The notepaper, three sheets, was folded. There was shouting on the stairs, a woman's voice, shrill. The man, Axel Moen, in his own time, took an envelope from the drawer of the table, and put the sheets of notepaper into the envelope. He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his shirt and lifted out a small gold wrist-watch, a woman's watch, and placed it in the envelope with the sheets of notepaper. He licked the flap of the envelope and fastened it down. He wrote a name on the envelope, and there wasn't the light for Harry Compton to read the name, and he gave the envelope to Dwight Smythe.
They went out through the door. They had stripped the room and taken the identity from it. The dream was gone. Harry Compton had killed the dream… The woman was at the bottom of the stairs and she shouted her abuse at the policeman who barred her, at them as they came down. He caught the drift. She screamed at them in a patois of English and Italian. She had taken a spy into her house. What would happen to her?
They had endangered her. The whole street knew a spy had lived in her house. Who would protect her? She was not answered. She spat in the face of Axel Moen.
The car doors slammed. They pulled away into the dusk. The dream was dead.
From a distance, the tail watched as the men came out of the house. A description was given of the long-haired American. It was reported that he carried a travel bag.
Charley asked, 'What should I wear?'
Peppino lounged on the big chair in the living room. His papers were around him. He looked up and at the first moment there was annoyance at the distraction, and then the slow grin came to his face.
'Whatever makes you feel good.'
She was in control. She felt no fear. The darkness gathered outside the living-room windows and she saw the shadow shape of the gardener pass.
'I'd want to wear the right thing – wouldn't want to get it wrong.'
'If you would like it, I will come and help you choose what you should wear.'
'Good.'
She had the power over him. He stood. He glanced furtively towards the kitchen.
Angela was in the kitchen with the children and their colouring books and their crayons. She had the power over them all. The power flushed in her… Axel Moen would have sworn at her, and warned her
… The power was a narcotic in her. She led him into her room. He followed. He waited at the door. She drew the curtains of the window and then she crouched down at her chest of drawers and took out the blouse that he had paid for, and the drawer was left open and he would be able to see her neatly folded underwear… She did not care that Angela knew the lie, and she did not care that Axel Moen would have sworn and warned… She faced him, and she held the blouse of royal blue across her chest so that he could see the line of it and the cut of it, and swivelled with it and then tossed it on the bed. She sought control. She went to the wardrobe, and he drifted towards her. She heard the brush of his feet, coming closer to her. She took the skirt of bottle-green from the clip hanger in the wardrobe and she held it across her hips and stomach and thighs. She felt the warmth of his breath on the skin at her shoulders and she knew the scent of him. His fingers touched her and groped under her arms and towards her breasts. She demanded control. She lifted him, she collapsed him.
'Sorry, Peppino, it's "curse" time – bad luck.'
The tail was a motorcycle and a car. The motorcycle was ahead and the car followed.
The pillion passenger on the motorcycle used a mobile phone to report that the convoy had taken the route to the Punta Raisi Airport.
They took the ring road west of the city. At the junction with the autostrada, the convoy was flagged down for a road block. They had to slow for the driver of the lead car to wave his I/D at the soldiers and to point back to the two following cars. They slowed enough for Axel to see the illuminated turning to Mondello. He was sandwiched between 'Vanni Crespo and the Englishman, and the Englishman had the plastic bag between his feet. Dwight Smythe was in front, beside the driver. There was no talk in the car, so they heard each transmission on the radio between the driver of the lead car and their driver and the driver of the chase car. They accelerated through the road block, away from the sign to Mondello and into the long tunnel. Axel wondered where she was, what she did… He thought of her on the cliffs at her home, and he thought of her pushing the pram towards the Saracen tower, and he thought of her mocking him in the cathedral when the bright lights from the high windows had coned on her head…
They'd said they were going to get her once he was on the flight, and 'Vanni hadn't bothered to argue it. They were going to get her and they were going to ship out with her, and 'Vanni had let it ride. He'd be in his own bed, in Rome, that night and it would be behind him, just as La Paz was behind him. Shit…
The car rocked and swerved. The convoy cut inside a dawdling vehicle. Axel knew why the van went slowly at that place, over the viaduct of the autostrada. People went slowly over there because it was Capaci, and it was where the bomb had taken Falcone's life, went cautiously as if to remember and to stare. Axel saw, a flash moment, a weathered and disintegrating wreath on the guard rail of the viaduct. In a year's time there would be a wreath, rain-swept and sun-baked, in the Via delle Croci, and people would go past it slowly, and nothing would have fucking changed. As soon as they had moved him on, because the plan was killed, they were going to lift her out, and nothing would have fucking changed. There was the evening, there was still the evening before they went for her, and the old disciplines caught Axel Moen. He reached up into his ear, he prised into his ear with his finger nail. He took out the inductor earpiece. He wiped it on his handkerchief. He passed it to the Englishman. He couldn't remember the Englishman's name, and he had learned enough to know that the Englishman had killed his plan, had come snouting and interfering into his plan.
'What do I do with that?'
'You put it in your head, and you listen. If you don't want to put it in your head, then you shouldn't have come. It's owed her.'
He reached down, into the dark space between the Englishman's feet, and he felt with his fingers. He knew it well enough to find the switch from touch. He saw the glow of the light. The guy, reluctant, put it in his ear, and grimaced.
"Vanni'll tell you the codes.'
The Englishman bridled. 'I thought it was finished…'
'When the lady stops singing, when you have her on board, then it's finished.'
He wriggled in his seat, and then he was thrown against the Englishman, and the convoy careered past a slow-going lorry. He could see the guide lights of the airport runway over the driver's shoulder. He contorted himself and he slipped the harness of the holster from his chest, he didn't make a comment, he gave the holster with the Beretta 9mm pistol to 'Vanni. 'Vanni checked it and aimed it down between his shoes and cleared the bullet out of the breach, and he gave 'Vanni the spare magazine. The cars went fast into the airport.
It was not the way of La Cosa Nostra to make a killing without the most thorough and careful preparation, but Carmine did not have the opportunity for thorough and careful preparation.
In the hierarchy of La Cosa Nostra, where the confidences were exchanged, it was boasted that a mafioso under the control of Mario Ruggerio had never been arrested at a killing ground, but Carmine acted on the direct instruction of the capo di tutti capi and must improvise.