Well, I can’t afford to live,
I guess I’ll have to try
Undertaker’s got a union,
and it costs too much to die.
The night of the thirtieth day since the kidnapping, my cell phone rang and rang. I opened my eyes and the situation slowly swam into focus. I was stretched out on the sofa, the television was still on, and a soft-porn actress from the Seventies was singing the praises of the remarkable powers of an amulet that could be yours . . . I picked up the cell phone and looked at the caller ID. It was a number I had in my phone book. I sat bolt upright when I read the name.
“Sylvie!” I shouted with relief.
It was a woman’s voice, but I’d never heard it before. Cold as a mountain stream. Strong German accent. Too strong to be real. “You still have to complete a task for which you have already been paid.”
“Greta Gardner,” I guessed.
“That’s right. Then I don’t need to go into detail.”
“Tell me about Sylvie.”
“There’s an envelope in your mailbox downstairs,” she announced, and hung up.
I galloped down the stairs. A medium-sized manila envelope, hand delivered. Inside was a photograph of a dancer in full regalia. The face was made up, there was a professional smile on her face, but the eyes that gazed into the lens when the picture was taken told a story of imprisonment, anger, and grief. I looked at the time and date, in red at bottom left. Sylvie was alive.
I galloped back up the stairs. I pounded on Max’s door and phoned Beniamino. He answered on the second ring. It was just another sleepless night for him.
“Get over here,” I panted. “Now.”
The fat man came in. He looked at the picture. “I’m going to go make some coffee,” he said, his voice quavering, and shut himself into the kitchen to weep in peace. I had too much alcohol and adrenalin in my system to do the same thing. I pulled open the drawer that had the photocopy of the passport of Greta Gardner in it. The retired detective De Angelis had described her as a nice piece of ass. If he was telling the truth, the photo didn’t do her justice. She looked like a wan and harmless little blonde.
Until that moment I had been sure that the so-called Pierre Allain had just brought her along as camouflage. Instead, it turned out, she wore the pants in that couple. It was obvious the moment I heard her voice. It really is true: I don’t understand a fucking thing about women.
Old Rossini kissed the photograph, then he wrapped his arms around both of us and stood silently, hugging us in his powerful grip. He ran his hand over his tear-streaked face. “My Sylvie.”
Coffee. Then a solid hour of pounding his fist on the table, and a continuous refrain of: “Fuck, she’s alive, fuck fuck fuck!”
And then: “We have to rescue her, yeah, we have to track down the bastards that stole the narcotics and then we need to make a deal. We’re going to have to be careful though. Obviously that bitch has a plan in mind, she wants revenge . . .”
Once the emotional tempest of the news that Sylvie was alive had died down, we gradually managed to bring the situation into focus. Sylvie was being held prisoner by the accomplice—and perhaps the lover—of the late guy with the ring, and it was clear that the blonde with the German accent wasn’t a bit happy about her boyfriend’s premature death. She had certainly concocted some intricate and diabolical plan for a vendetta.
She’d arranged for Sylvie to be kidnapped, and then she’d let us stumble around in the dark for a month, maintaining complete radio silence. Then she gets in touch with a single specific request: find out who pulled the narcotics heist at the Institute of Legal Medicine. It had been more than two years. Why was it still so important? Whatever the story was, we had no choice. We had to take the assignment.
Even if she hadn’t said so explicitly, clearly Sylvie’s fate was bound up with that investigation. Of course, we weren’t so naïve that we thought it would all culminate in a trade. In her plans, Rossini’s woman would remain alive until we’d solved the case. Then Sylvie would be killed. Along with the three of us, I’d have to guess.
I picked up the photograph and looked at it again for what seemed like the thousandth time. She could have sent us any picture she wanted of Sylvie. Instead, she’d forced her to put on a costume and makeup and dance. That woman was clearly refined and twisted, and damned attentive to details.
“Greta Gardner has resources, money, and definitely an organization behind her,” I said, thinking aloud. “When she realized that the guy with the ring was dead, she returned to base and calmly and coldly designed a plan to screw us.”
