BELLA MAFIA Read online

  "You know this woman?"

  "Si, signora, we were at school together. You must wait. They know who you are, signora."

  "Only because you broadcast the news. It doesn't matter. I just want to speak with Gennaro Baranza."

  "The Carboni family run this part of town, signora. My cousin's sister works for Alessandrini Carboni. Baranza's son also works for the Carbonis."

  "I shall wait, Adina, but not for long."

  Gennaro Baranza wore a straw hat, one side looking as if a dog had made a meal of it. He also wore a strange pair of ladies' pink sunglasses perched on his bulbous nose. The rest of him looked shriveled as he hunched in the wheelchair.

  The plain-looking woman pushing the chair waved to Adina, who hurried to join her. They talked as they wheeled the old man toward Graziella and parked him in the shade.

  Looking at the trembling man in the moth-eaten straw hat,

  Graziella felt she had wasted her time. Then she heard his voice, very faintly.

  "I wept for your family, signora."

  His voice was slurred, and his mouth drooped at one side. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders and gestured to his mouth. "I had a stroke two years ago. It has not helped."

  She whispered, "So you know who I am?"

  "Si, signora, I know. We met, many times. I was only a young man."

  "Forgive me, I do not remember."

  Again he lifted his shoulders. One of his hands was crippled, but the other plucked at the knitted shawl across his knees. "My son tells people I am senile, but I forget nothing. Perhaps only what has to be forgotten."

  "You knew my son Michael?" Graziella asked.

  "Si, I knew him well. He taught me to read and write. We spent six weeks together in the mountains. I loved your son, he was—" he touched his heart with his good hand "—an angel's soul."

  They fell silent for a moment. Then Graziella sighed. "I did not know he was addicted to heroin. I discovered this only recently."

  "Don Roberto said he would cut out the tongue of any man who told you. You would not be able to push such memories away. They would haunt you, believe me."

  "I have only memories, Gennaro, of all my sons. I have lost three sons."

  "This I know. I have two, but there used to be four. And my brothers, all gone."

  She leaned forward. "Tell me how Michael died. Tell me everything you know."

  She could not see his eyes behind the pink sunglasses, but he averted his face, as if he could not bear her to look at him. "I do not remember; my mind sometimes is as dead as my body."

  "I do not believe you."

  "Believe me, signora, the day your son died, I have every reason to forget, for I was left for dead. Maybe it would have been better if I had died. All that is clear is the pain, pain that is with me day and night."

  Even in the shade the heat was overpowering. She offered

  to push him a little farther along the harbor.

  For all his frailty Gennaro was no lightweight. It was hard for her, but at last they reached the top of the harbor. She turned the chair to face the sea.

  Gennaro smiled, cocking his head to one side as he looked over the brilliantly colored fishing boats in the harbor. "Who was King Lear?"

  Graziella looked down at the old man. "King Lear? He was a character in a Shakespearean play. Why do you ask?"

  He hesitated. "Diego Caruso, you know him?"

  "Yes, I know him."

  They fell silent for a moment. Then Gennaro began to talk in his croaking voice. "He was with Don Roberto that night. He told me the don carried his son like he was a baby, wrapped in the sheet he had taken from the bed. No one knew what to say to him or what to do for him. Standing in the doorway with his son, he cried out. Caruso told me this. He said it was the worst sound he had ever heard, a single cry, and it reminded him of King Lear. But I never knew what he meant. I still don't."

  "He was a mighty king. His favorite daughter died and he carried her in his arms. I think the line is, 'Howl, howl—' "

  Gennaro's face puckered into a heavy frown. "A daughter, not a son, eh?"

  Graziella turned his chair so he faced her. "They were American, the men who killed my son? All I ask is that you tell me what you know. I would never make you go to court, never force you to be a witness. This is just for me, Gennaro, for me, for Michael's mama. . . ."

  He gave a heavy sigh. "They were Americans."

  "Did you know their names?"

  "No. I was shown many photographs."

  "Who showed you?"

