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“Like he did before?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll help.” Scales kicked out the opposite chair, and it clattered away from the table. “Give me the details.”
Renzo took a seat and told Scales his new scheme, that Scales would kidnap a rich man’s son and bring the boy to the madhouse for the night, to be picked up the next morning. If the family paid the ransom, they’d get the boy back. If they didn’t, the boy would stay away until they did.
Scales nodded. “If we split fifty-fifty, I’m in.”
“Done.”
“Does the boy stay in the madhouse, like the first one?”
“No, it causes problems.”
“Do you have someplace better?”
Renzo snorted. “No, I have someplace worse.”
PART TWO
The head of the Palermo police once remarked to me, “Were a cross to be placed on every spot where a victim lies buried in the plain of Palermo, the Conca d’Oro would be one vast cemetery.”
—douglas sladen,sicily, the new winter resort
There were a few locked cells, dark, sordid, and unhealthy; designated either male or female. They were indiscriminately crowded with maniacs, the demented, the furious and the melancholic. Some of them were stretched out on filthy patches of straw but most lay on bare earth. Many were completely naked or wrapped in filthy rags; they were like beasts in chains, inundated by annoying insects, enduring hunger and thirst and heat and cold and mockery and anguish and beatings.
—baron pietro pisani,guide to the royal madhouse ofpalermo
CHAPTER THIRTY
Gaetano stood at the head of the table, addressing the Beati Paoli. Their faces went grave as he told them he’d been unable to find witnesses to the kidnapping, but they brightened when he finished with the baptismal records. By the time he had brought them up to date, they were skimming his list of boys’ names.
“Gaetano, you’ve done a fine job!” Don Manfreddi smiled.
“Yes,bravo!” Carmine added, and everyone joined in.
“Thank you.” Gaetano nodded. “But we have much to do, and it must be done quickly. Every day is another day the boy is kept prisoner.”
“That’s true,” Carmine said, shaking his head. “How can we help, Gaetano?”
Gaetano gestured to the papers. “As I’ve said, there are one hundred and twenty families on this list. I’ve eliminated some of the names and I think we can narrow it down further, among ourselves tonight. I noticed when you were looking at the list, some of you were commenting that you know the family name.”
Carmine said, “I do, one of them.”
“So do I.” Don Fabiano raised his hand.
“Me, too, my cousins are on the list,” Don Enzo chimed in.
Gaetano felt encouraged. “That’s what I hoped. The boy’s family will come from ranks much like our own, professionals, well-to-do, maybethe nobility.” He motioned to Don Vincenzo, sitting at the other head of the table. “Don Vincenzo, you must socialize with some of these families.”
“I do, that’s true.” Don Vincenzo scanned the page in his hand. “I recognize the children of my friends among them. They have five- and six-year-olds.”
Gaetano nodded again, pleased. “So, our first line of inquiry is to examine the list with care, identify the names each of us know, and task yourselves with interviewing the families.”
Don Leonardo frowned. “How do we do that without revealing our purpose?”
Gaetano had expected the question. “Simply visit the family and inquire how they’ve been, how the children are, and what’s going on in the household. Listen carefully to the answers to see if you’re being told the truth.”