“Yeah, we came to that conclusion an hour ago, Marco. That’s what we’ve been talking about,” replied Max with some concern.
“So the problem is that she has too big an advantage on us. If we play the game by her rules, we’re bound to lose.”
“Then what do you want to do?” asked Rossini.
“We have to play it our way.”
“Which would be?”
“We have to split up,” I replied. “I’ll look for the guys who pulled the heist and you look for Sylvie. And Greta. Sylvie alive, and Greta dead. There’s no other way out for us.”
“Easier said than done,” the fat man objected. “Our whole army is seated around this table.”
“We have the photographs. We need to keep searching until we find somebody who’s met them.”
“Belgrade,” Beniamino suggested.
“Excellent idea,” I agreed. “You know plenty of people in the smuggling business. If they were informers at the time, then maybe there’s a crooked cop out there who might remember them.”
Max poured himself a cup of cold coffee, added sugar, and stirred for a long time, in a reverie. “It’s a reasonable plan. But can you hold things down on your own?”
“I think so, though I doubt I’ll find anything out. If you want to know the truth, I’m pretty sure that Greta doesn’t give a shit about the heist. She just wants to watch us run for awhile, like gerbils on a treadmill.”
The old smuggler turned and looked at Max. “I’m going home to pack and pick up some more money, and then I’ll be back to pick you up.”
Morena shook her head when she saw me. She said something to the tall elegant gentleman she was flirting with and came over to where I was standing.
“I hope you haven’t gotten any funny ideas,” she said under her breath. “That sex was strictly to celebrate the transaction.”
“What if I’m ready to pay the 500 euros?”
She tossed her head toward the man she’d been talking with when I came in. “He’ll pay that, but with fringe benefits. Plus, I like him better. At least I have something to talk about with him.”
“I don’t doubt it. Anyway, I’m here on business.”
“The well known incident we’ve already discussed?”
“Right.”
“Forget it. I’m not interested in reopening that can of worms.”
“Just hear me out. You’ll make twice as much money.”
“He’s going to take me to a resort in Tuscany for the weekend where you can’t get in no matter how much money you have. He can get me in there. You can get me in trouble.”
“Just put me in touch with your handsome policeman.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She spun on her stiletto heels and marched back to her tall dark companion. I ordered a spritz and watched the little slut doing what she did. Actually, her new beau hardly looked like a dope. Quite the contrary. He knew exactly who he was dealing with. And he wasn’t a loser who just couldn’t find anything better for the weekend than a high-priced whore. “He’s another guy who likes dangerous sluts,” I thought, as I remembered Rossini’s words.
But maybe, all things considered, it wasn’t so true. Certainly, on the one hand, I was incapable of resisting the wiles of that kind of woman, even though I knew it would get me in to trouble every time; on the other hand my ideal woman was very different
: Virna.
But Virna had left me, and I hadn’t lifted a finger to keep her from leaving. I popped a handful of salted peanuts into my mouth.
I was dying to see her again, but I was afraid that she’d reject me with one of those little sermons of hers in which every word is a knife to the heart. No, I wouldn’t try to find her. I was too fragile in that period to take any further humiliations.
Morena and her date put on their overcoats and headed for the door. As he strode past me, he gave me a mocking little grin that I pretended not to notice.
The next day I woke up early so I could intercept De Angelis on his morning run. There was no one else I could think of, and the idea of a weekend of total inactivity while my friends were tracking down contacts in Belgrade struck me as intolerable.
I waited for the retired detective at his bar. He gave me a grim look. Those days, it seemed like nobody was happy to see me. I greeted him in a loud voice, including rank and full name.
He came toward me with both fists balled up and shoulders thrust forward. “Let me just make a quick phone call to a couple of friends who still have badges, and we’ll see if you still feel like bothering me.”
He hadn’t lost his taste for threatening people, so I decided to remind him that not only is extorting money from foreigners staying in local hotels not considered friendly, it’s not strictly legal.
