by Kai Meyer
He was burly, but no taller than Rosa, and massive as he might be, he was old and worn out. She wasn’t afraid of him—so long as he stayed in human form. But Salvatore Pantaleone was also an Arcadian, and she wondered again what kind of animal slumbered inside him.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, “since I did anything but pull the strings from behind the scenes. I’ve killed men with my own hands, but that was decades ago. Later, my orders were enough by themselves to bring misfortune to others. But they’ve also made many people rich and influential. Ask any of the capi, and they’ll all admit that I have led Cosa Nostra into a brilliant new age.”
She tried to hit him where she hoped it would hurt. “So why do some of them secretly support the Hungry Man? Why are they waiting for him to come back to Sicily from his prison cell and take power again? Why do those men hate you so much that they’d rather follow someone who’s regarded by everyone as a monster?”
He turned, moved a few steps away, and stopped in front of a painting. It was a Sicilian landscape full of sheep and bustling, cheerful peasants.
“What this picture shows was never really true,” he said. “Nothing is what it seems. If you could see behind the laughter of these figures, you would recognize anxiety, fear of the coming night. And if you could look past the trees and farmhouses and church towers, you would find traces of us everywhere. The Arcadian dynasties have ruled the Mediterranean since time immemorial. They have set out from its coasts to go all over the world, gradually making realms old and new subject to them. These ludicrous peasants working in the field, with their red-cheeked wives and grubby children—they were never anything but our prey.”
He turned back to Rosa, but her eyes were lingering on the painting as if it had suddenly opened a window into the past.
“But times have changed,” he went on. “Back then we hunted them in packs, we ate their cattle and tore their sons and daughters apart. Today we don’t rule them through fear alone; we do it through our wealth, our ingenuity, our knowledge of their weaknesses. We draw new strength from that, and anyone who denies it is a fool … but of course there are always some who don’t see that. Some who mourn for the past. The Hungry Man is a living promise—a promise of a return to the old times, ancient customs and morals, unlimited killing and greed. He tried that approach in the past and failed, and over his decades in prison his hatred for human beings in general has grown even greater. He says he will give whatever they want to those who thirst for the blood of slaves, who hunger to dig claws and teeth into defenseless flesh once more. That is why they are preparing in secret for his return. Not because I didn’t lead them well.”
The revolver shook in Rosa’s hand. She was clutching it firmly, as if the gun could give her the strength she would need not to fall for his powers of persuasion. She wanted to show him that what he said wasn’t getting through, that none of it meant anything at all to her.
But of course she knew better. So did he.
Pantaleone embodied the Arcadian dynasties of the present, rich and powerful in the form of Cosa Nostra and other organizations that had carved up the world between them. But the Hungry Man stood for the barbarity of the past, when other human beings had been fair game, and the Arcadians had ruled openly, wreaking havoc. An era of wild beasts.
“Do you want to be like them?” asked Pantaleone now, in a seductively gentle tone. “Do you want to be the monster, the nightmare in the night? Or would you rather go on living as before, only with a better, richer, happier life? You’ll soon experience your first transformation—if it isn’t behind you already.”
His probing undertone tipped the scales. “I don’t have to listen to this,” she said. “I have nothing to do with the Hungry Man and the dynasties. If Zoe wants to stay, she’s welcome. But nothing will keep me here.”
“Not even young Carnevare?”
Had Zoe told him about Alessandro after all? With revulsion, she realized that the poison of his words was already taking effect. She distrusted her own sister.
“Alessandro has enough to do, getting to be capo of the Carnevares.” She tried to sound indifferent, serene, and cool. She wasn’t sure whether she succeeded.
Pantaleone smiled, but his glance was harsh. “The Carnevares have never done anything but increase their power and wealth. That’s the nature of the Mafia, you’ll say, yet there’s a difference. Cosa Nostra stands firmly by old values and laws; the family is our greatest good. But the Carnevares aren’t like that. They sacrifice their allies, even their own flesh and blood if it’s to their advantage.” He gave a short bark of laughter. “You don’t believe me? You think I say so only to drive a wedge between you and that boy? Baron Carnevare let his wife be murdered—by his own adviser! In any other family that would be the greatest of crimes, and it wouldn’t go unavenged. But in the Carnevare clan? The baron accepted his wife’s death and said nothing. Gaia’s murderer remained his closest confidant. Until Cesare finally decided it was time to be rid of the baron himself, and preferably his son in the bargain. Nothing is sacred to the Carnevares, not their own family, not Cosa Nostra.”
Rosa wanted to say something to silence him, but Pantaleone quickly took another step toward her and went on. “What did Alessandro tell you? Did he say he likes you? Loves you? I’m sure that’s what his father once told his mother—until one day he let her die because that was what Cesare advised. Those are the priorities in the house of Carnevare. So tell me, Rosa, what gives you the childish idea that it might be different, after all, with you?”
