“Come on, maybe there’s an exit back there!” hissed Bruno.
Bruno burst out of the room and hurried along a row of vehicles, heading towards the far side of the garage. He darted between a van and a car, just as he heard the metallic smack of a door being thrown open.
Bruno crouched behind the van, taking care to make sure the tires hid his feet as best he could manage.
Bruno realized DeLuca was missing. He looked across the aisle where cars used to meander to find parking. A long row of abandoned cars stretched the length of the garage. There he spotted DeLuca, squatting between two cars, making himself as small as he could.
He and DeLuca locked eyes, but before they could even mouth any words, the sound of many footsteps echoed from the cold concrete walls. Bruno couldn’t tell how many pursuers followed, but he knew there were more than enough to take both of them out.
Though they were on the ground floor, concrete slats running above the wall were too narrow for anyone to fit through.
He glanced behind him. In the back corner of the garage, he could just make out the once-illuminated green lettering of an exit sign. But Bruno’s row of cars ended not far from where he stood, at least fifty meters before the exit. DeLuca’s row of cars extended all the way to the back wall. Bruno had no chance to escape without being seen. He couldn’t make a run for it without completely exposing his back to these thugs. With any luck, though, if DeLuca stayed between the wall and the cars, he could use his row of cars as cover all the way to the back exit, but only if he acted quickly.
DeLuca had a chance for escape, but everything rested on Bruno. He had to do something, to create a distraction and give DeLuca a chance. Voices wafted over the vehicles and footsteps approached. Bruno gritted his teeth and tears of anger welled in his eyes. Bruno’s random act of darting behind this row had doomed him. His heart sank and he bowed his head as the realization washed over him: today his luck ran out—today, there would be no escape. But while he could not escape, Bruno knew he still had a choice to make: he could end it all now. He could fight and die, killing as many as he could before they killed him, and give DeLuca the time he needed. Or Bruno could choose another way: he could choose life and suffering, and maybe give DeLuca even more time to escape.
Bruno turned his head towards DeLuca. Jerking his thumb towards the back, he mouthed the words: “You-Go-Exit.” DeLuca’s eyes widened in silent protest, but Bruno shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on DeLuca.
The footsteps grew closer. Bruno closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he spoke.
“Don’t shoot! I’m coming out! I give up!”
The footsteps stopped, then Bruno heard scrambling.
A man’s voice responded. “Come out with your hands up, and we won’t shoot!”
Bruno responded, “I’m coming out now!”
He stood up straight, coming out from behind the van, his hands at shoulder height. As he did, he looked across to the other row. DeLuca was gone. At least he made it.
Bruno walked in the middle of the two rows of vehicles. Completely exposed, he spotted his pursuers. In the semi-light of the garage, Bruno saw seven, maybe eight figures, ten or fifteen meters away. Three of them approached. One had a rifle, and the other pointed a revolver. The third had no visible weapon. Veils, fabric, and other makeshift materials hid their faces.
Bruno focused on the coverings over their faces. He never wore one, feeling that the impairment to his vision outweighed the risk of a bite. But though they approached, Bruno still could not see their eyes in the twilight, and the odd coverings over their faces rendered them alien, travelers from a world that knew only torture and death.
They stopped a few arms’ lengths from where Bruno stood. In silence, they looked at Bruno. Two of them kept their weapons trained on Bruno. Then the tallest one, the one without a weapon spoke, breaking the silence with a bark.
“Turn around and put your hands on your neck.”
Bruno complied without a word. Then the man spoke again.
“Kneel!”
Bruno shifted first down to one knee, then the other. His breathing slowed as he knelt. He hoped that the end would be quick, a bullet to the back of the head. He closed his eyes, and his thoughts swam. Soon, so soon, all would end, it would be over. Bruno’s last thoughts raced. Strange thoughts surfaced—the last woman he’d slept with, the last dinner he’d had with Carla, the last gelato he’d eaten—was it blackberry or raspberry? Would the end be quick? Then another man spoke.
“Il Serbo wants to talk to you.”
