BELLA MAFIA (50 page)

Luka hummed to himself as he made his way back to his room. He let himself in and lay on the bed, then sat up as he remembered the newspaper. Quickly he retrieved it from beneath the mattress. He had taken it before Graziella had awakened.

There on the front page was the story:
police step up hunt for suspect luka carolla
. The paper reran the accounts of the Paluso killing, the Lucianos, and the shooting of Paul Carolla.

As Luka skimmed the article, he found nothing that even hinted at any knowledge of his whereabouts. What really worried him was the picture of him and the description. He held the picture beside his face, examining them both in the mirror, convincing himself that no one would recognize him with his new haircut. The face in the picture had long blond hair, but the description was good, including the height. The age was wrong, they thought he was much older, but he didn't like the suggestion that he could be taken for an American. He tore the paper into scraps, beginning to wonder just how safe he was at the villa. Had the others seen the article? He paced up and down the room, thinking about the car at the gate. It was not well enough hidden; he had to get rid of it. If, as Graziella had suggested, they were to get a guard, he'd spot it immediately. Luka opened the high window and climbed out.

Commissario Pirelli now had details of Luka Carolla's driver's license, which had been faxed to the States, and a description of his car. A flood of telephone calls was still coming in from the public.

The press conference had paid off faster than they had anticipated; one of the calls had come from the owner of the motel where Luka had stayed.

Police headquarters seemed to be buzzing. The police now had verification from forensic that the prints on the orange juice glass and the unused bullet at the Armadillo Club matched those on the gun found at the monastery.

Ancora had to sit down. "Jesus, this is getting out of hand. If we keep at it, we'll close every unsolved murder for the last ten years. This means that fucking Luka Carolla was at Dante's that night, could even have killed him."

Pirelli was on his way out when the phone rang. Ancora reached over the desk and snatched it up, then signaled to Pirelli to stay. "Okay, we'll get someone there. . . . Yeah, don't let anyone touch it." He put the phone down. "We've got the car he rented. It's on the outskirts of Palermo, driven into a field. The guy knows it wasn't there last night, so it must have been dumped in the last few hours. Means our man is still here."

Pirelli punched the air with his fists. "Now we're moving! Get that car towed in as fast as possible. I'll be at the hotel."

By the time Pirelli and his men arrived at the small hotel the room was already being stripped. Everything that could be removed was taken to the forensic laboratories. They had a long, arduous task ahead of them because the room had been rented to three occupants since Luka's stay.

The owner of the hotel, sweating with nerves, was driven to headquarters, where he was questioned for more than three hours. He had little information to give, having seen Luka Carolla only twice: once when he signed in and once when they had passed each other in the hallway. But Pirelli now had his most valuable lead: Luka's signature in the register as "J. Moreno."

Nevertheless, another piece of information confused and delayed the issue. Luka, alias Moreno, the hotel owner assured the police, was not blond but dark-haired.

Pirelli sighed. "You're sure?"

The man nodded. "He was dark. When he signed in, I couldn't see his face too good; he wore a straw hat and sunglasses."

"Describe them?"

"Well, the hat was kinda brownish and—"

"No, no, the glasses. What sort were they?"

The man shrugged. "Sunglasses, you know, the kind with mirrors in them; you can see your own face, but you can't see their eyes."

"So, let's go to the second time you saw him. . . ."

The man thought hard. Then: "It was the same day they shot that guy at the trial. I was going up the stairs, about seven-thirty, maybe later, in the morning. He passed this close." He spread his hands about a foot apart, then continued. "So I got a clear look at him. He didn't have those sunglasses on or the hat. He was carrying some kind of parcel, and he didn't reply when I said good morning. He just walked on, so I just looked over the banister, watched him leave. I thought,
Rude bastard.
. . . His hair was real dark, almost black."

Pirelli nodded and leaned forward. "But you saw the composite, and here, take a look, the man's obviously very blond, so why did you call us?"

The man shook his head and shrugged. "The face . . . the eyes more'n anything else. I remember them; they were blue, you know, those real pale blue eyes. . . ."

Pirelli watched as Bruno ushered the man out. There was nothing he could do but wait to see what forensic came up with on the hotel.

Ancora barged in. "You wanna see the Fiat? It was set on fire, but the guys are working on it. We got lucky; fire centered on the engine and the seats, but on the driver's door it looks like bloodstains. Can't tell as yet."

A fax came through from the States; Luka Carolla's driver's license was a fake. With time on his hands, Pirelli went in search of Mincelli and found him standing in his office having a screaming match with someone on the other end of the phone. Seeing Pirelli, he slammed the phone down.

"You really landed me in the shit. That was the oily bastard from C-eleven. They've got some big burglary on, and we've got virtually every man down in the labs, elbow deep."

Pirelli sat down and started picking up Mincelli's pens. "So, you checked out the times of death of the Lucianos and whether it was possible for someone to be in both places that night?"

"Yep. The two Luciano kids were killed nine to nine-thirty, the men not until ten-thirty. If your man was driving, he could do it easily . . . and here, this will make your day."

The ballistics report now verified that the magnum had killed one of the victims, the waiter at the restaurant. The other victim, the chef, had been shot with a gun of a different caliber.

Pirelli whistled. "This guy has taken out more people than the Ripper. It's unbelievable."

Ancora and Pirelli moved down the wide stone staircase and out into the yard behind headquarters. The pens for suspect vehicles were on the other side. They stepped over the cordon surrounding the Fiat.

"They've got prints from the glove compartment, thumb and forefinger," Ancora announced. "The rest, they think, was wiped out in the fire. The blood group is type O, Rh negative, and there was quite a lot of it. The blood group is common; but I asked if there was enough blood to think our man was badly injured, and they said possibly. You know they never take a chance."

