After a second, he threw his hand in the air, like he was disgusted, and then disappeared into the kitchen.
Nunzio had started to place our usual order with the young waitress, and I was barely listening, until Adriano nudged me with his arm. My eyes moved to the waitress, who was listening to Nunzio but staring at me.
I smiled at her and her cheeks flushed. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, constantly nodding at what he was saying. He was ordering seafood dishes and a bottle of Amaro Averna for after dinner. Even after he finished, she kept staring at me.
“Your name?” I asked her in Sicilian.
“Calista,” she said, her voice soft, her eyes lowered. She tucked another strand of hair behind her ear.
“Ah. Beautiful.” I grinned. “Ask her if she’s lived here long,” I said to Nunzio.
I had most of the Sicilian language, because I grew up listening to it and speaking it in certain circles, but Nunzio was born and raised in Sicily. Adriano had even less than I did.
Nunzio spoke the words to her. She nodded, answering.
“All of her life,” he said to me.
“Do you know the Parisi family well?”
Nunzio looked between her and I, his eyebrows drawing down, but then asked her. As soon as the question was out, she looked toward the doors to the kitchen and then back at me. She bit her lip, going for her hair again, and nodded at me once she realized the coast was clear.
I kept my eyes connected to hers, cleared my throat, about to whisper the most important question to her, when a loud voice from the back made her jump clear off the ground.
“Calista!” Giuseppe shouted, looking between the two of us. Her name was followed by a string of Sicilian words too fast for me to follow. The girl’s cheeks turned bright red and she hurried off to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came back out and started readying a table facing the sea for what seemed like a few guests.
She refused to look at me again.
“Hah!” Giuseppe Parisi said, watching me. He crossed his arms over his chest, shaking his head.
I grinned, turning my face away from his and toward the older guy who set our food down. “Tell me what that was about,” I said to Nunzio.
A piece of octopus dangled from his fork. It jiggled when he paused to answer me. “He told her to stop flirting and get back to work.”
“The way he looks at you, Corrado,” Adriano said, taking a bite of pasta, “you’d think he wants to poison you.”
Nunzio’s fork stopped close to his plate, going for another bite, and stayed that way for a minute. He looked between Giuseppe and me and then put his fork down, wiping his mouth after. He’d finally caught on to why I never ate a bite from this place. I only drank from the bottle after we opened it ourselves.
Nunzio opened his mouth but snapped it shut when Nicodemo Leonardi walked through the door of the restaurant, stopping for a second to look for me. He nodded once when he saw me, heading toward our table.
Nicodemo Leonardi had few friends but many enemies. He didn’t work for one family, but for himself. Some called him “Bones.”
Underneath his white dress shirt, I could see the stark black lines of ink running along his collarbone, forming the Latin words: Veni. Vidi. Vici. “I came. I saw. I conquered.” He had the same tattoo twice, but with the words in a different place and in a different order: I saw. I conquered. I came.
When I was younger and I’d come to visit my grandparents’ family in Italy during the summers, Tito Sala had introduced us. There were no real friends in this life, but Nicodemo and I had an understanding.
I stood, and when he was close enough, we took a hand and pulled each other closer.
His nose crinkled when I offered him the seat next to Adriano after we’d broken apart. Nicodemo moved his chair over a bit before he got comfortable. “I heard about the trouble in America,” he said, declining food or drink from the waitress, still who refused to look at me. He didn’t eat out many places either. “It has only gotten worse. You are a wanted man.”
“You going to claim the price on my head?”
He shrugged. “If I needed the money.”
Nunzio made a sound in his throat that Nicodemo didn’t even bother acknowledging.
“I’m glad it’s still about the dollar,” I said. “I need to find someone.”
“The woman,” he said, sitting back a bit, getting more comfortable. “Alcina Parisi.”
I nodded, refusing to say anything else. I could tell Nunzio was starting to catch on—there was a reason why I’d been coming here, searching specific areas where I could catch her scent. Adriano looked out at the water while stuffing his face, trying to listen to the man playing the mandolino, not a fucking clue.
I hadn’t told any of the men why I was here. They reported everything back to my grandfather. If he found out about the deal between Silvio and me, they’d be ordered to take me somewhere else. Somewhere that didn’t have cars small enough to fit on the street.
“Italy becomes a big place when looking for one small woman,” I said.
Nicodemo grinned. The girl almost dropped the bottle of Amaro Averna in his lap when he did. She wasn’t attracted to him; she was fucking scared. He didn’t react, just told her in Sicilian to bring another chair to the table.
“Italy becomes a big place when one small woman doesn’t want to be found,” he said.
I waved a dismissive hand—neither here nor there.
“I do not understand your logic,” he said, ignoring the trembling girl as she sat a chair next to Nunzio. “People talk. Word travels. I would not return to a place when your eyes are set on it.”
I opened the bottle and poured myself a glass. I shrugged. “I’m getting to know her.”
That was the fucking truth. I watched her parents do what they did every day. I imagined her walking the streets here. Going to church. Raising her voice and waving her hands when she wanted to be heard. I had a clear picture in my mind of Alcina Parisi, though the features of her face and body were not in focus. If Junior didn’t take a picture of her, I wondered how attractive she was.
