by David Hewson
‘You don’t think I’d trust one of the locals, do you? Please. Listen. I’m old. I’m tired. There’s no simple way out of this life unless it’s in a coffin. It’s either this or wait for the next war to come. This time it’s one we lose.’
Vanni looked around him. ‘I’ve lived here most of my life. This is my home. The place … the animals. The orchards. The fields. And now you’re inviting policemen into our midst. I can’t believe—’
Gabriele reached over and patted his hand. ‘I know. I know. Always in your older brother’s shadow. Always watching what I do … what I must do … a little fearfully. I asked you once if you wished to join us. And what did you say?’
‘There’s enough death in this world without us adding to it,’ Vanni replied, and for the first time there was something hard and bitter in his voice.
‘Violence is our business.’ Gabriele emptied the jug of juice. ‘Our trademark. Without it we are nothing. We are dead. All of us. You. Me. Our sister. Rocco and Lucia. Don’t blame me for doing what’s necessary. Only you grew up with choices. Never me.’
There were tears in Vanni’s eyes then. Of pain. Anger too. ‘And where shall I go then, brother? What future have you mapped out for me beyond here? The only place I know. The only place I love.’
‘That you’ll find out when we get there,’ Gabriele said, not looking at him. In the stables one of the donkeys began to honk and bray. ‘Your beasts are hungry. Go feed them. Whoever comes to Manodiavolo next will never harm your animals. They’re needed here. We’re not. Our time on Aspromonte is done.’
Vanni got up from the table, grumbling all the while.
‘You’ll live with it, brother,’ Gabriele added. ‘We all will. We must.’
‘Am I such a simpleton I don’t even get to know where?’
Gabriele considered the question for a moment then nodded. ‘Of course.’ He glanced at Maso. ‘Tomorrow you can communicate this to your people down in Cariddi. They will agree. Like us they have no alternative. After which you must return here. I want you around for this … finale.’ Watched closely by his brother, he ran a finger across the table as if drawing out a map. ‘Lucia can return to Capri. Even if they know of the house there they’ve no business with her. Nor my sister. The Sicilians won’t take it out on women who’ve no position in the ’ndrina. My son …’ He glanced across at him. ‘Well?’
Rocco’s eyes were darting everywhere. ‘I’ll take a vacation. A place of my own choosing. A long way from here. The police don’t need the details. You’re the pentito. Not me.’
‘Australia, I imagine,’ Vanni muttered. ‘It’s always Australia when you want to hide. Who’s going to feed my creatures? Who’s going to look after them?’
‘They’re dumb animals,’ Gabriele replied. ‘Someone will come along.’
There was a kind of division between these men, he realized, not that he could discern the cause. He said, ‘If you’re out of Italy you’re none of our business, Rocco. We’ll need to keep your father safe for a few weeks. Vanni’s no concern to me. When there are trials—’
‘If there are trials,’ Gabriele interrupted. ‘Mancuso and his men have ways of avoiding that fate. Sometimes through their lawyers. Sometimes through other means. I’ll take my brother with me to Burano. Perhaps I can persuade him to join me out wild fowling. He may baulk at the shooting but he’ll eat the ducks sure enough.’
‘I’m still here, brother,’ Vanni retorted. ‘You may address the village idiot directly.’
‘We’ll be safe,’ Gabriele added as if he hadn’t heard. ‘It’s a long way to the next house, with a bridge and a gatehouse to protect us. There’ll be men. My men. Always.’
Maso nodded his assent. ‘What time tomorrow? What can I tell my team?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rocco answered. ‘I’m waiting on the details. There’s something … something they seem to need to clear at their end first.’
‘But tomorrow it is?’ Gabriele demanded.
‘Definitely. The Butcher and his lieutenants are coming to the chapel. Most of the capi from the southern ’ndrine. All except Corigliano who’s sick or something.’
‘That bastard’s dying in hospital,’ Gabriele snarled. ‘With an animal for a son who can’t wait to steal his crown from the coffin. Corigliano.’ He groaned. ‘God … if a devil like him can live to die of nothing more than a rotten liver the world truly has turned on its head. I damn near murdered him two, three times myself. Corigliano we don’t need to worry about. By the time the son ascends to his throne we’ll have left this place to the wolves and the rats.’
