Fatal Touch cab-2

by Conor Fitzgerald

  The air held a scent of something volatile, pleasant but alarming. It was the smell of someone cleaning brass with pink rubbing alcohol, of a dentist’s waiting room, of a blue flame hovering over brandy. It was pungent and slightly sweet. It was the after-smell of gunfire.

  Blume quickened his pace with the idea of smashing into Paoloni’s door at speed and bursting it open, but the apartment was in the middle, not at the end of the corridor, and the best he could do was to check his pace and not overshoot the entrance.

  Only as he slid to a sudden stop did he think to ring the doorbell. It rang like a firebell, but nobody answered. He pressed the button till his finger was bent back and whitening. Finally, he let go, stood back, pressed himself against the opposite wall behind, and focused on the point below the keyhole where he wanted his foot to land. He put out of his mind the certain knowledge that he had never seen anyone kick in a door of this type and, for a moment, he was certain it would burst open. He visualized himself crashing into Paoloni’s dark living room. He kicked hard, heel first, and managed to hit the very point he was aiming for. It was enough to make the strike plate shudder. The door seemed to rock on its hinges, but didn’t give. He drew back to deliver another kick, but stopped himself.

  He pulled out his badge and marched down the corridor to an apartment door, from behind which he was sure he was being watched. The neighbor opened before he got there.

  “Are you the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “They only sent one?”

  “What?”

  “I called when I heard gunshots. I knew they were gunshots. There was shouting too. Then the door slammed.”

  “Stay there,” ordered Blume, pulling out his phone.

  “I was not planning on going anywhere,” said the neighbor. He was a balding man in his sixties, and he seemed calm. Calmer than Blume.

  The wailing sound inside his head resolved itself into real-life sirens, and he heard the police arrive. Four of them, from the sound of it. The elevator whirred and disappeared down the shaft, heavy footsteps came banging up the stairs.

  Both policemen had their Berettas drawn, down by their sides. Blume held his badge up, pointed at the door. The elevator stopped and two more, a Sovrintendente in charge, emerged, one holding a long cloth bag, which they unzipped immediately to reveal a two-handled blue battering ram. On the second blow the deadlatch burst out of the strikehole and the door swung open and hit something on the floor. Blume was the third man in.

  Everything and more than he needed to see lay there in front of him, but for some reason, his eye was drawn first to the bullet hole in Paoloni’s flat-screen TV. It was a neat puncture in the upper left. It looked like the TV might work even now, if he turned it on. Lying before the screen, face up, arms thrown forward like he was doing the back crawl, was Paoloni. The mess of gunshots to the head seemed nowhere in evidence, which did not make sense for a moment, until he lowered his eyes and saw the splashed table legs, the glistening skirting boards, and darkening sofa cushions. The final shot had been delivered to his upturned face. Paoloni’s weapon was on the floor, just out of his reach.

  The heavy black object that had been blocking the door was as lifeless a lump of anything as Blume had ever seen. The Sovrintendente was kneeling down looking at it.

  “Poor thing,” he said. “Looks to me like it took three bullets in its haunch before it let go. It’s a Cane Corso. Or was.”

  “I know,” said Blume.

  The policeman snapped on latex gloves, then he bent down and pulled the dog’s mouth back. “Some pressure in those jaws.” He peeled back the black lips some more. “I was right. Look there. That’s cloth and blood. It looks to me like this dog attacked the killer before he got shot. He may even have done some real harm to him. We’ll certainly get a good DNA sample from this.”

  The Sovrintendente stroked the dog’s face. “Good boy,” he said.

  One of the young officers came over, his face first-timer white.

  “I know who that is. That’s Chief Inspector Paoloni. And I know who you are, sir. You’re Commissioner Alec Blume. I worked in Collegio Romano three years ago.”

  The policeman’s face was familiar.

  Blume said, “He’s dead, right?”

  The young policeman looked at him in astonishment, the older one with pity.

