But there were no skaters in the park.
A bicycle?
All the bicycles I saw were securely padlocked. They weren’t a very trusting bunch, the people of San Luca.
Steal a car?
I’d hotwired a bulldozer, hadn’t I? But that had been pretty straightforward. And I’d had my iPhone to help me.
And even though the Zolt had made hotwiring a car look easy, that was because he’d been doing it his whole life.
No, stealing a car wasn’t an option either.
And then it came to me: of course, Father Luciano!
He’d helped me before, he’d help me again.
Back across the piazza to the church.
The door was open and there were a few people inside, kneeling, praying.
I hurried through and into the next room, the one where all the stuff was kept and – thank god and all those who work for him – there was Father Luciano, his back to me.
‘Father,’ I said. ‘I need your help.’
‘Of course, my son,’ said Father Luciano, turning around.
Except it wasn’t Father Luciano, it was sexy-things-to-the-passing-girls Carlo.
‘You’re not a priest!’ I said.
‘Indeed I am,’ he said.
‘But … but … but where is Father Luciano?’
‘He has taken up, how shall I say, a more permanent position.’
It was time to run.
I turned around, and there blocking my way was Droopy Eye and his fellow members of the Strangio clan.
I turned back to Carlo, Father Carlo.
‘The feud between the Strangio clan and the Silvagni clan has been going since 1852. I helped you once, but I’m afraid I’m unable to help you again.’
Hands grabbed me and I felt the sharp point of a knife in the small of my back.
I was pushed forward, into the room with all the books, and then through a series of other rooms.
Until there were no more rooms.
Were they going to kill me here?
Was this where I was going to take my last breath?
One of the kids took hold of a large steel ring on the floor and pulled it upwards.
It was a trapdoor, and steps inside led downwards.
‘Go down there,’ said Droopy Eye. ‘And don’t bother trying to escape, because there is nowhere you can go.’
I knew he was telling the truth.
I took the steps and I was in a tunnel again.
Again the point in the small of my back.
Tunnel after tunnel until we were there again, the cell with the graffiti on its walls, the hiding place.
I wouldn’t say it felt like home, but it was deeply familiar, a familiarity my previous brief visits should not have given it.
And I wondered whether this was a memory I’d inherited somehow. That it was in my DNA somehow.
When I saw the empty can I’d used as a piss bomb I couldn’t help smiling.
‘You think this is funny,’ said Droopy Eye.
And fear inside me was spreading, its icy tentacles creeping through my guts.
Eventually Droopy Eye said, ‘Your father killed my father.’
‘So you keep saying,’ I said.
There was far-off sound, a sort of clatter, but my captors ignored it so I guessed sounds like that weren’t unusual down here.
‘What do you want from me?’ I said.
‘Il tuo sangue,’ said Droopy Eye.
That I understood – your blood.
‘You want to kill me?’ I said.
‘Of course we want to kill you,’ said Droopy Eye. ‘Like your father killed my father.’
I could see what he was getting at.
In fact, it almost seemed reasonable that I should pay with ‘il tuo sangue’.
I looked around, my eyes flicking from one wall to the other.
How to escape? There was no escape.
Not by running, there wasn’t. Or by fighting. I was just a fifteen-year-old kid, not Arnie, Bruce or Tom – Not even Hercules, the original action hero.
This was the real world, not ninety minutes of Hollywood.
‘Maybe there is another way,’ I said.
Droopy Eye said nothing.
I rubbed my finger and thumb together, the universal sign of money.
Droopy Eye said something.
Hands grabbed my hands from behind, bending my arms back.
And Droopy Eye was next to me, and his knife was at my neck, and the tip was pushing against my Adam’s apple.
‘Please don’t,’ I cried.
The knife pushed deeper and I could feel it puncture the skin.
Il tuo sangue.
I was going to die here.
In this godforsaken place.
There was sound of footsteps.
People running.
People yelling in Italian.
My arms were released.
The knife went away.
There were now two other people in the cell.
Seb was one of them. And the other was Nike, the kid who had swiped my iPhone in the Colosseum.
And Nike was holding a gun.
Seb said something to Droopy Eye in what sounded like Calabrian.
Droopy Eye said something defiant back.
Seb nodded to Nike.
Nike squeezed the trigger and the gun went off, the retort amplified to a crazy volume in the confined space.
At first I thought he’d shot one of the kids, because they all dropped to the ground.
But then I understood what had happened: Seb had told them to get on the ground.
Droopy Eye had refused.
So Seb had given him a ballistic hurry-up.
Seb said something else in Italian and, as Nike went around, each of the kids handed over his mobile phone.
Seb still wasn’t satisfied, however.
He took one of the phones, scrolled through the contacts.
He rang a number.
One of the phones Nike had collected rang.
He rang another number.
From Droopy Eye came the sound of a ringing phone.
He had two phones!
I would never have thought to do something like that.
Nike went back to Droopy Eye and casually kicked him in the ribs. Droopy Eye screamed and rolled.
Nike jammed the barrel of the gun into Droopy Eye’s guts and used the other hand to remove his second phone. Once he’d done this he stood up again.
Nike was one scary customer and I wondered about the fight I’d had with him in the hypogeum, whether I’d beaten him just a bit too easily.
Now that he had all their phones Seb set about disabling them, removing the backs, taking out the batteries and the sim cards, putting them in his pocket.
