Paul was a man of generous proportions, although he had thinned down by some forty-five pounds since he ceased being a highflier at the bank and took up his new role. But he still loved his food, and if truth be known, for his health’s sake he should shed the same weight again. Jools with her naturopathic hat on had told him only recently. The two of them went back a long way, and she could say things like that to him in her usual forthright manner.
“Okay, sounds good. When do we leave?” said Cait.
“I’ll pick you up around eight tomorrow morning,” said Paul. “It’s two hundred kilometers to Catania, so with a stop off in Enna, well . . . we should arrive there a bit before midday. I’ll drop you two off there, then continue on to Cara di Mineo. Catania’s a really nice seaside port in the shadow of Mount Etna, with lots to see. You’ll love it. Then pick you up again at, say, four. We’ll be back in Palermo around six.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Dec. “Let’s do it.”
“When the tall fat man arrives, you ring this phone number, capisce?” said Three Fingers Marco in a gruff, authoritarian tone. He was speaking to a cafone, a lowlife who was well below his own station.
“So how I know him? Many fat men in Sicily,” replied the short, dark-haired man rather grumpily in halting English. It was the only language they could communicate in, as Three Fingers didn’t speak Arabic and the short man knew only a few words in Italian, so English was their common ground.
Three Fingers had personally received word from Don Giovanni that a job needed to be done, so it must have been important. The Don usually never gave orders directly. Instead, they were always passed down to one of the lower-level members of the Family, who would then delegate whatever had to be undertaken to the soldier mobsters at the bottom of the food chain, or even an associate if the job required going outside of the Family. It was the Don’s way of ensuring that he could never be linked to any crime. He had remained out of jail and squeaky clean for the past sixty-two years of his life, and the Don intended it to remain that way in the future.
“Marco, I’m trusting you as my brother’s nephew to deal with this. Remember omertà—it’s your duty to keep this between you and me. You’re the capo on this, so it’s your contract,” the Don instructed Three Fingers.
“No one must know, not your wife, not your goomah, not even your mamma.”
The Don was making sure that the whack was totally untraceable back to the Cosa Nostra, and by default back to the Don’s spiritual brothers in the Brethren of the True Believers who had sanctioned the hit.
“We have a problem you have to fix. The refugees are now pulling in more dollars for us than any of our other rackets. Even drugs. It’s easy money with no risk,” continued the Don, obviously annoyed at someone who was upsetting the status quo. “And then there’s this irritante who needs to be iced. He comes here to Sicily, has no respect, isn’t even Italian, and keeps putting his nose in all the wrong places, causing heat for us.
“He’s even getting in the ear of those right-wing politicians we haven’t got on the payroll yet.”
The Don was giving enough away to draw Three Fingers in, but not enough so he had the whole story. Three Fingers had been entrusted with sucking as much cash as he could out of Cara di Mineo. Out of every euro of aid money that came his way, up to ninety cents ended up in the Don’s coffers, and if hitting someone who was becoming a nuisance to the Family was required, well, that just went with the territory as far as he was concerned.
“All you have to do is contract this cafone refugee in that Cara di Mineo camp that you run. He used to go by the name of Mohammed, but that’s probably not his real name. He certainly won’t be using it now.” The Don pulled out a copy of Mohammed’s Libyan driving license, complete with a laminated headshot on display.
“He’s in your camp. Arrived about eight weeks ago. Short, stocky man about five foot four. May be with his brother and possibly his father. You know him?”
Three Fingers took the license from the Don and examined it carefully.
“Yeah, think I know who he is. Why him?”
“No questions, no answers, Marco. Just locate him.”
What Don Giovanni neglected to tell his nephew was that one of his brothers in the Brethren of the True Believers had instructed him to use Mohammed. Or whatever his name was now. Apparently the Grand Master, or one of his brethren, had contracted him eighteen months ago to make some hits for them in Libya when some of the local warlords were becoming too territorial and needed eliminating, so Mohammed had some experience, and each time he followed through. Plus Mohammed was about as far away from the Don and the Cosa Nostra as possible, so it would be very unlikely for any polizia to trace him back to the source.
