I shot him three times, two bullets catching him in the heart, the third in the throat as he went down, dropping the lupara. I turned, the Smith and Wesson ready, and looked into the Browning, rigid in Burke’s hand.
‘Stuck it in my belt at the rear,’ he explained. ‘Who’s slipping now?’
‘Aren’t you going to shed a tear for lover boy?’ I asked.
His face went very still. ‘You bastard, I’ve wanted you like this for a long time.’
‘But you needed me, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘I only dis-covered that tonight. You only had them carry me out when I was wounded on the Lagona job because I was essential to you. Without me you were nothing.’ I laughed harshly. ‘The great Sean Burke. That’s a joke. Every move you ever made, every plan, originated in my head. Without me you were nothing and I thought you were some kind of god. You wouldn’t even have got into the Cammarata without me or come within ten miles of Serafino and the girl.’
‘You poor bloody fool,’ he said. ‘You think I needed you for the Cammarata job? You think that’s why I brought you out of Egypt instead of leaving you to rot?’
‘You’ve got a better story?’
‘Try this.’ He savoured every word as he spoke. ‘Hoffer wanted Vito Barbaccia’s head, but getting at him was impossible until he hired me and I remem-bered my old friend Stacey Wyatt in the Hole at Fuad. The problem was getting into the Barbaccia villa-all visitors’ cars left outside the gate, but would that apply to Barbaccia’s grandson? It was worth a try.’
I stared up at him and he laughed out loud, the only time I’d known him to do it. ‘The two gunmen at the villa that night-they were in the boot of the car. That’s how they got in. My idea, Stacey, just like Troy and the wooden horse. Worth bringing you out of Fuad for and it nearly worked.’
How true it all was I had no means of knowing, but it seemed unlikely that it would have been the only reason for bringing me out of Fuad. No, he had needed me for Cammarata, however much he tried to deny it to himself now. On the other hand I had certainly men-tioned my grandfather to him in the distant past and a name which meant nothing to him then would have assumed a new importance when first heard from Hoffer.
So, he had used me again. Ironic that in this case I was also the one who had foiled him, but I now under-stood why he had been so quick to shoot the boy with the lupara that night in the garden. The only way of guaranteeing a still tongue.
I got to one knee and he shook his head. ‘You’re wasting your time. I’ve been counting. One in the garden, one on the stairs, three for Piet. That makes five which is all you ever carry in that thing-unless you reloaded on the way up.’
A game-a monstrous game in which we each played our parts. I shook my head and dropped the Smith and Wesson into my pocket. ‘No, you’re right, it’s empty.’
This is it, then, Stacey,’ he said. ‘We’ve come a long way since the “Lights of Lisbon”.’
I picked up the lupara. ‘You know what this is?’
‘Sure-Hoffer showed it to me. The Mafia favour them-the traditional way of finishing off a vendetta. Not much use beyond six feet. You’d have to get close, Stacey.’
‘I’ll get close,’ I said, stood up and thumbed back the hammer. ‘You never amounted to a row of beans with-out me at your back. Let’s see how good you are on your own.’
He was right, of course. A sawn-off shotgun spreads so quickly that I hadn’t a hope in hell of really hurting him where he stood which was a good twenty paces away.
I started to walk, staring death in the face, and Rosa cried out sharply. Somewhere I heard a car engine and then another, the slam of doors, voices in the night. Mafia arriving too late.
There was only the rain and Burke standing there at the end of a dark tunnel, his face frozen, every line etched deep, the eyes boring into me so that we were caught together in our own timeless moment.