Stiletto Sisters (Kindle Single)

by Roger Granelli

  Leo’s phone call had given everyone in the room something else to focus on, and Carlo felt that any immediate danger had passed. For Carlo, the events of the past few hours were a worrying development that would confuse matters even further, but at least Mandretta and his crew did not know who the vigilantes were, and neither did anyone else in Palermo. The local papers had overdosed on the story, glad of the boost to their circulation, but no theories had even come close to the truth. How could they?

  Leo got to Cervi’s villa with Gianluca in tow as quickly as he could. When Carlo had called Leo back they’d agreed it was the best thing to do, the best out of a few very poor choices. Marianna recognised Gianluca as a frequent brothel visitor, and she whispered this news to the other women, causing them all to look at the Mafioso as a wolf pack might regard a cornered lamb.

  The handcuffed Gianluca was too bewildered by the situation to be concerned – and was quite the opposite, in fact. He straightened up and tossed back his hair. Then he recognised Marianna and broke into a wide smile.

  ‘Hey, it’s the little Albanian slut from Satisfaction. What you doing here, baby?’

  Marianna revealed the gun she always carried now and stepped towards Gianluca, flicking off the safety catch as she neared him. Gianluca’s face froze.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he said, looking at Leo for support that did not come.

  Adelina stopped Marianna with a hand. ‘So, Sergeant Bracchi,’ she said, ‘you have brought us a prize, if you can call this piece of filth that.’

  ‘Who are these, Carpanini?’ Gianluca said in an attempt at bravado. ‘Who are these broads –your bitches or what?’

  Adelina smiled at this and turned to get something from behind the sofa. It was her Obama mask, and as she put it on slowly the penny finally dropped for Gianluca.

  ‘You got to be kidding me,’ he mumbled, more to himself than anyone in the room.

  ‘No one jokes here,’ Adelina said. She tossed the mask to Marianna. ‘Lock this slime in the cellar.’

  Gianluca was led out with Marianna’s handgun pressed into his back.

  ‘This is fucking crazy, Carpanini,’ Gianluca yelled as he went. ‘Broads, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘He seems confused,’ Adelina said to Carlo.

  ‘Of course he is. This is well outside GL’s experience,’ Carlo said. Then he murmured ‘. . . mine too’ to himself.

  Salim Mandretta sat in a small café close to Palermo Cathedral. It was one of his favourite spots in the city. He liked grand Sicilian buildings that spoke of power, privilege and money, all the things he had aspired to and had achieved.

  Mandretta spooned the chocolate-speckled froth of his cappuccino slowly into his mouth as he gazed at the ornate entrance to the cathedral. He wondered how many people knew that the church had been built over a mosque. There was even an Islamic inscription still visible at the base of a front column. He liked this aspect of history, the way one culture could crush another, and how the situation reversed as life went on in an inexorable ebb and flow of struggle and violence.

  Mancini entered the café, his bulky form silhouetted against the sunlight outside. He joined Mandretta at his private booth, well away from paying customers but with a good view of the street outside. Since Gianluca was missing, Mancini had gladly stepped into the role of first foot soldier, and he meant to keep it, even if that cheap punk did turn up again. Mandretta knew this and approved of it, as competition meant the survival of the fittest and that seemed the most natural thing in the world to him.

  ‘So, what you got?’ Mandretta said.

  ‘That Cervi villa is nicely out of the way, boss. Perfect for us. Six men will be more than enough.’

  ‘Nah, we’ll take more than that,’ Mandretta said. ‘I don’t want no slip-ups. This has to be stamped out now. Women avengers, for fuck’s sake. If this gets out, who knows where it might end.’

  For the first time in years Mandretta suddenly thought of his mother, the shadowy figure that had seemed to live in the kitchen, which his father had told him was her place. Mandretta had travelled around a lot, he’d seen how life was changing in other countries, but he didn’t expect it to here, not on his island. His blood boiled at the thought.

  ‘How many women are involved in this?’ Mandretta asked.

  ‘Four hit our clubs I think, plus the getaway man – eh, I mean woman.’

