The Sands of Time (9 page)

“No problem,” Carmine said genially. “A man must do his duty.” He grinned. “This new commissioner who’s been appointed by the president is—in the American phrase—‘an eager beaver,’ eh?”

“I’m afraid that is so,” the police chief sighed. “But don’t worry. You and I have seen these pains in the asses come and go very quickly, eh, Padrone?”

They laughed and went to police headquarters.

Angelo Carmine was not at home for the party that day, or the next. In fact, he never saw any of his homes again. The state filed a one-hundred-count indictment against him that included murder, drug trafficking, prostitution, arson, and scores of other crimes. Bail was denied. A police dragnet went out that swept up Carmine’s crime organization. He had counted on his powerful connections in Sicily to have the charges against him dismissed, but instead he was taken to Rome in the middle of the night and booked at the Regina Coeli, the notorious Queen of Heaven prison. He was put in a small cell that contained barred windows, a radiator, a cot, and a toilet with no seat. It was outrageous! It was an indignity beyond imagining.

In the beginning Carmine was sure that Tommaso Contorno, his attorney, would have him released immediately.

When Contorno came to the visiting room of the prison, Carmine stormed at him. “They’ve closed down my whorehouses and drug operation and they know everything about my money-laundering operation. Somebody is talking. Find out who it is and bring me his tongue.”

“Do not worry, Padrone,” Contorno assured him. “We will find him.”

His optimism turned out to be unfounded. In order to protect their witnesses, the state adamantly refused to reveal their names until the trial began.

Two days before the trial, Angelo Carmine and the other members of the Mafia were transferred to Rebibbia Prigione, a maximum-security prison twelve miles outside Rome. A nearby courtroom had been fortified like a bunker. One hundred sixty accused Mafia members were brought in through an underground tunnel wearing handcuffs and chains and put in thirty cages made of steel and bullet-proof glass. Armed guards surrounded the inside and outside of the courtroom and spectators were searched before they were allowed to enter.

When Angelo Carmine was marched into the courtroom, his heart leaped for joy, for the judge on the bench was Giovanni Buscetta, a man who had been on the Carmine payroll for the last fifteen years and who was a frequent guest at the Carmine house. Carmine knew at last that justice was going to be served.

The trial began. Angelo Carmine looked to
omertà,
the Sicilian code of silence, to protect him. But to his astonishment, the chief witness for the state turned out to be none other than Benito Patas, the bodyguard. Patas had been with the Carmine family so long and had been so trusted that he had been allowed to be in the room at meetings where confidential matters of business were discussed, and since that business consisted of every illegal activity on the police statutes, Patas had been privy to a great deal of information. When the police apprehended Patas minutes after he had cold-bloodedly murdered and muti-lated the new boyfriend of his mistress, they had threatened him with life imprisonment, and Patas had reluctantly agreed to help the police build their case against Carmine in exchange for a lighter sentence. Now, to Angelo Carmine’s horrified disbelief, he sat in the courtroom and listened to Patas reveal the innermost secrets of the Carmine fiefdom.

Lucia was also in the courtroom every day listening to the man who had been her lover destroy her father and her brothers.

Benito Patas’s testimony opened the floodgates. Once the commissioner’s investigation began, dozens of victims came forward to tell their stories of what Angelo Carmine and his hoodlums had done to them. The Mafia had muscled into their businesses, blackmailed them, forced them into prostitution, murdered or crippled their loved ones, sold drugs to their children. The list of horrors was endless.

Even more damaging was the testimony of the
pentiti,
the repentant members of the Mafia who decided to talk.

Lucia was allowed to visit her father in prison.

He greeted her cheerfully. He hugged her and whispered, “Do not worry,
faccia d’angelo.
Judge Giovanni Buscetta is my secret ace in the hole. He knows all the tricks of the law. He will use them to see that your brothers and I are acquitted.”

Angelo Carmine proved to be a poor prophet.

The public had been outraged by the excesses of the Mafia, and when the trial finally ended, Judge Giovanni Buscetta, an astute political animal, sentenced the other Mafia members to long prison terms and Angelo Carmine and his two sons to the maximum permitted by Italian law—life imprisonment, a mandatory sentence of twenty-eight years.

