The Prince (56 page)

Her forced immobility, the darkness of the cellar where she was locked up, the untrustworthy faces she saw around her, the endless thoughts that chased through her head with no explanation, had once again plunged Aurora into utter apathy. She slept and ate what little her captors managed to give her.

Bontade, meanwhile, became more hysterical every day. He didn't like having the girl down in the basement. Also, he didn't know whether to attribute Roy Boccia's disappearance to a betrayal, in which case he would make him pay for it, or to his having been captured by the police. He had his men bring him the
New York Times
and the
New York Post
every day to check if Boccia had been arrested. But no report appeared in the newspapers. He decided to wait a few more days; then he would see to getting rid of the girl one way or another, which in his mind meant kill her and dump her in a garbage truck.

Lieutenant Commander Haffenden received Saro Ragusa and attorney Polakoff in his private office at the Hotel Astor, where he conducted his most delicate business.

Haffenden wasted no time in explaining his plan. It was more or less what Licata had predicted.

He told the two of them that his division had been working for months to identify all the Sicilian emigrants who had returned to Italy in recent years to visit their relations. They'd already contacted about a hundred of them and had them hand over photographs, postcards, books, official Italian documents, and anything that could help authorities form an idea of the islanders' mentality. Some had described industrial installations, government buildings, military strongholds, and routes linking the villages to one another—secondary roads that Italian and German troops were often unfamiliar with. They asked all of them for the names of trusted relatives and friends. The B-3 tracked down Italians who had never applied for US citizenship, while those who had and had been rejected were promised citizenship in exchange for information.

They had gathered quite a bit of data that the B-7, the unit responsible for analyzing the intelligence, was evaluating and classifying numerous strategic memoranda.

At this point, Haffenden concluded, there was only one move remaining: to convince the entire Sicilian Mafia organization to agree to serve the cause of liberation. Was there a leader among them charismatic enough to able to persuade his counterpart in Sicily to be on their side?

Licata had once again hit the nail on the head. That was the question he wanted the Lieutenant Commander to ask. Saro told Haffenden that the man he was looking for was the same one who had been able to stop the sabotage attacks at the Port of New York. Lucky Luciano was the only one who could convince their Sicilian cousins to side with the Americans.

Of course, all this would have a price. Though it was beyond his jurisdiction, Haffenden promised to bring the matter before the US attorney general, the only authority capable of deciding on a possible reduction of sentence. He told Saro and Polakoff that even District Attorney Hogan, as well as Governor Dewey, who had sent Luciano to prison some years ago, had already agreed to a retrial with a view toward a possible pardon.

Polakoff personally brought Luciano the news of the meeting with Haffenden, the request from naval intelligence, and the promise of a potential retrial to drastically reduce his sentence.

Lucky Luciano realized that this was his last card to play if he was to be released from prison any time soon. He still had twenty-four years to serve
if
he was a model prisoner—otherwise forty-four more years. So he agreed to go to Sicily secretly and meet with Don Calò, the Sicilian Mafia's
capo dei capi
, or “boss of bosses.”

As a landing place, Luciano suggested the Gulf of Castellammare, where there were many coves still controlled by friends who would protect him.

Naval intelligence would arrange the trip and his stay in Sicily. But Haffenden demanded that he be accompanied by Saro, whom he had come to trust. Once Luciano gave the island's bosses his instructions, Saro would be their contact in dealings between the Americans and the Sicilians.

O
n maps, Villalba is a tiny dot on a hill just under two thousand feet in elevation, in a rugged district of central Sicily that locals call the Vallone—“deep valley”—in the heart of the Madonie. Calogero Vizzini was born in this cluster of huts and stinking hovels, with no roads, no running water, and no sewers, where animals find shelter in the same dwellings as the peasants.

Don Calò, as everyone respectfully addressed him, was the son of destitute people; he had no lofty ancestry, no uncles who were monsignors or gabellotti, yet thanks to a keen criminal mind and a remarkable tactical intuition for seizing opportunities in constantly changing conditions, he managed to reach the apex of Mafia power in just a few years.

