In the Hour Before Midnight by Jack Higgins Page B

do.”
    â€œBut what has this got to do with you?”
    â€œMy grandfather, Vito Barbaccia, is capo mafia in Palermo, in all Sicily. Number one man. Lord of Life and Death. There are something like three million Sicilians in the States now and Mafia moved over there as well and became one of the main branches of syndicated gangsterism. During the last ten years, quite a few Mafia bosses in the States have been deported. They’ve come back home with new ideas—prostitution, drugs and so on. An old-fashioned mafioso like my grandfather doesn’t mind killing people, but he just doesn’t go in for that kind of thing.”
    â€œThere was trouble?”
    â€œYou could put it that way. They placed a bomb in his car—a favourite way of getting rid of a rival in those circles. Unfortunately, it was my mother who decided to go for a drive.”
    â€œMy God.” There was shock and genuine pain on his face.
    I carried on, “Believe it or not, but I didn’t know a damn thing about it, or maybe I didn’t want to know. I came home on vacation after my first year at Harvard and it happened on the second day. My grandfather told me the facts of life the same evening.”
    â€œDid he ever manage to settle up with the man responsible?”
    â€œOh. I’m sure he did. I think we can take that as read.” I stood up. “I’m beginning to feel rather hungry. Shall we go back?”
    â€œI’m sorry, Stacey,” he said. “Damned sorry.”
    â€œWhy should you be? Ancient history now.”
    But I believed him for he seemed sincere enough. The wind moaned through the cypress trees, scattering rain across the path and I turned and walked back towards the monastery.

SIX

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    I WENT TO bed for a while after we’d eaten. Sleep came easily to me at that time, simply by closing the eyes and I seldom seemed to dream. When I opened them again it was seven-thirty by the bedside clock and almost dark.
    Somewhere I could hear the murmur of voices and I got to my feet, pulled on a bathrobe and padded across to the glass doors that opened on to the terrace.
    Burke was standing in the courtyard below, one foot on the rim of the ornamental fountain. His companion was a thick-set man with close-cropped white hair who looked in better shape than he probably was, thanks to a tailor who knew how to cut cloth.
    There was nothing ostentatious about him. He’d resisted the impulse to wear more than one ring and displayed only the regulation inch of white cuff as if following someone’s instructions to the letter. I think it was the tie which spoiled things—Guards Brigade, which didn’t seem likely—and when he produced a platinum case and offered Burke a cigarette, he looked about as real as his garden.
    He accepted a light, turned away slightly, running a hand over his hair with a rather feminine gesture and saw me standing there at the edge of the balcony.
    He had obviously cultivated the instant smile. “Hello there,” he called. “I’m Karl Hoffer. How are you?”
    â€œFine,” I said. “You provide excellent beds.”
    His voice was the first surprise. Pure American—no Austrian accent at all as far as I could judge.
    He smiled at Burke. “Heh, I like him,” then looked up at me again. “We’re just going to have a drink. Why don’t you join us? Good chance to talk business.”
    â€œFive minutes,” I said and went back into the bedroom to dress.
    Â 
    As I went down to the hall, Rosa Solazzo appeared from the dining room followed by one of thehouseboys carrying a tray of drinks. All the best dresses were English that year. Hers must have set Hoffer back two hundred guineas at least, a cloud of red silk like a flame in the night, setting her hair and eyes off to perfection.
    â€œPlease,” she said, reached up and straightened my tie. “There, that is better. I felt very foolish this