The Black Hand

8

The next morning, Cyrus Barker and I attended service as usual at the Baptist Tabernacle, while Mac crept surreptitiously across the street to that den of iniquity, the Elephant and Castle public house, for our Sunday lunch. The Reverend Spurgeon’s sermon was up to its usual standard, but the meal in no way made up for the loss of our cook.

“What are you doing today, lad?” Barker asked over his bowl of tepid brown Windsor soup.

“I need to write a letter, sir, but I had no further plans beyond that. What about you?”

“I’ve got to think this problem through. Would you mind doing a favor for me today? I need you to take Juno to Victoria Station and put her in a horse carriage. I’m sending her south, out of harm’s way. She’d make a large target for the Mafia’s wrath.”

“How far south?” I asked.

“All the way to the coast, a town called Seaford. I’ve already made arrangements for her to be picked up there.”

“I’ll take care of it as soon as my letter is done.”

“Good. Cusp, is it?” the Guv asked.

“Yes, sir.” Thad Cusp was our solicitor. He was Barker’s until recently, but now he worked for me as well. Recently I had hired my employer to find the grave of my late wife, who had died of consumption while I was still in prison. Her mother, the most disagreeable specimen of womanhood I’d ever met, had buried her in an unmarked grave and packed up for parts unknown. Once I was freed, I tried to locate Jenny’s grave to no avail. Now, with more than a year’s salary in my bank account, I had turned to my employer. It took him little more than a day to find it, going from constabulary to mortuary to church. It was difficult for me to be in Oxford again, the site of my former disgrace, but finally I stood over the grave of my dear girl and could begin the task of having her buried properly. To do so required the services of Mr. Cusp. Jenny’s mother had put her in the ground and I could not move her without the woman’s consent, which meant a settlement of some sort, much as it galled me. Thad Cusp, a man as sharp as his name sounds, was now in the process of scouring the country for my former mother-in-law. I began to fear the case would end up in Chancery before it was finished.

Having sent off my letter with the inevitable accompanying bank draft, I made my way to the stable and saddled Juno. As we trotted through the streets, I wondered who would pick her up at the end of the line and what sort of treatment she would receive there. The south coast is full of racing stables, any one of which was capable of looking after the mare, but I’m rather particular about her care and wished I could have seen her settled in. I led her into the horsebox myself and watched as the express pulled out of sight, gathering speed as she steamed away. At loose ends, and feeling rather unsettled, I admit, I took a hansom back to Newington.

On the ride back, I began to fret. Together, Barker and I had taken on terrorists and murderers, but facing organized criminals was another matter. From where would Barker recruit enough men to face these mafiusi who traveled about armed with shotguns and swords? Matters were clearly coming to a head if Barker felt it necessary to send his horse out of town. I began to wish he’d sent his assistant along with it.

When I arrived at the house, Mac met me in the hallway, giving me a look that said I’d been dawdling and wasting his time. He held a paper in his hand.

“Mr. Barker has asked that you go to this address in Soho,” he said. “You are to meet a Mr. Antonio Gallenga there.”

“Gallenga?” I asked, taking the slip of paper that held the address in Barker’s illegible scrawl. “Did he-No, I know. You wouldn’t presume to say.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“A font of information, a regular oracle of Delphi you are, Mac.”

“I endeavor to give satisfaction, sir.”

“Yes, but to whom?”

He ignored the gibe. “Mr. Barker has asked not to be disturbed for the next few hours.”

So that was that. I wouldn’t be getting any more information out of Mac. Grumbling to myself, I turned and went in search of another cab. It took half a mile before my brain, like a cog, engaged and began to turn. Where was Barker sending me? It couldn’t be an interview, for I had no knowledge of what to say. I had no message to deliver. No, I thought with a groan, it could only mean more blasted training.

My employer is of the opinion that everyone-man, woman, or child-should be able to protect themselves, at least to the point that they can break away and run. As his assistant, he expected a good deal more of me than that. So far, I had endured lessons in both English and Chinese boxing, Japanese wrestling in canvas jackets on mats, stick fighting of various sorts, and techniques from a dozen other defensive arts that the Guv found useful. Barker may well have been the most highly trained fighter in Europe, which was why Poole and others were eager for him to teach them. It was difficult enough being trained in all these arts, often by cramming courses, and going to bed with bruises and sore muscles. I wasn’t anxious to add another dangerous art to the list.