  "Don Roberto. I recognized their faces, but I did not know their names. But he found them. One by one, he found them."

  He gave a hard chuckle. "Don Roberto found every boy from America who had so much as smoked a cigarette with Michael. Not one escaped."

  "Did these Americans admit that Paul Carolla ordered the death of my son?"

  Gennaro averted his face. She snatched his sunglasses from his face and stepped back in shock. One eye socket was empty, the lid a mass of scar tissue.

  His voice was plaintive. "My glasses, signora, please."

  She held them away from him. "Lenny Cavataio survived. Do you remember him?"

  Gennaro grimaced. "He was the last, the one who knew everything, but he, too, is dead. My glasses, please, signora."

  She handed them to him, but he could not manage to replace them. She did it for him, then rested her hand gently on his shoulder. "Forgive me . . .1 owe you an explanation. I am trying to understand why, if my husband knew of Paul Carolla's part in my son's murder, why he waited so long. Why did he wait?"

  Gennaro stared straight ahead; she had to stoop to hear him. "Don Roberto had two more sons, his family. When he found Lenny Cavataio, only then did he have the evidence, the right to demand justice. But it was too late. Carolla was already in jail."

  Graziella bent even closer. "If what you say is true, why did he take Lenny Cavataio's place as a prosecution witness?"

  Gennaro looked up into her face. "I don't know, signora, but becoming a witness in Carolla's trial signed his death warrant. He would have had more respect if he had taken a gun and shot Carolla. Perhaps, in the end, he waited too long."

  She gripped the arm of the wheelchair as Gennaro tried frantically to turn it.

  "Who ordered the deaths of my sons, my grandsons? Tell me!"

  She could feel his panic. "I know nothing, signora."

  Running toward them along the seawall came a small boy. He shouted and waved as he came closer. "Grandpapa! Grandpapa!"

  Gennaro looked at the child as he jumped down from the wall. The child sensed his grandfather's fear and started to scream, pulling Graziella's hands from the chair.

  She pushed him roughly aside. "My husband could have forced you to stand trial; you witnessed the death of my son. You owe him; pay your debt to me. Was it Paul Carolla?"

  Adina could hear Graziella's raised voice, the screams of

  the child. Panic-stricken, she ran toward them.

  "Signora! Signora!"

  As frail as Gennaro was, he faced Graziella. His voice rasped as he shouted, "I know nothing, I am nothing! I beg you to stay away from my family."

  The Mercedes was swarming with children. They were tugging at the fender mirrors, and the emblem had already disappeared from the hood. Adina flew at them, arms raised.

  As they began to pull away in the car, a small Citroen appeared from a side street and blocked their route. The driver was a thick-set man wearing a striped sleeveless shirt and an old cloth cap. He ran from his car, fist raised as if to strike the windshield, and pulled at the door handle. His face red with rage, he screamed and cursed.

  Graziella put her foot down hard, and the Mercedes screeched forward, knocking the Citroen sideways. The man yelled after the car, "Stay away from here, stay away"

  Gennaro's son's fury dissipated as he watched the Mercedes go. He turned, panting with fear, as his father was wheeled toward him.

  "You crazy, foolish
old bastard! What did she want? What did she want?"

  "Whatever, does it matter? She's a woman, what can she

  do?"

  His son took off his cap and rubbed his head. It was true. What could she do, an old woman?

  "So what did she want?"

  "Tell me, do you know who King Lear was?"

  His son spit at the ground and ordered the woman to take the old man inside, calling after him that from now on that was where he would stay.

  Gennaro's body ached from being pushed over the cobblestones; his head sent shooting pains through his eye. But he turned and called out, "You have this hotel, you have money for beer, all from the Lucianos."

  "And you are crippled from the Lucianos."

  "But I can read, and I can write. ..."

