Viper

by Unknown

  Valsi stared back. The Don was well informed. These were men he wanted. Soldiers to form the backbone of his crew. ‘They are good men. They would join our Family if we asked. And if we do not ask, then they will join someone else’s Family and that will be our loss.’

  ‘They are not good men, Bruno, and they are no loss!’ The old man’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘They are heroin dealers who got caught, so they are not even good at that.’

  ‘They were not caught. They were betrayed,’ insisted Valsi, ‘by greedy cops who wanted more than their fair share in kickbacks.’

  Don Fredo sighed wearily. ‘All cops are greedy. It has been that way since the first of them pinned on a badge. These friends of yours are stupid if they do not understand these things and make provision. But that is not my main point.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Bruno, heroin and coke are not our things. Narcotics we leave to the Cicerone Family. They, in turn, leave the garment business to us. They do not tender against us when we produce for the big fashion houses and that gives us a rich advantage. Contrary to what the press say, we do cooperate with other Families and we do respect each other.’

  Valsi took a hit of brandy to calm himself. ‘Do you really believe that Cicerone does not supply counterfeit clothing to the houses in Milano? You think he does not own designer warehouses and outlets in Germany stacked with clothes made under your nose? With all due respect, his Family is worse than the cops who betrayed Alberto and Romano.’

  Sal had warned him that Valsi was bold. Nevertheless, the young man was even more stubborn than Don Fredo had bargained for. ‘The matter is closed.’ He picked up his cigar and for a second or so had to work hard at bringing it back to life. Finally he inhaled and slowly blew out a long thin cloud. ‘There is another issue. You and my daughter, everything between you is all right?’

  ‘Of course, why do you ask?’ Valsi was angered by the question.

  The old man’s eyes weighed his answer. He could see the unrest. ‘You seemed tense at dinner. I know it must be difficult for you both after being apart for so long, but I don’t like what I am seeing. It does not look like Romeo and Juliet to me. You young lovers should be overjoyed to be together again.’

  Valsi feigned embarrassment. ‘You are right, it is not yet easy.’

  ‘We should go back to the others.’ Don Fredo collected the cigar and creaked himself out of the leather. They both walked together but, as Valsi stepped towards the door to open it, the old man put his hand on his shoulder again and this time squeezed tightly. ‘We’ve spoken tonight of important things, but nothing in the world is more important to me than my daughter’s happiness. Make her joyous and you will be very richly rewarded. Break her heart and I will have you buried so deep no one will find you for centuries.’

  16

  Sunset View, South Brooklyn, New York City

  On the way back to Nancy’s parents’ house, Jack swung by the home of his ex-FBI partner Howie Baumguard. An expensive divorce and an expansive booze problem had moved him from West Village, SoHo, to rented-room squalor. Jack climbed the garbage-strewn steps outside his friend’s building, and made his way upstairs to a third floor that had never seen a working light bulb.

  He had to bang four times before Howie eventually slid the bolts and opened the paint-peeling door on a chain thick enough to tow a truck.

  ‘Hang on, I’ve got it,’ he said, squinting at Jack in the hallway.

  A warm, sour smell of beer and fried food hung in the air. The tiny room was so untidy it looked as if it had just been burgled.

  ‘Great to see ya, man. Great to see ya.’ Howie bear-hugged his former partner until he heard him gasp for air.

  Jack slapped his buddy’s back, then stepped away a pace. ‘Wish I could say the same about you. My friend, you look like a bag of shit.’

  ‘Man, ain’t you the charmer!’ Howie scratched the start of a bald spot appearing in his nest of unwashed hair. ‘Sit yourself down, Mr Smoothtongue, I’ll fix some coffee.’

  Jack watched him waddle away. Howie had just hauled himself out of the sack and was dressed in blue boxers and an old grey T that only half covered his paunch. He’d never been one to watch his weight but it looked as though recently he hadn’t even given it a passing glance.

  ‘I ain’t got milk. Black okay?’ Howie’s head was inside a fridge that smelled as though something old had crawled in there and died.

  ‘Just fine. You want some help?’

