The Savage Heart of Palermo Read online

  The Savage Heart of Palermo

  Daniel Kenyon

  Published by Daniel James Johns Kenyon, Palermo, Sicily, Italy

  First published 2012

  Copyright © Daniel James Johns Kenyon, 2012

  Cover art, design and layout by Keywords+

  All rights reserved

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the innocent victims of Cosa Nostra in Sicily and all victims of racism and racially motivated murder in Italy.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to acknowledge the following people:

  David Laing has been one of my very best friends since childhood when we used to write comic strip crime thrillers together that were the seeds of inspiration for this very book. He was the first person to read an early version of The Savage Heart of Palermo and recommended that I add an extra twist at the end.

  Silvia Corbellari came on a Savage Heart of Palermo tour with me on the back of my scooter and relived some of the nicer moments of the book, which she then read. Later we discussed how much of it was autobiographical. It was interesting to look at the story again from the inside out.

  David Richardson has been one of my closest friends since I first arrived in Palermo when he showed me the ropes. He proof read the book, made some very helpful comments, and helped with promotion.

  I would like to acknowledge the group Addiopizzo who campaign against mafia protection rackets in Sicily and inspired certain scenes in this book. Parts of the proceeds are donated to their cause. I would also like to thank Simona Distinti for putting me in contact with them.

  A big thanks to Federico Price Bruno, an environmentalist, who fights against the mafia and many other injustices in Italy. He continues to be a great source of inspiration.

  Another big thanks goes out to Gary Herman and Carole Belfield who gave me invaluable advice, designed the cover, and formatted the paragraphs. Your time and patience is greatly appreciated.

  Most important of all, lots of love and a big thank you to my mother who told me that I would make it as a writer if I stuck at it and continues to be very supportive of my choice.

  Demons masquerading as angels, saving lives to destroy them later…

  Chapter One

  "What in God's name?" murmured a gray-haired lady as she opened the envelope and peered inside. A loose bundle of one-hundred dollar-bills cascaded out onto the desk in front of her. She counted them. Ten thousand dollars in total; more than enough money to clothe all the children in her east end Chicago orphanage for a year. She ran to the door and opened it, looking down the street. But it was too late - the red-haired stranger had disappeared. There was no way to even thank him. She returned to her desk. There was a note in the envelope. It read, 'Turning a new leaf. I hope this can make a difference'.

  ***

  Joe Kelly breathed a sigh of relief. He had escaped the jaws of death. No one would find him here. He scratched at the edge of the neat little scar on his calf. Despite the itch, the bullet wound was healing quite well, after he had spent three long nights laying low in a Chicago motel.

  Joe gasped as the plane banked steeply and the bay of Palermo came into sight. Far below, the sprawling city poured out towards the edge of the sea. Impressive mountains surrounded it on all sides like giant arms jealously cradling a helpless baby.

  Joe’s tormented brain was working overtime, trying to make meaning out of just about anything. Even the logo on a twisted empty coffee cup in the airport's waiting room had had something to say to him - some nonsensical message he'd tried to decode. Like the city below him, Joe too had been held in a stony grip. He had been hooked on heroin, which was only one of the things he was escaping from.

  When he was a child, his mother had always told him not to run away from his problems, but at twenty-six years of age, Joe had decided that the best way to avoid temptation was to do just that - which meant getting away from everything and everyone he had known up until that point.

  Joe pressed his nose to the window. Rays from the sun lit up the view below. The city glowed like a massive treasure chest overflowing with riches.

  "La conca d'oro," he whispered.

  Despite this, Joe shivered with the cold he felt in his bones and held his hand to his mouth as a tickly cough persistently irritated him. As he was coming into land, in what he imagined to be a Mediterranean paradise, his body was preparing itself for the torment of going cold turkey. Well aware of the irony, he laughed the feeble laugh that heroin junkies have when they are starting to withdraw. The last time he had taken a hit was twenty-four hours ago and he knew that bad times were in the mail. He figured it would take about a week or so before he would be back on his feet. Until then, he needed to lock himself away until his imminent fever abated.

  The plane landed at Falcone Borsellino Airport at noon. The trans-Atlantic flight had been a relentless waking nightmare, interspersed with frequent trips to the bathroom only to be sick or shit through the eye of a needle. He was sticky with sweat and covered in goose-bumps. His bones aching to the marrow, he hurriedly collected his suitcase and trundled it out of the airport to the bus stop. The July heat was sweltering and the humidity in the air clung uncomfortably to his face. After a wait of ten minutes, he lumbered aboard a shuttle bound for the city center. Thank God it's air-conditioned. He sat down at the back of the packed bus.

  Joe had a place to stay for the first few nights until he found his own apartment. On the internet, he'd found some couchsurfing students who were willing to put him up free of charge - so that they could practice their English. They'd gotten to know Joe on a social networking site and were satisfied that he wasn't a psycho-killer or horny rapist. At the time he was getting just enough heroin to put his personality to good use, but not so much as to put his lucidity under any doubt. He must have impressed them with his charm, because they soon agreed to the arrangement. After years of being secretly addicted to smoking the dragon, Joe had learned how to come across as a nice guy when he needed to.