  ‘They could all be cops, or ex-cops, so this will take planning.’

  Mancini shrugged and emptied the bottle of beer the Don had given him in one long draught. ‘They won’t be expecting it, boss.’

  ‘Any news on Gianluca?’

  ‘Nope. GL seems to have disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘Yeah, but disappeared where, though? That’s what worries me.’

  Carlo sat with Leo on a seat carved out of stone in what was left of Adelina’s orchard. It had not been tended for years and it showed. A few seasons’ worth of old apples, prickly pears and lemons lay all around them. This was a graveyard for rotting fruit, and most of the trees looked as if they were about to die from lack of interest. Only the orange trees looked healthy.

  ‘This place gives me the creeps,’ Leo said as he nursed his grazed knuckles. ‘Do you really think we should be here, boss?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, at least I can’t be in any more trouble,’ Leo muttered. ‘They can’t take my badge away more than once.’

  ‘Let the women have time to talk things over, now that they know their cover is blown.’

  ‘And then what? They stop and everything is forgotten? Salim Mandretta wouldn’t forget if you stole five euros from him, let alone blew his clubs apart. And people have died here, even if they were scumbags.’

  Carlo closed his eyes and let the sun warm his face. He realised he had another fifteen years to go before he could draw his police pension, and right now that seemed a long, long time. He could feel this job ageing him fast, but there was not much he could do about that now.

  ‘Boss, you okay?’

  ‘Sure. Right, Leo, this is the best plan I can come up with. Feel free to shoot it down, because I’m not too sure about it myself. If I had any sense I’d go straight upstairs with all this shit.’

  ‘Yeah, but you won’t will you, and I’ll tell you why. You’ve become just a little bit Sicilian – in another thirty years you’ll be one of us.’ Leo said this with a nod and a wink but Carlo knew he was equally worried.

  ‘I can’t say I’m thrilled,’ Carlo said, ‘but having GL here might be our ace in the hole, if we can turn him. I’m thinking we can use him as bait to get Mandretta here and—’

  ‘Do what, boss? He’ll come mob-handed. Yeah, I know we pulled that stunt with Tomasso Cruci a few years back but that was an official police operation and this certainly isn’t – but hey, it’s truly Sicilian, like I said, and I like it. If we can take Mandretta down I think the other Families will tolerate it. No one wants this story to come out – women taking it to the Mafia . . . And they’ll pick apart Mandretta’s empire between them like the greedy vultures they are. I’ll go back in now and check on GL, get him in the mood for what’s coming next.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll come back in and talk to the women in a minute.’

  Mancini arrived just after Leo had gone back into the villa, but Carlo was still in full view. Mancini watched him from his spot on the mountain ridge top. His powerful field glasses enlarged the man into a fine target, and he imagined taking him down with his favourite rifle. One heart shot before that cop knew what was happening, before he knew he was dead.

  Mancini couldn’t wait for the action to start. This would be a nice little private war, out of sight of the prying world, the way wars on the island should be. He sped away in his black Alfa, wondering where Leo was. He wanted to kill that one himself, because the boss had asked Bracchi to repay a debt and he hadn’t played ball. That was poor behaviour – and poor behaviour must never be tolerated.
r />   Adelina sat with Marianna on the ridge above her villa. It was high enough for them to look towards a gently smoking Mount Etna. Marianna leaned against her much larger lover, enjoying the warmth of her body and the keen air.

  ‘Etna is a woman’s name,’ Adelina murmured, nodding towards the volcano. ‘Did you know that? I like it. It’s powerful, unpredictable, and likely to erupt at any time.’

  Marianna dug Adelina in the ribs and laughed. ‘Like you,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Will we work with these men, Carpanini and the fat one?’

  ‘Leo’s not that big – well, not like he used to be, anyway. Yes, we’ll have to work with them. As men go, they’re not too bad.’

  Marianna set her mouth in resignation, which prompted a smile and a hug from Adelina.

  ‘Don’t look so disappointed, my little gypsy, things could be much worse. Things can always be much worse. Come on, Mari, it’s time to go back.’

