Blood Alone (20 page)
My right hand shook as I recalled the feel of that grenade in my hand, the grooved case iron cold against my palm. My heart was thumping to beat the band and I glanced at Sciafani to see if he’d noticed. It was hard to believe everything I remembered hadn’t just happened. Sciafani’s head was slumped against the window as he stared at something very, very far away, clutching the burlap bag to his chest. I relaxed and shut my eyes again, wishing for oblivion, clasping my left hand over my right to hide its trembling, hoping the visions wouldn’t return. Thanks for the memories.
So what did this tell me? Nick had betrayed us, demanding the handkerchief for his own purposes. That was important, but there was something else equally important. He had been desperate and anguished. Not cold and calculating. He wanted the handkerchief; no, he
needed
the handkerchief. That meant he was under pressure to get it, the kind of pressure that makes a man turn a gun on his friend and beg him to give him what he wants and then leave. He’d gotten away, that much Tommy the C had confirmed. Too bad Sciafani had killed Tommy. I would have liked to ask him a few more questions, like who we were supposed to meet and how they had eluded the Italian soldiers. He’d said their officer was killed in a grenade blast, and then some of them deserted. That had to have been my grenade. With their officer dead, the Italians must have lost interest and gone their separate ways, some back to their unit, one to report to the
caporegime
at the cathedral, the rest headed for the hills. Except for Roberto.
Now it came to me. The cut on my arm had been from a bayonet. One of the soldiers had stabbed at me when I tried to unholster my .45. It had been Roberto. It was a halfhearted stab, more of a push to dissuade me from shooting. His officer had stepped in front of us, his pistol raised. If Roberto hadn’t stopped me, he would have had plenty of time to plug me. Roberto had saved my life.
Wait a minute. The Italian officer had stepped in front of us. The grenade was a few yards behind him, then there was a couple of yards more to where Harry stood. Would Harry have stayed rooted to the spot, out in the open, with an enemy officer yards away? Maybe yes. He might have advanced, to take him out before he could shoot. Maybe no. He might have ducked behind a column to take cover. Which was it?
“Enrico,” I said, nudging Sciafani in the ribs.
“What?” He turned away from the window and answered, like a drunk at a bar who only wants to stare into his glass. His eyelids were lowered, half hiding the redness of his eyes.
“Ask the driver if he was the one who was to meet me and two others at the Temple of Concordia.” He did, and the driver shook his head.
“It was not him,” Sciafani said. “It was his brother.”
“Jesus, man, ask him what happened. Ask him if one of the other two men died!”
Sciafani shrugged and obliged. They exchanged some rapid-fire Italian, and Sciafani shrugged again, that all-purpose gesture that I’d seen more of in Sicily than I had before in my whole life. “He says Don Calo will tell you what happened, if he wishes to, and to stop asking questions.”
I was pretty sure Sciafani had added that last part himself.
WE DROVE NORTH, on back roads through little villages. The Fiat strained up a dirt track climbing through orchards and olive groves until the road straightened out and we saw a small hilltop town in the distance. A signpost said Montaperto, and I could make out a collection of orange-tiled roofs clustered together on the highest point around. I looked back and was rewarded with a view of green rolling hills and a dusty, brown view of Agrigento farther out. The car slowed, and I saw an Italian soldier approach us carrying a shovel on his shoulder. He wore his
bustina
but no shirt and he was soaked in sweat. I tried to shrink into the backseat, to make my American uniform invisible.
It didn’t matter. He and the driver chatted amiably as four packs of cigarettes were handed over to the soldier. They were Echt Orients, a German brand. I guessed the Mafia liked to spread its business around. The driver ground his gears as the Fiat struggled with the incline. The
soldato
called to his buddies and they left the entrenchment they were digging to claim their smokes. As we passed, the snout of a heavy machine gun was visible, protruding from the sandbags and covering the lovely valley behind us. A mortar was set up behind it, surrounded by sandbags and shells. Camouflage netting covered the emplacement, making it look like a natural fold in the terrain. By the time you got close enough to see it, you’d be dead.
“They are Sicilian,” Sciafani said, as if that explained everything: the easy passage, the cigarettes, the deadly ambush.
