The Prince

by Vito Bruschini

  Captain Lorenzo Costa had been given specific orders from Rome: he was to get to the bottom of the murder of Marquis Bellarato and find out who his killer was, whether there were others behind it, and why the brutal castration. It was essential that a determined resolve to punish the guilty parties, whoever they were, be demonstrated to the population. The captain was also responsible for investigating the disappearance of Nicola Geraci, the attorney for the socialist or “red” leagues of Petralia Sottana. The state had to present a show of force and the Royal Guard were just the solution, since they were composed of ex-soldiers who, discharged and unable to find work after returning from the Great War, had settled for joining a paramilitary body.

  The battlefield of the Royal Guard turned out to be the streets and piazzas of the cities, and their enemies, the citizens. Before long their uniform was loathed by any political group that hoped to organize demonstrations or public gatherings. The Royal Guard were particularly determined and vicious in their interventions, so that often their appearance in the piazzas was enough to turn even the most diehard demonstrators into docile lambs.

  The convoy entered a deserted Salemi and headed for the piazza of the Convento di San Francesco, a massive red brick building surmounted by a tall crenellated tower. One wing of the convent had been assigned to the forty men who were under the command of Captain Costa.

  As soon as Lorenzo Costa stepped out of the jeep, Chief Brigadier Montalto went to meet him as though he were an old friend and gave him a military salute. “Captain, did you have a good trip?”

  Costa snapped rigidly to attention and did not reply to the courteous question. “I wish to set up our headquarters immediately.”

  “But don’t you want to rest a little, freshen up? Shall I have them bring you some lemonade?” the chief brigadier continued amiably.

  “I don’t have time for all that. I’m afraid there’s a lot to do before we can return home. So let’s get a move on.”

  Montalto filled him in on the facts concerning the investigation of Marquis Bellarato’s death. Lorenzo Costa insisted on making an immediate inspection of the palazzo that had been destroyed by fire. He brought along half of his men, who poked around through the rubble searching for clues. However, they had no idea what to look for, since they weren’t investigators but ex-soldiers who had experienced the horrors of trench warfare.

  The work done by Montalto and his team had been more than satisfactory. The only clue that might identify the second body, the probable murderer, was a medal that had been spared by the fire, stuck between the remains of the victim’s clothing and his skin. The chief brigadier opened a locker and removed the medal from a small envelope.

  “Here it is,” he said, handing it to Costa, who examined it closely. It was one of those aluminum medals that are given out in school to children who distinguish themselves for the best essay or the best performance in gymnastics. One side portrayed Saint Christopher crossing a river carrying the child Jesus on his shoulders, while the other side displayed the symbol of a winged victory.

  “I know for certain who owned this medal. It meant more to him than anything else,” Montalto explained. “He had won it in a cross-country race during the feast of Saint Christopher.”

  “His name?” the captain asked curtly.

  “Salvatore Turrisi.” Montalto opened a register that listed everyone who had a police record. He leafed through its pages until he found the name. “Here it is: he was born in 1895.”

  “Barely twenty-six years old,” Captain Lorenzo Costa thought.

  “Turrisi also had a motive to kill Bellarato,” the chief continued. “The marquis had accused him of having sexual relations with a shepherd and then killing the boy. He went into hiding and became an outlaw because of that accusation. He was a member of Gaetano Vassallo’s band.”

  “Vassallo’s gang will be wiped out; that’s what we’re here for. And we won’t make any allowances,” Lorenzo Costa decreed. “This time they really went too far.

  “Was the fire started by them?”

  “I think it broke out accidentally,” Montalto told him. “Bellarato may have tried to defend himself with a burning log from the fireplace, where, we’ve established, a fire was lit . . . In short, I believe Turrisi got trapped in the flames.”

  Afterward, the captain wanted to hear about all the notable events that had occurred in Salemi over the past six months, so the meeting with the chief brigadier went on for another two hours at least. By the end of the lengthy conversation, the captain had formed a very clear idea of the social dynamics that characterized the most recent period in that Sicilian town.

