Lawless - [3]

came along he’d been the youngest, the baby of the family. After Bianca arrived on the scene, what was he? Not even that, not any more.

‘Can you see Vittore here?’ snapped Fabio. Stupid cunt.

‘Fab, it’s Tito…’ Donato yanked out a chair and seemed to collapse into it. His face was bleached of colour. He looked like a man in turmoil.

‘What about Tito?’ asked Fabio impatiently when Donato said no more.

Donato’s eyes came up and met Fabio’s.

‘He’s fucking dead, Fab. He’s dead.’

Fabio felt time freeze. He looked at Donato. There were actual tears making tracks down Donato’s face now. Donato the hard nut. Not very bright. Not bright enough to see that he’d been made a patsy by two much smarter players, that was for sure. He was sitting there blubbering like a child.

‘What…’ Fab felt the smile, the one he had used to such effect on the girl – fuck knew what her name was – stall on his face. The smile stayed there, but the life had gone out of it. ‘What did you say?’

‘Tito’s dead,’ said Donato. And he told Fabio about it then, through sobs and hitches and gasps.

About halfway through, the girl got up. Fabio grabbed her arm. ‘Where you going?’ he asked.

‘I…’ she started.

Fabio yanked her back down.

‘Ow!’ she complained. People were turning, staring. Fabio still held her arm, crushing it.

‘No, you don’t run off and tell everyone the news like it’s a freak show,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You stay here.’

‘You’re hurting-’ she said.

‘You stay here,’ he said, and this time she remained silent. His returned his attention to Donato. He was thinking Tito, dead? No. Not possible.

Tito had been there all his life, an absolute and uncaring despot; ruling the roost after Papa went, with Vittore waiting in the wings, ready to take over when his turn came. Fabio’s turn at being head of the family was way off. It had been set in stone for so long, this fact, that Fabio had almost come to accept it. Almost. He’d always known he’d have to attend two funerals before his turn came. Two graves to stand by, and then all hail King Fabio! He’d always thought that, even as a small boy.

‘And where the fuck were you when all this was happening?’ he asked.

‘We were right there with him,’ said Donato. ‘Right there. This bastard came out of nowhere and did it.’

‘Right in front of your eyes,’ said Fabio.

‘Yeah. Just like that.’

Fabio let go of the girl and stood up. He was nodding, his head bent. Then without warning he lashed out, grinding the glowing tip of the cigarette hard into Donato’s cheek. Donato shrieked; so did the women in the room. The stink of scorched skin drifted up, and a faint repulsive sizzling. Everyone was suddenly on their feet, knocking chairs over, backing away, yelling and screaming. Donato was sobbing in agony. He had fallen to the floor and was holding his hands to his burned face.

‘You were there when it happened? And you didn’t stop it?’ roared Fabio, leaning in and jabbing the glowing cigarette against Donato’s face again, then again. Donato screamed.

One of the other men made as if to intervene. Fabio saw the movement and lifted his arm and pointed a rigid finger at him.

‘I really wouldn’t,’ Fabio hissed. Then he turned to the room at large and shouted: ‘Place is closed, folks. Everyone out now.’

No one moved. Everyone stared at the stricken Donato.

‘Off you fuck!’ yelled Fabio, full volume.

They started moving then, the women gathering up their clothes, grabbing handbags, edging away, their eyes still on him, the way you would keep your eyes on a dangerous animal that could turn and attack.

Fabio pressed the point harder: ‘Get out of here! Show’s over!’

Slowly, everyone started to move toward the door. Fabio stood glowering until the last guest closed the door behind them, leaving him alone with the cowering Donato.

‘You stupid cunt,’ he said, and grabbed a heavy marble candlestick from a table and waded in.

Then, when he had seen to Donato, taught him a lesson he would never forget, Fabio went through to the office next door. With hands that shook with a mixture of excitement and terror, his knuckles sore and bloodstained, he phoned his brother Vittore. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew that Vittore would. And the irony of this did not escape him.

3

This is a nightmare, thought Bella Danieri. She couldn’t believe that she wasn’t asleep and dreaming this horror. Her boy Tito was dead. In the small hours of that same morning, she sat with Fabio and Vittore in her kitchen. Maria had come in, briefly – she knew she wasn’t welcome, she was never welcome at any family occasion – and she’d hugged Bella and said she was so sorry about Tito, was there anything she could do?

‘Go to bed,’ said Bella, shrugging off her daughter-in-law’s embrace as if she were an annoying insect to be swatted aside.

Maria stiffened, glanced at Vittore; he nodded and she left the room. Presently they heard the door across the hallway close loudly, and Bella slopped brandy into three glasses.

‘Who did it?’ said Vittore into the sudden silence. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

Fabio glanced at his older brother. ‘He had a lot of enemies.’