In the Hour Before Midnight (9 page)

“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.

I kissed them away and laughed. “There can be no doubt whatsoever that the trouser suit has been the greatest protector of a woman's virtue since the chastity belt. Almost an impossible problem.”

“But not quite,” she said.

“No, not quite.”

I kissed her again and this time her arms slid around my neck, pulling me close. She was really very desirable, but so untrustworthy.

 

We came down to the village a different way on our return and I got a look into the walled garden at the rear of the wineshop from a couple of hundred feet up. A red Alfa Romeo was parked in the barn and two men were talking in the entrance. When I got the binoculars out, I discovered it was Cerda and Marco Gagini.

Rosa had walked on ahead some little way, picking wild flowers. I didn't say anything to her, or indeed to Cerda when we returned to the wineshop. Burke was on his feet again by then, looking and acting pretty foul. I put him into the rear seat for
the return trip and Rosa sat beside me.

He controlled his temper for at least a hundred yards and then exploded. “Well, aren't you going to tell me, for Christ's sake? What did you find?”

“Where Serafino hangs out.”

“And we can get at him?”

“I think so. Remember the mission at Lagona?”

“Where we parachuted in for the nuns?” He frowned. “That's what you're suggesting now?”

“It's the only way,” I said. “Can you get the gear together?”

He nodded. “No difficulty there. I'll have it flown in tomorrow from Crete. Look, are you sure about this?”

“I'll give it to you word by word when we get back,” I told him. “Now why don't you try to get some more sleep?”

He laughed sourly. “Sleep? I'll never sleep again.”

He subsided into the corner and I swung the Fiat into the first bend and came out in a cloud of dust. When I glanced into the mirror I was smiling.

 

We reached Palermo just before evening and there was one more thing to be done before we returned to the villa as I reminded Burke. We called at Hoffer's bank, presented his cheque and had it
converted to a bill of exchange to be drawn upon a firm of Swiss merchant bankers I designated. We left it on deposit in the bank vault from which it could be retrieved on presentation of a key they gave us plus his signature.

Burke wasn't pleased at all, mainly because I'd pushed him into it and he never liked that. The clerk gave me a large manilla envelope to put the bill of exchange in and I let Burke seal it which seemed to make him feel a little better. I told him he could hang on to the key and he put it carefully away in his wallet.

For some reason he still didn't look really happy. I was rather pleased about that.

W
HEN WE REACHED
the villa, Hoffer hadn't returned. Rosa disappeared to take a bath which was exactly what I wanted to do, but Burke seemed to come to life again.

“You'd better have some coffee and a shower before Hoffer comes back,” I told him. “If he sees you like this he'll start worrying about his investment.”

It had an effect of sorts. “To hell with Hoffer. He needs me and he bloody well knows it. Now let's have words. I want to know what you found up there today.”

I humoured him to the extent of following him out through the lounge to the terrace. Piet and
Legrande were sitting at a table playing cards, a bottle of something between them.

Piet jumped to his feet at once as Burke arrived, that inner glow on his face again. “Thank God!” Legrande said. “It's been as lively as a graveyard around here today. When do we see some action?”

“Soon enough.” Burke found time to smile at Piet and squeezed his arm. “Bring us some coffee, there's a good lad, and we'll get down to business.”

Piet went out on the double and Burke took his chair, put the tray with its bottles and glasses on the floor and looked up at me. “All right, Stacey, let's have it.”

I unfolded the map Cerda had given me and spread it across the table. First of all I went through my conversation with the
mafioso
mayor, then indicated where he thought Serafino to be. Piet returned with one of the houseboys and coffee on a tray round about then. It only took me a couple of minutes to give them a description of the terrain, ending with my own solution to the problem.

Legrande looked glum. Having served with a colonial parachute regiment in Indo-China, and later, Algeria, he'd as much experience of that kind of thing as Burke and probably more.

“I don't like it,” he said. “A night drop into
country like that is asking for it. All we need is for one of us to break a leg and we're in real trouble.”

“It's the only way,” I said. “Otherwise we might as well pack our bags and go home.”

“Stacey's right,” Burke said briskly. “We've no choice. Now, let's get down to the details.”

I stood up. “You'll have to manage without me. I'm going out.”

He looked at me with a frown. “Don't be absurd. We've got to get this thing organised.”

“That's your job. You're supposed to be in charge. I spent a long, hot afternoon sorting the situation out for you while you lay flat on your back tanked up to the ears.”

