The Sicilian - Mario Puzo [76]
Terranova spoke judiciously. “Frisella is a stupid buffoon, a greedy and treacherous man. In ordinary times he would only be the village nuisance. Now he is dangerous. To let him off would be foolhardy—he is not intelligent enough to mend his ways. He would think we are not serious people. And so would many others. Turi, you have suppressed the activities of the Friends of the Friends in the town of Montelepre. Their man Quintana moves very cautiously, though he makes some imprudent statements. If you let Frisella off with anything less than death, the Friends would think you weak and test you further. The carabinieri would become bolder, less afraid, more dangerous. Even the citizens of Montelepre would think less of you. Frisella cannot live.” He said this last almost with regret.
Guiliano listened to them thoughtfully. They were right. He was conscious of Passatempo’s look and read to the man’s heart. Passatempo could never be trusted if Frisella lived. There was no going back to being one of Charlemagne’s knights, there was no going back to resolving differences in honorable combat on the Fields of the Cloths of Gold. Frisella would have to be executed and in such a way as to achieve maximum terror.
Guiliano had an idea. He turned to Corporal Silvestro and asked, “What do you think? Surely the Maresciallo would have told you his informants. Is the barber guilty?”
Silvestro shrugged, his face impassive. He did not speak. They all recognized that it was a point of honor for him not to speak, not to betray his former trust. That his not answering was his way of telling them that the barber certainly had some contact with the Maresciallo. Still Guiliano had to be sure. He smiled at the Corporal and said, “Now is the time to prove your loyalty to us. We will all go to Montelepre together and you will personally execute the barber in the public square.”
Aspanu Pisciotta marveled at his friend’s cunning. Guiliano had always surprised him. He had always acted nobly and yet he could plant a trap worthy of Iago. They had all come to know the Corporal as a truthful and honest man with a sense of fair play. He would never consent to perform the execution if he was not sure the barber was guilty, no matter what the cost to him. Pisciotta saw that Guiliano had a little smile on his face—that if the Corporal refused, the barber would be judged innocent and go free.
But the Corporal stroked his bushy mustache and looked them all in the eye. He said, “Frisella cuts hair so badly he deserves to die for that alone. I’ll be ready in the morning.”
At dawn Guiliano and Pisciotta and ex-Corporal Silvestro took the road down to Montelepre. An hour before them Passatempo had left with a squad of ten men to seal off all streets emptying into the central square of the town. Terranova was left in charge of the camp and prepared to lead a strong band into the town if they ran into serious trouble.
It was still early morning when Guiliano and Pisciotta entered the town square. The cobbled streets and narrow sidewalks had been flushed with water and some children were playing around the raised platform where the donkey and mare had been mated on that long-ago fateful day. Guiliano told Silvestro to chase the children out of the square so they could not witness what was about to happen. Silvestro did so with such temper that the children scattered like chickens.
When Guiliano and Pisciotta entered the barbershop with machine pistols at the ready, Frisella was cutting the hair of a wealthy landowner of the province. The barber assumed they had come to kidnap his customer and he whipped off the cloth with a cunning smile as if to present a prize. The landowner, an