Killing Ground (42 page)

And Charley had gone into the living room, where Peppino, home an hour before and jacket off and whisky in his hand and tie loosened, sat and where the children played with the presents that had been brought them. There was a battery-powered car that piccolo Mario raced across the tiled floor, and a doll that Francesca had stripped and then dressed again. For Angela there was a silk headscarf, and for Charley there was a box of lace handkerchiefs. She had left Angela in the kitchen with the pasta ready to go into a saucepan and the sauce already mixed, the meat thin-sliced and in the refrigerator, the vegetables washed, the fruit in a bowl and the cheese on the wood block. The wine was chilled and the mineral water. Beyond Peppino and the children, in the dining alcove, the table had been laid by Charley for eight people.

'Come on, Mario and Francesca, bath time, come on,' Charley had said.

'So soon, so early?' Peppino had asked.

Charley had glanced down at the watch on her wrist. 'Think I'd better be getting on because then I'll need a shower and time to change. I thought I'd wear what you—'

And Peppino had said, so casual, 'I don't think you need to be with us, Charley. I understand Angela told you that it is my father's birthday - family talk, Sicilian talk. I think that for you it would be very tedious, very boring for you.'

'Don't worry about me, I'll just sit—'

And Peppino had said, 'My father and mother are from the country here, Charley. I think it would be difficult for you to understand their dialect. They would not be at ease with a stranger - not a stranger to us but to them - so it is better that you do not sit with us tonight. Angela will put the children to bed.'

'Of course, Peppino. I quite understand . . .'

Into the dining alcove, to the table, and Charley had stripped a laid place and removed a chair. Seven places left, and seven chairs. She had gone into the kitchen and told Angela, without comment, that Peppino thought she would be bored by dinner with his parents. She had watched Angela, and seen the woman's face stiffen, and she had wondered whether Angela would stride from the kitchen and into the living room and make an issue of Charley at dinner. Angela had nodded, as if she did not have the will to fight. She had bathed the children, dressed them in their best clothes and brought them back to Peppino. She had made herself a sandwich in the kitchen. She had gone to her room.

She tried to read. She lay on her bed, dressed, and she turned the pages and learned nothing from them. She listened. A car came. She heard the murmur of voices and the happy shouting of the children. She heard footsteps in the corridor, beyond her door, which she had left an inch ajar. She heard the sounds of the kitchen.

She tried to read . . .

For Christ's sake, Charley . . .

She turned the page back because she was absorbing nothing of what she read.

For Christ's sake, Charley, it is just a job of work.

She put the book on the table beside her bed.

For Christ's sake, Charley, the job of work is playing the lie.

She pushed herself up off the bed. She straightened her hair.

It was what she had come for, travelled for, it was why she had left the bungalow and the class of 2B. She took a big breath. She put a smile on her face. She walked out of her room, and she went first towards the kitchen, and she saw the dirtied plates of the pasta and meat courses, and there was another plate beside the cooker that had a saucepan lid put on it as if to keep the plate warm. She went along the corridor towards the voices in the dining alcove beyond the living room. She came into the living room and the smile was fixed hard on her face. Only the children bubbled laughter at the table and played with the car and the doll, but the talking died. The chair at the head of the table was empty. She kicked away the quaver in her voice, spoke boldly.

Charley asked Angela if she could help by putting the children to bed.

Angela and Peppino sat opposite each other, then the children, then the two old people. There was a smear of annoyance on Peppino's face, and the expression of Angela was pain. At the end of the table, either side of the empty place and the empty chair, were the parents of Peppino. The old man wore a poor-fitting suit, but good cloth, and his collar and tie drooped from a thin neck. The old woman wore black, with white sparse hair gathered in a bun. Charley had seen their house, she had walked past the open door of their house, she had heard the radio playing in their house and smelt the cooking in their house.

Peppino said, 'That will not be necessary, Angela will see the children to bed. Thank you for the offer. Goodnight, Charley.'

He did not introduce her. The eyes of the old man were on her, bright in his aged and lined face. The old woman looked at her, disapproving, then started again to peel the skin from an apple.

Charley smiled. 'Right, I just wondered. It will be good to get an early night.'

