Luciano's Luck (20 page)

In the canteen, he worked his way through a large plateful of some kind of spaghetti. There was black bread, cheese in plenty, real coffee. He was beginning to feel almost human again.

There was no one else in the canteen. The guard said, ‘Had enough?’

‘Sure,’ Detweiler told him.

‘Okay, follow me.’

They went out and along the corridor and the guard opened a door leading into a small whitewashed cell with a bunk bed with a mattress on it. He gave Detweiler a cigarette and lit it for him.

‘Wait here. I'll tell Lieutenant Suslov you're ready to go.’

He went out, closing the door behind him and Detweiler relaxed, inhaling deeply on the cigarette. The next stage was the important one now. How to make contact with Carter and the others. And with Suslov out of the way…

There was a sudden hideous clamour. He looked up and saw that an electric bell jangled above the door. Then the door burst open and they rushed in, four of them, and flung themselves on him.

He was kicked and beaten all the way along the passage, dragged by the ankles down a flight of stone steps, ending up in a corner, arms raised against the flailing truncheons. When they finally stopped he looked up fearfully and found Meyer and Suslov looking down at him.

Meyer said, ‘Now you know exactly where you stand. Have you anything to say to me?’

To Detweiler, in spite of his weakened state, one thing was obvious. The slightest hint of his true identity and God alone knew what they might do to him. So, he stayed in character.

‘Please, Major, I'm a poor man,’ he whined. ‘I know nothing.’

Meyer turned to Suslov. ‘He's all yours.’

As he walked away, Suslov nodded to his men. They pulled Detweiler to his feet and made him stand against the wall braced on his fingertips, legs apart. One of them placed a bag of some black material over his head leaving him in total darkness. The pain in his fingers was already intense. He groaned, moving slightly and a truncheon flailed across his kidneys.

Maria leaned on the battlements, staring out across the mountains to the Cammarata rising almost six thousand feet into the sky. The side of the valley was carpeted with flowers, fresh because of the rain. Red poppies, anemones, blue iris, spreading in the distance.

Padre Giovanni came up the steps to join her. ‘So, here you are.’ He nodded out over the land. ‘Well, what do you think?’

‘Nothing changes,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘There are caves up there that used to hide Roman slaves two thousand years ago.’ He sat down. ‘Are you glad to be home?’

‘Home?’ she said. ‘This isn't home, Father. Not to me. We are taught that to hate is a mortal sin and yet I believe, with all my heart, that I hate this place.’

‘And your grandfather?’

‘Antonio Luca,’ she said. ‘Capo Mafia in all Sicily. Lord of Life and Death. Does the church permit me to love such a man?’

‘My child,’ Giovanni said, ‘it was not your grandfather who killed your mother. It was evil men who plotted his death.’

‘He was responsible,’ she said, ‘because of what he was. If you defend him, you defend Mafia. How can you, a priest, defend that?’

‘I don't,’ he said tranquilly. ‘I defend no one. I deal in human souls as instructed by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels.’

The gate opened and before she could reply Carter and Barbera entered the courtyard below, riding on mules.

Barbera said, ‘As far as we know Detweiler was arrested and taken to the barracks at Agrigento.’

‘How did they find him?’ Savage demanded.

‘An informer. He'll be taken care of.’

They were seated at one of the refectory tables where meals were eaten; Savage and Rosa and Barbera on one side, Luciano, Carter and Maria on the other. Padre Giovanni was at the head of the table. He poured red wine into his glass and passed the bottle to Luciano.

‘Even if Major Meyer is unaware of Sergeant Detweiler's true identity, he will still, I fear, be subjected to considerable brutality.’ He turned to Savage. ‘How strong would you say he is, Captain?’

‘Oh, he's tough enough,’ Savage said. ‘Once during a commando raid on the French coast, he walked twenty miles to our rendezvous with a bullet in the foot.’

Barbera said, ‘Most men have their breaking point. Once Detweiler opens his mouth, they'll be looking for us.’

‘Which means we must see Luca as soon as possible,’ Carter said.

Brother Filippo entered, holding a pigeon in his hand. He stroked it soothingly while Padre Giovanni unfastened the tiny capsule from its left leg. He prised it open with a finger nail, took out the paper it contained and unrolled it. He examined it, looked up and smiled.

