All He Saw Was the Girl

by Peter Leonard

  He stopped at a tavola calda and bought two ham sandwiches, a liter bottle of carbonated Panna water and a Coke, and put all that in the bag too.

  He took a cab to Auto Europa at 38 Via Sardegna. He had reserved a Fiat Croma, a four-door sedan with a stick shift and air-conditioning. The rental agent, a short, balding man about Ray's age, gave him a city map and highlighted the route to Mentana. It was twelve kilometers, about seven and a half miles. It looked easy, just take the GRA that looped around the city, and look for exit A12.

  But it wasn't easy. He got lost three times and finally pulled into a BP gas station. An attendant came out of the booth, walked up to the Fiat. Ray said, " Dove e Mentana?" Giving it his best pronunciation.

  The attendant pointed to the highway and said, " Dritto, a destra, dritto."

  Ray took out his dictionary and looked up the words. Dritto meant straight and a destra meant to the right. So to get to Mentana he had to go straight, take a right and continue straight.

  It was a scenic drive into the green rolling hills, vineyards on both sides of the highway, stretching to the dark heights of the Apennine Mountains, clouds hanging on their peaks. Fifteen minutes later he was driving up a steep hill into the walled village of Mentana. He parked in a municipal lot next to the castle and walked into town up Via Monte San Salvatore. There was no one on the street. It was deserted except for a couple of cats that disappeared down a dark alley. He saw laundry hanging from rope strung between buildings. He wondered where all the people were, and then realized it was siesta; they were having their main meal of the day and then taking a nap. No worries. No stress. This was how the Italians had been doing it for thousands of years.

  He passed a bakery and a meat market and a cheese shop and three enotecas — all closed — and the Hotel Belvedere that was open. He walked uphill to the end of the street, looked at the Garibaldi Monument commemorating the Battle of Mentana in 1867, a piece of Italian history Ray was not familiar with. He walked around the monument and sat on a brick wall, looking down at the valley that extended below him east and west. To the north he could see the peak of Mount San Lorenzo. He slipped off the backpack and took out the binoculars and scanned the countryside. Don Gennaro's villa was in the hills south of the mountain. Ray didn't have an address but he had directions Teegarden had gotten from his contact at carabinieri headquarters.

  Head north out of Mentana. When the road forks follow it left toward Monterotondo, another town a few kilometers away. The don's villa is about 500 meters northwest of the fork on the right side of the road. Look for a driveway flanked by stone pillars and a steel gate. There was a map that showed Mentana and the main highway that went north. He saw the fork in the road, and an arrow indicating the location of the don's villa.

  "His estate's on 250 hectares," Teegarden said.

  "What's a hectare?" Ray said.

  "I knew you were going to ask me that," Teegarden said. "Two and a half acres."

  "That's a big piece of property," Ray said, "You've got photos of the place, don't you?"

  "How do you know that?"

  Ray said, "You don't do things halfway."

  "Just do me a favor, don't tell me what you're going to do," Teegarden said. "I don't want to know, okay?"

  He handed Ray eight-by-ten prints, aerial photographs of the estate: the villa, vineyards, olive grove, outbuildings, and private road that led to the highway. There were also surveillance photographs of the villa, different angles, all shot with a long lens and printed in black and white.

  "There's the man himself," Teeg said. "Carlo Gennaro."

  "I remember him from the funeral."

  He handed Ray another shot that showed the don in a bathing suit, sitting on the patio behind the villa next to a good-looking girl in a bikini, drinking a glass of wine. She looked about thirty.

  Teegarden said, "Doesn't look like much, but he's got style, the hair and sunglasses."

  He reminded Ray of an Italian actor, an older version of Marcello Mastroianni or someone from that era. "I can see how you might tend to underestimate him," Ray said. "Although I like his taste in women. Who is she?"

  "Chiara Voleno, a model."

  "Not bad," Ray said. "What do you know about Carlo Gennaro?"

  "He's Sicilian," Teegarden said. "His wife and son were killed twelve years ago by a rival gang. Stabbed Carlo four times and assumed he was dead."