For Angelo Carmine it was a death sentence.

All of Italy cheered. Justice had finally triumphed. But to Lucia, it was a nightmare beyond imagining. The three men she loved most in the world were being sent to hell.

Once again, Lucia was allowed to visit her father in his cell. The overnight change in him was heartbreaking. In the space of a few days, he had become an old man. His figure had shrunk and his healthy, ruddy complexion had turned sallow.

“They have betrayed me,” he moaned. “They have all betrayed me. Judge Giovanni Buscetta—I owned him, Lucia! I made him a wealthy man, and he did this terrible thing to me. And Patas. I was like a father to him. What has the world come to? Whatever happened to honor? They are Sicilians, like me.”

Lucia took her father’s hand in hers and said in a low voice, “I am Sicilian too, Papa. You shall have your vengeance. I swear it to you, on my life.”

“My life is over,” her father told her. “But yours is still ahead of you. I have a numbered account in Zurich. The Bank Leu. There is more money there than you could spend in ten lifetimes.” He whispered a number in her ear. “Leave cursed Italy. Take the money and enjoy yourself.”

Lucia held him close. “Papa—”

“If you ever need a friend, you can trust Dominic Durell. We are like brothers. He has a home in France at Béziers, near the Spanish border.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Promise me you’ll leave Italy.”

“Yes, Papa. But there is something I have to do first.”

Having a burning desire for revenge was one thing; figuring out a way to get it was another. She was alone, and it was not going to be easy. Lucia thought of the Italian expression
Rubare il mestiere
—You steal their profession.
I must think the way they da

A few weeks after her father and brothers had started serving their prison sentences, Lucia Carmine appeared at the home of Judge Giovanni Buscetta. The judge himself opened the door.

He stared at Lucia in surprise. He had seen her often when he was a guest at the Carmine home, but they had never had much to say to each other.

“Lucia Carmine! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have—”

“I have come to thank you, Your Honor.”

He studied her suspiciously. “Thank me for what?”

Lucia looked deep into his eyes. “For exposing my father and brothers for what they were. I was an innocent, living in that house of horrors. I had no idea what monsters—” She broke down and began to sob.

The judge stood there uncertainly, then patted her shoulder. “There, there. Come in and have some tea.”

“Th—thank you.”

When they were seated in the living room, Judge Buscetta said, “I had no idea that you felt that way about your father. I had the impression that you were very close.”

“Only because I had no idea what he and my brothers were really like. When I found out—” She shuddered. “You don’t know what it was like. I wanted to get away, but there was no escape for me.”

“I didn’t understand.” He patted her hand. “I’m afraid I misjudged you, my dear.”

“I was terrified of him.” Her voice was filled with passion.

Judge Buscetta noticed, not for the first time, what a beautiful young woman Lucia was. She was wearing a simple black dress that revealed the outlines of her lush body. He looked at her rounded breasts and could not help observing how grown up she had become.

It would be amusing,
Buscetta thought,
to sleep with the daughter of Angelo Carmine. He’s powerless to hurt me now. The old bastard thought he owned me, but I was too smart for him. Lucia is probably a virgin. I could teach her a few things in bed

An elderly housekeeper brought in a tray of tea and a platter of cookies. She put them on a table. “Shall I pour?”

“Let me,” Lucia said. Her voice was warm and filled with promise.

Judge Buscetta smiled at Lucia. “You can go,” he told the housekeeper.

“Yes, sir.”

The judge watched as Lucia walked over to the small table where the tray had been set down and carefully poured out tea for the judge and herself.

“I have a feeling you and I could become very good friends, Lucia,” Giovanni Buscetta said, probing.

Lucia gave him a seductive smile. “I would like that very much, Your Honor.”

“Please—Giovanni.”

“Giovanni.” Lucia handed him his cup. She raised her cup in a toast. ‘To the death of villains.”

Smiling, Buscetta lifted his cup. “To the death of villains.” He took a swallow and grimaced. The tea tasted bitter.