The address was a comfortable little semidetached villa, a trifle overgrown with browning wisteria, but pleasant enough in its aspect. It seemed to be drowsing in the late summer sun. I might almost have been standing in front of a villa in Palermo itself.

I rang the doorbell and was greeted by a stark, old Italian woman in a jet-black dress, with unnaturally black hair and an even blacker mood. I explained what little I knew about why I was there, while she frowned at me, debating whether or not to let me in. Finally I heard a man behind her speaking in Italian; and she left with a sigh, like a guard dog that had missed the chance to bite an intruder.

“Come in,” the man said, pulling me inside. I would have called him an old man, but then I was not much more than twenty at the time. He was in his seventies, of that type of hale, masterful men one sometimes meets whose years rest lightly. His hair was iron gray, shot with white at the temples, and he wore a short beard shaven from his lower lip to the point of his chin. I’d never seen whiskers carved in such a fashion, but then I’d never met Antonio Gallenga before.

“So, you’re Mr. Llewelyn, eh?” he asked with no trace of an accent.

I always came up short in these visual evaluations, be they work related or personal. Just once, I would have liked to impress someone.

“Barker vouches for you, anyway. Just what have you studied?”

“Boxing, Japanese wrestling, and stick fighting, sir. Oh, and explosives.”

Gallenga made a sour face and shook his head. I’d failed again. You’d think I’d eventually get used to it.

“Nothing practical, then?”

“Practical?”

“Save perhaps the bomb making, they are all sports. You have had no training in actual combat.”

“No, sir.”

“It’s a wonder you’re still alive then, working with a man like Il Brutto.”

“The ugly one,” I translated, with what smattering of Italian and Latin I have. “Do you really call him that?” Barker was weather-beaten, I’ll admit, but “ugly” was going a bit far.

“Many Italians in London call Barker that. I don’t know who first gave him the name.” The old man shrugged. “So, I am to train you. How do you feel about that?”

“I’d be more assured if I knew what I was actually to be trained in.”

“Good point,” he said, smiling. “Let me enlighten you. For the most part, I shall teach you the use of the Sicilian blade, that is, the Italian dagger. This is no sport. It is to be used solely to kill another human being or to save yourself from being killed, which amounts to the same thing. This is a practical education. You should be very grateful to your employer, for the art is normally passed down from father to son among the Sicilians. To not be an Italian and yet receive this instruction is rare indeed.”

“Why are you willing to teach me, then, if I may ask?”

“I owe your employer a debt of honor. Beyond that I will not say.”

I absorbed that, or tried to, and found I couldn’t, so I set it aside. “Er, what other instruction am I to receive?”

“L’occhio, signor,” he said, drawing down the skin of his lower eyelid. “I am to ‘give you the eye.’ ”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. You know nothing. You are a mere babe in the woods, but you will learn. When I am done with you, Mr. Thomas Llewelyn, you will be a different man. Oh, you may look the same, but you will be changed in here.” To demonstrate, he thumped his chest with a fist. “I will make a man of you.”

“I can hardly wait,” I responded. He didn’t react to sarcasm any more than Barker.

“Come then, sir. Let us take a short walk. Just a simple walk in the street.”

He led me out the back door of his house, which was furnished in an overdecorated European fashion-full of ornate, overstuffed chairs-through a garden in full bloom and down an alleyway into a busy street.

“Stop here, signor. Now tell me, if you were in fear for your life right now, how would you proceed down this street?”

“What do you mean? How should I walk down the street?”

“Would it be safer to walk there-close to the buildings, near the entrances-or out here, near the curb?”

I mulled this over for a moment.

“Near the curb,” I pronounced.

“And why?”

“Because one could be seized from an alleyway or doorway.”

“Very good.”

“But what if I’m going the opposite direction and can’t walk on the outside?”

“Then you cross the street. Do not put yourself in a position where a man can reach out and seize you or, worse, stab you. A practiced rampsman can seize a cuff and pull a man into an alley the way a fisherman draws in his catch before gutting it.”

“But being near the curb is so … open. One might be attacked from a vehicle or shot at from a window.”

“Of course, the curb is not without its dangers. That is why it is important to look for open windows or vehicles slowing near you. One grows accustomed to looking for movement in upper windows. As for vehicles, they are difficult to get out of. It is a true dullard who cannot get away from a man in a cab. Come.”