  ‘Yeah, sure do. I want that you shoot my ex-wife, so I don’t pay alimony. I want that you get me a new job paying half a mill a year. Oh shit, I nearly forgot. I want that Lindsay Lohan blows me twice a day and tidies up a little before she goes.’

  ‘That all?’ said Jack, moving dirty dishes and crumpled cans from around the foot of the couch. ‘Should be a breeze.’

  Howie eventually reappeared, his giant knuckles wrapped around the handles of two mugs of black coffee. ‘Man, I’d diet for Lindsay. Hell, I’d go to a fat farm and have a blubber-suck for her. You know, where they stick one of those friggin’ hose-pipes in your gut and – voom! – in a schlurp they’ve siphoned off forty pounds. Yep, for Lindsay, I’d lose the weight!’

  Howie handed over the coffee and slumped in a chair. ‘Anyway, how have you been keeping? How’s your catcher’s mitt?’

  Jack flexed the fingers of his left hand. It had been badly cut during his final encounter with the Black River Killer. ‘It’s getting there. Seems some nerve got damaged.’ Jack fell silent for a moment. Memories of BRK flooded back – the nightmares that had haunted him for years, the victims he’d been unable to save and the personal danger that BRK had exposed him and his family to. ‘Doc says I probably won’t ever have a hundred per cent feeling back but, with physio, I think I’m gonna get close.’

  ‘At least it’s not your right hand,’ said Howie, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

  ‘Yeah, thank God for small mercies. So, exactly what happened at the Bureau? I can’t believe you quit.’

  Howie shrugged his huge shoulders in a way that made him shrink. He looked like a jilted teenager who didn’t want to talk about it. ‘I was a mess, man. It was jump or be pushed, and I didn’t want the Push Monkey on my friggin’ back.’

  Jack tried the coffee. Cheap instant. Too hot to drink. Too bad to swallow.

  ‘You should have claimed some lost time, taken a spell of compassionate. I’m sure they’d have understood that you needed a little breathing space.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Howie, sounding defeatist. ‘Truth is, I can’t even walk straight, let alone think straight. I’m best outta there. I couldn’t bear the thought of fucking up in the field.’

  Jack put down the coffee. He could see his friend had been more depressed by the divorce than he’d realized. ‘You’ve got to kick the booze, Howie. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Booze helps me snooze,’ he joked. ‘Without it I just lie awake at nights and drive myself friggin’ crazy.’ Howie put his hands behind his head and stretched his neck, trying to ease the tension that seemed to be always with him. ‘Every minute of the goddamn day I can see Carrie getting balled by this punk at the gym that she went to. Christ alive! I was so fuckin’ stupid not to realize she was playing away.’

  Jack tried to get him focused. ‘What exactly is bugging you? Is it that you found your wife cheating? That you discovered she wanted to be with some other guy? Or just that you got divorced?’

  ‘All that and then some.’ Howie scratched at his head again and then checked his fingers to see if he’d lost more hair. ‘You know, I think what pisses me most is that I still love her. Even now, I’d forgive her and try again, but she don’t want none of it.’

  Jack tried to counsel the depression out of him but it was deep-seated, like a bruise that was yet to show its colour. It was going to take time to work through. He was still hurting for his friend as he said goodbye and caught a cab back. He’d promised they’d do lunch
soon and he’d help him get sorted.

  A couple of hours later, back at Nancy’s parents’ place, Jack was still thinking about Howie as he took a call from Massimo Albonetti. The Direttore cut to the chase. ‘Jack, I called the Criminal Investigations Unit in Naples. Turns out they know your Luciano Creed, and he is a strange young man.’

  ‘That I knew.’

  ‘Creed is late twenties, single, came to them on secondment from the university, with good recommendations. A top graduate in criminal psychology and on paper the perfect recruit to the Crime Pattern Analysis and Research Department. But that’s where the good stuff stops.’

  ‘I figured it might.’

  ‘That’s what makes you such a good profiler, Jack,’ joked Massimo. ‘A month ago they terminated Creed’s contract and escorted him off the premises. He shouldn’t even have been at that conference, let alone claim that he was there on behalf of either the university or the police.’

