by Bill Cariad
“Don Carmine, Don Antonio,” began her father, “I wish to thank you both for all you...,” he faltered, and then he turned to her and his eyes were messaging what she thought was... pain?
“For all you have rightfully done to honour the wife of Giovanni Orsinni,” said Maria, turning to her father as she added, “is what I imagine my father was attempting to say.”
“You say it with steel in your voice,” responded Don Carmine, hoarsely, “but you always have been strong, Maria.” He paused, not for effect but to draw breath into tired lungs, “Which is why I need you to do one last thing for me, and I need you to do it today.”
Maria deliberately allowed the silence to build again as she took in the scene which had been presented to her. She would make them wait for her response. She respected the power which the Bartalucci family could wield, but she didn’t fear them and they knew that. Her blood was cool in her veins and her thoughts were controlled. She had been walked into this by her own father, but she accepted this without heat. She knew that they must have used fear as the lever to persuade a grieving husband to do this while he still held in his arms a silver box containing the ashes of his dead wife. So what, she wondered, could a man who had lived his life dealing in the commodity of fear, have himself feared enough to do their bidding on such a day? She glanced at her father, and her eyes were steadily met and his head was held high, and she nodded understanding. He had only agreed to this because he had been afraid of what might happen to her if he had refused. She gave no sign of the filial emotion she felt with the thought that Giovanni Orsinni may be just another old Italian man now, ceremonially stripped of his consigliere powers and the man who had broken her mother’s heart, but he was still the father who loved her and was loved in return.
Nobody had moved since Don Carmine had spoken, and all eyes were upon her. Before her in the wheelchair was the man who had largely controlled the lives of herself and Paolo up until this point in time. It was engraved on Mafia tablets of stone; once you were in the ‘secret society’, you stayed in until death did you part. Giovanni Orsinni had ‘made his bones’ in the service of the Bartalucci family, and when he had killed enough men by his own hand, when he had shown he possessed both animal cunning and a keen intelligence, he had risen in their ranks to become the trusted advisor to its ruler. He had been privy to all their secrets, and would carry those secrets to his grave. As was ruled by Mafia law, his family were destined to remain within the Bartalucci environment. There could be no life for them elsewhere, and they too would carry to their graves anything they may have learned from their father.
Then one day, six years ago, aged fifteen, she had unwittingly provided the currency which had enabled her father to buy freedom for his son and daughter. Maria stared into the face of the crippled man in the wheelchair and heard Tanaka’s voice in her inner-ear. ‘You can cripple an opponent in many physical ways. But never forget that some can be disabled by words alone. The spoken word can be a powerful weapon.’
As all here present knew, it wasn’t just the deaths of Paolo and Maria Orsinni which would have obviously ended Bartalucci control over them. It was the death of their mother which had ended that control. Because control over Maria Orsinni and her brother had been conditional ever since her teenage confrontation with would-be-killers had saved the life of Lucca Bartalucci, grandson of the then Don Carmine and son of the new Don Antonio Bartalucci. In return, the man in the wheelchair had told her father that whatever he asked for would be granted. Maria knew that, wanting to retain the respect of his daughter, hoping to regain the respect of his son, and knowing that they had both vowed to walk their own future path regardless of the consequences, her father had asked for his children to be allowed to leave the Bartalucci family when his then ailing wife died, and his request had been granted.
“What thing,” she began, deliberately injecting venom into the word, “would you ask of me on the day my father stands before you holding the ashes of my mother? What must be done by me today, that cannot be done by anyone else?”
The silence now was palpable. Another thing written on tablets of stone was that you didn’t talk to the Bartalucci hierarchy in this manner. Maria sensed that beside her, sixty-six years of Orsinni pride was holding himself more upright but she didn’t look at her father. She was also now ignoring the man in the wheelchair; she may have directed her question to him but she wasn’t looking to him for the answer. She was focusing instead on the man behind the chair, the new and all-powerful Don Antonio Bartalucci.
“Nothing that can’t be done with words,” said Antonio, “ I am sorry for your loss, Maria, and for my father’s clumsy words. We are forever in your debt for the life of my son, and will honour the arrangement made with your father. But my own father is now troubled by the thought of you being... away from us. He imagines the possibility of... future indiscretions.”
“Giovanni, my old friend,” said the man in the wheelchair, “I regret that these thoughts should trouble me. I mean you no disrespect.”
Maria silently blessed her father for remaining mute. She looked straight into the man’s eyes as she addressed the Bartalucci Don, and her voice was firm and venom-free.
“Lucca Bartalucci is my friend, and I hope he always will be. You are the father of my friend and it will please him as much as it does me, that you are honouring the precedent set by your father. My future is my own to do with as I please. It would never please me to shame the Orsinni name, or to harm my friends in any way. To imagine otherwise, would be to misjudge me.”
The silence was brief, filled only by the sound of Carmine Bartalucci drawing breath.
“She uses fine words,” said the wheel-chaired man, “but still wraps them in steel.”
“As I once did myself,” said Giovanni Orsinni, “many times, and on your behalf.”
Maria glanced at her father, managing to control her surprise.
