by Kai Meyer
“Augusto Dallamano,” Rosa whispered. “I just want to speak to him. Only once. That’s all.”
“And what do I get out of it? Don’t try that line about a few files and photocopies from your aunt’s poison cupboard again. That isn’t your real bargaining chip.”
Rosa blinked. Sunlight fell through a crack between the curtains. She put all the determination she could muster up into her voice.
“Salvatore Pantaleone,” she said.
Stefania Moranelli uttered a sound of surprise. Antonio Festa whistled through his teeth.
The judge, however, didn’t move a muscle. Her face stayed composed as she looked into Rosa’s eyes. “The boss of bosses,” she said, as if reading from a courtroom file. “Has been living underground for decades. Rules Cosa Nostra with the aid of handwritten notes and letters; they turn up now and then and are confiscated, but they’ve never led us to his hideout. He’s changed it at least a hundred times over the past thirty years, or so we suspect at least. And he certainly has a Mafia family close to him that enjoys his confidence—maybe several.”
“I can help you to find him.”
“Where is he?”
“I want to speak to Dallamano first.”
“He’s one of our most important witnesses.”
“The cases in which he gave evidence were over long ago. He’s no more use to you. But he is to me.”
Quattrini shook her head. “That’s not good enough.”
“I can hand you Salvatore Pantaleone on a plate. And another thing: You have your eye on the Carnevares. You’re not getting Alessandro. But maybe I can tell you something about Cesare Carnevare that you don’t yet know.”
“He’s only a bookkeeper.”
“Soon he’ll be the new capo of the Carnevares.”
The judge pricked up her ears at this. “So your good-looking boyfriend has fallen out of favor?”
Rosa’s hand went to the photo in her pocket: the picture, taken underwater, of the embracing Panthera and Lamia. “Well, how about it? Will you arrange a meeting with Dallamano for me?”
Later, Rosa went into a newsstand in the neighborhood and bought one of the used cell phones that the owner kept under the counter. In the shade of a building entrance, she called Alessandro.
She didn’t let him hear her relief at the sound of his voice. There were distorted background noises that could have been the grunting and screeching of animals.
“Can you pick me up?” she asked. “We have to get to the airport. Our flight to Portugal leaves in an hour and a half.”
THE HOUSE OF STONE EYES
ROSA SLEPT LIKE THE dead during the flight. Even when they stopped over in Rome to board their plane to Lisbon, Rosa could hardly keep her eyes open, and once she and Alessandro were finally settled in their seats, she couldn’t fight her exhaustion any longer.
When turbulence finally woke her, they were already coming in to land. At first she felt as if she would never be able to think straight again. After two or three hours of sleep she felt even more tired than she had been earlier. It was a few minutes before she was clearheaded enough to see that Alessandro was smiling at her.
“You laughed in your sleep,” he said
Her tongue tasted like a dishcloth. “Never!”
“Yes, you did.”
Her face stayed expressionless. “Probably because my sister’s disappeared, her girlfriend’s been murdered, and soon I’m going to be on the Mafia hit list myself.”
The flight wasn’t fully booked; the row of seats behind theirs was empty, as well as several others.
“You missed out on the airplane food,” he said. “Here, I kept this for you.” He held up a flabby dinner roll. It looked the way her tongue felt.
“Did I really laugh?”
He nodded.
“I’m so mixed up right now.”
That made him smile again. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, right?”
The underwater photograph was lying in her lap, and the slight vibration of the plane almost made it seem like the snake and the big cat were alive. Rosa picked the picture up and looked at it.
“The Dallamanos found out something about us,” she said. “About a link between the Alcantaras and the Carnevares. Something that most people obviously don’t know.”
“Or maybe it’s just that no one talks about it.”
She lowered her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard. “The judge says that the first Dallamano murders happened before Augusto went to her. If that’s true, then there must be some other reason why Iole’s family was butchered.”
“But there could be hundreds of reasons,” he replied. “Infringing on territorial borders. Some kind of insult. Even a quarrel over a woman, who knows? Cosa Nostra has never been particularly squeamish about those things.”
Rosa tapped her index finger on the photograph. “But this is no coincidence. I mean—a panther and a snake?” She swept her hair back from her face. “Iole says this photograph and others like it were spread out in her father’s office when Cesare’s men kidnapped her. They were the last things he’d been looking at before his death. If they were lying on his desk, they must have mattered to him.”
“If they were lying on his desk,” he repeated, “and they were as important as you think, Cesare would have taken them. He certainly wouldn’t have let Iole pocket one.”
“Well, maybe something distracted him. Or else”—she raised her hands helplessly—“or else he wasn’t looking closely. How do I know … oh, hell!” Her card house of assumptions was beginning to teeter. So Cesare had ignored the photos and hadn’t kept Iole from taking one—yes, that was a stumbling block. But there had to be some explanation for it.
