Luciano's Luck (22 page)

‘Don Antonio, if you give the word, the whole of the Cammarata will rise as one man. There's a fair chance that most Italian troops in the mountains will surrender without firing a shot. They're brave men, but they've had enough of Mussolini.’

‘I'm not interested in Italy, only in Sicily,’ Luca said.

‘Then help us kick the Germans out.’

‘Colonel Professor whatever you are. The Nazis have lost the war. They lost it in 1940 when Hitler stood back and let the British Army escape at Dunkirk. All we need to do is sit back and wait.’

‘And see thousands of young Americans die needlessly fighting their way through the Cammarata?’

‘Not my affair.’

‘Why, because they sent your brother to the electric chair? Must all Americans suffer?’

Luciano said to Savage, ‘There's no percentage in this and you can tell Carter I said so. He's wasting his time. I'm going to take a walk.’

He moved through the garden and found Maria walking along the terrace between the olive trees towards him.

‘What's happening?’ she asked.

‘Carter's ramming his head against a stone wall called Antonio Luca.’

‘He won't help?’

‘Wouldn't lift a finger. Obviously, you didn't get anywhere either.’

‘Why should I?’ There was a curious edge of bitterness to her voice. ‘I came here for one reason only and it certainly wasn't for love.’

‘How stupid, when you think about it. I've avoided him for years, made my feelings absolutely plain. And now, to turn up in such circumstances, expecting him to come running, like snapping one's fingers to a dog.’

She walked up through the trees towards the house, head bowed, and Luciano turned and moved down towards the valley.

It was shortly after noon when they dragged Detweiler out into the courtyard at the rear of the police barracks. There were two posts in the centre and a thin, hollow-faced man in ragged clothes was strapped to one of them. He had obviously been terribly beaten, Detweiler was aware of that as they strapped him to the next pillar.

Suslov said, ‘Right, this is it, then. No last cigarette. They're in short supply.’

Detweiler was aware of the firing squad on the other side of the square as the Ukrainian pulled a black bag over his head. His brain refused to function and his mouth was so dry that he couldn't cry out. There was a pause that seemed to go on for ever, a shouted command, a sudden volley.

Detweiler hadn't even braced himself for death, simply hung there in the straps, aware of steps moving towards him.

The bag was wrenched from his head and Suslov said, ‘Still with us, I see.’

Detweiler turned and saw that the man next to him hung there, saturated in blood, head lolling to one side.

‘Always like to make sure,’ Suslov said.

He took his Walther from his pocket and fired at point blank range. Pieces of bone and blood sprayed, the body sagged and Detweiler cried out.

Suslov nodded to the guards. ‘Bring him along.’

Detweiler was halfconscious as they took him upstairs between them. He was aware of being dumped in a chair and opened his eyes to find himself in Meyer's office.

The Major came round the desk. ‘Still nothing to say. Well, we'll soon remedy that.’ He picked up a hypodermic. ‘Scopalomine, otherwise known as the truth drug.’

Detweiler tried to struggle, but Suslov and the guards held him firmly and Meyer moved in close and rolled up his sleeve.

It was very hot, very still on the olive terraces and thunder rumbled on the horizon, as Luciano produced a pack of cards he had found up at the house. He took out six and lined them up in a crack in a large rock. Then he walked away.

There had been a time when he could draw, turn and hit a playing card six times at that distance inside a second, but that had been long ago. His hand went under his jacket, found the butt of the Smith and Wesson. He drew, turned, crouched, arm extended and fired very fast.

He went forward to examine the cards, reloading as he did so.
Three out of six.
Not bad, considering.

Luca said, ‘So the hand
has
lost its cunning.’

Luciano turned and found him standing a few yards away leaning on his stick.

‘You want to try?’

Luciano offered him the gun. Luca balanced it in his hand, then emptied it very deliberately, taking his time, hitting four of the cards.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘A tendency to pull to the right. Maybe you could lighten the trigger.’

Luciano took the gun back and reloaded. ‘It's good to see you again.’

‘And you, Salvatore, even on a fool's errand like this. What possessed you to do such a thing? The promise of a pardon?’

‘Only a possibility,’ Luciano said. ‘Nothing on paper.’

Luca was astonished. ‘Then why did you come?’