‘In the morning, my friends. He will see you in the morning.’

There were two additional members of the district committee replacing Mori and Russo. They were waiting in the living rom at the back of the mortuary when Barbera entered with Harry Carter and Luciano. Barbera made the introductions.

‘Father Collura, you know, Harry, representing the Christian Democrats. Mario Verga who runs the inn here speaks for the Separatist movement.’

‘Father.’ Carter shook hand. ‘Signor Verga. Good to see you again.’ He turned to the other two men. ‘And these gentlemen?’

‘Zizzo and Valachi,’ Barbera said, ‘Of the Communist Party. There have been changes in that respect.’

Zizzo, a small, dark man in gamekeeper's leggings and corduroy suit said angrily, ‘Stuff the pretty talk, Barbera. Pietro Mori murdered in his own home and Ettore Russo, our leader, vanished off the face of the earth. A direct attack on the whole Communist movement and we know who is responsible.’

‘You make me sick,’ Carter said. ‘All of you. Nearly two years since I first came to Sicily and you haven't changed a bit, like boys, stoning each other on the way home from school for no good reason. I couldn't care less who rules Sicily after the war. You can sort that out amongst yourselves. For the moment, the question isn't, do you want rid of Mussolini and the Fascist Party. It's, do you want rid of the Germans?’

Father Collura said mildly, ‘I agree with Colonel Carter. First, we get rid of our enemies. Afterwards, when Sicily is free again, we discuss our future democratically amongst ourselves.’

The two Communists reacted angrily. Valachi said, ‘Fine words which mean nothing. Why should we listen to Carter anyway? Is he one of us? No a stranger, interested only in the needs of his own people. The English and Americans don't give a damn for Sicily or its people. We're just another pawn in the Capitalist imperialist struggle.’

Carter was tired. There was that pain in his lung again. When he breathed it hurt. More than that he was weary. Tired of the scheming, the feuds, the personal vendettas. He was about to turn away in disgust when suddenly, Luciano was beside him.

‘Why should you listen? I'll tell you why, you stupid bastards.’ He tore open Garter's shirt with one quick movement, exposing the livid, raised scars left by his chest wounds. ‘He's made his bones, the Professor. Two months ago, they carried him out of here in a coffin with a bullet in the lung. How much has that taken off his life at the other end? Why do you think he's come back for the good of his health?’

Carter said, ‘You're talking into the wind, my friend, and the words blow back unheard.’

He went out. There was a heavy silence. Zizzo said, ‘What in the hell has it got to do with you, anyway?’ He turned on Barbera. ‘Who is this guy?’

Luciano took his time over lighting a cigarette. ‘An interesting point,’ he said. ‘To the priest who baptized me I'm Salvatore Lucania, but to most people I'm simply Luciano.’ His smile was terrible to see. ‘Lucky Luciano. Would you like me to tell you why?’

Both Zizzo and Valachi recoiled in horror and Father Collura moved in quickly. ‘Please, Don Salvatore, no harm was intended, no offence, I'm sure.’

There was a wooden, handpainted icon of Our Lady and the Holy Infant on the far wall. Luciano's hand came out of his pocket holding the ivory Madonna, there was a click, he swung underhand and the point of the stiletto buried itself in the icon.

‘You see, Father, the knife in the heart of the Virgin, something we Sicilians understand.’

There was a dreadful silence. He dominated the room now ‘Cards on the table. Come with me, all of you.’

He nodded to Barbera, who led the way through the waiting mortuary into the preparation room. Two bodies lay side by side covered by sheets. Barbera pulled back the first one to disclose the thin aesthetic features of Pietro Mori. The face had been carefully made up, the lips touched with carmine. He even wore his glasses.

‘And here?’ Barbera uncovered the other corpse and exposed Ettore Russo.

‘We came at great personal risk to help the cause,’ Luciano said. ‘But these two used the occasion to work off some personal grudge against Mafia. Russo was the instrument. He and the misguided youth with him paid the price, but it was Mori who stood behind the deed. He made the worst mistake of his life, not in attacking me, but in exposing to danger of her life the granddaughter of Don Antonio Luca who was with me at the Villa Bellona at the time.’

‘Holy Mother of God!’ Zizzo whispered.

