Luciano's Luck Read Free Page B

wooden block, his stomach and chest expertly bandaged. He turned his head and found Barbera, wearing a long hber apron, working on the corpse of an old man at the next table. Carter pushed himself up. Barbera said cheerfully, 'I wouldn't if I were you. He hot you twice. The one in the side went straight through, but the second is somewhere in the left lung. You'll need a top surgeon.' 'Thanks a million,' Carter said. 'That really does make me feel a whole lot better.' On the trolley beside Barbera were the tools of the em-balmer's trade laid out neatly on a white cloth: forceps, scalpels, surgical needles, artery tubes and a glass jar containing a couple of gallons of embalming fluid. There was a look of faint surprise on the corpse's face that many people show in death, jaw dropped, mouth gaping as if in astonishment that this could be happening. Barbera took a long curved needle and passed it from behind the lower lip, up through the nasal septum and down again so that when he tightened the thread and tied it off, the jaw was lifted. 'So you raise people from the dead, too?' Carter eased himself off the table. T always knew you were a man of parts.' Barbera smiled, a small, intense-looking man of fifty whose tangled iron-grey beard appeared strangely at odds with the Bronx accent. 'You fucking English, Harry 1 I mean, when are you going to learn? The days of Empire are over. What were you trying to do up there, win the war on your own?' 'Something like that.' The door opened and a young girl entered. Sixteen or seventeen, no more. Small, dark-haired with a ripe, full body that strained at the seams of the old cotton dress. She had a wide mouth, dark brown eyes in a face of considerable character and yet there was the impression of one who had seen too much of life at its worst too early. She carried a tray containing an old brass coffee pot brown sugar and glasses. There was also a bottle of cognac - Courvoisier. Barbera carried on working. 'Rosa, this is Major Carter My niece, arrived from Palermo since you were last here.' 'Rosa,' Carter said. She poured coffee and handed it to him without a word. Barbera said, 'Good girl. Now go back to the gate and watch the square. Anything - anything at all, you let me know.' She went out and Carter poured himself a brandy, sip-ping it slowly for the pain in his lung was so intense that he could hardly breathe. 'I never knew you had a niece. How old is she?' 'Oh, a hundred and fifty, or sixteen. Take your pick. Her father was my youngest brother. Killed in an auto accident in 'thirty-seven in Naples. I lost sight of his wife. She died of consumption in Palermo three years ago.' 'And Rosa?' 'I only heard about her two months ago through Mafia friends in Palermo. She's been a street whore since she was thirteen. I figured it was time she came home.' 'You still think of this place as home after Tenth Avenue?' 'Oh, sure, no regrets. Something Rosa can't understand. New York is still the promised land to her, whereas to me, it was somewhere to leave.' He was working cream into the old man's face now, touching the cheeks with rouge. Carter said, 'What about the Contessa?' 'The Gestapo took her to Palermo.' 'Bad for you if they break her.' 'Not possible.' Barbera shook his head. 'A friend passed her a cyanide capsule in the women's prison yesterday afternoon.' Carter took a long, shuddering breath to steady his es 'I was hoping she'd have news for me of Luca.' neBarbera paused and glanced at him in some surprise. waste your time. No one has news of Luca because that is the way he wants it.' 'Mafia again?' 'Yes my friend, Mafia again and you would do well to remember that. What are your plans?' 'I was supposed to go to Agrigento tonight. I'm due to out to sea with a tuna boat out of Porto Stefano at midnight.' 'Submarine pick-up?' 'That's it.' Barbera frowned thoughtfully. 'I don't see how, Harry, not tonight. The roads will be crawling with Krauts. Maybe tomorrow.' He gestured to the corpse.