When he was still a young man of twenty, Don Calò was able to gain credibility and prestige by offering his services as an intermediary between the robbers who infested the island and the landowners. His first success came when he was chosen by the famous bandit Francesco Paolo Varsallona as his sole liaison with the noblemen in the area. Don Calò was like an employment agency of a criminal nature, providing landowners and gabellotti with private guards, or campieri, to protect their lands. Naturally, the clients of this particular “agency” underwrote a kind of insurance that safeguarded them from theft and extortion.

Calogero soon became known throughout the Vallone, as well as in the neighboring provinces, as a “connected man”—that is, a man you could depend on. The people he recommended were absolutely trustworthy. This activity enabled him to develop a vast network of people that included not only men with more or less clean criminal records but also noblemen, large landowners, politicians, and monsignors.

As time went by, this extensive system of collaborators and supporters formed the nucleus of a true, tight-knit family, or
cosca
. Calogero won the respect and esteem of the major landowners, managing to acquire for himself lands and estates that the legitimate owners could no longer maintain. Obviously, he was involved with the law on numerous occasions, but he always came out clean; only once was he disgraced by going to prison. No one ever managed to find him guilty of the thirty-nine murders, six attempted homicides, thirty-six holdups, thirty-seven burglaries, and sixty-three extortions that he had committed or ordered. This was the “man of honor” Lucky Luciano and Saro Ragusa were to meet with in Sicily.

Late one night in spring, Luciano was taken from his comfortable cell at Great Meadow and transported to a secret airport used by naval intelligence, near the Hudson River. Waiting for him there were Saro and Charles Haffenden. On the airstrip, a brand-new Douglas C-54 Skymaster that would take them to England was warming up its engines.

Haffenden informed Luciano that they would not be landing in the Gulf of Castellammare on the northern coast of Sicily because the submarine that was to transport them couldn't get there by that date. Instead, from the Mediterranean island of Malta they would board a fishing vessel that would drop them off on the southern coast near Gela, landing near a small promontory west of town. From there two villagers with a car would take them to the meeting with Don Calò. The boss had already been informed and had agreed to meet Luciano near Palermo.

Immediately afterward, they would make their way to the coast of Capo Grosso on the north shore, midway between Palermo and Termini Imerese. There a fishing boat would be waiting to ferry them to the submarine that would take them back to Malta, from which they would then head back to America.

“Can we count on you returning to the States, Mr. Luciano?” Haffenden asked as he accompanied him and Saro to the hatch of the four-engine aircraft.

Luciano squinted his eyes, as if to focus better on the commander: it was his typical expression that brooked no argument. “No one is virtuous enough to be spared from temptation, Commander, but we're Sicilians. Sicilians have nothing but their word, and we're capable of dying for it.” He shook his hand and boarded the plane followed by Saro, who couldn't stop admiring his every gesture.

An infantry unit, headed to a battalion stationed in England, had already boarded the C-54. Saro and Lucky sat down side by side on the wooden bench that ran the length of the compartment.

“This is my first time on a plane, Mr. Luciano,” Saro told him.

“Call me Charlie,” the other replied affably, adjusting his position on the uncomfortable seat. “Better get used to it. They'll make you act as go-between, so you'll be traveling a lot.”

The plane taxied on the runway and began readying for takeoff.

“Charlie, have you met Don Calò?” Saro asked him.

“I was only seven when my mother and I left Sicily to join my father in America. But I still remember my mother telling us about this kid who at just twenty-five had already become a respected man. She would tell us those things to make us see that ‘America' could also be found in Sicily and that there was no need to leave our land. She argued about it with my father, who felt humiliated by her words. He was a machinist; he worked in a brassware factory in Brooklyn. But hard work doesn't make money,” Luciano said in a knowing way.

“But how did Don Calò get to be the
padrino di tutti i padrini—
the godfather of all godfathers—in Sicily?” Saro persisted.

