Zu Peppino did not seem surprised to see him. He put down the brush with which he had been painting the slat of one of his carts. The he locked the door and said to Guiliano, "We have trouble. You attract the carabinieri like a dead mule attracts flies."
Guiliano felt a little shock of adrenaline. "Are they Luca's Special Force?" he asked.
"Yes," Zu Peppino said. "They are tucked out of sight, not in the streets patrolling. I spotted some of their vehicles on the road when I came back from work. And some carters tell me they saw other vehicles. We thought they were setting up traps for members of your band, but we never suspected it might be you. You never get this far south, so far away from your mountains."
Guiliano wondered how the carabinieri could have known about the rendezvous. Had they trailed Aspanu? Were Michael Corleone and his people indiscreet? Or was there an informer? In any case, he could not meet Pisciotta in Castelvetrano. But they had a fallback meeting place if one of them did not show up at the rendezvous here.
"Thanks for the warning," Guiliano said. "Keep an eye out for Pisciotta in town and tell him. And when you take your cart to Montelepre, pay my mother a visit and tell her I am safely in America."
Zu Peppino said, "Allow an old man to embrace you." And he kissed Guiliano on the cheek. "I never believed you could help Sicily, nobody can, nobody ever could, not even Garibaldi, not even that windbag Il Duce. Now if you like I can put my mules to a cart and carry you wherever you want to go."
Guiliano's rendezvous time with Pisciotta had been for midnight. It was now only ten. He had deliberately come in early to scout the ground. And he knew that the rendezvous with Michael Corleone was for dawn. The fallback meeting place was at least a two-hour fast walk from Castelvetrano. But it was better to walk than use Zu Peppino. He thanked the old man and slipped out into the night.
The fallback meeting place was the famous ancient Greek ruins called the Acropolis of Selinus. South of Castelvetrano, near Mazzara del Vallo, the ruins stood on a desolate plain near the sea, ending where the sea cliffs began to rise. Selinus had been buried by an earthquake before Christ was born, but a row of marble columns and architraves still stood. Or rather had been raised by excavators. There was still the main thoroughfare, though now reduced to rubble by the skeletons of ancient buildings lining its way. There was a temple with its roof matted with vines and showing holes like a skull and stone columns exhausted and gray with centuries of age. The acropolis itself, the fortified center of ancient Greek cities, was, as usual, built on the highest ground, and so these ruins looked down on the stark countryside below.
The scirocco, a terrible desert wind, had been blowing all day. Now, at night, so close to the sea, it sent fog rolling through the ruins. Guiliano, weary of his long forced march, detoured around to the sea cliffs so he could look down and spy out the land.
It was a sight so beautiful that he forgot for a moment the danger he was in. The temple of Apollo had fallen in on itself in a twisted mass of columns. Other ruined temples gleamed in the moonlight – without walls, just columns, strands of roof and one fortress wall with what had been a barred window high up, now blackly empty, the moon shining through it. Lower down in what had been the city proper, below the acropolis, one column stood alone, surrounded by flat ruins, that in its thousands of years had never fallen. This was the famous "Il Fuso della Vecchia," the Old Woman's Spindle. Sicilians were so used to the monuments of the Greeks scattered over the island that they treated them with affectionate contempt. It was only foreigners who made a fuss.
And the foreigners had raised the twelve great columns that stood before him now. Their grandeur was Herculean, but behind them was only the panorama of ruins. At the foot of those twelve columns, abreast like soldiers fronting their commander full face, was a platform of stone steps that seemed to have grown out of the ground. Guiliano sat down on the top step, his back resting against one of the columns. He reached under his coat and unhooked the machine pistol and the lupara and put them one stone step below him. Fog swirled through the ruins, but he knew he would hear anyone who approached over the rubble and that he could easily see any enemies before they could see him.
He leaned back against one of the columns, glad to be resting, his body sagging with fatigue. The July moon seemed to pass over the gray-white columns and rest against the cliffs that led to the sea. And across the sea was America. And in America was Justina and their child to be born. Soon he would be safe and the last seven years of his banditry would be a dream. For a moment he wondered what kind of a life that would be, if he could ever be happy not living in Sicily. He smiled. One day he would come back and surprise them all. He sighed with fatigue and unlaced his boots and slipped his feet out of them. He took off his socks and his feet welcomed the touch of cold stone. He reached into his pocket and took out the two prickly pears and their sweet night-cooled juice refreshed him. With one hand on the machine pistol resting beside him, he waited for Aspanu Pisciotta.
CHAPTER 27
Michael, Peter Clemenza and Don Domenico had an early supper together. If they were to make the dawn meeting hour, the operation to collect Guiliano would have to start at dusk. They went over the plan again and Domenico approved. He added one detail: Michael was not to be armed. If something went wrong and the carabinieri or Security Police arrested them, no charges could be brought against Michael, and he could leave Sicily no matter what happened.
They had a jug of wine and lemons in the garden and then it was time to go. Don Domenico kissed his brother goodbye. He turned to Michael and gave him a quick embrace. "My best wishes to your father," he said. "I pray for your future, I wish you well. And in the years to come, if you ever have need for my services, send me word."
The three of them walked down to the dock. Michael and Peter Clemenza boarded the motor launch which was already full of armed men. The boat pulled away, Don Domenico waving farewell from the dock. Michael and Peter Clemenza went down into the cabin where Clemenza went to sleep in one of the bunks. He had had a busy day and they would be at sea until nearly dawn the following morning.
They had changed their plans. The plane at Mazzara del Vallo in which they had planned to fly to Africa would be used as a decoy; instead the escape to Africa would be by boat. Clemenza had argued for this, saying that he could control the road and guard the boat with his men, but he could not control the small airfield. There was too much ground area in the approaches and the plane was too fragile; it could become a deathtrap while still on the ground. Speed was not as important as deception, and the sea was easier to hide in than the sky. Also provisions could be made for transferring to another boat; you couldn't change planes.
Clemenza had been busy during the day dispatching some men and cars to an assembly point on the road to Castelvetrano; others to secure the town of Mazzara del Vallo. He had sent them at intervals of an hour; he did not want spies observing the unusual movement of a convoy going through the villa gates. The cars went off in different directions to further confuse any observers. Meanwhile the motor launch was making its way around the southwestern point of Sicily to lie out over the horizon until the dawn started to break, when it would zoom into the port of Mazzara del Vallo. Cars and men would be waiting for them. From there it would not be more than a half-hour drive to Castelvetrano despite the swing they would have to take north to meet the Trapani road that led to where Pisciotta would intercept them.