Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [21]
"So you got out?"
"Only just and only because of Barzini."
"Quite a man," Langley said. "What does he do now, besides bury people?"
"Plays the best guitar I've heard in my life. Sells guns to the Israelis, guns to the Arabs. For all I know he's even running them in for the IRA. A citizen of the world, or so he keeps telling me. No favorites. The one thing he won't touch is drugs. He had a nephew on heroin who died rather unpleasantly."
"A sentimentalist into the bargain. Now there's an interesting combination."
"You could say that. As a matter of record, the man who ran the drug scene in the town where the boy lived was found on a hook in the local slaughter house. Somebody'd cut his throat."
"My God, but that's beautiful." For once, there was sincere admiration in Langley's voice.
We turned into the Piazza Pretoria and I rapped on the partition quickly. As the Mercedes braked to a halt, I got out and walked across to the incredible baroque fountains, surrounded by water nymphs, tritons, and the lesser gods.
Langley joined me, holding the umbrella against the pouring rain. "What's the attraction?"
"This," I said. "I've always had a weakness for it. It's so incredibly vulgar. Just like life--a bad joke. I'm going to walk the rest of the way. It isn't far."
I crossed the square without a backward glance. I suppose he must have turned back to tell the driver to follow because I'd almost reached the other side before he caught up with me.
The rain was torrential now, bouncing from the cobbles and he held the umbrella over both of us. "And what in the hell are we supposed to be doing now?" he asked amiably.
"Walking in the rain," I told him. "I've always liked walking in the rain, ever since I was a kid."
"And keeping out the world," he said. "I know the feeling."
I was surprised, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, disturbed to find that we might actually have something in common. I tried not to show it.
"But life isn't like that, is it?" I shrugged. "Like I said, just a bad joke."
I felt unaccountably depressed and I think the feeling must have touched him also. Certainly he didn't attempt to make any further conversation. We passed the beautiful old church of Santa Caterina, turned into the Via Roma and walked toward the central station.
The Via San Marco was a narrow cobbled street, old eighteenth-century houses five or six stories high towering up on either side. It was a quiet place, somehow cut off from the noise of city traffic. About halfway along, an old-fashioned horse-drawn hearse waited at the curb, draped in black crepe, black plumes on the horses' heads wilting in the rain. The driver wore a caped greatcoat and a top hat, banded with more black crepe, the tails hanging down over his neck. It was the kind of thing you still saw in Sicily and probably nowhere else on earth.
Four men in green baize aprons manhandled an ornate coffin with gilt handles out of a doorway and into the hearse. One of them closed the glass door and crossed himself. The driver flicked his whip and the horses moved away, plumes nodding.
The sign over the door was discreet and simple. Aldo Barzini --Undertaker. Gold leaf on a black background. The Mercedes pulled into the curb and we got out and passed inside.
The hall was panelled in mahogany and lit by candles. There was an image of the Virgin in an alcove on the right, grave, unsmiling, and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers and incense. Strangely unpleasant, that smell, as if it were trying to hide something.
I rang a small brass handbell that stood on a table. It echoed faintly and almost immediately, a tiny, desiccated man in an old-fashioned dark suit and winged collar, appeared noiselessly from a door to the right.
He adjusted his spectacles and blinked nervously. "Signors! How may I be of service?"
I said in my best Italian, "I'm looking for Signor