Viper

by Unknown

  Not people, just women. Men were mere flotsam.

  King had been right; you could never judge people from the measly ten per cent that they showed in public. It’s the ninety per cent of ourselves that we keep hidden that is most interesting.

  Creed liked the idea of comparing himself to an iceberg. Cool. Surprising. Powerful. It summed him up perfectly. He ran King’s lecture over in his head. It had been worth travelling over for. Well worth meeting the great Jack King. What was it that he had said that had most impressed him?

  Thought, Feeling, Action – the three things to concentrate on. Creed let the words swim in his head. He was acting like most everyone else in Star-bucks, just sitting there getting warm, hiding from the bitter blizzard blowing outside. But right now he was thinking about how you would abduct and kill a woman.

  His eyes settled on a petite blonde who’d stopped in front of the window. She was trying to find a cellphone ringing in her purse. Nice face. Nice shape. Easy prey.

  Her long blue coat was tightly tailored, hugging her waist and flowing fashionably down to knee-length black boots. He imagined her naked but with the boots still on, his hands around her slender hips as he pressed her against him. Skin on skin. Skin on leather.

  He was sure she would have a small tight ass and firm legs. An ass he’d want to slowly explore with his tiny bony fingers. Legs he’d love to run his tongue up and down before unzipping those boots.

  Taste. Touch. See. FEEL.

  Creed was already feeling, feeling fully aroused. He had to shuffle positions on his window seat to shake off the fantasy.

  Thought, feeling, ACTION.

  ACT like a killer. Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? What all profilers were trained to do? Well, he could certainly do that – better than anyone dare imagine. He had great talents. Skills people still needed to recognize.

  Creed wiped coffee from his lips, but his smile still lingered, and so did his own strange thoughts and fantasies.

  7

  Hotel Le Sirenuse, Positano

  Damn Don Fredo! May his soul rot in hell! Bruno Valsi slapped a hand against the wall of the hotel’s honeymoon suite.

  The old man was cleverer than he’d given him credit for. Elevation to the rank of Capo Zona was generous repayment for the loyalty he’d shown. But having Sal the Snake forced upon him – well, that was something else. It was humiliation. It was distrust. It was an insidious way of controlling him. It was damned clever.

  ‘Bruno. Is that you?’ called a hopeful voice from the bedroom of the luxury suite. As a teenager, Valsi had taken up with the young and plain-looking Gina Finelli. He’d done it purely as a way of ingratiating himself with her father, perhaps getting a little work, some protection in his life. Then Gina’s accidental pregnancy had changed things. The obligatory wedding that followed proved a blessing in disguise and Valsi’s ambitions vaulted. But now – to be honest – the Don’s daughter was another problem he could well do without. What little feelings he’d had for her had disappeared as surely as her waistline had vanished during his years inside. He couldn’t believe how she’d piled on the pounds.

  A woman’s disrespect for her body is disrespect for her husband.

  The bedroom lights were out and the room was lit only by the flicker of candlelight. Enzo was sleeping in an adjoining suite with his nanny and a bodyguard ouside the door. Gina was reclining against a mountain of cushions and pillows on the bed. ‘Did it go well for you?’ Her voice was soft and calm.

  ‘Well enough,’ said Valsi coolly. He swept his jacket around the back of a chair, like a matador swirling a cape around a bull, then sat on the edge of the bed to untie his shoelaces. ‘Your father, he sees fit to give me my own crew, but then he as good as tells everyone that he has me on a lead and that Salvatore – his trusted, thick-headed Salvatore – will walk me like a young pup that doesn’t yet know when to bark or when to sit.’

  Gina grimaced. This wasn’t what she’d hoped for. For five years she’d faithfully waited for this night, for the very moment her husband would return to her bed. She’d not only personally chosen the suite, but the red and pink silk lingerie she wore had been specially made for her. No woman alive could have tried harder, or been more nervous about creating exactly the right mood for them to restart their marriage.

