It was still night as they approached Salemi, satisfied to have completed a mission that would undoubtedly earn them the praise of the Allies and Don Calò himself.
Pericle Terrasini was up on the seat, driving the mule, while his three friends sat in the cart, laughing and joking, imitating the Germans’ faces when they discovered the prank. It was Pericle who first spotted Jano Vassallo and his Black Shirts stationed on the road leading back to town.
“There’s Jano!” he called out, instinctively pulling in the reins so that the mule came to a stop.
“Christ!” Nicola Cosentino swore. “What are you doing? Go on, keep going.”
Pericle slackened the reins, and the mule started walking again.
“Let me do the talking,” Nicola whispered, climbing onto the seat next to Pericle. They drove up to the group of combat leaguers. The whole gang was there, Nicola thought: Ginetto, Cosimo, Prospero, Quinto, and even Nunzio.
“Hey there!” Nicola raised his hand in greeting.
“Nice night for a drive,” Jano said sarcastically, taking hold of the mule’s bit; the animal stopped patiently.
“We had a party for my sister Assuntina,” Nicola replied.
“And those are your party clothes?” Jano laughed, shaking his head.
“A simple gathering; she got engaged to Toni.”
“Who, Toni the babbalucco? That idiot?” He looked around for his men’s approval; up till then they’d remained pokerfaced, not saying a word. A few smirked.
“No, Toni the mule driver,” Nicola answered seriously. He took the reins from Pericle and cracked the whip so the mule would start walking again. “He loaned us his cart to get home.”
But Jano stopped the animal that was about to set off again, holding the bit tightly. “Where do you think you’re going, Nicola Cosentino?”
“I told you, home.”
“Wanna bet you’ll end up in jail tonight?” Jano threatened him.
“Why? What did I do? What are you accusing me of, driving a mule without a license?”
He managed to hold his own against the Black Shirt, but Jano was tired of playing cat and mouse. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the four of you for some time. And tonight I finally caught you with your hands in the cookie jar. Are you dealing in the black market? Or worse yet, are you playing along with the infiltrators? Don’t you know there’s the firing squad for insurgents and saboteurs?”
No one answered.
“Well? Nothing to say?” He handed the mule’s bridle to Ginetto.
He walked around the cart and leaned his fists on the wagon bed, which had no rear panel. First he stared at Turi Toscano, who met his gaze for a while. Then he turned to the boy sitting on the cart bed, his head lowered.
“Pepè, what are you doing with these people?” Jano asked him.
Instead of looking up, the boy’s head sank even lower between his knees.
“Do you want to give your grandfather a stroke?” Jano persisted. But the boy didn’t answer.
“Leave him alone. Take it out on us if you have to,” Turi Toscano spoke up.
“I’m not talking to you, Turi,” Jano said and turned back to the boy. “So, Pepè, are you going to tell me what you were doing tonight with your friends?”
After still more silence, Jano walked around the cart, came up behind the boy, and whispered in his ear: “You’re young, but maybe somebody explained to you how the ‘box’ works. In any case, I’ll tell you myself: it’s an instrument that loosens the tongues of even the most hardened bastards.”
The boy covered his ears and was about to burst into tears. Then he turned around and shouted at him, “We didn’t do anything! Nothing! It was only a prank, just for laughs!”
“That’s enough, Jano, stop hounding him,” Nicola Cosentino spoke up. “I’ll tell you what we did: we signed an insurance policy for when the Americans come. Your days are numbered, people like you. You lost, Jano, face it. You and your friends have no future anymore. Fascism is finished!”
“Who filled your head with such grand ideas?” Jano shot back, but his tone was no longer sarcastic.
“Everybody in Sicily knows that in a few weeks the Americans will come to liberate us. Those who collaborated with them will be rewarded. Those like you who continue to fight for the Duce and a king who betrayed us will get what they deserve,” Nicola Cosentino said.