“Get him to use this phone and ring the preprogrammed number on the speed dial when he sees this person get into his car. Everything else has been arranged.”
Don Giovanni placed down his Cuban cigar, brushing a fleck of ash off the crease of his immaculately pressed cream slacks and slid a black, no-name mobile phone sealed in a plastic bag and a grainy photo of a tall fat man across the table.
“And make sure that this cafone blends in. He’s used to that. He mustn’t be seen by anyone. Just someone in the background.”
“Sì Don, if he’s the man I think he is, he keeps to himself in the camp,” replied Three Fingers, half expecting, but secretly relieved, that the Don wasn’t going to order him to perform the actual hit himself.
“He’s a real piece of shit who I’m sure’s run hits in his past. I’m positive the last thing he wants is to draw attention to himself by getting caught.”
Three Fingers picked up the photo of the victim and slid his black sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, peering over the top of them to see who was going to get whacked. He personally couldn’t give a flying fuck who the prick was, and besides, it was none of his business.
He was just curious.
White guy, fifties, well dressed, paunchy, Three Fingers thought to himself. Doesn’t look Italian. Probably American or English. Big deal. Pity he won’t be around much longer.
“The phone’s a burner, so it has to be dumped immediately after making the call. Tell that Mohammed prick to ditch it in the harbor,” continued the Don.
“And Marco, don’t touch the phone, capisce? It’s clean and free of all prints.”
Marco smiled inwardly, feeling blessed. Being singled out by the Don and given a secret assignment was everything he had wished for. At twenty-six he was rapidly moving up in authority, an early age he had been told by some of the older wise guys in the Family, so the Don must have been earmarking him for promotion. If this assignment went well, who knew where it could see him in the future? There were so many others trying to be noticed that it was a privilege to be singled out.
“Of course, Don Giovanni. You can trust me with this. I promise I won’t let you down,” Marco replied obsequiously to the Don.
Yes, Marco thought, giving himself a personal high five. I’ll prove that I’m better than that slack-arse prick of a son that he panders to. I can do this.
“Listen you piece of shit, you do this for me and I’ll look after you in the camp. And your brother and father. But if you say anything to anybody, and I mean anybody, you’re a dead man. You won’t see another sunrise,” said Three Fingers to Mohammed.
But the refugee was immune to threats. Instead he played along as if it was a game. He’d come across worse infidels than this in Libya; ones he’d had to kill in the name of Allah. This one was a soft cock, a nobody. Three Fingers was just another stupid Sicilian wop trying to be tough. Mohammed knew he could take him out with his bare hands if he had to. He’d done it so many times before—killed, murdered, blown up, tortured—sent over a hundred souls to purgatory, even one of his warlord bosses, and a few martyrs along the way as well to rest in Paradise with Allah—so many kills that he was beyond being intimidated.
Certainly not by such weak threats as this.
>
Rather, Mohammed had seen his own death in a dream, and it wasn’t now. He was to die a martyr as part of a glorious jihad, not in some shithole refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. In his dream many infidels were killed and ended up burning in Hell. His death would be magnificent. He would be blessed for eternity, with a gift of seventy-two virgins as a reward for his personal sacrifice, bowls of fresh fruit in abundance, and the finest food and drink to enjoy with the true God, Allah.
This was predetermined.
Maybe I kill him now? thought the angry refugee.
No, the time isn’t right. I’ll do what the infidel asks and wait for Allah’s calling.
Mohammed stood up from the office desk and scowled, glaring down at Three Fingers, his lips curling up at the edges with a menacing grimace. Tracing the outline of a large, deep scratch running across the top of the polished wooden desk he added with a sarcastic overtone, “Pity about desk. You need to take better care of things.”