The man’s accent . . . he’s not from Naples. Bruno opened his eyes. The voice—something about it was familiar. He started to rise, to turn for a better look at his murderers, but a strike to the side of his head knocked him on his chest and his face scraped across cement. The man’s voice echoed in Bruno’s mind as he slipped down into darkness.
Chapter 23
October 11
Bruno rolled off the plastic gym mat onto the grey concrete floor, shivering in the dampness. Streaks of rain ran down the small window near the ceiling. A feeble light cast down, giving some illumination to the stark scene. As he lay on his back, Bruno looked up at the bars on the other side of that window, just out of reach. Three days of staring at the bare walls of what looked like an old storage room had numbed his brain. He figured he must be in some kind of basement. Unfortunately, while Bruno could tell the window stood at street level, about knee-height off the pavement, he had nothing to climb on to get a view. Fighting to sit up, his head throbbed and his limbs felt tied down. Three days of quarantine with only crackers and water had left him tired and weak. His room stank, his only toilet a plastic bucket that started off filled with only sawdust and dirt that now reeked of feces, urine, and vomit. For the first day and a half, Bruno’s eyes had felt like they were going to pop out of his head as he threw up and dry heaved into that bucket, the symptoms of a concussion, he knew.
Now he simply felt empty, void inside. He’d nibbled on the crackers and drank the water they’d left for him. Of course, it was not enough, and he could feel his strength ebbing every day. His quarantine would soon end. Only a matter of time now until they came for him, now that he had spent three days in his cell. His hand strayed behind his back, and Bruno fingered the emptiness where his knife’s handle had once been. He pondered what to do. Bruno’s thoughts wandered to the man’s voice from the garage. Something about his voice continued to gnaw at Bruno, troubling his mind, but Bruno was at a loss to figure out why.
The sounds of the lock being thrown and the door handle turning shocked Bruno out of his own head. He scrambled to his feet as the door swung open with a piercing creak. A man walked in, his head covered with a ski mask. The man stood there looking at Bruno, his dark eyes reflecting the soft light in the room. Then, without taking his eyes off Bruno, he reached behind him and pulled the door closed.
They stared at each other; neither man spoke. Then the man peeled the mask off his head with one hand.
His face was gaunt, angular, and a scar ran down in a vertical slash from the forehead, cleaved his left eyebrow in two and restarted on his cheek, only to disappear in his scruffy beard.
With a snap, everything fell into place—the voice from the garage, the accent, the face. Bruno launched himself at the man, slamming him up against the door. He breathed up into the man’s face, his fingernails digging into the soft tissue of the other’s neck.
“Cristian!” Bruno hissed. “Tell me why I shouldn’t rip out your throat!”
Cristian croaked in a whisper. “Because you need me.”
“I need you?” Bruno said, squeezing Cristian’s throat with greater force. “I don’t fucking need you! You abandoned your post, you abandoned me, Carla, and everything else!” Bruno spoke through clenched teeth. “You left me with nothing! But I made it without you, without anyone!” Bruno squeezed Cristian’s throat for another second, then dropped his hands and stepped back.
Cristian smil
ed weakly as he rubbed the thin red gouges from Bruno’s fingernails on his throat. “Still a self-righteous bastard, right, Bruno? Not to mention a hypocrite as well. You didn’t take the ship they sent either.”
“Yeah, I stayed. No thanks to you. I survived with my pistol and the clothes on my back.” Bruno wanted to spit in Cristian’s face. The betrayal bit deep. “You had the weapons, so, why didn’t you go back to Tivoli, back to your daughter? Why are you with this scum?”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” Cristian’s face darkened. “I never made it back. The weapons are gone. I was stupid, I . . .” Cristian didn’t finish the thought. He moved back towards the door, glanced out the small portal, and turned back towards Bruno. “We don’t have much time. Why are you here, Bruno? Why didn’t you stay on Capri?”
Bruno ignored his questions. “Did you know that animal and his crew came back to the island? That they captured Carla? Do you know what they did to my sister?”
Cristian stood mute, stony. His silence infuriated Bruno even more. “She’d been beaten so bad . . . her face . . . she . . .” Bruno’s voice caught.