  He turned his head to the side window of the moving bus. Despite a headache and stomach cramps, the view of the hostile but somehow alluring mountains distracted him from his troubles. Joe felt no fear as the bus took him through the valley towards the unknown. Like it or not, there was no turning back now. The bus finally reached a dark tunnel that went right through one of the mountains. Joe felt like he was being reborn as the pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel came closer and the bus emerged again onto the main road where it was surrounded by high-rise apartment blocks.

  After half an hour, the bus approached the city center and slowed to a crawl in the traffic. To Joe's right there was a statue of a figure he knew to be the great Garibaldi, the unifier of Italy, astride a horse with a lion at his feet. The statue's right arm was extended outwards, the index finger pointing the way forward into the city center. The hairs on Joe's arms stood up.

  A few minutes later, the bus came to a halt in a huge piazza, teeming with life. Sweating profusely, Joe heaved his bag off the bus and dumped it on the sidewalk.

  “Shit!”

  The handle broke off. He dug into his pockets for a map that he'd printed from the internet. Overwhelmed by his surroundings, he struggled to make sense of it, knowing only that he had to head to a neighborhood called Borgo Vecchio.

  In the center of the piazza stood a white marble statue of a man on a plinth with his right hand over his breast. The engraving let Joe know it was Ruggero Settimo, president of the short-lived Republic of Sicily of 1848. Joe went to sit on the steps in the president's shadow. In front of him was a large building with a curved façade and ambulatories
supported by Ionic columns. His map told him the neoclassical structure was Teatro Politeama. Joe noted that the historic theater was lovingly restored at the front and hatefully neglected on its sides, which were stained black with the pollution from traffic exhaust. That's just how I feel sometimes. I look good on first appearance, but really I'm damaged. He closed his eyes for a few seconds before returning to the present moment. Joe's gaze shifted upwards, high above the arched entrance of the theater where a bronze Apollo rode in a chariot pulled by four galloping horses, flanked by another two men on horseback. Joe felt as though they would leap off the building any moment and crush him as they charged forward into the distance.

  Groups of teenagers congregated around the feet of Ruggero Settimo. They were what Joe referred to as the 'conformist non-conformist' types… hip-hoppers, emos, and skateboarders. The young girls were mostly short, but pretty, with big brown eyes and dark hair, which some wore in thick curls. They were very different from the blond, blue-eyed girls Joe was used to seeing back home, and as far as he was concerned anything different was good.

  He took a look at some of the middle aged people and chuckled. Okay, so the shortness is cute on the fit young girls, but not so much when they are older and out of shape. Joe remembered the less than kind Italian term he had heard, Arancina con i piedi… rice ball with feet.

  Joe, himself, had acquired his looks from his father's Irish side of the family. At five foot nine inches, he was not tall, by American standards, but by no means short by Sicilian standards. By Irish standards he was just right. He was a red-head and not a ginger. Joe remembered his mother telling him that 'ginger' was the word used to describe the color of a person's hair if they were not attractive. 'Red-head' was the term used when the person was good-looking. Joe was no oil painting, but he certainly qualified as a red-head and not a ginger. His eyes were a deep forest green and his jaw well defined. His face was marked a little from fighting. He had a slightly broken nose and a short fat scar, just below his left eye socket, both of which lent to him a rugged tough-man look. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he seemed to be turning a few heads in Palermo. Normally he would have enjoyed that, but right now he felt ugly inside and out and just wanted to hide himself away.

  As Joe prepared to set off, in search of his temporary accommodations, he was struck by the chaotic traffic that seemed to be governed by a vague system of guide-lines rather than rules. Amongst the constant beeping horns, cars ran red lights, and scooters drove up on to the sidewalks to get around the traffic jams. It's like a real life version of the videogame Grand Theft Auto.

  Finally, he set off in what he hoped to be roughly the right direction, dragging his broken suitcase behind him. He knew a bit of Italian from his mother's family, themselves Italian-Americans, so he was able to get by with the basics and managed to ask people in the street for help. However, the directions people gave him always seemed to be wrong and he spent a good hour and a half getting nowhere, while baking in the sun.

  He made his way down La Via della Libertà, a road that seemed to go on forever in both directions. The section he walked along was awash with glamorous boutiques and bars. However, he didn't have to go far to find himself in what seemed to be an entirely different city. After a few twists and turns, through a labyrinth of streets and alleys, he somehow made it to the chaotic market place of Borgo Vecchio.

  Joe suddenly got the feeling that he was in a film from a bygone era. Old men in button-down shirts with thick mustaches and large spectacles stared at him as he made his way through the bright stalls of fruit, vegetables, and sea-food. The air was thick with the smell of both raw and grilled fish, blended with the fumes from scooter exhaust. The fresh catch was an array of shapes, sizes and colors. There was octopus, squid, prawns, and enormous tuna fish. On a bed of crushed ice, lay a swordfish cut in half at the dorsal fin, exposing a pure white spine as thick as a scaffold pole. Its big black shiny eyes seemed to stare pleadingly at Joe. The market stall holders hollered in the guttural but musical Palermo dialect. It didn't sound anything like the Italian Joe knew, but he liked it none-the-less - perhaps even because he couldn't understand it. His mother and grandparents, being educated, had spoken mostly standard Italian but even that sounded bland compared to this.

