He did not look like a man who “wet his beak” from every business enterprise in Palermo down to the lowly market stalls in the square. It was hard to believe that he was responsible for a thousand deaths. That he ruled Western Sicily far more than did the government in Rome. And that he was richer than the dukes and barons who owned great Sicilian estates.
The embrace he gave Michael was swift and light as he said, “I knew your father when we were children. It is a joy to me that he has such a fine son.” Then he inquired as to the comfort of his guest’s journey and his present necessities. Michael smiled and said he would enjoy a morsel of bread and a drop of wine. Don Croce immediately led him into the garden, for like all Sicilians he ate his meals out of doors when he could.
A table had been set up by a lemon tree. It sparkled with polished glass and fine white linen. Wide bamboo chairs were pulled back by servants. Don Croce supervised the seating with a vivacious courtesy, younger than his age; he was now in his sixties. He sat Michael on his right and his brother, the priest, on his left. He placed Inspector Velardi and Stefan Andolini across from him and regarded them both with a certain coolness.
All Sicilians are good eaters, when there is food to be had, and one of the few jokes people dared to make about Don Croce was that he would rather eat well than kill an enemy. Now he sat with a smile of benign pleasure on his face, knife and fork in hand as the servants brought out the food. Michael glanced around the garden. It was enclosed by a high stone wall and there were at least ten guards scattered around at their own small luncheon tables, but no more than two at each table and well away to give Don Croce and his companions privacy. The garden was filled with the fragrance of lemon trees and olive oil.
Don Croce served Michael personally, ladling roasted chicken and potatoes onto his plate, supervising the tossing of grated cheese on his little side dish of spaghetti, filling his wineglass with cloudy local white wine. He did this with an intense interest, a genuine concern that it was a matter of importance for his new friend to eat and drink well. Michael was hungry, he had not tasted food since dawn, and the Don was kept busy replenishing his plate. He also kept a sharp eye on the plates of the other guests, and when necessary he made a gesture for a servant to fill a glass or cover an empty dish with food.
Finally they were done, and sipping his cup of espresso, the Don was ready for business.
He said to Michael, “So you’re going to help our friend Guiliano run off to America.”
“Those are my instructions,” Michael said. “I must make certain he enters America without misfortune.”
Don Croce nodded; his massive mahogany face wore the sleepy amiable look of the obese. His vibrant tenor voice was surprising from that face and body. “It was all arranged between me and your father, I was to deliver Salvatore Guiliano to you. But nothing runs smooth in life, there is always the unexpected. It is now difficult to keep my part of the bargain.” He held up his hand to keep Michael from interrupting. “Through no fault of my own. I have not changed. But Guiliano no longer trusts anyone, not even me. For years, almost from the first day he became an outlaw, I helped him survive; we were partners. With my help he became the greatest man in Sicily though even now he is a mere boy of twenty-seven. But his time is over. Five thousand Italian soldiers and field police are searching the mountains. Still he refuses to put himself in my hands.”
“Then there is nothing I can do for him,” Michael said. “My orders are to wait no more than seven days, then I must leave for America.”
And even as he said this he wondered why it was so important for his father to have Guiliano escape. Michael desperately wanted to get home after so many years of exile. He worried about his father’s health. When Michael had fled America his father had been lying, critically wounded, in the hospital. Since his flight his older brother, Sonny, had been murdered. The Corleone Family had been engaged in a desperate battle for survival against the Five Families of New York. A battle that had reached from America into the heart of Sicily to kill Michael’s young bride. It was true that messengers from his father had brought news that the old Don had recovered from his wounds, that he had made peace with the Five Families, that he had arranged for all charges against Michael to be dropped. But Michael knew that his father was waiting for him to come to be his right-hand man. That everyone in his family would be anxious to see him—his sister, Connie, his brother Freddie, his foster brother, Tom Hagen, and his poor mother, who would certainly still be grieving over the death of Sonny. Michael thought fleetingly of Kay—would she still be thinking of him after his vanishing for two years? But the crucial thing was: Why was his father delaying his return? It could only be for something of the utmost importance connected with Guiliano.
Suddenly he was aware of Inspector Velardi’s cold blue eyes studying him. The thin aristocratic face was scornful, as if Michael had shown cowardice.
