Killing Ground

by Gerald Seymour

  Trapped, corrupted, he stood one morning each month in the park in front of the Palazzo Reale and he watched the mothers with their children and their babies and waited for the contact to be made. He did not know the name of the man who came to him, nor did he know to whom the information was delivered. One morning every month he reported on what he had seen and heard, nothing written down, and then he walked from the park and along the Via Papireto and he would stop at the post office and buy the stamps for Germany. He would send the money. At the Palazzo di Giustizia he would show his identity card, walk past the soldiers, climb the wide steps, go to the rest room and open his locker and change into his uniform, and then he would go to the armoury and draw his firearm and the holster, and then he would take the elevator to the upper corridor where he saw and he heard, and he would bring the small cups of espresso coffee to the magistrates and prosecutors. One morning each month his dream of buying the pizzeria in Hanover came closer.

  A man stood beside him, and asked with courtesy whether he had a match for a cigarette, and they talked, as men talked who stood in a park and watched the mothers with their children and their babies.

  The policeman said, '. . . He spoke in Italian, but the accent was American. "Yes, I'd like that, espresso, thanks." He was not Italo-American because he had a fair skin and gold hair. I recognized the one who brought him, that was Giovanni Crespo, who is of the ROS in the Monreale barracks. He was not an American journalist because Tardelli never sees journalists, and when I brought the coffee I was not permitted by Tardelli's guards to take the tray inside myself. The tray was carried inside by Tardelli's man. I remember last year, in the winter, when an American came and I was not permitted to take the coffee inside, and then I heard the guards say that the American was the Country Chief of the DEA from Rome. The American was with Tardelli for fifteen or twenty minutes. What I can tell you of Giovanni Crespo, he is with the squad of the ROS that searches for the super-latitanti. The American wore casual clothes, not the clothes that are worn for a meeting with a person of the position of Tardelli, jeans and an open shirt, it surprised me, and he did not carry a briefcase but a small bag. I cannot be certain, I think there was a firearm in his waist but under his shirt. I estimate that he weighed near to 80 kilos, a height of perhaps 1.80 or 1.85 metres. He wore his hair long, like a hippy, and his hair was taken at the back with an elastic band, fair hair. I wondered how it was possible that such a man could be brought to meet Tardelli . . . I know also that Tardelli has met with a team from the squadra mobile, they were dressed very roughly, so it is a surveillance team. Again I was not permitted to take in the coffee. The story on the corridor, but it is only gossip, is that Tardelli had the big argument with the prosecutors and magistrates, I don't know . . .'

  An envelope was passed. The policeman talked of the information scraps he had gained in a month of the work of other magistrates and other prosecutors.

  He went on his way to the post, and dreamed of the pizzeria near to the railway station in Hanover, then to the Palazzo di Giustizia.

  Her mother would have said that she should not have taken the money, and her father would have said that it would have seemed ungrateful to refuse the money. The purse in her handbag bulged with the roll of notes. Her mother would have said that it was simple human nature, like it or not, for people to look in the drawers of a guest, and her father would have said that she had probably forgotten where she had laid down her book and whether her pants had been on top of or below her bras.

  Charley had the money, and she wore the handbag draped from her shoulder across her chest. She didn't know.

  She could not know, and all through the night she tossed and twisted it in her mind, whether the movement of her book and her clothes was the mark of suspicion against her, or was in innocence, or was her bloody imagination. The taxi driver in Mondello had quoted her 20,000, sod that. She had come on the bus along the road that was shadowed by the height of Monte Pellegrino, on the road that skirted the La Favorita park where the whores were already gathered, on the road that cut through the high-rise blocks. Where the Via della Liberta merged into the Piazza Crispi, Charley had pushed her way to the bus door.

  Better to think it was her bloody imagination. But, he had said, the damned faceless man creeping behind her, 'Don't ever relax. Don't go complacent.' She felt a freedom, as if the garden gate of the villa, when it had slammed shut behind her, had been a gaol's gate. She walked along the Via della Liberta. They were beautiful shops, they were better than any of the shops in Plymouth or Exeter. The temperature was near to the seventies, and the women around her had fur coats hoisted loose on their shoulders, and the men wore their best loden coats. It was so bloody hot, and she was in a blouse and jeans with a light cardigan tied to the strap of her handbag, bloody peacocks around her.

  The women had their jewellery on, rings and bracelets and necklaces, as if they were out for an anniversary dinner and not merely promenading, and Charley only wore the thin little chain of poor gold that her uncle had sent down to her for her eighteenth birthday . . . And bugger Axel Moen, who was a cold bastard . . . She had bounce in her stride, she had control. There was no street like the Via della Liberta in Plymouth or Exeter. Three lanes of traffic running in each direction and a wide centre area with benches under the shade of trees. To Charley Parsons it was a little piece of joy. She heard the shouting. She looked across the traffic lanes and the centre area, and she saw a street leading away in which there were no vehicles parked, and a soldier was gesturing with his rifle, and playing dumb-innocent was a squat little man with a pick-up truck loaded with builder's gear. She watched the yelling soldier and the obstinate little man trade insults. She murmured, 'Go on, old boy, give the pompous bastard stick,' just as they had given stick to the bloody policemen in their battle gear at the harbour in Brightlingsea. She had been free then, on the picket line and trying to block the lorries carrying the animals to Europe. She could have clapped because the squat little man had won the day, and the soldier stood, threatening, over him with the rifle, had gained the right to park his pick-up and to unload his sacks of concrete mix.