  Although Joe looked and felt more Irish than Italian a long burning desire of his had always been to discover the other part of himself. After years of hearing the stories from his mother and grandparents he'd finally arrived. He suddenly wished that he had someone else to share the moment with. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a black and white photo of a beautiful young Sicilian woman. He kissed the photo and put it back in his pocket.

  He arrived at a small piazza full of children. There was a small glass-covered shrine of the Madonna fixed into a crumbling, pastel-blue colored wall. Joe walked to the other side of the square where there was a phone booth. He picked up the receiver and dialed the number of Francesca, the language student, who was supposed to put him up for the next few days.

  "Hi," said Joe, somewhat timidly after a female voice answered. His voice was a little hoarse from lack of water. "I'm here… a bit lost, but I'm sure I'm in Borgo Vecchio."

  "Okay, I go out and meet you at the piazza," replied Francesca in broken English.

  Five minutes later she arrived.

  "Not a moment too soon," muttered Joe who, had been starting to feel a little uneasy as a group of mischievous looking youths on scooters watched him and whispered among themselves. For all he knew they were sizing him up to relieve him of his belongings. He envisioned an entire scene with him desperately trying to throw punches as they gradually got the better of him, beating and kicking him before ultimately making off with his valuables.

  Francesca was a big girl with a big smile and Joe was immediately put at ease by her kind face.

  He tried his hardest to give a good impression, as he smiled and cracked jokes through his veneer of pain. The truth was that he felt as though he had been booted in the small of his back and his guts were being twisted with a clenched fist.

  The apartment was just around the corner and up three floors in a tiny elevator. It was basic but clean and tidy - typical student digs.

  "The other two roommates are not home yet."

  Francesca showed Joe to his shoe box-sized room that had a tiny single bed and dingy white walls.

  "I hope you wouldn't think it was rude if I just got a shower and crashed for a couple of hours. I'm feeling pretty jet-lagged from the trip."

  Francesca smiled.

  "Of course not. Make as your home."

  Minutes later, Joe sighed as the jet of hot water cascaded over his tired skin. Despite the stifling humidity, he knew his bones would turn back to ice as soon as he got out. He stayed under the shower for at least half an hour, his need for temporary relief overshadowing all thoughts of being a good house guest.

  Finally, alone in his room, he could gather his thoughts and plan his next move. The first thing, he decided, was to fill himself with the Valium and sleeping tablets that he had smuggled over inside the sole of his shoe. He hoped to God that those would ease the comedown and allow him to get some much-needed sleep. Joe threw a small handful of pills into the back of his throat and swallowed them without water - a habit he had become used to over the past few years chasing fixes. He lay down on his tiny bed and waited for the meds to kick in.

  His fever made him feel nostalgic in a disturbing way. All the regrets, missed opportunities, and times he had made an ass of himself came back to haunt him. It were as though these images were projected, through his eyes, onto the peeling white ceiling.

  A single moth batted its wings noisily around a cruel light bulb that hung from a tattered wire, protruding from a roughly cut hole. Every so often, a mosquito buzzed past his ear with an awful whining noise that seemed to be a provocation. At least if they bit him they would become too sedated to do it a second time.

  Although not opiates, the me
ds soon started to work their magic. The bothersome images became less important, turning from intrusive Technicolor to the crackling black and white of old film. Mocking and sinister voices gave way to pantomime utterances.

  The entire scene began to shrink into the distance. Joe felt himself float away into a happy delirium - finally embracing a break from pain. “We’ll be back,” said a cartoon voice. Joe groaned. What mattered most was now. He slipped away.

  ***

  It was Saint Patrick's Day and he was alone at the dinner table with his father looking up at his rugged Irish face and thick mess of rusty curls. Joe's old man poured the last drops of a bottle of Guinness down his neck. He steadied himself with large motor-oil stained hands, as he got up to use the bathroom. His prosthetic leg lent to him a limping gait. He walked past a leather frame in the hallway that held a color photo of him, dressed in military fatigues, with a string of medals on his chest.

  There were other photos of his father too, which Joe had found in an old shoe box under the bed. In one he and his platoon were all gathered around a palm tree. There was a helicopter in the background and his father was wearing dog tags around his neck and cradling an M-16. Joe knew from others that his dad was a hero even though his father never spoke of it, except to say, "The war was wrong, Son."

  The smell of stout and whiskey were all too often on Joe's father's breath, but his words were always kind. When Joe had been little, his father had always been a story teller and a joker until one day the funny stories and laughter stopped. It was clear from the smile that he forced that his heart had been broken.

  A black and white photograph, in a worn brass frame, sat on the mantelpiece in the kitchen. It was of a beautiful young woman with a Sicilian face and wavy black hair. There was a tear in Joe's father's eye whenever he looked at it, which was every day. One day, when he could no longer bear to be reminded, he simply put the picture away in the old shoe box.