“Through friendships,” Luciano replied enigmatically. Then he went on: “You have to bestow favors and always make yourself available to people so they will then feel a moral obligation of gratitude and loyalty toward you. If you analyze those who are successful in life—government officials, industrialists, landowners, entrepreneurs—all of them excel at this. All men are corruptible: either they're greedy for money, or they want to appear powerful.

“But let's grab some shut-eye now. They got me up at three this morning.” He turned up the collar of his jacket, crossed his arms, stretched out his legs, and closed his eyes.

In the early afternoon, they touched down on a secondary runway north of Bovington Camp in southern England. The infantry unit piled off the plane, and only Luciano and Ragusa remained. The copilot walked back with some sandwiches and said that, once they'd refueled, they would immediately take off for Malta. They would arrive at their destination within three hours.

And so they did. Thanks to favorable winds, the plane landed at the airport in Malta about ten minutes early.

That same night, at the port of La Valletta, they embarked on the
Santa Maria
, a trawler with a Sicilian crew. Saro embraced the three fishermen who spoke in his dialect. It had been several years since he'd heard that mixture of countless influences that formed his regional dialect. Suddenly he thought of his family. He smiled when he imagined his father Peppino's face if he were to see him with Lucky Luciano. And then, like a flash, he saw an image of Mena. Sweet Mena. His mind struggled to recall her. It seemed like centuries had passed since the promise of that night. How naive they'd been!

Once they boarded the vessel, it promptly moved out to sea toward Gela. It was the middle of the night when they came in sight of land. The moon lit up the coast enough for them to make out the small promontory near which they would be dropped off. They saw the flare of a lamp, and then a second and third in quick succession. It was the all-clear signal.

Saro and Luciano got in the military dinghy and, paddling briskly, ran ashore some minutes later. After four years, Saro once again touched the soil of his native Sicily. But he had no time to be moved by it because two men were waiting for them on the beach, signaling for them to hurry up. One of the men gave them dry pants and shirts, while the other hid the skiff in a cleft in the rock. The first man said his name was Michele and the second, the younger one, was Nicolino. It was the only words they spoke.

As soon as Saro and Luciano changed clothes, they followed Michele and Nicolino to a black Fiat Millecento parked on the road nearby.

“We have a long way to go. More than a hundred miles, almost all on dirt roads, so we won't run into the Black Shirts. Still, we'll have to pass through Agrigento and then Caltanissetta.” Michele sounded nervous. He knew that if they were stopped, they would end up in jail until the end of the war.

“Do you know who I am?” Luciano asked.

“No, voscenza, they didn't tell us, sir. They just asked us to be sure and treat you with kid gloves.”

Luciano smiled and leaned back against the seat, giving Saro a meaningful look.

Now sixty-five years old, Don Calò had returned to Villalba after his term in prison, to lead the life he'd always lived. A sober, unassuming life, in a modest house, where he was looked after by a spinster sister, Marietta, in whose name he had registered a substantial share of the Belaci estate. The elderly woman took care of her unmarried brother, serving him with the frugal, industrious diligence of a priest's housekeeper. Calogero Vizzini's thriftiness was not due to avarice, but to an age-old respect for the value of things.

The meeting between Lucky Luciano and Don Calò, the greatest
padrini
of all time, was an event that all mafiosi would look back on with great emotion. It was like Christians witnessing the union of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the latter represented by Saro Ragusa on this occasion.

When they finally arrived at Don Calò's house, Saro and Lucky Luciano were surprised and somewhat disappointed to see the kind of place he lived in and how he was dressed. Especially Luciano, who, as an American, viewed power as a force to move people and money through managerial flair and determination. Don Calò appeared before his unknown guests wearing striped pajamas, the top open in front to reveal a freshly laundered undershirt, and a pair of leather slippers on his feet. The elastic waistband of the pajama bottoms came to just above his stomach, completely covering his big belly. Don Calò invited them into the dining room, where they sat around the table on old wooden chairs with straw seats. The dutiful Marietta prepared coffee made from real Brazilian coffee beans, a rarity in Italy at that time.