And Sciafani? What did he take from the embrace? If his father was defined in death by his enemy, then Sciafani would be forever defined by the man who had let him live. His father gave him life, but so did Don Calo. The old man with blood on his hands had washed a bit of it away. It must have made the old man feel good, but what about Sciafani?
Vito, he was easy to understand. The Mob was all about money and power, and Vito generated enough of both. Don Calo wanted to protect his cut, so Vito was safe. I didn't like it, but at least it made sense. No different than an insurance company or a car dealer rewarding their top salesmen. In the same way, giving up Legs was no different than laying off your most unproductive man. Good business.
I didn't necessarily like understanding this, but there you were. A cop gets pretty close to the criminal, close enough that the lines can get blurred. Like with me and Al. Trick was to remember who you were while understanding who the other guy was. I figured that would have been the next lesson from Dad if the war hadn't interrupted things. I wished I hadn't had to learn that one the hard way.
"Look," Nick said, pointing ahead.
"What?" asked Harry, craning his head forward.
"Town up ahead," I said. "Looks like a bunker covering the road."
"They wouldn't shoot at a car, would they?" Harry asked.
"Only if they're trigger-happy or Germans or Fascist militia," I said, considering the possibilities.
I decided the best thing to do was keep going. The town was gathered under a church steeple on the highest point of a small hilltop. Brown stone buildings, faded orange roof tiles, cisterns on nearly every roof. It looked like every other Sicilian village we'd driven through, even down to the concrete bunker at the edge of town. I downshifted, keeping my eye on the bunker's long narrow slit, imagining a gunner tracking us with his machine gun, sweaty finger on trigger, waiting for the perfect shot, a burst to the engine and one through the windshield. That's how I'd do it.
I drove faster. I couldn't help myself.
Nobody shot at us. I stopped even with the bunker. No gunner, no machine gun, no Fascists, no Sicilian soldiers.
"Could it be?" Nick asked.
"Maybe they were ordered elsewhere," Harry said.
"Or perhaps Don Calo has already kept his word," said Sciafani.
"We'll see," Harry said, sarcasm weighing down his voice.
We did see. Over the next few hours, we drove through towns with deserted entrenchments, empty bunkers and machine-gun nests with weapons idly pointed toward the sky, as if in surrender. Or indifference. Rifles and shovels lay strewn across the ground. Antitank guns sat alone, crates of ammunition stacked around them, abandoned like kids' toys at the beach.
"Well, I'll be damned," Harry said as we crossed a narrow bridge, the snouts of two antitank guns pointed harmlessly at our backs.
"Who won't be?" I asked. Nobody answered.
The road erupted in front of us, a blast of fire, smoke, and dirt that I drove through before I could hit the brakes. The smoke blinded me and I struggled to keep the car on the road, but it hit the crater, swerved to the left and rolled over. I coughed and gasped for air. I heard shouts and grunts, crunching metal, and smelled the sharp odor of gasoline, all in the split second before I passed out, with barely enough time to hope I wouldn't burn alive.
I heard someone calling my name. The smell of burned rubber coated my nostrils and throat as the sound of my name mingled with the crackling of flames. I panicked, not wanting to be toasted to a crisp inside a tiny Fiat. I fought to raise my eyelids, to get my body to move, but part of me wanted to lie there a few moments more, fire be damned.
"Billy!"
I recognized the voice and opened my eyes. I was on the ground at the side of the road.
"Billy, are you all right?" It was Kaz. His face was scorched black, his sandy-colored hair singed and smoking. His eyes were wide and desperate, and I knew how I had gotten out of the car.
"Think so. Good to see you, buddy." My voice came out a choked, harsh whisper.
I coughed some more as Kaz pulled me up by the shoulders. I hacked and spit black soot.
"What happened? The others?" I looked around and saw the car in flames, churning thick black smoke into the sky.
"They are all fine. Fine," said Kaz. "We got everyone out before the car's gas tank went up."
"You look like it was a close shave," I said.
"This little fella saved your butt," a sergeant in tanker's overalls said, chewing on an unlit cigar as he stood in back of Kaz. "You were on the bottom, with the car on its side. My crew got the other three out, then the gas tank went up. He climbed in and pulled you out, just in goddamn time too."
I got up on my knees and waited to see if I could stay there. That worked out well, so I tested my memory. Name, hometown, rank, it was all there. Time to stand. I took Kaz's hand, and he winced.
"Just a little burn, Billy. It is nothing," Kaz said, gracing me with a bashful smile.
I let go of his hand, startled by the sight of the angry red skin beneath his blackened shirt cuff. I took in the scene around me, awareness edging the fogginess out of my brain. Nick, Harry, and Sciafani leaned against a jeep, talking with some GIs and drinking from canteens. A couple of Sherman tanks were pulled off the road behind them, guarding our flanks, while a half-track sat in the road, a GI manning the. 30 caliber machine gun, scanning the sky for German planes.
"You were looking for us," I concluded, as Kaz's presence with the patrol dawned on me.
"Major Harding sent out patrols toward Villalba, but the defenses were too strong," Kaz said, the words spinning out as he rapidly explained. "Then yesterday a patrol reported no resistance on the main road to Mussomeli and Villalba, so I asked him for permission to look for you on the back roads. I thought you would come in that way, rather than the main road."
"Smart thinking, Kaz. But what was the explosion?"
"That was me, Lieutenant," the tanker sergeant said, without much in the way of apology. "We heard a vehicle coming, and it looked like an Italian staff car, so I told my gunner to fire. Lucky for you he has a hard time with moving targets."
"Yeah, well, if I was really lucky you wouldn't have fired on us in the first place."
He spat, and turned away, yelling to his crew to mount up. That was my dad's response anytime he was told he'd been lucky not to get hurt any worse than he was. Now I understood why he said it. It was damn irritating to hear about my luck from a guy who had fired on me from inside a Sherman tank.
"Nice guy," I said.
"Well, he didn't like being ordered to drive straight up these roads, past other Shermans that were not so lucky. We all saw the bunkers and antitank guns. But now they're deserted, except for a few stray Germans. General Patton is halfway to Palermo already. You did it, Billy, you did it. Didn't you?"
"Yes. I spoke to Don Calo and he saw reason, once he laid eyes on Luciano's handkerchief. It was strange, but I'll tell you about that later. It looks like he actually managed to get the Sicilians to vanish."
I don't know if I was surprised. But it was a shock to see how complete the desertions had been. Driving north, Italian troops had been digging in everywhere. Now, at the snap of Don Calo's fingers, they had disappeared.