She tried to find words to contradict him, accuse him of lying, show that all this just bounced off her. Only it wasn’t that simple. The baroness’s death was a fact. And as for Alessandro’s ambition to become capo himself—
“You know I’m right,” said Pantaleone sharply. “Get involved with him, and you’ll have his whole clan breathing down your neck. That will bring you nothing but trouble. Cesare will try to get rid of Alessandro. And if you stand in his way he’ll eliminate you, too. Do you believe it’s just coincidence that he’s casting doubt on the concordat right at this very moment?”
All this was past history, but she wasn’t sure whether Pantaleone knew it. The Carnevares had their sights set on her already, and Alessandro had indeed brought her nothing but trouble … no! She mustn’t think that way. Pantaleone twisted things as it suited him. It hadn’t started with Alessandro, that was the truth, but much earlier, a year ago in New York. With the death of her child.
The old man made an expansive gesture. “Ultimately, of course, it’s your decision.”
Her hand closed even more firmly on the handle of the gun. Her entire body tensed. Pain exploded inside her head, making any clear thought impossible for a moment.
It’s your decision.
She turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She did not reply.
“The tribunal will deliver its verdict at dawn,” he called after her. “It’s too late, Rosa. You can only decide for yourself this time—you have no influence anymore!”
She hurried down the steps outside the house, left the palazzo, and strode along the path to the garages. A little later she was heading back down the drive in her father’s Maserati.
At the gate, one of the guards stopped her and gestured to her to let down the window. “Here,” he said, handing her a padded envelope. “Someone left this for you.”
“Who?”
“Young lad. Gone again before we could ask him anything.”
Rosa turned into the country road, drove the short distance to the exit for Piazza Armerina, and stopped the car on the shoulder there. Her headlights were the only ones in sight. With shaking fingers, she switched on the interior light of the car and opened the envelope. Frowning, she shook the contents out into her hand.
A cell phone. It was switched on.
The display showed a greenish infrared photo: herself and Alessandro, crossing the road outside
the Villa Dallamano in the dark.
She stared at the picture for a minute.
The phone vibrated. Rosa took a deep breath and answered.
TRAITORS
SHE RECOGNIZED THE JUDGE’S voice at once.
Quattrini reminded Rosa of their agreement and told her that she had been shadowed ever since her return from Portugal, so of course she, Quattrini, knew that Rosa and Alessandro had broken into the Dallamanos’ villa. What they were doing there, she added, didn’t interest her. The one thing she really wanted was Rosa’s information about Salvatore Pantaleone, which would give her the legal reason she needed to search the Alcantara property and lands. She was anxious to get her hands on the capo dei capi, and she was certainly not about to let Rosa pull the wool over her eyes. She was expecting that statement now. Rosa was not to move from the spot; someone would pick her up and bring her.
As soon as the connection was broken, headlights appeared in Rosa’s rear window. The car must have followed her from the gate.
Tires squealing, she took the Maserati back onto the road and accelerated quickly to over a hundred kilometers per hour. Route 117 was well built, with broad lanes and a hard shoulder, something you couldn’t take for granted in Sicily. She hoped she could keep her father’s car under control even at the high speed. She was sweating within a few seconds anyway.
She had to find Alessandro and help him to rescue Iole. The judge could wait; Pantaleone wasn’t going to run away. Despite everything, Rosa felt guilty about handing him over to the forces of law and order. She was a traitor twice over: first to Cosa Nostra, then to the judge’s confidence in her. But there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t give up Alessandro. Everything the old man said might have been true about the baron—but not Alessandro.
The road was empty at this time of night; there were no rear lights to be seen ahead of her. Once something scurried across the asphalt, and she only just managed to avoid hitting it. Then she accelerated again. The legal limit here was 90 kilometers per hour, and the highway wound enough for that to make sense. Rosa was driving at 140, then 150 kilometers per hour.
The headlights in her rearview mirror kept their distance, but she had to get off this road as soon as possible. If Quattrini’s people called up reinforcements, sooner or later they would cut her off ahead. But she wasn’t sure how many officers the judge had at her disposal. Quattrini led a special anti-Mafia unit, probably only a handful of carefully picked men and women. If she brought in other officers, there was a danger that Cosa Nostra might be bribing some of them. Quattrini couldn’t risk anyone getting a warning through to Pantaleone.
So the judge probably wouldn’t mount a major search operation for Rosa. If she could shake off her pursuer, she stood a chance. All she needed was this one day. After that she would go to Quattrini of her own accord.
She cursed Alessandro for not telling her where the hunt was to take place. How was she going to find out where to drive in time to get there? And what was she going to offer Cesare in exchange for Iole’s life? The Dallamano photographs and documents had been stolen by Florinda and her aides. Was there any other way to make a deal with Cesare? And what was Alessandro planning?
The steering wheel vibrated under her hands. Several times she nearly lost control on turns. Once the car went into a skid, skewing itself almost diagonally across the road, but she was able to right it quickly.
Several side roads flew past, but she stayed on the main highway. Passing one village, she had some difficulty negotiating a roundabout that she had almost failed to notice, fortunately with no other traffic on it. Insects splattered on the windshield, one leaving a mark as big as her fist. She switched the wipers on, but that made matters even worse. The yellow slime smeared itself all over the glass in a wide curve just level with Rosa’s eyes.
One hundred sixty kilometers per hour.
