It was the third day that piccolo Mario and Francesca had been to school and kindergarten, and Charley thought they were like a pit-prop to their mother. She seemed to weaken when they were gone from her sight. Charley, too damn right, she'd tried. Tried to make conversation, tried to earn some laughter back – a lost bloody cause. Some mornings Angela went into Palermo, some mornings she stayed in her room. Some afternoons Angela walked with the children, some afternoons she went, remote, to a sunbed at the bottom of the garden. Charley tried, Charley failed, to get through to her. Charley giggled, Charley remembered the face of the mistress at school who taught sixth-form history and who'd come to hammer the Civil War into them the morning after the miserable cow's husband had moved out to set up home with a nineteen- year-old boy, same school. God, that was bloody cruel, but it was the face of Angela Ruggerio, struggling to keep the appearance, and tortured… Charley would try, and fail, and try again. As though she were haunted, as though…
The gardener watched her. Whenever Charley was outside the gardener was always close, with the hose for the plants, with the broom for the paths, with the fork for the weeds, always near to her, where he could see her. One day, bloody certain, one day she'd put a towel on the grass and lie on it, and give the 'lechie' something to look at.
One day…
'Charley. Do you know what is the time, Charley?'
She turned. She looked towards the open patio doors.
'It's all right, Angela, I've not forgotten the time, about ten minutes, then I'm off for them.'
Angela Ruggerio stood in the doorway. It made Charley miserable to see her, to see her drawn face, to see her attempt to smile, to see the woman pretend. There was no love, Charley reckoned, and there had been love in Rome. But not her problem.
'I was just doing some postcards, friends and family…'
Angela repeated the word, rolled it. 'Family? You have a family, Charley?'
'Not really, but there's my parents and there's my mother's brother, lives up in the north of England. We hardly see him… I'm afraid we're not like Italians in England, family doesn't matter that much. But-''
The bitterness snapped in Angela's voice, as when a mask slips. 'Find a Sicilian, and you find a family.'
She must never pry, Axel had said, never push. 'I suppose so.'
'When you were with us in Rome, you did not know that Peppino was Sicilian?'
'No.'
'With a Sicilian there is always a family, the family is everything…'
She was gone. Angela went as quietly as she had come.
Charley finished the addresses on the postcards. She had come into the villa to find Angela, to ask when the post office closed and whether she would have time to buy stamps. She moved, barefoot, across the marble of the living area and the tiles of the hallway at the back. She moved without sound. Angela lay full-length on the bed.
Charley saw her through the open door. Angela lay on her stomach on the bed and her body convulsed in weeping. She knew of the family. The family was Rosario and Agata in Prizzi, and Mario who was hunted, and Salvatore who was in prison, and Carmelo who was simple, and Cristoforo who was dead, and Maria who drank, and Giuseppe who washed the money. She knew of the family because Axel had told her.
Charley watched the woman weep and sob. She felt humbled.
She left the villa, the prison, and walked with the baby in the pram into the town to collect small Mario and Francesca.
'You'd like a coffee?'
'Yes, I'd like that, espresso, thanks.'
'Three coffees, espresso, please.'
The policeman bobbed his head in acknowledgement. He was an old tired man, in a uniform that bulged over his stomach. He looked to be the sort of fixture in the upper corridor of the Palazzo di Giustizia that they had in the same upper corridors at Headquarters. He wore a pistol in a holster that slapped his thigh, but his job was of little more importance than bringing coffee for guests.
The magistrate gestured that 'Vanni should go first through the outer door. Axel followed. There were minders on the outer door and minders on the inner door. Both the doors were steel-plated. There had been razor-wire coils on the walls around the compound in La Paz. They had lived in Bolivia, and worked, with a pistol at the waist, with constant apprehension. They had been careful in their movements, avoided nighttime car journeys. The screen around the magistrate, Dr Rocco Tardelli, even on the top floor of the Palazzo di Giustizia, jolted Axel and he tried to imagine how it would be to live a half-life under guard. It was over the top, above anything he had seen on the previous trips down to Palermo. The inner door, steel plated, was closed behind them, his view of the harsh and suspicious-faced guards was lost. He blinked in the low light of the room. Behind the drawn blinds there would have been shatterproof and bulletproof glass
… A shit of a way to live.
The man was small and bowed and while he tried to play at the necessary courtesies his eyes flickered in a constant and moving wariness. Axel knew the phrase the
'walking dead'. He could laugh about the 'walking dead' in Rome, make gas-chamber humour of it, but not here, not where the reality confronted him. His Country Chief rated Dr Rocco Tardelli, took him to lunch when he was in Rome. Headquarters rated Dr Rocco Tardelli, flew him to the
Andrews USAF Base once a year on a military transport and had him talk to the Strategy teams, poor bastard. The Country Chief said, and Headquarters said, that Dr Rocco Tardelli was a jewel – but not precious enough to share with… The poor bastard seemed, to Axel, a caged creature.
A knock at the door. The coffee tray was set down on the desk, and the machine-pistol of the young guard swung on its strap and clattered against the desk top.
Shit, the goddam thing was armed, and the magistrate seemed to wince.
'Careful, Pasquale, please.'
They were alone.
The soft voice. 'So the DEA has come to Palermo. May I be so impertinent as to ask what mission brings you here?'
Axel said, 'We have an operation going, the target is Ruggerio.'
'Then you are one of so many. What is the scope of the operation?'
Axel said, 'We hope to mark him. If we mark him, then we send for the cavalry.'
Said dry, with a gentle smile, 'Of course you would expect that we have plans for the arrest of Ruggerio. What is the range of the operation from which the DEA believes it will taste success when we eat failure?'
'This is what you'd call a courtesy call. We have a small range of facilities organized by our friend. 'Vanni is looking after our interest.' Axel shifted awkwardly in his chair.
'I'd rather not be specific.'
The smile widened, warmth flowed and there was a brightness in the magistrate's eyes. 'Do not be embarrassed – I am the same as you. I trust very few people. You would not expect me to tell you of the locations of the physical surveillance and the bugs and the cameras, where we watch for Ruggerio. You would not expect me to tell you what information I have from the pentiti. But it is a sad game to play when there is no trust.'