The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

  Rocco grunted and said, ‘Give them to the Sicilians and they’ll turn them into mortadella.’

  ‘I’m fine with fruit.’ Maso sat down. Lucia came over and poured him coffee. ‘What do you want me to do today? Go fishing?’ He hesitated. ‘Go hunting.’

  Gabriele turned to his brother and suggested he take a look at the animals. Vanni hesitated for an instant then wolfed down one final cannolo, got the message, and wandered off to the abandoned warehouse by the church, a place he used for storing all manner of things, from grain and wood to an ancient, rusty motorbike.

  ‘He knows when he’s not wanted,’ the old man said, watching him go. ‘If only all my family were as obedient and biddable.’

  Rocco stared at the table. Lucia patted her father’s head and said, ‘We’re an awkward bunch. I wonder where we get it from.’ And left.

  There was a long silence over the cannoli and the coffee. Then Gabriele turned to his son and told him to try calling the Sicilians again, then the neighbouring ’ndrine. A string of names followed, easily, glibly, some he recognized, some he didn’t: Canale, Ficara, Saraceno, Corigliano.

  ‘Reassure them the summit will happen any day. Tell them they are in my thoughts as always. We’ll keep our brothers safe.’

  Rocco didn’t move. ‘If we have to say all that they’ll get suspicious.’

  Instantly, Gabriele snapped. ‘They’re suspicious already! They loathe the Bergamotti for who we are. Do as I say. Go to the office in Reggio. Make yourself visible to the men. We’ll need them soon enough.’

  With a grunt the younger man left and headed for his car. He revved the engine needlessly, and left in a cloud of smoke and dust.

  ‘My son understands nothing,’ Gabriele grumbled as the Alfa vanished noisily down the hill. ‘All his life the Bergamotti have been the principals in the ’Ndrangheta in these parts. The cradle of the clan. Everyone pays us respect. More than that. A cut of all they earn. Or steal … so you’d put it. He thinks we’ll live that way forever.’

  This wasn’t the moment.

  ‘I think you should leave all this till later. When we get out of here. There’ll be time to talk then. We can get everything down for the record.’

  ‘The record …’ Gabriele grabbed at a bottle of grappa on the table, swilled a few drops in his coffee cup and drank them down. ‘What does the record say of men like me? We robbed. We killed. We looked after our own when no one else could be troubled to care. And then we died. I …’ He blinked, looked ill for a moment. ‘I do not wish to end my life in jail, young man. I will not. Gasping on a hospital bed in some hellhole prison in Naples or somewhere.’ He jabbed a long finger at his broad, full chest. ‘I’ve mediated in wars you people never knew about. I’ve saved good men who would otherwise have slaughtered one another over slights barely worth a mention. Why do you think they follow me? Someone who’s sick? Tired. Worried for his children. Because of what I was. Not what I am. When they know … a wolf scents weakness. It has the smell of meat.’

  He finished the grappa. A heady cloud of alcohol wafted across the table, harsh against the herb-filled mountain air. ‘You asked why I’m doing this. Do you not understand? I have no choice. None whatsoever. Lo Spettro they call me. Like I’m a ghost. A spectre no one gets to see. But this ghost’s going to die one day and when that happens this all changes. My son’s a headstrong fool who wouldn’t last six months before one of his underlings, like that Vottari bastard, came along and shot him in the face. My daughter …’ His expression became more mild. ‘Were she a man could take my place. As could my sister Alessia. They have the strength, the courage and the intelligence. But the Bergamotti will never be led by a woman. It’s unthinkable. And Lucia has an … unfortunate history.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Though I imagine you know that already.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Don’t worry, lad. She’s an adult. A formidable, intelligent woman when she chooses. What she does with her time is her business alone. Insofar as it does not affect the family.’

  ‘I can guarantee your safety and theirs,’ he said. ‘So long as you testify, you can live anonymously where you choose. Lucia and Rocco. Alessia too.’

  He laughed. ‘My sister will be in New York shopping on Fifth Avenue before I find a boat in Burano and begin to shoot some winter ducks. There’s only one place Lucia will go. That villa of hers in Capri. I could have bought the whole of Cariddi for what I paid for that. Still, it’s worth it. She’s happy, finally.’

  ‘And Rocco?’