“There is no reason,” said Antonio Bartalucci, “why friends cannot be of service to one another in the future.”
“Friendship,” responded Maria, Tanaka’s voice sounding inside her, “is a gift which need not always be displayed, but should always be carefully protected.”
“My son is right about you, Maria,” said Antonio, openly smiling now, “You are someone one hopes to have as a friend, and wishes never to have as an enemy. We are done here, arrivederci, Maria Orsinni. Go in peace.”
Only when the Bartalucci’s had gone, along with the priest, did Maria begin the breathing exercise to release the tension in her tightened muscles.
“Your mother would have been proud of you,” said Giovanni Orsinni.
“Your daughter is proud of you,” she replied, “despite your faults.”
“All men have faults, Maria, some are just worse than others.”
“Yours have been in a class of their own,” she retorted.
“Yes, Maria,” replied the old man, sighing as he added, “and I have paid the price.”
Maria once more walked alongside her father as they proceeded to leave the chapel. She was mentally reviewing what had just transpired and acknowledging to herself that once again Tanaka’s point had been proven; the spoken word had been a powerful weapon. She had been in no immediate physical danger of course, not in the chapel. She frowned now with the thought that if they ever wished to permanently silence her, then they would choose another time and another place. She smiled with the afterthought that whether they would succeed or not, remained to be seen. No, she had been in no danger today. Giordanno Belinni’s presence had signalled to her that the Bartalucci’s had wished to not only just talk, but had sought to instantly reassure her that their intention was to reach the kind of verbal harmony even a priest could be allowed to hear.
So now she had confirmation of the freedom negotiated for her by her father. The father who had given her everything, but had killed her
mother. The father who had protected her, but had exposed her to so much which many could construe as having been harmful. The father who confused her emotions. When she had understood the cause of her mother’s illness, and had learned of her father’s role in that cause, it had radically altered her perception of both the parent she thought she had known and the so-called ‘men of honour’; hardening her resolve to live by a different moral code. He was also the father arranging her first steps to be taken in the world outside the Bartalucci environment. Not so long ago she had seen no way out of the lifestyle she inhabited. No way by which a single Italian girl could construct for herself a life outside the traditionally closed circle of family, and she had feared that a future free from the influences of the Bartalucci family would be impossible to attain. Her saving of Lucca had provided the key for change. Her father had used the key to unlock the Bartalucci door to the outside world. Her surrogate father, Tanaka, had taught her how to survive in that world.
“It’s time I spoke to you,” said her father, “about your job with Canizzaro.”
Chapter Nine
At the Stroke of Death
Rome, Italy, 8th January 1985
Almost breathless with excitement, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, the attractive looking woman rushing to her death had been careless. In her haste to reach the area translated in guide books as ‘The Field of Flowers’, Francesca Scolari had abandoned what had been in any case inadequate training. The little experience she possessed had been elbowed aside by the shock of discovery and its potential rewards, so the previously rehearsed amateur methods of checking for surveillance had been fatefully ignored.
She tuned out the road traffic noise and the sounds of music and laughter coming from somewhere. Crowding her mind now were the conflicting thoughts on her discovery, and her intention. The discovery, with all its wickedness, had immediately prodded her conscience to silently voice the obvious. This was a matter demanding the urgent attention of the carabiniere. But her conscience had been sacrificed upon the altar of hunger. Hunger for success. Hunger for the accolades which would surely be heaped upon her by her peer-group. So she was not now rushing to salve her conscience by going to the police. Because if she made the police her first port of call, how many future assignments could she expect to be given?
Francesca was in fact still mentally composing in her 28-year-old head the scoop of a lifetime as she hurriedly crossed the Ponte Sisto on her way to the Campo De’Fiori hotel rendezvous. She passed a daringly dressed woman her judgemental editor would probably have labelled a ‘Lady Of The Night’, and the research freak inside Francesca automatically linked the sighting to the fact that the bridge she was crossing had strained the finances of the 15th century pope who had commissioned it. So much so that he had levied a tax on the city’s prostitutes.
Francesca Scolari was in two minds as to the title of the piece which she reckoned was destined to shortlist her for the ‘Undercover Journalist of the Year’ award. ‘Canizzaro Harbours Child-Killing Paedophile Ring’, was currently vying for first choice alongside the punchier ‘Killer Paedophile Ring Linked To Top Vatican Advisor’.
Still undecided about her choice of headline, Francesca made her way along a section of the Via Giulia. Passing, but not really seeing, the glut of antique shops competing for a currently depleted tourist trade. The romantic nestling beside the research freak inside her momentarily blurred her focus, and she recalled now the many past summer evenings when she had frequented this area. Wherein, entranced by the seductive ambience provided by the many cloisters and courtyards lit by hundreds of oil-lamps, she and her lover of choice at the time would have dallied in a few of them before selecting from a menu of open-air concerts catering to all tastes. Afterwards, with cultural palates satiated, she and her man of the moment would have strolled back to a discreet hotel and conducted their own concert for two players sans audience... Francesca’s perspiring face was suddenly kissed by a light breeze carrying a heady mixture of smells. Emanating from the polishes, waxes, and chemicals used by the numerous furniture restorers she knew to be housed along this busy street and its nearby alleyways, the pungent aromas snapped her from the untimely reverie and provided a sharp reminder that this was not the time to lose focus.