I found myself leaning on the table, caught in our first public confrontation. It was as if Piet and Legrande weren't there—as if we were quite alone. There was a slight puzzled frown on his face, something close to pain in his eyes.

He wanted to ask me why, I knew that. Instead, he said quietly, “All right, Stacey, if that's the way you want it.”

He went back to examining the map and I straightened. Legrande looked completely mystified, but Piet's face was white and angry. I ignored them both and went out.

• • •

I showered, then pulled on my old bathrobe and went back into the bedroom, towelling my hair. At that precise moment, the door opened and Piet Jaeger came in.

He slammed it shut and glared at me. “What in the hell are you playing at? You shamed him in front of all of us, the man who's done more for you than anyone else in the world.”

“I'll tell you what he did for me,” I said. “He taught me three things. To shoot my enemy from cover instead of face to face, to kill, not to wound, and that a bullet in the back is to be preferred to one from the front. Quite an education. Oh, there have been one or two other items in between, but those are the salient features.”

“You owe him everything.” Piet was almost beside himself. “He saved you twice. We said no walking wounded at Lagona, but when the chips were down and you got it in the leg, what did he do?”

“So he made them carry me out. I'd love to know why.”

“You rotten bastard.” His South African accent had noticeably thickened. “He's worth three of you any day of the week. You aren't fit to walk in his shadow.”

In a way I was sorry for him. I suppose a lot of his anger came down to plain jealousy. He loved Burke, I realized that now, and had probably always suffered me in silence. I had been with Burke from the beginning and he was right—by all the rules I should have been given a bullet in the head, the mercenary law to save me from falling into the hands of the
Simbas
alive. But Burke had ordered them to carry me out. For Piet that must have been about as easy to take as a lump of glass in the gut.

“Go on, get out of it,” I said. “Go and smooth his wrinkled brow or whatever you do together in the night watches.”

He swung hard, the kind of punch that would have knocked my head from my shoulders had it landed. I made sure it didn't, allowing myself to roll backwards across the bed. I didn't fancy my chances in any kind of fair fight. He hadn't been in jail lately so he was fitter than I was and had a two stone advantage in weight.

He scrambled across the bed, trying to get at me, got caught up in the sheets and fell on his face. I kicked him in the head which didn't accomplish much as I was bare-footed, but it shook him for a moment and by the time he was on his feet I had the Smith and Wesson in my hand.

“By God, I'll have you now, Wyatt.”

He plunged forward and I shot the lobe off his left ear. He screamed like a woman and his hand went to the side of his head as blood spurted. He stared at me in horror and then the door burst open and Legrande appeared. A second later, he was pulled out of the way and Burke entered, the Browning in his hand.

He got between us fast, I'll say that for him. “For God's sake, what's going on here?”

“You'd better get your bloody lover boy out of it if you want to keep him in one piece,” I said. “This time I only nicked him. I'd be just as happy to make it two in the belly and he can take his own sweet time about dying.”

A good ninety per cent of my anger was simulated and I even allowed my gun hand to shake a little. The total effect on Burke was remarkable. The skin tightened across the cheekbones, something stirred in his eyes and for a moment, hate looked out at me. I think it was then, at that precise moment, that I knew we were finally finished. That whatever had been between us was dust and ashes.

He allowed the Browning to drop to his side, turned and took Piet by the arm. “Better let me have a look at that for you.”

They left without a word. Legrande hesitated and said slowly, “Look, Stacey, maybe we should have words.”

I'd never seen him look so troubled. “Go on, get out of it,” I said. “I'm sick to death of the lot of you.”

I gave him a shove into the corridor and slammed the door. I had a hard job keeping my laughter down.
So now it was Stacey the wild man?
Let them sort that out.

It was only later, alone in the silence, that I discovered that my hand really had begun to shake. I threw the Smith and Wesson on to the bed and dressed quickly.

 

I'd hung on to the keys of the Fiat and when I went down to the courtyard it was still there. As I climbed behind the wheel Legrande arrived and opened the other door.

“I've got to talk to you, Stacey. I don't know which way I'm pointing.”

I shook my head. “You wouldn't be welcome where I'm going.”

“As far as the village then. There's a café there. We could have a drink.”

“Suit yourself, but I can't give you long.”