  The old man’s mouth fixed in something close to a sneer. ‘My son is fond of the foreign and the exotic. Cities where we have influence and money but no tradition or culture to embarrass him. Bangkok. Australia. Melbourne. We have interests going back there more than a century. Poverty chased us out of Aspromonte. There’s nothing better to instil a little ambition in a man. Though in time another generation comes along and forgets the sacrifices of their elders.’

  He leaned forward and hammered his fist on the table. ‘When this happens you must get us out of here immediately. The locals will know this castle of ours has fallen. There’ll be a bloody war to see who seizes it next. As for the Sicilians …’ He looked, for one short moment, frightened. ‘They must never find us. I know you think we’re savages. But we’re mountain wolves who kill for good reason only. They’re wild beasts who murder for amusement.’

  One last swig of spirit then he gripped Maso by the shirt. ‘These hills will run with blood. Can you make sure none of it is mine?’

  ‘I can try.’

  The man’s eyes were grey, intelligent, fixed, hurt by something that was hard to imagine. ‘I’m glad you didn’t say yes. That way I would have known you lied. Still—’

  ‘Gabriele! Brother!’ It was Vanni leading one of his animals across the yard.

  ‘What does the old fool want now?’ The old man sounded tetchy.

  Vanni marched up, breathless, excited. The donkey looked at the two men, seemingly astonished.

  ‘Well?’ Gabriele asked.

  ‘The day? The day!’ Vanni’s eyes were shining with delight.

  ‘What about the day?’

  ‘It’s so beautiful. I’ve bergamot to care for. My animals. This place.’ He touched Maso’s arms. ‘We have a charming guest. And Lucia here too. I feel a sudden happiness. Don’t you?’

  He left it there. Gabriele glanced at Maso Leoni as if to say: a fool, you see?

  ‘What of Lucia?’ he wondered.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed? She’s so … happy. I don’t know when I’ve seen her this way. Not in years. Not since she was a child and her mother was alive.’

  A shadow seemed to fall over them at that moment. The brief tension was broken by the sound of the front door of the palace slamming shut. She was marching out, a leather jacket on, a crash helmet in her hand, a smile on her face.

  ‘Maso here can clear the table,’ she said as she turned up. ‘Your domestic slave has other duties.’

  ‘What duties?’ It was Vanni who asked.

  ‘Rocco called. Something in the office. He wants me there.’ The three men looked at her. ‘It seems I’m needed for chores other than washing up and waiting on the table. And you.’ She winked at Maso. ‘And him.’

  Without waiting for an answer she headed for the stables.

  ‘Help her push that Vespa out,’ Vanni said. ‘I left the wagons in front of it. Didn’t think the thing would be moving for a while.’

  He caught up with her as she slid open the thick oak door. The place looked like a vast barn inside. Big and airy, the roof half torn away. Straw stood stacked up to the left, Vanni’s carts blocked the rest of the way. They still stank of smoke and burned wood. Lucia ran a finger of her leather glove along the side of the nearest, looked at him and said, ‘You’ve learned so many tricks here, haven’t you?’

  In the shadows he came up and held her. He would have kissed her but she retreated.

  ‘Why do you have to go?’
/>   ‘We’ve an office in the city. An estate agency. We do sell property from time to time. I’m the name on the lease. It’s all genuine. If Rocco—’

  ‘I’m here to protect you. All of you. That’s not easy if you’re somewhere else.’

  She shrank from him. ‘Rocco’s my brother. He asked. That’s how this family works. Don’t worry.’ Her hand came up to his face. The silver bracelet copied from the ancient original he’d seen in the chapel in the hills, glittered in the sunlight streaking through the ragged roof. ‘Nic—’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘It’s your name. There’s just the two of us. Not play-acting for a moment. Oh, poor Nic. Poor, poor Nic. He’s scared …’

  She laughed, in a way he hadn’t heard before, and in that instant he saw a glimpse of what she must have been like when her father intervened and found a quiet life for her in Capri.

  ‘I lost someone once,’ he said. ‘It scars you.’

  ‘So did I. So does everyone in the end.’ She traced a finger on her cheek. ‘And I’ve got a scar already.’

  In the dark he held her tight. Her hand went to his neck. She relented and they kissed this time, slowly.