Bruno grabbed Cristian’s shirt and pulled him down to his level. “Do you understand? What else do you think they did to her? Take a fucking guess!” Bruno’s eyes welled up, but his voice stayed filled with rage, not sorrow.
Cristian’s gaze finally met Bruno’s. “So, is that why you’re here, Bruno? Revenge? On Il Serbo? Or on me?”
Bruno unclenched his grip and stepped back. “No. I’d be happy to gut him and you along with him. But that is not why I’m here.”
“Then tell me why you’re here.”
Bruno turned his back to Cristian and stepped away. “I’m done talking to you. Tell your master whatever you want.”
“You have to trust me if you want to live.” Cristian let out a long breath before continuing. “I told him I’d spent a few years in the army, that’s why I know weapons. Which was true, you know that. But let me tell you something he doesn’t know: he doesn’t know I was a Carabiniere. If he did, he’d cut my liver out for all of them to watch. So now you have something you could use against me.”
“Bugger off!”
“Look, I’m your only hope to get out of here. You’re not here for revenge. You wouldn’t come here unless you had a very good reason. And if you want to live, you’d better talk.”
This time Bruno stood mute. Cristian spoke again, gazing directly at him, his voice tense. “We don’t have much time—they’ll be back soon. Seeing you again—it—it makes me think that maybe there is hope—hope that I can get out of here. Help me, Bruno. Help us.”
Bruno turned around. “So, just leave then! You don’t need my help! Why do you stay?”
Cristian shrugged, his eyes downcast. He stepped back, away from Bruno before he spoke. “Fear, I guess. I’m afraid there’s nothing left—nothing but . . . this.” Cristian looked at Bruno. “But you’ve come here for a reason. I want to have a reason, something to fight for.”
Bruno turned away from his former friend, cursing in his mind his decision to come back to Naples. But the die had been cast, Bruno thought ruefully, and his decision set him down a track that he could not change. Once again, Bruno’s choices were no choices at all. Cristian’s mention of hope reminded Bruno of his own seduction by the prospect of hope. Yet even after hope’s betrayal, Bruno felt its siren call. By all rights, Bruno should not trust a single word Cristian said. But what were his alternatives? What choice did he have?
Bruno turned back toward Cristian and their eyes met.
“Help me,” Cristian repeated. “Help both of us.”
Making his choice, Bruno told him everything without hesitation, pouring everything out as fast as he could.
When he’d finished, Cristian didn’t react, except to nod. Then he looked out the small window of the door into the hallway. “I’ve got to get out before they come back. I’ll come up with something. But I won’t lie to you, it’s going to get bad. Really bad. You’ve got to hang on. And no matter what it looks like, you’ve got to trust me.”
Bruno nodded and was about to speak, but Cristian was already through the door, locking it behind him. Bruno stared at the space that Cristian had just occupied, his mind racing at the thought of what may come. Then Bruno sighed, turning back toward his mat.
Just as he took a step, the door burst open. Three hooded figures rushed in, grabbed him, and bound his wrists in front of him. Bruno offered no resistance as they yanked him by the arms, hustling him out the door, through a narrow passage, and up a flight of stone stairs.
He blinked as they burst out into a large, open room. His eyes watered in the brighter light. He realized that he was standing where the priest would have emerged and was looking out into a church. Looking up and around, Bruno drank in the scene before him. Built in a time long before the electrical grid or even the discovery of electricity itself, the neatly spaced windows above the marble columns that ran the length of the nave let in abundant late-morning sun. The alabaster and the soft pink and grey tones of the stonework reflected and enhanced the glow. Bruno’s eyes fell on a marble altar, its white tones gleaming under a vaulted dome. The clean lines and understated decorative work on the ceiling gave the place a simple beauty. Bruno had visited a few churches in Naples, but never this one. It looked big enough to be a basilica. In better days, its effortless magnificence would have touched even Bruno’s skeptical heart.
But now, the ugliness of a group gathered around the altar in a semi-circle captivated Bruno even more than the church’s beauty. They stood on the far side of the altar, all faced towards him. Arrayed in shabby, dark clothing, with their faces covered, they seemed to suck all the light from the building like wraiths. Bruno could not see one pair of eyes, but he could feel their gaze fixed on him. He counted fifteen dark figures, not including the three who held him.
