'Then you should do your work, you should feed my nephew.'
She saw the power of the hands and the fingers. They held the baby and passed the baby back to Charley. The eyes gazed into her face, as if they stripped her, as if they searched for the lie. If she could have run, she would have. She was stunned. She walked dreaming towards the push doors of the kitchen. He had killed the father of Benny Rizzo, and he had sat piccolo Mario on his knee. He had climbed to power and killed a man from Agrigento, and he had played the sweet uncle with piccolo Mario. He had had her attacked and robbed so that her bag could be searched and he had killed the thief, and he had reached with loving arms for the baby Mauro… She backed into the push doors of the kitchen… He had bombed a car that morning and killed a magistrate and two of the magistrate's bodyguards, and he had brushed his fingers on the soft hair of baby Mauro… She stood inside the kitchen, she gasped for breath… He was an evil, heartless bastard, Axel Moen had said it. He had fought for power with the delicacy of rats in a bucket, Axel Moen had said it. He sat a child on his knee and he stroked the hair of a baby… Where the fuck was Axel Moen?… Until the men stood, she had thought the kitchen was empty. They were by the outer door of the kitchen, and one had been on a stool and one had been on a chair. She walked towards them.
'Hold the baby, please/ Charley said. 'And would you, please, heat a saucepan of water?'
They were young, they were dressed in suits of charcoal-grey. They were neat and scrubbed clean. She put down the bag on the far side of the central shining-steel work area. She walked boldly – Christ, it was a lie – round the work area. One, smaller and shorter and more powerful, hesitated and then clattered his machine-pistol down on his chair, and he had the awkwardness of a man who does not hold babies. She went to him, she gave him the baby Mauro to hold. She faced the second man.
'A saucepan of water, please, heated. It is for his nephew,' The second man slid a pistol into his trousers' waist and looked around him, looked for a saucepan.
She went back to the bag. No staff, of course. The food prepared, the food left, no witnesses to the gathering of the Ruggerio family. She understood why it was possible for Angela to have demanded her presence, nothing of substance would be said in front of Carmelo who was simple and Maria who was an alcoholic. The shorter man cooed at the baby, the second man searched cupboards for a saucepan. She slipped to her knees.
She put the baby's bottle on the work surface, where they would see it. She had regained the calm. The pattern of the code was in her mind. She heard water surge into a saucepan. The one who held the baby was coming closer to her, as if to watch her. Her hands were in the bag. She felt the button on the watch on her wrist. She made the rhythm of the call. She heard the second man put the saucepan down on a burner, and the shorter man was closer to her. There was laughter behind her, through the push doors. She made the call again, the pulse tone for Immediate Alert. The shorter man looked over the top of the work surface, and Charley lifted a clean nappy from the bag
…
She did not know if anyone listened, if anyone was near.
'You are certain?'
'The first time was three long tones, three short tones, that's-'
'That's Immediate Alert.'
'Repeated, three long, three short-'
'Then we go.'
They ran to the cars. For a moment 'Vanni Crespo was bent at the window and talking urgently to the hooded carabineri men, then he split from them. He was breathing hard. He turned the ignition, stamped the clutch and then the accelerator.
'Vanni Crespo drove smoothly. He was up against the bumper of the other car, no lights. Harry Compton was beside him. He felt a desperate and sickening loneliness. He had made his confession and tried to purge himself, and he had failed. The vomit was in his throat. She was the girl with the mischief in her face, the girl who posed in her graduation gear. 'Vanni Crespo had said she was in the snake pit. He was passed a pistol, Axel Moen's gun. He could have said, truth, that he was not firearms-trained. He could have said, honest, that it would be a catastrophe if he were involved in a shooting in Sicily. He took it. The American whimpered behind him.. . There would be two men going through the kitchen and two men going through the ground-floor fire exit, co-ordinated on 'Vanni Crespo's radio, and they would go through the front bloody door
… There was truth, honesty, in the American's whimper. So frightened, but he had responsibility for her, he had to go through the front door, and he couldn't chicken out of the responsibility.
They drove up the road towards the hotel, no lights.
'Vanni Crespo murmured. 'Don't look at her. Don't acknowledge her, or you kill her
… if we are not already too slow.'
Harry Compton was sick over his trousers, over the pistol.
With her backside, Charley forced the push doors open. The baby was quiet. She held the baby against her. There had been an empty chair, and the chair was now taken. He had wet, sleeked black hair, and she thought the man had just washed, and the fatness of his face was flushed, and the eye that she could see was reddened and closed. He held a handkerchief to the cheek that she could not see. The doors swung shut behind her.
Angela looked at her, and the wife and Maria and Franco, brief glances. Mario Ruggerio held court. They were absorbed by his story. She did not understand the story because she had not heard the start of it, but the laughter rippled as if on cue when he paused, when he coughed on the smoke of his cigar, when he spat phlegm into his napkin. Rosario and Agata, Carmelo and Franco and Peppino did not look at her, but hung on the story of Mario Ruggerio. She walked quietly behind them, the length of the table. The man with the sleeked hair, the man who had come late, stared at her. The eyes of the man with the sleeked hair followed her, and he swivelled his head, and there was first the puzzlement, and then the confusion, and then – Charley saw it – the dawning of recognition. He scraped his chair back on the tiled floor, he rose from his chair. He went, rolling on his hips, past Maria and Peppino, past Agata and the wife…
Charley was laying the baby in the carrycot.
The story of Mario Ruggerio was at a peak. They were rapt. His evening, his gathering, his celebration for the family. And his eyes flashed anger and she thought the man with the sleeked hair wilted. But the interruption was made, the story was destroyed. The eyes of Mario Ruggerio, that had glistened like warmed milk when the child had sat on his knee and when the baby was held on his lap, blazed. She saw the shiver of the man.
'Yes, Carmine? What, Carmine?'
His hand, gripping the handkerchief, came away from his cheek. His cheek was a web of weeping nail lines, scratches. The handkerchief, blood-red on white, jabbed at her. The fist that held the handkerchief pointed to her. He stammered, 'In the cathedral, when the American was in the cathedral, she was there… I saw her… She was in the cathedral, she was close to the American… I saw her…'
It was a little moment of death. She heard the denunciation. It was a moment of serious suspicion. They had not yet finished their meal. They had eaten the salad and fish buffet. They had taken the pasta from the hot plates. There was meat on the hot plates and there were fruit bowls. Axel Moen had said they would kill her, and then eat their meal, and think nothing of it. He gazed the length of the table at her and his eyes, clear blue, squinted at her, and she saw the suspicion growing.
'Come here.' A rasped command. 'Come.'
Only the children did not understand. She walked slowly past the faces, she saw in the faces hostility and hatred. Angela looked straight ahead, Angela alone was impassive. She walked towards him. She would say that the American had spoken to her, yes. She would say that she had joined a tour of the cathedral and that the American had been beside her, yes. She would say that the American had pestered her, yes…
They would know she lied. She would not be able to hold the he against the clear blue eyes.
She walked past the meat in the dishes on the hot plates and past the bowls of fruit.
She was drawn to him. She could not help herself but go to him, moth to a light. His hand reached for her. He took her wrist. The strength of his hand closed over her wrist and the watch of dull steel.
She would not be able to maintain the lie.
The two men in the lobby were covered by guns. The manager stood and faced the wall and held his hands high.
'Do we come with you?' the American murmured.
'It is not necessary,' 'Vanni said.