  ‘They give a reason why they let him go?’

  ‘Sexual harassment. No specific incident, but several female admin staff went to Personnel and complained about him.’

  ‘For doing what?’

  ‘Pestering them. Asking them out.’

  ‘Since when was that a crime in Italy?’

  Massimo laughed. ‘Since it was done by ugly, creepy guys who smelled like sewage. Women complained of his lack of personal hygiene and said they felt he was mentally undressing them. Even when they told him to get lost, he kept coming back.’

  ‘Anyone have a good word for him?’

  ‘From what I learned, I don’t think his Mamma would even have a good word for him. Given your comments, Jack, my colleagues in Naples would very much like to meet Creed. And they’d also like to talk to you about him. Do you know where he is?’

  A bad feeling stirred inside the profiler. ‘He’s disappeared, Massimo. Hotel receptionist said he headed out to Newark just after it reopened. Maybe he’s back in Naples, maybe he’s on the other side of the world.’

  Disappeared. The word resonated with both of them. Disappeared, just like the women had.

  Just like killers do.

  TWO

  Three days later

  17

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

  Chief of Homicide Capitano Sylvia Carmela Tomms stood outside the crime scene in the damp clearing of parkland and blew cigarette smoke high into the evening air.

  A local man walking his dog had found blackened human bones and now it seemed like half a forest was being excavated. An age-old murder was the last thing she wanted just before Christmas.

  The 35-year-old was one of only a few female captains in the carabinieri, an organization that until the new century hadn’t even admitted women into its ranks. She certainly looked the part. Striking black hair and dark eyes, good cheekbones and trim enough to turn heads whether she was in or out of uniform. She was also multilingual and had her sights set on the top. Sylvia was her German grandmother’s name, chosen for her by her father, a diplomat from Munich working in Italy. Carmela was her Italian mother’s name, a classical musician who’d met her father in Rome. And Tomms, well that was the marital name that she was about to get rid of, as soon as her divorce came through from the no-good Englishman she’d been foolish enough to marry.

  The cigarette break was her first since arriving at the scene and cranking up the slow engine of a murder inquiry. It was probably something and nothing. A domestic, no doubt. Angry husband kills unfaithful wife and buries her body in woods. No big deal. Nevertheless, Sylvia was determined that it be investigated every bit as thoroughly as if a rich politician had just been killed. That was her style. Never cut corners.

  The site had been taped off, an officer was in place to log visitors and a photographer had just arrived. An exhibits officer was on standby. A medic had pronounced death and the ME was on his way. The CSI had already established a safe corridor down which every man, woman and dog that had a right to be there could freely walk without fear of contaminating anything.

  She’d also instructed officers to grid the scene, mark it off in zones with tapes and poles, so that the whole area could be scrupulously searched and accurate notes kept of whatever was found.

  The crime-scene photographer began clicking away on the other side of the tape, getting wide shots of the location where forensic scientists were seemingly panning for bone.

  Sylvia’s Number Two, Lieutenant Pietro Raimondi, swigged from a small, green plastic bottle of Rocchetta Natura. ‘In case we find skull fragments, you will want an orthodontist. Shall I contact Cavaliere?’

  ‘No. Talk to Manuela in the office. She told me she found a hot new guy who studied at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Married, but gorgeous and prone to straying.’

  ‘Remember we are carabinieri!’ teased Raimondi. ‘Our motto is Nei Secoli Fedele.’ He melodramatically thumped his fist against his heart as though making an oath.

  ‘Well, Pietro, let me tell you, I stayed faithful throughout the centuries that I was married to that English dog. Now I’m free and I need some fun. And as for the dentist, well I think he probably took the Hippocratic Oath, and that means he’s sworn to secrecy.’

  She relaxed a little, blew the last of her cigarette away. ‘As well as DNA profiling, let’s get CT scans on those bigger pieces of bone. And we’ll need some anthropological and archaeological experts to look in detail at what we’ve got.’