  No matter how bad the crime scene, even one that included a child, Blume knew that if he waited, something would click in his mind and his thoughts could detach themselves from his emotions and float into a state of forensic serenity. But for now the feeling would not come. He could not bear to look at Paoloni, nor even at the dead black beast by the door. He checked an impulse to run, battled down a rebellion in his gut and stomach and a heaving in his chest.

  After ten minutes, he began to reassert control. He still could not look at Paoloni, but he was able to start checking the apartment, making plans for his next moves, deciding on how he would deal with colleagues as they arrived.

  He conducted a search of the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, followed by the Sovrintendente, who was trying to be casual about making sure the Commissioner did not compromise the scene.

  “What are we looking for, sir?”

  “Anything,” said Blume.

  Paintings, which would not be here, he thought to himself. Paintings that, if he had left them alone in the wardrobe of his own house, would not have led to this. Paintings that were cursed.

  “Sovrintendente, start calling all the hospitals in the city now, find out if anyone is being treated for dog bites. But this is not my crime scene. Seal it. Call in the forensics, the PM, medical examiner-the usual.” He walked toward the door.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yes. I arrived outside the door approximately five minutes before you, I’ll write up a report and respond to questions later. OK?”

  The Sovrintendente deftly interposed himself between Blume and the front door, saying, “Don’t you think it would be better to stay here, Commissioner?”

  “No,” said Blume and barged past.

  Chapter 44

  When he reached his car, he delivered several hard kicks to the body and dented the door so badly that it was hard to open, which gave him an excuse to pummel it with his fists.

  Blume phoned Caterina to get her to look up the Colonel’s home address. She answered with what sounded to him like the epitome of irrelevance.

  “Have you seen Emma? She was supposed to get back to me, tell me about how her talk with her mother went.”

  “Get me the Colonel’s address and phone straight back,” said Blume and hung up. He started driving back toward the city center, heading in the direction of his station until someone told him where to find the Colonel.

  Then, clear as if a voice had spoken from the backseat, so clear that Blume checked his mirror, half expecting to see Paoloni there, grinning, whispering secrets, he realized where he was going. With a jerk of the clutch and a sharp pull on the steering wheel, he pushed the car into the left lane and accelerated hard, switching on his siren as he came racing up to within a centimeter of the car in front. He gunned the motor, wobbled the steering wheel side-to-side looking for a way around, and hit the whoop function on the siren. Reluctantly it moved away, and he went roaring up behind the next car.

  On the seat next to him, his phone was ringing. He brought it up to his ear.

  “We have been informed of Paoloni’s death.” It took Blume a moment to realize it was Lieutenant Colonel Faedda who was speaking. Faedda paused, and his voice took on a less official tone. “I am sorry. I understand you two were close. I have already sent two patrol cars to the Colonel’s house, but he is not there.”

  “What about the Maresciallo who is always with him? Maresciallo.. ” Blume could not remember the name. Had he ever heard it?

  “Maresciallo Farinelli,” said Faedda. “His house is under observation, too. We have put out a call to all units. We’re watching the airport, too.”
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br />   “And the hospitals?”

  “Yes. I see you ordered the Polizia to do the same. We’ve divided the task up between us. I think it’s most likely that’s where we’ll pick them up.”

  “It’s where you’ll pick up the Maresciallo,” said Blume. “He’s the shooter… Wait, what did you say the Maresciallo’s name was?”

  “Farinelli. I thought you knew that.”

  Blume could not believe he was learning this only now. “He’s the Colonel’s son?”

  “Not his son. His nephew. Not even that. Great-nephew. The Colonel’s older brother’s son’s son.”

  “Let me know when you find him,” said Blume. His phone was beeping to indicate another incoming call. He switched to it.

  “Alec, I’m so sorry.” It was Caterina. He said nothing and she continued, “The Colonel lives on Via Boccea, or nearby, his address is…”

  “That’s OK. I don’t need that now. He’s not there.”

