The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [164]
Clemenza sighed. He saw the look of suffering on Michael’s face. Perhaps it wasn’t Guiliano; perhaps Pisciotta was waiting to make a rendezvous. Perhaps even this was part of the plot to distract attention from his escape if the authorities were close on his heels.
Now the sun had fully risen. Clemenza ordered his men to park their cars and to follow him. Then he and Michael walked down the rest of the street which was crowded with people. They were gathered around the entrance to a side street that was filled with army cars and blocked by a cordon of carabinieri. On this side street was a row of separate houses split apart by courtyards. Clemenza and Michael stood at the rear of the crowd watching with the others. The carabinieri officer was admitting journalists and officials past the cordon of guards after examining their credentials. Michael said to Clemenza, “Can you get us past that officer?”
Clemenza took Michael by the arm and led him out of the crowd.
In an hour they were in one of the small houses on a side street. This house, too, had a small courtyard and was only about twenty houses from where the crowd had gathered. Clemenza left Michael there with four men, and then he and two others went back into the town. They were gone for an hour and when Clemenza came back he was obviously badly shaken.
“It looks bad, Mike,” he said. “They’re bringing Guiliano’s mother from Montelepre to identify the body. Colonel Luca is here, the Commander of the Special Force. And newspapermen from all over the world are flying in, even from the States. This town is going to be a madhouse. We gotta get outta here.”
“Tomorrow,” Michael said. “We’ll run tomorrow. Now let’s see if we can get past those guards. Did you do anything about that?”
“Not yet,” Clemenza said.
“Well let’s go out and see what we can do,” Michael said.
Against Clemenza’s protest, they went out into the street. The whole town seemed to be covered with carabinieri. There must be at least a thousand of them, Michael thought. And there were literally hundreds of photographers. The street was clogged with vans and automobiles and there was no way of getting near the courtyard. They saw a group of high-ranking officers going into a restaurant, and the whisper went around that this was Colonel Luca and his staff having a celebration lunch. Michael caught a glimpse of the Colonel. He was a small wiry man with a sad face, and because of the heat he had taken off his braided cap and was wiping his partially bald head with a white handkerchief. A crowd of photographers was taking his picture and a mob of journalists was asking him questions. He waved them aside without answering and disappeared into the restaurant.
The town streets were so dense with people that Michael and Clemenza could hardly move. Clemenza decided they should go back to the house and wait for information. Late that afternoon word was brought by one of his men that Maria Lombardo had identified the body as that of her son.
They ate dinner in an open-air café. It had a blaring radio giving news reports of Guiliano’s death. The story was that the police had surrounded a house in which they believed Guiliano to be hiding. When he came out he was ordered to surrender. He had immediately opened fire. Captain Perenze, Colonel Luca’s chief of staff, was giving interviews on the radio to a panel of journalists. He told how Guiliano had started to run and he, Captain Perenze, had followed him and cornered him in the courtyard. Guiliano had turned like a lion at bay, Captain Perenze said, and he, Perenze, had returned his fire and killed him. Everybody in the restaurant was listening to the radio. Nobody was eating. The waiters made no pretense of serving; they also listened. Clemenza turned to Michael and said, “The whole thing is fishy. We leave tonight.”
But at that moment the street around the café filled with Security Police. An official car pulled up to the curb and out of it stepped Inspector Velardi. He came up to their table and placed his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “You are