  "That's usually enough to get the job done."

  "The men who did it were found decapitated in an apartment, the don sending a message."

  Teegarden handed him a photograph of the crime scene, two bodies without heads and blood everywhere. "The newspapers called it the Ribera Massacre."

  Ray said, "Why did he come to Rome?"

  "He has a daughter who hid the morning the mom and son were killed. I guess he decided to distance himself from his enemies, go where it was safer. Twenty per cent of the shops in Rome now pay him. Pizzo, it's called, protection money. He makes fifty thousand dollars a week."

  "That's two and a half million a year," Ray said.

  "And it's only a small part of his business. He's invested in real estate, clinics, retirement homes, supermarkets, funeral parlors, bakeries." Teegarden paused. "He's also a cultured Mafioso. Loves opera, has an extensive art collection. Makes his own wine and olive oil."

  "A real Renaissance man, huh?" Ray said.

  "Which is more impressive when you find out he quit school after fifth grade."

  Teegarden handed him another print.

  "The villa's half a kilometer from the road. He has his own private drive that's guarded twenty-four hours a day. The only other way in is a two-track path that cuts through the vineyard. The don has two barns where he keeps his equipment, and a stone building where he makes and stores his wine. He hires locals to come and pick the olives and grapes during harvest. Grape season's over but olives are harvested in November. You could hang around and taste the new crop."

  "The daughter live with him?"

  "She isn't in any of the photos so I'd say, no."

  Ray had been driving along a wall of oak trees, and saw something on the right. He looked back at the entrance to the don's estate, saw the ancient stone pillars flanking the driveway, iron gate closed, car blocking the driveway on the other side of it. He drove three hundred meters past the estate, and now there were vineyards on his right, the branches thin and bare after the harvest. Ray looked for a place to pull over and saw a dirt path that led into the field. He hit the brakes and took a right and drove in far enough so the car couldn't be seen from the road. He walked out and checked.

  He hiked back to the don's property through a forest of oak trees, leaves turning yellow at the edges, marking the distance off with three-foot strides, counting three hundred and knew he was close. He went twenty yards further and heard voices. Still inside the tree line he saw two guys standing at the pillared entrance to the estate, a dark sedan, some kind of Fiat parked, blocking the driveway.

  They reminded Ray of two Italian guys from high school, Giancotti and Veraldi. Ray watched them for a couple minutes. Giancotti was on his cell phone, pacing, having an animated conversation. Veraldi was smoking a cigarette. He took a final drag, dropped the butt on the gravel drive and stepped on it. They were both right-handed and had guts and thinning hair. They weren't muscular or even especially big. Giancotti had a Beretta in a holster on his belt. He was wearing sunglasses and a long-sleeved white dress shirt tucked into jeans.

  Veraldi, with an HK MP5 sub-machine gun on a strap over his shoulder, concerned him more. Ray didn't worry about them hearing him; they were making too much noise. He started moving again, due north this time, toward the villa, heading through the trees. He paced off four hundred yards and came to an olive grove that extended into the hills for as far as he could see.

  To his right was Don Gennaro's sprawling villa that made Joe P.'s suburban colonial look like a shack. It had stone walls and a tile roof and had to be seven thousand s
quare feet. Behind the villa was an enormous stone veranda that wrapped around the back of it, and had two levels. He took out the binoculars and focused on a dark-haired girl, had to be the model, stretched out on a lounge chair, sunbathing next to the pool. She was either wearing a flesh-colored bathing suit or she was naked.

  He scanned the edge of the grove and saw two guys wearing berets, white shirts and black vests, peasants with shotguns slung on straps over their shoulders. They were talking and grinning, watching the girl. While they were distracted Ray decided to make his move. He came out of the woods and went left into the grove, circling around behind the guards for a better view of the villa.

