The Savage Heart of Palermo by Daniel Kenyon

Author:Daniel Kenyon [Kenyon, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: KeywordsPlus
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Joe's cell-phone rang again. The area code was from a Chicago landline.

"Is that you again?" he yelled.

"What's up, Son? You sound spooked."

Joe felt the biggest rush of relief that he had ever felt in his life.

"Just tell me that you're okay, Dad."

"I'm all good. In fact I'm feeling pretty perky right now. The money that you wired arrived in a heartbeat. I moved straight out. Good old Western Union."

"Glad to hear it, but I just had a call from our friend. He says he burned your house down."

"Oh really? Well, good thing me and your uncle Donny got most of the valuable stuff out. He came around just a couple of hours after you called, with a truck."

"Please forgive me for getting you into this mess."

"Listen, I'm just glad you got clean. You sent me more than enough money to get by for a while. To tell you the truth, I wanted out of that house anyway. Too many painful memories. Too many ghosts. Of course the place was insured too. I might get a well-needed vacation out of this… Let's just call it a clean-break… a new start for the both of us."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm off the drink. In fact I haven't touched a drop in almost a month."

"That's amazing, Dad."

"It was you who inspired me to get dry. Well that and waking up with a hangover to find armed gangsters in my home."

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry.”

Rossella, whose English was good enough that she had understood the whole conversation through the receiver, hugged and kissed Joe.

"Put all this stuff behind you and find yourself a good woman. I'd like you to have what I had with your mother. They were the best days of my life, especially when you came along."

"I know. Everything fell apart when she left us."

Joe's phone signaled that he had another incoming call. He and his father said their goodbyes with promises to talk soon.

***

"Please, Joe," said Moses, in his most enthusiastic voice, "I want you to come and meet two very important and special friends of mine. I want us to be together today. Also, I have your bike."

"Go," mouthed Rossella, "before everyone gets up and finds us together. I have to go to the university anyway. I will see you tonight."

***

Joe picked up a copy of Il Giornale di Sicilia from the newsstand on the corner. On the front page were the faces of two men. The headline translated as, Business as usual: Palermo's turf war continues to spiral out of control. Antonio Spera 42, a suspected member of the Giordano clan, was shot dead, outside his home, in Brancaccio, in full view of his wife and children. Retaliation was swift when, just four hours later, Agostino Vincullo, 36, said to be a Fortunato foot soldier, was strangled to death outside his car in the small town of Villabate. The two men are the latest victims of the tit-for-tat murder spree sweeping Palermo.

Joe turned the

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