“You think you’re God Almighty, Baron, but I’ll tell you what you are. You’re a bastard.” He was so drunk he didn’t know what he was saying. “And I know how to treat bastards like you. Try to come onto my farm, I’ll take my shotgun to you.”
There was total silence from everyone there. The Baron stayed quite calm, sat there, his hands folded over his cane.
“Go home, Klein, you are not yourself.”
Klein lurched forward and swept the champagne from the Baron’s table. “You old swine. I’ll show you.”
“You’ll show no one,” the stranger said, and poured another glass of grappa. “And I suggest you apologize to a great man for insulting him so.”
The Baron glanced up at him, a slight frown on his face, and Klein turned, lurched across and leaned on the table. “Italian pretty boy, eh? I’m going to break both your arms.”
“Really?” The stranger reversed his grip on the bottle and smacked it across the side of Klein’s skull. The big man fell to one knee, and the stranger stood, picked up his chair and smashed it across Klein’s shoulders.
He backed away and Klein reached for the table and hauled himself up slowly. He turned, blood on his face, and the stranger said, “You are an animal, my friend. Someone should have taught you this a long time ago.”
Klein roared with anger and staggered forward, the great hands reaching to destroy. The stranger swayed to one side, tripped him expertly, then kicked him in the side of the head. Klein rolled over, groaned and passed out.
There was an excited murmur and Meyer rushed from behind the bar. “Baron, all this is terrible. What can I say?”
“Very little. Just get him to the police station. They can hold him in a cell overnight.”
Half a dozen men carried Klein out, while the crowd discussed the events excitedly, turning to look at the stranger, who watched as the barmaid brought a broom and cleaned up. He poured another glass of grappa and drank it down in another single swallow. The girl went away.
The Baron said, “You handle yourself well. Brutal and effective.”
“I was raised in Palermo.”
“You speak excellent German.”
“My mother raised me to.”
“I see. You looked at me as if you knew me.”
“Your photo, yes. I would have searched you out at the Schloss tomorrow. This meeting is by chance.”
“And to what purpose? We could start with your name.”
“Rossi – Marco Rossi. My mother was Maria Rossi. She was once in your employ.”
Max von Berger was aware of a slight trembling, a faintness. “Sit down and give me some of that firewater.” Rossi filled the glass again and gave it to him and sat. “Why are you here?”
“She died after a losing fight with cancer. I was a captain in the Italian air force until six months ago. A Tornado pilot. I resigned so that I could be close to her. We lived with my uncle in Palermo, but he died a year ago, so she was alone.”
“But I don’t understand. How can you be called Rossi?”
“Because my mother never married. She made me swear to bring her ashes to you, so here I am.” He took out a packet of cigarettes and the Baron said, “I’ll have one.” His hand shook as he accepted the light. “That’s better.” He pulled himself together. “Why did she leave me? Do you know?”
“Oh, yes. She loved you deeply, but realized how much the memory of your wife remained with you, and I know that terrible story. When she found herself pregnant, she didn’t want you to feel beholden or trapped in any way, so she went home to Palermo to the protection of my uncle, Tino Rossi. He was an important figure in the Mafia.”
“There was something about you when you came in, something familiar. It was as if I knew you,” the Baron said. “Now I know why, but I can hardly take it all in. It’s not every day a man finds he has a son. The same for you, I think.”
“Not exactly. I’ve known you were my father for the last twenty years.” Rossi stood up. “I’ll fix up a room here for tonight and bring the ashes in the morning, then I’m going home to see if the air force will take me back.”
“No, there’s only one place you stay tonight, Schloss Adler. We must talk,” the Baron said, and he led the way out.
In the chapel at the Schloss, it was winter-cold and, as always, the candles guttered and there was the smell of incense. The Baron had personally carried the casket with Maria Rossi’s ashes and now he placed it in front of the family mausoleum.
“I will have her interred with my first wife and…” He broke then and sobbed deeply. “Your brother.”
And Marco Rossi, the hard man, harder than even Max von Berger imagined at that time, was immensely moved, put an arm around him, held him close.
“It’s all right, Father, it’s all right. Don’t worry. I’m here. For this moment, I’m here. We mourn together. She loved you very much, believe me. She made a huge sacrifice for that love.”
Von Berger said, “Because of me, my attitudes, my pride, the stupid von Berger seven-hundred-year-old pride.”
“Hey,” Marco said, “that applies to me, too, doesn’t it?”
Von Berger wiped a tear from his eye and smiled. “Quite true. Now let’s go and perhaps have some supper, a drink, but most of all a chat.”
Later, in the Great Hall in front of a blazing log fire, the butler served coffee brandy.
“That’s fine, Otto,” von Berger told him. “We’ll manage. You’ve made arrangements for Herr Rossi?”
“Yes, Baron, the Imperial Suite.”
“Fine. Good night.”
The butler disappeared into the gloom of the hall, footsteps echoing. Rossi said, “Before anything else is said, I must tell you one thing.”
“And what is that?”
“As I told you, my uncle, Tino Rossi, was Mafia, but there’s more to it than that. He was an important capo. You know what that means?”
“Of course.”
“When he died, he left my mother hugely wealthy, and with her death, that all comes to me. I need nothing from you. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here for my mother and out of respect for my father. I know all about you. You were a great soldier and a great man.”
Von Berger waved it off. “Tell me about yourself.”
“I spent my early years in Palermo, of course. Neither my mother nor my uncle wanted me in the Mafia, which was difficult, because all my extended family, my cousins, were.”
“Judging by the way you demolished a brute like Klein, they failed in their wishes.”
“I spent too much time as a boy on the Palermo streets. You learn fast there. I had a fine education, the best, but I suppose the Mafia was somehow in my blood. A kind of arrogance.” His hand came out of his pocket holding an ivory Madonna; he pressed a button and a blade flashed. “And this… I keep it always. My uncle gave it to me for my tenth birthday.” He folded it.
Von Berger said, “So what came with maturity?”
“I was sent to Yale University at seventeen, studied economics, business. I did well enough, had a flair for computers. Then I went home and joined the Italian air force, and ended up getting shot down and on the run behind Serb lines in Bosnia.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“You could say that.”
“And you want to go back to it?”
“Why not? Within three months of qualifying, I was in the Gulf War, attacking Basra. Bosnia a few years later, Kosovo. It has a special feel, life on the edge. I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment. A little action and passion wouldn’t come amiss.”
“I can understand that. Pour me another brandy.”
Marco did so, lit a cigarette and said calmly, “As I’ve said, I didn’t come to seek any advantage from you. In
