Arcadia Awakens (36 page)

The man’s eyes moved to Alessandro again. “Which is why you deserve to die.”

“Alessandro tried to save Iole.”

“Oh yes?” said Dallamano ironically. “Of course.” He paused for a moment, and then told Alessandro sharply, “You clear out.”

“No,” said Rosa. “He’s staying.”

Dallamano shook his head. “Quattrini didn’t say anything about that. I was to talk to you. Not to any Carnevare bastard. You really think he’s your friend?” He spat contemptuously. “He’s soon going to be one of the leading Mafia bosses of Sicily. He’s no one’s friend.”

Beside her, Alessandro stiffened. Suddenly there was an eerie silence. After an endless moment, Alessandro said, “I’m not leaving Rosa alone with you.”

“Just as you like.” Dallamano turned away and walked up the path.

“Wait!” Rosa called to him.

The man had stopped in the shadow of a faun with ivy clambering around its dancing body.

“He’s not going to hurt me,” Rosa whispered to Alessandro.

He stared back at her as if he wanted a fight. “I can’t leave you alone with him.”

“I only want to talk to him.”

“And what does he want to do?”

“Cesare and your father have his whole family on their consciences. What do you expect?”

“Your friend,” called Dallamano, “is afraid I might tell you things about him and his clan. Might warn you against him, and what he’ll soon become once he’s the
capo
of the Carnevares. None of his promises will be worth anything then.”

Alessandro didn’t even glance at Dallamano; he looked only at Rosa. “He’s lying.”

“I know that,” she said softly.

“He wants to play us against each other.”

“What he wants is revenge. At this moment words are his only weapon.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “And trust me, I’m immune to that.” Then she turned around and hurried up the path.

“Rosa.”

She looked back once more.

“You mustn’t believe everything he says. Take care.”

“We’ll see. Don’t worry.”

Dallamano was smiling when she reached him. “You have him eating out of your hand, don’t you?”

“He’s doing what you ought to be doing. Trying to save your niece.”

His eyes wandered darkly from her to Alessandro. Then he said, “Come on,” and went ahead.

“Where to?”

He sounded as if he were smiling. “To the Initiation Well.”

R
OSA FOLLOWED
D
ALLAMANO UPHILL
, past an artificial grotto from which a waterfall cascaded into a pool. Soon they reached several rocks under a tree with a mighty crown. The sky above was dark blue now, and the separate branches stood out only in the glow from a lamppost beside the path.

“Along here.” He led her to a space between the moss-grown rocks where a spiral stone staircase began winding its way down. Rosa waited until Dallamano was past the first turn before leaning over the balustrade to look.

She saw a round shaft. The staircase ran along its walls behind a pillared arcade. It was as if, long ago, a complete tower had been rammed into the ground by force. Faint light showed the tiled pattern of an eight-pointed star at the bottom.

“Do you expect me to go down there with you?”

“Yes.” He reappeared behind the pillars on the opposite side of the shaft, and then disappeared from sight again when the spiral staircase took him directly under her. “Watch your step,” he called up. “The steps are wet and slippery.”

“Why can’t we talk up here?”

“This shaft goes forty feet down into the rock,” he replied. “There’s no cell phone or radio reception at the bottom. We’re safer from bugging there than anywhere.”

She cautiously took her first steps down. “You seriously think I have some kind of bug planted on me?”

“I’m only making sure.” The echo of his words was getting louder and louder. “This was once a place of initiation, long before the villa and the park were open to visitors. Anyone who joined the secret society of Freemasons had to walk down this staircase, from the light into the darkness. The initiation ritual occurred at the bottom.”

She liked the word “ritual” even less down here than up above.

“The man who built the palace was a crazy millionaire who made a fortune in business in Brazil. Early in the twentieth century he bought four hectares of land from the barons of Regaleira, and commissioned an Italian architect to build the main house, the chapel, and all the other structures. They had the whole place finished within six years, complete with artificial ruins, grottoes, underground passages. There’s even an amphitheater. But to me this well has always been the most fascinating part of it.”

As Dallamano talked, Rosa slid and stumbled down the wet steps, and the way it was getting darker and darker the lower she went did not improve matters. Plus, she was still exhausted.

When she reached the bottom of the shaft, Dallamano was waiting in the center of the tiled star. The twilight sky above was reflected back only faintly from the damp stone slabs. The black semicircle of the mouth of a tunnel opened in one of the walls.

Dallamano was still standing in the middle of the star, looking at her. “Come over here,” he said. “I have to pat you down.”

“You
what?
” She almost turned back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t take your word for it. You could be wired from head to foot for all I know.”

“Don’t touch me!” She retreated until she was standing back among the pillars marking the entrance to the bottom of the stairway.

Dallamano didn’t move. “I won’t force you, of course. We don’t
have
to talk to each other.”

She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and slowly walked over to him. Back came memories that might not be memories at all: strange hands on her skin, fingers exploring every part of her. She felt a strong instinct to retch, and suddenly she tasted bile. She quickly turned her head away and spat it out.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

She turned back to him, trying to seem as impassive as possible, and stepped forward. Hesitantly, she raised her arms. Held her breath. Waited for his touch.