Alessandro leaned over and kissed her. “They’ll kill you if they hear that you’ve talked to that judge. There’s no greater crime than giving information to the police. If Cesare had no good reason to want all your family dead before—well, you’ve given him one now. And no one’s going to be happy with us for boarding a plane and flying abroad, either. Certainly not the tribunal.”
“We’ll be back in Sicily tomorrow. I’m not running away from them.”
“Running might be the most sensible thing to do.”
“Leaving Florinda and Zoe to answer for Tano’s death?” Shaking her head, she nibbled at a hangnail, then felt annoyed with herself and let her hand drop. “If Augusto Dallamano can tell us anything about the place where the statue was found, and if I’m right that Cesare’s hatred of us is somehow involved, then we may have something we can use against him.”
At the Lisbon airport they were met by a man in dark glasses holding up a pink sign with no words. He wore jeans and a leather jacket and spoke no Italian, only broken English. They were taken to a Peugeot parked outside the entrance. On the way, Rosa noticed the man’s shoulder holster.
A few minutes later, they were turning onto the expressway. They quickly realized that they weren’t driving toward the city center.
“Where are you taking us?” asked Rosa.
“Sintra.”
“What’s that?” She wasn’t sure whether she had understood him correctly.
“Is a town. Thirty kilometers. Much traffic, maybe one hour.”
Alessandro raised a brow. He was sitting beside Rosa in the backseat, holding her hand and looking from her to the chauffeur and back.
“Sintra is very beautiful,” claimed the driver.
Rosa leaned forward between the head supports in front of her. “You’re a police officer, right?”
“In a way.”
She nodded, as if that explained everything.
“I know Antonio,” he said. When she did not react at once, he added, “Antonio Festa? Good man. On mission with him in Gibraltar. Three years ago.”
She leaned back. “Okay.”
Alessandro whispered, “Who’s Antonio Festa?”
She laughed quietly, then worried that she sounded slightly hysterical. “A Mafia hunter.”
/> Alessandro tightened his lips, nodded slowly, and looked out the window, lost in thought.
They turned onto a narrow road past high walls, with huge and ancient trees on both sides. The branches reached out to one another, weaving a canopy high above the uneven road.
The drive had lasted an hour and a half; heavy traffic on the last stretch of the expressway had held them up. Twilight was already gathering when the driver brought the car to a halt outside a black, barred gate in a wall that must have been around eighteen feet high.
A bus passed them, honking as it went by. After that they had the road to themselves.
“I wait here,” said the man. “The drive back go faster. Last flight leaves just before ten.” He pointed to two printouts on the passenger seat beside him. “Your tickets.”
“Thanks,” said Rosa. She and Alessandro got out.
The driver’s window opened with a soft hissing sound. The light was really too dim for him to need sunglasses anymore. He gestured toward the barred gate and the villa standing on a steep rise beyond it. “Quinta da Regaleira,” he said. “Is a strange house. Closed this time of day.” He looked at his watch. “Tourists should be gone since two hours. Dallamano said to meet you here.”
“The gate’s open,” Alessandro noted.
“Of course,” replied the driver.
Alessandro took Rosa’s hand. They nodded to the man and exchanged a brief glance as, despite saying he’d wait for them, he started the engine and drove off. However, he was only turning to park the Peugeot on the other side of the road.
Rosa went first, squeezing through the narrow gap between the two halves of the heavy gate and entering the grounds of Quinta da Regaleira. Only then did she notice the fantastic structure that rose before them.
It was a three-story palace of grayish-white stone, adorned with stucco and pointed turrets. Towering behind the trees, the building was flamboyantly romantic, and was surrounded by a walled veranda, balconies with carved balustrades, and elaborate stone edging.
“If you could crochet a house,” said Rosa softly, “this is what it would look like.”
Alessandro was examining the winding path leading up the hill. Dense ferns grew on both sides, fleshy rhododendrons, weeping willows with branches hanging low. They passed a hut that was the ticket office, now closed for the night, and listened for voices, but they heard only the whispering of the foliage and the twitter of birds.
The path forked several times under the shady canopy of trees. They saw elaborately designed fountains, statues of goat-legged flute players, grinning gargoyles. Delicate stone nymphs stood in niches. A devil with spiral horns leaned over a wall. Naiads with their arms outstretched greeted them from the middle of a pool.
“What is this place?” Rosa whispered.
A deep voice behind them said, “An alphabet of alchemy in stone. The dream, made reality, of a Freemason, a student of hermeneutics, and a magician.”
They spun around.
The man was standing a few feet behind them. With his enormous stature, he would have impressed even a more powerful adversary than Alessandro. His black hair was long and shaggy, his beard a wild tangle. In curious contrast to his mane of hair, he wore a well-cut pin-striped suit.