  She grinned, she moved on. Her mother would have said that she had insufficient respect for authority, her father would have said she was a damned little anarchist . . .

  She held tight to her bag because Angela had told her she should.

  Not the Via Siracusa, the next street off the Via della Liberta from the Via Siracusa.

  She couldn't think when, if ever, she had had as much cash, as thick a roll of notes, in her purse. She saw the sign of the boutique, where Peppino had said it would be. She was flushed, a little thrilled. God, that amount of money to spend on herself. What would the cold bastard have said? She stopped outside the boutique, in front of the window of clothed model figures. She looked around her. As with a child's guilt, she looked for Axel Moen. Did not see him. Nor did Charley see the young man who sat astride a motorcycle, up the street from her.

  The prices on the model figures were just incredible, out of this bloody world, but she had the money in her purse. Best foot forward, ma'am. She pushed open the door of the shop. Go hack it, Charley. She did not see the young man astride the motorcycle, the engine idling, slide down the smoked black visor of his crash helmet.

  Soft music played. The lighting was clever. She was of importance. God, eat your heart out, British Home Stores in Exeter, Marks and bloody Spencer in Plymouth. She tried four blouses, her mind played the calculations of translating from lire to sterling.

  Christ, Charley . . . Big breath, deep breath. She chose a blouse of royal-blue, and the touch of it on her fingers was so soft. She tried three skirts, short minis, and they'd be better when she'd done time on the beach and burned the whiteness off her knees and thighs. She chose a skirt in bottle-green. She paid, stripped the notes off the roll. She took the bag they gave her. Bugger where the money had come from. Bugger that Giuseppe Ruggerio washed money. She had enough in her purse to go on to f
ind a throat scarf and maybe a good pair of dark glasses. She came out of the shop, and she did not see the haughty smiles of the sales staff, as if they thought her an ingenua. She stood on the pavement, savouring the moment. Her mother would have said that it was criminal to spend that much on clothes, her father would have said they were the clothes of a spoiled child. She did not see the young man, head hidden in the crash helmet, nudge his motorcycle forward.

  It was a few yards from the open space of the pavement of the Via della Liberta . . .

  Meandering past a shoe shop . . .

  Heard nothing and seen nothing, and the blow belted her.

  As if her chest was torn apart, as if the strap of her handbag cut into her back and her breast.

  She clung to the strap. Trying to scream, and spinning, and there was the roar of the motorcycle against her, and the black shape of the crash helmet was above her.

  Falling, and the boot came into her face. The boot came from below a scarlet-painted fuel tank, and on the tank was an eagle's head. The boot savaged her.

  She held the handbag strap and she was dragged on the pavement. Kicked again, and letting loose of the strap and covering her face.

  On the pavement and the foul filth of the motorcycle exhaust blasting at her, choking. The gloved hand came down, crude, bulged fingers, and caught at the necklace that was the present of her uncle, and ripped at it, and it broke, and was coiled in the gutter beside her.

  Charley lay on the pavement, and under her body was the shopping bag. She sobbed into the dirt of the pavement.

  The motorcycle was gone.

  A man walked past her, and looked away. She sobbed and she swore. Two women, queens in their finery, quickened their step and hurried by her. She wept and she cursed.

  Kids were going by her, fast little trainer shoes scurrying. After them were high heels and shoes of worked leather. In pain, she wept. In anger, she cursed. The pain was in her chest and her face and her elbows and her knees. The anger was for all of them, the fucking bastards, who hurried by. She pushed herself to her knees, Christ, and it hurt because her knees were red-raw from being dragged, and she could see right down to the Via della Liberta, and across she could see a soldier on the far corner with his rifle held in alertness and he didn't come to help her. As if she carried a yellow flag, bloody leprosy, bloody HIV, was quarantined, they went by her, the fucking bastards. She was on her feet, she staggered, she lurched towards a man, and she saw the horror on his face, and he pushed her away. She fell. She was on the pavement.

  'Are you all right?'

  "Course I'm not bloody—' She looked up at him.

  He was bent down and close to her. 'You are a tourist, yes? English, German?'

  'English.'

  He was young, maybe a couple of years older than herself. Concern was on his face, and sincerity, sympathy.

  'Nobody helped me, nobody tried to stop him.'

  'People are afraid here, afraid to be involved.'

  'Bloody bastard cowards.'

  'Afraid to interfere. It is different to England, I apologize.'

  Such kindness. He was tall. He had a fine, angled face, strong bones in the cheeks. He pushed the falling hair back from his forehead.

  'I haven't broken anything. I just feel so angry. I want to get him, kick him. There was a soldier across the road, a bloody great gun, didn't move.'