  Valsi stripped off his shirt and dropped it on the chair. He stood to undo his belt and could feel her eyes trace the sculpted muscles of his shoulders, chest and abdomen. He slid off his pants and folded them, as he’d done every night in his cell. Gina could see that his thighs bulged from endless squats performed in the prison gym.

  ‘Let me help you,’ she said, a girlish lightness in her voice as her fingers slid around the waistband of his Calvin’s.

  ‘Let me piss.’ Valsi brushed her hand away.

  He left her stranded on the edge of the bed. Her outstretched arms still held the air where he’d been. Her eyes followed him to the bathroom. He walked like a panther, taut and muscular, dangerous and exotic. She ached to dig her nails into his skin and feel the rush of him inside her. He was back, and she wanted him again. ‘Uncle Sal really likes you,’ she called, hoping to lift his mood.

  ‘He’s not your uncle. Why do you call him that?’ Valsi urinated noisily as he spoke.

  Gina picked at her fingernails. ‘He’s like an uncle. He’s been around my family since I was a young kid.’

  ‘So has the mailman. Maybe you should call him uncle too.’

  Gina tried to stay positive. ‘Maybe it is good that my father wants Sal to look out for you. Maybe this is a good thing?’

  ‘And maybe not. Maybe it is a stupid and dangerous thing.’ He flushed the toilet. ‘Maybe it is the worst thing that could be done to me – and maybe your father knows that.’ He stepped into the shower. Enough of the maybes. His wife and her bed could wait. He had no desire to be with her.

  At Poggioreale, showers were dangerous places. Places where people got fucked in the ass. Places where people got knifed and killed. Places you were never safe. Now, he stood under the steaming waterfall, trying to relax, trying to clear his mind. One question bothered him more than most: How long can I stand living with this fat bitch?

  Eyes closed, head tilted back, he turned up the heat but still couldn’t soak the smell of Poggioreale from his pores nor banish the jail’s demons from his memory. Prison didn’t just affect you, it seeped through your skin and twisted itself into your DNA. It altered you forever.

  Valsi felt edgy. Permanently edgy. One blink away from an outburst of violence.

  He pulled on a white towelling robe and struggled to get used to its softness as he headed to the bedroom.

  Could he fuck her? Should he fuck her? Hell, did he even need to bother with this shit?

  Gina sensed his dark mood. ‘You look tired, baby, come here and let me look after you.’ She pulled back the crisp white bed linen so he could slip in beside her.

  Valsi could smell the sheets, sharp and fresh with a tang of lemon. Again this unaccustomed luxury rankled. He sat on the edge of the bed. He and his wife were only inches apart, but there may as well have been miles between them. ‘We need to talk.’ He bowed his head and focused on the strange-smelling sheets. ‘I don’t want there to be any confusion about how things are between us.’

  She reached out to take his hand. Wanted him to know that she understood his awkwardness. Valsi moved it away.

  He had made up his mind that he was going to put the record straight, lay down the new rules, right from the start. ‘Gina, I think you know I will always be a good father to Enzo, and I will always provide for you and for my son.’

  His wife smiled. ‘I know you will, Bruno. You are a good man and we both love you so much…’

  ‘Let me finish!’ His dark eyes grew wide and cold. ‘We both know that a marriage is forever. But you have become a fat ugly woman while I have been in prison. So fat that you sicken me. Have you looked at yourself?’

  Gina was shocke
d.

  She knew she wasn’t the shape she’d been when he was arrested, but surely she didn’t deserve this? The rejection stung. She pulled the covers up over her arms, an involuntary sign of retreat that she hated as soon as she realized she’d done it.

  ‘Yes, please do that. Cover yourself up, you disgust me. Chiattona.’ Valsi contemptuously flicked the rest of the covers up at her.

  Gina’s temper snapped. No one insulted her like that. ‘How dare you fucking speak to me like this!’ She jumped out of the bed and stood right up close to him. ‘Who the hell do you think –’

  Valsi grabbed her face. The fingers of his right hand dug into her skin as he squeezed hard. ‘Shut the fuck up and listen. And don’t talk back to me.’ He pushed her on to the bed.