“Be patient,” Don Croce said. “Our friend Andolini still serves as contact between me and Guiliano and his family. We will all reason together. When you leave here, you will visit Guiliano’s father and mother in Montelepre, it is on your way to Trapani.” He paused for a moment and smiled, a smile that did not break the massiveness of his cheeks. “I have been told of your plans. All of them.” He said this with peculiar emphasis, but, Michael thought, he could not possibly know all the plans. The Godfather never told anyone all of anything.
Don Croce went on smoothly. “All of us who love Guiliano agree on two things. He can no longer stay in Sicily and he must emigrate to America. Inspector Velardi is in accord.”
“That is strange even for Sicily,” Michael said with a smile. “The Inspector is head of the Security Police sworn to capture Guiliano.”
Don Croce laughed, a short mechanical laugh. “Who can understand Sicily? But this is simple. Rome prefers Guiliano happy in America, not screaming accusations from the witness cage in a Palermo court. It’s all politics.”
Michael was bewildered. He felt an acute discomfort. This was not going according to plan. “Why is it in Inspector Velardi’s interest to have him escape? Guiliano dead is no danger.”
Inspector Velardi answered in a contemptuous voice. “That would be my choice,” he said. “But Don Croce loves him like a son.”
Stefan Andolini stared at the Inspector malevolently. Father Benjamino ducked his head as he drank from his glass. But Don Croce said sternly to the Inspector, “We are all friends here, we must speak the truth to Michael. Guiliano holds a trump card. He has a diary he calls his Testament. In it he gives proofs that the government in Rome, certain officials, have helped him during his years of banditry, for purposes of their own, political purposes. If that document becomes public the Christian Democratic government would fall and we would have the Socialists and Communists ruling Italy. Inspector Velardi agrees with me that anything must be done to prevent that. So he is willing to help Guiliano escape with the Testament with the understanding that it will not be made public.”
“Have you seen this Testament?” Michael asked. He wondered if his father knew about it. His instructions had never mentioned such a document.
“I know of its contents,” Don Croce said.
Inspector Velardi said sharply, “If I could make the decision I would say kill Guiliano and be damned to his Testament.”
Stefan Andolini glared at the Inspector with a look of hatred so naked and intense that for the first time Michael realized that here was a man almost as dangerous as Don Croce himself. Andolini said, “Guiliano will never surrender and you are not a good enough man to put him in his grave. You would be much wiser to look after yourself.”
Don Croce raised his hand slowly and there was silence at the table. He spoke slowly to Michael, ignoring the others. “It may be I cannot keep my promise to your father to deliver Guiliano to you. Why Don Corleone concerns himself in this affair, I can’t tell you. Be assured he has his reasons and that those reasons are good. But what can I do? This afternoon you go to Guiliano’s parents, convince them their son must trust me and remind those dear people that it was I who had them released from prison.” He paused for a moment. “Then perhaps we can help their son.”
In his years of exile and hiding, Michael had developed an animal instinct for danger. He disliked Inspector Velardi, he feared the murderous Stefan Andolini, Father Benjamino gave him the creeps. But most of all Don Croce sent alarm signals clanging through his brain.
All the men at the table hushed their voices when they spoke to Don Croce, even his own brother, Father Benjamino. They leaned toward him with bowed heads waiting for his speech, they even stopped chewing their food. The servants circled around him as if he were a sun, the bodyguards scattered around the garden constantly kept their eyes on him, ready to spring forward at his command and tear everyone to pieces.
Michael said carefully, “Don Croce, I am here to follow your every wish.”
The Don nodded his huge head in benediction, folded his well-shaped hands over his stomach and said in his powerful tenor voice, “We must be absolutely frank with each other. Tell me, what are your plans for Guiliano’s escape? Speak to me as a son to his father.”
Michael glanced quickly at Inspector Velardi. He would never speak frankly before the head of the Security Police of Sicily. Don Croce understood immediately. “Inspector Velardi is completely guided by my advice,” he said. “You may trust him as you do me.”
