The Extremist

by Nadia Dalbuono

  ‘Your cousin, does he live around here?’ asked Scamarcio.

  ‘Yes, but he’s away in Turin on business.’

  ‘What business?’ asked Rigamonti sharply.

  Aabad nodded slowly and bit his bottom lip. ‘No, that’s not for you. I’m not going into it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Rigamonti, looking away.

  The fat guy tapped his chin a few times, seemingly thinking something through, then said, ‘Do you want to see some pictures?’

  Rigamonti swung his gaze back to Aabad. Scamarcio wondered if the guy was trading in filth — off-the-grid stuff.

  ‘Pictures of my cousin and Ifran,’ said Aabad impatiently, as if it narked him that they might jump to the wrong conclusion. He tapped the screen on his iPhone, then made to pass it across, but suddenly seemed to think better of it. ‘That’ll be another hundred.’

  Rigamonti traded frustrated glances with Scamarcio. Scamarcio pulled out his wallet and extracted two fifty-euro notes, reluctantly handing them over. ‘How come you have pictures?’ he asked, feeling like he was being conned.

  ‘I downloaded them from Facebook and Twitter when I heard you were interested.’

  ‘How very helpful.’

  ‘Supply and demand.’

  Scamarcio stared at the gluttonous figure of Aabad, sprawled on the sofa like some rotting Jabba the Hutt, and decided that his agenda was most probably greed. It felt good not to have to deal with ambiguities for once.

  ‘Just scroll to the right,’ said Aabad, thumbing the fifty-euro notes and holding them up against a shaft of sunlight. Once he was satisfied, he pulled out a fat leather wallet and carefully slipped them inside.

  Scamarcio studied the screen and saw a series of shots of Ifran smiling into the lens, another guy of similar age beside him. They seemed to be in a bar or nightclub, and both had bottles of beer in their hands, or elaborate cocktails of various shapes and sizes. They were dressed in tight T-shirts, their dense muscles visible beneath. In a couple of the pictures, Scamarcio spotted designer labels: Hugo Boss on one shirt, the Ralph Lauren polo player on the other. If anything, the two young men looked like poster boys for western materialism.

  In the next shot, Aabad’s cousin was gone, replaced by a good-looking dark-skinned girl in a shimmery halter-neck, her huge chest covered by a thick gold necklace. Scamarcio flicked to the next picture, then stopped. The girl was still on the boy’s left, but on the right, grinning gormlessly, his eyes dark with drink, was the blond giant from the video. Scamarcio’s heart began to race.

  ‘You know this guy?’ he asked Aabad, turning the phone to show him.

  ‘The Chechen? Everyone knows the Chechen.’

  ‘He’s from Chechnya?’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s been here a few years now. He’s not someone you’d want to mess with,’ said Aabad scratching the side of his massive head.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘He’s violent. I saw him beat a guy to a pulp once, just for looking at the woman he was screwing. And I know for a fact he wasn’t even interested in that woman. He was just using her for sex.’

  ‘He’s got a reputation?’

  ‘Everyone avoids him. My cousin hated him, but for some reason Ifran wanted to hang out with the Chechen. Who knows …?’

  Scamarcio began to feel a prickling down his spine and inside his palms. It was the same feeling he’d had at preschool when he knew he’d made a mistake and was about to be found out. ‘So they knew each other well, the Chechen and the boy?’

  ‘Yeah, like I say, they hung out.’

  ‘Even though he was violent?’

  Aabad shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe it didn’t bother Ifran like it did the rest of us. There was always something a bit off about Ifran.’

  ‘You said you didn’t really know him.’

  ‘I’m just telling you what I heard.’ It sounded more first-person than that, but Scamarcio didn’t push it.

  ‘What was a Chechen doing living in Torpignattara?’

  Aabad picked his nose and looked like he was about to inspect his finger, then seemed to remember he was in company. ‘He wanted to work in Italy. Said that the war had destroyed everything back there.’

  ‘He have a name, this Chechen?’