  ‘I’ll be back soon enough. Now be a good boy. Fetch my scooter. It’s against that wall.’

  Five minutes later he watched her ride steadily down the hill.

  So did Gabriele.

  So did Vanni.

  Then the white-haired man at the table poured himself another grappa. And Vanni came over, tried to smile, and said, ‘My brother told me to show you the lie of the land. The tracks. The ways in and out. The places men can park.’ He hesitated then added, ‘Where they can hide.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘I don’t know why, Maso. I’m the village fool. It’s none of my business. But we’ll do it.’ He scowled. ‘I am at his bidding here. And yours.’

  Gabriele seemed lost in a world of his own.

  ‘My stick’s in the stables. Let’s go find it. An old man can’t walk these hills without a little help.’

  The stick was there, in the junk not far from where they kept the scooter. But that wasn’t why he brought him there.

  ‘Here,’ Vanni said, and opened a long wooden chest, recent, the timber still fresh and pale. ‘Look.’

  Inside were weapons. Rifles and handguns still in their wrapping, boxes of shells.

  ‘I may be the family fool,’ Vanni said, picking up the nearest weapon, looking at it briefly then putting it back in place. ‘But I’m not blind. They never tell me what they have in mind. But should there be another war …’ He aimed the pistol at the wall and made a sound like a child’s ‘kapow’. ‘You should know that here is where it begins.’

  For the second time that long, strange week Emmanuel Akindele told himself he was dead. Santo Vottari, the cruellest of the Bergamotti foot soldiers he’d had to deal with in the Zanzibar, stood over him in the attic of the derelict warehouse in Siracusa waiting on an answer.

  Chuk wanted to get the hell out of there. To put his stupid costume on and try to sell useless trinkets to the tourists in Ortigia. Maybe pick up a girl with his quick smile and superficial charm. But the Sicilian who came with Vottari wouldn’t allow that. There was something they needed to know here, and it occurred to Emmanuel that it was, perhaps, more than the motives of a Nigerian slave who’d absconded with the Bergamotti’s money packed in a wad against his sweating skin. Which was where half of it was now, no more. He didn’t know why he told Chuk he had five thousand, not the ten the big foreigner had given him. Chuk was family, his cousin. But he looked so at home here. Places changed people. He’d wondered if it had changed him. Now he knew.

  ‘Sit,’ Vottari ordered then grabbed him and forced Emmanuel onto a chair at a rickety table by the window. Chuk stayed in a corner, silent, the Sicilian eyeing him in a way that said: don’t move, you are mine.

  ‘I’m sorry, boss,’ Emmanuel said as calmly as he could. ‘I had to go. I couldn’t take that place any more. It wasn’t me. It—’

  Vottari’s hand came out and swiped hard across his face. He’d had only one beating from the ’ndrina and that was at this man’s hands. Unauthorized perhaps. For the most part they didn’t resort to violence with their tame underlings. It wasn’t usually necessary.

  ‘You ran all the way here—’ Vottari began.

  ‘To see my relative.’ Emmanuel laughed. ‘See. I am the stupid one.’ Then to the shadow in the corner, ‘Thank you, cousin. If you—’

  ‘You can’t turn up here like this,’ Chuk yelled at him. ‘I got responsibilities. Men to answer to.’

  Men like these, Emmanuel thought. Vottari. The Sicilian who was watching everything and didn’t seem to want to say a word.

  ‘He says he got five thousand euros,’ Chuk added.

  ‘Here …’ Emmanuel took out the wad inside his shirt and placed it in Vottari’s rough hands. ‘Take it. Five thousand. I saved that. Every day I spent working for you it took. Every little tip. I just …’ He wasn’t going to cry. He wouldn’t let them see that. ‘I just want to go home. I don’t belong here.’

  Vottari waved the wad and slapped it against his free hand. ‘That’s a lot of tips. I never realized we were so generous.’

  ‘Chuk—’

  ‘Your cousin called us.’ They were the first words the Sicilian uttered. His voice sounded different. Cold and hard and strange. ‘He didn’t understand why you were here—’

  ‘I had to,’ Chuk muttered from the shadows. ‘I had to …’

  ‘You’re the property of the Bergamotti,’ the Sicilian added. ‘In the wrong place. For what reason—’

  ‘I’m no one’s property. I want to go home!’

