She was away from him. She intruded into the heart of the group, she was beside the guide.
The helicopter arced over the city. Salvatore had woken. The new blocks of Palermo were laid out in a geometric shape below him, and the old districts made puzzle patterns. He did not believe it was within the power of his brother that he would ever again walk on the new streets and in the old districts. The old days, the days before Riina, the days when Luciano Liggio controlled the Court of Appeal and could achieve the quashing of sentences, were finished. Escape was against the ethic of La Cosa Nostra, to attempt to escape was to betray a man's dignity. The helicopter banked. He wondered where in the new streets and the old districts was his brother. It was said in the gaol at Asinara that his brother was now capo di tutti capi, and he had noted the new deference that was shown him by men who had previously grovelled to his fellow prisoners, Riina and Bagarella and Santapaola. He did not love his brother, but if his brother held the supreme power, then life in Asinara would be more easy. He saw the old ochre walls of Ucciardione Prison climb to meet him.
Carmine came into the cathedral. He had left the car double-parked. He had run, hard as he could, the last two hundred metres. The tail was by the wall, in shadow. He squinted the length of the aisle. He saw the tourist group, he saw a girl who was younger than the other women of the group, he saw the guide, he saw the group moving further away from him, he saw the long fair hair of the American. The girl left the group, and he saw the radiance in her face, and he thought it was like so many of the bitches who had found their God… The American with the long hair was talking urgently to a tourist.
The tourist had a camera and binoculars. He saw the American stand beside the tourist and talk with him.
'Is that the contact?'
And the tail admitted, stammered, that perhaps it was the contact, but he had had to come out to call, he could not call from inside the cathedral building. They watched the American.
The last thing she heard, when she split from the group of tourists, was Axel's voice.
Axel was speaking harsh conversational German. She thought that he talked in German, had chosen one of the group to speak with, in case he was followed, in case he had been watched, as if to draw a tail from her. She learned. She walked up the aisle towards the low-set door through which the sunshine pierced the gloom. They were at the door – God, they were so bloody obvious – the black American and the Englishman.
The black American took half a stride towards her but the Englishman caught his arm.
She looked through them, she went past them.
What she had wanted, more than anything she had ever wanted, was to be held and loved by Axel Moen… and the bastard walked out on her. She was alone. It would be a fantasy for her to be held and loved by the bastard, have the buttons undone and the zip pulled down by the bastard, only a dream. The bastard…
The sun hit Charley's face. Just a little bit of a girl, was she? Could be given the big talk, could she? Could be pitched in, could she? Change of plan. Could be aborted, could she? The brightness of the sun burst on her eyes. Charley walked. The anger consumed her. The target of the anger was Axel Moen who quit on her, and the Afro- American, and the Englishman who looked scared fit to piss…
Charley walked fast down the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
They were pathetic.
She strode down the Via Marqueda and over the Piazza Verdi and onto the Via Ruggero Settima. She was going to the room of Benny Rizzo. She would use him because he was available. Going to his room to unbutton and unzip, use him as a substitute because he was available. She went into the street behind the Piazza Castelnuovo, and past the closed gates of the school where he taught. She pushed her way into the building and she scrambled fast up the stairs. At the landing, outside his door, were two black plastic rubbish bags, filled. She pressed the bell. She heard no sound from inside. She kept her finger on the bell. She needed him. He did not have a death threat because he was ineffective. He was not killed as his father had been because he was not noticed. The bell shrilled behind the door.
'He is not here.'
An old woman came up the stairs. It was the woman she had seen going to church.
'Not back from school?'
'Not coming back, gone.' The woman put down her shopping bags and was searching her handbag for the key to her door.
'What do you mean?'
'Did he not tell you?' The slyness was on her face. 'Not tell you that he was taking the ferry for Naples? You do not believe me?'
The old woman bent and her claw nails tore at the tops of the black plastic bags. The rubbish was revealed, the pamphlets and the sheets from the photocopier, and the books. Charley saw the poster, crumpled, a pool of blood on the street and the slogan caption 'Basta!'. She was alone… She heard the laughter of the old woman
… It would be her story, hers alone, that would be told… She ran back down the stairs.
They drove into the yard at the back of the police station. The magistrate looked around the cars parked in the yard. The boy, Pasquale, had driven badly, and the maresciallo had cursed him. He looked for the familiar face. The boy had been told, and the boy would believe he was betrayed, the boy would not understand that he was saved. For one more day only the boy would have to travel past the endless ranks of parked cars and parked vans and parked motorcycles. He did not expect to be thanked by the boy because the boy would never be told that he was saved. At the far end of the yard was a butcher's delivery vehicle. He saw 'Vanni. 'Vanni jumped out of the vehicle and came quickly across the yard. He was dressed as a butcher. He stank as a butcher. 'Vanni slipped down into the car, beside the magistrate.
'Thank you for coming, 'Vanni. I talk while we go.'
'Whatever, please…'
Out on the street, and the chase car had dropped back, and the light was off the roof, they went slowly. Perhaps the boy had forgotten how to drive as a normal motorist, but they burst a junction when they should have given way, and twice the boy missed his gears, and the curse of the maresciallo was in the boy's ear. Maybe, one day, the kind and good boy, Pasquale, would understand what had been done for him… They travelled on the road round the crescent of the beach.
'One may be intelligent, and at the same time display stupidity. One can see everything, and at the same time be blind. One can be supreme in complicated analysis, and at the same time lose the obvious. I hunt Mario Ruggerio, and I have been stupid, blind, I have missed the obvious. The family will be the core of his life.'
They came to the old town, and they passed the Saracen tower.
'To strangers and rivals he will display a psychopathic cruelty, but for his family he will have only a sickening sentimentality… Four years ago, in Rome, I met with his youngest brother. His brother was Giuseppe, he was a bright and alert businessman, a credit to the enterprise of the modern Italian – don't laugh, I checked, he actually paid his taxes in full. It was impossible to believe that he came from the same peasant stock as his eldest brother.'
The maresciallo gave the whispered directions to the boy. They turned towards the hill over Mondello, went slowly up a narrow and cobbled street.
'He attacked me, he criticized me for calling him to an interview at the SCO building.
He said that he should not have been persecuted for his blood relationship. I apologized.
I forgot him. The memory of him died in an unread file, forgotten. This morning I hear that he returned three years ago to Palermo. I hear that he lives in great affluence. He has a home that is a palace in the Giardino Inglese, he has a villa here.'
They wove a way round a gaping hole where electricity men worked, they went past the high walls and the big gates and the leaping dogs.
'He is connected in business with the wealthiest of the city, he is frequently abroad, he is a success. I could go to my peers, 'Vanni, I could again request resources for surveillance, I could beg and plead for resources, and I would again be criticized for the persecution of an innocent. I can come to you, 'Vanni, I can talk of an old friendship.'
The maresciallo turned. His finger came fast from its resting place on the safety of his machine-gun, and pointed to the gates of the villa. There was wire on the top of the gates, and there was shattered glass set into the top of the wall beside the gates. Again the sharp hissed whisper of the maresciallo and the boy braked the car. Through bushes, between trees, over the gate and the wall was the roof of the villa and the upper windows.