“Who’s saying these things?” Jano asked seriously.
Nicola replied just as seriously, “You know who Don Calò is, don’t you?”
Jano considered for a few seconds.
“Let’s make a pact, then,” he proposed. “I’ll close my eyes and ears to what you did tonight. And you’ll put in a good word for us when your American friends arrive.” He walked away from the cart and with a nod ordered his cronies to step back. His gang of bullies looked at him in surprise, not understanding the reason for his change of heart. Ginetto thought it was a ploy to catch their quarry unawares once they reached their destination; Nicola and the others thought so too. It wasn’t Jano’s style to let his prey go once he sank his teeth into them.
The four friends were so sure that Jano and his men would attack them unexpectedly that they set out toward the town’s piazza with terror in their hearts, not saying another word, constantly looking behind them.
* * *
In reality, Jano, like a skilled quick-change artist, had sensed that the direction of the wind was changing, and had made up his mind to take the leap and side with those who would be steering things during the period following the dictatorship’s collapse. But to get an endorsement like that, he would have to exact it from an undisputed authority. He decided to go see Don Calò.
It was late afternoon when he got to Villalba, accompanied by Ginetto, who had driven the truck the entire way. Jano had someone point out Calogero Vizzini’s house and told his friend to wait in the piazza.
Thursday afternoons were set aside for people making petitions. Anyone—not just the inhabitants of Villalba, but from nearby villages as well—could approach Vizzini and plead a cause. Don Calò would solve the problem one way or another, depending on who he knew. Rarely did a petitioner leave without being satisfied. That could happen only if the person who sought remedy did so against the interests of someone who was a closer friend than the supplicant himself.
The door of the house was open. There was complete silence, and Jano tried to get the attention of someone inside. “May I come in?” he called loudly. An elderly man appeared from a corridor and shuffled toward him, motioning for him to lower his voice.
“Come in; that’s why the door is open,” he whispered.
The old man led Jano to a small, bare room, where a row of straw-bottomed chairs were lined up along the wall, all but one of them occupied. When Jano entered, everyone’s eyes turned toward him. Jano was wearing his black shirt, and Black Shirts weren’t viewed kindly in Sicily. Then they all went back to their ponderings. Jano whispered a greeting and took the last empty seat.
“Did you come a long way?” the farmer sitting next to him asked suddenly.
“Yes, from Salemi,” Jano replied.
The old man nodded, as if sympathizing with him for the long trip he’d made. “People come here from as far as Palermo. Even people who are well off.”
“Are you here for Don Calò?” Jano asked.
The old farmer wasn’t used to smiling, but he almost did, given the young man’s naive question. “Dear boy, and why are you here? For zu Calò, right?” The residents of Villalba affectionately referred to Calogero Vizzini with the title zu, “zio” or “uncle.”
“It’s my first time here,” Jano explained.
“May the good Lord sustain him for eternity. Every village should have someone like him. He’s the only one capable of setting things straight. Only he has all the qualities to be a real omu—a decent human being.”
It was already evening by the time Jano’s turn came. He entered the dining room of Calogero Viz
zini’s house. Don Calò was seated on one side of a table that must have served as a desk, dining table, and countertop, with heaps of papers scattered all over its surface. In front of him was an empty coffee cup. Jano sat down in a chair across from him. Their conversation took the form of a monologue, as Don Calò heard him out without asking any questions. Jano told him that he was tired of serving the Duce, who, when you came right down to it, hadn’t really done much for Sicily. In fact, by waging war against the Mafia, he had weakened and depleted the organization. Jano regretted the choices he’d made, and he now wanted to make available to Don Calò the power he had accumulated over those years—along with the young men under his command, who followed him unquestioningly.
Don Calò made a note of his name and the town he came from and then dismissed Jano, telling him he had nothing to worry about. When the Allies came, he too would have his assignments to carry out and his just rewards. Now, though, he had better take off that “clown suit”—referring to Jano’s shirt—and await his instructions. Jano kissed his hand. He hadn’t thought it would be so easy to wash his dirty linen after years of abusing people.
