‘I have no problem with the Mafia tearing itself apart,’ Carlo said, ‘but it’s never as simple as that, is it? I’ve have learned a lot about Sicilian history since I’ve been down here, and one thing’s for sure – when the gangs fight, a lot of innocent people suffer.’
‘Okay, tell me another way then? Sure, we’ve had some success in recent times, but you cut off one branch and another one grows back immediately. There are thousands of women – or girls . . . some of them are not even sixteen – who have been destroyed in my time on the force. That’s why I left. I wanted to kill the people who are doing this, but not while I was in uniform. And no innocent people have been killed yet, by the way.’
Carlo was aware of noise in the adjoining room, and three more women joined them. Carlo recognised the small raven-haired one as the girl from the garden. He tensed as the faces of the newcomers looked at Adelina for guidance. They were all armed, and he knew what they would like to do. The small gypsy-looking girl’s finger was firmly curled around the trigger of her Glock, which Carlo recognised was police standard issue. Maybe Leo was right, and it was a poor choice to have come here alone.
Gianluca still had a kid’s habit of biting his nails. Not that there was much nail to bite, as the wasted, swollen ends of his fingers gave away his lifelong obsession. He had tried to stop many times, especially as he was a man in love with his appearance. With his height, which just nudged above six foot, his figure, which he liked to think was akin to an Olympic athlete, and his good looks, Gianluca thought he looked like a young Al Pacino – only tougher and much taller. He was a snappy dresser too; not the usual Armani stuff all the guys wore, but clothes he had made especially for him. Even his shoes were handmade in Naples, where he’d brave Camorra territory to get them. Only his distorted and chewed finger ends let him down.
Gianluca was nibbling at his nails now, hardly aware that he was doing so as he watched Leo Bracchi. He always did it in times of stress or excitement – and this was a time of excitement. He had been tailing Bracchi, and following someone was one of Gianluca’s specialties. He had been waiting for the best moment to nail the fat bastard, and that moment had come. Bracchi was parked in a side street downtown, and it was a quiet at this time of the year. The cop was feeding his face with a large pastrami sandwich. This guy couldn’t stop eating.
Gianluca stopped chewing, got out of his own car and moved towards Bracchi’s, feigning interest in the shopfronts he passed. He was carrying a Giornale di Sicilia newspaper, which made it easier to conceal his weapon. The fact that the passenger door of the cop’s car was unlocked made it all perfect. Gianluca was alongside Bracchi before he knew what was happening, the Berretta sticking into Leo’s ribs.
‘Stop feeding your face, fatso. You and me are going for a little drive.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Don’t what the fuck me – just drive, lard boy. Yeah, you know who I am, don’t you? That means you know I couldn’t give two shits whether I shoot you or not. Drive. I’ll tell you where. Take this piece of crap towards Mondello.’
Leo cursed himself for being so stupid, but he had been miles away, lost in thoughts of duty and honour and how he might be able to manage both. But to be caught in this way by a punk like Gianluca Vitale was almost too much to bear.
‘Haven’t seen your ugly mug for a while, GL,’ Leo said, keeping as calm as he could. ‘If you’re taking me to see the boss man, there’s no need for this stupid cowboy stuff.’
‘Salim don’t know nothing about this, so just shut your mouth and drive. Take the Mondello highway, then we’ll go up into the mountains to my uncle’s old place.’
Leo didn’t like the sound of this, if it was true. He’d arrested GL a few times in the past, but nothing had stuck to the man, and Mandretta had got Gianluca off scot-free every time. But there was nothing personal between them – nothing Sicilian – to make GL try a stunt like this. Even so, Gianluca kept the gun just inches away from Leo’s stomach, and Leo knew he would love to use it. Vitale was a part-time killer but a full-time psychopath, and Leo did not want to do anything to encourage the guy to pull the trigger. Not yet, anyway.
Leo drove on through the late-morning traffic, then – following Gianluca’s orders – took a small side road that led up into the hills. Get the guy talking, that was always the best bet in situations like this, Leo thought, not that he had ever been in a situation quite like this.
‘So, was it you that took that pop at me?’ Leo said.
