That remark, on any other occasion, would have been enough to make me laugh out loud. There wasn’t a man at that table who would have trusted his neigh-bour for more than five minutes at any one time out-side the rigid framework of Mafia law.
They knew it and Hoffer knew it, unless-and this seemed incredible-he really was so stupid as to think them a bunch of unwashed Sicilian peasants he could walk over whenever he pleased.
‘Have you come to tell us you can’t pay, Karl?’
There was an edge of malice in my grandfather’s voice and he spoke with ill-concealed eagerness. Even Hoffer’s performance paled by comparison with this one.
‘Why no, Vito.’ Hoffer turned to him, the dark glasses back in place again. ‘I’ll have been in a posi-tion to settle within the period granted, or so my American lawyers tell me. As it happens, owing to an…’ He hesitated, then continued with obvious diffi-culty ‘… to an unfortunate, and for me personally, most tragic happening, I am now in a position to be able to assure the Council that replacing the Society’s money lost through my negligence is now the least of my troubles.’
He certainly got a reaction from most of them. There was a stir, a murmur of voices and then my grandfather raised his hand. ‘Maybe you’d better explain, Karl.’
Hoffer nodded. ‘It’s simple enough. As you all know, my dear wife died in a car crash in France a little while back. Quite naturally, she left the very con-siderable fortune inherited from her first husband in trust for her daughter, Joanna. Under the terms of that trust, I was to inherit if the girl failed to reach her majority.’ He clasped his hands together, knuckles showing white, looked down at the table. ‘Even now I find it hard to believe, but I have it on the most reliable authority that my stepdaughter met her death in the area of Monte Cammarata this morning under the most tragic circumstances.’
If there is one thing a Sicilian loves it is a good story, and by this time Hoffer had them by the throat.
‘My stepdaughter was kidnapped some weeks ago by a bandit many of you know only too well-Serafino Lentini.’
The man in the braces spat on the floor at the name and there was a general stir.
‘I didn’t come to the Council with my troubles be-cause I knew it couldn’t help. As we all know, Serafino Lentini was no friend to the Society, even though he’s been used as a sicario on one or two occasions.’
‘You speak of him in the past tense, Karl,’ my grand-father remarked. ‘May we take it that is where he now belongs?’
‘The only good news I bring the Council tonight,’ Hoffer said. ‘The police, as we all know, are helpless in these affairs, so when Lentini sent a message demand-ing ransom, I scraped the necessary amount together, met him myself as stipulated on the Bellona road. He took the money and laughed in my face when I asked for my stepdaughter. He had decided to keep her for himself.’
‘Strange,’ my grandfather cut in smoothly. ‘I had always understood that Serafino lacked some of the essential equipment necessary to a Don Juan.’
Hoffer paused, glancing at him sharply, and coun-tered with exactly the right remark. ‘It was not me he was attacking in behaving in this way. He was showing his contempt for the Society-for all of us.’ He shrugged and spread his arms wide. ‘I couldn’t sit back and do nothing while the wretched girl suffered untold indignities at the hands of his men. In the past I have had the occasion to use the services of an Irish soldier of for-tune, a Colonel Burke, well known for his exploits as a mercenary in the Congo. It seemed to me that a man of his stamp might be able to do what no one else could- penetrate the fastnesses of the Cammarata and bring my stepdaughter to safety. I flew to Crete where I met Burke, who agreed to take on this hazardous undertak-ing with the assistance of three men who had served under him in the Congo.’