‘Please, Don Salvatore,’ Valachi had his cap off now. ‘Such a thing was
infamita
and never intended. You must believe this.’ He turned to Barbera. ‘Vito, you can surely make plain to the good Don Antonio that this was none of our doing.’

‘Of course,’ Barbera said. ‘Although in Don Antonio's eyes, deeds speak louder than words. The fact that the district committee speaks with one voice in future; that we work together against the common enemy in the coming invasion, would impress him as an earnest of your good faith.’

Zizzo said eagerly. ‘You may rely on us of the Communist Party.’

‘Politics are politics,’ Valachi said. ‘But we're all Sicilians first.’

Luciano moved to the window and lit another cigarette. Barbera said, ‘So, the invasion will come and very soon now. You and your people must hold yourselves ready with all weapons at your command and when the time comes, you take your orders from Colonel Carter. You understand this?’

‘Yes,’ Zizzo said.

Father Collura said, ‘The cooperation of we of the Christian Democrats Party goes without saying.’

Luciano turned. ‘All in order now?’

Barbera nodded. ‘So it would appear.’

‘Good. So long as we understand each other.’

He stood there waiting, left hand on hip, head thrown back. Zizzo and Valachi shuffled forward in turn and kissed his right hand.

Savage couldn't sleep. There wasn't much room in the small bed with Rosa squeezed in beside him. The old shirt she wore instead of a night shift had rucked up so that her breasts were warm against him and her hand had fallen across his stomach. In sleep she looked not so much young as vulnerable.

Lying there with an arm about her seemed the most natural thing in the world. He felt warm, secure and content. He managed to turn up the lamp with one hand, lit a cigarette and reached for a small tattered volume on the bedside locker. It was the poetry anthology his grandfather had given him on his thirteenth birthday. He had read it a thousand times and the contents never bored him.

Rosa stirred and opened her eyes. She said sleepily, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Reading.’

‘But what?’

‘Poetry.’

She touched his ear with her tongue and her hand slid down his stomach to hold him. ‘Is it better than me, this poetry?’

‘You can't compare the two things.’

‘So?’ she pouted. ‘This is how much you love me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the poetry can say how much, far better than I can.’

‘I don't believe you. Show me what you're reading now.’

‘I don't need to. I know it by heart. It was written a long time ago by a very great Englishman. Sir Walter Raleigh. He was just about everything a man could be. A gentleman in the true sense of the word, a fine soldier, musician, writer, poet.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘They chopped off his head. The king was jealous of him.’

She said, ‘The poem? What about this poem?’

He said aloud in English, quietly and softly,

‘But true love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning:
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.’

*

She hardly understood the meaning of the words, but the poignancy was there. She started to weep, deeply and bitterly, as if mourning that lost innocence and everything that had ever happened to her. Savage, out of some strange perception, knew exactly what was taking place here.

He held her close, thinking about Boston and his mother and the whole Savage clan and Rosa. Suddenly he felt unaccountably cheerful. If they don't like it, he thought, they can do the other thing. She was asleep again now and he held her close, listening to the rain outside the open window.

In the cubbyhole at the back of the coffin room, Barbera sat at the radio while Carter and Luciano drank coffee and waited. Finally, Barbera took off his headphones and turned, his face suffused with excitement.

‘They come,’ he said. ‘The day after tomorrow.’

Carter got to his feet and paced nervously across the room. ‘It doesn't give us much time.’

‘Come on, Harry,’ Luciano said. ‘We see Luca tomorrow. One meeting is all it takes. Afterwards, he sends messages all over Western Sicily and how long does that take? A few hours only.’

Barbera had already taken a bottle and three glasses from a cupboard. He filled them quickly.

‘A drink, I think, would be in order.’ He turned and twiddled the dial on the receiver. ‘Let's see what the British Forces radio has to offer from Cairo.’

The music was distant and far away and the voice of the man singing was strangely compelling, something of the night in it.

‘I like that,’ Luciano said. ‘Who is it?’

‘Al Bowlly,’ Carter told him. ‘One of my weaknesses. Did I ever tell you I play a very fair jazz piano? He was an English crooner, South African originally. Number One in the hit parade for years. He was killed in the Blitz in fortyone. That's “Moonlight on the Highway”, probably the best thing he ever did. Recorded with the Lew Stone orchestra in March, 1938.