‘Not at you or you’d be down the morgue now – if they got anywhere big enough to stash your fat arse, that is.’
‘GL, you’re as sweet as ever.’
Gianluca prodded Leo harder with the Beretta and he tensed for the bullet.
‘Hey, whadya know, the cop is sweating like a pig. Take a left here, then stop at that shack up ahead.’
And it was a shack. Leo pulled up outside the small cabin, which appeared to have been derelict for years, with a rickety roof that looked as if it could fall in at any time. It reminded Leo of the place where Carlo’s son Piccolo had been held, only smaller and much scruffier. If GL was thinking of killing him, he’d picked a good spot for it.
‘Cut the engine and get out slowly,’ Gianluca said.
Leo walked carefully over uneven ground as directed, to the weathered wooden door of the cabin. He thought about feigning a fall in an attempt to wrestle the gun from Gianluca’s grasp, but he knew better than to try to beat hopeless odds. Gianluca pushed him along with the gun barrel in his back. Leo could smell the man’s overbearing aftershave and hear his 300-euro boots scraping against the stony ground.
‘The door’s not locked, big man. Push it open and go in.’ Gianluca clicked his teeth together in a strange, nervous kind of laugh. ‘Though I’m not sure yet if you’re ever coming out again.’
Adelina Cervi got up and stood by the huge window. The hard light of a Sicilian afternoon flooded into the room, and for a moment her long frame was highlighted by it. This woman’s legs seem to go on forever, Carlo thought, suddenly conscious of his own medium height.
‘So, what’s to be done, Chief Inspector?’ Adelina said quietly, so quietly that Carlo wondered if she was talking to herself.
‘How did he know about us?’ Marianna suddenly blurted out. ‘Who told him, that’s what I want to know.’
‘Keep quiet, Mari,’ Adelina said. ‘Look, Carlo, why don’t you join with us? Work together? We could develop a strategy that could really work. In the past, whenever we thought we had the Mafia on the run they always regrouped, then spread again like the cancer they are. The Camorra, ’Ndrangheta . . . none of them would be possible without the curse that we have here in Sicily, because they all took their cue from here.’
This woman is talking like a politician making a speech, Carlo thought. But there was one huge difference – she believed every word she said. That’s what gave Adelina her aura and her power over the other women, and Carlo had to admit that what she said was true. But meeting murder with murder never worked, not in his book. There were too many ways it could spin out of control.
‘We don’t need any man,’ Marianna muttered.
‘You’re asking me to condone unlawful killing, and maybe even commit it,’ Carlo said.
‘Have you forgotten about your boy so soon?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Adelina. I’ll never forget that, no father would.’
Carlo could feel the atmosphere in the room changing from tense to hostile. The other women did not like their leader being called stupid, and he sensed eager fingers tightening on triggers. How loose a cannon was Adelina Cervi, exactly? Maybe he was about to find out.
There was not much natural light in the cabin, and no electric lighting either, just an old-fashioned oil lamp on a shaky table. Leo felt like he was going back a century in time as Gianluca shoved him into the murky room, which looked like it was layered with many years’ worth of dust. Leo began to cough as a plan formed in his hea
d.
‘Sounds like you’re out of shape, Leo,’ Gianluca said. ‘Looks like it too. Put your arse down on that chair and don’t try moving from it, or you know what will happen.’
‘This is a stupid move, GL, and it’s not going to get you anywhere. What you trying to prove, eh? That you’re some sort of fucking big shot, that this is supposed to make you look good in Mandretta’s eyes?’
‘Shut your mouth, Bracchi. I know what I’m doing.’
Leo could feel the nervous energy in Gianluca, and it matched his own. If Gianluca really was acting on his own it was not good news.
‘Sit on your hands,’ Gianluca said as he came closer, his gun only a barrel’s length from Leo’s head. Leo could see one of his long fingers tapping the butt of the gun, as if he was counting down the last seconds of Leo’s life.
‘Do you know what he said to me?’ Gianluca suddenly snapped.
‘Who?’
‘That bastard Mandretta. “Don’t think, GL,” he said, “because you can’t think.” Like I’m some kind of moron. Well, I’m no moron.’