  His first order was to have the Turrisi family’s house placed under secret watch. He had two of his men stationed in a dwelling that had been abandoned years earlier by a family of emigrants, located opposite the entrance to Salvatore Turrisi’s brother Curzio’s house. Curzio too was in hiding with the outlaw Vassallo. Costa knew that bandits periodically returned to their families, for one thing, to see their children again and embrace their wives, and also to replenish their supplies.

  The trap snapped shut on Curzio one night in late spring. The Royal Guard were kind enough to wait for him to perform his conjugal duties before violently taking action. After the lights in the house went out, they waited one more hour. Then Captain Costa gave a signal, and about a dozen men moved in; the other twenty or so remained outside the house to close off any escape route. The Royal Guard broke down the door and rushed into the house in pairs.

  Biagio, Curzio’s six-year-old son, woke up with a start and began to cry. One of the guards grabbed him and covered his mouth. Meanwhile, the others climbed to the second floor of the dwelling, where they burst into the bedroom, surprising Curzio without his underwear and Vincenza, his wife, with her long white petticoat pulled up to her belly. Curzio just had time to get off his wife when two guards pinned him down, pressing him into the floor. The woman straightened her clothes with unexpected composure. Thinking immediately of her son, she shouted, “Biagio!” Then she was about to leap out of bed, but she too was immobilized by two other Royal Guard.

  Shortly thereafter Captain Costa appeared at the door. With a look, he signaled to the two soldiers holding the woman to let her go. As soon as they released their prey, she raced out of the room and down the stairs to her son, violently yanking away the soldier who was clutching him. She hugged the child, and the boy was able to breathe again as he wept.

  Captain Costa approached Curzio, though with his head pressed against the floor, the man couldn’t see him. “Curzio Turrisi, the day of judgment has arrived for you too. Let’s go have a little chat.” From that day on, throughout the entire territory of Salemi, the words “Let’s go have a little chat” became synonymous with trials and tribulations for the poor devils to whom they were directed.

  The captain had set up a kind of interrogation room in one of the cellars of the convent where the Royal Guard was quartered, and in the months to come, the people of Salemi would describe it as “the slaughterhouse,” for those walls witnessed atrocities that would shame the human race.

  The room was furnished only with a dark wooden chair, its two arms equipped with sturdy leather straps, a plank-bed secured to the wall by two clamps, and, in the center, a zinc tub filled with water. Nothing more.

  The Royal Guard had bound Curzio’s wrists with the two straps. Little more than thirty, the poor farmer had not been born to lead the life of a bandit. For him, the family was the center of the universe, but he had been forced to go into hiding and increase the ranks of Vassallo’s band because of a dispute he’d had with his master, Baron Adragna.

  Now imprisoned in the chair, Curzio raised his head and saw Captain Lorenzo Costa, in his impeccable blue uniform, approaching with a blackened medal resting in his palm.

  “Do you recognize it?” the captain asked, turning the medal over so that Curzio could see both sides. Since Curzio seemed to be ignoring him, he repeated more vehement
ly, “Do you recognize it?”

  Curzio looked at the medal, and then looked up and nodded.

  “Whom did it belong to?” Captain Costa pressed.

  “You know who, Captain. My brother, Salvatore,” Curzio replied, his eyes growing moist.

  “You know what happened to your brother, don’t you?”

  He shook his head “no” and lied, because word that Salvatore had died in the blaze at Marquis Bellarato’s palazzo had spread not only through the valleys of Salemi but also even beyond the Madonie Mountains.

  “Your brother first emasculated Marquis Bellarato, then murdered him like a dog,” the captain summarized. “Too bad he too was killed by an unforeseen event: the fire that the marquis himself may have started when trying to defend himself. But these are things that everyone knows by now.” Costa moved close to Curzio’s ear and whispered, “What I want from you is information that few, except those directly involved, know.” Those words made Curzio, who was not a lionhearted soul, shiver. “Both of you were members of Gaetano Vassallo’s gang. It’s clear that someone first ordered Vassallo to make the socialist politician Nicola Geraci disappear, and then, just to confuse the investigators, sent your brother to kill Marquis Bellarato, since Salvatore had a score to settle with him.”