“Ah,” Nicodemo said, accepting a glass from me. “Your leads have turned cold, Scorpio.” He nodded to the tattoo on my hand, between my thumb and pointer finger.
They had, but I needed to widen my search some, go further out. I thought she would have stayed close, but all roads led me back to Forza d’Agrò.
The four of us grew quiet as seven men entered the restaurant. I put the glass up to my mouth, watching as Giuseppe led them to the table the girl had prepared. The older man, the head, took my attention right away. He was the one calling the shots. The other ones, besides the middle-aged man who was a younger version of pops, were all muscle.
I figured Giuseppe would leave their table after he welcomed them, head back to the kitchen as usual, but instead, he took a seat. Angela served them instead of the young girl. Every once in a while, she would turn her eyes my way, catching me staring.
Her eyes were not laughing.
“Tell me,” I said, nodding toward the table.
“The Balistreris,” Nunzio answered, keeping his voice low. He patted the spots where his guns were hidden underneath his shirt. Then he stood. “Let us go.”
I waved my hand down, ordering him to sit. “Relax and enjoy your dinner.”
He glanced at their table before he took his seat again.
“A problem, cugino?” Nicodemo said to me. He called me that sometimes. Cousin.
I turned my eyes away from the table and met his stare. He didn’t care either way. His eyes were asking me if I had a problem with what I was seeing. For some reason, it bothered me, Giuseppe sitting down to break bread with these men in his restaurant. He knew what kind of man I was the moment he looked at me, and I could feel that I was unwelcome from across the street.
The same feeling was strong toward these men, too, but different. Every so often he would wipe his head with a napkin when the c
onversation would start to heat up a bit, but mostly, it was whispers mixing in with the sound of the mandolin that would reach our table.
I wasn’t listening for the meaning of words. I watched body language.
There was no doubt that they were doing business of some kind. There was also no doubt that the reason Angela served them was because she wanted to be near the conversation. She wasn’t watching the old man, either, but the one I assumed to be the son.
Giuseppe stuck his pointer finger in the air and then came down with it on the table silently. He said something after, and as soon as he did, the son started to laugh—it was a fucking roar, and it messed with the sound of the mandolin.
What a fucking pity, that. It was a beautiful melody. He ruined the sound of it, like Adriano ruined the air with his cologne. It irked me.
“Incoming,” Adriano said, his face red. It always was when he had a few drinks after a heavy meal.
Tito Sala took the empty seat that Nicodemo had ordered the waitress to bring. So he knew he was coming. Tito got comfortable and ordered a seafood dish with a glass of white wine. He was the messenger, sometimes, between my grandfather and me.
We said little to each other over the phone, for more than one reason. The main one was that there was some animosity on my part for him ordering me to be here. He refused to update me on the Scarpone situation, as well.
There was no way my grandfather was going to let it slide, but I was going to take it a step further and find the ghost, Vittorio Scarpone, and finish him off if he was still alive. My grandfather respected Vittorio for some reason. I wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t fucking care.
Tito glanced at the table doing business before he pushed up his glasses and turned his eyes on me. “Your grandfather has agreed to an arrangement with a bride.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Tell me who she is.” One step closer to going home—after I had Alcina to bring with me.
“He does not know,” he said. “He left it up to me.”
The entire table stared at him, no one longer than me. He stared back, not caring one way or another. He got to work on his plate as soon as the young girl set it down. She relaxed some when he thanked her.
“You leave tomorrow for Bronte,” he said. “You will not loaf around Italy any longer on some fool’s quest.” He patted his mouth with a napkin. “The pistachio harvest will begin soon. You will work.”
“Fool’s quest,” I repeated. If Silvio had told him, I’d kill Silvio. This was between the two of us. I refused to allow my grandfather to stop me.
He nodded. “That is what I would do,” he said, setting his glass down, “if I found out who my father was and wanted to kill the family who deprived me of him. But things are not always clear in life, ah? Sometimes we must have patience to find out where we’re going, when we have just found out where we’ve been.”
He took another bite. I was torn between watching him and watching the men at the table, who were rising from their seats.
“You will go to Bronte, and by October, you will be a married man,” Tito continued. “This will please your grandfather. Her name matters none—or does it?”
I heard him, but my eyes locked on the son, who was walking toward the door. We stared at each other until he left. “No,” I said, absentmindedly. “It doesn’t.”
“Bene,” Tito said. “We will go in the morning.”
Neither Giuseppe nor Angela looked at me as they walked toward the kitchen after the men left. Her hand reaching out for her husband’s shoulder was the last thing I saw before the doors closed behind them.
6
Corrado
Bronte was around an hour and a half from Forza d’Agrò, and the town was known for its pistachios. “I’Oro della Sicilia.” Or, Sicily’s gold. Mount Etna towered in the distance, smoke coming from its mouth, the town lying at its feet. Lava rock was scattered from eruptions. The trees grew right out of it.
Tito told me that was why the pistachios were compared to gold, because of the volcanic soil. “It is rich,” he said, as he pointed out of the window at some areas of land filled with more trees at the foothills. “It is called sciara.”