Francesca abruptly changed direction, stepping into an alleyway on her right, knowing it would lead her to the Piazza Farnese and its 16th century Palazzo Farnese, still oblivious to the follower she was also leading past a former pope’s impressive palace which these days housed the French embassy. Her pulse rate quickened with her urgent steps and fresh thoughts.
‘This time the man joining me in a hotel a few hundred metres away is a newspaper editor, and no lover of anything except rival-publication-beating-headlines and their subsequent boosting of Il Tempo ratings. Well wasn’t he about to be surprised! Four weeks of undercover work which had been ‘tipped’ to expose some form of counterfeit art fraud, had uncovered something which would rock Roman society and send Il Tempo ratings through the roof. Something so horrifying’, she grimly reminded herself now, ‘that he and the Il Tempo lawyers wouldn’t have dared to publish without my proof’.
Echoing her thoughts, Francesca’s inner ear now reactively reprised the two voices she’d heard in Brantano’s Via Del Moro office. Voices belonging to the creepy Carmine Forza and the freaky Luigi Rinaldi, and, for perhaps the fourth time since she had crossed the bridge, the fingers of one hand scrabbled inside her jacket for the reassuring feel of the pocket tape recorder. ‘This will give them more than enough. The contents of this will justify my bringing it to a newspaper editor first. This will quickly give them the ear of a much higher carabiniere authority than I could ever have reached.’ As quickly as it then arrived, she dismissed the regretful afterthought of the secreted notes she’d been forced to leave behind. She was convinced that her memory of things seen, and the sound-tape, would suffice.
Panting now, Francesca finally arrived at a corner of the market square of Campo De’Fiori, or, as the guide books would have it, ‘The Field of Flowers’. Formerly a meadow boasting an execution site in medieval times, she knew that early tomorrow morning the square would more happily boast a riot of colours provided by crowd-pulling stalls laden with fresh flowers of every variety, together with fruit and vegetables of every shape and size. Even now the square was far from empty and certainly not without sound, colour, or dramatic impact.
The square was enclosed by stone-walled patrician villas, artfully lit by oil-lamps and positioned alongside noisily filled and colourfully covered alfresco tavern tables. In the centre of the square stood the towering statue of whom Francesca also knew to be that of Giordano Bruno. The hooded figure of the philosopher her research persona knew had been burnt at the stake here in 1600 for heresy, was a grimly imposing reminder of the former meadow’s usage. Behind the statue she was in the act of passing, partially visible to her now, on another corner of the square bustling with night life, stood the Campo De’Fiori hotel she had rushed to reach.
Francesca was halted in her tracks by a group of revellers comprising three young men and two girls. They wouldn’t let her pass. The men’s voices penetrated her fierce concentration, and were immediately irritating in their playful insistence that she join them to even up the group. Snapping out her refusal, Francesca side-stepped them and hurried on.
Now immediately behind her, Francesca’s follower became just another addition to the jostling crowd around her. An advanced level exponent of both external and internal martial arts, the man’s skills were considerable and his objective could have been achieved by employing any one of several simple methods available to him. But he chose to indulge himself by summoning his powerful chi and using a ‘Cotton Palm’ strike to the back of Francesca’s head. The strike used the same amount of physical force that one would use to stroke the hair of a newborn baby, which was amusingly appropriate he thought, but Carmine Forza
knew of course that the penetration of his chi had caused immediate internal haemorrhaging and certain death.
Francesca Scolari was helped to a sitting position against the base of the statue by the man who deftly emptied her jacket pocket. Whilst doing so he proffered the suggestion ‘too much wine perhaps?’ to those who had witnessed her collapse and were expressing concern. No longer aware of the disapproving stares from some of the passers-by, or the bustling activity continuing in the square, or indeed the concern of a waiting editor, as dead as her dreamed of banner headlines and journalistic awards, Francesca Scolari remained upright for a short time before slowly toppling to lie inert beneath the hooded and stone-cold figure of Giordano Bruno.
Chapter Ten
Parental Guidance
Rome, Italy, January 1985
Seated before the desk in his private study, watching her father peer at paperwork he presumably needed to refer to for this conversation, Maria Orsinni suddenly found herself wondering if the wily Tanaka had known beforehand that the occupation which would provide her subscribed additional focus, had already been arranged by Giovanni Orsinni.
This conversation, which hadn’t even started yet, which she was beginning to think might never start, was supposedly going to be the one he had alluded to over a week ago as they had left the chapel together. When her father had first mentioned the possibility of her becoming involved with the wealthy businessman and renowned art collector, she had made her own discreet enquiries. Discovering that he was also known to be one of the Vatican’s most trusted advisors, had increased her curiosity as to how this proposed directional guide to her immediate future had been arrived at. Added to that was her awareness of the recent whispers linking her mother to Claudio Canizzaro before Giovanni Orsinni had entered her life. Whispers which had fired her imagination. She was eager to hear what her father might say on the subject.