  “Vassallo has nothing to do with these events,” Curzio mumbled, though not very convincingly.

  “So tell me: Were you present when Gaetano Vassallo met with Rosario Losurdo?” the captain asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “And by chance, isn’t Losurdo Prince Ferdinando Licata’s gabellotto?” Costa persisted.

  “I’m not saying another word. You’re trying to set me up; you want to put words in my mouth that I don’t want to say. I don’t know anything about this.” And he shut his mouth defiantly.

  “We’ll see about that,” was Captain Lorenzo Costa’s only response.

  Curzio then got a personal introduction to the tub found in the middle of the room. It was one of the most common methods used at the time to force suspects to confess to things they would otherwise never have confessed to.

  The prisoner was made to undress completely, and then, summer or winter, he was plunged into icy water. The tub was too small for him to fit in entirely. His arms and legs, which were left dangling, were secured with wire to the sides of the tub, where metal rings had been specially welded. Immersed in salt water, the unfortunate victim would then be flogged with a scourge made from dried, braided ox tendons. The lashes stung more because of the salt water, but in return they did not leave any marks. If the man managed to resist the whipping—since often they had nothing to confess—the torturers would rip out his beard or mustache, one hair at a time, then with pliers move on to his nails, and finally burn the soles of his feet. If he still refused to talk, then it was time for the electric current, applied to his most delicate, intimate parts. During the interims, a funnel was shoved in his mouth and, with his nostrils pinched, he was forced to swallow salt water until his stomach distended grotesquely.

  Though this method would have made even the Jesuits of the Inquisition blanch, it managed to contain the spread of criminality and the rise of subversive organizations in Sicily well past the end of fascism.

  Curzio Turrisi did not experience all the variations of the cassetta, or “box,” as the tub was referred to in jargon. He was only able to endure it until they started tearing out his whiskers; then he succumbed and said he was willing to sign any document. Captain Costa then personally dictated a statement accusing Gaetano Vassallo’s band of having carried out the two murders on behalf of an anonymous third party. That confession was enough to give Lorenzo Costa license to operate above the law itself.

  The strategy used by the captain to find Gaetano Vassallo was the same one he had used to capture Curzio Turrisi. Searching for the bandit in the mountains would have been like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. So instead of hunting him on his own terrain, where the chances of success would be much slimmer, Costa decided to keep the dwellings and farms of Vassallo’s relatives under surveillance from a distance. Especially the homestead of Geremia Vassallo, the brother who, with his wife, Rosalia, had taken on the care of the newborn twins and the two other children: Jano, the oldest, seven years of age, and Giovanni, a year younger.

  Geremia, a sharecropper on the estate of a nobleman from Palermo, lived on a modest farm in Borgo Guarine, not far from Montagna Grande, the mountains where Vassallo’s band gathered when they had to plan some villainous deed.

  Captain Lorenzo Costa was able to wait. He knew from experience that it was only a matter of time, weeks or months maybe, but sooner or later the rat would return to its hole, triggering the trap.

  Finally, one evening in late July, the trap sprang shut—and by the following morning, Salemi’s world would never be the same again.

  Chapter 16

  – 1939 –

  Ferdinando Licata was packing his own suitcase for the trip to Trapani. As he threw his personal effects into the leather bag, he found himself wondering whether he had more friends or enemies. It wasn’t the first time such strange thoughts had surfaced. At first he had driven them back into the black hole of the mind, but recently his brain had begun to embellish them, and sometimes despair prevailed, casting him into a deep state of gloom. Even the trips to Trapani to which he periodically treated himself had become the source of poignant reflection. Up until ten years ago, those trips had taken place weekly. Then he had began to spread the visits out to a couple of times a month, and then once a month. But finally he’d let a good three months go by since he’d last set off. He considered the constant packing and unpacking one of the many failures of his life. Turning his back on a family of his own, a wife, a child, was a decision that at the beginning hadn’t cost him much concern. On the contrary, when he saw married men his age continually complaining about their wives, he felt privileged. He had managed to dodge the snares of marriage and boasted about it when other aristocrats held him up as an example. And all thanks to his sister Lavinia, who took care of running the palazzo.