He scrambled in and I drove away. He lit one of his eternal Gauloise and sat back, an expression of settled gloom on his hard, peasant face. He looked more like a Basque than anything else,
which wasn't surprising as he came from a village just over the border from Andorra.

He was a close man, one of the most efficient killers I have ever known, but not, I think, by instinct. He was not a cruel man by nature and I had seen him carry a child through twenty miles of the worst country in the Congo rather than leave it to die. He was a product of his time more than anything. A member of the Resistance during the war, he had killed his first man at the age of fourteen. Later had come the years of bloody conflict in the swamps of Indo-China, the humiliation of Dien Bien Phu followed by a Viet prison camp.

Men like him who had been through the fire swore that it would never happen again. They read Mao Tse-tung on guerrilla warfare and went to Algeria and fought the same kind of war against the same faceless enemy, fighting fire with fire, only to find, at the end, a greater humiliation than ever. Legrande had come down on the side of the O.A.S. and had fled to the Congo from yet another defeat.

I wondered sometimes what he lived for and sitting in the small café in the candlelight, he looked old and used up as if he had done everything there was to do.

He swallowed the brandy he had ordered and
called for another. “What's wrong between you and the colonel, Stacey?”

“You tell me.”

He shook his head. “He's changed—just in this last six months he's changed. God knows why, but something's eating him, that's for sure.”

“I can't help you,” I said. “I'm as much in the dark as you are. Maybe Piet can tell you. They seem thick enough.”

He was surprised. “That's been going on for years now, ever since the Kasai. I thought you knew.”

I smiled. “I only believed in story-book heroes until recently. How long has he been drinking?”

“It came with the general change and he goes at it privately, too. I don't like that. Do you think he's up to this thing?”

“We won't know that till it happens.” I finished my brandy and got up. “Must go now, Jules. Can you get back all right?”

He nodded and looked up at me, a strange expression on his face. “Maybe he's like me, Stacey, maybe he's just survived too long. Sometimes I feel I've no right to be here at all, can you understand that? If you think that way for long enough, you lose all sense of reality.”

His words haunted me as I went out to the Fiat and drove away.

• • •

The Bechstein sounded as good as ever as I waited for my grandfather to appear. I tried a little Debussy and the first of the three short movements of Ravel's Sonatina. After that I got ambitious, sorted out some music and worked my way through Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E flat minor. Lovely, ice-cold stuff that still sounded marvelous, even if my technique had dulled a little over the years.

When I finished, there was still no sign of him. I went looking and was surprised to find him sitting on the terrace with a bottle and a couple of glasses in front of him.

“I didn't want to disturb you,” he said. “I've been listening from here. It sounded fine.”

“At a distance.”

He smiled and filled a glass for me. It was Marsala and very good. Not one of my favourites, but I couldn't have said so had my life depended on it because suddenly, and for no apparent reason, there was an intimacy between us. Something very real, something I didn't want to lose.

“How did you get on in the mountains?” he asked me.

“Didn't Marco give you a report? Hasn't he returned yet?”

He managed an expression of vague bewilderment which didn't impress me in the slightest. “Marco has been in Palermo all day as he is every Friday. It's the biggest day of the week for us. Receipts to check, the bank to see. You know how it is in business?”

I smiled. “All right, we'll play the game your way. I saw Cerda who told me where he thinks Serafino may be found. Catching him there is another matter with a shepherd whistling from every crag, but it could be done.”

“Is it permitted to ask how?”

I told him and he frowned slightly. “You've done this sort of thing before?”

“Oh, yes, I'm quite the commando.”

“But to jump into darkness in country like that sounds a more than usually dangerous practice.”

“Possibly, but it can be done.”

“Why, Stacey? Why do you want to do this thing? Why do you live this way?”

“There's always the money.”

He shook his head. “We've been into that—not good enough. No, when I look at you I see myself forty years ago.
Mafioso
branded clean to the bone.”

“Which is another way of saying I like to play
the game,” I said. “And a savage, bloody little game it is, but it's all I've got. That and Burke.”

I stood up and moved to the edge of the terrace and he said softly, “You don't like him?”

“It goes deeper than that. Everything I am, he made, people keep telling me that and I'm tired of hearing it.” I turned to face him. “He taught me that if you're going to kill it may as well be from the back as the front, that there's no difference. But he's wrong.”

I desperately wanted him to understand, more than I had ever wanted anything. He sat there looking at me gravely. “Without the rules, it's nothing—no sense to any of it. With them, there's still something to hang on to.”