Chapter 53
After their meeting with Don Calò, Saro Ragusa and Lucky Luciano were taken to the north coast, near Termini Imerese. From there a Sicilian fisherman’s small boat ferried them to a submarine waiting offshore, which in turn brought them to Malta. Then a Douglas C-54 transported them back to America. Twenty-four hours later, Lucky Luciano was once again in his cell at Great Meadow, but with the firm hope of being able to leave it someday.
Saro, meanwhile, hurried to Ferdinando Licata’s hotel to report on how the mission had gone. He didn’t find him there, however, and no one knew his whereabouts.
The prince was busy completing the most critical phase of his plan—the most delicate and difficult to implement because it had to be endorsed by none other than the district attorney himself, Frank Hogan.
Stating who he was and reminding them of the terrible attack he’d suffered at the feast of Saint Ciro, resulting in the death of his beloved grandniece, Licata was received by Hogan on the same morning Saro returned to the United States.
It was with some apprehension that Licata climbed the stairs to the New York County District Attorney’s Office, not because he was afraid of facing the chief prosecutor but because he feared having the plan he was about to propose rejected. If that happened, his entire strategy would collapse.
Frank Hogan was waiting for him and immediately offered his condolence on the death of his niece. Licata thanked him, then sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
“Mr. Prosecutor, I am Italian, though of English origins,” the prince began. “The attack I suffered made me reflect a great deal on the malapianta: the bad seed that we have imported here in America.”
“Are you referring to the Mafia organizations?” The prosecutor was precise as always.
“Exactly so. I was thinking about what could be done to weed out this disgrace to all Italians, Mr. Prosecutor.” He spoke in such strong terms to give the impression that he was practically more Italian than a seven-generation native. “After racking my brains, I came up with a strategy for us to get rid of them legally. Well, Mr. Prosecutor, it’s so obvious it was staring me in the face!
“It’s simple: all we have to do is ‘return to sender.’ That is, ship them back to where they came from.”
“But we can’t force a citizen out of the country; he’d have to have committed a crime.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Licata explained patiently. “You must create a legal provision—a regulation, as you attorneys call them—by which if a foreigner is suspected of belonging to a Mob or a Mafia family, at least one of whose members has been tried and convicted of a crime against the common good, that person may automatically be expelled from the United States and sent back to his homeland, with the stipulation that he can no longer return to the States. The individual will be labeled as an undesirable. Just think how great the benefit could be to the entire society, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“We would have to consider a specific judicial order.”
In his heart Licata was elated, because Hogan had not rejected the idea a priori. “I’ve talked to people in my neighborhood about this, and everyone supports the idea of expelling the undesirables,” Licata pressed.
“I know you are a guiding force for the people on the Lower East Side. They even call you Father,” Hogan said.
“Actually, some call me u patri, like in the old country,” Licata explained. “But I see that everyone here in the DA’s office is well informed.”
“We do our best.” If he’d had tail feathers, the prosecutor would have fanned them out like a peacock.
The prince felt he had won him over and took the plunge. “If you’d like, I could show you how to separate the wheat from the chaff,” he went on, in that simplistic jargon that made the powerful feel at ease.
“How is that?”
“I could provide you with a list of undesirables. That way, your work would be minimized.” There, he’d said it. Now all he had to do was wait for Hogan’s reaction, though for a moment the prosecutor seemed at a loss. Licata took advantage of it and continued: “Of course, you would have to determine whether the individual was a greater or lesser danger. I would simply point out the persons who were, let’s say, a more likely risk: those belonging to Mafia families.”
