He nodded slowly. “Could we do it, Stacey? You and me and the heavy brigade?”
I thought about it. About the Cammarata and the heat and the lava rock and about Serafino who might already have handed the girl on to the rest of his men. When I replied, it wasn’t because the thought made me sick or angry or anything like that. From the sound of her, the Honourable Joanna might well be having the time of her life. I don’t honestly think I was even thinking of my end of the money. It was more than that – something deeper – something personal between Burke and me which I couldn’t have explained at that moment even to myself.
“Yes, I think it could be done. With me along it’s just possible.”
“Then you’ll come?”
He leaned forward eagerly, a hand on my shoulder, but I wasn’t going to be caught that easily.
“I’ll think about it.”
He didn’t smile, showed no emotion of any kind and yet tension oozed out of him like dirty water and in a second he was transformed into the man I’d always known.
“Good lad. I’ll see you later then. Back at the villa.”
I watched him climb the path and disappear. For the moment I’d had enough shooting. The sea looked inviting and I moved a little further along the beach, stripped and went in.
At that point the cliffs merged into hillside sparsely covered with grass, and wild flowers grew in profusion. I climbed half-way up and lay on my back, the sun warm on my naked flesh, staring through narrowed eyelids at a white cloud no bigger than my hand, allowing my whole body to relax, making my mind a blank, another trick hard-won from those months in prison.
The world was a blue bowl and I floated in it, drowsing in the scented grass and slept.
Waking was a return to a heavy stillness. I was aware of flowers, the grass at eye-level like a jungle, the woman watching me from a few yards away. Was it an accidental encounter or had she been sent by Burke? I wasn’t angry, but strangely calculating considering the circumstances. I watched her through slitted eyes, apparently still asleep, making no move. She stayed perhaps two or three minutes, her face quite expressionless, then went away carefully.
When she had gone, I sat up, dressed and went down to the beach again feeling rather excited. In a way, the whole thing had become a kind of game with Burke making a new move as I countered the old one.
The cards were where I had left them together with my box of ammunition and when I moved to the firing line, I had never known such power, such certainty. I drew, fired and was reloading within the second, my old self again, the Stacey from before the Hole… and yet not the same.
This time I fired left-handed, drawing on the cross from my waistband and knew before I checked what I would find.
Five hits… five hits on each card tightly grouped. I tore them into very small pieces, scattered them into the sea and went back up to the villa.
I slept during the afternoon waking just before night fell and yet I lay there without moving when Burke entered the room to check on me and softly departed.
When it was quite dark I got up, pulled on a pair of pants and ventured on to the terrace. I could hear voices near at hand, followed the sound and paused at the window of what was obviously his bedroom. He was sitting at a desk in one corner and Piet was standing beside him, his fair hair golden in the lamplight.
Burke glanced up at him and smiled – a new kind of smile, one I’d never seen before – patted his arm and said something. Piet went out like some faithful hound about his master’s business.
Burke opened a drawer, produced what looked suspiciously like a bottle of whisky, uncorked it and swallowed, which for a man who didn’t drink was quite a trick. He put the bottle back in the drawer when the door opened and the woman entered.
I got ready to leave, mainly because whatever else I am I’m no voyeur, but there was no need. He simply sat there looking very much the colonel and talked, presumably in Greek which I knew he spoke well after a couple of years in Cyprus during the Emergency.
I eased back into the shadows as she left and moved back to my room. The whole thing was certainly packed full of human interest and drama and I lit a cigarette, lay on the bed and thought about it all.
The story – that was the really weak link. The story about the Honourable Joanna and the rampant Serafino. Oh, it was possible, but strangely incomplete like a Bach fugue with page three missing.
Somewhere thunder rumbled menacingly. The gods were angry perhaps? Oh, might Zeus forgive us. The old Greek tag drifted up from some dusty schoolroom to haunt me along with wine-dark seas, Achilles and his heel and cunning Odysseus.
I didn’t hear her come in, but when lightning crackled out to sea, it picked her from the night standing just inside the French window. I made no sound. When it flared again, she had come closer, the dress on the floor behind her, the ripe body a thing of light and mystery, dark hair brushing the full breasts.
In the darkness following, her hands were on me, her mouth, her flesh against mine. In one single savage movement I had her by the hair, my hand tightening cruelly.
“What did he tell you to do?” I demanded. “Anything I wanted, anything to keep me happy?”
Her body arched in pain and yet she did not struggle and when the lightning flickered again, highlighting the heavy breasts, I saw that her eyes were turned towards me and there was no fear there.
My fingers slackened in her hair and she subsided. I gently patted her face, her lips turned into the palm of my hand. So, it had come to this? Stacey the satyr – fill one half of his bed for him and keep him happy. The rest was easy. Just like my English breakfast – Burke thought of everything. Only the piano was missing and he’d probably tried hard enough to get hold of one.
I went to the French window and stood looking out at the flickering sky. Suddenly, and for no accountable reason, the whole thing struck me as really being very funny – a monstrous game for children with motive laid bare to such a degree that it was ridiculous.
Burke wanted me – needed me. In exchange I got twenty-five thousand dollars and all my more carnal needs supplied. Now what well-bred satyr could complain at that?
I nodded slowly. Right. Let it be so. I would play his game through as I had done before, but this time perhaps a rule or two of my own might be in order.
Behind me was the softest of movements and I sensed her presence there in the darkness. I reached out and pulled her close. She was still naked and shivered slightly. I could smell the mimosa, heavy and clinging on the damp air. The whole electric world waited for a sign. It came and the heavens opened, rain falling straight from sky to earth.
The freshness filled my nostrils, drowning the womanly scent of her. I left her there, moved out on the terrace and stood, face turned up to the rain, mouth half-open, laughing as I hadn’t laughed in a long, long time, ready to take on the world again and beat it at its own dark game.
FIVE
IT WAS HOLY Week when we arrived in Palermo, something which I’d completely forgotten about. We drove in the thirty-five kilometres from the aerodrome at Punta Raisi and the black Mercedes saloon which had met us bogged down in the crowded streets. It finally came to a halt in deference to a religious procession which wound its way through the crowds, an ornate Madonna rising on a catafalque high above our heads.
During the whole of the run from Crete, Burke had been moody and irritable and now he lowered the window and looked out with ill-concealed impatience.
“What’s all this?”
“A procession of the mysteries,” I told him. “This kind of thing goes on during Holy Week all over Sicily. Everything else grinds to a halt. They’re a very religious people.”