and yet the Americans had passed through unheeded, thanks, it was said, to the fact that most of the Italian troops had deserted after a Mafia directive.

  The road narrowed, but we had it all to ourselves and I kept close to the wall, climbing slowly in second gear in a cloud of dust. The only living things we saw were a shepherd and his flock high up above a line of beech trees and then we rounded a shoulder and found Bellona a hundred yards away.

  For many years, because of the constant state of anarchy and banditry in rural Sicily, the people have tended to congregate in villages much larger than are found elsewhere in Europe. Bellona was smaller than most, although that was probably to be expected in the sparsely populated high country.

  Several streets slanted down to a square, mostly open sewers if the stench of urine was anything to go by, and thin children played listlessly in the dirt.

  I pulled up outside the wineshop. There were three wooden tables with benches placed in the shade and two men sat drinking red wine. One of them was old, a typical peasant in a shiny dark suit. His companion was a different breed, a short, thick-set man of forty or so with the kind of face that doesn’t tan and dark, deep-set eyes.

  Something makes a mafioso, the peculiar stare, the air of authority, a kind of detachment from other men. This man was Cerda, I was certain of that as he got to his feet and moved to the car.

  “What can I do for you, signor?” he asked as I got out to meet him.

  Burke was by now looking really ill. Great beads of sweat oozed from his face and he had a hand screwed tightly into his stomach.

  “We’re on our way to Agrigento,” I said. “One of my passengers has been taken ill.” He leaned down and looked at Burke and then Rosa and I added, “Are you the proprietor?”

  He nodded. “What is he, American?”

  “Irish. He put away a bottle of passito at the last stop. Wouldn’t be told.”

  “Tourists.” He shook his head. “We’ll get him inside.”

  I said to Rosa, “Better to wait out here, signorina. Can I get you anything?”

  She hesitated, then smiled slightly. “Coffee and make certain they boil the water.”

  “I’ll send my wife out at once, signorina,” Cerda said. “Perhaps you would care to sit at one of the tables?”

  She got out of the car as we took Burke in between us. There was a cracked marble bar, half a dozen tables and a passage beyond. Cerda kicked open a door and we went into a small, cluttered bedroom, obviously his own. We eased Burke on to the bed and loosened his tie.

  “A couple of hours and he’ll be over the worst,” Cerda said. “A hell of a hangover, but he’ll be able to travel. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He left, presumably to arrange about the coffee and I lit a cigarette and went to the window. A minute or so later, the door clicked open again and when I turned, he was leaning against it, a hand behind his back.

  “And now we talk. Who are you?”

  “You’re quick,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No one in his right mind on the way to Agrigento turns off to drive ten miles over the worst road in Sicily for fun.”

  “You’re right, of course. I’m going to take something out of my right-hand pocket so don’t shoot me. It isn’t a gun.”

  The handkerchief had roughly the same effect as a holy relic. I thought, for a moment, that he was going to kiss it. He took an old Colt.45 automatic from behind his back, probably a relic of the war, and put it down on top of a chest of drawers.

  “So, you are from the capo? I felt sure you were of the Society from the moment I saw you, but one can always be wrong. Strange that we have not met before. I’m in Palermo every month on business for the Society.”

  “I’ve been away for a few years. Just returned.” I decided to give him all guns. “I’m the capo’s grandson.”

  His eyes widened and for a moment, I honestly thought he might genuflect. “But of course, I remember your mother, God rest her.” He crossed himself. “An American father, that was it. I thought there was something not quite Sicilian about you. What about your friend?”

  “He’s working with me, but the story about the passito was true enough.”

  He grinned. “We’ll leave him to it. Cooler in the kitchen, anyway.”

  It was a large square room with one small window so that it was in semi-darkness in spite of the bright sun outside. He brought a bottle of wine to the table, filled a couple of glasses and motioned me to sit. His wife flitted from the stove like a dark wraith, a tray in her hands, and vanished through the door.

  “Now, what brings the capo’s grandson to Bellona?”

  “Serafino Lentini,” I said.

  He paused, his glass half-way to his lips, then lowered it again. “You’d like to get your hands on Serafino?” He laughed. “Mother of God, so would I. And the capo told you to see me? I don’t understand. The Society has been after Serafino for nearly two years now. He’s given us a lot of trouble and the people round go for him in a big way.” He swallowed some of his wine and sighed. “Very discouraging.”

  “What is he trying to be?” I said. “Another Guiliano – a Robin Hood?”

  He spat on the floor. “Serafino’s just like the rest of us, out for number one, but he does the shepherds a few favours from time to time or stops some old woman from being evicted, so they think the sun shines out of his backside. Six months ago, near Frentini, he held up the local bus that was carrying wages to a cooperative, shot the driver, and a bank clerk. The driver died two days later.”