We drove through the narrow street that cut through the village. The buildings were two or three stories tall, covered in faded stucco that had crumbled away in places, revealing rough brickwork underneath. Probably a few hundred people lived in these homes, crowded along the roadway at the top of the hill. I knew what would happen to them if our guys came up that hill and got hit by the mortar and machine gun. The
soldati
would take out a dozen or so GIs before they were pinned down. Some energetic lieutenant might try flanking them, but there was no cover on either side of the road. That would fail, and finally he’d radio Battalion HQ for artillery or an air strike. They might have to wait a while. Or maybe they’d have armor support coming up. Either way, the small emplacement would be smashed, along with a good portion of the village. People would hide in their cellars, and tons of brick would fall on them, fires would rage, and the ground would shake with each hit. A couple of hundred people would die, all because four Sicilian soldiers stayed at their post.
Had Nick betrayed our mission? Or could he have needed the handkerchief for something else? I couldn’t think about him. Right now I had enough to worry about with Sciafani. He was armed and in his own strange world, and I had no idea how that was going to impact mine.
We cleared the village and the Fiat bounced over a potholed dirt track, descending into the valley due north. Sciafani pulled his dagger out and cleaned it, using the burlap bag to wipe it down. When he was finally satisfied, he smiled weakly, almost apologetically, and cut a piece of cheese and bread with it. He handed them to the driver, who took the food without comment or thanks. Then he cut up the rest and we shared it, washed down with wine from the bottle, which we passed around. A communion of secrets.
We picked up a good road and passed by more fields and orchards. Lemons hung heavy on branches, and the ground between rows was freshly turned. The air was cooler here, tinged with a hint of green richness emanating from the dark, fertile soil. There were no houses, no roadblocks or hidden entrenchments. It was peaceful, and part of me wished I could sit in the shade beneath an orange tree, drink wine, and sleep.
I did sleep, but when I opened my eyes I was still in the backseat with Sciafani, and the fertile fields were far behind us.
“What the hell is that smell?” I asked, realizing what had awoken me.
“The Vulcanelli di Macalube,” Sciafani said, gesturing out to the grayish brown mud flats surrounding us. No more greenery, no smell of fresh-turned soil. Instead, the stink of sulphur and parched, cracked layers of mud, divided by streams of oozing gray liquid, assaulted my senses. I even wondered for a second if I was dreaming, but the smell convinced me I was wide awake.
“What is it, and do we have to go through it?”
“It is an area of natural gases, forcing the mud to the surface. See?” He pointed to a mound about a yard high, where bubbles of gray mud exploded out of the ground and ran down in rivulets, looking like pictures I’d seen of lava from flowing volcanoes. “It goes on for a few kilometers more. It is a safe passage; no one would put a roadblock here.”
“You got that right,” I said, trying not to breathe the rotten egg odor in too deeply.
“There is a legend that once a great city stood here,” Sciafani said, staring out the window with that faraway look again. “The people of the city thought so highly of themselves that they forgot to thank the gods properly for their good fortune. This angered the gods, and they sunk the city beneath the earth, condemning the people to live forever underground. The only thing that comes to the surface is their tears.” We drove through the macabre landscape, past bubbling pools and streams of ooze, until finally we left the weeping city behind. I thought about the bomb damage I’d seen in London and the destruction across North Africa, the rumble-strewn streets of Agrigento. Nature—or the gods—had matched that devastation here.
We stopped in Aragona, where more cigarettes changed hands and
soldati
filled our gas tank from five-gallon jerry cans, taken from one of their own trucks. Our driver seemed to know everyone on this route, and I figured he was part of Don Calo’s communication network. Nothing in writing or over the phone, nothing but reports and whispers between the
caporegimes
and their couriers.
We crossed the Salito River and saw Italian engineers, a
guastatori
unit, wiring demolition charges beneath the bridge. On the north side, two antitank guns covered the approach to the river, their barrels barely visible jutting out from the camouflaged bunkers. Again, cigarettes were handed all around, and our driver joked with the men, who were glad to take a break from their work. An officer stood apart from them, glaring at our car, but saying nothing.
“Many of the officers are not Sicilian,” Sciafani said. “Mussolini does not trust us to lead our own men, so he puts Fascists in charge, men from the north.” He uttered the phrase like a curse.
The sun was low in the western sky, beginning to touch the tips of the mountains we were traveling through. The road curved back and forth on switchbacks, slowly gaining altitude as we approached the crest and the mountaintop village of Mussomeli. The Fiat seemed to accelerate in thanks as the ground leveled out, and we passed a tall, rocky outcropping, a couple of hundred yards in height, with a small castle built into the top of the rock. Italian Army trucks were parked at its base, along with tents sprouting aerials, all covered by the usual netting. They definitely had artillery spotters up there, with a view for miles in every direction. As long as they had this observation post, anything that moved south of Mussomeli would get plastered by their artillery.