‘Okay, Dom, we’re going to get you out of here now. Just follow us, that’s all you need to do,’ Seb said to me.
Okay, there were a whole lot of questions that wanted answers: How did Seb find me? How did he know Nike?
But now wasn’t the time or the place for them.
I concentrated on following Seb and Nike as they scooted from one tunnel to the other.
There were sounds all around us now: footsteps, voices.
‘Are they following us?’ I asked Seb.
‘We’re almost there,’ he said.
We’d reached a sort of cul-de-sac.
An iron ladder ran up the wall.
Seb took out his phone, rang a number, said something in Calabrian.
‘We’re clear,’ he said.
Nike scurried up the ladder first, pushing a cover aside when he reached the top.
Then it was my turn, Seb right behind me.
I sort of recognised where we were, right near the cemetery, the one I’d run through that day I’d left the church.
‘Quick, over there,’ said Seb, pointing.
Two generic-looking black cars had pulled up.
Seb opened the back door to the first one and said, ‘Get in.’
<
br /> ‘What about you?’ I said.
‘Just get in and get down,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain later.’
I didn’t argue: I got in and I got down.
The car took off and I stayed down.
As we rolled down the mountain for the third, and I hoped final, time, I thought about what I’d just been through.
Already it had the feeling of unreality, as if it was a dream, or a video I’d just watched.
After an hour or so the driver, in a voice I sort of recognised, said, ‘Okay, now.’
I sat up.
Slim was behind the wheel.
Now there really was too much to compute: my hard disk was whirring, my CPU was running hot, my brain was about to combust.
Enough!
I closed my eyes and emptied my mind of everything except for one thought: I was alive.
When I opened my eyes again, Slim was smiling at me.
‘We going to Roma?’ I said.
‘Si, Roma.’
‘Apparently that’s where all the roads go anyway.’
The joke, if you could call it that, was lost on Slim.
SUNDAY
THE LEANING TOWERS OF PISA
As I stood in the boarding queue, willing it to move quicker, I was sweating like a drug smuggler with a gutful of ganja.
I couldn’t help sneaking looks behind me, expecting them to appear. Them being the Swiss gendarmes, Droopy Eye, Carlos, any of those people who were after me.
I wasn’t sure if technically I was in Italy any more – I’d had my passport stamped – but I desperately wanted to be on the plane and the plane be in the air and Italy to be a long, long way away.
Basically, I was a mess.
Something that didn’t go unnoticed.
‘Are you okay?’ said the person behind me in the queue.
I turned around – it was the girl-whose-name-I-couldn’t-remember, dressed in her customary green and gold.
‘Sorry, what’s your name?’ I said.
‘Julie, but everybody calls me Jules,’ she said.
‘I’m Dom,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Bad luck about the race.’
‘I ran a really dumb race,’ I said.
The queue moved and Jules shuffled the enormous bag at her feet forward.
‘Wow, what’s in there?’ I said.
‘Souvenirs,’ she said. ‘I’ve got, like, this ginormous family.’
Souvenirs?
My mind travelled back.
To PJ dropping me at the airport, to her saying ‘Can you bring me back one?’
To me saying, ‘Sure.’
Her: You promise?
Me: I promise.
So what, I’d made a promise to a street kid. Even if I did ever see her again, which was unlikely, she probably wouldn’t even remember.
The queue moved forward.
‘My mum, she used to have this little model on her dressing table,’ PJ had said.
Hell!
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ said Jules.
‘I forgot to get somebody something,’ I said. ‘Can you make sure the plane doesn’t leave without me?’
Last time I’d been here, I’d deplaned. Now I de-queued. I hurried out of the departure lounge and towards the area where all the shops were.
‘Do you have any leaning towers of Pisa?’ I asked the woman in the first shop I came to.
She raised a very thin eyebrow, and said ‘Probably not.’
A quick scan of the shop’s merchandise and I understood why – very expensive-looking jewellery sparkled under glass cabinets.
I kept going.
But every shop seemed determined to uphold Italy’s reputation as an eye-wateringly expensive fashion mecca.
Where was the crap when you needed it?
An announcement came over the loudspeaker.
‘Calling passenger Dominic Silvagni, your plane is now ready for departure.’
Just as I was ready to give up, I saw it.
A shop full of absolute rubbish: plastic Pantheons, gondola ashtrays, the Bridge of Sighs in a snow globe and – oh joy! – leaning towers of Pisa.
I chose the six-inch model (with free postcard and keychain) shoved the rest of my euros at the woman behind the counter, and ran back to the departure gate.
‘Mr Silvagni?’ said the lone flight attendant, right emphasis on the right syllables, as I approached.
‘Si,’ I said.
I hurried onboard, the other passengers giving me filthy looks as I made my way to my seat.
‘You get it?’ said Jules as I passed her.
‘Sure,’ I said, smiling.
But that smile dropped right off my face when I saw my seat: I was sitting next to Marge Jenkins.
Boss of everybody. And everything.
The Debt was the worst thing to have come into my life. It had almost killed me a dozen times in a dozen different ways. But here I was, wanting, waiting, willing them to contact me.
Why weren’t The Debt talking to me? Why weren’t we out there looking for Yamashita’s Gold?
Read what happens next …
September 2013
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