  ‘Must have, but I don’t know it — everyone just calls him the Chechen.’

  ‘He’d come to Italy alone?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘What did he do for work?’

  ‘Is he dead or something?’ asked Aabad, inclining his head, untrusting again.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘You’re talking about him in the past tense.’

  It clicked for Scamarcio then. ‘He’s still here in Torpignattara?’

  Aabad pushed out his bottom lip. For a moment, he looked like a huge mutant baby. ‘Well, unless he’s soared off above the rooftops like Superman, he’s still in the laundrette where I saw him half an hour ago, watching his smalls go round.’

  9

  AS THEY WERE HEADING for the door, Aabad flung out a huge flabby arm, barring their path.

  ‘Do you think I was born yesterday?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ asked Rigamonti, looking like he might finally lose his cool.

  Aabad jabbed a finger at Scamarcio. ‘You think I don’t recognise him?’

  Neither man said a word. ‘You think I’m not wondering what the fuck he’s doing here, asking all these questions about Ifran?’ Aabad angled his massive chest towards Scamarcio.

  ‘Surely it must be obvious,’ said Scamarcio, trying to resist the urge to look away.

  ‘Obvious how?’ Scamarcio saw a roll of fat shift beneath Aabad’s huge tent of a T-shirt, and watched the wattle beneath his neck shake.

  ‘Well, the whole world knows I met with the boy. I would have thought you’d have put two and two together and worked out he’s blackmailing me.’

  ‘Blackmailing you?’

  ‘Yeah, and like you and your cousin’s job, I’d prefer not to go into it. Suffice it to say that I need to know more about Ifran before I decide what to do next.’

  ‘Why don’t you just get your pig friends to help?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said Scamarcio. ‘And they’re not my friends.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Aabad, adjusting the elasticated waistband on his grease-stained tracksuit bottoms. ‘The pigs will be around here soon enough, asking questions about my cousin. Could be that I might have new, valuable information to share.’

  Rigamonti shook his head, exasperated. ‘Aabad, I have fifty euros left in my wallet. That’s it.’

  Aabad rubbed his spotty chin. ‘Hmm. But I expect you have credit cards.’

  Scamarcio thought quickly. Intel had an identity for Ifran; no doubt they knew where he lived. Right now, they’d be going through his phone records and his social media accounts, looking for contacts, people who knew him, maybe rooting out possible accomplices. It wouldn’t be long before they hit on the cousin — indeed, they might have done so already.

  ‘You spoken to your cousin this morning?’ asked Scamarcio.

  Aabad’s chin wobbled as his mouth turned down. ‘I tried to call him before you arrived, but it just rang out.’

  Scamarcio took out his wallet and pulled out his MasterCard. He made no move to hand it across, but pointed a sharp finger at Aabad so that he was almost touching his shiny lump of a nose.

  ‘Don’t fucking call him and don’t tell anyone we’ve been here. You manage that, and this card is yours for the next forty-eight hours before I cancel it. Wait an hour before using it.’ He handed the card across.

  Aabad looked at it, confused. ‘What’s the credit limit?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

  Aabad turned it over and examined the front. ‘Yeah, I se
e it’s a gold card. Life in the trough must pay well.’

  Rigamonti was looking at Scamarcio as if he was out of his mind. Scamarcio understood what he was thinking, but by his assessment, Aabad was too stupid and too lazy to realise he was being played. Scamarcio knew that Scalisi would be monitoring the card, working out when to kill it. Sure, it would let him know that Scamarcio had been in Torpignattara, getting closer to the truth, but that was probably no bad thing. After the initial hit, the card would just cause confusion.

  ‘Right then,’ said Aabad, removing his arm and its undercarriage of flab from the doorframe. ‘Fuck off. I’ve given you all I can.’

  Aabad had told them the laundrette was at the end of his street on the left, next-door to a Japanese restaurant run by Chinese people. He’d claimed to have no idea where the Chechen actually lived.

  They found the laundrette easily enough — hurrying inside after a couple of men who appeared to be conducting a drug deal in an overgrown scrap of park had sent hostile glances their way.