  The sun was almost straight up and it was hot. No wonder the girl wasn't wearing a bathing suit, she was trying to stay cool. He moved through the grove, smelling olives, the trees heavy with them. When he was directly behind the villa he slipped his bag off and took a few gulps of the Panna water and put the bottle on the ground. He was about fifty yards from the veranda. He couldn't see the guards but assumed they were still watching the girl. He was too, studying her with the binoculars. She got up and moved to the pool and stuck her tin the water and stood there posing. Knew she had an audience. She stretched and touched her breasts that were big and perfect, and had brown nipples the circumference of silver dollars.

  He walked up the hill behind him, higher ground for a better angle. He scanned the vertical second-floor windows that opened like French doors and had balconies. He could see beds and furniture in the first room, a maid cleaning in the next one, and a skinny guy built like a teenager on the third balcony, hands on the railing, staring at the grove as if he knew someone was out there. Ray recognized him from Joe P.'s funeral.

  He panned right across three more windows, looking for Sharon and Joey, but didn't see anyone, just rooms of furniture.

  When he panned back the other way the skinny Sicilian was gone. Ray looked down and saw the guards on the edge of the veranda. They were probably trying to get a better view of the girl who was getting out of the pool, skin glistening, hips swaying, teasing the men as she went back to her lounge chair.

  Ray saw the Sicilian come out of the villa now and move down to the lower level of the veranda where the guards were standing, said something to them and pointed in Ray's direction. He could see them coming toward him through the trees. He moved down the hill, picked up the backpack, gripped the SIG and started to run.

  Mauro stood against the railing, windows open behind him, feeling the warmth of the sun. He had just returned from America, the funeral for Joey's papa in Detroit, Michigan. The don was asleep, tired from the journey and he was too. It was a long way to go in a short time, two days, but if the don asked that of him he did it. He was looking down at Tulio and Franco. Like Mauro they were Sicilians from Ribera. They were told to watch the villa, but instead were watching Chiara climb out of the pool, their eyes never leaving her. This had been going on since the hot days of summer. She would come out to the veranda late in the morning when she awoke. Always wearing the robe. Always untying the sash, and looking surprised when the sides of the robe opened, knowing Tulio and Franco were nearby, usually in the grove but always watching. She would take her time, playing to them before removing it, posing without clothes.

  Mauro enjoyed looking at this woman as much as anyone, but she was a distraction for the men. How could they do their job with a naked woman standing in plain sight? He was going to say something to the don, but the don would say, if she is a distraction, why are you looking at her?

  He saw the sun reflecting off something in the olive grove. At first he thought one of the workers had left a tool out there on the ground, but there had been no workers in the grove for quite some time, months. Workers had come to pick the grapes, but the olive harvest was not for another week. The reflection disappeared. There was a simple explanation. Probably nothing. He turned to go in the room, looked back and saw it again.

  Mauro went down to the main floor through the villa, and outside, moving across the veranda to the lower level. Tulio and Franco glanced at him as he approached, turned and moved to the edge of the grove, trying to appear alert, doing their job. Mauro whispered to them, "Listen, I think there is someone out there, an intruder, you stand here looking at her, what are you doing?"

  They were embarrassed, eyes staring at the ground.

  The three of them spread out and walked into the grove, Tulio on one side of him, Franco on the other. Mauro saw a Panna bottle on the ground. He picked it up and unscrewed the top and heard the psssss sound of gas escaping. He looked at the men. "Did one of you leave this?"

  They shook their heads.

  Mauro took out his cell phone and dialed Pascal and Fausto at the villa's entrance and told them to be looking out for a possible intruder moving in their direction. Mauro had no idea if there was an intruder or what direction he was going, but he was taking no chances.

  Ray was trying to figure out how they'd gotten on to him so fast. Did they have motion sensors? Video surveillance cameras? He was running through the olive grove, thinking about the water bottle he’d left, angry at himself for not paying attention.

  He made it to the forest, ran sixty, seventy yards, stopped and listened, could hear them coming behind him. He used an oak tree for cover, looking back, seeing them appear one at a time, spread out, spaced twenty yards apart, moving toward him, two holding shotguns. He looked at the compass and saw he was heading south toward the entrance to the villa.