He led me briskly down the street. Gallenga moved easily for an old man, and he walked without a stick or hat. The sunlight glistened on his pink scalp beneath a thin layer of hair.

“At night,” he continued, “it is necessary to move even farther out. It is best to walk in the street if possible, but avoid standing under gas lamps and making oneself a target for an enemy’s bullet. Now tell me, you are walking down the street. What are you looking at?”

“The windows above?”

“Yes, but I mean the people. Are you looking at the women?”

“Well, yes, actually.”

He gave a low chuckle. “So am I. Unfortunately, at my age, all I can do is look. But you must study the men as well. Any one of them, even a group, could be a grave danger to you. What kind of men would you need to keep an eye out for?”

“Bigger men,” I hazarded.

“Which in your case is most of them. Yes, bigger men, stronger men. What else?”

“Armed men?”

“Very good. Look at their hands or even their pockets, if their hands hover near them. What else?”

“I scarce can say.”

“What of trained men? Would you avoid a man with the cauliflower ears and heavy brow of a fighter? Of course you would. If you did not know him, would you avoid a man like your employer?”

“Yes, sir. Definitely.”

“Good. You are tethered to a hard man. What other kind of man should you avoid?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“A mad one, sir. Watch carefully those who mutter in the street or who look worried and disturbed. Very well, Mr. Llewelyn, now suppose a man seizes you, despite all your carefulness. What do you do?”

“Order him to let go.”

“And if he won’t?”

“Take a swing at him, I suppose.”

Gallenga opened his hand and fluttered it in a very Italian gesture.

“Eh, sometimes that might work. It would get you arrested in London, but that is not a bad thing if you suspect the man has a gun or knife. Better arrested than dead, don’t you think? But the best thing to do is to simply break the hold. I assume your employer has shown you how to do that?”

“Oh, yes. Dozens of ways,” I told him.

“Good. So you break his hold. What then?”

“Run.”

“Yes, run. Or shout your head off. Cry ‘murder’ if you like. Anything. Above all, do not allow yourself to be trapped again. What else should you look for?”

Again, I had to admit I didn’t know.

“Accomplices. Look for the man with a cosh or a life preserver. Yes, a smack behind the ear and down you go, maybe forever. Watch out for the second fellow. They often work in pairs, you know.” He stopped in front of a cafe and looked inside. “Do you like coffee?”

“I love coffee,” I admitted.

“Step in here, then. This is a Sicilian cafe.”

Gallenga led me into the small establishment, tastefully set up with mahogany tables and white linen. I thought it looked new and wondered if its owner might have anything to do with Etienne’s attack. Le Toison d’Or was but a few streets away.

“Where would you suggest we sit?” the old man asked in my ear.

“That’s a fair question,” I replied. “If I’m by the window, I risk being shot at from the street. If I’m in the corner there, I shall be trapped like a rat, but if I’m by the kitchen, I’m at the mercy of someone coming through the back door. My word, it seems as though no place is safe.”

“No place is safe, my friend. In fact, safety is an illusion, and the safest looking place may be the most dangerous. You were acquainted with the late Mr. Serafini? He was not always the large man you knew. Once, he hid inside a small chest through an entire ball and a political meeting afterward. Several hours later, when his target, a general, was seated and going over plans for a political coup, Serafini jumped up like a jack-in-the-box and shot him dead. The man had thought he was safe, and it cost him his life. Eventually Serafini himself let down his guard. As far as this cafe is concerned, I believe I would choose a table near the kitchen. One could always fight one’s way out the back door.”

We sat down at a table and Gallenga ordered two coffees from a waiter who appeared to know him well.

“Excuse me, sir,” I asked after the waiter left, “but how do you know all these things? Are they common knowledge among the Sicilians or do you have some connection to … to any organization involved in this case? How did you learn how to use a dagger?”

“Once, I was a student agitator, when the Bourbons ruled Sicily,” Gallenga said, “then a political prisoner, and then I met the man, Giuseppe Mazzini himself, and became an assassin.”

There was a time when I would have blurted out “assassin!” and attracted attention throughout the cafe. Now I merely said, “Really?”

“Yes, but I was not very good at it, I admit. After a failed attempt, I became a fugitive, eventually coming to England. The Times required someone knowledgeable about Italian affairs and I needed work. I’ve been doing it now for twenty-five years and have written several books.”