  Vottari pulled up a chair, set it back to front, sat in front of him, grinning over his folded arms. ‘But why now?’

  He had to weigh his options. Did telling them place him more in danger? Was there anything that could make his situation worse?

  ‘That safe of yours … those two guys opened it. The thing was full of money. Of guns and all kinds of shit that could have sent me to jail for years. No one sends money back home to my people. Not if that happens.’

  To his surprise Vottari didn’t strike out at that. ‘You were paid to serve drinks. Keep a monkey happy and the rest of us. Not trouble yourself with business—’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice!’

  Santo Vottari laughed, put out a hand and patted him on the head. An unfeeling, condescending gesture. ‘Poor little black man. Comes all this way thinking he’s headed for freedom. Don’t realize he’s going to be a slave. Can’t take it when his masters kill some thieving bastards who come round to rob them—’

  ‘Wasn’t that,’ Emmanuel snapped.

  What to say. What to hide.

  ‘We shot those jerks,’ Vottari said. ‘This new guy did it. Canadian. Made him a man of honour. Thinks he’s something special. Messing with Lo Spettro’s daughter. Just cos he killed two bastards in cold blood. While I’ve done worse, ten times worse, and what do I get? A call from my Sicilian friend here wondering why you’re hiding out in Siracusa not waiting on your masters.’

  ‘Wasn’t that,’ he hissed again. ‘Wasn’t that at all.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Dead men don’t rise,’ Emmanuel cut in. ‘Whatever the bible tells you. That’s just another lie as well. Dead men don’t rise!’

  That took them aback. The Sicilian pulled up a chair as well and said: carry on.

  He didn’t so the stranger pulled out a handgun and put it to his temple. In the corner Chuk began to whimper. Still Emmanuel said nothing.

  ‘He wants to bargain,’ Vottari said eventually. ‘Who’d have thought it? Our little black slave thinks he’s got something so precious he really thinks he’s good for that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Emmanuel told him. ‘I do.’

  ‘Then …’

  He was sick of being treated like a cowering idiot. ‘Time you shut up and listen
, man. I got things to say. Got things I want in return. I want to live. I want my money back. I want you to let me out of here. Go down that port Chuk talked of. Take a boat to Malta. Never see you bastards ever again. Not in this lifetime.’

  The funny thing was they seemed to like the fact he was almost yelling at them, biting back. It won him a little respect maybe, even if it was the kind of regard a man got on the way to the grave.

  ‘Better be good,’ the Sicilian said.

  ‘Dead men rising,’ Emmanuel said. ‘How much better you want than that?’

  So he told them. About the way the two strange Romans in coats smeared fake blood on themselves when the new guy came and fired pointless shots into the trash and rubble by the Zanzibar wall. Fell to the ground, pretended to be dead as Vottari and the crimine, the big man of the ’ndrina, Rocco, came round to see.

  And didn’t move an inch until Vottari shuffled off when Rocco told him to get out of there.

  He watched as their eyes opened in amazement and for the first time since he set foot in Italy felt a little proud of himself.

  ‘What did Rocco do?’ Vottari asked.

  ‘He watched those dead men rise and laughed. Then they talked. Then I took myself out of there and ran. All the way to my lying, cheating cousin when I thought blood meant something. Stupid, huh?’

  ‘Any of them say something about Cariddi?’ Vottari demanded.

  ‘No—’

  ‘Something happened there,’ he snapped. ‘I know it. Not seen that grubby little bastard Rizzo recently. The restaurant guys say people been hanging round.’ He was thinking. ‘Two big guys. A woman. Romans. They were Romans, huh?’

  ‘I think … I don’t know.’

  The Sicilian put an arm round his shoulder and hugged him, tight. ‘My name is Gaetano Sciarra. I work for big people here. Grateful people. You’re a good guy, you know that? You don’t have to go back to Reggio. Sicily’s sweeter. We treat smart people the way they deserve. You’ll like it here.’

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ Emmanuel said, too loud, he thought, until he saw the stranger’s face and then thought again: maybe not. He’d been craven ever since he set foot on Italian soil. Even grateful for a while. But he’d always worked and he’d never begged. Whatever happened now at least, he thought, glancing at Chuk in his stupid African clown costume, he’d kept some dignity.