Silence, then Gabriele lifted the water jar and said it was time to fill it with wine. Rocco took the hint and wandered off into the palazzo. The donkeys were still kicking up a noise. Vanni grumbled something about going off to care for them. Someone had to.
‘Well, Maso,’ the old man said when they were alone. ‘I must call you that. For us it’s your name. Our brief friendship is coming to an end.’
‘You have a man of ours. A guest. Silvio. With a manutengolo out in the hills somewhere.’
Gabriele smiled. ‘You’ve taken to our ways and our … vocabulary very quickly. I’m impressed.’
‘Silvio—’
He shook his head as if this was a matter of no importance. ‘That was my idiot son doing his best to improvise. Rather poorly. I wish he hadn’t. But now …’ His hand came over the table and gripped Maso’s arm. ‘Once we’re safe so is he. I’ve no wish to harm your people. Why would I? I’d only suffer in return.’
It made a kind of sense. ‘There’s some way to go after this. A lot of questions.’
He laughed. ‘But they won’t leave that to you. They’ll get the lawyers in. You’re a man for action. For sticking your neck out. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be here.’ He raised the empty glass as if in a toast. ‘If you weren’t my daughter wouldn’t be so taken with a phantom who calls himself Tomasso Leoni. The only ghost in her life up to now was supposed to be her father.’
There was nothing he could think of to say.
‘One more night. That’s all you have. Make the most of my Lucia’s company. You’ve made her happy. Because you’re a stranger. Because she knows you won’t be around for long. She’s not one for permanency, I’m afraid. I trust you never fooled yourself on that.’ He held out his hand. Maso took it. ‘You’ll always have my gratitude for making her smile. Not an easy task …’
Rocco was returning with the carafe in his left hand, wine spilling onto the old cobbles as he walked. His right held an expensive jumbo iPhone jammed hard to his ear.
The call ended when he got to the table. Wine was poured. Glasses raised. Gabriele told his son to keep quiet until Vanni could return and join them. When he came back the smell of the animals was on his old country clothes and he looked a little less crabby than before.
‘You have news,’ Gabriele declared. ‘Share it with all of us equally.’
‘They arrive in the afternoon.’ Rocco gulped at his wine. ‘The Sicilians won’t say how they’re travelling. I didn’t want to pursue it. They’ll meet us in the Chapel of the Holy Clasp at three o’clock. The service should last no more than twenty minutes or so. I’ve told the priest we have business.’
‘Here?’ Vanni asked. ‘If we have guests we offer them food. I made all that charcoal—’
‘It’s not a social event,’ Rocco broke in. ‘I told them we’ve booked the restaurant in Cariddi. Toni has cleared all the reservations. We’ll have the place to ourselves.’
‘With the Sicilians it’s never a social event,’ Gabriele muttered. ‘They’ll leave their cars at the top of the old mule track. There you take them. Not in the chapel. The people would never forgive us for that.’
‘Nor should they,’ Vanni muttered. ‘They’ll never forgive us for any of this.’
‘But we’ll all be elsewhere, so what does it matter?’ Gabriele raised his glass. ‘To tomorrow. To a new life free of all these worldly
cares.’
Four glasses met across the table.
‘One more thing,’ Gabriele added. ‘I don’t want Lucia around when this happens. There’s no need. Tonight she can stay in Reggio with a friend. Tomorrow, first thing, she catches the train back to Naples.’ He caught Maso’s eye. ‘Sorry.’
Vanni was shaking his head in astonishment.
‘Is this thing you’re planning so bad we can’t face it as a family?’ he cried. ‘She doesn’t walk out on people. Not even when she was sick she didn’t—’
Gabriele wouldn’t look at him. ‘She’s a woman. No place for her here. No place for Alessia either. If this turns bloody—’
‘The best thing in the circumstances,’ Maso cut in.
‘Quite,’ the old man agreed. ‘Call your people on the coast. Tell them what you know. Tomorrow you should rejoin them. Your time as our guest will soon be over.’ He smiled. ‘I trust you found it … educational.’
He was barely listening. Manodiavolo without her seemed strange. Barren and wrong somehow. He went and made the call to Falcone as they asked. The men spoke quietly among themselves all the while. There was something here they didn’t share.