  The old man's chair was hauled up the narrow step and pushed into the hotel lobby. Safely restored to his shuttered room, he heaved his skeletal frame from the chair to the bed and sighed with relief. Tossing his sunglasses aside, he massaged his eye socket with his good hand. A bullet was still lodged in his skull, another in his spine. Many times he had wished he had died that night, the night he had seen the don's car drive up the mountain track. The sentry, high on the mountainside, had shone his flashlight, presuming the don himself had come to visit his son. The passenger wore a similar fedora, the driver was the don's personal bodyguard, Ettore Callea, but as the car drew up outside the cottage, two men had sat up from the backseat, and two machine guns rattled. Two guards, one of them Gennaro's brother, had died instantly. Gennaro had run back toward Michael's bedroom, calling out a warning. He had just reached the door when the bullets tore through his body.

  He had been unconscious for perhaps seconds, perhaps minutes, but the men had presumed him dead. In his semiconscious state he had seen them, watched them torture and beat the boy he called Angel Face. There was nothing he could do. He could not even call out. He just lay in his own blood where he had fallen and heard the terrible screams.

  After they had left, propping the bullet-ridden body of the don's driver against the gatepost on their way, Gennaro had somehow dragged himself toward Michael. His angel was lying like a broken doll, his face nothing but a bloody mass of skin and bone.

  Hours had gone by while his blood drained from his body, the pain so intense he believed he was in hell. Then the lights of a car, voices . . . Don Roberto had wrapped his son in the bloody sheet and carried him like a baby. His howl echoed around the mountains, a terrible sound. It had been Gennaro who had heard it, not Caruso. Why had he lied?

  On his return to his apartment Domino found the soup and chicken his housekeeper had left in the refrigerator. He set a small tray and carried it into his bedroom. But he felt too tired to eat, and the burning sensation around his heart was worse than ever. He drank a glass of milk as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  He had discovered not only the Carolla connection but banking scams; millions had been fraudulently acquired. On top of all this, there were many discrepancies within his own company; men he had trusted had been systematically siphoning off huge amounts of cash that should have been directed to the Lucianos' Swiss account. Everything was out of control; he felt incapable of handling the situation.

  By his bedside were many photographs, all of the Luciano family. Over the years they had become like his"own. The one of Graziella on her wedding day he had often touched, lovingly, wondering if she would have been so radiant if he had been at her side instead of Roberto Luciano.

  Domino was a very wealthy man; his prized art collection and carefully chosen antiques were his children. He took out his calculator, assessing the possibility of covering some of the losses himself. He had let Graziella down, let down her daughters-in-law and her granddaughter. His fingers flew over the calculator, then froze as his arm went rigid with pain. . . . He could not get his breath, and the pain grew steadily worse. He reached for the telephone, brushed it with his fingertips as it began to ring. The bell was shrill, persistent, but he could not move those extra few inches. . . .

  As soon as Sophia returned to Rome, she tried to call Mario Domino. The phone rang and rang; after a long time she hung up and then dialed the Villa Rivera, but no one answered there either. She paced her room, wondering what to do. Eventually she called down to the porter and asked for all her mail to be brought up.

  The porter tapped on the door and handed Sophia two days' mail and the morning newspapers. He kept his eyes downcast, appearing eager to be gone.

  Sophia closed the door and went into the immaculate living room. Not so much as a single cushion was out of place. There was deathly silence where once there had been so much noise. How many times had she shouted at the boys to keep quiet?

  Most of the mail was bills, which she tossed into the wastebasket. She flipped open one of the newspapers; there was a large photograph of Don Roberto Luciano on the front page. It was an old one; his hair was still black, and she could see the resemblance to Constantino.

  THE HEADLINE RAN murdered mafia boss accuses from the grave. SHE BEGAN TO READ THE LEAD STORY, WHICH TOLD HOW THE PROSECUTING COUNSEL AT PAUL CAROLLA'S TRIAL HAD CAUSED MAYHEM IN THE COURT BY PRODUCING THE DISMEMBERED HAND OF THE MURDERED ANTONIO ROBELLO, ACCUSING CAROLLA OF THE KILLING.

