BELLA MAFIA (25 page)

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."

Domino had chosen the largest city in Sicily, next to Palermo, to ensure that the identity of the baby would never be discovered.

He paused a moment at a vegetable stand outside a fly-filled shop and touched the ripe dark plums, then stepped inside. There were cigarettes and candies, jars of herbs, and row upon row of canned food. He asked for a pound of plums and flipped through the rack of newspapers while he waited. A headline caught his eye:
mafia trial continues.

Luka busied himself looking at the herbs, but his eyes kept returning to the papers. At the last minute he bought two. He folded them carefully and tucked them in his basket beneath the plums.

The old lady beamed toothlessly. "
Americano
?" she asked.

"Si, Americano. Grazie."