  Gina sprang at him. Inches from his face. Her eyes flashed defiance. ‘Don’t you ever touch me! You bastard! You so much as lay a fucking finger on me and my father will kill you.’

  Valsi laughed at her. Laughed and then slapped her with the back of his hand. A hard flat blow across her stomach. It knocked the wind out of her. She doubled up over the bed and wheezed to catch her breath.

  ‘Have you learned nothing from the last time I had to punish you? Are you now stupid as well as fat and ugly?’

  Gina’s pain was deep and dull. The blow ached all the way through to her spine. She struggled to breathe.

  Valsi sat down and leaned over her. ‘Your father has just promoted me, made me Capo Zona. He’s done that because he fears me and respects me. Now is the time for you to be a good daughter and wife and respect him and fear me as well. Because if you cause any problems between us, if you become a scissionista, then you could end up getting both yourself and your father killed. You understand what I mean, don’t you?’

  Gina Valsi fully understood. Scissione was the Neapolitan term for a split within a Family, a scissored division, brought about by scissionisti. Faida was the result – internecine warfare – usually bloody, brutal and relentless.

  You can’t be foolish, Gina. Don’t create a bloodbath. This outburst is understandable. Bruno is adjusting to life outside prison. Don’t make too much of it. Imagine how difficult all this must be for him.

  Bruno could see her thinking things over. He brushed hair from her face and spoke more gently. ‘If you are asked, you will tell your father, your family and our friends, that we have the model marriage, and that I am the perfect loving husband and father. And I will tell everyone what a wonderful wife and mother you are. This is a marriage of convenience. Nonetheless it is a marriage, and marriage must be forever. Have I made myself clear?’

  Gina Valsi nodded. She didn’t want to be beaten again. She’d learned the hard way that Bruno would hurt her in places where the bruises would never show. And there was another thing she knew. For some mad, crazy reason, deep down she still loved him, and probably always would.

  8

  New York City

  Shiny’s restaurant was famous for its truffle-flavoured sturgeon and Kumamoto oyster and quail egg shooters. And those were the main reasons Jack had picked it for his rendezvous with Luciano Creed. His restaurant-owning wife had given him strict instructions to sample as much as possible and come away with both lunch and dinner menus. ‘Steal them if you have to!’ she joked as she kissed him goodbye. ‘And if you can get tips from the chef on how he makes the shooters, then tonight I’ll put a smile on your face wider than the Hudson.’

  It was smack on one o’clock when Creed walked through the door. He stamped snow on the doormat. Jack – always early for meetings – sipped still water without ice and watched him squint around the room before spotting him.

  ‘Hi, I didn’t see you at first,’ said Creed enthusiastically, as he settled into a chair and put a plastic folder on the tabletop.

  ‘Buon giorno, come stai ?’ said Jack amiably, noticing Creed wasn’t only wearing exactly the same clothes as the day before, but he smelled as though he’d been in them for the past year.

  ‘Aah, parli Italiano?’

  Jack laughed and raised a defensive hand. ‘I understand quite a lot, but I’m not so hot on the chat. All those irregular verbs and rule exceptions, they finally saw off my patience.’

  ‘So you don’t help out in your wife’s restaurant – in San Quirico, isn’t it?’

  Jack’s warmness faded. It was no secret that the former FBI man and his family had taken on the restaur ant, but it certainly wasn’t a big or famous hotel, so Creed must have been doing personal research. ‘Yes, it is. But how do you know about it?’

  ‘Like I said yesterday, I have come to New York to see you at the conference, and for you to look at this case.’ He tapped the plastic document folder in front of him. ‘So I do my research on you. I use Google, and I look at your website. And I see lots about you, then I use the MSN and the Yahoo and the Lycos and –’

  ‘I get the picture,’ said Jack, growing bored. ‘Shall we look at the menu and order?’

  ‘I take the spicy crab as an appetizer and the robata – the skewered meat – they recommend that as a house speciality.’

  ‘You Googled this restaurant too?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t want to waste time looking at a menu. You said you would give me one more hour of your time, and now…’ Creed glanced at his watch, ‘we have only fifty-seven minutes left and I want to make every second count.’