Nunzio drove us down an old dirt road that had worn-in tire tracks. Men and women walked the fields with straps around their necks, red buckets at the ends. Some were in the distance standing on lava rocks, balancing as they reached for the fruit along the branches. More workers walking along the road stopped and watched as we passed.
“The festival will take place in October this year,” Tito said. “Fabrizio appreciates the help. His family has owned this land for generations. It is passed down.”
“His last name?” I said, watching as a large villa in the distance grew closer. It was tan stone with green shutters and a dark, wooden front door.
“Pappalardo,” Tito said.
I didn’t even ask if Fabrizio Pappalardo knew why I was here. Tito knew better than to tell him. There were a few people who would pay a lot of money for the information.
Tito pointed behind the main villa. “There are places for the workers to stay during the collecting months. You will take an apartment.”
“We must stay close,” Nunzio said, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Sì.” Tito nodded, his wide-brimmed cap dipping with the motion. “I arranged this.”
“Can we eat the pistachios?” Adriano stared at all of the buckets filled with the green gold of Sicily. “Or are they like olives straight from the tree? Tried that once and spit it clear across the field after I fucking did. Big, huge, mistake.”
“Life is a gamble,” I said.
Fabrizio Pappalardo was waiting in front of the villa as Nunzio pulled up and parked. Pappalardo was around my age, maybe a little younger, and in work clothes. He was pointing at a bag filled with pistachios that had “Pappa” stamped to the white fabric in red, telling one of the workers to bring it somewhere.
If he noticed what kind of men we were, he didn’t outwardly show it. I was here for a reason, so I blended, leaving the suits and ties in New York. But when he saw Nicodemo, who never left the suits and ties at home, I wondered if he would take notice and start to ask questions. Then again, being connected to Tito could come with its questions, too.
Or not.
If Fabrizio had lost a few workers due to illness or accident, Tito was the kind of man who would recommend men he knew needed the work.
After Nicodemo stepped out of his car, he shook hands with Fabrizio, so they seemed to know each other. Nicodemo nodded at me before he entered the villa.
“Fucking bum,” Adriano said underneath his breath as he watched the door close behind Nicodemo. “I stink. Imagine. I buy the best shit there is.”
Adriano was pissed at Nicodemo, who had told him that he stunk and would attract flies out in the heat once he started to sweat.
Fabrizio cleared his throat to get our attention. He was all business. He directed us to a man named Fabio, who put us to work at once. We were all given buckets and gloves and told not to let the fruit drop, if we could help it. After we filled our buckets, we were to report to Fabrizio and the buckets would be poured into a bag. We were to keep picking until the day was over.
It wasn’t easy work. Some of the rocks were steep, and the trees grew at an odd angle, so it took balance to keep from falling over or dropping the fruit. Sometimes branches would fall between the crevices, and I would have to stick my hand between to retrieve them. I always checked for snakes before I did.
I was quiet as I did my job, getting lost in the rhythm of it. Sometimes I would study the workings of the trees. They seemed to have deep root systems, usually with short trunks, and long, resinous branches. The leaves were like velvet and leather. The pistachios were about the size of olives and grew in pink clusters. The men called the plants scornabecco, and the shell after it had been separated from its husk tignosella.
It was easy to forget about the issues in New York while I got lost in the work.
I could’ve been a different man— a man with regular problems.
Other times, the need to take care of the Scarpones only grew with the silence that consumed my mind. It wasn’t even words that came to mind but a color. Red. It was time to bleed them fucking dry.
The urge to find Alcina was so strong that I could taste it in my mouth, like the cool water Tito gave us to drink on our lunch break.
Tito stood next to Adriano, Nunzio, and me, surveying the land under the shade of his wide-brimmed cap. We were working in a more secluded location, and I wondered if it was because Tito requested it—keeping me hidden but not.
“It is wondrous how Mother Nature works.” He nodded to Mount Etna, smoke billowing out against the blue sky from its tip. “You have such a disruptive force—bigger than this entire town—yet it still gives us the best of what it is. Look at the fruit it offers.”
Adriano wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Is this all we get to eat?” He lifted the basket that Tito had brought out with cheeses, crackers, meats, and fruits. He was sprawled out on the ground, half sitting, half lying down. His cheeks were red, and nothing was coming out of his pores but sweat now.
Nunzio nodded toward the volcano, ignoring Adriano. “A volcano reminds me of an Italian woman,” he said. “Fire in her veins, but even after she scalds you with her temper, she feeds you the best.”
Tito smiled. “I would have to agree.”
“A woman kicks me in the balls and then feeds me grapes after in bed as an apology.” Adriano lifted a bunch of them, taking the bottom one in his mouth. “I’d accept it.”
I grinned at the face Nunzio made. Then I took off the long-sleeved shirt I wore over my t-shirt, balling it up, using it as a pillow. I set my hands behind my head as an extra layer, closing my eyes. I fell asleep with the sun hot on my face. A few minutes later, I woke up to the sound of a long, low whistle from Adriano. I followed the sound until I met the cause of it.
Mercenary (Gangsters of New York Book 3) Page 4