That wording seemed less compromising to the DA. In any case, Hogan thought, such a list would be invaluable to him and his men. “Okay, Mr. Licata. The idea seems promising. I’ll refer it to my staff, and then we’ll see about turning it into a judicial regulation. Meanwhile, not to waste any time, let’s do this: while I try to resolve the legal issues, go ahead and compile the list and get it to me. Naturally, everything must be done in the strictest secrecy,” he concluded, rising from his chair and moving toward the prince.
“Naturally, Mr. Prosecutor.” Licata stood up, and the two men shook hands heartily to seal their pact.
In one fell swoop, Frank Hogan would get rid of a good part of New York’s dregs, while Ferdinando Licata would wipe out his troublesome competition without firing a single shot.
Licata’s list included the names of about two hundred previous offenders drawn mostly from the lower ranks of the families. But there were also some crew bosses, and a few kingpins. Jack Mastrangelo had agreed to help him with the job, though he didn’t fully understand the usefulness of such large-scale finger-pointing.
But Licata could see farther ahead than anyone else, and Mastrangelo had confidence in his foresight.
A few days later, when the prince handed Frank Hogan the list of undesirables, the prosecutor rubbed his hands together excitedly over the explosive document. He promised him that he would make appropriate use of it.
* * *
As often happens, however, there was an informer in the DA’s office. Despite the fact that Frank Hogan had kept the document confidential, someone still managed to photograph it and bring a copy to Tom Bontade, along with the whole story of the undesirables.
“Fucking bastard!” Bontade exploded when the mole had finished telling what he had seen and overheard between Hogan and Prince Licata. “Anyone who makes a deal with the cops is a gutless coward, and certainly no Sicilian. That contemptible scumbag has to die,” he told Aldo Martini.
Bontade scanned the list and saw that the names of all his men were on it. “You’re on it too, Martini,” he said to his bodyguard, but he saw that the names of soldiers from the other families were there as well. Inconsequential recruits, minor killers, but also crew bosses. One name alarmed Bontade: at the bottom of the list he found that of Saro Ragusa. He thought for a few seconds.
“This guy is really a piece of garbage! Just think, he even betrayed his right arm, Saro Ragusa. Apparently he wants to ditch him. It’s typical of him. He uses people and then gets rid of them.” By his logic, this was the only explanation that could have led the pri
nce to add Saro’s name to the list of undesirables. Bontade realized that he finally held the cards to beat Licata. He would bring Saro over to his side by telling him about the betrayal as well as what had actually happened at the Blue Lemon. He had a witness who had been present the night the prostitute and her client were beaten.
The prince, Bontade concluded, had made a fatal mistake.
* * *
In recent months, Saro’s life had taken a rather bitter turn. No longer having any real friends, he now communicated only with the men recruited by Licata. But all they could do was agree with everything he said. He missed the good old days with Dixie and Isabel. The girl’s death had devastated him, and the thought of Mena was too distant.
But he reached the depths of despondency with the arrival of a letter delivered to him by a fellow townsman, Roberto Naselli, who had managed to stow away on a ship sailing from Lisbon, Portugal. The letter came from Stellina, Saro’s younger sister, who lived in Marsala and had entrusted it to the man.
Holding it in his hands, Saro kissed it like a cherished treasure; then he opened it and read it anxiously:
My dear beloved brother, forgive me for writing to give you bad news. Just yesterday I heard from someone I know, who fled from Salemi, that the fascist forces arrested our parents and poor Ester because they are Jews. The tavern owner Mimmo Ferro and another dozen or so villagers were deported along with them. We don’t know where. I’m afraid that they will come and take my family too and for that reason Dinu and I have decided to leave town. My dearest brother, I cannot tell you where, in case this letter should not reach your beloved hands. I embrace you with all my love, as always, Stellina.
The force of those few desperate words sapped any remaining will he might have had to go on living. From that day on, as soon as he could, Saro drowned his thoughts in an opium den in Chinatown, where Madame Wu treated him like a son. But instead of mother’s milk, she gave him a deadly blend to smoke that sent him into a world of mists and fog.
The Prince Page 45