Spittle from Gianluca’s mouth showered Leo. It would be followed by froth soon, Leo thought, because the man was working himself up into a frenzy. Leo had seen it many times before, when killers or even just cheap street punks pumped themselves up with so much shit they began to mistake it for courage.
‘You better talk, Leo. You know who that bitch is. I can fucking smell it. I seen it straight off when you got shown the photo.’
‘Look, there are thousands of officers in Palermo, you know that, and I only work with a few of them.’
‘Hey, how about I put one in your knee? Leave you to crawl for help? If you make it, that should mean months laid up. How about I put one in the other knee too, for luck?’
Gianluca was almost eyeball to eyeball now, close enough for Leo to see a vein bulging across his temple in a pulsating blue line. Leo had to get this clown talking about Mandretta, or about anything at all, because it was the only way he might get a chance – one chance – to save himself.
‘All right,’ Carlo said, as casually as he could. ‘Tell me exactly how we could work together. And, to answer your question . . .’ Carlo nodded towards Marianna. ‘Adelina made a mistake in Satisfaction – raising her mask. She was seen and they got a CCTV shot of her; one of my colleagues recognised her straight off.’
‘Yes, and you’ve obviously kept it to yourself or we wouldn’t be having this meeting. It was a rookie mistake, and I apologise to everyone here.’
Carlo nodded, hoping that Adelina wouldn’t ask how they had managed to access the image. This situation was getting very complicated. Police vigilantes running amok, his sergeant compromised by the Mafia, and each side eager for bloody revenge. He doubted that it could happen anywhere but in this city, though at least his son hadn’t been involved this time, which might be a step up in this crazy world of violence.
Gianluca paced around Leo’s chair like dog eyeing a bone. For a brief moment Leo thought of the past year with Sylvia, a relationship that he never thought would come; then he forced it out of his mind. He needed to stay focused on that one chance.
‘You know what, GL?’ Leo said. ‘I think you’re right about Salim. He should recognise you more after all these years – I told him that myself.’
‘Stop trying to bullshit me. It’s no use playing for time, and yours is about to run out unless you talk.’
Leo sneezed. ‘This dust is bringing on my asthma. Mind if I get my inhaler out?’
‘Yeah, I do. Keep your hands under your arse.’
Gianluca’s body was shaking with adrenaline. Leo knew the man was running on energy and not much of a plan. He knew Gianluca would have to kill him now, whether he told him anything or not.
Leo started to wheeze and cough, slumping down in his chair. ‘It’s this fucking dust,’ he said. ‘It’s doing my chest in. Look, lemme get my inhaler out, then maybe we can make a deal. GL, you’re right, I think it is your time. Maybe me and you can work together, get something good going—’ Leo interrupted himself with another savage bout of coughing. He could feel Gianluca wavering.
‘If you’re just playing for time, I swear I’ll—’
More coughing came from Leo, strong enough for him to hurt his ribcage.
‘Okay, get your stupid inhaler out, then.’
For a big man, Leo had always been able to move surprisingly fast, and there had never been a greater need to do so than now. He moved a hand towards his pocket for the imaginary inhaler, feigned a stumble from his chair, and hurled a set of keys – then himself – at Gianluca when he saw the man had turned slightly away from him to escape his coughing.
The keys hit GL full in the face as the man fired. Leo felt a round tug at his jacket, and another two whistle past his head, but it did not slow him down. Even in his slimmer form Leo still weighed 220 pounds and it all crashed into Gianluca, taking him to the floor. There was a frantic scramble for the gun as Leo grasped GL’s hand and squeezed. He took a few shots in the face from Gianluca’s free hand but that did not bother him, and he felt GL’s grip on the gun weaken until the other man could no longer hold it. As soon as that happened, Leo used his own free hand and smashed it into GL’s face with all the force he could muster, which was considerable. It was all over. Leo was still alive and Gianluca was out cold.
By the time Gianluca came round, Leo was back in his chair, but this time he had the gun and he was pointing it at his former captor. For good effect, Leo loosed off a round very close to Gianluca. He’d always liked this model of gun, and its kick was reassuring. The round crashed into the floor inches from Gianluca, sprinkling him with splinters of wood.