  “Do you… ” But Blume hung up on her, and, putting both hands on the wheel, drove hard and fast on the wrong side of the road past San Giovanni in Laterano, the car rumbling and sliding over the cobblestones. Above, the sky was blue, but in the background it was black. Outside the gates of the Irish College, a silver rain seemed to be falling sideways without reaching the ground.

  As he descended toward the Colosseum, it almost became night as the clouds billowed and darkened. The background sky grew inkier. When the rain came, it would flood the streets in seconds, grease the cobbles, hollow out potholes in the asphalt, and cause three hundred or so accidents, of which five or six would be fatal. Romans can’t drive in the rain. He did not turn off the siren until he had arrived in Trastevere. He parked his car on the corner of Via Corsini and Via Lungara and started walking. Twenty meters on, sitting there in broad daylight, was the Colonel’s auto blu. Blume tried the door, but it was locked. He pulled out his pistol and rapped the side window hard. On the fourth blow, it disintegrated into thousands of glass squares. Without bothering to open the door, Blume poked his head in. There was blood still visible on the dashboard and seat fabric.

  His cell phone rang.

  “We got him.”

  “Great. Who is this?”

  “Sovrintendente Branca.” When Blume failed to acknowledge him, he added, “I’m the Sovrintendente from the crime scene. You told us to check hospitals, and you were right. A Maresciallo of the Carabiniere was transferred to Sant’Andrea for an emergency operation. He had lost a lot of blood. They radioed in the news just now. He can’t be questioned yet, the doctors say.”

  “Good,” he said. But nothing felt good. He hung up and switched off his cell phone. Why wasn’t the driver’s seat pushed as far back as possible to accommodate the Colonel’s bulk? Who had driven him here?

  The green door set into the high wall appeared shut, but almost collapsed as he touched it. He made a grab for it, catching it before it fell in and made too much noise. He moved slowly and quietly down the passage between the high walls on either side. The damp in the air and the heavy green of the creepers and ivy made his lungs feel waterlogged. He reached the door to the greenhouse, and eased down the handle, pausing each time it made a small click. When he had it all the way down, he pushed softly at the door, which opened with a slight creak of its hinges and scrape of its baseboard against the tiles of Treacy’s greenhouse. He stepped inside, and gently closed the door behind him.

  The room was filled with a heady reek of solvents, turps, paints, paraffin, and gasoline. They were smells that always elated him, though the gasoline sounded a nostalgic note, too. He could hear voices. A woman’s voice and that of a man, not the Colonel. He drew his weapon, feeling the dry polymer grip slide a little before it found the ridges of his palm; he walked past the old-fashioned stove, and gently parted the bead curtain that led into the kitchen. The hollow beads clacked very slightly as he edged his way through the parting he had scooped out. He swept silently across the kitchen to the door leading into the living room, ready to pause and take stock. Framed there, looking straight at him, face flushed, blouse unbuttoned down to her breast, and hair askew stood a middle-aged woman he had never seen before, but who was somehow familiar. Behind her, beside the large portrait of Henry Treacy that he had last seen in the gallery, was John Nightingale, shaking his head at Blume as if…

  The scene vibrated and faded as something seemed to cleave his head in two. The pain, too intense to remain in the one spot, rushed down his body, first as a boiling, then as a freezing sensation, as if the blood in his neck, spine, coccyx had turned to ice slush. He noticed his feet planted firmly on the ground, and felt pleased, especially as the ground seemed to be swinging upwards.

  Another catastrophic and savage blow came racing out of nowhere, and this one frightened him, because it was the penultimate. He would not survive a third like this. He moved his hands, just for the sake of it, and felt millions of tiny spheres that tickled and jabbed his palms, like pins and needles, only more pleasant, like lying on a white sand beach, and he realized he must be on the floor already.

