by April Smith
By the time we hang up, Sterling has left the bed and pulled on jeans.
“Let’s go find your nephew,” he says. “I don’t like leaving an open fire unattended.”
We find Giovanni in plain sight, sitting on the steps of the Fontebranda fountain in the Oca district. Silken green and white crowned goose banners still festoon the alleyways, perennially jammed with a slow-moving river of tourists. A duo of street guitarists competes with radios and the waves of sound pouring into the heads of every teenager through an ear bud of some kind. They all have something in their mouths as well — baby pacifiers from the Palio, a cigarette, or someone else’s tongue. Giovanni is sitting thigh to thigh with a slightly older girl who sports choppy bangs and streaks of crimson in her black hair. She is inordinately thin, with a devil tattoo crawling up one leg toward the crotch of a torn miniskirt. I recognize her as the waitress from the photos taken by the detective who trailed Giovanni to her apartment.
“I want you to meet Zabrina,” Giovanni says. “She has something to say.” He nudges her. “È giusto. Andare avanti.”
The girl raises heavy-lidded eyes. Her movements are dreamy to the point of narcolepsy. We wait until even Sterling can’t wait anymore.
“You have something to tell us, darlin’?”
“I know where Giovanni’s mother is. I saw her.”
THIRTY-FIVE
For fifty euros and a gelato she agrees to come with us, moving out of the range of eyes and ears in the Oca district, staying with the crowds, through the clogged commercial center, past McDonald’s and the post office, to the flat residential neighborhoods as they steadily grow darker, streetlights dimmer and more sparse. The closer we get to the edge of the city, the quicker we pick up the pace, Giovanni keeping up with the crutch.
Explaining that her boyfriend, Yuri, has just moved out, Zabrina nestles seductively between Giovanni and Sterling, filling out the image of the vamp she cultivates — ripped leggings under the miniskirt, big gold-tone earrings, and multiple strands of plastic beads. Her lips are matte red, her eyes rimmed with black, the pupils enlarged. She tramples along in silver heels like some kind of gypsy rock star.
Sterling steers us toward the bus station. The kiosk is closed, but one bus is lighted and idling near a concrete island, exactly where I had landed from Rome. In the distance the wine bar in the Medici fortress where Zabrina and Giovanni met is still lighted and alive. Sterling and I don’t have to speak to confirm the intuition both of us have had since leaving Oca: that we are being followed.
Sterling orders the kids to get on the bus.
Giovanni objects. “You have to buy a ticket.”
“Then buy the tickets.”
“To where?”
“Doesn’t matter where. Just do it, fast.”
And Giovanni does. When we first met, at this spot, he was late. Irresponsible, even spoiled. The difference is that at that time he had still been whole — he could take for granted his mother’s steady presence, that his parents would be the center of his world forever. Picking up his American aunt had been just one of his many important obligations, including a flurry of calls to his customers in the bank of cocaine, the moment we got into the car. He bounded like a retriever then, never out of breath. Now he is willing to take orders, careful not to twist the leg or tweak the arm as he turns from an automated ticket machine. There is no way back to being that uninjured sixteen-year-old.
“Where do we go?” Zabrina asks as we hustle up the groaning steps of the bus.
“Just for a ride,” I assure her.
“Where?”
“Monteriggioni,” Giovanni answers. “Not far.”
“Why?” she asks, showing a suspicious streak that we will have to negotiate.
“Do you have other plans?” Sterling wonders, keeping her moving toward the rear.
She blinks at him with her kohl-rimmed eyes. “What kind of plans?”
Although we are the only passengers, the four of us have squeezed into the very last row, where we can see anyone who comes on board. The doors close and the bus moves out. You can feel the heat of the engine through the seats. Already Zabrina has a crush on Sterling, and it is easy to see why. He is the type of man who looks great even in yellow LED transit lighting, while everyone else appears tubercular. At ten-thirty p.m., on a local bus to nowhere, he is alert and protective, his eyes ceaselessly scanning the darkened countryside — which must appear to a young excitable girl as sexy indifference.
Mind you, if she were an asset we were working through the Bureau, things would be entirely different. We would still be back at the field office, filling out permission forms, and no encounter would have taken place without a remote team recording every word. But here in the back of the bus, there are no rules. We can get information out of Zabrina by any means.
“Why you kidnap me? I think maybe I should be scared.”
“You are free to go, any time.”
“In the nowhere? In the night?” she says haughtily. “What is that?”