‘You've been to prison. You know how it is. Can you imagine how a thirtytofifty year sentence feels for something you didn't do?’

Luca nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that almost anything would be preferable to that.’

Luciano said, ‘Anyway, what about Maria?’

‘Maria and I have nothing to say to each other.’

‘So, you will not do as Carter asks?’

Luca said, ‘Salvatore, what has this nonsense to do with us? Whatever happens, Mafia will survive. Mussolini couldn't crush us. Neither could the Germans. The wise man keeps his own council and lives a hundred years. You know the saying.’

Luciano hesitated, then bowed his head formally. ‘If that is your decision, then I accept it, naturally, Don Antonio.’

Luca put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Then you will stay here with us. We can talk of old times, old friends … Stay, Salvatore.’ He reached for Luciano's arm. ‘Together, there is nothing we can't accomplish. Eventually, you would take my place, that goes without saying.’

‘Capo di Tutti Capi
in all Sicily.’ Luciano smiled, remembering Maria's words. ‘Lord of Life and Death.’

‘Look what's happened to Mafia in New York,’ Luca said urgently. ‘For some of the families, whores have become big business. They tell me there are even those who deal in children. I ask you. Can you believe that of a true Sicilian. And this drug thing.
Infamita.
And not for a man like you. Stay here in Sicily, where you belong. Where you have respect.’

His fingers had hooked into Luciano's arm and there was a strange kind of pleading on his face. Luciano detached himself gently.

‘I'm sorry, old friend,’ he said. ‘But I can't be the son you never had. I go back with Carter and take my chances with that parole board. If it works, I'd be free again really free for the rest of my life.’

‘And if it doesn't?’

Luciano shrugged. ‘I'll deal with that when it happens. And there's Maria to consider. She certainly won't stay here, you must see that.’

He turned and fired lefthanded so fast that it sounded like one continuous roll and knew what he would find even before he reached the cards. Six hits, each card drilled cleanly. ‘Remarkable,’ Luca said.

‘I know,’ Luciano smiled. ‘It's this weather, you see.’ He looked up into the sky as heavy drops of rain spotted the dry earth.

*

General Eisenhower was due to go to Malta with Field Marshal Alexander and Admiral Cunningham. Waiting for his staff car he had a final cup of coffee, standing in front of the map of Sicily on the wall of his office at dar el Ouad. There was a knock at the door and Cusak entered.

‘A signal from Admiral Ramsay with the fleet, General.’

‘Anything important?’

‘Everything is going well except for the deteriorating weather. Force four to five winds over the sea.’

Eisenhower nodded. ‘Any word from Colonel Carter?’

‘I'm afraid not.’

Eisenhower put down his cup and reached for his cap, ‘There are 2,500 ships out there. Air Chief Marshal Tedder's promised us blanket air cover of five thousand planes when the right moment comes, the sole aim being to put 115,000 British and Canadians at one end of the island and 66,000 of our boys at the other to drive the enemy out of Sicily.’

Cusak helped him on with his fieldcoat. ‘Quite a responsibility, General.’

‘One hell of a job of organizing,’ Eisenhower said. ‘Months of research, planning, arguments, sleepless nights, and the irony is that the whole damn thing could quite easily stand or fall on Carter's negotiations with this this mountain brigand or whatever he is.’

‘Carter could still bring it off, General.’

‘Well, all I can say is he's running it damn close,’ Eisenhower said and he picked up his briefcase and went out.

At the farm it had started to rain. Katerina sat at the table at the end of the terrace with a pack of cards, laying them before her one by one. Maria came out of the living room and stood watching her.

Katerina said, ‘You have wasted your time, I think.’

‘So it would appear.’ Maria sat down opposite her. ‘I should never have allowed them to persuade me to come. He is the same man I ran from so long ago.’

‘Not true,’ Katerina said. ‘Everything changes.’

‘Even Antonio Luca?’

‘He is not the man today that he was yesterday. Are you the same woman you were when they came to you back there in your convent? Has nothing changed?’

Maria smiled sadly. ‘You're right, of course. There I had certainty, the days had a pattern. Now, there is only doubt.’ She hesitated and when she spoke it was from the depths of her being. ‘I even doubt my vocation now. I thought I sought God, now it would appear I was only fleeing Antonio Luca.’

‘You hate him so much?’

