The Sicilian

'I'll talk, but not with these other sbirri here.' Sbirri was the vulgar and insulting idiom for the Security Police.

Velardi ordered the four policemen out of the room but gave the officer a signal to stay. He also gave him a signal to be ready to draw his gun. Then he turned his full attention to Stefano Andolini.

'I want any information on how I can put my hands on Guiliano,' he said. 'The last time you met with him and Pisciotta.'

Stefano Andolini laughed, his murderous face twisted in a malevolent grimace. The skin grained with red beard seemed to blaze with violence.

No wonder they called him Fra Diav o lo, Velardi thought. He was truly a dangerous man. He must have no inkling of what was coming.

Velardi said to him calmly, 'Answer my question or I'll have you stretched out on the cassetta. '

Andolini said with contempt, 'You traitorous bastard, I'm under the protection of Minister Trezza and Don Croce. When they have me released, I'll cut your sbirri heart out.'

Velardi reached over and slapped Andolini's face twice, once with his palm and then backhand. He saw the blood well up on Andolini's mouth and the rage in his eyes. He deliberately turned his back to sit at his desk.

At that moment, anger blinding his instinct for survival, Stefano Andolini grabbed the pistol out of the Inspector's belt holster and tried to fire. In that same instant the police officer drew his own gun and fired four shots into Andolini's body. Andolini was hurled against the far wall and then lay on the floor. The white shirt was stained completely red and, Velardi thought, it matched his hair quite nicely. He reached down and took the pistol from Andolini's hand as other policemen rushed into the room. He complimented the Captain on his alertness, and then in full view of the officer he loaded his pistol with the bullets he had emptied out of it before the meeting. He did not want his Captain to get delusions of grandeur, that he had actually saved the life of a careless head of the Security Police.

Then he ordered his men to search the dead body. As he suspected the red-bordered security pass was in the sheaf of identification papers every Sicilian was required to carry. Velardi took the pass and put in into his safe. He would hand it over to Minister Trezza personally, and, with luck he would have Pisciotta's pass to go along with it.

On deck one of the men brought Michael and Clemenza small cups of hot espresso which they drank leaning against the rail.

The launch was slowly heading in to land, motor quiet, and they could see the lights on the dock, faint blue pinpoints.

Clemenza was walking around the deck, giving orders to the armed men and the pilot. Michael studied the blue lights which seemed to be running toward him. The boat was picking up speed, and it was as if that churning of the water swept away the darkness of the night. A chink of dawn opened in the sky, and Michael could see the dock and beaches of Mazzara del Vallo; the colored umbrellas of cafe tables were a dusky rose beyond them.

When they docked there were three cars and six men waiting. Clemenza led Michael to the lead vehicle, an open and ancient touring car which held only a driver. Clemenza got into the front seat and Michael got into the back. Clemenza said to Michael, 'If we get stopped by a carabinieri patrol, you duck down to the floor. We can't fool around here on the road, we just gotta blow them away and make our run.'

The three wide-bodied touring cars were moving in the pale, early sunlight through a countryside almost unchanged since the birth of Christ. Ancient aqueducts and pipes spouted water over the fields. It was already warm and humid, and the air was filled with the smell of flowers beginning to rot in the heat of the Sicilian summer. They were passing through the Selinunte, the ruins of the ancient Greek city, and Michael could see from time to time the crumbling columns of marble temples scattered over Western Sicily by the Greek colonists more than two thousand years ago. These columns loomed eerily in the yellow light, their fragments of roof dripping blackly like rain against the blue sky. The rich black earth foamed up against walls of granite cliffs. There was not a house, not an animal, not a man to be seen. It was a landscape created by the slash of a giant sword.

Then they swung north to hit the Trapani-Castelvetrano road. And now Michael and Clemenza were more alert; it was along this road that Pisciotta would intercept them and bring them to Guiliano. Michael felt an intense excitement. The three touring cars went more slowly now. Clemenza had a machine pistol lying on the seat on his left side so he could bring it up quickly over the car door. His hands were positioned on it. The sun had climbed into its rightful dominance, and its rays were a hot gold. The cars kept slowly on; they were almost upon the town of Castelvetrano.

Clemenza ordered the driver to go even more slowly. He and Michael watched for any sign of Pisciotta. They were now on the outskirts of Castelvetrano, ascending a hilly road, and stopping so that they could look down the main street of the town lying below them. From their high vantage point Michael could see the road from Palermo clogged with vehicles – military vehicles; the streets were swarming with carabinieri in their black uniforms with white piping. There was the wail of many sirens that did not seem to scatter the crowds of people in the main street. Overhead two small planes were circling.

The driver cursed and stepped on the brake as he pulled the car to the side of the road. He turned to Clemenza and said, 'Do you want me to go on?'

Michael felt a queasiness at the pit of his stomach. He said to Clemenza, 'How many men do you have waiting for us in town?'

'Not enough,' Clemenza said sourly. His face had an almost frightened look. 'Mike, we have to get out of here. We have to get back to the boat.'

'Wait,' Michael said, now seeing the cart and donkey toiling slowly up the hill toward them. The driver was an old man with a straw hat pulled down tight around his head. The cart was painted with legends on the wheels, the shafts, and the sides. It halted alongside of them. The driver's face was wrinkled and showed no expression, and his arms, incongruously muscled, were bare to his shoulders, for he wore only a black vest over his wide canvas trousers. He came abreast of their car and said, 'Don Clemenza, is that you?'

There was relief in Clemenza's voice. 'Zu Peppino, what the hell is going on there? Why didn't my men come out and warn me?'

Zu Peppino's stony wrinkled face did not change expression. 'You can go back to America,' he said. 'They have massacred Turi Guiliano.'

Michael found himself strangely dizzy. Suddenly at that moment the light seemed to fall out of the sky. He thought of the old mother and father, of Justina waiting in America, of Aspanu Pisciotta and Stefano Andolini. Of Hector Adonis. For Turi Guiliano had been the starlight of their lives, and it was not possible his light no longer existed.

'Are you sure it's him?' Clemenza asked harshly.

The old man shrugged. 'It was one of Guiliano's old tricks, to leave a corpse or dummy to entice the carabinieri so that he could kill them. But it's been two hours now and nothing has happened. The body is still lying in the courtyard where they killed him. There are already newspapermen from Palermo here with their cameras taking pictures of everybody, even my donkey. So believe what you like.'

Michael was feeling ill but he managed to say, 'We'll have to go in and look. I have to make sure.'

Clemenza said roughly, 'Alive or dead, we can't help him anymore. I'm taking you home, Mike.'

'No,' Michael said softly. 'We have to go in. Maybe Pisciotta is waiting for us. Or Stefano Andolini. To tell us what to do. Maybe it's not him, I can't believe it's him. He couldn't die, not when he was this close to getting away. Not when his Testament is safe in America.'

Clemenza sighed. He saw the look of suffering on Michael's face. Perhaps it wasn't Guiliano; perhaps Pisciotta was waiting to make a rendezvous. Perhaps even this was part of the plot to distract attention from his escape if the authorities were close on his heels.

Now the sun had fully risen. Clemenza ordered his men to park their cars and to follow him. Then he and Michael walked down the rest of the street which was crowded with people. They were gathered around the entrance to a side street that was filled with army cars and blocked by a cordon of carabinieri. On this side street was a row of separate houses split apart by courtyards. Clemenza and Michael stood at the rear of the crowd watching with the others. The carabinieri officer was admitting journalists and officials past the cordon of guards after