Pirelli walked around the car. "Let's go up to the labs, see if they've got an ID on the fingerprints."

Pirelli breathed down the lab technician's neck as he laid the fingerprints on the slide, then mounted it in the microscope. He looked up and nodded. "Looks like the same prints taken from the glass and the bullet. See for yourself. ..."

Pirelli squinted into the eyepiece. "Now we need only one thing." He moved the glass aside. "The owner of these babies."

Sophia Luciano arrived back at the villa earlier than expected and went in search of Teresa. She found her in the study, with Luka.

Sophia stood in the doorway and addressed herself to Luka. "Do you mind leaving us? I need to talk to Teresa."

Luka left quickly, giving Sophia a smile, which was ignored. But as he passed her, she caught his arm. "Your hair . . ."

He ran the flat of his hand over the crew cut. "Graziella and Adina cut my dye off. . . . You like it?"

Sophia raised an eyebrow. "Graziella?" She turned to Teresa. "He's making himself very much at home here, isn't he?" She turned back to Luka. "Close the door, please."

As he shut the door, Sophia sat down. "What's been going on?"

Teresa was a little edgy. "A lot . . . Everything go all right in Rome? I wasn't expecting you so soon."

"Obviously."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I thought we'd agreed to pay him off? And here he is, sitting chatting away. Graziella cutting his hair. Next thing we know he'll be eating with us. He's no good. You have to get rid of him. You promised."

"We may need him."

"Oh, come on, Teresa, need him?"

"Did you arrange to sell your apartment?"

"Yes, at least that was simple enough. It's on the market. But Nino Fabio refused to see me. Then I received this by hand from his lawyers about an hour later. He wants his designs returned, all of them that are still in my possession."

Teresa read the lawyer's letter. "He wants his chunk of flesh, doesn't he? Not satisfied with ripping you off for years, he's trying to block you from starting up again. Did you find out if he was the one who stole the machines?"

"How could I? He wouldn't even see me. He wouldn't have dared treat me like this when Constantino was alive."

Teresa settled her glasses on her nose. "Listen, we have more important things to discuss. We seem to have really sent some shock waves through the families. They think there must be someone behind us, you know, overseeing all the work and so on, perhaps even financing us, and they—"

Teresa chewed her lip, trying to hedge around the subject.

"Come on, what's going on, Teresa?"

She got up and went to stand by the shutters. "The one thing Domino had virtually settled was the sale of the villa and the orchards. We were offered a good price, Graziella signed the agreement, and Domino banked the deposit. Where in God's name that's gone to I don't know. I can't trace it, just as there are huge sums of cash I can't trace. ... It was supposedly all put into a Swiss account, but so far I haven't found it."

Back at the desk she handed Sophia a card. "That's Giuseppe Rocco, the card says real estate, it's a joke. He's a front man for the Corleone family, and they, Sophia, are the ones who have bought the Villa Rivera."

Sophia scanned the card. "So? Does it matter who we sell to? You said yourself it's a good price; that, added to the sales of all the various companies . . . Are we going to put them all under one contract? There're so many different sections, the warehouses, factory, docks, ships. Are we going for a complete sellout?"

Teresa sat down and took off her glasses. "That was my intention, to sell the lot. Just as it is their intention to buy us out lock, stock, and barrel. But that figure is all we get, Sophia. You see, their price for the villa, they insist, includes all rights to everything, warehouses, properties, everything you've just mentioned. And every day we do not accept their deal, the money goes down. They want possession as of five days from today."

Sophia stood up. "They can't do this."

"But they can, Sophia. And to make sure, they are cutting out every other possible buyer, seeing to it that no one stands against them. If we refuse, down goes the money, and they will let the company disintegrate."

Sophia stared at her sister-in-law blankly.

"It means, Sophia, all the work, all the money we took from Dante's club were a waste of time."

"They can't do this. Look, why don't I call Pirelli and ask him to help us?"

"Do you want to put Mama in danger? Rosa? We need someone to protect us, someone who knows the way the families work. So I've hired Johnny—"

"Oh, no, no way ..."

"Just listen! We can trust him because he has to trust us. One call to your precious Pirelli, and Johnny'll be arrested for Dante's murder. Besides, he's already agreed, and he's been more than helpful in setting it up."

Sophia folded her arms. "So you've already made up your mind whether I like it or not."

"You can back out. I've not even discussed it fully with the others because it
is
dangerous."

"Oh, yes? As dangerous as going against their offer?"

"Not if we work it right. We should be out of the country by the time what we've done becomes known."

"Did Moreno suggest this?"

"No, I put it to him, to see what he thought. The only way it's going to work is if we can stall them, somehow hold them off while we get ourselves ready to leave Palermo. We leave with all the contracts, every legal right to the entire Luciano holdings, still in our possession. We get to New York, and we sell to a guy called Michele Barzini, who's already made a reasonable offer to Mario Domino. This way we are clear of Sicily, and they won't want to get involved in a fight with the States. Even if they did, we wouldn't be part of it."

White-faced, Sophia said, "Dear God, Teresa, if they found out, wouldn't they send someone over to the States? They'd get us, wherever we were. ..."

"I know, and I've thought of that. We agree to sell only if they give us protection. If we are approached, we tell the Corleone family that we had no option, that Barzini threatened us. We have to play the innocent widows, incapable of dealing with the situation. That's how they think of us, so we play it to the hilt. Johnny thinks the only way we could possibly get away with it is to make sure the Corleones believe we are acting completely alone, have no idea what we are doing, have no one behind us."