  He changed direction, moving again, this time heading east. He went fifteen yards, stopped and looked back. One of the guards was getting close. Ray wasn't sure if the man had seen him or not. He turned and saw Giancotti and Veraldi, closing in on him from the opposite direction, Ray now caught in the middle. He went down on his knees and then his stomach, hiding in a patch of leafy foliage, gripping the SIG Sauer. He lay there holding his breath as Veraldi approached, carrying the machine gun. Veraldi stopped, looking around, his leg a foot away. Ray waited till he moved past him, till he was out of sight, got up and ran.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  "You done good," Joey said.

  Psuz looked at him and grinned.

  "I've got to tell you I had my doubts. I thought no fucking way Jose, but you did it."

  "In the casa," Psuz said, pointing to a tan-colored stone house on the hill behind them.

  Joey was still in the back seat, door open, catching a breeze that swept across the valley. He was staring out at the countryside, seeing little houses in the distance, tiny shapes, squares and rectangles with orange roofs. It was 2:00, sun dipping toward the mountains.

  Joey lighted his last Montecristo No. 4 with the gold Alfred Dunhill lighter, puffed and got it going, and got out of the car. He clamped the cigar between his teeth, inhaled a little and blew out smoke the wind took as soon as it came out of his mouth. Psuz had called Mazara and told him he followed the American and knew where he was. Joey didn't believe it till he got there. Blondie had surprised him. Now Sis, Mazara and Psuz, his three Italian buddies, were looking at him, waiting for Joey to tell them what to do.

  "He was going to capture the American, give him to you," Mazara said to Joey. "But he want you to have the honor."

  Joey nodded. Okay, that was more like it. The Romans finally showing him some fucking respect. It was about time.

  He glanced at Psuz. "You're positive he's up there?"

  "I see him," Psuz said, pointing at the villa.

  "Just making sure," Joey said. He sucked on the cigar, tasted tobacco juice, swallowed it, inhaled and blew out the smoke.

  "We can go now?" Mazara said.

  "Bob, that's what we're going to do, okay? Take a chill pill." Joey knew the smart thing to do was wait till dark, but he wanted to get it over with, get the money, give McCabe to his Unk, and go back to Rome have a nice dinner, a Florentine steak maybe, or a big bowl of spaghetti Alfredo. Drink some wine. Celebrate. The only question: how was he going to get up the h
ill? Taking the car would be like calling McCabe and telling him he was on his way. He could walk, but said to himself, who're you kidding? It had to be a hundred yards to the top. He'd never make it. "You three sneak up. I'll watch. When I see you at the top I'll drive up. We'll surround the place, bring him out and that'll be that."

  They just stood there staring at him with these goofy looks on their faces.

  "There a problem? Something you don't understand?" Joey said. He pointed at the villa. "What're you waiting for? Go get him. Andi-fucking-amo."

  Now they seemed to get it. Sis and Mazara took off zigzagging up the scrub-covered slope in front. Psuz grabbed his shotgun and went around the hill to the opposite side of the villa, surprise McCabe if he tried to sneak out that way. Joey liked giving an order and seeing the Romans hop to it. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

  Ten minutes later Sisto signaled him from the top. Joey got in the Opel, sped up the driveway, parked on the flat gravel area next to the house, and got out with the gay shotgun Mazara had given him. Psuz was standing at the edge of the parking area, staring up at the roofline as if he were expecting McCabe to jump out a window or slide down the tiles.

  Mazara was moving through the kitchen, two hands on the Tanfoglio. He entered a big room with walls of stone and beams in the ceiling. The floor was made of wood planks covered by a rug. He saw Sisto coming in the front of the house, coming through the salon, Sisto pointing to the ceiling, the gesture, saying McCabe could be up there. But only a fool would do that and this McCabe was not a fool. Mazara followed Sisto up the stairs. There were two bedrooms. He looked out the window to the west and saw Viterbo a few kilometers away.