“Do you have any connection to the Mafia?”

“I am a member, Mr. Llewelyn. I took a blood oath, one I can never forswear.”

I thought about that as the coffee arrived, small porcelain cups of espresso with rusty cream on top.

“Oh, my word,” I said, after I’d taken a sip. “I believe that’s the best cup of coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

“I will not doubt your word, sir.”

“So, Mr. Barker says the Camorran organization is older than the Mafia.”

“Far older. It goes back a century or two when Naples was ruled by Spain and a criminal organization known as the Garduna sent exiles to Italy.”

“So, in order to escape prosecution in Spain, they went to Naples, just as you came to England in order to prevent your arrest in Italy.”

“Yes, and as Victor Gigliotti did. You did not think he came to England to sell tutti-frutti, did you? He is wanted in Naples.”

I put down my empty cup and hesitated. “That’s cracking good coffee. Might I have another cup?”

Gallenga shook his head. “Better not. Sicilian coffee is very strong. Another cup and you won’t sleep tonight.”

“I’m not certain I’ll sleep anyway now, not without checking every closet and chest in the house for assassins.”

“That is the ‘eye’ I was telling you about. From now on, if you enter a room without asking yourself what is the safest way to escape, it shall not be my fault.”

“It looks like some trouble is brewing between these two rival organizations. Mr. Barker seems determined to stop a war from breaking out in London, but, if I may say it, you appear to be in the enemy camp.”

“After twenty-five years, I consider myself a Londoner, and believe me when I say that I do not want to see it turned into another Palermo with a list of assassinations in the Sunday edition of The Times. I am willing to help your employer up to a point. I will teach you to fight with a dagger, for instance. However, I want you to understand I’m doing this to repay a debt.”

Gallenga paid the bill with a few brief words to the owner and went out the door with his hands in his pockets, hunched over as if he’d forgotten I was there. I followed along behind him back to his garden.

“Have you ever seen a dagger?” he asked, turning back to me suddenly. “Do you know the difference between a dagger and a knife?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded. “Mr. Barker owns a few. A dagger has two symmetrical blades and is weighted for throwing.”

“Not always,” the journalist said, holding up a finger, “but most of the time, I’ll grant you. Have you ever held one?”

“Yes, but only to open a letter.”

“Open a letter!” he roared in my face. “You use an Italian dagger to open a common letter? Why do you tell such things to an old man? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Open a letter,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his chest. “Mia madre.”

He opened a garden shed and reached down by the door, pulling a dagger out of a bucket that was full of sawdust. “The old woman will not let me keep my blades in the house,” he explained. “If they are not kept in oiled sawdust, they will rust. It is important to take care of one’s weapons.”

He wiped the dagger and handed it to me hilt first.

“Here is a proper dagger. The point, for thrusting forward, an edge on either side for cutting, a hilt for stopping another weapon, and a ball at the other end for breaking a bone or punching a hole in someone’s skull. In a city such as London, it is the most important defense one can own.”

“What about a walking stick?” I asked, holding up my malacca.

“Pfui. A wand. A stick of wood. A splinter. Try putting that through a man’s intestines. It’s impossible.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” I admitted.

“Put your stick down,” Gallenga ordered.

I put it down beside a bench in the garden, then came forward at his bidding and reached for the dagger he presented.

“Ow!” I cried, as the point entered the fleshy webbing between my thumb and forefinger. He’d done it on purpose.

Gallenga raised the blade he still held in his hand and watched as the drop of blood slicked the blade and puddled at the hilt.

“This is your blade now, Thomas Llewelyn. It has tasted your blood and now it knows its master. I make it a gift to you, for I cannot stand between you now.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Gallenga cut his own hand in the same place with his personal blade, then reached out to me. We shook hands and in so doing, a blood covenant was made between us.

“You must promise not to teach what you learn here to anyone save your own son, when the time is right. I assume you have none at the moment.”

“No, sir. I promise.”

He raised his hand like a soothsayer. “A benediction from an old man, then. May you have a houseful of sons.”

I had not asked for a houseful. In fact, I hadn’t asked for any, but I knew sons were important in Italian culture, and so I merely thanked him.

“And now, let the lesson begin. This is how to hold a Sicilian dagger.”