He snickered. “I’m retired, and nobody gives a crap about that old story.”
“Well, fair enough, but you have the money socked away somewhere, and I’m pretty sure I could find an investigating magistrate who doesn’t owe you any debts of gratitude.”
I must have pushed the right buttons. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I just want to talk about old times.”
“I don’t know shit about that narcotics heist.”
“I’m happy to hear about rumors.”
He pointed to the cashier. “Let me pay my check. I’ll wait for you outside.”
No one really seemed to understand why, back in 2004, that mountain of narcotics had accumulated in the basement storerooms of the Department of Toxicology: bad management or an intentional tactic to facilitate a single big heist? The only thing that was clear was that someone with good information had taken advantage of the opportunity to haul it all away.
That much I already knew, however. What I didn’t know was that in police circles the rumor was circulating that not even a single gram of the more than fifty kilos of narcotics had ever circulated in Italy. In the narcotics division, they were pretty sure that the drugs had been transported outside of the country long before anyone realized they were gone.
I told him about the two cops who paid a call on me at La Cuccia.
The former detective thought it sounded odd. He doubted they were officers from any of the normal departments. He thought it was an operation managed from the highest levels, using people from far away.
“Now get out of here. Let me enjoy my retirement in peace.”
While I was driving back home, I got a call from Max. No news. They were buying drinks for half of Belgrade to get an in with the police.
Saturday evening at La Cuccia. A decent jazz quartet was playing, but I was ignoring it. A young woman asked me about Max.
She was cute but she sure wasn’t friendly. It must have been the one that the fat man was going to invite for dinner the night before Sylvie was kidnapped. I made up a tale of woe about Max’s aunt and how he had to go take care of her.
She wasn’t buying it. She gave me a wry little grin.
“Has he heard the telephone was invented?”
“It’s not much of a story, is it?” I admitted.
“It wasn’t much when it was new; it’s threadbare to say the least.”
“There are no other women involved,” I explained. “If I were you, I’d give him a second chance.”
“Just tell him to stop wasting time. I’m overwhelmed by my suitors.”
She couldn’t manage to keep a straight face, and burst into laughter in a very attractive way.
“I’m Marco, pleased to meet you,” I said, extending my hand.
“Teresa.”
I bought her a drink and we talked until it was almost closing time.
On Sunday I got up and went out to buy my newspapers; I took a long stroll downtown. It was crowded with shoppers. Christmas wasn’t far away now. I stopped off in Piazza Duomo for an aperitif.
I bought a paper cone of hot roasted chestnuts and then headed back home to go back to sleep.
The fat man woke me up in the middle of the afternoon. “We may have something,” he said excitedly. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Can you tell me anything more?”
“We have an invitation to dinner.”
The following Wednesday we were all together, sitting around a table in a renowned restaurant in Mira, not far from Venice. There were six of us. Us three, a leading figure in Serbian organized crime, and his two bodyguards. The Serbian was named Pavle Stojkovic, and he was in charge of Northeast Italy for one of the few criminal organizations that had not been absorbed by the Belgrade mafia. Like many Eastern European gangsters, he had been an official in the state security apparatus until the Communist regime collapsed. Then he’d made the leap to the opposite side of the moat.
He was a cultivated gentleman, about fifty-five, affable and polite, conservatively dressed, and he had agreed to meet with us as a result of the intervention of a smuggler of considerable repute who had worked on many occasions with Beniamino. While waiting for the antipasto, he talked about classical music, letting us know he was a passionate opera fan. To intimate that he had gathered information about us, he wandered into the field of jazz and blues, and asked me to tell him about a number of musicians who had performed at La Cuccia.
“I attended a Maurizio Camardi concert in Belgrade,” he said. “I went with my daughter.”
He waited until he had scooped up his first forkful of risotto before he declared that he was ready to listen to our request. Max opened his leather briefcase and pulled out a file folder with the xeroxes of the passports of the supposed Pierre Allain and Greta Gardner, as well as photographs and information about Sylvie. Max handed the file to the bodyguard who sat next to Pavle Stojkovic, who in turn handed the papers to his boss. Gangsters like nothing so much as a healthy respect for hierarchies.