She went back to her room. She again left the door an inch ajar. She sat on the bed.

Her fingers rested on the face of her wrist-watch. She wondered where he was, whether Axel Moen listened. Plain to her that she was not welcome, and there was the empty chair, and there was the food kept warm on the plate. The rhythm of the codes played in her mind. Where was he? Did he listen? Her finger edged towards the button on the watch on her wrist.

She made the signal. She paused. She made the signal again. Where was he? Would he have heard it? She pressed the button, the same rhythm.

The excitement ran in her. It was her power . . .

She went to the bathroom, washed and peed, and back in her room she undressed. The pulse tone she had sent, three times, was her power . . .

For a moment she held the bear close to her, as if the bear should share the excitement that was hers because of the power. She switched off the bedside light. She lay in the darkness. Trying to stay awake, hearing sounds in the kitchen, hearing the flushing of the lavatory, hearing the children going with Angela to their rooms, hearing the indistinct murmur of the voices. Trying to stay awake, and drifting, with the finger resting on the button of her wrist- watch, and drifting further, as if the excitement exhausted her. When she drifted, she dreamed. When she came through from each dream, sporadic, she jerked herself awake and killed each dream and looked at the fluorescent face of her watch. Ten o'clock coming, and eleven, and midnight, and the dreams were harder to kill, and she drifted faster, further.

She dreamed of the young man in the newspaper photograph with the throat cut and the blood spread, and of the story that Benny had told, and of the helicopter.

She dreamed of the shadow in the doorway, and of her door closing.

She dreamed of the hovering helicopter and the men in balaclavas, and of the soft-shoe shuffle in the corridor, and of Axel Moen standing under the trees beyond the beach sand . . . Charlie slept.

'What time is it?'

'It's thirty minutes on from when you last asked.'

'What the hell's she at?'

'You want me to go to the door, wake the house, request to speak to her, then ask her?'

'She sent the Stand-by.'

'She sent the Stand-by. She has not sent Immediate Alert, nor has she sent Stand Down.'

'It is six hours since she sent Stand-by.'

'Correct, Axel, because it is now three o'clock, which is half an hour after we last had this discussion.'

'Don't understand it.' 'What I understand, Axel, I am quite pleased that I did not call out the heroes of the carabineri. Overtime, the need for a report, I am very pleased.'

'I'll kick her butt.'

'She will be very bruised. You said that half an hour ago, and an hour ago.'

'But, it is just goddam unprofessional.'

'Exactly, Axel. Because she is not a professional.'

They sat in the car. The last of the discos had long closed, the piazza bars had shut, the kids on the motorcycles and the scooters had roared away into the night. Mondello was emptied. The street where they were parked, off the piazza and a block from the shoreline, was deserted. Axel took a Lucky Strike from the packet and swore under his breath and passed the packet to 'Vanni and 'Vanni took the last cigarette from the packet. The match flashed in the interior of the car.

'That sort of settles it, doesn't it? I mean, I'm not goddam sitting here without cigarettes.'

Axel crushed the empty packet. He dropped it on the floor beside 'Vanni's finished packet and beside the squashed wrapping of the pizzas they'd eaten. They smoked.

They eked out their cigarettes until their fingers burned. They dropped their cigarettes through the open windows.

'What do you think?'

'I think, Axel, that we go to bed. You are angry?'

'I'll kick the butt off her.'

'I think - you know what I think? I think, and you will not love me,' 'Vanni grinned wide. 'I think you care, and I think you are very frightened for her.'

'I'll kick her so's my foot hurts.'

There was only the night duty officer as company for Harry Compton.

In a mood of stubborn anger he had telephoned Rome, and been told by Alf Rogers that the report was coming, but late that night, and he said that he would wait on.

There was a phrase the commander liked to use, something about the primary work of S06 being 'putting faces to illegality', a phrase

recited to visiting politicians and bureaucrats. In front of the detective sergeant, on his desk, was the source of that stubborn anger. A camera at Heathrow had put a face to illegality. Italian passport-holder Bruno Fiori, seven hours earlier, had passed through Terminal Two, Heathrow. The photograph, taken by a camera on a high wall bracket, showed him presenting the Italian passport at the emigration desk, and the order that the holder of that passport should not be delayed, not be quizzed, not be made aware of any investigation, had been most specific. The bastard had gone through, without let or hindrance, to his flight. The photograph showed a smoothly handsome man, well dressed, relaxed, and the bastard should have been in the interrogation rooms or in a cell.