Way too fast.
Sweat was running into her eyes. She grimly clung to the wheel, and had to duck down to see under the dirty smear on the windshield. She couldn’t go on like this forever. But she was catching sight of her pursuer less and less often now.
Ahead of her, she saw rear lights. She quickly caught up with them, and without stopping to think overtook a Porsche. She saw two young men in it, staring incredulously at her. When she moved back into the right-hand lane, she realized that she had just acquired another pursuer. Obviously the men were bent on a nocturnal race with her.
She slowed imperceptibly down. The Porsche caught up, drew beside her, and they drove on for several hundred yards side by side. She forced a smile and then accelerated again. The engine of the Porsche roared as well. The driver stayed in the left-hand lane as he tried to pass her.
Once again Rosa took her foot off the gas. The young men were yelling with glee; one of them made an obscene gesture. Then their car sped up and raced ahead into the night.
Rosa looked in the rearview mirror. Quattrini’s men had disappeared behind a bend. It was now or never. At the next junction she braked sharply and turned into the side road, switched off the headlights, and stopped. A cloud of dust swirled up around the windows. Rosa stared over her shoulder into her rearview mirror. She was on a narrow woodland trail. When the dust died down, she could see a section of the main road between the trees.
With a little luck, by the time the police officers realized that the rear lights of the fast car ahead of them didn’t belong to Rosa’s Maserati, she would be well away from here.
She lowered the window a little way and listened for the car. Here they came.
The trees on the roadside were bathed in white light. Instinctively, Rosa ducked. The car chasing her raced past the turn, going north, its rear lights flickering several times between the trunks.
She breathed easily again only when the sound of the engine had finally died away. But she didn’t dare switch her headlights on. Instead, she turned very cautiously in the darkness of the woodland track and drove back to the road at a crawl.
Lights again.
A second car was coming up along the road. It slowed down, rolled past the turn at a comfortable pace, braked, and reversed. Then it, too, turned into the woodland trail, barring her way out.
Quickly, Rosa looked around. There was a metal barrier across the track twenty yards behind her. She couldn’t go any farther into the woods. She was trapped.
The headlights of the other car were switched off, but the engine kept on running. A door was opened and closed again. Someone was approaching.
The outline of a face appeared in the dark at her side window.
Rosa flung the door open with all her might. The man cried out as it hit him, and fell backward into waist-high bushes. She snatched the key out of the ignition and ran into the open air, looking neither right nor left, just making for the strange car as fast as she could. She opened the driver’s door. The car was a black Mercedes. Quick as lightning, she got behind the wheel.
Hot animal breath hit the back of her neck.
She closed her eyes. Expecting the fangs of a beast of prey to dig into her.
There was an excited whining. Then a dog’s rough tongue licked her cheek.
Rosa swung her head around. “Sarcasmo!”
The dog’s tail happily thumped the backseat.
Outside, the figure in the undergrowth was scrambling up, moving toward the Mercedes. Rosa only had two or three seconds to make her decision. With the press of a button, she locked the door and made sure that the passenger side was also secured.
Fundling leaned against the glass. His black hair was even more untidy than usual. His nose was bleeding.
“Let me in!” he called through the closed window.
Rosa lowered it very slightly.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “What are you after?”
“What do you think? You.”
“Did Alessandro send you?” She didn’t seriously think so, and he shook his head. “Who, then? Cesare?”
“Hell, no. You nearly broke my nose.”
Sarcasmo whined again and licked her ear.
“Open this door, Rosa. Come on.”
“Who says I can trust you?”
“I’ve never hurt you, have I?”
“I’m not too popular with the Carnevares.”
“Cesare doesn’t know I’m here. None of them know.”
“So what are you here for, then?”
“To pick you up.”
She closed the window and put her foot on the gas. Just a light tap on the pedal. The Mercedes leaped forward and then stopped again. She was only two yards from the road now.
With a few steps, Fundling was beside her again. He looked nervous now, the way he had at their first meeting, when he was picking Alessandro up at the airport. He gestured to her to open the window again.
She let it down two fingers’ breadth.
“Quattrini sent me,” he said quietly, his lips very close to the opening. “She wanted me to fetch you because she thought you’d be more likely to trust me than her own people.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Seems like that was a lousy plan.”
Her first impulse was to deny everything. Act as if she had never heard the name of Quattrini before. But then she asked, “You know her?”
“I sometimes talk to her. When she needs information. Just like you.” He looked intently at her. “If you mention that to anyone, I’m dead.”
Ditto, she thought. If he was telling the truth, then he was informing on the Carnevares for the judge. Until now she had assumed that he was loyal to the baron, devoted to the man who had taken him in as a baby. But Cesare wasn’t the baron.
“You saw it.” The words slipped out of her. “You saw Cesare kill the baron, didn’t you?”
For a moment he looked surprised. Then he nodded. “I can’t leave now. Cesare would think I’d given him away. He’d murder me.”
“But instead you betray him but stay with him, and keep acting as his driver. Not stupid.” All the same, she didn’t trust him. He was a traitor—like her, strictly speaking—and traitors were not to be trusted.