Viper

by Unknown

  Quartiere Generale

  (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli

  Major Lorenzo Pisano had headed the carabinieri’s Anti-Camorra Unit for close on half a decade. A small, slim, bespectacled man in his early forties, he had floppy greying hair that was combed back with a centre parting. Unless you knew that he wore a Kevlar vest, doubly reinforced over his heart, you could easily mistake him for a sociology lecturer rather than a gang-buster.

  He shook hands with a surprisingly firm grip and, after brief introductions, showed Jack, Sylvia and two junior members of her team through to a small briefing room. It was dimly lit, a white projector screen was already rolled down, and a machine hummed somewhere at the back of the room.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ He motioned to black plastic chairs facing the screen. ‘What’s the latest on the Sorrentino murder? I only just heard about it.’

  Sylvia filled him in. ‘Professional hit. Bullet through the head. Killer dumped him on his own waterbed and then disappeared.’ She glanced at her watch, ‘Ballistics are digging the slug out, right about now.’

  Lorenzo picked up a remote clicker for the projector. ‘You think your serial killer might have done this as well?’

  ‘You mind if I smoke?’

  Lorenzo shook his head.

  Sylvia dug out her cigarettes while she answered him. ‘It’s possible. Sorrentino was the public face of the inquiry. He was all over the press – certainly much more visible than me. Any breakthroughs we had were credited to him.’

  ‘We talked a bit about this on the way over,’ added Jack. ‘While it’s very unusual for a serial killer to attack a member of an inquiry team, it’s not unheard of. Normally, they like to watch from a safe distance and be ready to flee. If it is the same guy, then he really has some balls.’

  ‘There are a lot of those kind of guys in the slide show I’m about to give you.’ Lorenzo hit the clicker. ‘This is Alberta Tortoricci – killed in Scampia. Sylvia and I have spoken about her.’ A colour shot of the corpse filled the wall. It looked like a half-blackened candle. Flesh was melted, blackened and dotted with tufts and strands of the old carpet that she’d been wrapped in. ‘Alberta was the main witness in the trial that sent local Camorra gang member Bruno Valsi down for a big five. Now he’s got balls. Coglioni bigger than cantaloupes.’ The slide changed to a close-up of her face. ‘Our brave lady turned up dead. I saw the body myself. She’d been electrocuted, had her tongue cut out. I guess you know the rest.’

  ‘Heading over here, I picked up a message from the labs,’ interrupted Sylvia. ‘Seems the accelerant used on your victim was gasoline not paraffin. We were hoping it matched the fuel used on our victim over at the Castellani site.’

  Lorenzo shrugged; he wasn’t deep enough into their case to offer a valid comment.

  ‘The type of accelerant used isn’t nearly as import ant as the fact that he used one,’ explained Jack. ‘Given this crime wasn’t in the same location as the Castellani killing, it’s reasonable to think he used petrol from a can in his vehicle.’ He turned to Lorenzo, ‘In the Tortoricci case, you have no doubt about the order of events? You’re sure the burning came after the electrocution?’

  ‘No doubt. The ME said the brain had hardened and shrunk, almost like it had been baked. Apparently, that’s consistent with sustained electrocution.’

  Jack pictured toasted walnuts – a treat his grandmother made. ‘How’d they do it?’

  ‘They fixed something around her neck. The doc said there was blistering of the skin on both sides – like electrodes had been placed there.’

  ‘Joule burns,’ explained Jack, ‘the entry and exit points of the electricity. I’ve come across them before. They usually leave some burning and bruising that gives away the shape of whatever was used to electrocute the victim.’

  Lorenzo nodded. ‘Sounds right. Faggiani – that’s the Medical Examiner – said the marks looked like some metal collar had been clamped to her neck.’

  Jack tried to imagine what had gone down. Payback time. A wise guy cashing his revenge cheque. And he sure as hell got his money’s worth. ‘The body was set on fire afterwards. Is that also part of Camorra rituals?’

  Pisano screwed up his face. ‘No. The severing of the tongue and gouging of a cross on to her lips were ritualistic – they are done to show people what happens if you don’t have the sense to look the other way and, instead, you speak about things you shouldn’t. But the burning wasn’t. That was just tidying up.’

