‘What was yours?’
The words were out before I could bite them back and instantly regretted. His head swung sharply, the chin tilted, but there was no eruption. He took a fresh cigar from a silver box and sank into a wing back chair beside the fire.
‘A brandy, Stacey, for both of us. You look like a man who drinks now. Then we talk.’
I moved to the cabinet on the other side of the room where the crystal goblets and decanter stood on a silver tray.
‘I read about you, boy, a couple of years back.’
‘Oh yes.’ I was surprised, but tried not to show it.
‘A French magazine-Paris Match. They did a feature on mercenaries in the Congo-mainly about your friend, but you were there standing just behind him. It said you were a captain,’
‘That’s right.’
I carefully poured the brandy and he went on. ‘Then there was a report in one of the Rome newspapers about how you were all chased out with your tails be-tween your legs.’
I refused to be drawn. ‘That would be about two years ago now.’
‘What have you been up to since?’
‘This and that.’ I went towards him, a goblet in each hand. ‘As a matter of fact I’m just out of prison. The Egyptian variety. Nothing like as pleasant as the Ucciardone in Palermo or doesn’t the Mafia control it any more?’
The ebony stick stabbed out, sweeping back my coat, exposing the Smith and Wesson in its holster. ‘So, Marco was right and I wouldn’t believe him. This is what you have become, eh? Sicario-hired killer. My grandson.’
Strange the anger in his voice, the disgust, but then no real mafioso ever thought of himself as a criminal. Everything was for the cause, for the Society.
I handed him his brandy. ‘Am I worse than you? In any way am I worse than you?’
‘When I kill, it is in hot blood,’ he said. ‘A man dies because he is against me-against Mafia.’
‘And you think that sufficient reason?’
He shrugged. ‘I believe it to be so. It has always been so.’ The stick came up and touched my chest. ‘But you, Stacey, what do you kill for? Money?’
‘Not just money,’ I said. ‘Lots of money.’
Which wasn’t true. I knew it and I think he did also.
‘I can give you money. All you need.’
‘That’s just what you did for a great many years.’
‘And you left.’
‘And I left.’
He nodded gravely. ‘I had a letter from some law-yers in the States just over a year ago. They were trying to trace you. Your grandfather-old Wyatt- had second thoughts on his death bed. There is pro-vision for you in the will-a large sum.’
I wasn’t even angry. ‘They can give it back to the Indians.’
‘You won’t touch it?’
‘Would I walk on my mother’s grave?’ I was getting more like a Sicilian every minute.
He seemed well pleased. ‘I am glad to see you have some honour left in you. Now you will tell me why you are here. I do not flatter myself that you returned to Sicily to see me.’
I crossed the room and poured another brandy. ‘Bread and butter work-nothing to interest you.’
The stick hammered on the floor. ‘I asked you a question, boy, you will answer.’
‘All right. If it will make you feel any better. Burke and I have been hired by a man named Hoffer.’
‘Karl Hoffer?’ He frowned slightly.
‘That’s the man. Austrian, but speaks English like an American. Has interests in the oilfield at Gela.’
‘I know what his interests are. What does he want you to do?’
‘I thought Mafia knew everything,’ I said. ‘His step-daughter was kidnapped some weeks ago by a bandit called Serafino Lentini. He’s holding her in the Cammarata and won’t send her back in spite of the fact that Hoffer paid up like a soldier.’
‘And you are going to get her back, is that it? You and your friend think you can go into the Cammarata and bring her out with you again?’ He laughed, that strange, harsh laugh, head thrown back. ‘Stacey- Stacey. And I thought you’d grown up.’