  Over the years, he had become a devoted customer at Francesca Gravina’s brothel, known as one of the most exclusive in all of Sicily. He’d had sexual relations with young girls experiencing their first encounter as well as with more mature ladies, not to mention noblewomen who in the privacy of Francesca’s alcoves sought to commit adultery with one of the island’s most renowned men, though few people could claim to truly know him. With some of these women, the encounters had even gone on for several months. But when he began to see that feelings were outweighing passion, Ferdinando Licata always managed to very gently break the hold and continue the life of a perpetual bachelor.

  Lately his visits to Francesca’s establishment had become increasingly sporadic. His mind was not as blithe and carefree as it was when he was young.

  That day, as he packed his suitcase, a hundred questions arose in his mind. He felt an overwhelming need for affection other than the kind he had known so far, a deep attachment that only a son can give. For some time now the many mistakes he’d made in his lifetime had been rising to the surface of his consciousness. The prince had attempted to silence those inner voices, but so far without success. He had hoped that the humiliation of the lavatio, the washing of his peasants’ feet, could produce the desired result, but it had all been useless.

  He decided that after the visit to Trapani he would face Manfredi and tell him that he could no longer sell him the Madonnuzza land. He would go back on his word. And what is a man if he loses his honor and dignity? Rosario Losurdo, his partner in villainy, had asked him for a favor. He could have refused him, he had the power and authority.

  For days and days Ferdinando Licata was undecided whether to follow the path of honor or that of expediency. In the end he chose the path of least resistance. Crime is an unyielding partner. You can only break away if you are very strong and determined to free y
ourself, despite having to suffer the consequences.

  So he climbed into the Alfa Romeo, and, saying good-bye to his sister, Lavinia, headed for Trapani. He was still driving along the back road in the direction of Calatafimi, before reaching the state highway, when he saw the Fiat pickup belonging to Jano’s gang of Black Shirts emerge from a side road at moderate speed and proceed in his direction. Only the driver was in the cab, sniggering while glancing into the external rear-view mirror to see what was happening behind him. In the truck bed were five rowdy thugs, shouting and waving clubs in the air. Ferdinando Licata followed their gaze to see who they were harassing. Finally, he realized who the object of their excitement was. He recognized the unmistakably thick beard of Ciccio Vinciguerra, the destitute farmworker who had been at the Hundred Saints ceremony. His hands were tied to a long rope attached to the truck’s tailgate. The poor man had been running for countless miles, pulled along like an animal, trying to avoid falling to the ground and being dragged. He was exhausted and had no more strength left. His torturers’ sadism, however, was well calibrated, because the truck was moving at a slow enough speed so that Vinciguerra would not stumble and fall. Seeing what was happening, Licata made an abrupt U-turn, accelerated, passed the truck, and with a sharp swerve stopped his car crossways on the road. Since the driver was distracted by his comrades’ shrieks, Licata thought it wise to run toward the truck and shout for him to stop. When the driver finally noticed the obstacle, he stepped on the brake as hard as he could. The pickup slid a few yards along the dirt road. The five in back, taken by surprise, tumbled over one another on the bottom of the truck bed. Meanwhile, Ciccio Vinciguerra kept running from inertia and collapsed behind the stopped vehicle, worn out, his lungs gasping for breath.

  Licata went to him and began undoing the rope’s knots. Meanwhile, Jano appeared over the side of the truck bed, enraged by the unexpected occurrence.

  “What the hell is going on?” he yelled, his eyes bulging from their sockets. He jumped down with his club in hand, ready to use it. “Who the devil is butting in?” he hollered.