  Sophia threw the newspaper aside. Others contained even more lurid stories, with drawings of a clawlike, skeletal hand holding a noose. Paper after paper carried Luciano's name; in death he had become the Boss of Bosses. It was more than five months since the murders, yet at every opportunity the press brought up the story. The trial gave the journalists a way to taint the dead, though they continued to be wary of the living.

  Sophia was disgusted and threw all the papers into the wastebasket. If she was sickened, it must be torture for Graziella. She felt guilty, knowing she should have tried to phone before now.

  There was still no reply from the villa or from Domino's apartment. Sophia had to get out. She was going crazy. She had nowhere to go, just needed some air, but as she left, the paparazzi trailed after her, screeching questions, asking if she had ever met Antonio Robello, the mafioso known as The Eagle. Sophia hid her face with her hands as the cameras flashed, but even when she returned to the apartment block, there was a woman journalist waiting. She smiled sweetly, confusing Sophia. Should she know her?

  "Hi, Sophia. . ."

  Sophia saw the microphone and ran for the elevator.

  "Signora Luciano, you lost your husband and children, our readers would be very interested in your side of the story—"

  Sophia banged the gate closed and shut her eyes. Her side of the story? She shouted, to no one, just the cavernous elevator shaft: "Leave me alone!"

  Again she tried to contact Graziella and Domino. She shouted at the telephone, demanding an answer, but there was only the ringing tone. In a fit of anger and frustration she threw the phone at the wall.

  The small yellow pills drew her like a magnet. At least she would sleep. She could make time pass by sleeping.

  No sooner had Graziella returned from Mondello than she received a call from Mario Domino's housekeeper. Now Graziella stood by his deathbed.

  He lay with his hands folded on his chest, a rosary twined through the fingers. They were awaiting the arrival of his niece; there had been no one else to contact. With Adina's help, Graziella had removed all the personal photographs of her family, knowing the press would try to bribe the housekeeper; the Lucianos were still front-page material. Graziella had been photographed going into the courthouse, and her picture appeared next day under the heading MAFIA WIDOW WAITS FOR JUSTICE.

  The study was full of files, so many that she knew she could not begin to sort them out. Instead, she instructed Domino's law firm to bring them all to the Villa Rivera. She locked the door behind her and walked from room to room with Adina.

  She had been in Mario's home on only two or three occasions, and here was a side of him she had never really known: the artistic side of him, the art lover. She had never thought of
him as being anything but Mario, their faithful friend. Yet here was such taste, such carefully arranged rooms, but for whom? Who had ever come here to admire his collections? Who had enjoyed searching out the lovingly collected antiques and knick-knacks? She could remember no man or woman who had ever been part of his life except herself.

  "It feels like a museum, don't you think, Adina?"

  "Si, signora. I have packed everything away. Have you seen the china cabinets?" They looked at his collection of china, the gold-plated dinner service that no one ever ate off.

  "You know, I never realized how rich he was. Somehow he always remained the poor law student to me, and he was so poor, Adina. Well, until he met Roberto."

  Domino's niece and cousin stared around the apartment in awe. They had never seen such wealth. But they were to receive none of it; Domino's will left everything he possessed apart from the paintings to his university, to create a scholarship fund in his name. He had detailed every item.

  The one thing that was not settled was the ownership of the paintings, which alone were valued at twenty-five billion lire. He had bought them as an investment for Roberto Luciano, but the widows never received them. The works of art were held by the government, pending verification of their rightful ownership; several of the old masters were known to have been stolen. The rest of them would disappear without trace.

  The Luciano estate was dwindling fast. Domino had known the extent of the frauds, but his death caused them to escalate out of all proportion.

  The documents taken from his apartment were first delivered to Domino's firm. Graziella signed a new power of attorney with the firm, stipulating that everything should be cleared up within the month. She had waited long enough and wished to settle the inheritances without further delay.

  Among the papers was a small black diary for the year 1963. One of the entries, written in Domino's meticulous hand, read: "Child removed from Cefalu and taken to the orphanage of the Sacred Heart, Catania."