“We need for you to tell us exactly where you saw Signora Nicosa,” Sterling says nicely. “And we don’t want anyone else to hear.”
“Oh, sure.”
Giovanni assures her this is true.
“I want a cigarette.”
“You can’t smoke on the bus.”
“Who cares?”
“It will draw attention.”
She stands, swaying with the movement. “I get off.”
“Why are you such a bitch all of a sudden?” Giovanni snaps. “You’re the one who came looking for me.”
Hanging on to a strap, Zabrina bends over in pain. A tremor passes through her body.
“I am scared.” She catches her breath. “I am looking for Giovanni and everyone knows I am—una straniera.”
“A stranger,” Giovanni explains. “When she entered the Oca district and was asking for me, naturally people are suspicious.”
This is a surprise. “I thought he was looking for you.”
“No, no,” says Zabrina. “We don’t really know each other. I search to speak to Giovanni, to tell him where his mother is. Because I hear his name from …”
“Around,” Giovanni interjects, as if we couldn’t guess it was through other druggies in the contrada.
“You went looking for him?”
“That’s a dangerous game so close to Palio,” Sterling drawls. “Is why I scared.”
She fidgets with her earrings. Sterling eases her into a seat and she sits with obvious relief. But the effort to speak English is too hard, and she begs Giovanni to translate.
“I am from Calabria,” she continues emotionally in Italian. “The poorest place in Italy. It is not like the north. The countryside is not like here. There it is very rocky and hard to grow things. The mafias — Camorra and ’Ndrangheta — they are a way of life. No family is untouched, and don’t get me wrong, the women are just as bad. They will be on the cell phone warning their sons what’s going on in the village or if someone has a grudge against them — because they are proud of their sons, they help them climb the ladder. Everyone sees people murdered in the streets, even little children. You can’t get out.
“It sucks for everyone. But if you’re poor, what do you do? My mother used to sew. She made lace and towels and things like that. It brought in a little money. In Calabria, the way to make money is drugs. You sell a little, you do a little. Then you become a courier. My mother was a courier. Yes, of course I am angry. She was a middle-aged woman taking drugs into the United States. I wish she’d been caught because now she is dead — one of those murdered in the street. A guy goes by on a motorbike and poom poom poom, at the market, in front of everyone. There were protests at the funeral and everyone got upset. A mother! It was in the news.
“I know I’m addicted. We’re all addicts — my friends, my old boyfriend, Yuri. We know we’re all going to die. I knew from the time I was born I was going to suffer. I tried to leave and come to a beautiful
place like Siena, but it is my fate to suffer, like the women in Calabria. Sometimes they marry you off, and then the husbands leave. My father drove a truck all over Europe. He was never home. My mother raised six children alone. When I saw that lady … Giovanni’s mother … I recognized her. She was the doctor in Siena who said I have to stop taking drugs because already, at this moment, I have hepatitis.”
“You have hepatitis?” Surprised, Giovanni asks in English.
She pats his hand. “Don’t worry, I am fine.” Continuing in Italian, she says, “I went to Calabria to get high. Big deal. If you get there right after a new shipment comes in, the stuff is good, and my cousin, Fat Pasquale, takes care of me. This time, we went there to get high and Yuri almost died. Because that sick freak with the hands like Frankenstein made it too strong. He couldn’t give a shit. You are just a sack of weeds to them. And I saw this poor lady — I am sorry to tell you because she is your sister and Giovanni’s mother — well, she looked very bad.”
I press my lips and turn to Giovanni.
“The man she describes is called the Puppet. His real name is Cosimo Umberto, and he’s a well-known mafioso. He lost his hands in a bomb explosion and now he wears prostheses. Ring a bell?”
Giovanni shakes his head.
“He’s pretty hard to miss. When you were in the hospital, your mother and I saw this creep, right outside your room.”
“Why would he be outside my room?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know anything that happened in the hospital. I was in a coma, remember?”
The bus is slowing down. A shuttered convenience store swings into view.
“This is Monteriggioni,” Giovanni says with more enthusiasm than you’d expect for a deserted bus stop. “From here it goes straight to Poggibonsi. Do you want to go there?”
Satisfied that if someone was following us they aren’t anymore, Sterling says we don’t need to go any farther. Monteriggioni is another, smaller walled fortress town, a mini-satellite built for the defense of medieval Siena. We get off the bus outside the gates and see that in the piazza they are having a festival. A kiddie carnival has been set up in front of the old stone church. Although it is close to midnight, the rides are still going. Giovanni says the bus back to Siena won’t come for an hour, so we buy sodas and tufts of fried dough and sit on a wall.