Michael raised his glass of wine to drink. Over it he could see the guards watching them, spectators at a play. He could see Inspector Velardi grimace, not liking even the diplomacy of the Don’s speech, the message being clear that Don Croce ruled him and his office. He saw the frown on the murderous huge-lipped face of Stefan Andolini. Only Father Benjamino refused to meet his gaze and bowed his head. Michael drank the glass of cloudy white wine and a servant immediately refilled it. Suddenly the garden seemed a dangerous place.
He knew in his bones that what Don Croce had said could not be true. Why should any of them at this table trust the head of the Security Police of Sicily? Would Guiliano? The history of Sicily was larded with treachery, Michael thought sourly; he remembered his dead wife. So why was Don Croce being so trustful? And why the massive security around him? Don Croce was the top man of the Mafia. He had the most powerful connections in Rome and indeed served as their unofficial deputy here in Sicily. Then what did Don Croce fear? It could only be Guiliano.
But the Don was watching. Michael tried to speak with the utmost sincerity. “My plans are simple. I am to wait in Trapani until Salvatore Guiliano is delivered to me. By you and your people. A fast ship will take us to Africa. We will of course have the necessary papers of identity. From Africa we fly to America where it has been arranged for us to enter without the usual formalities. I hope it will be as easy as they have made it sound.” He paused for a moment. “Unless you have another counsel.”
The Don sighed and drank from his glass. Then he fixed his eyes on Michael. He started to speak slowly and impressively. “Sicily is a tragic land,” he said. “There is no trust. There is no order. Only violence and treachery in abundance. You look wary, my young friend, and you have every right. And so, too, our Guiliano. Let me tell you this: Turi Guiliano could not have survived without my protection; he and I have been two fingers on one hand. And now he thinks me his enemy. Ah, you can’t know what sorrow this brings me. My only dream is that one day Turi Guiliano can return to his family and be acclaimed the champion of Sicily. He is a true Christian and a brave man. And with a heart so tender that he has won the love of every Sicilian.” Don Croce paused and drank off a glass of wine. “But the tide has turned against him. He is alone in the mountains with barely a handful of men to face the army that Italy sends against him. And he has been betrayed at every turn. So he trusts no one, not even himself.”
The Don looked at Michael for a moment very coldly. “If I were completely honest,” he said, “if I did not love Guiliano so much, perhaps I would give advice I do not owe you. Perhaps I should say, in all fairness, go home to America without him. We are coming to the end of a tragedy which in no way concerns you.” The Don paused for a moment and sighed again. “But of course, you are our only hope and I must beg you to stay and help our cause. I will assist in every way, I will never desert Guiliano.” Don Croce raised his wineglass. “May he live a thousand years.”
They all drank and Michael calculated. Did the Don want him to stay or to desert Guiliano? Stefan Andolini spoke. “Remember we have promised the parents of Guiliano that Michael will visit them in Montelepre.”
“By all means,” Don Croce said gently. “We must give his parents some hope.”
Father Benjamino said with a too humble insistence, “And perhaps they will know something about the Testament.”
Don Croce sighed. “Yes, Guiliano’s Testament. He thinks it will save his life or at least avenge his death.” He spoke directly to Michael. “Remember this. Rome fears the Testament, but I do not. And tell his parents what is written on paper affects history. But not life. Life is a different history.”
The road from Palermo to Montelepre was no more than a one-hour drive. But in that hour Michael and Andolini went from the civilization of a city to the primitive culture of the Sicilian countryside. Stefan Andolini drove the tiny Fiat, and in the afternoon sun his close-shaved cheeks and chin blazed with countless grains of scarlet hair roots. He drove carefully and slowly, as men do who have learned to drive motor vehicles late in life. The Fiat panted as if short of breath as it wound uphill through the enormous range of mountains.
At five different points they were stopped by roadblocks of the National Police, platoons of at least twelve men backed by an armored car bristling with machine guns. Andolini’s papers got them through.
It was strange to Michael that the country could become so wild and primitive such a short distance from the great city of Palermo. They passed tiny villages of stone houses that were precariously balanced on steep slopes. These slopes were carefully gardened into terraced narrow fields growing neat rows of spiky green plants. Small hills were studded with countless huge white boulders half-buried in moss and bamboo stalks; in the distance they looked like vast unsculptured cemeteries.