Snatching up the wop’s packet of cigarettes that were laying at the end of the scratch, he took one out, flicked it into his mouth in a single, almost practiced movement and said in an irreverent tone, “Gimme a light,” immediately placing the half-full packet into the top pocket of his sweat-stained shirt.
No please, no thank you, or may I have one.
The refugee then reached across the desk for the black phone, took it out of the plastic bag and shoved it into the front pocket of his pants. Picking up the photo of the infidel, he examined it through the haze of smoke he had just exhaled, then turned to leave.
As Mohammed reached the door, he spun around to face Three Fingers and said with a cold, intimidating inflection to his voice, “You don’t look after my brother and father, I kill you.”
And then he was gone.
“I’ll meet you two back here in the Piazza del Duomo between three thirty and four. Catania's a town with a heap of history and there’s plenty of things to check out. You’ll really like it,” said Paul.
“The port was founded by the ancient Greeks over two thousand years ago, so the city’s steeped in history. Start with the baroque cathedral in front of you at the end of the piazza, then move out from there. We’re basically in the center of the old town here, so you’re close to everything worth seeing.”
Paul glanced around, getting his bearings.
“And make sure you don’t miss the thirteenth-century Ursino Castle. It’s down that narrow cobblestone street about five hundred meters. It’s a huge, fully restored citadel totally surrounded by a massive fortified wall, and it’s still all there. It’s amazing.”
Paul’s driver had dropped them at Sant’Agata Gardens at the edge of the large pedestrian-only Piazza del Duomo, and Paul was giving his charges a heads-up and orientation to Catania.
“Oh, and if Mount Etna up there erupts again,” Paul said jokingly, nodding in the direction of Europe’s highest active volcano visible through the blue-gray heat haze about thirty kilometers to the north, “then run for your life!”
Cait and Dec immediately looked up at the large, conical-shaped mountain that dominated the skyline, just as a puff of white smoke burst from the volcano’s indented peak like a smoke signal from the gods.
“But I think you’re safe. The last major eruption was in 1669. Most of Catania was buried by lava,” said Paul reassuringly.
“The town was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Before the eruption, the castle was actually on the waterfront. Now it’s a kilometer away.”
Cait and Dec had arrived just as the restaurants were setting up for the lunchtime onslaught and Piazza del Duomo was buzzing with tourists, touts and traders. The upmarket cafés scattered around the periphery of the piazza had already staked out their territory, demarcating their patch of well-worn paving with movable planter boxes filled with greenery and brightly colored flowers. Large white café umbrellas were ever present, allowing the hungry patrons to escape the searing heat of the bright sun when they sat at the perfectly set tables, their starched white tablecloths so crisp and shiny that they almost reflected the large marble fountain that dominated the center of the medieval square.
“Okay Paul, see you about four. Cait and I’ll be in that bar over there having drinkies,” said Dec, taking the lead and pointing at a pleasant-looking place at the other end of the piazza called Cathedral’s Bar.
“Looks like a cool place to sit and have a beer after a hard day of sightseeing.”
Cait shielded her eyes from the intense sun and peered over to where Dec was pointing. Like a magnet, her psychic force field drew her eyes toward two men disappearing around the corner of Via Giuseppe Garibaldi at the end of the piazza.
A distant voice inside her head called out to her: “Beware those men. There’s evil there.” James was like her guardian angel, whispering to her from the Otherworld.
“That’s weird,” Cait said to Dec. “Did you see those two guys walk around the corner down there?”
“Who? There are people everywhere.”
“Don’t worry, Dec. They just looked familiar,” said Cait, a cold shiver running up her spine that was the antithesis of the ambient temperature, the lingering presence of where the two strangers had been thirty seconds ago leaving a shimmering calling card of where they had once been.
“Hey sis, must be over one hundred degrees. The sun’s burning hot, eh. Let’s stop for a beer,” said Dec, making a beeline to a little bar immediately opposite Ursino Castle. Cait and Dec had just spent the last two hours visiting the ruins of the ancient Roman amphitheatre and wandering the labyrinth of unevenly paved, small interconnected backstreets rambling through the old town, and now they were both hot and bothered, and in desperate need of hydration.