When he got back Vanni said, ‘Let me show you the lie of the land again. You only saw it before with Lucia. Perhaps you were distracted.’
So he went and got the old boots she’d found and they headed for the hills.
A shiny Lancia and a dusty Ford blocked their way out of the car park. Chuk said they belonged to the visitors and there was no way he was going to ask them to move. Emmanuel sat in the passenger seat waiting, barely a word spoken between them, until Santo Vottari came down, Gaetano Sciarra at his heels.
The Sicilian walked over and motioned for Chuk to get out of the car. They spoke in whispers. Sciarra gave him a big holdall. Then said something else. Chuk nodded. Vottari climbed into the Lancia, Sciarra looked at the white van, saluted with a wink, got in the driver’s seat and tore out onto the main road.
The holdall went behind the driver’s seat as Chuk climbed back in. Full of all the usual crap, Emmanuel thought. Cheap bangles and wooden carvings of antelopes and elephants. His cousin was the man’s slave. He’d do whatever the Sicilian wanted.
‘Sciarra lives in Noto,’ Chuk said. ‘The other way. He’s not going home. The two of them could be in Reggio in a couple of hours the way that bastard drives.’ For a moment, as they came slowly out of the car park, he glanced across and looked at Emmanuel. He seemed scared for once. ‘What the hell have you done?’
Stood up for myself for once, he thought. Told the truth. Held my head up high. Should have been brave enough for that from the start. The moment the people smugglers came round the shanty town all smiles, empty promises and outstretched hands.
‘Are you driving me to the ferry or not?’
Chuk was still in his stupid clothes, the long Arab gown with the leopard print. He looked the way Europeans wanted to think of men from Africa. Curiosities there to provide amusement. Black clowns dancing to their tune.
‘We could make a pair,’ Chuk said. ‘You stay here. We work the tourists. Some of the girls—’
‘I got a wife!’ Emmanuel roared, slamming his fist on the plastic dashboard. ‘I got a family. What the hell do I want with girls here?’
The van pulled out onto the narrow coast road. This couldn’t be the main highway to a port. It was narrow, rocky, little used.
‘All you got back home is being poor. Don’t matter where you are the likes of us get to live in a prison. Question is whether it’s a comfortable one or not.’
Up ahead there was a line of green vegetation rising from what had to be a river running into the bay. The place seemed strange, exotic. Chuk caught him looking and said, ‘That’s papyrus. Like they get in Egypt. I’m picking up the vibes here, cousin. I could be a tour guide before the year’s out. Throw these stupid clothes in the bin. Get myself a real apartment. A Sicilian wife and then I got a passport. Sciarra knows that. He doesn’t care. There’s always some other idiot to take my place. They’re giving us a chance. Don’t you see?’
No. He didn’t. And there was no point in explaining why, even if he had the words.
‘The chance to be a different kind of slave,’ he murmured. Then more loudly, ‘Don’t you get it? I don’t belong here. I want to go home.’
‘Sound like a kid. Sound like a baby.’
‘Kids and babies got more sense than us,’ Emmanuel said and it was close to a whisper. ‘They don’t go selling themselves to crooks and smugglers getting fooled by stupid dreams.’
They were getting nearer the green line of waving plants. Maybe it was papyrus. They looked like giant bulrushes with bobbly heads, rising out of the banks of a slow, grey swirling river. He thought of bible classes back home and the story of Moses found in a basket in a place that must have been much like this. All his life people had been telling him fairy tales.
‘When’s the boat?’ Emmanuel asked.
‘Do I look like a travel agent?’
‘You look like a fool. No offence.’
Chuk snorted at that, shook his head, and slowed down a little. The road was getting worse. Soon it turned into a track, ever more bumpy, headed for the line of water at the edge of the papyrus banks. Across the bay the island of Ortigia looked back at them, its soft stone shading from gold to pink in the summer sun. His cousin should have been there, selling junk to the foreigners, trying to pick up some loose woman for the night. Instead they were in a rusty old van headed nowhere.