Maria touched her breast. ‘It is like a stone in here, a constant pain that won't go away!’ She sat back. ‘But for you it is different, I think. You love him.’

‘Oh, yes, for me that is the only certainty.’

They sat there in silence. Behind them Luciano and Savage appeared in the doorway. Katerina shuffled the cards and laid them out again.

Maria said, ‘The Tarot?’

‘Yes.’

‘I haven't seen that done since I was a child. My mother constantly sought news of the future.’

‘It is there for those who would see.’

‘Irrevocably?’

‘I'm not certain. Perhaps a warning only. An opportunity to take another road.’

Maria watched her for a while and then said, ‘Let's see what the cards have to say for me.’

Katerina shrugged. ‘If you like. Your future on one card, although I don't think the Vatican would approve.’

She counted quickly and flipped over the seventh card. It was an ornate brightly coloured picture of a young man hanging by his ankles from a tree.

‘The Hanged Man,’ she said. ‘Interesting. No such symbol exists in orthodox Christianity. Equal for man or woman. The individual is torn between two selves, the same and yet not the same. Symbol of a sacrificial victim since pagan times. You suffer for others, that is your destiny.’

Maria stood up. ‘Goodbye, Katerina Scorza. I don't think we shall see each other again.’

She went inside and Luciano and Savage moved to the table. Luciano took the cards from her and said to Savage, ‘A very superstitious people, we Sicilians.’

He counted out seven cards and turned the last one over. It was a six-spoked wooden wheel, a crudely drawn dragon above it.

‘The Wheel of Fortune,’ she said. ‘The symbol of inner order. You have cast yourself free from the bonds of society.’

‘Seen through the bars of a prison cell, of course.’ Luciano turned to Savage. ‘If I was paying Gypsy Rose in a tent at Coney Island, I'd really think I'd had my money's worth.’

Savage said, ‘What about me?’

Looking up at him, Katerina's eyes clouded and there was an unwillingness that Luciano sensed, if Savage did not.

‘I'm tired,’ she said. ‘One can give only so much.’

‘Just tell me whether I'm lucky in love,’ he said. ‘That will do.’

She hesitated, then took the pack and counted, turning over the seventh card long enough to glance at it. She put it back on top of the pack.

‘Great happiness results from a marriage or birth. The Three of Cups in an upright position.’

‘Here, let me look.’

He reached for the card and turned it over. Two ornate birds perched on the rim of a golden goblet, each holding a smaller cup in a claw.

He laughed excitedly. ‘Well, what do you know? Can I keep this? There's someone I'd very much like to show it to.’ He slipped it into his breast pocket and said to Luciano, ‘If it's in the cards, it's in the cards, isn't that so?’

He was smiling excitedly as he went back inside. Katerina reached for the pack and Luciano grabbed her wrist, twisting until she opened her hand disclosing the card she had palmed. It fell to the table between them.

Death stared up, crudely depicted, a skeleton, scything no field of corn, but a crop of human bodies.

In the living room, Carter stood by the fire confronting Luca.

‘Is there no way I can persuade you, Don Antonio?’

‘Those friends of yours in Cairo or wherever it is, must be very stupid. Did they really think that the sight of my granddaughter coming in through the door would make me change my opinion in this matter?’ He poured himself a glass of Zibibbo with great care. ‘Why, that in itself would be enough to make me say no, even if I had not intended to in the first place.’

‘Don Antonio, men will die,’ Carter said urgently.

‘A habit they have,’ Luca told him.

Carter turned angrily to Luciano, who lounged in the window. ‘A waste of bloody time, the whole thing, just like you said. We might as well get going. The sooner we return to Bellona, the better.’

He went out and Luciano helped himself to wine. He sniffed the bouquet approvingly. ‘Hate and love it's a thin line. You should remember that.’

‘Not for her.’

‘A remarkable girl. I thought that when I first met her in that convent in Liverpool. Since then, she's parachuted into enemy territory by night, faced death many times, been hunted through the mountains …’

Don Antonio said. ‘So she's my granddaughter. Half a Luca, whether she likes it or not. Blood of my blood and she can't escape that, whatever she thinks of me, but I will not do what Carter's people want. This war is not my war. It will pass as the wind passes. Sicily will be free again and things will be as they were.’