‘Please, Leo,’ Gianluca said. ‘Please.’ He raised himself to his knees, his face wet with sweat and a bruise already forming around his closed left eye.
‘Ah, it’s Leo now. You being nice and polite, GL?’ Leo got up and stood closer to Gianluca. ‘Don’t move a muscle, my trigger finger’s not as steady as it used to be.’
But Gianluca did move, putting his hands together like he was a praying supplicant.
‘No one would worry if I blew you away, GL. It would be a fine upstanding cop like me dealing out justice to a lowlife like you.’
Gianluca mouthed please again, but his mouth was too dry for the words to come out as more than a whisper.
‘Isn’t it strange that the men who would least show mercy demand it the most when it’s their turn,’ Leo muttered. ‘So, what are we to do with you, eh?’
Leo knew this was also a good question for himself. He a took set of handcuffs that were attached to his belt and threw them at Gianluca, catching his battered face. ‘Get on your hands and knees, crawl over to that chair and put one end of these on your wrist and the other on the chair arm. And I wanna hear them click shut.’
Gianluca eagerly obeyed, hoping that the handcuffs meant he would live. Once Leo knew the crook was secure, he phoned Carlo.
‘It’s all happening here, boss,’ Leo said when Carlo answered the call.
Carlo tried to keep his best poker face on as he ran through his options. Each time a possible plan cropped up in his head he shot it down again, so he decided to just wing it and play along. Leo’s call broke the tension. Adelina told him to answer it. In a few breathless sentences peppered with a lot of bosses, Leo brought him up to speed about the situation with Gianluca. It gave Carlo an idea.
‘That was my sergeant,’ Carlo said after he ended the call. ‘Mandretta knows about you, Adelina.’
‘How the hell could he?’
‘There was a guy hiding behind the bar you didn’t get. He saw you, and he knew you.’
Let her think they know her name, Carlo thought. It might make things easier.
Adelina muttered to herself and pulled at her lower lip with her teeth.
‘That means they’ll be coming for you soon,’ Carlo said. ‘So what’s your plan?’
Salim Mandretta stood at his
balcony window, looking down on the wide, curving stretch of beach below. Tourists had started to appear, small clusters of people moving around, looking like matchsticks from his vantage point.
Mandretta moved the thin stiletto around in his hands, fingering its highly intricate ivory handle, then suddenly spun round and hurled it at a corkboard on the wall, placed there for this very purpose. His aim was good and the dagger hit dead centre. This eased his mood a little, because he had been trying to get hold of Gianluca all day. When one of his men went missing like this it usually meant they had been arrested or killed or were up to no good. Mandretta thought it might be the third option in this case. He’d sensed something brewing in Gianluca for months – that his trusty foot soldier wanted more, a feeling Mandretta knew well because it had always been present in himself. We all want more, he thought, we all want to control, to be the main man, that’s what makes us what we are. But only a few were born to do it, and that was something that people like Gianluca could never understand.
Mandretta was jerked out of his thoughts by his phone ringing. It was Marco, the barman who had lived through the raid on the Satisfaction. Mandretta was about to ask him if he’d seen Gianluca, but was stopped by the barman’s news.
‘We know who she is, boss.’
‘What?’
‘That crazy dame who shot up the club. I done what you said, and worked my way through every connection downtown we got. A bent beat cop recognised her, said it was Adelina Cervi, a homicide cop who hasn’t worked for a long time and that’s why she’s been so hard to find. She’s a rich bitch too, lives up in one of them big places out of town.’ Marco paused for breath and the accolades that didn’t come.
‘Okay,’ Mandretta said. ‘Now we know. Marco, Gianluca’s off the radar, so you go find him for me and get his arse over here pretty damn quick. And tell him he better have a fucking good excuse.’
Mandretta hung up before Marco could say anything else. He remembered that cop – she was the tall dyke who’d hassled him about five years ago, when Palermo’s finest actually thought they were winning. Mandretta poured himself a glass of Marsala, savouring it as he thought how much he would enjoy putting his plans for Signorina Cervi into action.
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