He thought of Jackson the marmoset back in the Zanzibar. Dead now, or so Vottari said, drowned as if its sad little life meant nothing at all. Which was probably right. It didn’t belong in Reggio any more than he. Something told him things were going to get even worse there now somehow. Dead men rising from the dusty ground. Vottari, a henchman of the Bergamotti, driving off with the Sicilian. He knew how much those sides loathed one another. Once, in the Zanzibar, he’d seen a knife fight break out between a couple of men, one from Palermo on the other side of the water, the other a Reggio thug for whom violence seemed second nature. The Palermo guy had won, then run for the door, never to be seen again. Clearing up after that had been his job, accompanied by Jackson’s screams and the banging of that little glass against the bars of his prison cage. Blood was never far away from that place. Never far away from him.
‘Where the hell are we going?’ he asked as the track got narrower and was surely heading for a dead end by the water. There was nothing here but the tall green papyrus stems waving in the hot summer breeze. After a shallow bend in the road they were even out of sight of Ortigia across the water.
‘Where you asked for,’ Chuk said.
‘Must be a tiny little boat to come here. Or you putting me in a basket like Moses. Floating me up the river. Cousin …’
He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. In that dark place behind his eyes there was a kind of comfort. He could see his wife, his kids. Could smell the bad air of Lagos, hear the neighbours arguing and playing music much too loud. And knew he missed it all.
The van came to a stop. He opened his eyes. Chuk had taken a gun out of the bag the Sicilian had given him. A black automatic shaking in his hands. Emmanuel guessed he’d seen a lot more guns than his cousin. They didn’t scare him anymore.
‘I gave you a thousand euros,’ he said very calmly. ‘This is what I get back?’
‘Christ, Emmanuel!’ His eyes were wild and there was the glassy start of tears in them. ‘Why don’t you ever listen to me? We could’ve made a pair. All you had to do was wear these stupid clothes for a while.’
‘This isn’t my place. It never will be. If it’s yours … good luck.’
The gun stopped shaking.
‘I lied,’ Emmanuel confessed. ‘I took ten thousand from those bastards. Not five like I said. Even after the thousand I gave you that’s nine left. You worked that out? You were always good with money. More than me.’
‘Ten?’ Chuk asked. ‘Ten?’
‘I can show you if you like …’
‘Why do you always say things so late?’ Chuk was starting to cry now, thick tears running down his shiny black cheeks. ‘Why? I wouldn’t have called Sciarra. We could have done so much.’
‘Ten …’
‘They said I got to kill you. Dump you here. If I don’t do that they kill me. They mean it. These guys always mean the things they say.’
All the same Emmanuel reached inside his jacket and took out the first wad. Four grand left after Chuk’s earlier cut. Then stuck his fingers inside his shirt and found the second he’d secreted there.
‘Ten …’ he said again and his cousin couldn’t take his eyes off all that money.
It was so easy. One quick, hard punch to Chuk’s eye, his left hand out to grab the gun. A shot went off and for a moment Emmanuel found himself full of fear and shame. He didn’t want to hurt his cousin. Though maybe the Sicilians would do that for him.
But the bullet must have vanished somewhere beneath their feet.
Chuk was sobbing behind the wheel, wiping his eyes with the long sleeves of his stupid leopard print gown.
‘You’d have done it too,’ Emmanuel said, a little amazed, the weapon heavy in his hand. ‘You’d have shot me just because some foreign bastard told you to.’
He kept on sobbing and didn’t say a thing.
‘Here.’ Emmanuel counted out another thousand and held it out for him. ‘That’s more than I got. A chance. Give me the van keys. Take the money. Get out of here. Let’s hope we never see each other again. Here!’ He stuffed the money into the vest pocket of the lurid gown. ‘And this.’ He placed the gun in Chuk’s lap. ‘I don’t need it.’
Maybe that last part was idiotic. But he didn’t like the feel of the thing in his hand. And he didn’t think Chuk did either.
He leaned over, grabbed the keys from the dashboard, popped open the driver’s door and said, ‘God go with you.’
Chuk left the gun on the seat, climbed out, went and sat on a boulder among the tall green papyrus rushes, head in hands, shoulders going up and down. Emmanuel pushed the weapon out of the door, shuffled over behind the wheel, turned the keys, started the engine. Took one last look at his cousin then reversed into a stand of brambles, eased the van forward over the rough ground and set off down the road.