  ‘We’re looking for the Chechen,’ said Rigamonti to a gaunt, weather-beaten blonde woman folding sheets behind the counter. Her eyes kept flitting to a small TV mounted on the wall. It was playing Sky TG24 like everywhere else. Scamarcio stole a breath and felt his palms grow damp — would she recognise him?

  ‘You’ve just missed him,’ said the woman, her eyes still on the screen. ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Can you believe it? The world’s gone mad.’

  They both turned towards the TV, and as they did so, they heard a volley of shots ring out. Scamarcio stepped closer until he could read the tracker at the bottom of the screen. ‘New gunfire heard at McDonald’s on the Spanish Steps.’

  ‘They’re shooting hostages again,’ he said, his voice low. ‘What are they playing at?’

  ‘They just want to scare us shitless,’ said the woman. ‘If you ask me, we need to ship those fuckers right back to where they came from. They’re here to kill us, destroy our way of life. Just one look around this place should tell you that much. We’re overrun.’

  Scamarcio felt his spine grow warm. ‘Has there been shooting at any of the other locations?’ he asked. Given that the woman had shown no sign of recognising him, he decided to chance it.

  ‘I only turned on the TV half an hour ago, so I couldn’t say, but that’s all they’ve been talking about since.’ She finished folding the sheets, then bent low to grope around in a grubby blue laundry bag. She quickly pulled out a bunch of dazzlingly white T-shirts and deposited them on the counter.

  ‘The Chechen — do you know where we might find him?’ asked Rigamonti, his eyes darting nervously to the TV. Scamarcio followed his gaze and saw his own mugshot filling the screen. ‘I’m going outside for a smoke,’ he said quickly, heading for the door. He stepped out into the oppressive heat, which was now shimmering off the buildings, and turned away from the shopfront. He patted his jacket and pulled out his Marlboros — but the box was empty. He’d meant to restock, but had forgotten.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he sighed, defeated.

  He looked back through the window and saw Rigamonti still chatting to the woman. After a long volley of back-and-forth, the reporter tossed back his head and laughed. But then the woman returned her attention to the TV, and Rigamonti swiftly held up a hand in farewell.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing Scamarcio by the elbow as he hurried into the road. ‘She’s going to come out looking for us any moment.’

  They’d only made it half way down the street when they heard cries of ‘Hey, you!’

  They ran to the motorbike, Rigamonti firing up the engine before he was even properly in the saddle. They flew down the street, past the preschool outside Aabad’s place, and swung a sharp right into a neighbouring street, which led to another road, dense with social housing. Children with Italian, Chinese, or South American features were playing on burnt scraps of grass outside.

  ‘That harridan give you any idea about the Chechen?’ Scamarcio asked.

  ‘There’s a bar where he likes to drink, but it’s on that disused market square where all the cops are mustering. I doubt he’s going to be around, and even if he was, how the hell do we get past all that?’

  ‘She give you anything else?’

  ‘There’s a woman he’s screwing — she lives back here — Via Rovetti. That’s where we’re headed. Well, I think it’s where we’re headed.’

  Scamarcio hadn’t seen any police cars for a while, but he wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured. Beneath him, he felt the engine slow, and after a few seconds Rigamonti brought the bike to a stop outside a grey Fascist-era block. The rationalist architecture coupled with the dead grass could crush the most hardened of souls, thought Scamarcio.

  Rigamonti dismounted and took a seat on a crumbling stone wall where some charming scribe had penned, Your mother sucks dick Nino B. The reporter ran a hand through his hair and leaned forward, his elbow on his knee, his head low. It seemed like a gesture of defeat.

  Scamarcio followed him over. ‘What is it?’ he asked, not really wanting to know.

  Rigamonti sniffed. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘This Chechen, how does he survive?’

  Scamarcio shook his head. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘I asked the woman in the laundrette if he had a job, where he worked. She said the Chechen doesn’t work.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘No-one knows how he makes ends meet. He seems to have money, but he doesn’t have a job. He says he’s looking for a job, yet never finds one. But he likes designer gear and seems to have cash to burn in the bars. None of them can figure it out.’