  ‘And do the Camorra regularly tidy up with fires?’

  Lorenzo gave him one of those looks that said the profiler had much to learn about his homeland. ‘Fire is a tool of the poor. The System is staffed by the poor and it burns everything people want to get rid of – waste, dead animals, stolen vehicles and sometimes human bodies. So much burning goes on in the Giugliano-Villaricca-Qualiano triangle that it’s known as the Land of Fires.’

  Jack’s face registered a new level of interest.

  ‘Don’t see too many images in the flames, Jack, everyone around here has a match in their hands.’

  ‘Point taken.’

  Lorenzo pointed the clicker at the screen. The slide changed. The head and shoulders of a strong-jawed, dark-haired young man, complete with prison number across his chest, stared down at them. ‘This is Valsi. The shot was taken some five years ago, at the time of his conviction for witness intimidation. He’s just come out and this is what he looks like now.’ A series of new slides showed him getting out of a car and walking towards a building. He looked crisp and cool, like a male model on a photo shoot. ‘As lean and mean as they come. Prison was good to him.’

  ‘You said witness intimidation. Was that of people due to testify against him for something?’ asked Jack.

  ‘No, against his father-in-law. Valsi’s dirty work meant we had to bin the fruits of several years of undercover surveillance on the Don.’ Lorenzo clicked again. ‘This elegant-looking pillar of the community is Fredo Finelli, or Don Fredo as he prefers to be known. Don isn’t a term the Camorra use much, but Fredo adopted it. He’s old school, very much into respect and values.’

  Sylvia scoffed. ‘Sadly, those values don’t stop short of killing and torturing people.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Lorenzo. ‘We had good stuff on Finelli, enough to maybe put him away for five to ten, and then the witnesses started recanting. A plague of Alzheimer’s broke out, courtesy of Valsi and his thugs.’

  Jack got the picture. He’d seen similar trials collapse back home in Little Italy. ‘So, the Tortoricci woman testified that Valsi had threatened her?’

  ‘You got it. Unfortunately, all the evidence she would have given us in the Finelli trial was destroyed by her bosses, so the best we could do was charge Valsi.’

  ‘Then as soon as he comes out, he whacks her?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘You’re right, he’s got balls. He obviously feels that no one dares testify against him any more. Have you got his records?’

  ‘Not to hand, but we’ll pull them for you. Lots of previous.’

  ‘Arson among them?’

  Lorenzo shook his head. ‘Not from memory. Could be wrong. Certainly he was in big trouble as a kid, ran drugs just as soon as he was able to walk or run himself. Stacks of violence, illegal possession of weapons, usual stuff.’

  ‘Would be good to know the type of weapons he had handled,’ said Sylvia. ‘As well as Sorrentino, we’re looking for a shooter in connection with a triple-victim kill.’

  ‘I know – the killings at the Castellani site.’

  For a second Sylvia wondered how he knew. Then she realized, people like Lorenzo Pisano probably knew just about everything there was to know about anything worth knowing.

  ‘This next slide gives you an overview of the Finelli clan and best-known associates. Valsi you’re familiar with. Word on the street is that he was promoted and given his own zone when he was released from Poggioreale, but there are three other playmates as w
ell. The Finelli territory is divided into north, south, east and west. Valsi runs the eastern sector; he took over from Pepe Capucci, an old-timer who died of a heart attack.’

  ‘How very convenient,’ quipped Jack.

  ‘Actually, it was. We had MEs all over the body and this goon really did die of natural causes.’

  ‘So there is a God after all,’ added Sylvia.

  ‘I hope so.’ Lorenzo blessed himself and then clicked on. ‘This is Angelico d’Arezzo, he runs the north. He’s in his late fifties, past his prime, growing fat on his restaurant businesses. We expect him to be replaced in the near future.’

  The slide changed to show another man in his late fifties with a long horse-like face, no hair but thick black eyebrows. ‘This good-looking specimen is Giotto Fiorentino. He runs the south, specializes in smuggling tobacco and, well, pretty much anything else that can be smuggled.’

  ‘Is violence business or pleasure to those guys?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Strictly business. Angelico’s done his share of rough stuff, but not recently. Giotto’s probably never thrown a punch in his life. He’s a wily old fox, but not one for getting blood on his own hands.’