  “A real hard man,” I commented.

  “Wild,” he said. “Never grown up. Mind you he suffered greatly at the hands of the police when he was younger. Lost the sight of an eye. I personally think he’s never got over it. But what do you want with him?”

  I told him as much as he needed to know and when I was finished, he shook his head. “But this is madness. You could never hope to get anywhere near Serafino. Here, I will show you.”

  He opened a drawer and produced a large-scale survey map of the region. It showed the whole Monte Cammarata area in detail.

  “Here is where Serafino is staying at the moment.” He indicated a spot on the map on the other side of the mountain about fifteen hundred feet below the summit. “There’s a shepherd’s hut up there beside a stream. He uses it all the time except when he’s on the run.”

  I showed my su
rprise. “You’re certain?”

  He smiled sadly. “Let me tell you the facts of life. Knowing where Serafino is and catching him there are two different things. Every shepherd on the mountains worships him, every goatherd. They have a signalling system from crag to crag that informs him of the approach of anyone when they’re still three or four hours hard climbing away. I’ve tried to catch him with local men who belong to us – mountain men. We’ve always failed.”

  “How many men does he have with him?”

  “At the moment, three. The Vivaldi brothers and Joe Ricco.”

  I examined the map for two or three minutes, then asked him to describe the area in detail. I didn’t need to make notes, I’d done this sort of thing too often before.

  In the end I nodded and folded the map. “Can I keep this?”

  “Certainly. It’s impossible you realise that?”

  “On the contrary.” I smiled. “I feel rather more confident than I did earlier. Now I think I’ll go for a walk. I’d like to have a look round. I’ll see you later.”

  I paused in the street door, half-blinded by the sudden glare, and put on my sunglasses. Rosa was seated at the wooden table nearest the car, the tray in front of her. She wasn’t alone. The two specimens who lounged on the edge of the table were typical of the younger men still to be found in the region. Features brutalised and coarsened by a life of toil, shabby, patched clothing, broken boots, cloth caps that anywhere else in Europe belonged to another age.

  Rosa’s back was stiff and straight and she smoked a cigarette and stared into space. One of them said something. I couldn’t catch what, and got what was left of her coffee in his face.

  To a Sicilian male, a woman is there to be used, to do what she is told. To be publically humiliated by one would be unthinkable. Several of the watching children laughed and he reached across the table in a fury and yanked her to her feet, his other hand raised to strike.

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him round. We stared at each other for a long moment and the expression on his face was already beginning to alter as I slapped him back-handed. I didn’t say a word. His hand went to his cheek, his friend plucked at his sleeve. They walked backwards, faces blank, turned and hurried away.

  Rosa joined me, buttoning her jacket. “What would you have done if they’d both had a go at you? Shot them?”

  “But they didn’t,” I pointed out.

  “No, you’re right, they knew better than to tangle with Mafia.”

  “And how would they know that’s what they were doing?”

  “Don’t play games with me. Mr. Wyatt. Have you looked in the mirror lately? There is mafioso stamped clear for all to see. The self-sufficiency, the power, the quiet arrogance. Why, you didn’t even speak to that poor wretch. That was the most humiliating thing for all.”

  “For you or for him?” She raised a hand and I warded it off. “Poor Rosa. You wear nylon underwear and dresses from London and Paris and feel guilty about it. Why? Are there brothers and sisters still living in a sty like this?”

  “Something like that.” She nodded. “You are very clever, aren’t you, Mr. Wyatt?”

  “Stacey,” I said. “Call me Stacey. Now let’s take a walk.”

  Beyond the village, we found a pleasant slope that lefted gently towards the first ridge-back, the dark line of forest beyond, then bare rock and the peak, very faint, shimmering in the heat haze.

  I had brought binoculars from the car and I spread the map Cerda had given me on the ground and carefully checked certain features with reality.

  “Can it be done?” she asked as I folded the map and put the binoculars into their case.

  “I think so.”

  “But you’re not going to tell me how?”

  “I thought you only came along for the ride?”

  She hit me on the shoulder with a clenched fist. “I think you are the most infuriating man I have ever met.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now let’s forget everything else except how pleasant this is. We’ll spend the afternoon like carefree lovers and tell pleasant lies to each other.”

  She laughed, head thrown back, but when I took her hand in mine, she let it stay there.

  On the slopes we found knapweed with great yellow heads, ragwort and bee orchids and silvery-blue gentians. We walked for an hour, then lay in a hollow warmed by the sun, smoked and talked.

  I was right. She had started life in a village very similar to Bellona in the province of Messina, An uncle on her mother’s side, a widower, had owned a small café in Palermo and his only daughter had died. He needed someone to take her place in the business and no Sicilian would dream of bringing in an outsider when there was someone suitable in the family.

  She had married, at eighteen, the middle-aged owner of a similar establishment who had obliged by conveniently passing on a year later.

