The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [170]
He came into the house and said, “Don’t, Maria, I beg of you.” A very young lieutenant of the carabinieri came in with him. Maria Lombardo looked past them into the street. There were three black cars parked in front of her house with carabinieri drivers. There was a cluster of armed men on each side of the door.
The Lieutenant was young and rosy cheeked. He took off his cap and put it under his arm. “You are Maria Lombardo Guiliano?” he asked formally. His accent was that of the north, of Tuscany.
Maria Lombardo said yes. Her voice was a croak of despair. There was no saliva in her mouth.
“I must ask you to accompany me to Castelvetrano,” the officer said. “I have a car waiting. Your friend here will accompany us. If you approve, of course.”
Maria Lombardo’s eyes were open wide. She said in a firmer voice. “For what reason? I know nothing of Castelvetrano or anyone there.”
The Lieutenant’s voice was softer, hesitant. “There is a man there we wish you to identify. We believe he is your son.”
“It is not my son, he never goes to Castelvetrano,” Maria Lombardo said. “Is he dead?”
“Yes,” the officer said.
Maria Lombardo let out a long wail and sank down to her knees. “My son never goes to Castelvetrano,” she said. Hector Adonis came over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“You must go,” he said. “Perhaps it is one of his tricks, he has done this before.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t go. I won’t go.”
The Lieutenant said, “Is your husband at home? We can take him instead.”
Maria Lombardo remembered Zu Peppino calling for her husband early that morning. She remembered the sense of foreboding when she had seen that painted donkey cart. “Wait,” she said. She went into her bedroom and changed into a black dress and put a black shawl over her head. The Lieutenant opened the door for her. She went out into the street. There were armed soldiers everywhere. She looked down the Via Bella, to where it ended in the square. In the shimmering July sunlight she had a clear vision of Turi and Aspanu leading their donkey to be mated seven long years ago, on the day he was to become a murderer and an outlaw. She began to weep and the Lieutenant took her arm and helped her into one of the black cars that was waiting. Hector Adonis got in beside her. The car moved off through the silent groups of carabinieri, and she buried her face in the shoulder of Hector Adonis, not weeping now but in mortal terror of what she would see at the end of her journey.
The body of Turi Guiliano lay in the courtyard for three hours. He seemed to be sleeping, his face down and turned to the left, one leg bent at the knee, his body sprawled. But the white shirt was almost scarlet. Near the mutilated arm was a machine pistol. Newspaper photographers and reporters from Palermo and Rome were already on the scene. A photographer for Life magazine was snapping pictures of Captain Perenze and the picture would appear with the caption that he was the slayer of the great Guiliano. Captain Perenze’s face in the picture was good-natured and sad and also a little bewildered. He wore a cap on his head which made him look like an affable grocer rather than a police officer.
But it was the pictures of Turi Guiliano that filled the newspapers all over the world. On one outstretched hand was the emerald ring he had taken from the Duchess. Around his body was the belt with golden buckle with its engraved eagle and lion. A pool of blood lay beneath his body.
Before Maria Lombardo’s arrival, the body was taken to the town mortuary and put on a huge oval marble slab. The mortuary was part of the cemetery, which was ringed with tall black cypresses. It was here that Maria Lombardo was brought and made to sit on a stone bench. They were waiting for Colonel and Captain to finish their victory lunch in the nearby Hotel Selinus. Maria Lombardo began to weep at the sight of all