“You know who I am, and I know who you are,” he said. Under his thick brows, his glance went to Alessandro. “You’re a Carnevare.”
“Alessandro Carnevare.” There was a challenging glint in his eyes.
“Rosa Alcantara,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
“I had no choice.”
“Your niece is in danger,” said Rosa. “She needs your help.”
“You need my help. Iole is dead.”
“No, she’s been held prisoner for six years,” she contradicted him. “Ever since she was kidnapped. She’s been a prisoner all that time. And I think you know it. You didn’t tell the judge the whole truth in order to keep Iole alive.”
Dallamano came a step closer. “I have told her what I know. There are more than twenty men convicted on my evidence, now serving life sentences.”
Rosa’s chin jutted out. “But no Carnevares among them. Although they’re the ones who killed your brother and his family.”
The man’s eyes moved to Alessandro again. “Which is why you deserve to die.”
“Alessandro tried to save Iole.”
“Oh yes?” said Dallamano ironically. “Of course.” He paused for a moment, and then told Alessandro sharply, “You clear out.”
“No,” said Rosa. “He’s staying.”
Dallamano shook his head. “Quattrini didn’t say anything about that. I was to talk to you. Not to any Carnevare bastard. You really think he’s your friend?” He spat contemptuously. “He’s soon going to be one of the leading Mafia bosses of Sicily. He’s no one’s friend.”
Beside her, Alessandro stiffened. Suddenly there was an eerie silence. After an endless moment, Alessandro said, “I’m not leaving Rosa alone with you.”
“Just as you like.” Dallamano turned away and walked up the path.
“Wait!” Rosa called to him.
The man had stopped in the shadow of a faun with ivy clambering around its dancing body.
“He’s not going to hurt me,” Rosa whispered to Alessandro.
He stared back at her as if he wanted a fight. “I can’t leave you alone with him.”
“I only want to talk to him.”
“And what does he want to do?”
“Cesare and your father have his whole family on their consciences. What do you expect?”
“Your friend,” called Dallamano, “is afraid I might tell you things about him and his clan. Might warn you against him, and what he’ll soon become once he’s the capo of the Carnevares. None of his promises will be worth anything then.”
Alessandro didn’t even glance at Dallamano; he looked only at Rosa. “He’s lying.”
“I know that,” she said softly.
“He wants to play us against each other.”
“What he wants is revenge. At this moment words are his only weapon.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “And trust me, I’m immune to that.” Then she turned around and hurried up the path.
“Rosa.”
She looked back once more.
“You mustn’t believe everything he says. Take care.”
“We’ll see. Don’t worry.”
Dallamano was smiling when she reached him. “You have him eating out of your hand, don’t you?”
“He’s doing what you ought to be doing. Trying to save your niece.”
His eyes wandered darkly from her to Alessandro. Then he said, “Come on,” and went ahead.
“Where to?”
He sounded as if he were smiling. “To the Initiation Well.”
THE RIDDLE OF MESSINA
ROSA FOLLOWED DALLAMANO UPHILL, past an artificial grotto from which a waterfall cascaded into a pool. Soon they reached several rocks under a tree with a mighty crown. The sky above was dark blue now, and the separate branches stood out only in the glow from a lamppost beside the path.
“Along here.” He led her to a space between the moss-grown rocks where a spiral stone staircase began winding its way down. Rosa waited until Dallamano was past the first turn before leaning over the balustrade to look.
She saw a round shaft. The staircase ran along its walls behind a pillared arcade. It was as if, long ago, a complete tower had been rammed into the ground by force. Faint light showed the tiled pattern of an eight-pointed star at the bottom.
“Do you expect me to go down there with you?”
“Yes.” He reappeared behind the pillars on the opposite side of the shaft, and then disappeared from sight again when the spiral staircase took him directly under her. “Watch your step,” he called up. “The steps are wet and slippery.”
“Why can’t we talk up here?”
“This shaft goes forty feet down into the rock,” he replied. “There’s no cell phone or radio recept
ion at the bottom. We’re safer from bugging there than anywhere.”
She cautiously took her first steps down. “You seriously think I have some kind of bug planted on me?”
“I’m only making sure.” The echo of his words was getting louder and louder. “This was once a place of initiation, long before the villa and the park were open to visitors. Anyone who joined the secret society of Freemasons had to walk down this staircase, from the light into the darkness. The initiation ritual occurred at the bottom.”
She liked the word “ritual” even less down here than up above.
“The man who built the palace was a crazy millionaire who made a fortune in business in Brazil. Early in the twentieth century he bought four hectares of land from the barons of Regaleira, and commissioned an Italian architect to build the main house, the chapel, and all the other structures. They had the whole place finished within six years, complete with artificial ruins, grottoes, underground passages. There’s even an amphitheater. But to me this well has always been the most fascinating part of it.”