The men holding Bruno moved him closer to the altar. One of the figures on the other side stirred, stepping around the altar towards Bruno. As the figure moved, the others removed their head coverings. Bruno saw a scruffy grey council, all men. Then Bruno’s eyes fell on Cristian, but he stared forward, refusing eye contact, as expressionless as the stone columns that surrounded them.
The still-hooded figure approached Bruno, stopping directly in front of him. The knot in Bruno’s stomach tightened as Bruno looked up into the other’s dark eyes, the only part of his face exposed. The man stared down at Bruno, then reached up and pulled at his hood.
Bruno watched with a strange detachment as it slithered down across the man’s face. Il Serbo stared at Bruno expressionless, with an almost blank look. Unlike Cristian, Il Serbo looked the same as Bruno remembered him on the night they had met, in a jail cell, in a world so different it felt like another dimension.
Bruno said nothing, but Il Serbo spoke, still holding Bruno’s gaze.
“Did you find his friend yet?”
One of the group spoke. “Not yet.”
“Keep looking. You eight will patrol in pairs. You’ll find him.”
Bruno counted in his head. If eight go, still ten left. Too many. Bruno knew he didn’t have a prayer of escape.
One of the group spoke up. “Boss, it’s a fucking waste of time, don’t you think? Bet the other one’s long gone by now.”
Il Serbo shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think he’d leave poor Signor Bruno to the likes of me, now would he? No, he’s close. We’ll find him.”
Bruno knew Cristian would be on patrol with the others on Il Serbo’s errand to find DeLuca, but he didn’t know if this should give him hope or tear at his heart.
Il Serbo turned back to Bruno. “But before you boys go off searching for Signor Bruno’s friend, I want you to watch this.”
He walked around Bruno one pace at a time, footfalls so soft they barely caused an echo, even on the stone.
“You’ve been a pain in my ass a long time.”
Bruno stayed silent.
Il Serbo st
opped in front of Bruno and laughed. “What’s the matter? Nothing to say?”
Before another thought registered in Bruno’s mind, fury twisted Il Serbo’s face and he punched Bruno in the gut.
Bruno fell to his knees, coughing and gasping.
“Still, we could use someone with your skills here. If you prove yourself, who knows? Maybe we’ll let him stay, right, lads?” Il Serbo turned to the group. They grunted and nodded in acknowledgement.
Il Serbo crouched down closer to Bruno as if to have words only with him, but he spoke loudly enough for all of them to hear.
“Well, Signor Bruno, what do you say?”
Bruno felt the cold stone of the altar’s steps sucking the warmth from his blood, and his knees ached. He looked up at Il Serbo. The soft light of the church did nothing to hide the queer gleam in the man’s eyes. Bruno knew as soon as he met his gaze that nothing he could say could spare him whatever agonies Il Serbo had dreamt up for him. He knew Il Serbo would never let him stay, except as a rotting carcass. That thought should have left him paralyzed. But instead, the certainty of agony and death freed him to speak the truth. And though he rested on his knees, Bruno’s voice was strong, and it reverberated against the walls of the basilica as he replied, laughing.
“You are a liar!” Bruno looked past Il Serbo. “Is this what all of you want? Is this how you want to live? Under the thumb of this piece of garbage? Cowards!”
Before the echo of Bruno’s voice died away, Il Serbo backhanded Bruno, knocking him off his knees and onto the steps of the altar. Bruno fell on his side, his face pressed against the steps. He felt the salty taste of blood in his mouth and rolled on his back with a groan.
“Listen to that! He calls us cowards? Calls me a liar! Now you see, that’s what I hate about you pigs—you think you’re better than everyone else.” Il Serbo's voice echoed in the church.
“While you were holed up on your island, the rest of us had to survive. When everything crumbled to shit, none of you cops did a damn thing. Deserters and thieves, just like everyone else, that’s what you lot really are. You’re no better than anyone! But you know that already, don’t you, Bruno?”
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