Cantarella

Cantarella is the Palermo-based figure at the top of the criminal hierarchy Creasy describes: a beneficiary of the kidnapping network whose share extends, in Creasy’s account, from ransom to killing. The novel gives little direct access to Cantarella himself. Instead, it establishes his importance through the structure of the Italian Mafia, the danger of reaching him at Villa Colacci, and the precautions Creasy takes against the possibility that Cantarella will identify him.

Position in the criminal hierarchy

Creasy’s account places Cantarella above the principal figures in Milan and Rome. Fossella and Abrata are the two main bosses in Milan, but Fossella is implicated in the kidnapping and is described as coming after Rabbia and Sandri in the chain of responsibility. Conti, based in Rome, is due a share as well. At the far end of this sequence stands Cantarella in Palermo, who receives a portion of everything. The account makes his power legible as a position within a network: other men carry out or organize the crime, while he profits at the highest level.

That distinction matters to the novel’s portrayal. Creasy does not say that Cantarella personally abducted Pinta or ordered her death. He identifies Cantarella as a recipient in the criminal arrangement, and his bitter conclusion is that Cantarella now gets a share of the killing too. The remark marks an escalation in what the network’s profits represent: Pinta’s death has followed a kidnapping for which the ransom had already been paid. Cantarella’s culpability, as presented here, rests on his place in that system and on the reach of its proceeds, rather than on a narrated account of his individual actions.

The power behind his position

Guido Arrellio describes the Italian Mafia as more powerful than outsiders generally believe. In parts of southern Italy and Sicily, he says, it can operate as the law, punishing and rewarding people on its own terms. Its influence reaches into political offices, police forces, courts, and prisons; its informers and strong-arm groups extend through cities, towns, and villages. Authorities periodically mount efforts against it, but corruption and infiltration weaken the institutions meant to enforce the law. Guido also recalls that the Mafia returned stronger after Mussolini’s suppression, which had relied on Fascist methods and harmed innocent people as well.

This account supplies the political scale of Cantarella’s importance without assigning every described act to him personally. He is not shown bribing an official, directing a police force, or running a prison. Rather, his place at the Palermo end of the hierarchy connects him to a criminal order that can obstruct law enforcement and project power across ordinary civic life. His apparent security is therefore not simply a matter of guards or walls: it belongs to an organization with money, information, local reach, and the capacity to make pursuit dangerous.

Villa Colacci and the problem of access

As Creasy and Guido discuss the stages of the campaign, Creasy identifies Villa Colacci as the difficult target and notes that Cantarella rarely leaves it. Guido observes that Cantarella will not move at all once he knows he is being targeted. Their exchange makes the villa a strategic obstacle: Cantarella’s relative immobility limits opportunities to reach him elsewhere, while a warning could make the challenge harder still.

Creasy does not disclose his entry plan to Guido, although he has already decided how he will get in. He says he will have visited Palermo three months earlier, and the secrecy of his plan is deliberate. The conversation thus presents Cantarella not through a personal confrontation but through the practical demands his position imposes on the campaign: Creasy must keep options open in discussion while withholding the method he has settled on. The difficulty of the target and the need to protect information become part of the same problem.

Exposure, pursuit, and narrative role

Creasy also anticipates that Cantarella may work out who is carrying out the killings. After Conti’s removal, he plans to operate alone, without contact or a fixed base, and to discard both cars and the van. Guido understands the reason: if Cantarella and the police identify the killer, they may trace him back to Guido and question him. Creasy’s precautions are therefore aimed not only at avoiding arrest but at preventing the campaign from exposing his closest friend.

The possibility that Cantarella will recognize the pattern of killings gives him influence even when he is absent from the scene. His anticipated response shapes Creasy’s logistics, limits communication, and changes the relationship between the two friends from direct cooperation toward protective distance. The novel’s evidence leaves Cantarella’s own thoughts, personal history, and eventual fate unstated. His narrative force comes instead from the combination of his position at the top of the network, the security of Villa Colacci, and the threat that his organization can pose to anyone connected to the pursuit.