“The man is dead. We understand that he was an informant for the Serbian police,” I explained. “The woman kidnapped Rossini’s girlfriend. As ransom, she’s demanding information on who was responsible for the theft of narcotics that took place at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Padua in 2004.”
“What are you asking from the ‘interests’ I represent?”
“As much help as you can afford us.”
He wanted to make sure that he had understood exactly what we were asking. “By which you mean?”
“Information. Anything you can give us to help ensure a positive outcome to this incident.”
“To help us rescue my woman,” Rossini spelled it out as clearly as he could.
“That’s a big favor. You’d have to return the favor . . . with interest, as you Italians like to say.”
“We are ready.”
Stojkovic nodded. He looked Beniamino in the eye. “You have a very nice speedboat,” he complimented him.
“The police don’t have a single patrol boat that can outrun it.”
“One crossing, with merchandise, for information about the theft,” he proposed. “Two crossings for anything we can tell you about La Gardner or your lady within one week.”
“Agreed. What kind of merchandise would I be transporting?”
“That’s not a question I’m willing to answer. Any problem with that?”
The old smuggler shook his head, and the Serbian gangster smiled with satisfaction. “We aren’t very well equipped for deep-sea transport. Perhaps in the future it might prove profitable for you to work with us.”
Rossini stalled. “One thing at a time.”
The bodyguard filled Pavle Stojkovic’s glass with an excellent Friulian sauvignon. As the Serbian sipped it with evident approval, he began his story.
A substantial share of the heroin that had vanished so mysteriously from the Department of Toxicology belonged to the Kosovar mafia. Two-thirds of the heroin that was sold in Europe came from Afghanistan, was transported through Kosovo, where the opium was refined, and then forwarded on to the various European countries. Since 1997, the Kosovars had dominated the heroin market in Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. In Italy, the Kosovars still had two rival groups: the Turks and the Serbians, but they struggled with considerable logistical disadvantages and a complete lack of “cooperation” from the intelligence services, which instead closed not one but both eyes when it came to the Kosovars.
“You mean that the heist was organized by the Italian intelligence services?”
“That’s right.”
“But why?”
“Kosovo is marching triumphantly toward a declaration of independence. But the KLA is not just an army of freedom fighters, it’s also the armed branch of the Kosovar mafia, and its soldiers are the very structure of the criminal organization.”
“That’s the Serbian point of view,” I objected, interrupting him.
He set his fork and knife down on his plate, interlaced the fingers of both hands, and rested his chin on them. “I am personally convinced that Kosovo belongs to my people, but we’re talking business here: information in exchange for a specific service, and I am doing what I promised to do. I’m not engaging in an exchange of opinions in a bar, you understand that, don’t you, Signore Buratti?”
“I understand perfectly, and I beg your pardon.”
Another sip of wine, and he proceeded to explain the backstage maneuverings that led up to the heist, while his grilled fish grew cold. The objective of the Kosovar mafia was to found a narcostate in the heart of Europe. For this to succeed, it was necessary that to the eyes of international public opinion the whole struggle should appear to be nothing more than a struggle for liberation from the rule of Belgrade waged by the Albanian majority. The Colombian mafia had already made agreements to use the territory as a point of arrival for its flow of cocaine; the Kosovars would arrange to distribute that cocaine through its own channels. And the United States would turn a blind eye in exchange for a number of substantial favors, including the construction of the largest and most expensive military base since the Vietnam War, Camp Bondsteel, subcontracted by the Pentagon to the usual beneficiary Halliburton, with the blessing of the former CEO, Dick Cheney. The camp is located strategically close to the trans-Balkan oil pipeline, which in the future is expected to bring oil from the Caspian Sea to the Adriatic, and it housed seven thousand men in more than three hundred buildings scattered over an area of a thousand acres.
Bandit Love Page 6