  ‘Has he ever explained it?’

  ‘Not that she knows, and she sounds like she’s at the heart of all local gossip.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that we’ve been looking at the photo the wrong way around.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘On the DVD, we saw a blond guy appearing to collaborate with the terrorists; he seems to be saying he’ll help them procure something — my guess is they’re talking about arms.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ said Scamarcio, glancing at his watch. There really wasn’t time to be sitting on a wall going through minutiae.

  ‘This guy has an accent — it’s almost perfect American, but not quite. It suggests he’s been educated in the US, but perhaps spent his early life elsewhere. We then find out this guy has told people he’s come from Chechnya, we then find out he has no job …’

  ‘Cut to it!’ Scamarcio didn’t like where this seemed to be heading, but they needed to get there fast.

  ‘Scamarcio, don’t you think it’s likely that the Chechen is a plant — we all know how desperate the spooks are for human intelligence inside the suburbs. They want information on attacks that are being planned, who they should watch out for, newcomers to the area. My guess is that the Chechen — if he’s even from Chechnya — is Intel’s eyes and ears in Torpignattara. The fact he’s white is no longer a problem. There are jihadists in Chechnya, so that’s the disguise he’s using.’

  ‘No!’ Scamarcio almost shouted it.

  ‘Calm down,’ said Rigamonti, raising both palms and taking a breath. ‘Let’s just try to paint the picture. You need to accept that Ifran’s already lied. He told you he didn’t know the blond guy, that when he heard the American accent on the phone it was a first, that it took him by surprise. But Aabad’s photos clearly show that Ifran knew the Chechen, and probably knew him well.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not clear on the timeline — maybe he met him after the phone call, and then they became friends. Maybe it wasn’t even the Chechen on the phone, and Ifran never made a connection between the two things.’

  ‘No — I think he’s known the Chechen for a long time. I also think there was no phone call.’
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  ‘What?’

  ‘The boy wanted to get you to investigate the Chechen — he needed a story to get you hooked. The question now is, why? My guess is that he was trying to turn the tables on Intel. He knew the Chechen was a plant and he wanted to punish the intelligence services — make them sweat by suggesting that they were somehow involved. He’s using you to launch a devastating first strike in a propaganda war.’

  Scamarcio slumped down next to Rigamonti. His words made sense, it was a rational analysis, but the problem was that Scamarcio’s gut wasn’t listening. Both his instincts about the boy and his instincts about the film were telling him different. ‘Why was the Chechen getting them arms, Rigamonti? That’s straying so far behind enemy lines that it’s almost entrapment. Hell, I reckon I’d have no problem finding a handful of magistrates who’d see it that way.’

  ‘The game has got a lot dirtier, a lot more complicated, since 9/11. Yes, a few judges sometimes get their knickers in a twist, but Intel’s not listening — they’ll do whatever it takes.’

  Scamarcio scratched at his jaw. ‘Fuck it,’ he whispered. He was about to suggest they make a move, when a thought struck him. ‘OK, so if the Chechen’s a plant, why are these attacks going ahead? Why didn’t he warn the authorities? Why haven’t they stopped them?’

  At that, Rigamonti fell silent and studied the ground. ‘There’s been a breakdown in communications. Fuck-ups happen — maybe this is just one almighty fuck up.’

  Scamarcio thought back to his conversation with Scalisi: We fucked up. We took our eyes off the ball. Scamarcio shook his head. No, it wasn’t that simple. There was something bigger, something they were missing — he felt sure of it.

  10

  ‘COME IN OUT OF the heat,’ he said. ‘Do you want a coffee, a beer?’ He seemed so confident, so in control, as if the prison and all its rules were meaningless, as if he could override them all.

  ‘You’ve been through a tough time. These things can happen to the best of us, but justice is a brutal beast. It makes monsters of us all. We’d like to help, if we can. We think you deserve a fresh start.’