“Yep, you got me on that one, little bro.”
“Then we’ll check out the castle over there. After that we better start wandering back to meet Paul.”
Dec was doing his usual, organizing where they were going. Cait let him do his thing. Besides, she didn’t have a good head for directions, and Dec seemed to have a veritable road map in his head. He just always knew which way to go. Cait assumed that it was Dec’s years of sailing with his father on their racing yacht, Fig Jam. Knowing which way to go sort of went with the territory of being on the water.
Dec was sitting out front of Wine bar il 7 e l’otto by himself in the shade of a large umbrella, lost in thought as he took a long draft of his Birra dello Stretto. Cait was in the bathroom, freshening up. Two touts, their mismatched well-worn clothes an awkward clash of contrasting stripes and checks, had obviously considered Dec fair game and approached him cold from the other side of the street. The taller, younger one of the two stood in the sun on the edge of Dec’s table, about to start a hard sell of his wares. Dec looked up and noticed that he was missing three of his front teeth.
And sweating profusely.
“Scusi sir, you like to buy a hat?” said the taller one, appearing out of nowhere, taking Dec by total surprise. The man had a strange, jumbled accent that was obviously an amalgam of whatever they spoke where he came from, which certainly wasn’t Sicily, plus some broken English and Italian for good measure. The three languages were thrown together haphazardly in a seemingly multilingual hodgepodge that necessitated Dec concentrating so he could actually decipher the meaning of what the tout was trying to say.
The shorter, older one was scowling as he stood back two steps in the shade of Dec’s umbrella, clutching an armful of panama hats. He was obviously having a bad day.
“No thanks mate, got one,” said Dec, reaching for his hat on the chair next to him and placing it on his head. Then out of the blue he glanced at them both and realized these two poor souls were obviously doing it tough. It was so hot in the sun you could fry an egg on the pavement, so he took pity on them.
“Hey guys, no hat for me, but you two are obviously suffering in the heat. How’d you like it if I bought you both a cold beer?” Dec was feeling altruistic, and sending these guys away
with a couple of cold drinks was only going to cost him a few euros.
Silence. They were shocked.
“Huala' alnaas laysuu jayd Aziz. Yallah,” said Tariq in a dismissive tone to his younger brother.
(These people are no good, Aziz. Come on, let’s go.)
“No birra. We no drink alcohol,” said the older one, suspiciously. “Andiamo, Aziz.”
(Let’s go, Aziz.)
“Well a soda then. Coke? Sprite?” said Cait who had just returned to the table and heard the tail end of the conversation, signaling the waiter as she spoke.
“So your name’s Aziz,” said Cait to the younger of the two, surprising even herself at being able to pick his name out from the brief Arabic conversation that had just transpired between the two men.
Dec looked on with admiration.
How does she do these things? he thought to himself, turning back to his beer.
“You were nice lady in piazza in Palermo,” said Aziz, her face suddenly coming back to him. Cait’s revelations about his misfortune on the life raft had been haunting him on and off since she told him.
“Lady, how you know those things? I tell no one about Abdul. Only my brother Tariq.”
The icy cold sodas arrived and Cait pushed them across the chipped vinyl-topped table toward Aziz and his brother. The two refugees stared at the frosty glasses, not sure what to do. Cait watched a lonely trickle of condensing water run down the side of the Coke glass closest to her.
“Drink it, guys. Our treat,” said Cait, looking over to Dec, giving him a nod and a “say something” look.
The mood lifted slightly and Aziz reached out, quickly grabbing hold of the two frosty glasses, immediately passing one to his brother. He tentatively raised the tempting fizzy treat to his mouth, clinked the ice cubes around, savoring the moment, then took a sip and looked over at Cait, giving her a grin through his broken teeth that would melt the heart of a troll on the warpath.
The Cait Lennox Box Set Page 55
