Greenmantle
Greenmantle
by
Charles de Lint
Copyright 1988 by Charles de Lint.
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for
Joanne & John Harris
CONTENTS
Part One: The Riddles of Evening
Part Two: The Huntsman’s Guile
P
rologue
Io Pan! Io Pan!
Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
—Aleister Crowley
from “Hymn to Pan”
Pan? Pan is dead. Or is that a
pun
—Pan—du pain—
bread
—
peine—
pain
—
the body of Christ?
—Tanith Lee
From “Blood-Mantle”
MALTA, August 1983
By the time Eddie “the Squeeze” Pinelli was five hours dead, Valenti was on a Boeing 747 halfway across the Atlantic. He sipped the beer that the steward had brought him and stared out the window into the darkness. He usually felt an honest regret that things had to get as far as they did before he was called in, but not this time. Pinelli had been a
capo
in the New York City Cerone Family, one of Don Cerone’s special boys, but now the sonovabitch was dead and the only thing special about him was that those famous fingers of his weren’t going to put the squeeze on anyone anymore. That suited Valenti just fine.
Don Magaddino had called the hit—Valenti’s own boss. “It’s personal,” he’d told Valenti. “That’s why I called you,
capito?
It’s between you and me, Tony. Okay? I want that
pezzo di merda
dead and then we don’t talk about this no more.”
Eddie had got a little itchy and a lot crazy and put the squeeze on one of the girls the Don kept on the side. Valenti understood. It had been personal for him, too. Not so long ago, Eddie had tried to make a little time with Valenti’s woman, Beverly Grant. Only Bev wasn’t going to get up and walk away like the Don’s girlfriend had when Valenti had walked in on her and Eddie earlier tonight. Bev had taken a twelve-story drop and what was left of her you wouldn’t
want
to see walk away.
Valenti had wanted to take Eddie down so hard then that it hurt, but the Don wouldn’t give him the word and a soldier didn’t take down a
capo
without an okay from way up.
Così fan tutti
—that was the way of the world. But Valenti was patient. He’d known that sooner or later Eddie, being the asshole he was, would lose it. All Valenti’d had to do was wait.
* * *
After the sweltering oven that was a New York City summer, the Maltese weather was glorious. The air was so clear that he could see for miles across the low hills with their tiered fields being readied for the fall harvest. He had the taxi drop him off at the end of the lane and walked the rest of the way to the villa, taking his time. When he reached the door, he took off his sunglasses and brushed his thick dark hair with his fingers. Then he knocked. Mario himself opened the door.
“Jesus, Tony,” he said, his gaze darting nervously behind Valenti then back to his friend’s dark features. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Valenti smiled. “
Ciao,
Mario. That’s some welcome. Drop by anytime, you tell me, so here I am and—”
“You’re a dead man,” Mario cut in. “You know that?”
“What’re you talking about? The sun down here driving you a little crazy?”
Mario grabbed his arm and hauled him into the house, slamming the door behind them. “I got a woman here,” he said. “I got kids. They come looking for you here, what’s going to happen to them, ’ey?”
“You got some problem, Mario?”
“The only problem I got, Tony, is you.” He stood back and studied Valenti’s face. “You don’t know, do you?”
Valenti frowned. “All I know is I came a long way to see you, but you don’t look too happy to see me.”
“You know the Squeeze is dead?” Mario asked.
“Sure I know that. I’m the one that hit him.”
“
Madonna mia!
You
are
crazy.”
“But not that crazy,” Valenti said. “Magaddino called the hit.”
“Oh yeah? And who called the hit on him?”
“What?”
“Your
padrone
is dead, Tony, and the word is you hit him. You hit him, you hit that girlfriend of his—the one with the red hair—and you hit the Squeeze. And let me tell you, a lot of people, they’re not too happy about it,
capito?
They want your balls, Tony. They called me. I’m retired—what? Five years now? But still they called me, asking if I’ve seen you. Asking if I want to make a little money. You know what I’m talking about?”
