by James R Benn
"There are weapons for you in the truck," Don Calo said, strictly business. "You are free to go."
"Are you with us then, Don Calo?" Harry asked, a little nervously, I thought.
"No, my English friend," he said, with a wink in my direction. "You are with me."
Don Calo led us to the gate. The little Fiat Balilla was there, with the older guy wearing the tight suit in the passenger's seat.
"This is Gaetano Fiore," Don Calo said, gesturing to him. He nodded to me as Don Calo spoke to him in Italian. All I heard was my name, but it sounded like it was said in a nice way. Bill-lee, just like Roberto had said it, stretching out those two syllables into something more Italian. Gaetano had a pencil-thin mustache surrounded by pudgy cheeks and a double chin. A British Sten gun rested on his lap, and it looked completely natural in his meaty hands.
"Gaetano," I said, sticking my hand out to shake his. I wanted to get some sense of the man before we roared off into the dark with him.
"Bill-lee," he said back, grinning as he shook my hand in a grip that could crush walnuts. "Ci diverticemo."
"He says this will be fun," Don Calo translated. "He never liked Laspada."
"A man of good taste. Thank you, Don Calo, for everything." I offered my hand but he ignored it, instead giving me a pair of kisses, just like the ones he'd traded with Sciafani. I was honored, since he hadn't even killed anyone in my immediate family.
The lupara boys cheered and Gaetano shouted my name. I mumbled my thanks again and tried to look as heroic as the situation called for. I climbed into the back of the truck with the others as the ancient engine rumbled into life, and after one of the mafiusu opened a crate of Sten guns and handed them around, off we went. Through the open canvas back I saw Don Calo waving, like a friendly relation after you've paid a visit and stayed a day too long.
It was after dark when we stopped. The drivers killed their engines at the same moment. A profound silence draped itself around us, broken too soon by the sound of men walking on gravel, the crunching of stones beneath booted feet ominously mixed with metallic echoes of bolts snapping back and driving home the first bullet into the chamber. Gaetano signaled us to stay quiet and stay put. One finger to the lips, then down to the ground, then two fingers to the eyes. No sounds, wait here, let your eyes grow accustomed to the dark.
I watched details emerge from the pitch-black night, hills and trees taking shape and showing detail beneath the cloud-darkened sky. A half moon glowed behind a break in the clouds, a sliver of silver light cascading over us. Breezes gusted and swayed the trees, leaves rustling and branches creaking, the perfect cover for approaching Cammarata; sounds and shadows we could get lost in as we descended on the village like ghosts with steel in our hands.
Gaetano nodded. We left the road and scrambled up a rocky hill, each man staying close to the one in front of him so we'd know who was who when the time came for it to matter. Sciafani stayed with the vehicles that had been pulled off the road in a grove of orange trees. I could tell he had no desire to kill again, to take part in this. The journey of revenge had broken him, uncovering his strength and his weakness, leaving him stranded in that second grave. For the rest of his life, the death of the sacristan would haunt him, a mortal sin he could never absolve himself of.
As I gripped the hard, cold metal of the Sten gun, the leather strap biting into my shoulder, I saw Villard, eyes wide open, mouth formed to ask a question I never heard. Why hadn't his death broken me? Was I too far gone for guilt and atonement? I envied Sciafani in a way. He'd gone as far as he dared, and now he knew he'd never go a step farther. And here I was, creeping through the night with an intent to leave men bleeding or dead. Out there, ahead of Gaetano, someone didn't yet know he had seen the sun for the last time. He might be an evil man, cruel to his wife and children. Or maybe he loved them and kissed his children on the forehead before he went out with his shotgun. Either way, they would never see him again.
I wondered if Dad had ever thought about Basher like that. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Uncle Dan hadn't, and that Dad had never told him about digging two graves. But he'd told me, and right now I wished he hadn't.
A hand went up in front of me, and I froze. We were near the top of a ridge, the outline of shrubs about chest-high. Gaetano moved back, signaling Nick and me to move up, low, with him. We crawled through the undergrowth until the glow of lights appeared below us. Cammarata wasn't much of a surprise. Church tower on a hill, big wall around it, houses tumbling down the slope. The ridge we were on faced the church, and the houses were below us on the opposite hill. The main road cut through the valley beyond the church. No vehicles or people were moving.