  After what might have been several months, and certainly a good many hours, Blume was reluctant and tearful at the idea of returning. As he left the warm darkness and was dragged back into the present where unwanted light pressed hard against his eyeballs, he began to shiver. He kept his eyes shut and groaned. Distant voices gave commands, but he refused to hear them. A less distant foot gave him a kick, and he could smell the leather, the sock below. It was touch and go about weeping.

  “Don’t do anything. Anything at all. I will shoot this woman straight through the forehead. Did you call any backup?”

  Blume opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he intended to say. It made no difference since the words that came out were incomprehensible even to him.

  “Speak in Italian,” ordered the Colonel. “But I’ve got your phone. Last call you made was almost an hour ago. Last one you received was twenty minutes ago. It looks like no one else is coming.”

  Blume said something else, and lay there wondering what it was. Water, perhaps. He may have asked for water.

  The Colonel ordered him into an armchair. For a while he failed to understand the idea, since he could not see any armchair, then the Colonel’s foot showed it to him. When he finally located it, cracked, leathery, and inviting, he was moved to great gratitude and crawled over, and heaved himself into a sitting position.

  Reality continued to impinge upon his senses. A deep pain began not where he had been hit, but in a fold in the center of his brain, and pulsed outwards.

  This is going to be some motherfucking headache.

  “If you don’t stop bleeding soon, you won’t feel it for long,” said a voice with an accent.

  “Speak in Italian you two,” ordered the Colonel.

  Blume frowned. He was speaking his thoughts. He peered across the room. Nightingale was still there, so was the woman. They were still framed in the same taut, expectant pose they had had when he came into the room all that time ago. He put his hand to the back of his head and dabbed it in his soaking wet hair. If he had been bald like the Colonel, maybe all the blood would have flowed away and he would be dead.

  Thank God for hair. He felt tears of joy.

  “I seem to have knocked you stupid, Commissioner,” said the Colonel, who was holding his pistol upwards, almost as if he intended to put it into his own mouth. “Try to talk sense. Why are you here alone? You always need at least one other person to help you. I’m without my Maresciallo, and it’s almost impossible. Luckily, these two were together when I found them at Nightingale’s apartment. Then we traveled over to the gallery to pick up Treacy’s flattering portrait of himself. Nightingale was kind enough to do all the driving.”

  Blume looked at the portrait again. The face had been scrubbed and dissolved away, the blond hair remained. He looked at another painting, lying discarded on the floor, a colorless smudge running diagonally across its surface. There was another a
nd another. Paintings from the gallery, from Angela’s house, from here. Beside them, in an ignored pile, were the charcoal cartoons, pen and wash sketches, and drawings. Simple, direct, to the point and without layers. They were incapable of hiding anything beneath, and Blume felt a rush of affection for them. In the end, they were better than all the paintings. These preparatory sketches showed hope, potential, freedom.

  The Colonel walked into the middle of the room and raised his pistol and pointed it directly at the woman. “I gather you two have never met. Alec, this is Angela, Emma’s mother, the failed artist and woman of easy virtue. I found her with John cuckold Nightingale here at his house. It’s funny that we know more about Treacy and Angela fucking than anyone else, except for Angela, of course. John here, his eyes have been opened to the ways of the world. We have just a few more of these to get through. Though I am not hopeful.”

  It had turned dark. Angela was working in a pool of light cast by two standing lamps. She took a wad of cotton balls from the table. From the floor in front of her she picked up a bottle of solvent and drenched the cotton and her hands in it, filling the room with a sharp scent, then made a swipe at the picture on the easel. On the first pass, the canvas merely glistened as if another coat of varnish was being applied, on the second it dulled, and on the third she left a messy streak. She concentrated on the lightest part, rubbing at it. Outside the thunder rumbled, and Blume remembered why it should be so dark.

  “See, she’s as keen as I am,” said the Colonel. “OK. Switch to kerosene now, sweetie.”

  Blume planned ahead, making sure what he was going to say would come out right. “You really think you’ll find a Velazquez under one of those paintings?” he asked.