The cop on his left said, “Did you see Grosso score the winning penalty?”
The cop on his right said, “How about that crazy Frenchman?”
“Unbelievable,” the cop behind the wheel said. “Zidane’s a madman. Ten minutes to go, he headbutts Materazzi. That was the game.”
“It was a factor, sure,” said the cop to his right.
The cop to his left said, “A factor, it was the difference.”
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “What are you, head of the Zidane fan club?”
“I don’t like him,” the cop to his right said. “But you have to admit he is one of the all-time greats – up there with Vava and Pele.”
“How much have you had to drink?” the cop to his left said.
When they got on the autostrada, McCabe said to the cop on his right, “Where’re we going?”
The cop looked at him and grinned like something was funny.
Twenty minutes later McCabe understood why, the walls of a prison looming in the distance, 3:30 in the morning. The cop on his right said, “Rebibbia. Your new home.”
He’d heard of Rebibbia, the prison for hardcore cons, and wondered why they were taking him there. Stealing a taxi didn’t seem serious enough. They drove along a fence topped with razor wire, the prison set back on acres of flat open land.
They entered the prison complex and McCabe’s carabinieri escorts took him into the processing area, released the cuffs and handed him over to the Polizia Penitenziara, a prison cop signing a form and giving it to one of the carabinieri cops, making the transaction official.
Then he was standing in line with at least twenty other prisoners – some he recognized from the holding cell – waiting to be processed. Each prisoner was photographed and fingerprinted. Then they went through a room where they were given a blanket, a tin cup, a spoon, a bar of soap, a towel.
McCabe heard Chip’s voice and saw him at the far end of the line. “I’m an American. My father is a US senator. Capisce?” The guard looked bored, his expression saying he had no idea what Chip was talking about, but there was no way he could mistake Chip’s attitude, his arrogance.
McCabe said, “Hey, Tallenger, with your connections I thought you’d be out by now. Don’t they know who you are?”
Peter Leonard’s debut novel, Quiver, was published to international acclaim in 2008, and was followed by Trust Me in 2009, and Voices of the Dead and All He Saw Was The Girl in 2012.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Voices of the Dead
All He Saw Was The Girl
About the Author
Back from the Dead Page 24