He went about it quickly and professionally, like the security staff at airports. It took him only a few seconds to reassure himself that she was not set up to record their conversation.

“Thank you,” he said, and took a couple of steps back into the dark mouth of the tunnel. “You can stand there if you like, or come over here if you don’t want to risk being seen from up above.”

She stayed where she was.

“How is Iole?” For the first time his voice was gentler.

“Doing pretty well, I think, for someone who’s been held prisoner for six years.”

“Those bastards.”

“The last place where they held her was an empty villa on an island. Alessandro and I got her away from there by ourselves. She told us she has only one last living relation—you, Signore Dallamano—and Alessandro was planning to take her to you.”

“Not a good idea,” he whispered.

“You don’t want to see her?”

In the darkness she couldn’t make out his face, only the outline of his wild head of hair. “I’d give my right hand to see her, but it’s no use. There are a few people who know my real identity—not many, but I don’t trust anyone. Except Judge Quattrini.” He paused for a moment. “I really died long ago. Augusto Dallamano no longer exists. I don’t even look like him.”

She thought of the photo of him and his brother, the two laughing men in their diving suits. First he had lost his family, then his honor, his name, his face, and his past.

If the clans found out that Rosa had been to see the judge, it would be the same for her. Even if the tribunal found her innocent, and she could prevent Cesare from eliminating the entire Alcantara family—even then her deal with Quattrini would be a sword of Damocles hanging over her head for the rest of her life. Treachery to Cosa Nostra was blood-guilt that never faded.

“You’re afraid the same thing might happen to you.” It was like he had read her thoughts. “Because you are here, and talking to me.”

She didn’t reply.

Dallamano was still standing motionless in the entrance to the tunnel. “We are both running a great risk. And you’re not doing it only to tell me about my niece, are you?”

“Iole was abducted a second time yesterday,” she said. “Cesare Carnevare found out where Alessandro was hiding her, and this time he’s going to kill her if we don’t stop him.”

Now it was he who remained silent.

“Cesare is going to kill not just Iole but me, too, and my entire family, Florinda Alcantara, my aunt … you know her. Then my sister. And probably everyone who works for us.” She cleared her throat. “If we don’t find a way to stop him, the Alcantaras will be wiped out, just like the Dallamanos six years ago.”

“And why would that interest me?”

“You know something that Cesare is afraid of,” she said. “By kidnapping Iole he silenced you when you were giving evidence in court…. Yes, I know you told them a lot, but not that
one
thing. And nothing that would incriminate the Carnevares.”

He took his time answering. Maybe he was thinking. Or maybe fighting back anger. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded strained, and deeper than before. “But why is he going to kill Iole? He had six years to do it, but you say he didn’t.”

What was she to say to that? Did he know about the Arcadian dynasties? When he made those finds on the seafloor, had he drawn conclusions from them about the secrets of many of the Sicilian Mafia clans?

“He’s going to sacrifice her,” she said, and remembered the fictitious story that she had concocted during the drive from the airport. “He’s assuming you’re no longer alive because he hasn’t found you in all these years. So now he intends to show the other bosses that he’s disposed of the Dallamanos once and for all. That’s why he plans to execute Iole in front of them. To prove that he’s consistent and to gain their respect. Cesare has convinced the Carnevares that he would make a better
capo
than Alessandro. Now he needs the support of the other families, and finally eliminating
all
the Dallamanos will get him that.” Did it sound credible to a man who had been a high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra himself for decades?

An icy draft of air blew out of the tunnel behind Dallamano. She could smell the aftershave that, to her surprise, he used in spite of the beard covering his face.

At last he asked, “What exactly do you two intend to do?”

Her entire body was tense, her limbs, all her senses, even her eyes hurt. “If I know what Cesare is so anxious to keep secret from the others, I can suggest that he make a deal with me.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Maybe he’ll try. But he may not succeed.”

“Are you brave or terribly naive?”

She took a step closer to him in the dark, and was even more intensely aware of his presence. Under the aftershave, he had an animal odor.

“What did you find back then?” she asked. “What was it that you and your brother discovered?” Her hand felt for the picture in her pocket, but he wouldn’t be able to make it out in the dark anyway. “It has to do with the photographs of the sea floor, doesn’t it? The pictures that were on your brother’s desk.” She was on thin ice here. But there was no going back now.

“I’ve seen the statue,” she said. “A photograph of it, a panther and a snake. Iole took it off her father’s desk just before Cesare’s men dragged her away. She says there were more like it.”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing else,” she replied truthfully. “Only that you and your brother took those pictures.”

“It wasn’t just one statue.”

Disappointment muted her excitement. If there were statues of all the Arcadian dynasties on the sea floor, what linked her and Alessandro might not be anything out of the ordinary.

“Remnants,” he said. “The remains of several statues. Snakes and panthers in various positions.”