  As they walked back to the villa, Adelina began to think of things she had suppressed for years. Her life had been one of distances, particularly emotional ones. Her parents had always seemed too old and too busy to bother much with her, and even when she was a little girl she had felt that she didn’t belong. Her father had obviously agreed, because he’d shipped her off to a boarding school in Rome as soon as he could. She’d hated it there; it had been a gloomy place that smelled of old money and conformity, run by nuns who had medieval views about women and their role in Italian society. It wasn’t much better when she came home for the holidays, and any affection she’d had in those days came from the servants, who always made a fuss of ‘Little Ady’.

  Adelina’s father had died suddenly of a heart attack when she was nineteen, but she’d felt very little emotion. Her mother followed on six months later, when she lost control of her car and ploughed off a mountain road into ravine. After that, Adelina knew nothing could ever be put right, and a new sense of freedom soon took over.

  The turning of Gianluca was not easy, but nor was it the impossible task Carlo had first thought it would be. In this, he played a supporting role as Sergeant Bracchi took over.

  ‘Let me do this, boss,’ Leo had urged. ‘No offence, but it takes a Sicilian to do this. It’s sort of inbred, you might say.’

  It took him an intense hour. Leo might not have known much about Shakespeare, but what was acted out would have fitted perfectly into one of the Bard’s most tortured efforts. It was a masterclass in bullying, cajoling, threatening and appealing, sprinkled with liberal amounts of casual violence. Carlo saw another side of his long-time sergeant and he wasn’t sure that he liked it, but he was impressed.

  GL was tied to an old chair in the dank former wine cellar of the Cervi villa, now empty apart from a cobweb-laced layer of dust and a few pieces of rickety furniture.

  ‘All this dust is bringing on my asthma again, GL,’ Leo said with a wink, as he paced around the chair like an intrigued bear.

  ‘Fuck you, Leo,’ Gianluca said.

  Leo backhanded him without turning around, surprise mixing with pain on the prisoner’s face. Blood started to trickle from both nostrils as Gianluca tried to snort it away.

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Language please, GL. This is not a good start.’

  This time Leo turned and got up close, almost face to face. ‘Look, I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to turn your face into a war zone, handsome young guy like you. I don’t want to smear that fine nose all over your cheekbones, and how about those teeth? Talk about the pearly gates. Be a shame to destroy them.’

  Leo bunched up his fist and pulled back his muscular right arm, enjoying the way Gianluca tried to shrink back into his chair. ‘Look, we’re giving you a chance here, GL. Help us and you help yourself. And who knows where that might lead? We could work together.’ Leo nodded towards Carlo. ‘The chief inspector and me, just so you know, are always available for kickbacks, any time, and off anyone. You’d be surprised who we’ve done deals with.’

  Gianluca looked at Carlo sceptically. A smudge of blood had now gathered on his upper lip, giving him a red Hitler-like moustache. ‘They say this northerner is a straight cop.’

  ‘Get real, GL, you know there ain’t any. Mandretta’s going down, and nothing’s gonna change that. No one’s too big for a fall – remember Tomasso Cruci? So here’s your chance to claim the place you deserve . . . Salim don’t give two fucks about you anyway. Hey, I’ll even forget you took a shot at me – well, maybe not.’

  Before Gianluca had time to respond, Leo hit him with his right, a powerful shot that knocked him and the chair backwards on to the floor. Carlo winced and shut his eyes momentarily. He didn’t approve, but would not step in. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Leo pulled a groaning Gianluca upright on his chair. The earlier damage to his face had been joined by new marks, and his left eye was now an angry closed-up gouge of purple. ‘Now, where were we?’ Leo said. ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, about working with us? No, don’t say anything. You listen and I’ll talk. Help us take your boss man down and you can take his place. This could be your chance, a lifetime partnership with Palermo’s finest. You’ll have euros sprouting from your arse – hey, we all will.’

  Gianluca’s face registered confusion and pain, but Leo knew he’d soon be thinking of opportunities. It was in his soul, the gnawing hunger that caused these people to do so much evil.