  Jack motioned to Creed’s document file. ‘Then let’s get going.’

  ‘Sì.’ The young Italian quickly produced papers and passed them across the table. ‘I made copies in the hotel. You have a map of the area in Naples marked with all the places the girls lived. And you can see also the times when they were seen.’

  Jack looked at the papers and saw dates for the first time. It made his blood boil. Creed had been holding back on him. ‘Luciano, I now understand why your cops in Naples aren’t giving you house room. These disappearances are all cold cases. In fact, they’re so damn cold they’re deep-frozen. They go back, what, five, maybe six years?’

  Creed was unflustered. ‘Yes, some more than six. From memory, the first disappearance was a little over eight years ago. But why is this important? A murder is still a murder, no matter when it happened.’

  Jack was exasperated. ‘Can you prove that even one of these women has been killed? Were any homicide investigations launched at the time of any of the disappearances?’

  Creed remained unfazed. He shook his head, then dug in his file and produced more paperwork. ‘Victimology,’ he announced. ‘Please listen to me and then tell me this is only coincidence.’ He handed over another sheet of paper and counted off his points on outstretched fingers: ‘All of the women had long hair, lived within twenty kilometres of each other, probably went to the same clubs and bars in Naples.’ Creed stopped to make sure Jack was following him. ‘As I said to you yesterday, Mr King, none of them packed clothes, none withdrew money, none told any friends they were running away and none seemed to have anything to run away from.’

  Jack softened. ‘And the police haven’t investigated this? I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Separately, yes,’ said Creed, ‘but not as one single case. Not with the thought that one person might have abducted and killed them.’

  There were lots of details still missing. ‘I imagine many young women run away from Naples. No doubt the prettier ones run furthest and have more chance of staying away. No disrespect, but I’m told Naples is not exactly the nicest place in Italy.’

  Creed shrugged. ‘In Naples there are no jobs. Many people live in what you call slums. Their homes are likely to be broken into, their cars stolen. And the Camorra kills many people every month. What sane young woman would not want to grow wings and fly from this city?’

  ‘Indeed. That’s exactly my point.’

  ‘But, Mr King, this pattern that I have shown you, this does not happen all the time. These kind of women don’t just vanish in this way.’

  As food came and went Jack gave him room to b
uild his case. ‘You mentioned the Camorra – you think the mob is involved in this?’

  Creed huffed out a laugh. ‘They are involved in everything. They run Naples. They control everything from the milk you drink to the rubbish you toss away. Do you know anything about them?’

  Jack didn’t show his offence. ‘It’s some time since general crime intel reports fell on my desk but I know about them.’

  ‘Without the Camorra, Naples and Campania would fall apart. They’re not just a crime organization, they’re a social welfare network. They’re the brains and wallet of most businesses. That’s why we don’t talk about the Camorra, we talk about the System. Where I was brought up, you had more chance of getting a job from the System than from the state. For every member of the Cosa Nostra in Italy there are now half a dozen Camorristi. They are everywhere. Everyone is somehow connected. And they want to be connected. If you’re part of the System you don’t worry about jobs, paying the rent, feeding your family. You’re made for life. The man who killed these women may be in the System, he may not. The point is, he’s a killer and he’s still free.’

  Thoughts clicked into place in Jack’s mind, a confusing Rubik’s cube of criminal puzzles. Were the women just missing, or were they dead? Was this so-called System responsible for their disappearances, or just a backdrop to everything? Was Luciano Creed really what he seemed, or maybe something even more unpleasant?

  Jack picked up the bill from a white china plate. As the waitress slotted his credit card into a reader, he noticed Creed openly checking her out, his stare so intense it almost sucked sweat from her skin.

  Hunter’s eyes. Cold and hungry, no softness, not even a flicker of warmth.

  The machine buzzed. Jack signed. The waitress smiled and thanked him for the tip. As she walked away, Creed swung round in his chair and drank in the last of her before she disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘Some women might think that rude,’ said Jack, unable to let it pass.