“Now, what brings the capo’s grandson to Bellona?”
“Serafino Lentini,” I said.
He paused, his glass half-way to his lips, then lowered it again. “You’d like to get your hands on Serafino?” He laughed. “Mother of God, so would I. And the capo told you to see me? I don’t understand. The Society has been after Serafino for nearly two years now. He’s given us a lot of trouble and the people round go for him in a big way.” He swallowed some of his wine and sighed. “Very discouraging.”
“What is he trying to be?” I said. “Another Guiliano – a Robin Hood?”
He spat on the floor. “Serafino’s just like the rest of us, out for number one, but he does the shepherds a few favours from time to time or stops some old woman from being evicted, so they think the sun shines out of his backside. Six months ago, near Frentini, he held up the local bus that was carrying wages to a cooperative, shot the driver, and a bank clerk. The driver died two days later.”
“A real hard man,” I commented.
“Wild,” he said. “Never grown up. Mind you he suffered greatly at the hands of the police when he was younger. Lost the sight of an eye. I personally think he’s never got over it. But what do you want with him?”
I told him as much as he needed to know and when I was finished, he shook his head. “But this is madness. You could never hope to get anywhere near Serafino. Here, I will show you.”
He opened a drawer and produced a large-scale survey map of the region. It showed the whole Monte Cammarata area in detail.
“Here is where Serafino is staying at the moment.” He indicated a spot on the map on the other side of the mountain about fifteen hundred feet below the summit. “There’s a shepherd’s hut up there beside a stream. He uses it all the time except when he’s on the run.”
I showed my surprise. “You’re certain?”
He smiled sadly. “Let me tell you the facts of life. Knowing where Serafino is and catching him there are two different things. Every shepherd on the mountains worships him, every goatherd. They have a signalling system from crag to crag that informs him of the approach of anyone when they’re still three or four hours hard climbing away. I’ve tried to catch him with local men who belong to us – mountain men. We’ve always failed.”
“How many men does he have with him?”
“At the moment, three. The Vivaldi brothers and Joe Ricco.”
I examined the map for two or three minutes, then asked him to describe the area in detail. I didn’t need to make notes, I’d done this sort of thing too often before.
In the end I nodded and folded the map. “Can I keep this?”
“Certainly. It’s impossible you realise that?”
“On the contrary.” I smiled. “I feel rather more confident than I did earlier. Now I think I’ll go for a walk. I’d like to have a look round. I’ll see you later.”
I paused in the street door, half-blinded by the sudden glare, and put on my sunglasses. Rosa was seated at the wooden table nearest the car, the tray in front of her. She wasn’t alone. The two specimens who lounged on the edge of the table were typical of the younger men still to be found in the region. Features brutalised and coarsened by a life of toil, shabby, patched clothing, broken boots, cloth caps that anywhere else in Europe belonged to another age.
Rosa’s back was stiff and straight and she smoked a cigarette and stared into space. One of them said something. I couldn’t catch what, and got what was left of her coffee in his face.
To a Sicilian male, a woman is there to be used, to do what she is told. To be publically humiliated by one would be unthinkable. Several of the watching children laughed and he reached across the table in a fury and yanked her to her feet, his other hand raised to strike.
I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him round. We stared at each other for a long moment and the expression on his face was already beginning to alter as I slapped him back-handed. I didn’t say a word. His hand went to his cheek, his friend plucked at his sleeve. They walked backwards, faces blank, turned and hurried away.
Rosa joined me, buttoning her jacket. “What would you have done if they’d both had a go at you? Shot them?”
“But they didn’t,” I pointed out.
“No, you’re right, they knew better than to tangle with Mafia.”
“And how would they know that’s what they were doing?”
“Don’t play games with me. Mr. Wyatt. Have you looked in the mirror lately? There is mafioso stamped clear for all to see. The self-sufficiency, the power, the quiet arrogance. Why, you didn’t even speak to that poor wretch. That was the most humiliating thing for all.”
“For you or for him?” She raised a hand and I warded it off. “Poor Rosa. You wear nylon underwear and dresses from London and Paris and feel guilty about it. Why? Are there brothers and sisters still living in a sty like this?”
“Something like that.” She nodded. “You are very clever, aren’t you, Mr. Wyatt?”
“Stacey,” I said. “Call me Stacey. Now let’s take a walk.”
Beyond the village, we found a pleasant slope that lefted gently towards the first ridge-back, the dark line of forest beyond, then bare rock and the peak, very faint, shimmering in the heat haze.
I had brought binoculars from the car and I spread the map Cerda had given me on the ground and carefully checked certain features with reality.
“Can it be done?” she asked as I folded the map and put the binoculars into their case.
“I think so.”
“But you’re not going to tell me how?”
“I thought you only came along for the ride?”
She hit me on the shoulder with a clenched fist. “I think you are the most infuriating man I have ever met.”
“Good,” I said. “Now let’s forget everything else except how pleasant this is. We’ll spend the afternoon like carefree lovers and tell pleasant lies to each other.”
She laughed, head thrown back, but when I took her hand in mine, she let it stay there.
On the slopes we found knapweed with great yellow heads, ragwort and bee orchids and silvery-blue gentians. We walked for an hour, then lay in a hollow warmed by the sun, smoked and talked.
I was right. She had started life in a village very similar to Bellona in the province of Messina, An uncle on her mother’s side, a widower, had owned a small café in Palermo and his only daughter had died. He needed someone to take her place in the business and no Sicilian would dream of bringing in an outsider when there was someone suitable in the family.
She had married, at eighteen, the middle-aged owner of a similar establishment who had obliged by conveniently passing on a year later.
My impression was that Hoffer had used the place and had taken a fancy to her, but she was a little reticent about the details. The important thing was that she’d been able to make herself into what he wanted, a sophisticated woman of the world, which couldn’t have been easy, even with her guts and intelligence.
She fired a few questions at me in turn and I actually found myself answering. Nothing important, of course, and then she slipped badly.
“It’s incredible,” she said. “You’re almost human. It’s so difficult to imagine you killing as ruthlessly as you did last night.”
“So you know about that?” I said. “Who told you?”
“Why, Colonel Burke.” The answer was out before she could stop it. “I was there when he told Karl.”
Was anything ever going to make sense again? I laughed out loud and she asked me what was so funny.
“Life,” I said. “One big joke.”
I pushed her on her back and kissed her. She lay there staring up at me, her face smooth, the eyes quite blank, making no move to stop me as I unbuttoned her blouse and slipped a hand inside and cupped it around a breast. The nipple blossomed beneath my thumb and I noticed tiny beads of sweat on her brow.