  The slide clicked to another middle-aged man. He had slicked-back hair that was white at the temples, making him look like a hooked-nose badger. ‘Ambrogio Rotoletti. The west is his area, and he’s a gambling man. He did a ten stretch about fifteen years ago. Came out early, as many of them do, and the Don gave him back his full rights as Capo Zona.’ Jack was about to ask what for, when Lorenzo answered for him. ‘He was implicated in the murder of a politician. Since his release he’s not been connected with anything heavy.’

  ‘All old-timers, except for Valsi,’ observed Sylvia. ‘These three wise guys are, what – twice his age?’

  ‘And some,’ confirmed Lorenzo. ‘We’re expecting a bloodbath any day soon. Way we read it, Valsi has to take out Finelli, or vice versa.’

  ‘The young buck will make first play,’ said Jack. ‘That’s the way it always goes down.’

  Lorenzo shrugged. ‘I’m no profiler, but I’ll tell you this. Most Camorra bosses are dead within five years of sitting at the top of the tree. Fredo Finelli has been squatting up there for close on twenty. My money is on the old man.’

  Silence hit the room like a slap in the stomach, as Pisano clicked to a giant blow-up of the Finelli gang tattoo.

  ‘This is really unusual. While crime Families like the Sicilian Mafia and the Japanese Yakuza favour identity tattoos, it’s uncommon in Camorra circles.’

  ‘Honour, loyalty and vengeance,’ said Jack, translating from the screen. ‘What’s the meaning of the serpent and the knife?’

  Lorenzo sat on the edge of a desk as he answered. ‘It’s a viper. I’m no expert, but I’m told they have hidden fangs and giant hinge-like jaws that allow them to lock on to something and then grind it to death or swallow it whole.’

  ‘Highly appropriate then,’ said Jack.

  ‘Some vipers also keep the eggs of their babies in their mouth,’ added Sylvia. ‘And there are many different types of viper. I dated a herpetologist once and he bored me to death with stories of snakes and reptiles.’

  ‘Talking of reptiles, take a look at this.’ Lorenzo flashed up an organization chart of the most important members of the Finelli clan.

  ‘It’s far from complete, but it deals with the main players, especially those connected to Valsi.’ A shot of a pretty-faced, dark-haired young woman appeared. ‘This is Gina Valsi, Bruno’s wife, Fredo Finelli’s daughter. Don’t be taken in by that butter-wouldn’t-melt look. Gina’s quite a lady, a power in her own right. She runs several garment factories and counterfeit fashion houses. Probably makes as much money as any of the Capi.’

  He clicked on. ‘And this is their consigliere, Ricardo Mazerelli. He’s understood to have an increasing say in the Family business, and not just on the legal front. He manages a lot of the old man’s business portfolio as well. These days, most Families have two consiglieri, but Finelli has only ever used this guy.’

  Jack sat in silence in the semi-darkness, studying the dynasty. ‘Who are these other two – Pennestri and Farina? You see them in the bottom left on the chart.’

  ‘I don’t have their mug shots here. They’re new recruits, members of Valsi’s crew. He’s starting to put together his own Family-in-waiting.’

  ‘And the guy in the box beneath Mazerelli – the bodyguard?’

  ‘Salvatore Giacomo.’ Lorenzo pulled up a grainy head-and-shoulders surveillance shot of a grey-faced man wearing big, old-fashioned sunglasses. ‘He’s Finelli’s personal luogotenente, his minder, nothing to do with Valsi. Old muscle, old school, he stays glued to the Don and makes sure Finelli doesn’t fall down the stairs or catch a cold.’

  Jack rubbed his chin. ‘How many kills between them all?’

  Lorenzo snorted and walked into the light so he could read all the name boxes and do the maths. ‘Finger in the air, just guessing?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘These guys cover thirty, forty years of Camorra activity between them. All of them have made their bones. The old-timers will have planted between five and ten apiece, the younger bucks two to five. So – in direct personal kills – I’d guess at a minimum of fifty, though they’ll have been involved in plenty more. In the past thirty years, countrywide, we connect the Camorra to close on four thousand kills. These guys will have done their quota.’

