The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [114]
When Adonis arrived, Turi Guiliano took him into the large cave that held a table and chairs and was lit with American Army battery lamps. Hector Adonis embraced him and gave him a small bag of books which Turi accepted gratefully. Adonis also gave Turi an attaché case filled with papers. “I think you will find this interesting. You should read it immediately.”
Guiliano spread the papers out on the wooden table. They were the orders signed by Minister Trezza authorizing another thousand carabinieri to be sent from the mainland to Sicily to fight against Guiliano’s bandits. There were also the plans drawn up by the Army Chief of Staff. Guiliano studied them with interest. He was not afraid; he would simply have to move deeper into the mountains, but the advance warning was timely.
“Who gave you these?” he asked Adonis.
“Don Croce,” Adonis said. “He received them from Minister Trezza himself.” Turi did not seem as surprised as he should have been by the news. In fact he was smiling slightly.
“Is this supposed to frighten me?” Guiliano asked. “The mountains are deep. All the men they send can be swallowed up and I’ll be whistling myself to sleep under a tree.”
“Don Croce wants to meet with you. He will come to you at any place you name,” Adonis said. “These plans are a token of his good will. He has a proposition to make.”
Turi said, “And you, my godfather, do you advise me to meet with Don Croce?” He was watching Hector intently.
“Yes,” Adonis said simply.
Turi Guiliano nodded. “Then we will meet in your home, in Montelepre. Are you sure Don Croce will risk that?”
Adonis said gravely, “Why should he not? He will have my word that he will be safe. And I will have your word which I trust more than anything else in the world.”
Guiliano took Hector’s hands in his. “As I do yours,” he said. “Thank you for these plans and thank you for these books you have brought me. Will you help me with one of them tonight before you leave?”
“Of course,” Hector Adonis said. And for the rest of the night in his magnificent professional voice, he explained difficult passages in the books he had brought. Guiliano listened intently and asked questions. It was as if they were schoolmaster and child together as they had been so many years ago.
It was on that night that Hector Adonis suggested Guiliano keep a Testament. A document that would be a record of everything that happened to the band, that would detail any secret deal Guiliano made with Don Croce and Minister Trezza. It could become a great protection.
Guiliano was immediately enthusiastic. Even if it had no power, even if it were lost, he dreamed that perhaps in a hundred years some other rebel might discover it. As he and Pisciotta had discovered the bones of Hannibal’s elephant.
CHAPTER 19
THE HISTORIC MEETING took place two days later. And in that short space of time the town of Montelepre was bursting with rumors that the great Don Croce Malo was coming, hat in hand, to meet with their own glorious hero, Turi Guiliano. How the secret got out was not known. Perhaps it was because Guiliano took extraordinary precautions for the meeting. His patrols moved into position to seal off the Palermo road, and almost fifty of his men who were related by blood to people living in Montelepre went to visit their relatives and stay in their houses overnight.
Passatempo was sent with his men to seal off the Bellampo Barracks and immobilize the carabinieri if they ventured out on patrol. Terranova’s men controlled the road from Castellammare and Trapani. Corporal Canio Silvestro was on a rooftop with his five best riflemen and a heavy machine gun camouflaged by the bamboo frames used to dry tomatoes into paste that many families used in the town of Montelepre.
Don Croce came at twilight in a large Alfa Romeo touring car which parked in front of the house of Hector Adonis. He came with his brother, Father Benjamino, and two armed guards who remained in the car with the chauffeur. Hector Adonis was waiting for them at the door