'That was mine, I thought of that one.'
Between the knuckles of his fingers Axel caught a pinch of 'Vanni's cheek. 'She said,
'That is really original – did a genius think up that one?' That's what she said.'
Axel told 'Vanni the detail of the watch with the UHF panic tone, and he told him about the range of the pulse signal.
'Vanni had the maps, large scale, of Mondello on the coast, and of the high points of Monte Gallo and Monte Castellacio and Monte Cuccio, and of Monreale. They marked, bold ink crosses, the high points on which the microwave boosters would be placed.
'What have you told her?'
'When she should use the signal – only at the time of a contact with Mario Ruggerio or at a time of risk to her personal safety.'
'She accepts that?'
'I think so.'
'Think? Jesu, Axel, does she understand what she does, where she goes, with whom?'
'I told her.'
'Vanni said, soft, 'Is she capable of doing what is asked of her?'
'What I told her, 'Don't think I want someone like you down there, but I don't have the option.' And I told her that if she gave cause for serious suspicion, then she would be killed, and I told her that after they'd killed her they'd go eat their dinner.'
There was astonishment on 'Vanni's face, 'And she is just 'ordinary', your word?'
'She is ordinary and predictable.'
'Don't you have a feeling for what you have pushed her towards – do you not have any goddam feeling?'
Axel said quietly, 'It's her strength that she is ordinary. And what was lucky for me, she was bored. She saw her life stretched out, the tapestry of her life was insignificance and under-achievement and waste. She yearns to be recognized, she wants excitement…'
'Don't you go fucking her, she might go to sleep.'
They were in each other's arms. Together, crying in laughter. Holding each other and laughing in hysteria.
'Vanni said, and the laughter dribbled at his mouth, 'You are a cold bastard, Axel Moen, and you are a cruel bastard. How close did you say you would be?'
'I said that I would be close enough to respond.'
'But that's shit, you know you cannot be, not all of the time.'
'It's best for her to believe that, all the time, I am close enough to respond.'
As if the laughter had served as a bonding, as if now there was no time for more laughter, they talked together into the night. They worked the detail of the exact locations of the microwave boosters, and where the receivers should be, and what were the codes that Codename Helen might use. They talked of the response team that must be made available, and with whom the information could be shared. Later,
'Vanni would slip out of the apartment and then return with boxed fresh-cooked pizzas. They talked in urgency, into the night, as if a life was suspended from their fingers.
She stood back. Piccolo Mario was frantically working open the bolts and locks of the door. Angela was in front of the mirror, and she touched her hair and then flicked with her nails to remove something unseen from the shoulders of her blouse. Francesca ran from her bedroom. Charley stood at the back of the hall.
He was a little greyer at the temples. He was, perhaps, a few pounds heavier in weight. He was as she remembered him. He carried bags and flowers and gift-wrapped parcels. The wide smile on his face as he pecked a kiss at Angela's cheek and swung small Mario high in the air and crouched to cuddle Francesca.
He came forward, across the hall, and he beamed pleasure at the sight of her. She held out her hand, shyly, and he took it and then lifted it and kissed it, and she blushed.
'So wonderful that you could come, Charley. You are very welcome in our small home.'
She stammered, 'It's lovely to be here… thank you.'
The man who washed money, whose brother was one killing away from becoming the most influential figure in international organized crime, let her hand drop. She was there, she had been told, because the family had made a 'mistake'. Angela and small Mario and Francesca, as if according to a ritual on his return, and she remembered the ritual, were opening their presents, discarding to the floor the ribbons and the bright paper.
'And you have been in Rome, Charley?'
'Yes.'
'Why did you go to Rome?'
She blurted, 'For nostalgia… because I had been so happy there… because it was the best time of my life. It was an opportunity.' She felt confident because she thought she had lied well.
A brooch of diamonds for Angela, an electronic game for small Mario, a soft toy for Francesca…
'I missed the direct flight, had to change in Milan – delay, of course – fog, of course.
You should not have stayed up for me, not until so late.'
Charley instinctively glanced down at her watch. The watch was heavy on her wrist.
She glanced at the watch and the button on her watch. She slipped away. She should not intrude. She went to her room. In her bed Charley pressed the watch against her breast and felt the hardness of it, and she wondered where he was, where Axel Moen waited.
Chapter Six
He had been up early.
He had seen Signora Nasello, through a ground-floor door, in her kitchen and wearing a bright dressing-gown, as if in the privacy of her home she did not need to clothe herself in widow's black. In a bar he had taken a coffee and a pastry, and he had gone to the meeting place.
He had not shaved. He was dressed in old jeans and an old shirt, and his hair was gathered back into an elastic band.
Axel waited at the meeting place and gripped a plastic bag close against his thigh, and the Beretta pistol was under his shirt and held by the waist of his trousers. He was off the main street that led down to the piazza and the cathedral. He was high in the town and close to the rock face of the dominating mountain. He stood beside the stall of a man who sold vegetables, and while he waited the housewives came and bartered for beans and artichokes and lemons and oranges and potatoes and shrugged and made to walk away and turned back to give the man their money and to take the bags in return.
The van came from behind him. It was poor procedure on Axel's part that he did not see the approach of the van. He was jolted by 'Vanni Crespo's sharp whistle. It was a builder's van, the sort that would be used by an artisan working alone, small and dirty and rust-flaked. The door was opened for him, and he slid inside and his feet had to find space between a plastic bucket and paint pots, and he needed to duck to avoid the stepladder that jutted from the back of the van out between the front seats. He held the bag on his lap.
'You like it?'
'Taxed, I assume?' Axel grinned.
'Taxed, even insured. Did you sleep well?'
'I slept all right.'
'Did you dream?'
'No.'
'You didn't dream of her, of Codename Helen, not of her?'
Axel shook his shoulders. 'You play CIs, you use them, and when you have finished with them, then you pack them off back where they came from, end of story.'
'And you did not dream of Ruggerio?'
'No.' Axel, quite hard, punched his fist into the side of the Italian's chest. 'Hey, big boy, ugly boy, this woman from Trapani, does she have to go with you in the back of this heap?'