Valenti stepped away from the door and moved slowly into the villa’s spacious living room. He sank into a canvas chair and regarded his friend.
Mario Papale was fifty-eight now, but he wore his years well. His hair was a silvery gray—had been since he was thirty—his dark skin even darker than Valenti remembered, tanned from the Mediterranean sun. He was wearing a pair of white cotton trousers and a short-sleeved shirt that was unbuttoned. Watching the way he walked across the room, Valenti knew that the old Fox hadn’t lost a thing, retired or not. Maybe you never lost it.
“They called you?” he asked. “That quick?”
“What did you think, Tony?” Mario replied as he sat down in front of him. “This is a
cane grosso
—a big shot we’re talking about. Not just a soldier like you or me.”
“I didn’t hit him. Eddie—yeah. But it wasn’t personal. No matter how I felt, I had orders.”
“We’re talking a
padrone
is dead here, Tony. Your orders don’t mean shit now because Magaddino’s dead and you’re buying the rap for the hit.”
“I’ve been set up.”
Mario didn’t say anything for a long moment. He studied Valenti, taking his time about it, then slowly nodded. “
Chi lo sa
?” he said finally. Who knows? “But I believe you. You never could lie to me, Tony. So what’re you gonna do? You need anything? You need money? A piece?”
Valenti shook his head. “I’ve got a place in Canada—a safe place. Clean. No one knows who I am.”
“Too close,” Mario said. “These
bastardi
’ll smell you out like dogs after a bitch in heat. You got to go someplace where, when you say you’re a
soldato
, they ask what army, not what family,
capito?”
“This place I set up years ago, Mario—just like you told me to, remember? Even in the
fratellanza
a man needs a place where he doesn’t have to worry about his family. I’ve got money there. And guns.”
“They’re never gonna stop hunting you down.”
Valenti shrugged. “I was getting tired anyway.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay. So it’s bullshit. You think I should turn myself over to Ricca’s justice?” Ricca Magaddino was the Don’s oldest son and stood to inherit his empire.
Mario laughed humorlessly. “This afternoon you’re staying with me,” he said. “Tonight I drive you to the coast and smuggle you off the island. I know people with a boat. You need papers?”
Valenti shook his head. “These men with the boat…?”
“They’re friends—not cousins.”
“Okay.
Grazie
, Mario. I wouldn’t have brought this down on you if I’d known.”
“You think I don’t know that? Now let’s forget this shit.
Come vai
, ’ey? It’s been a couple of years. Talk to me, Tony. Maybe we don’t meet again, so we take what time we got, okay?”
* * *
Mario’s wife was half his age, a shy, dark-haired woman named Maria, who spoke only Maltese. Mario had grinned when introducing her to Valenti. “Mario and Maria—how you like that, ’ey?” She and the children were staying with her sister in nearby Marsakala when the two men made ready to leave the villa.
“The nights’re quiet here,” Mario said. “And dark. Just follow me and don’t get lost,
capito
?”
He went into his bedroom and unlocked a chest from which he took a pair of American .38 calibre handguns. Valenti accepted one and nodded his thanks as he thrust it in his belt.
“I hope we don’t need these,” he said as they went down the hall.
Mario nodded. “My car’s got no shocks and the road’s the shits,” he said, “so maybe you better watch the family jewels, ’ey?”
“Sure,” Valenti said with a grin.
Mario hit the lights, throwing the hallway into darkness. Valenti opened the door and the night exploded with sound. The first shot hit Valenti in the shoulder and spun him around. The second and third spat into the doorjamb, showering both men with splinters. A fourth bullet took Valenti’s right leg from under him and he fell to the floor.
“
Bastardi
!” Mario roared. He got off a couple of shots, then slammed the door shut and bolted it. “We’re in deep now,” he muttered as he glanced down at his friend. Thrusting his gun into his belt, he hoisted Valenti up in a fireman’s lift and headed for the back of the house. By the time the
soldati
broke in the front, the only thing left in the hallway was Valenti’s blood.