  My impression was that Hoffer had used the place and had taken a fancy to her, but she was a little reticent about the details. The important thing was that she’d been able to make herself into what he wanted, a sophisticated woman of the world, which couldn’t have been easy, even with her guts and intelligence.

  She fired a few questions at me in turn and I actually found myself answering. Nothing important, of course, and then she slipped badly.

  “It’s incredible,” she said. “You’re almost human. It’s so difficult to imagine you killing as ruthlessly as you did last night.”

  “So you know about that?” I said. “Who told you?”

  “Why, Colonel Burke.” The answer was out before she could stop it. “I was there when he told Karl.”

  Was anything ever going to make sense again? I laughed out loud and she asked me what was so funny.

  “Life,” I said. “One big joke.”

  I pushed her on her back and kissed her. She lay there staring up at me, her face smooth, the eyes quite blank, making no move to stop me as I unbuttoned her blouse and slipped a hand inside and cupped it around a breast. The nipple blossomed beneath my thumb and I noticed tiny beads of sweat on her brow.

  I kissed them away and laughed. “There can be no doubt whatsoever that the trouser suit has been the greatest protector of a woman’s virtue since the chastity belt. Almost an impossible problem.”

  “But not quite,” she said.

  “No, not quite.”

  I kissed her again and this time her arms slid around my neck, pulling me close. She was really very desirable, but so untrustworthy.

  We came down to the village a different way on our return and I got a look into the walled garden at the rear of the wineshop from a couple of hundred feet up. A red Alfa Romeo was parked in the barn and two men were talking in the entrance. When I got the binoculars out, I discovered it was Cerda and Marco Gagini.

  Rosa had walked on ahead some little way, picking wild flowers. I didn’t say anything to her, or indeed to Cerda when we returned to the wineshop. Burke was on his feet again by then, looking and acting pretty foul. I put him into the rear seat for the return trip and Rosa sat beside me.

  He controlled his temper for at least a hundred yards and then exploded. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me, for Christ’s sake? What did you find?”

  “Where Serafino hangs out.”

  “And we can get at him?”

  “I think so. Remember the mission at Lagona?”

  “Where we parachuted in for the nuns?” He frowned. “That’s what you’re suggesting now?”

  “It’s the only way,” I said. “Can you get the gear together?”

  He nodded. “No difficulty there. I’ll have it flown in tomorrow from Crete. Look, are you sure about this?”

  “I’ll give it to you word by word when we get back,” I told him. “Now why don’t you try to get some more sleep?”

  He laughed sourly. “Sleep? I’ll never sleep again.”

  He subsided into the corner and I swung the Fiat into the first bend and came out in a cloud of dust. When I glanced into the m
irror I was smiling.

  We reached Palermo just before evening and there was one more thing to be done before we returned to the villa as I reminded Burke. We called at Hoffer’s bank, presented his cheque and had it converted to a bill of exchange to be drawn upon a firm of Swiss merchant bankers I designated. We left it on deposit in the bank vault from which it could be retrieved on presentation of a key they gave us plus his signature.

  Burke wasn’t pleased at all, mainly because I’d pushed him into it and he never liked that. The clerk gave me a large manilla envelope to put the bill of exchange in and I let Burke seal it which seemed to make him feel a little better. I told him he could hang on to the key and he put it carefully away in his wallet.

  For some reason he still didn’t look really happy. I was rather pleased about that.

  NINE

  WHEN WE REACHED the villa, Hoffer hadn’t returned. Rosa disappeared to take a bath which was exactly what I wanted to do, but Burke seemed to come to life again.

  “You’d better have some coffee and a shower before Hoffer comes back,” I told him. “If he sees you like this he’ll start worrying about his investment.”

  It had an effect of sorts. “To hell with Hoffer. He needs me and he bloody well knows it. Now let’s have words. I want to know what you found up there today.”

  I humoured him to the extent of following him out through the lounge to the terrace. Piet and Legrande were sitting at a table playing cards, a bottle of something between them.

  Piet jumped to his feet at once as Burke arrived, that inner glow on his face again. “Thank God!” Legrande said. “It’s been as lively as a graveyard around here today. When do we see some action?”

  “Soon enough.” Burke found time to smile at Piet and squeezed his arm. “Bring us some coffee, there’s a good lad, and we’ll get down to business.”

  Piet went out on the double and Burke took his chair, put the tray with its bottles and glasses on the floor and looked up at me. “All right, Stacey, let’s have it.”

  I unfolded the map Cerda had given me and spread it across the table. First of all I went through my conversation with the mafioso mayor, then indicated where he thought Serafino to be. Piet returned with one of the houseboys and coffee on a tray round about then. It only took me a couple of minutes to give them a description of the terrain, ending with my own solution to the problem.