  The projector whirred noisily as they all weighed up the death toll. Jack voiced what was on their minds. ‘You know this clan; you understand its values, norms and rules. If they discovered they had a serial murderer in their midst, one who killed just for kicks, and targeted innocent civilians, would they give him up?’

  Lorenzo laughed. ‘Not a hope. And, for the record, they don’t have any values – except get rich quick and kill anything that gets in the way.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Sylvia. ‘If they found such a person, then they’d probably kill him. They don’t like undue publicity so they’d get rid of him. But their contempt for us is so profound they would bury the body rather than give him up.’

  Jack pointed at the organization chart. ‘Bruno Valsi – from what you know of him, do you think he was personally involved in the torture and murder of Alberta Tortoricci?’

  Lorenzo didn’t hesitate. ‘No doubt about it. If he didn’t do it himself, then you can be sure he had a front-row seat, a bag of popcorn and a giant Pepsi. All the intel on him says he’s a Grade A sadist, and a clever one too.’

  ‘And he was jailed five years ago, and just got out?’

  Lorenzo nodded.

  Sylvia completed the picture. ‘And most of our women went missing five or more years ago. We’ve dug around and can’t find anyone linking Valsi and the women. Would be good to get to speak to the man himself – and his father-in-law?’

  ‘I’ve got numbers for their lawyer, Mazerelli. You want me to give him a ring?’

  ‘Thanks, that would be good.’ Sylvia let out an ironic laugh. ‘I’m just thinking about Franco Castellani. Until the Sorrentino killing he looked good for the murders. Now, if you compare him to Valsi and this mob, he doesn’t fit. He’s like a frightened kid.’

  ‘Maybe that’s exactly what he is,’ said Jack. ‘That’d explain why he’s run away. Everything in life just got too much for him.’

  ‘He’s a frightened kid with a gun, though,’ said Lorenzo. ‘That still makes him dangerous. Maybe even deadly.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Sylvia. For a second she wondered how Lorenzo knew about Franco having a gun. Then she realized it had probably been on the APB she’d sent out.

  The room lights buzzed into life as Lorenzo killed the projector. ‘I’ll phone Mazerelli,’ he said, heading for the door.

  ‘Hang on,’ called Jack, worrying about how long they could get dicked about by a mob lawyer. ‘I think I might have a better suggestion.’

  77

  Capo di Posillipo, La Baia di
Napoli

  Three carabinieri Fiats sped Jack, Sylvia and Lorenzo through the slow evening traffic and across the Bay of Naples. ‘Not exactly good for our global footprint, but impressive nevertheless,’ observed Jack as they travelled together in the middle car. He figured a surprise visit to the Finelli home – the Viper’s Nest – was more likely to get results than a polite request to their smart-arse lawyer. ‘Always better to apologize than ask permission,’ he said as they wound their way out towards Capo di Posillipo.

  Most of the case got discussed en route, including the post-mortem burning of Alberta Tortoricci and the ante-mortem burning of the still unidentified woman in the pit at the Castellani campsite. ‘It’s probably a form of pyrophilia,’ explained the profiler. ‘It’s a relatively uncommon deviancy in which the offender derives gratification from starting and watching fires.’

  ‘Firebugs?’ said Lorenzo from the front passenger seat.

  ‘Yep, but the worst kind. Not your normal crazies who listen to scanners and chase 911 calls. These guys are twenty-four-carat sadists seeking extreme thrills.’

  ‘What makes them like that?’ asked Sylvia.

  Jack gave the textbook answer. ‘Pyrophilic offenders have feelings of loneliness and sadness, followed by rage. There’s always great tension or arousal prior to the act and massive gratification when it is over.’

  ‘That seems to fit all our suspects,’ said Sylvia. ‘Valsi is straight out of prison, Franco Castellani has been an outcast for much of his life. Even Creed is a loner. They all seem a whole galaxy beyond normal to me.’

  ‘It’s more than them just being loners,’ corrected Jack. ‘In watching the flames they feel a relief of their stress. This condition is rare – much rarer than loneliness – and it’s fuelled by the need and the gratification attached to watching objects or, in this case, victims burn.’

  ‘How rare?’ asked Lorenzo.

  ‘This form of pyrophilia is extremely uncommon. It’s really an impulse control problem.’

  ‘That mainly a male problem?’ asked Lorenzo.