  Raimondi, who at six-four was what Sylvia deemed ‘unnecessarily large for an Italian male’, reminded her of a problem. ‘We have no state forensic anthropologists available at the moment. Bossi and Bonetti are both still in Rome.’

  ‘Great! When are they going to be free, do you know?’

  Raimondi shrugged. ‘Not for some time. I think they have other work backing up.’

  Everyone had other work. Cases were backed up as far as Sicily. It seemed to Sylvia that you could double police resources and within a month they’d still be understaffed.

  ‘What about going private? Sorrentino or De Bellis?’ suggested Raimondi.

  Sylvia thought for a moment. Sorrentino was a top anthropologist and archaeologist, meaning he wasn’t just a bone man confined to the labs, he had expert field skills and could supervise the excavations. But he was also a bag of trouble. De Bellis, on the other hand, was probably a better osteologist, his anthropology was superb, but he was older than a dinosaur and could never be rushed to a deadline. ‘Sorrentino, but stress the confidentiality. Tell him we don’t want to be reading his report in La Repubblica before it’s on our desk.’

  Sylvia dropped her cigarette butt and ground it into the hard earth with the heel of her boot. She looked again at the excavation site and had a bad feeling. Something in her gut told her this wasn’t going to be routine. She shivered for a second. Sure, it was cold. But that hadn’t been what chilled her. What she’d felt wasn’t the weather. It was the presence of evil.

  18

  Greenwich Village, New York City

  It was one of those icy nights when the sky looks sharper than a sixty-inch plasma screen and the stars shine so brightly that kids try to touch them. Jack spent most of it walking around, while the rest of the house slept. The house was cold. The heating was off. He sat in the kitchen and brewed coffee. While he waited, he looked again at the slip of paper Creed had given him. Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi, Gloria Pirandello and Francesca Di Lauro. Their deaths in his hand. It had been clever of Creed to imply that, to write them down and press them into his palm. Stigmata of responsibility. It made it hard for him just to screw up the paper and forget them. The coffee boiled and Jack drank it black, warming his hands around a Yankees mug. Five missing women, their disappearances stretching back more than half a decade, linked by a strange pervert who had crossed continents to try to get him involved. It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep. His mind was churning with thoughts about Howie too. The big fella was all beat-up. The divorce had knocked him sideways, and then
the bottle he’d sought solace in had laid him out. Punch-drunk.

  Jack crept back into bed sometime before five and the warmth and close comfort of his wife’s body sent him to sleep.

  Less than two hours later his cellphone woke him.

  He’d forgotten to mute it and by the time he found it in the dark, it had tripped to voicemail.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said as Nancy turned over and stared at him.

  The message was from Massimo Albonetti, and it wasn’t the kind that anyone should start the day with.

  ‘It’s okay, put the light on,’ she said. ‘I’m awake now.’

  She watched as he listened to the call, and didn’t like what she saw on his face.

  He clicked off the phone. ‘Massimo.’

  ‘This Naples thing?’

  ‘Yes, this Naples thing. Massimo wants me to go out there.’

  Nancy ran her hands through her hair to untangle it. ‘Oh, he does, does he? And when exactly does he want you there?’

  ‘Early next week. Just to talk to the local cops, brief them on Creed, share the documents he gave me, that sort of thing. It could all be important.’

  Nancy did little to hide her exasperation. ‘Is there any point me pleading that we’re supposed to be on holiday? That this is our one break together? That it’s almost Christmas and I still have to help Mom and Dad prepare?’

  Jack put his arm around his wife so she had to lean on his chest. ‘Listen, honey. I feel bad about this guy Creed going AWOL. I feel even worse about things I found at his hotel and comments he made to me. I have to do this.’

  ‘Like what?’ she snapped. ‘What did he say?’

  Jack recalled Creed’s comment… more will die and both you and I will feel like we have blood on our hands. ‘Stuff, Nancy; just stuff.’

  She screwed up her face.

  ‘Listen, he might be a killer. If he is, then I don’t want to think that I could have done something to prevent someone dying, but didn’t.’