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“Nothing.” I shook my head. “I was the one who changed, he didn’t. He was always what he is now, that’s the terrible thing. The Sean Burke I thought I knew in Lourenco Marques and after never actually existed.”
The silence enveloped us and I lay there thinking about it all. Finally I looked up at him again. “You knew what they intended, didn’t you?”
“In part only and guessed the rest. Hoffer was deported from the States some years ago after a prison sentence for tax evasion. He worked with Cosa Nostra, then came to us here in Sicily with several of his old American-Sicilian Mafia associates. They brought in new ideas as I told you. Drugs, prostitution, other kinds of vice. I didn’t want them, but they were all Mafia.”
“Once in, never out?”
“That’s right. The Council said they were entitled to be in.”
“So you took them?”
He nodded. “Mostly they were good administrators, I’ll say that for them. Hoffer, for example, took over the ru
“And these were the men who worked against you?”
“Nothing is as simple as that. Sometimes together, often individually, they would give me trouble. They thought it would be easy, that they could fast-talk the stupid old Sicilian peasant into the ground. Take over. When that failed, they tried other methods.”
“Including the bomb that killed my mother? You knew they intended to kill you if possible and still you worked with them?” I shook my head. “Sharks – tearing each other to pieces at the smell of blood.”
“Still you don’t see.” He sighed. “The Council is Mafia, Stacey, not Vito Barbaccia alone. The rules said they were entitled to be in. The other business was personal.”
“And you killed them all according to the rules, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Any one of them could have been behind the bomb that killed your mother – or all of them.”
“Then why is Hoffer still around?”
“Drop by drop is better. I have my own way of doing things,” he said grimly. “Hoffer is a very stupid man, like all men who think they are clever. He married this English widow, this aristocrat, for her money. Unfortunately she was smarter than he realised and soon sized him up for what he really was. She wouldn’t give him a pe
“Why didn’t she leave him?”
“Who knows with a woman? Love, perhaps? So he eased her out of this world into the next with a carefully contrived accident – he still doesn’t realise that I know about that, by the way – then discovered she had left him nothing.”
“Everything to Joa
“Exactly, except that under the terms of the trust he was next in line if the girl died before coming into her inheritance. Once she came of age, he was finished. She could make a will on the spot, leave it to charity or some obscure cousin – anything. No point in even killing her then.”
He got to his feet and moved to the window and stood there, a dark shadow again. “But he wasn’t simply motivated by greed in his desire to lay hands on his stepdaughter’s fortune. He was afraid. He faced a death sentence. He used our money, Mafia money, in various bullion deals, mainly in Egypt, hoping to make a personal killing. Unfortunately someone tipped off the authorities. On two occasions his boats were caught red-handed.”
“Someone informed the authorities? Someone called Vito Barbaccia?” I laughed until I started to choke and he hurried to my bedside and poured water into a glass. I gulped some down and handed the glass back to him. At least I’d made him look anxious.
“It’s really damned ironic, isn’t it?” I told him. “Didn’t you know that I was in one of those boats? That’s how I came to be in an Egyptian prison?”
For once in his life I’d stopped him cold. A hand stretched out towards me, there was utter dismay on his face. “Stacey,” he stammered. “What can I say? I did this to you?”
“Forget it,” I said. “It’s too fu
He sank down into his chair again, obviously still shaken. “All right. Hoffer had to have his chance to recoup so that the Society shouldn’t suffer. The Council met to consider his case. He confessed frankly, but tried to make out that the deals had been intended to benefit the Society. Not that it did him any good. Even if that was the truth, he’d had no authority from the Council to proceed. He admitted his liability and asked for time to get the money together.”
“And time was given?”
“There was no reason to refuse. He told the Council that under the terms of his wife’s will, he had been left substantial business interests in America. That he could realise these within two or three months and have more than enough money to put things right.”
“And the Council believed him?”
“Why should he lie? If he didn’t come up with the money he would be taken care of, no matter where he tried to run.”
“But you knew he was lying?”
He nodded tranquilly. “The true measure of Hoffer’s stupidity lies in the fact that he can’t accept that an old Sicilian peasant is smarter than he is. I’ve always been one step in front of him – always. I saw a photostat of his wife’s will, even before he knew the terms.”
“Why didn’t you tell the Council?”
“I was interested. I wanted to see what he would come up with.”
“And be one step ahead of him as usual? You knew that his solution was to get rid of his stepdaughter before she came of age?”
“Let us say that after having seen the actual will, it had occurred to me as a likely possibility. Later, I got wind of the business with Serafino, of how it had gone wrong.”
“And then I turned up and brought you up to date.” I was getting angry again. “If you knew the girl was with Serafino because she wanted to stay out of Hoffer’s way till her birthday, you must have known that the purpose of our little foray into the mountains as outlined to me was a lie. That the only reason there could possibly be for going in there was to destroy her.” My voice had risen slightly. “What in the hell did you think was going to happen when we got there and I found out, or did you think I was lying to you? Did you think I’d become a murderer of young girls?”
“Don’t be stupid, Stacey,” he said coldly. “You are my flesh – I know you. That kind of deed we leave to the Hoffers and the Burkes of this world. Men without honour.”
“Honour?” I laughed wildly. “Didn’t you realise that Burke would have to kill me because he knew I’d never stand by and see them murder the girl? That you, by your silence, were sending me to my death as surely as Hoffer?”
“But I had no choice, don’t you see?” he said patiently. “Listen and try to understand, Stacey. The Council gave Hoffer time – time to recoup their money and how he did that was of no particular concern. They expected either cash on the barrel on the due date or his head – nothing less. But once a member has been given time he is entitled to follow his operation through without interference from within the Society. If I had warned you that he intended to have the girl killed, urged you to prevent it, I would have been guilty of breaking one of the oldest of Mafia laws.”
“Death at last for Vito Barbaccia, is that what you are saying?”
“Death?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “You think that frightens me? But I thought I had made it clear to you? The rules are there for all to obey, even the capo. Without them we are nothing. They are the strength of the Society, the reason we have survived. Oh no, Stacey, he who breaks the rules deserves to die – must die.”
It occurred to me for the briefest of moments that I might be going out of my head. I was moving into an unknown country now with attitudes and rules of behaviour as archaic and formalised as a Court of Chivalry in the Middle Ages.