We headed down the north side of the mountain to the town. Mussomeli was at a crossroads, five roads intersecting near it. The town itself cascaded down the side of the mountain, a crowded assembly of gray stone buildings spread around a church with a tall steeple. A column of Italian soldiers was marching out of town, past a concrete bunker covering the main road. Our driver waved, and some of the men nodded back. Evidently he didn’t have enough cigarettes for a whole company. He spoke to Sciafani, pointed back at the column of men with his thumb, and laughed.
“His sister-in-law’s uncle is the
sergente
of that company, all Sicilians. He says there is a platoon of MVSN Fascists at the castle, and the commander of the town is a Fascist, and that the Sicilians will cut their throats as soon as the word is given.”
“Whose word?” I asked.
“Don Calo’s,” Sciafani answered. “Who else?”
“It sounds like he’s in a position to save a lot of lives.”
“A man who can save lives can also take them, have you thought of that?” He spoke with a fierceness that surprised me. Ever since Agrigento he’d been subdued. Stunned by the realization of what he’d done. Now , as we drew closer to Villalba, I sensed a shift in him, an anger that overcame whatever guilt he felt, becoming stronger as the distance from his murderous act increased. Were we getting closer to another? I wanted to ask him directly, but I couldn’t assume the driver didn’t understand English. A man like Don Calogero Vizzini hadn’t survived without playing every angle, and I figured he’d want to know anything that passed between us.
“Tell me about the village you were born in, Enrico.” I had a suspicion that whatever secret he was keeping about his family was the reason for his actions. All of them, including killing Tommy the C and staying with me.
“It is not important,” he said.
“What did your father do?”
“My father is a physician.”
“Not your adoptive father. Your real father,” I said. “What was his name?”
There was silence in the car. Sciafani put his hand to his mouth, as if to keep the name from slipping out. Leaning against the window, his eyes darted to the driver, who stared straight ahead. He switched on his lights, illuminating the winding road and the looming pine branches that crowded over it.
“Nunzio. Nunzio Infantino,” Sciafani said, balling the hand pressed against his mouth into a fist so that the name was barely understandable. He closed his eyes and doubled up, as if in great pain, still holding his hand to his mouth. I waited. Finally he opened his hand and gasped for breath, exhausted from the ordeal of uttering his father’s name.
The driver spoke, I think to ask Sciafani if he was going to be sick. He glanced back and Sciafani shook his head and gestured for him to keep driving. I nodded and was rewarded with another Sicilian shrug.
“Was your village like the villages we drove through today? All the buildings crowded together, maybe located at a crossroads?”
“No, there is no crossroads. But it does sit upon a hilltop, surrounding the Chiesa di San Filippo, where I was baptized. As Enrico Infantino.”
I was watching the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. I could only see half his face, but I saw him react to the name: a blink, a quick look in the mirror at Sciafani, then back to the road. Whether he understood English or not, he’d recognized that name. I tapped Sciafani on the arm, where the driver couldn’t see, and signaled with my hand to keep it down. He nodded.
“Well, whatever General Eisenhower thinks about the Mafia, he’ll be very glad if Don Calo cooperates. It will not only save American lives but Sicilian lives too, in all those small villages like yours. Many lives, Enrico.”
He shook his head. Now that he’d spoken his father’s name, I wondered if the whole history of his life that he’d kept buttoned up was aching to be released. But he’d gotten my warning about the driver, that maybe he’d said too much already. So he sighed and handed me the burlap bag with the big Bodeo revolver still in it.
“Yes,” he said sadly. “Many lives, many innocent lives. You would think it would be a simple choice, wouldn’t you?”
“There are no simple choices. People think there are because they don’t think about their options. My father used to say that if people thought through what might happen before they acted there’d be a lot less killing on any Saturday night. He’s a homicide detective, in Boston.”
“He is wise, but some people need to act more and think less. A lifetime of thinking alone is no good. A desire that is never acted upon becomes pitiful. Do you know your Shakespeare, Billy?
Hamlet?”
“Well, I had to read it in school. I had a hard time with it so my dad took me to see the play. They were putting it on at Harvard. It was a lot easier to listen to than read.”
“One of my English teachers had us read Shakespeare and memorize passages as part of our lessons. In act three, Hamlet says:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
\With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”
“I remember that part about conscience making cowards of us all,” I said. I hadn’t understood anything the actors were saying at first, and then all of a sudden I realized I understood everything, and that it was beautiful.
“It is very true. But I think if Hamlet had gone to war, that pale cast of thought would not have lasted. He had to revenge himself on the man who killed his father. Don Calo killed mine.”