A bell rang. The bell was piping and sharp. The night duty officer was pushing up from his chair, but Harry Compton waved him down and back to his newspaper. He hurried through to Miss Frobisher's office, abandoned and left pristine for the morning.

The message churned from the printer. He read . . .

TO: Harry Compton, S06.

FROM: Alfred Rogers, DLO, British Embassy, Via XX Settembre, Rome.

SUBJECT: MARIO RUGGERIO.

DOB. 19/8/1934.

POB. Prizzi, western Sicily.

PARENTS. Rosario b. 1912 (still living) and Agata b. 1913 (still living).

Their other children - Salvatore b. 1936 (imprisoned), Carmelo b. 1937

(mentally subnormal), Cristoforo b. 1939 (murdered 1981), Maria b. 1945, Giuseppe b. 1954 (see below).

FAMILY. Married Michela Bianchini (from LCN Trapani family) 1975.

Salvatore (s) b. 1980, Domenica (d) b. 1982. Living now in Prizzi.

DESCRIPTION. Height 1.61 metres. Weight (est.) 83 kilos. Blue eyes. No surgical scars known of. Believed of heavy and powerful build (no photograph for 20+ years, no positive sighting in that period). Not known whether dark-brown hair now greyed or dyed, also nk whether wears spectacles routinely.

He carried the sheets of paper back to his desk.

'Like a mug of coffee, squire? Just making one for myself.' The night duty officer was folding away his newspaper.

'No, thank you.'

BIOGRAPHY. Formal education, elementary school, Prizzi, 1939—43.

Travelled with his father - contraband lorry driver. 1951 - convicted of attempted murder, Court of Assizes, Palermo (victim alleged to have denied him 'sufficient respect'). In Ucciardione Prison alleged to have strangled two fellow prisoners, no witnesses, no evidence. Released 1960, having become sworn Man of Honour. Not arrested since. Charged in absentia with murder, narco trafficking, much else. Believed FBI/DEA have sufficient evidence for indictment in USA. An ally of Corleonesi (Riina, Provenzano, etc.), but thought to have maintained independence. In power struggle (post-Corleonesi arrests) indications that RUGGERIO is responsible for disappearance of Agrigento capo and most recent murder of Catania capo.

'You all right, squire? Sure you won't have a coffee? There's a sandwich here, missus always makes enough for a bloody tea party.'

'No, thank you.'

'Just asking. Only you look like someone's grabbed your goolies and given them a god-almighty twist. Didn't mean to interrupt...'

ASSESSMENT. Extraordinarily secretive, reputation of taking extreme care of his personal security, no successful wire taps, no documentation found. Has also tightened overall security of 'families' in LCN under his control, introduced cellular system, hence no recent information provided against him by the pentito (super-grass) programme. Seen by Italian authorities as ruthless killer.

SCO report: 'Ignorant but he has intuition and intelligence, his actions are most hard to predict'.

Squadra mobile report: 'Violent, aggressive, vindictive, with above-average shrewdness and determination'.

DIA report: 'He has power over life and death, an incredible personal presence, and a streak of violent sadism, BUT (my emphasis, AR) he is reduced to a miserable condition because he cannot move openly, cannot live with his family openly. He is submerged in the terror of assassination, exists in an atmosphere of tension and fear, hence violent paranoia.'

Magistrate Rocco Tardelli (investigating Ruggerio) in a recent report to Min. of Justice: '[Ruggerio] is a supreme strategist, believes future of LCN

is in international dealings, acting as broker for cartels, Triads, Yakuza, Russian mafia. His reputation goes ahead of him, he is seen as combining experience with shrewdness. If he achieves domination of LCN, he will seek to direct the enormous power of that organization beyond Italian frontiers.'

At a time when the effort of the Italian state against LCN is losing impetus, it would seem that Ruggerio has taken control.

(See attached for GIUSEPPE RUGGERIO.)