‘What good would that do?’ Burke laughed. ‘Stacey has this Mafia thing on the brain, Mr. Hoffer. There are reasons.’
Hoffer waved him down. ‘Sure I tried Mafia. They’re still behind most things here. Don’t believe all this crap you hear about Rome having stamped it out. That’s just for the tourist trade. They don’t want to scare any-one away.’
‘Did you get anywhere?’
He shook his head. ‘It seems Serafino Lentini doesn’t like the Mafia. The impression I got was that they’d like to get their hands on him, too.’
‘Stacey’s grandfather is something to do with this Mafia thing,’ Burke said. ‘Isn’t that so, Stacey? He’s going to see him tonight.’
Hoffer frowned. ‘Your grandfather?’
‘Vito Barbaccia,’ I said, I think for effect more than anything.
Rosa Solazzo sucked in her breath and dropped her glass. Hoffer stared at me incredulously in the follow-ing silence. ‘You are Vito Barbaccia’s grandson?’
‘You’ve heard of him, I take it?’
‘Heard of him? Who hasn’t? And you are seeing him tonight?’
I nodded and he shook his head. ‘I can’t get over it.’
‘You’ve met him?’ Burke asked.
Hoffer smiled. ‘Twice-at parties, but never to speak to. Only royalty gets that close.’
Burke looked at me, a frown on his face and I real-ised that everything I had told him at the cemetery hadn’t really registered, certainly not the fundamental fact of just how important my grandfather was.
I drained my glass and got to my feet. ‘Well, I think I’ll take a turn round the garden before dinner.’
‘Why not.’ Hoffer nodded to Rosa. ‘Show him the sights, angel. There’s a fish pond round the back that’s quite a showpiece, Mr. Wyatt.’
Now he was calling me Mr. again. Strange how the Barbaccia affected people. And Rosa? Rosa had gone very pale and when I smiled at her, she dropped her gaze, fear in those dark eyes.
Barbaccia-mafioso. I suppose that to her, the two were interchangeable. When I tucked her arm in mine, she was trembling.
Hoffer obviously used a first-rate local chef. We had narbe di San Paolo which is a kind of ravioli filled with sugar and ricotta cheese and fried and cannolo, prob-ably the most famous sweet in Sicily, consisting of a tube of flour and egg filled with cream. The others drank Marsala which is too sweet for me and I had a bottle of Zibibbo from the island of Pantellaria, a wine which is flavoured with anis. The sort of thing you either like at once or not at all.
We dined on the terrace, a rather conventional little group with Piet and Legrande very much on their best behaviour. Later-the wine having taken effect- things livened up a little. Piet gave all his attention to Rosa though strictly at a superficial level, and even Legrande unwound enough to smile once or twice.
The coffee was Yemeni mocha, probably the best in the world. I took mine to the edge of the terrace to drink. The laughter was louder now and no one appeared to notice as I faded away.
I went up to my room, got the Smith and Wesson in its spring holster from the drawer and snapped it to my belt. I pulled it clear a couple of times to make sure things were working all right and Burke came in. He closed the door and leaned against it.
‘Expecting trouble?’
‘I’m not sure.’
I replaced the Smith and Wesson, buttoned my jacket and slipped half a dozen spare rounds into my left-hand pocket and Marco’s Walther in the right.
‘I’d like to come with you,’ he said. ‘It might help.’
I looked him straight in the eye and he held my gaze, grave and serious. I nodded. ‘If you like.’
He smiled in a kind of relief-he was doing a lot of smiling these days-and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘The old firm, eh, Stacey boy?’
But it could never be that again, nothing was more certain. Why, as we went down the stairs, I wasn’t too happy about having him at the back of me.
SEVEN
monte pellegrino, which is about three miles to the north of Palermo, towers into the sky at the western end of the Conco d’Oro. It’s an interesting place, soaked in blood and history like the rest of Sicily. During the Punic Wars, Hamilcar Barca held it against the Romans for three years, but in more modern times it became famous mainly because of the cult of Santt Rosalia after whom my mother had been named. My grandfather’s villa was at the foot of the mountain just outside the village of Valdesi.