First the woman said they would meet in the Politi’s lounge. And she didn’t show up. One of her lackeys phoned, said she was indisposed, so sorry. Then the venue was rearranged to Taormina, a picturesque town set high on Monte Tauro. They would meet for lunch at the Belmond, overlooking the twin bays below. Come alone, they said.
Max drove there – alone, as agreed – and waited. Another phone call to cancel. She didn’t want to meet there after all, she’d changed her mind. She would prefer to see him somewhere away from prying eyes. Her lackey suggested a place not far outside Syracuse, could he do that?
Max gritted his teeth, punched the wall, and said yes, that would be fine. It would have to be.
His senses were alert now. Something was wrong with all this. The woman was dancing around him like a ballerina, and he was wondering why. Maybe she had changed her mind about what she’d said when she’d spoken to Gary Tooley on the phone. Maybe she regretted her actions. Maybe she’d been drunk or drugged at the time and in the clear light of day she’d sobered up, come down off cloud nine and reconsidered.
Having spoken those words, though, the deed was done. The secret was out. Perhaps she wanted to put it back in its box. And the way to do it? By now he thought he knew the way she might choose. Whatever was going on with her, he meant to find out the truth – and meeting face to face was his best chance of doing that, even if without his back-up he risked ending up dead. If only the devious bitch would actually turn up one of these days.
In his hotel room on the morning of this new meeting, he got up, showered, called the hotel where his men were staying and told them what was going on.
‘You need us up there?’ asked the one who picked up.
‘No,’ said Max. ‘But be ready. I’ll call. Looks like this is it, finally.’
He dressed in a cool white linen shirt, cream cords, brown loafers; then he slipped on his gold ring with the lapis lazuli square set into it, added a Rolex and a couple of other items and looked in the mirror, running a hand through his thick, black and slightly too long hair to tame it into shape. He could almost pass for a Sicilian himself; his old mum Queenie had always called him her ‘little Italian’. He was powerfully built and tanned, with a piratical hook of a nose and deep, dark navy-blue eyes.
The heat was climbing and the sun was pouring molten lava down upon his bare head as he walked out into a perfect Sicilian day and got into his car. Max hated hats. He liked the sun in his eyes and the wind at his back. He started the engine and drove up the dusty track to the agreed meeting-place, passing tiny small-windowed white villas, uniform rows of vines, olive groves. Potato-shaped peasant women dressed in black were sitting outside their doors, lemon trees overhanging the walls of their houses, skinny dogs wandering free in the street.