  Carlo looked on as if he were an audience of one, and this was certainly an amazing performance by Leo. Carlo wasn’t sure that his big sergeant hadn’t hit Gianluca too hard because the man did not seem to want to stay awake. Leo noticed and instantly changed tack, putting a broad arm around Gianluca’s sagging shoulders.

  ‘The horns of love and hate are on the same goat, GL,’ Leo said quietly and almost with affection. ‘My grandmother always used to tell me that. She came down from the mountains looking for work in the old days, just like your people. Yeah, you hate me now, but we’re from the same stock. So work with us and who knows where we might be further down the line? If you don’t, you’re looking at twenty years for taking a shot at me. Good-looking guy like you will have a great time inside – I’ll make sure of it. You’ll share a cell with one of your Camorra buddies from Naples, some ape who likes boys.’

  The cellar door opened and Adelina beckoned Carlo outside. ‘The girls are getting nervous,’ she said.

  ‘Well, these are nervous times. Leo will get his way with Gianluca, so it’s time to talk over options.’

  ‘You’re not going to trust that sewer rat, are you?’ Adelina said.

  ‘Of course not, but we can use him. Leo’s doing a good job with him. We’ll sell Gianluca the dream of power and see where that takes us.’

  ‘Power, that’s all men think about.’

  Carlo thought of giving her the stock answer that all men were not alike but then thought better of it. At this moment he felt like he was caught at the crossroads of three streets, with the vigilantes, Mandretta and Gianluca all hurtling towards him at breakneck speed. And he knew he was using a similar plan to the one he’d used a few years ago to bring down Tomasso Cruci. That one had been far less complicated and still almost went astray. That was the trouble when you were dealing with madmen.

  Carlo spent thirty minutes talking with Adelina. By the time she had reluctantly agreed with him, Leo appeared with his victim. Gianluca would normally have shown a mixture of contempt and defiance but Leo had done his job well. All the stuffing had been knocked out of the man, though Carlo knew it would soon return. Every crook from Palermo bounced back; they were like lizards growing another limb. It was part of their DNA.

  ‘Where the hell you been and what the fuck’s happened to you? You look like you’ve gone ten rounds with my first wife.’ Salim Mandretta flicked an inch of cigar ash towards Gianluca, spraying him with fine dust. ‘Well? It had better be good, GL. Don’t tell me you fell down no fucking stairs.’

&n
bsp; Gianluca ruefully rubbed a hand over his wounded eye. It was open again, two days after the Leo Bracchi treatment. He’d had it all worked out, but standing before Mandretta his mouth was dry and his nerves shot.

  This only increased as a side door opened and Tony Mancini entered the room. Gianluca had never liked the man, but knew that from now on he had to think like the Don he hoped to become, and that if all went to plan Mancini would be one of his men. Gianluca straightened the collar of his hand-tailored jacket and began the monologue that he had rehearsed in his head so many times.

  ‘Now hear me out, okay, boss, without going nuts . . .’

  Mancini began to snigger until Mandretta silenced him with a glare.

  ‘I’ve had to kill Leo Bracchi,’ Gianluca blurted out.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘He picked me up the other day. Took me to some place he knew up in the hills. He wanted me to break omertà and turn informer. He kept me there for two days, all the time talking about how good it would be for me and how much he hated you, boss.’

  ‘Hated me?’

  ‘Yeah. Said you insulted his mother. Said all sorts of things I can’t repeat.’

  ‘Repeat them.’

  ‘Boss, I can’t . . .’

  ‘Do it!’

  Gianluca looked at the floor and mumbled.

  Mandretta grasped his favourite stiletto, clenching it so hard his knuckles began to whiten. Gianluca knew Mandretta had killed with it in his early days, and this encouraged him to talk more clearly.

  ‘He said you were just a jumped-up scumbag from Libya and that you’re a crazy animal –sorry, boss.’

  GL loved saying this, despite the fear coursing through him. He hoped his acting would get him through this. He felt Mancini’s eyes on him from the side and Mandretta’s to the front. No one said anything for a while, but you could have cut the tension in the room with Mandretta’s knife, and it seemed like a small lifetime to Gianluca before he was able to go on.