They prayed together, hunched down, for a bare half-minute. Then she stood up, straightened her skirt, tugged down her blouse, and pushed her hair back from her forehead. She did not look again into the priest’s face, and did not shake his hand. Facing the altar, she crossed herself, then turned.
At the door, Castrolami asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’
No answer, but a firm nod, her hair bouncing on her neck.
He said, ‘I can’t predict the reaction.’
She gave him a cold smile, showing him her authority. He wondered then – at that moment, and as the evening settled on the via Forcella – how Eddie Deacon had thought of love when he had stood with her.
‘Right. We’ll get this fucking circus on the road. If I grab you, don’t fight me. If I run, run with me.’
They came down the steps of the church, past the twin chips where the bullets had nicked the stone pillars. They turned to their right. Two of the men, those from the front entrance, walked ahead of her, each with his right hand hidden under his jacket; the one who had watched the sacristy door was behind. She didn’t know whether he would have his pistol exposed or secreted. Castrolami was half a pace behind her, at her right shoulder.
Immacolata allowed her bag to swing with the rhythm of her hips.
It was as she remembered it. Nothing had changed.
She saw the barber’s shop, the hardware shop and the shop where cheese and fresh milk were sold; she knew what pizzo each paid because she had determined the amount. She saw the shop where the wedding gowns were sold and the suits for grooms and principal guests, then the bakery. No one inside – shopkeepers and customers – caught her eye and no one called to her, abuse, support or a greeting. A scooter came towards her, bouncing on the basalt blocks. The rider’s visor was up and she recognised a young man who had been at school with her, whose father had been killed by hers. It swerved past her. Men played a last card game in the light thrown from a bar’s window but did not look up.
It would have been easier if insults had been shouted, eggs or tomatoes thrown. It would have been a triumph if there had been a shout of support.
What she was doing was not acknowledged. She did not exist as a living human. She passed many she had known since childhood. None cheered and none spat at her. She assumed that the mobile phones were in contact and a network of messages rippled the length of the street and off into the side alleys, that a foot-soldier had been called out, a handgun sent for, lifted from a cache, unwrapped and stripped of its protective cover, a magazine hurriedly loaded.
She saw a man hosing down the cobbles where his stall had stood, and through the open door of a van boxes of unsold fish lay among melting ice. She had often bought octopus, mullet and bass from him, but he didn’t see her. She saw lights at the front windows of her grandparents’ home. She assumed, by now, they knew of her walk down via Forcella, but they didn’t show themselves on the balcony.
The cars waited. Walking briskly – not running, as if afraid, but not dawdling with a fool’s conceit – they had covered some hundred and fifty metres in two minutes. Castrolami pushed her without dignity through a back door and had barely slammed it before the vehicle had pulled away. It wove down the street, headlights flashing to clear a way, and skirted the square in front of the Castel Capuano, then went fast on to the via Carbonara. In three minutes there might have been a gun and a marksman, in five there would have been. She thought she had sent a message of her resolve, and that she had killed Eddie Deacon.
The boy wouldn’t speak – and had been kicked again – so Salvatore did.
‘I am from the city, from the old city. I do not know about fields or a village or where there is a river that is not a sewer ditch. I do not know about cows, and I have never been into the country and towards the mountains where they keep buffalo. I do not know it here. I am here because it was decided to bring you to this place. I hate it. My home is the old city. It is where people follow me… Many people follow me and give me respect.
‘I lived on the street, Eddie. I worked the street, the via Duomo and the via Carbonara. It was best on the via Duomo because tourists came to the cathedral, and fewer were on the via Carbonara because the Castel Capuana does not have many tourists. I start at nine years. I finish the school at nine years. I am a spotter at nine years. I spot for tourists who have a bag loosely held, or a Nikon camera that is on a shoulder strap, or a Rolex watch. At nine years old I am not strong enough to get a watch or a bag or a camera, but I am the best at spotting. At ten years old, I am the leader. Boys with more years do what I say. I am commander, and I sell on what we take from the tourists.
‘At eleven years old, I am taken by Pasquale Borelli, the father of Immacolata. He chose me. He could have had a thousand kids, our word is scugnizzi, but he chose me. I owe everything to him. I can read and I can write and that is because of Pasquale Borelli. I am not a kid from the gutter and that is because of Pasquale Borelli. I am a person of standing in Forcella and in Sanita, and that is because of Pasquale Borelli. I think that after his eldest son, who is Vincenzo, I am the most important. I have more respect from him than Giovanni and Silvio. I am the favourite of Gabriella Borelli and she is among the most admired women in the clans in the city. Everybody has respect for me.
‘If I had wanted to, I could have been married with Immacolata. You understand that? Both Pasquale and Gabriella Borelli have sufficient respect for me to give to me Immacolata if I had wished it. Did I want her? I think she is not good in bed and I think she has poor skin on her face. I did not want her. I am trusted by them, and I am trusted by Carmine and Anna Borelli, the old people. They do nothing if they have not talked first with me. Do you know that the kids in Forcella have my picture on the screen of their mobile phones? I am a person of importance. All the police hunt me, and all the carabinieri special teams, and the prosecutor. I am, in Naples, in the list of the ten most wanted – I have that status, and that respect. I have a place in the ten with a Russo and a Licciardi and a Contini. There are many days when I am in the newspaper. In the newspaper is my photograph. The journalists write about me.
‘I read everything that is written about me in the newspaper. They call me Il Pistole in the newspaper. Many times I have been on the front page of Cronaca and of Mattino, and they talk about me on the news from RAI. I am a celebrity in this city. I am more famous than a film star, or a singer, or a footballer. They say I am the assassino – you understand that? – who has no fear and who does not give mercy, we say senza misericordia. I have killed more than forty men. I do not know exactly how many men because it is not important to me. I am the killer, the expert at killing, and I do not have hesitation in killing.
‘When I have the instruction I will kill you, Eddie. It is not personal. It is not because you sleep with Immacolata Borelli who has fat ankles and bad skin. I will kill you when it is ordered by the clan. I will not kill you because I hate you, but because it is ordered. I will not hurt you. I am not your enemy, but if I was ordered to kill you and did not I would lose respect. I must have respect.’