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heard of the man.
    “Matteo,” his uncle explained impatiently. “One of the Dons of the Society. He has just come back from America.”
    Cesare smiled. The Society, they called it. The Mafia. Grown men playing like boys, spilling their blood together, calling each other Uncle and Nephew and Cousin.
    “Do not smile,” his uncle had snapped. “In America the Society is very important. Matteo is the richest man in all Sicily.”
    The door opened and Matteo came in. “
Buon giorno
, Signor Cardinali,” he spoke with a heavy American accent.
    “I am honored by your visit, Signor Matteo.” Raimondi bowed. “How can I serve you today?”
    Matteo looked inquiringly at Cesare. Raimondi hastened forward. “Allow me to present my nephew, Count Cardinali.” He turned to Cesare. “Signor Matteo from America.”
    Matteo looked at him with a calculating eye. “Major Cardinali?”
    Cesare nodded. “That was during the war.”
    “I have heard of you,” Matteo said.
    It was Cesare’s turn to look at him. There were very few people that had heard of him during the war. Only those who had very special information. He wondered how much the man knew. “I am honored, sir,” he said.
    Raimondi wanted to get down to business. Peremptorily he dismissed Cesare. “Come back tomorrow,” he said importantly, “and I will see if we can spare you the money to go to your petty fencing match.”
    Cesare’s lips tightened, his blue eyes grew dark and cold. For a moment his body tensed. Someday the old man would go too far. Already he took upon himself too many liberties. He could feel Matteo’s eyes upon him as he went to the door.
    He heard Raimondi’s voice as he closed it. “A fine boy but an expense. He is a relic of the past, trained for nothing, he can do no work…” The door closed, shutting off the patronizing voice.
    ***
    Gio had started a fire in the library and Cesare stood in front of it, holding a glass of brandy in his hand.
    “I will have dinner ready in half an hour,” the old man said.
    Cesare nodded. He crossed the room to the desk and picked up the photograph of his mother that still stood on it. He remembered her eyes. They were blue like his own but soft and warm and kind. He remembered the day she came upon him in the garden. He was only eight years old then.
    He had been absorbed watching the big green fly he had impaled on a pin in the wood struggling to get away.
    “Cesare! What on earth are you doing?”
    He turned and saw his mother standing there. He smiled happily and pointed. Her eyes followed his finger.
    Her face had paled, then grew angry. “Cesare, stop that! Release him immediately. That’s cruel.”
    Cesare pulled the pin from the wood but the fly still stuck to it. He looked up at his mother curiously, then down at the fly. Quickly he pulled the wings from it and dropped it on the floor and stepped on it.
    His mother stared at him angrily. “Cesare, why did you do that?”
    His face turned serious for a moment as he thought, then it wrinkled in a winning smile. “I like to kill,” he said.
    His mother had stared at him for another moment, then turned and went back into the house. A year later she was dead of the fever and after that the Count took him to the castle to live and there was a succession of teachers and tutors but no one that dared speak to him with impunity.
    He put the photograph down. He was getting restless. There were too many memories here. The castle reeked of the past. What he should do was sell it and become an American citizen. That was the only way to deal with the past. Cut it cleanly as if with a knife so that no trace of it remained anywhere inside you.
    He thought of the message that summoned him here. The message that took him from the race, that kept him from meeting Ileana on the Riviera. He smiled to himself when he thought of Ileana. There was something about those Rumanian women, especially the demimondaines with the titles. By now she was probably on