  So soothing. 'He could not help you. It might have been a diversion. In Palermo anything is possible. You are a foreigner, you would not understand. Can I help you?

  Take my hand. The soldier would have been disciplined. If he had left his place and come to you, it could have been a diversion, it could have been an attack on the home that he guards. It is Palermo.'

  He took her hand. He had long and delicate fingers. She felt them close on her hand.

  He lifted her up. The anger had gone. She wanted to be held and she wanted to cry. He picked up her bag from the shop.

  'It happens every day in Palermo. They target tourists.'

  'I'm not a tourist, I've come here for a job. It was my first day in Palermo. The job's in Mondello. I'm sorry that I swore. I am Charley Parsons.'

  He grinned, embarrassed. 'But that is a man's name.'

  A smile cracked her face. 'Charlotte, but I am Charley to everyone.'

  'I am Benedetto Rizzo, but I am called Benny. You are sure there is no bad injury?'

  'I am not going to hospital. Damn, shit, fuck. Sorry, and thank you.'

  'I was in London for a year, people were very kind to me. I worked in the McDonald's near Paddington railway station. I apologize that this is your first experience of Palermo.'

  Charley said, 'Trouble is, I feel like a fool. I was warned to be careful - I was bloody miles away. I just feel . . . humiliated. I was warned, and I forgot. Excuse me, you said that in Palermo people are afraid to be involved, afraid to interfere, but you were not afraid.'

  'It is our city, our problem. You should not dissociate yourself from responsibility from a problem. If nobody does anything, then the problem will never be solved, it's what I believe.'

  She looked into his face. 'Small people can change something, is that what you think?'

  'Of course.'

  He crouched. His hand, the long fingers, were in the gutter and the filth, and he lifted up the broken chain of poor gold. He seemed to Charley to recognize its value to her.

  He lifted it with care and he placed it in her hand.

  'I'm sorry, I am a teacher, I . . .'

  'I was a teacher in England.'

  'Then you will know - I have to be back. I have my class, at the elementary school behind the Piazza Castelnuovo.' He grinned. 'Maybe if I am not back, there will be a riot of the children, maybe the police will have to come with gas.'

  Her face was puffing from the bruises, her elbows were scraped, the knees under the tears in her jeans were oozing blood.

  Charley grimaced. 'I can't go to a bar, not looking like this. I am really grateful for what you did for me, for your kindness. When I am repaired, can I buy you a drink?

  Please let me.'

  He wrote for her his address and a telephone number, gave it to her.

  'But you are all right, Charley?'

  'I'm fine, Benny. It's just my bloody dignity that's damaged.'

  Aching throughout her body, Charley limped with her shopping bag towards the bus stop. Only when she stood at the bus stop did she realize that the bloody bastard hadn't gone for her watch, that the watch was on her wrist.

  Axel watched the bus come.

  He saw her, in pain, drag herself up onto the bus.

  As the bus drove away, the bus for Mondello, her face was in the window for a moment in his vision. She was white-faced except for the vivid bruising where the boot had caught her, and she seemed to him to be in shock.

  He was on the pavement, a few feet from the bus, close enough to see the markings on her face.

  Axel had seen it all. He had seen her, Codename Helen, come out of the boutique, carrying her bag, alive with pleasure, and he had seen the motorcycle accelerating down the side street towards her, and then weave through a gap in the parked cars and come onto the pavement. He had seen each detail of the attack, the snatch of the bag, her being dragged behind the motorcycle, the motorcycle stopping on the pavement and the boot going into her face, and the gloved fist going for her throat, and the motorcycle accelerating away down the pavement before it cut between the cars and out onto the side street.

  He had not tried to intervene.

  He would have intervened if it had been life-threatening. If he had intervened, if it had been life-threatening, if he had used his firearm, if the police had been called, then his cover was broken.

  He had recognized the situation from the moment the motorcycle had moved on her.

  It was a bag snatch, it was the life of Palermo. It was not worth the breaking of his cover. From his viewpoint across the side street he had satisfied himself that the situation was, by t
he terms on which he operated, harmless. The young Palermitan had come to her and helped her, and he had seen her weep and then curse and then soften as she was dosed in his sympathy, and at the end he had seen the small and rueful grimace on her face. She had not needed him.

  And Axel did not need the smart talk of Dwight Smythe who pushed paper in the London embassy, nor of Bill Hammond in a safe billet on the Via Sardegna up the road from the Rome embassy, nor of 'Vanni, nor of a magistrate who had probed and warned of responsibilities. Didn't need them whining their consciences at him . . .

  He had been to Mondello each morning. Each morning he had seen her come from the villa with the children. He had tracked her, unseen, each morning. Surveillance tactics were the skill area of Axel Moen, always behind, always on the far side of the street or the piazza or the alleyway. Each morning he followed her, Codename Helen, stayed back from her. He did not need any hand-wringing bastards to tell him of his responsibility. There had been a girl crucified on the back of a door, and he had used the pliers and a claw hammer from the tool kit of the Huey's pilot to get the nails from the palms of her hands. He did not need to be told about his responsibilities.