"Guarda," Gaetano said in a whisper, pointing to a house at the end of a side road.
I tried to see what he was pointing at. Soft light, probably from candles, spilled from small, square windows in the gray stone house. Next to the door, the glow of a cigarette burned bright, showing a guard seated on a bench, shotgun across his legs. Opposite him in the street I could barely make out a dark mass that seemed to absorb the little light seeping out of the windows.
"What is that?" I asked Nick.
"Le donne," Gaetano said with a grin.
"Women?" Nick said, squinting his eyes and crawling closer.
The clouds broke and a half moon lit the scene below, reflecting off the light gray stonework. I could make out a dozen women standing in a semicircle in front of the guard, who ground out his cigarette with his toe. Their long black dresses, black shawls, and black head scarves drew the night around them as they stood unmoving, silent, rooted to the road, watching the house where their men were imprisoned. The only contrast was a wisp of white hair poking out from under a scarf or two. The guard lit another cigarette. He seemed nervous, one hand on the shotgun, the other tapping ashes. I didn't blame him.
Gaetano whispered for Carlo, the youngest of his lupara boys. Carlo crawled forward and after rapid-fire orders, gave Gaetano his shotgun and took off his vest and cap. Gaetano gave him a small Beretta and a bottle half full of grappa. Carlo scurried off as Nick and Gaetano spoke, the rest of the gang leaning in to listen. I looked at Harry and shrugged. It was a good Sicilian shrug. I was getting the hang of this.
"OK,"Nick said. "Here's the deal: Carlo will come staggering down the street in five minutes, pretending to be drunk. If he can get close enough to use his knife, he'll take out the guard with it. If not, with the Beretta. Then I go in the front door with Carlo and Gaetano; the rest of you go around the back. Billy and Harry, you two stay outside to cover the front in case they have reinforcements. Gaetano doesn't want you inside since you won't understand him if he gives an order."
"Good plan," I said. "Can Carlo pull it off?"
"Carlo's good with his knife, don't let that baby face fool you. He already is a man of honor."
It wasn't the time to debate the definition of honor, so I nodded and followed Gaetano and Nick down a gully that gave us cover as we moved up to the rear of the house across the street from our target. We hunkered down behind it and waited. Two minutes passed like twenty. Finally I could make out Carlo, singing off-key and calling for Carmela. Taking advantage of the diversion, we ran to a wall that bordered the road and contained a small garden on the side of the house. Peering over the top, I could see the guard looking down the road toward Carlo. The women didn't move.
"Dov'e Carmela?" Carlo implored the women to help him find Carmela, going from one to the other, taking their hands and kissing one or two on the cheek. They ignored him and he turned to the guard, offering his bottle.
"Sai Carmela?" he asked the guard, who didn't accept the drink.
The guard rose and pointed his shotgun at Carlo, motioning him to move on. Carlo cringed, offering abject apologies, holding one hand palm out. The guard nodded and went back to his seat. He never made it. Carlo tossed the bottle to one of the women and had his knife out as soon as the guard turned his back. Before he took a full step Carlo had one ha
nd under his chin as the other cut across his neck. Blood sprayed against stone, and Carlo let go of the guard's chin so he could catch the shotgun before it clattered to the ground.
As he kneeled over the body, looking like a feral child, Carlo's eyes darted up and down the street and back to the door of the house. Gaetano and Nick vaulted over the wall and ran to the door. Carlo blew a kiss to the woman holding the bottle and joined them at the door, shotgun at the ready. Gaetano put his hand on the latch, wrapping his fingers around it. As he looked to the other two men, the line of women silently parted, smartly leaving empty space between them in case gunfire erupted when the door opened.
I heard a faint creak, a hinge in need of oil, as Gaetano opened the door slowly. He froze as a voice from inside the house called out a name. He flung the door wide open and Carlo charged inside. Two explosive sounds followed as Carlo let go with both barrels. Light flashed bright in the hallway. Nick charged in with his Sten, then Gaetano with a pistol.