“Is it too—?”

“No, no. It is fine, my dear.”

Lucia raised her cup again. “To our friendship.”

She took another sip, and he joined her.

“To—”

Buscetta never finished his toast. He was seized by a sudden spasm, and he felt a red-hot poker stabbing at his heart. He grabbed his chest. “Oh, my God! Call a doctor…”

Lucia sat there, calmly sipping her tea, watching the judge stumble to his feet and fall to the floor. He lay there, his body twitching, and then he was still.

“That’s one, Papa,” Lucia said.

Benito Patas was in his cell playing solitaire when the jailer announced, “You have a conjugal visitor.”

Benito beamed. He had been given special status as an informer, with many privileges, and conjugal visits was one of them. Patas had half a dozen girlfriends, and they alternated their visits. He wondered which one had come today.

He studied himself in the little mirror hanging on the wall of his cell, put some pomade on his hair, slicked it back, then followed the guard through the prison corridor to the section where there were private rooms.

The guard motioned him inside. Patas strutted into the room, filled with anticipation. He stopped and stared in surprise.

“Lucia! My God, what the hell are you doing here? How did you get in?”

Lucia said softly, “I told them we were engaged, Benito.”

She was wearing a stunning red low-cut silk dress that clung to the curves of her body.

Benito Patas backed away from her. “Get out.”

“If you wish. But there is something you should hear first. When I saw you get up on the stand and testify against my father and brothers, I hated you. I wanted to kill you.” She moved closer to him. “But then I realized that what you were doing was an act of bravery. You dared to stand up and tell the truth. My father and my brothers were not evil men, but they did evil things, and you were the only one strong enough to stand up against them.”

“Believe me, Lucia,” he said, “the police forced me to—”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said softly. “Not to me. Remember the first time we made love? I knew then that I was in love with you and that I always would be.”

“Lucia, I would never have done what I—”

“
Caro,
I want us to forget what happened. It’s done. What’s important now is you and me.”

She was close to him now, and he could smell her heady perfume. His mind was in a state of confusion. “Do—do you mean that?”

“More than I’ve ever meant anything in my life. That’s why I came here today, to prove it to you. To show you that I’m yours. And not with just words.”

Her fingers went to her shoulder straps, and an instant later her dress shimmered to the floor. She was naked. “Do you believe me now?”

By God, she was beautiful. “Yes, I believe you.” His voice was husky.

Lucia moved close to him, and her body brushed against his. “Get undressed,” she whispered. “Hurry!”

She watched Patas as he undressed. When he was naked, he took her hand and led her to the little bed in the corner of the room. He did not bother with foreplay. In a moment he was on top of her, spreading her legs, plunging deep inside her, an arrogant smile on his face.

“It’s like old times,” he said smugly. “You couldn’t forget me, could you?”

“No,” Lucia whispered in his ear. “And do you know why I couldn’t forget you?”

“No,
mi amore.
Tell me.”

“Because I’m Sicilian, like my father.”

She reached behind her head and removed the long, ornate pin that held her hair in place.

Benito Patas felt something stab him under his rib cage, and the sudden pain made him open his mouth to scream, but Lucia’s mouth was on his, kissing him, and as Benito’s body bucked and writhed on top of her, Lucia had an orgasm.

A few minutes later she was clothed again, and the pin had been replaced in her hair. Benito was under the blanket, his eyes closed. Lucia knocked at the cell door and smiled at the guard who opened it to let her out. “He’s asleep,” she whispered.

The guard looked at the beautiful young woman and smiled. “You probably wore him out.”

“I hope so,” Lucia said.

The sheer daring of the two murders took Italy by storm. The beautiful young daughter of a Mafioso had avenged her father and brothers, and the excitable Italian public cheered her, rooting for her to escape. The police, quite naturally, took a rather different point of view. Lucia Carmine had murdered a respected judge and had then committed a second murder within the very walls of a prison. In their eyes, equal to her crimes was the fact that she had made fools of them. The newspapers were having a wonderful time at their expense.

“I want her neck,” the police commissioner roared to his deputy. “And I want it
today.
”