Sicilian Slaughter

Then with a deceptive mildness that held a sneer of contempt, Brinato said, 'Okay? That okay, boys? Anybody disagree?' He had deliberately taken control of the table because he had been the first to call for a vote at Frode's table. For years Brinato had coveted Naples, especially after his recent probes into the territory verified that Frode's underbosses were stealing him blind and Astio Traditore undercutting him more each day, getting ready to make his move for the takeover. And Brinato had already given his best hardman, his boia, the contract on Astio. Bolan, however, had solved that minor problem.

'Okay, who's been in touch with Cafu?' Ricercato asked. 'Besides myself, I mean?'

The men from Palermo, Reggio, Messina, Syracuse, and Marsala signified they had been in touch with the boss of Agrigento.

'So what do we know?'

'The truck was found abandoned on the road west of Naro.' Ricercato glanced at the truck's owner. 'Forget recovering it, unless you're in the junk business.'

Paffuto winced, seven thousand U.S. dollars shot to hell.

'What about this crate he was so anxious to move?' Brinato asked.

'His warchest, gotta be.'

'Meaning just what?' asked Ruvido. He always was a dumbutt. It took his kind of coarse, heavy-handed, harsh leadership in a sinkhole like Reggio, but that didn't make him any smarter.

'His weapons,' Brinato said.

'What the hell,' Ruvido said, looking around, 'the guy plays cowboy, wears a couple pistols, one with a silencer. What weapons? Was that damned box full of ammo?'

With disgust, Brinato moved away from the table again, puffing furiously at his cigar. 'Somebody clue this rural asshole so we can get on with it.'

Ricercato began counting off on his fingers. 'In the past Bolan has used bazookas, trench mortars, rifle grenades, telescopic rifles, every known land of demolition explosives, automatic and semi-automatic machine- pistols, rifles, submachineguns. He's an expert with them all. You dig, all. that's what is in the warchest. Weapons for making war.'

'Jesus, then he could stand off, I mean, like way up in the hills somewhere, and rip off Cafu's place.'

'What the hell do you think he did in Naples, walk up to the front door and start lobbing those grenades in? Where the hell you been the past four, five years, while this Bolan bastard's been blowing this thing of ours to smithereens from France to Philly?'

'Well, Jesus, I just never figured, you know — here! I mean the guy don't even speak the language, does he?'

'The girl said he speaks some. Enough. Wouldn't you say enough? He went through your town, sacked out in a hayloft all day, got himself laid, walked down to the beach in your town, and swam out to meet the ferryboat coming in. I think he does okay with the goddamn language!'

'That's right,' Brinato said with ice-throated anger. 'Bicker, snarl and snap at one another, piss away the whole night.'

'Okay, okay. Brinato's right Now, what's the plan?'

Brinato pointed his cigar at the various dons who had been in contact with Cafu. 'What's the man want?'

Each of them shrugged, mouths turning down at the corners, palms up and open. 'Nothing?' Brinato said, startled. 'Nothing at all? No soldiers, no weapons, ammunition, a goddam helicopter, bloodhounds, nothing?'

'That's what the man said,' Ricercato said, and looked to the other Sicilian bosses for confirmation.

'That can mean only one thing,' Brinato said.

'We think so, too.'

'He's got something going over there on his own, something he's not sharing, holding out for himself.'

'Well, he's got that soldier thing, training soldiers and sending them over to the other side, for a grand a day per man.'

'I know about that, and it was never cleared through the commissione. They voted it down cold. Too much chance returning to the old days, Families blowing each other to pieces. We don't never want another blood-thirsty son of a bitch like Anastasia in charge of anything again. Murder, Incorporated, keyrist!

'Dope,' said the man from Milan. He was nearest France, dealt more than any of the others with the Corsicans. 'He's in dope, if he don't want any help, don't want any of us sniffing around. Dope.'

Without exception the men around the table agreed, with a nod, a grunt, a word. Brinato laid it out. 'Sure. Why not? Some way, Cafu's got a lock on getting his soldiers into the States, right? I mean seventy-five guys he already had in Philly, right? Only makes sense he would send dope with some of them. That's too good a chance to pass up.'

Brinato looked around at the faces, saw the grim lines, thin-lipped mouths, stony eyes. 'I'm calling a table for Cafu ... with your agreement, naturally.'

Again, without dissent, all the dons agreed.

Brinato went to the door and opened it. He spoke briefly to the man on guard just outside. The soldier nodded and walked away fast. Brinato called out and another man came to the door. A few minutes after Brinato resumed his seat, the door opened and white-jacketed men rolled in tables laden with food and drink.

Even as they dug in, eating and drinking with relish, small-talking and making gross jokes, each man at the table was thinking the same thing. 'Officially' their thing had outlawed dealing in dope; dope was too hot now, much, much too heavy. Dope had brought down Don Vito Genovese, for Christ's sake, the boss of all bosses. Each man at the table also knew he had at one time or other violated this 'ruling' against dope. It was the fastest and easiest way to make a big score if a guy suffered losses and reverses in some other thing he had going. The morality of dealing in dope had nothing whatever to do with laying off dope. Dope was just too goddam heavy if a guy got taken down. And when one guy went down, everyone in the organization suffered, guilt by association, and heat all over the place, cops running out your ears. So, dope was 'officially' outlawed in the Mafia, but it was okay so long as you did not get caught.

And the men at the table were also thinking one other thing, everyone of them: how to get the big slice, maybe all, of Agrigento when they called the table on Cafu and took him down.

Brinato's soldier came fast into the room without knocking, leaned over and whispered in his boss' ear. Brinato spluttered a mouthful of food down his chest, slapped at it angrily with his napkin, swallowed heavily, and shoved back from the table. 'What did you say? I mean repeat it for all of us.'

'Now, boss, don't get sore at me, okay?' Brinato shook his head violently.

The soldier stared around the faces, shrugged, then blurted, 'Don Cafu said . . . 'Tell those guys to go get fucked. And tell them if they come after me I got better'n a hundred soldiers waiting for them.'' The soldier grabbed an empty glass and poured himself a drink of champagne. 'He said, 'Tell those greaseballs to go piss up a rope, and if they think they're calling a table on me they're full of shit. I ain't coming, now or ever, and I'll burn down every son of a bitch comes after me.''

The soldier did not bother with the glass this time. He up-ended the bottle and swigged. Then: 'I'm sorry, boss; but that's what he said, just how he said, and I thought you want to know. I mean, did I do right?'

'Sure, sure,' Brinato said absently, nodding his head. He patted the soldier on the arm. 'You did just fine, son. Go on now, we got to talk. Tell the waiters to come in and clear away all this crap. I ain't hungry no more.'

After the waiters had taken away the remains of the feast, which now tasted like sawdust to the dons, Ruvido snarled viciously. 'Okay, so the don don't come to the table, we take the table to the don, huh?' He looked around the table for confirmation.

Brinato looked at the man from Reggio, wondering. How the hell did we ever let him get so high up in this thing of ours? A goddam Calabrian was no different than a garlicky greaseball Sicilian, hot-tempered, fast-draw, shoot from the hip, examine the deads afterwards, and hold a beautiful wake upon learning he'd killed his brother- in-law. Christ. Maybe it was the sun, the harsh, unrelenting heat on the jagged desertlike, worthless land made them that way. All the same, kill, kill, kill, and they'd screw anything from a crocodile to a warm exhaust pipe. Sure,