He knew it because he had done it. The sweat beads fell down from his Host's face and onto his own, and into his own gasping mouth, and he thought he could taste the salt of the sweat. He did not try to cry for mercy. Those last moments, before consciousness slipped from him, he tried only to maintain his dignity. If he kept his dignity, then he would have also the respect… the need for respect was so great. He saw the face above him, he heard the cackling of the laughter and the grunted effort. He was slipping… It was right that the old man from Canicatti should die at the hand of his equal. I hat was the mark of the respect in which he was held. He was gone…

All the men bent over the still figure on the carpet from Iran laughed and sweated and gasped to soak the air back into their lungs. It was a joke. It was to be laughed at, the way they had fallen on the floor and slid across the wood blocks like kids playing.

And in he laughed at too was the way that the old goat's tongue had come half out of his throat, and his eyes half out of their sockets.

The rain beat on the windows of the apartment. The mist shrouded the mountains above Palermo.

The body of a rival was roped in the old way, the way used to throttle a goat, the way of the incaprettamento, so that when thestiffness of death gripped the body, it would already be small withthe rope tied to the ankles and hooking them up towards the small of the Guest's spine and then reaching up to the back of the Guest's throat No symbol, just convenience. It was convenient to use the old way because then it would be easier to lift the stiffened body into the boot of a car. The body of the Guest would leave the apartment via the service lift from the kitchen to the underground car park beneath the block, and the body of the grandson, and the driver who was tied and bound and gagged and who had the terror in his eyes because he loved life more than respect.

As the