The Vivero Letter

'Could be,' agreed Fallon. 'It could also be that the quarrel between them -- whatever it was -- couldn't be reconciled so easily. Anyway, they didn't do anything about it. The Spanish branch lost their mirror and to the Mexican branch it was reduced to some kind of a legend.' He put his hands on the mirror possessively. 'But we've got them now -- that's different.'

II

Looking back, I think it was about this time that Fallon began to lose his grip. One day he went into the city and when he came back he was gloomy and very thoughtful, and from that day on he was given to sudden silences and fits of absent-mindedness. I put it down to the worries of a millionaire -- maybe the stock market had dropped or something like that -- and I didn't think much about it at the time. Whatever it was it certainly didn't hamper his planning of the Uaxuanoc expedition into which he threw himself with a demoniac energy. I thought it strange that he should be devoting all his time to this; surely a millionaire must look after his financial interests -- but Fallon wasn't worried about anything else but Uaxuanoc and whatever else it was that had made him go broody.

It was in the same week that I met Pat Harris. Fallon called me into his study, and said, 'I want you to meet Pat Harris -- I borrowed him from an oil company I have an interest in. I'm fulfilling my part of the bargain; Harris has been investigating Niscemi.'

I regarded Harris with interest although, on the surface, there was little about him to excite it. He was average in every way; not too tall, not too short, not too beefy and not too scrawny. He wore an average suit and looked the perfect average man. He might have been designed by a statistician. He had a more than average brain -- but that didn't show.

He held out his hand. 'Glad to meet you, Mr. Wheale,' he said in a colourless voice.

Tell Wheale what you found,' ordered Fallon.

Harris clasped his hands in front of his average American paunch. 'Victor Niscemi -- small time punk,' he said concisely. 'Not much to say about him. He never was much and he never did much -- except get himself rubbed out in England. Reform school education leading to bigger things -- but not much bigger. Did time for rolling drunks but that was quite a while ago. Nothing on him in the last four years; he never appeared on a police blotter, I mean. Clean as a whistle as far as his police record goes.'

That's his official police record, I take it. What about unofficially?'

Harris looked up at me approvingly. 'That's a different matter, of course,' he agreed. 'For a while he did protection for a bookie, then he got into the numbers racket -- first as protection for a collector, then as collector himself. He was on his way up in a small way. Then he went to England and got himself shot up. End of Niscemi.'

'And that's all?'

'Not by a hell of a long way.' said Fallon abruptly.

'Go on, Harris,'

Harris moved in his chair and suddenly looked more relaxed. There's a thing you've got to remember about a guy like Niscemi -- he has friends. Take a look at his record; reform school, petty assault and so on. Then suddenly, four years ago, no more police record. He was still a criminal and still small time, but he no longer got into trouble. He'd acquired friends.'

'Who were , . .?'

'Mr. Wheale, you're English and maybe you don't have the problems we have in the States, so what I'm going to tell yon now might seem extraordinary. You'll just have to take my word for it. Okay?'

I smiled. 'After meeting Mr. Fallon there's very little I'll find unbelievable.'

'All right. I'm interested in the weapon with which Niscemi killed your brother. Can you describe it?'

'It was a sawn-off shotgun,' I said.

'And the butt was cut down. Right?' I nodded. That was a lupara; it's an Italian word and Niscemi was of Italian origin or, more precisely, Sicilian. About four years ago Niscemi was taken into the Organization. Organized crime is one of the worse facts of life in the United States, Mr. Wheale; and it's mostly run by Italian Americans, It goes under many names -- the Organization, the Syndicate, Cosa Nostra, the Mafia -- although Mafia should strictly be reserved for the parent organization in Sicily.'

I looked at Harris uncertainly. 'Are you trying to tell me that the Mafia -- toe Mafia, for God's sake! -- had my brother killed?'