powerful society, my young policeman, you know that. We have strong hearts. But you, you bring a storm of steel, you and the tedeschi. I cannot let you sweep away the lives of my children and all that I have struggled for. The sooner you have your victory, the sooner you will leave us.'
He nodded and stood. I did too, pushing back my chair, the metal scraping harshly against stone. Don Calo grimaced. I thought he might shake my hand, but instead he steadied himself against the table, as if against the terrible forces standing ready to overcome him. He pulled out a pocket watch on a long chain, the end looped around his suspenders.
'There is not much time,' he said, and left me standing alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The days of rough travel had caught up with me. My legs felt like jelly, each step up the stairs winding me as I pulled myself along by the banister. I washed, cleaning the crusty lump on my head as best I could. I got rid of the bandage. I slept some more in my room behind barred windows. Later, I told Nick and Harry about what had happened, but I didn't feel like hashing it over. I wanted to get it done, and sleep some more. They asked me if Don Calo had decided to tell the Sicilian soldiers to desert, and I replied that I thought so. We ate, and I went into the courtyard and sat in the late afternoon sun, waiting. Nick and Harry followed, and Sciafani joined us.
Cars and a truck pulled up outside the gate, the sound of slamming doors and creaking rusty iron signaling the arrival of our convoy to Cammarata. Half a dozen men in white shirts with sleeves rolled up, black vests, and lupare slung over their shoulders, sauntered in. They were young and smooth skinned, thick dark hair curling from underneath their cloth caps. They watched us out of the corners of their eyes, two of them slowly walking around to where we sat, shotguns cradled in their arms. They stood behind Sciafani. Another guy, this one in a suit, about a decade older than the sawed-off gang, came through the gate. He didn't look at us as he hustled into the house, buttoning his jacket against his thick waist and pushing his slick hair back with his hands.
'Che c'e?' Nick asked, the Italian equivalent of asking what's up.
No reply. I threw Sciafani a look. It seemed like bad news had strolled in, and the worst news I could think of would come from Agrigento. He gave a nervous shrug, and grimaced. Not very Sicilian. More like Scollay Square after midnight, when a guy stops and asks you in a gruff voice for a light.
Footsteps pounded toward us from the house as we were each prodded to our feet by the hard end of a double-barrel. No one argued. Don Calo advanced on us, followed by the guy in the suit, whose lips were pinched tight into a thin line of anger. Don Calo clutched something in his hands, and the bottom fell out when I saw what it was. A burlap bag. The bag I'd left stuck under the seat of the car that brought us here.
Most people slow down as they get close to another person. Don Calo didn't. His rapid pace brought him right up to Sciafani as he drew the sacristan's big revolver from the bag and slammed it into the side of Sciafani's face, sending him crashing to the ground. Don Calo's momentum carried him right over Sciafani, so that he stood astride him as he lay on his side, holding both hands to his face. Blood leaked from between Sciafani's fingers.
'Why did you do it?' Don Calo demanded, his voice booming with violence. 'Why?'
Sciafani, pulling one hand away, stared at his blood.
Don Calo kicked him, a vicious blow to the ribs. 'Tell me!'
Sciafani opened his mouth, unable to take in enough air to breathe, much less speak. Don Calo brought his foot back again, but Sciafani rolled over, holding up one hand.
'I did it to hurt you, to take something away from you,' he said between gasps. 'I was going to kill you too, for my father. After all the death I have seen, I thought I could do it. But killing that man sickened me. I am a coward.' Tears flowed from his eyes, mixing with his blood.
'My caporegime is dead, all because you wanted to try your hand at killing?'
Don Calo clenched his fists, fury knitting his brow. Sciafani's admission enraged him, and I could see him performing a cold, hard calculation, finding no solution that would make sense of his man's death. It was alien to him, and perhaps he saw Tommy the C's death as a waste, having come at the hands of a novice who found he didn't have the calling.
Don Calo raised the revolver and cocked the hammer. He aimed directly at Sciafani's head. Sciafani covered his eyes with blood-streaked hands, turning away from the sight of the barrel pointing at him. He offered no resistance. Don Calo's face was grim, and I saw the muscles tense in his forearm. He pulled the trigger.
The explosion in the enclosed courtyard rang from the walls. Birds rose up in flight from the roof. Don Calo stepped back, the revolver hanging limply from his hand. Sciafani looked up in shock and surprise. One of the lupara boys laughed and Don Calo silenced him with a look that could have cut glass. Sciafani got up, staring at the wisp of smoke curling up from a hole in the hard ground, next to where his head had been.
The guy in the suit snapped his fingers, and the others followed him out, casting backward glances at the man Don Calo hadn't killed.
'Come, sit, Enrico,' Don Calo said, his voice calm and gentle.
Setting the pistol on the table, he guided Sciafani to a seat, taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to Sciafani's cheek, guiding his hand to hold it there. Don Calo sat down heavily, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, a streak of Sciafani's blood leaving a thin trail over his eyes.
'They said I should have killed you years ago,'Don Calo said. 'But that was one death I could not cause either.'
' Perche?' Sciafani said, one palm outstretched. Why? Why not then, why not now?
'I have done things that the law, and your American friend Billy, would call wrong. I call them natural to a man of our honored society. I have no regrets. But I do regret leaving you, a child, without parents. And some days, I regret the absence of men like your father, men who did not fear me. I am not a monster, and I could not solve the problem you presented by killing you, then or now. But, as of today, we are even. I regret the death of Tommaso, but it allows me to give you your life. I had to strike you, for the sake of appearances, you understand?'
' Si.'
'Good,' Don Calo said, standing and holding Sciafani by the shoulders. 'Now go with these men tonight, and never return. If you do, I will kill you.'
Sciafani stood, and I'll be damned if he didn't give the bastard who killed his father a double-cheek kiss, and if that Sicilian crime boss who promised to kill him if he ever saw him again didn't clasp him by the shoulders as he did.
Don Calo hollered into the house, and two old ladies came out to lead Sciafani away, dabbing at his cut cheek like cleaning up blood was a regular afternoon chore. I was speechless, and for me to admit that is saying something.
'There are weapons for you in the truck,' Don Calo said, strictly business. 'You are free to go.'
'Are you with us then, Don Calo?' Harry asked, a little nervously, I thought.
'No, my English friend,' he said, with a wink in my direction. 'You are with me.'
Don Calo led us to the gate. The little Fiat Balilla was there, with the older guy wearing the tight suit in the passenger's seat.
'This is Gaetano Fiore,' Don Calo said, gesturing to him. He nodded to me as Don Calo spoke to him in Italian. All I heard was my name, but it sounded like it was said in a nice way. Bill-lee, just like Roberto had said it, stretching out those two syllables into something more Italian. Gaetano had a pencil-thin mustache surrounded by pudgy cheeks and a double chin. A British Sten gun rested on his lap, and it looked completely natural in his meaty hands.
'Gaetano,' I said, sticking my hand out to shake his. I wanted to get some sense of the man before we roared off into the dark with him.
'Bill-lee,' he said back, grinning as he shook my hand in a grip that could crush walnuts. ' Ci diverticemo.'
'He says this will be fun,' Don Calo translated. 'He never liked Laspada.'
'A man of good taste. Thank you, Don Calo, for everything.' I offered my hand but he ignored it, instead giving me a pair of kisses, just like the ones he'd traded with Sciafani. I was honored, since he hadn't even killed