Harry and I ran to the house, taking up positions with our backs to each side of the wall, in case a surprise showed up from the back or the street. A murmur arose among the women, the first sound I'd heard from them. They looked at us as if we were from another planet. They'd taken a drunken kid slitting the guard's throat in stride, but my American uniform was a shock.
Another shotgun blast came from the rear of the house, followed by shouts, pistol shots, and a scream. Glass broke somewhere, then another shot, then silence. Harry and I looked at each other. Then a sound erupted at the side of the house. I swung my Sten around and waited, not sure if it was one of ours, theirs, or a neighborhood cat. A face showed itself, blood dripping down a cheek. He'd probably jumped out of a window, preferring jagged glass to shotgun slugs. He pulled back, then stepped forward again, a revolver aiming straight at my chest, but I was ready with the Sten. I fired a long burst, shell casings spitting out and pinging against the stone wall as bullets hit him. He collapsed onto his knees, the pistol firing once into the dirt as a spasm gripped his hand. I kicked the pistol away, but he wasn't going to be firing it again anyway.
A yell, sounding like a warning, echoed in the hallway, and caught me by surprise. I heard one shotgun blast and then saw a broad back retreating through the front door, a lupara aimed into the house. It was Muschetto, bleeding from one shoulder. He fired again, emptying the second barrel, then stumbled as he turned to run. Harry and I both had our Stens on him, but trying to escape down the street he careened into the clutch of women. He swung the short lupara like a club, trying to clear a path through them, but they closed in around him and he fell, roaring his anger as the silent women kicked at him, striking his face and wounded shoulder. He howled in pain and then in fear as kitchen knives appeared from within the folds of their skirts. They slashed at him as he curled up, hands protecting his neck. The women kept at him, knife blades turning red. A last gurgling howl rose up from the ground as one of them found his throat. The frenzy ended and they stepped back from the widening pool of blood, watching Muschetto twitch one last time.
"Jesus," Harry said quietly. Nick appeared in the doorway, lowering his Sten as he took in the scene in the street.
"He was hiding in a closet," Nick said. "Got the jump on us."
"But not on them," I said, watching the women clean their knives. They did not seem to have a problem with revenge.
CHAPTER * TWENTY-SEVEN
IT WAS QUITE A party. Muschetto stiffened out on the street as Nick's relatives kissed us on both cheeks. They hadn't known why their menfolk had been held hostage and seemed to care less about that than being visited by an American relative and his pals. Bottles of wine were opened as glass was swept and blood mopped up from the kitchen floor. Carlo was a favorite of the women, who pinched his cheek after they kissed him. He blushed: a shy killer. One of Gaetano's men had brought Sciafani in, and he sat across from me, polite to the family but subdued. Family reunions were probably not high on his list right now.
"Ask if they've seen Legs or Vito," I said to Nick, as one of the gray-haired women put bread and olives in front of us.
From his seat of honor at the head of the table, Nick said, "That's my great-aunt Lucia! And this is my great-uncle Andrea!" He slapped the shoulder of the man sitting to his right.
"That's great, Nick. I'm glad to meet him. Now ask about Legs and Vito."
He leaned over to Andrea and started talking, gesturing with his hands, pointing to us, his relatives, Carlo and Gaetano, and everyone else. Between the gestures and the names sprinkled throughout the conversation, I could almost understand him. We had been sent by Don Calo to rescue them. Muschetto was a bandit, recruited by Vito Genovese to do something Don Calo had no part of. There was arguing back and forth between the men, disagreement about some detail or other. Great-Aunt Lucia cut in on that exchange and everyone nodded. "This is Lucia and Andrea's home. Vito came here once," Nick said. "Vito told them Don Calo had a favor to ask of the family, and he needed to speak with all the men. When they gathered here, Legs and Muschetto showed up and took them prisoner: Andrea, his two brothers, and four nephews. They kicked Lucia out. She went and got the other women and they stood in the street for three days, watching the house."
"They underestimated the women," Harry said. "I have made the same mistake."
Nick translated and the men laughed while the women nodded knowingly.
"So Vito hasn't been here since? What about Legs?" I asked.
"Right,"Nick said. "Legs came by every day except today. Yesterday, actually."
"That could mean they're making their move on the payroll."
"But remember Vito needs me, to crack the safes," Nick said. "That can't be it, unless he was planning to pick us up at Don Calo's today."
"You may not be needed yet," I said. "If they're pulling the safes up from the bottom of the bay, the occupation scrip will be soaking wet. The paymaster might have to open up the safes and dry the paper first."
"Right," Harry said. "There will be guards everywhere with the money loose like that. Vito would want to wait until it was locked up again so the paymaster would relax his guard."
"Do you think they would have let my family go?" Nick asked.
Sciafani said. "The threat to your family would keep you from informing on them after the robbery as well."
Nick looked into his wineglass, lost in his thoughts again.
"We've got to get back to Gela," I said. "And stop them."
"That's not all I want to do to them," Nick said.
He spoke some more with his uncle and the other relatives gathered in the kitchen. He slammed his fist into his palm twice as he named Vito and Legs. He outlined a plan, and everyone seemed to approve.
It was after two in the morning. We were to wait until first light, not wanting to take a chance on dark roads with fully armed Germans, Italians, and Americans between us and our destination. Lucia gave us blankets and we tried to sleep in the other room as Nick's relatives kept up the celebration in the kitchen. But the sound of laughter and the clink of glasses and plates carried through the house. I liked it. It filled my mind with thoughts of home, Dad and Uncle Dan and a few buddies in the kitchen, Mom fussing over everyone, while my kid brother Danny and I tried to behave ourselves so no one would kick us out when the men started telling their stories. Funny stories about comic crooks and crooked politicians, sad stories about men they knew who had died--cops, soldiers, IRA men. It was all the same, I thought at first. When I was too young to understand, I thought we Irish were always at war with someone. The English landlords, the Protestants up north, the Kaiser and his soldiers, the criminals in Boston--in my child's mind they were all ranked against us, but I wasn't scared because between Dad and Uncle Dan, they'd fought them all and came home every day to sit at the kitchen table, Mom laughing with them or frowning at their curses.
And here I was, at war with Fascists and bandits. What kind of stories would I have to tell?
I tried to settle in and
get some shut-eye. I should have felt satisfied with myself. Hell, I had regained my memory, completed my mission, found Harry and Nick, and now we were about to head back to the American lines. Something felt wrong, though. When I finally slept, I dreamed I was in Algiers, searching for Diana in the Hotel St. George. But I couldn't find her anywhere. The girl of my dreams was gone.
The floor was hard, the morning cold, but the espresso was hot and the warm kitchen cozy as Great-Aunt Lucia wrapped fresh bread in a cloth for us. She looked about eighty, but no worse for wear after knifing a bandit and staying up all night drinking wine and baking bread. I willingly kissed her goodbye and submitted to Andrea's whiskered double-cheek pecks. Nick, Harry, and I loaded what gear we had into the Fiat. Gaetano had told Nick we could have the car. He'd take his men back to Villalba in the truck.
Someone had removed Muschetto during the night, but his bloodstains were dark beneath my feet as I opened the door to the Fiat. Sciafani stood between the two vehicles, unsure where to go. I hadn't thought about it, but he was close to home now, and it was time for us to part.
"Enrico," I said. "What are you going to do?"
"I am not sure," he said. "I cannot go with them to Villalba."
He looked at the ground, then up and down the narrow street. He was silent for a while, and I waited for him to speak.
"I do not think I can stay in Sicily anymore. There is too much pain here. I don't want to live the life Don Calo has charted out for me. It is not the way to honor my father."
"Do you think he meant it, about killing you if he ever saw you again?" I asked.
"Yes. It was only the romantic notion of my father as a worthy adversary that kept him from killing me. If he held back again, it would be seen as a sign of weakness, and that is one thing he cannot afford." "Come with us then."
"Where?"