The wind is humid and cold. The misty lights against the flat storefronts remind me of the outdoor dinner party in the ruins of the church at the abbey when I first arrived — white tables, white roses, the Nicosas’ flashy friends. All of that has vanished with Cecilia. Under tender little strings of lights, sleeping children are carried by their young fathers, leaves blow across the piazza, and the black sky presses in. The moment is surreal.
“Will you help us?” Sterling asks the girl.
“Yes; I’ll do anything. I don’t care what happens. I hate that man with the terrible hands. He didn’t care if Yuri died on the kitchen floor. I’ll shoot him myself.”
“We don’t want you to do that,” Sterling says. “But can you draw a picture of the apartment complex?”
“I’m a bad artist.”
“Just a sketch.”
Sterling takes out a memo pad and pen he keeps in the pocket of his cargo pants. Zabrina puts down the tiny mirror she is using to reapply the bloodred lipstick. Beneath the studded jacket she wears a black shirt with extra-long sleeves that have holes for the thumbs, like leggings for your hands. The sleeves make it awkward to hold the pen; childlike, she clutches it and scratches out the rectangles of the Little City.
“Now show me the apartment.”
She makes an X.
“You’re doin’ real good.” He flips the page. “Give me a layout inside the apartment. Every window and door you remember.”
A picture emerges of Cecilia’s prison.
“Here is where you come in. This is the kitchen,” Zabrina says.
“Where does that hallway go?”
“Sinistra. Going left. Next to it, the bathroom.”
“Where do they keep Dr. Nicosa?”
“It must be here, in the back.”
I get up and pace, while Sterling runs the interrogation and Giovanni throws in a few words of translation. The three of them huddled on the wall in the foggy nighttime chill, creating the outlines of a hostage rescue plan, could almost look like an investigative team.
“A shipment comes in, and the druggies show up for a free fix. How do they know?”
“They receive a text message,” Zabrina says.
“Who sends it?”
“For me, it is my cousin, Fat Pasquale.”
“You’re from Calabria, so you have cousins there. Family.”
“That is correct.”
“They know you.”
“They don’t live there. In Little City. But Fat Pasquale knows me.”
“What happens when you bring your boyfriend, Yuri?”
“Yuri comes with me, so it is fine.”
“You vouch for him and it’s okay?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever brought anyone else?”
“Once, a girl. She paid for the gas.”
“And Fat Pasquale had no problem with that? If you vouch for someone, in they go. No questions asked.” She shrugs. “Why not?”
We see the lights of the oncoming bus split horizontally in the mist.
“Do they check for weapons?” I ask. “Before you go inside?”
“Not me,” says Zabrina. “Because I am family.”
We are not the only ones on the ride back to Siena. It turns out a group of English tourists has come over to Monteriggioni for the little festival. They ask how we liked it, and we say fine. Zabrina falls asleep next to Sterling with his arm around her shoulders.
THIRTY-SIX
We intercept Nicosa at his morning swim. Despite the alluring nothingness of sunlight on clear water, the pool holds no appeal. Sterling and I are ready to engage; our minds are working twenty-four, forty-eight hours ahead.
“We know where your wife is and how to get her out. But you need to hire professionals,” Sterling says. “You need us.” “Who?” asks Nicosa, toweling off. “You and the bartender?” “No, sir. Oryx, the security outfit we work for. Chris and I could not execute an operation this size alone.” “What size operation are you talking about?” “There are a couple of ways to go, but each one involves manpower and hardware. It’ll be expensive.” “I’ve been there before, in El Salvador.” “This will be kinda different from protecting coffee beans.” Nicosa, wary of a sell job, lights a cigarette and moves toward the pool house — more like a CEO considering coffee futures than a desperate husband.
“Why can’t you just go in and get her out?” “Think of it this way,” Sterling explains. “You know the Taliban?” “Not personally.” “You know how they operate in Afghanistan. Without mercy, trust me. Rescuing your wife being held captive in Little City by ’Ndrangheta is like trying to spring someone from a Taliban prison compound.” “Sorry, I don’t see the connection.” “You have to get inside an armed fortress protected by a close-knit, fanatical local population,” I explain. “And then you have to get her and your operatives safely out.” “Sir?” Sterling looks straight into Nicosa’s eyes. “Please believe me — this is not the time to fuck around.” “Just because you tell me you can do it, why should I put my faith in you?” I am losing patience. “We got a lucky break with Zabrina. We knew Cecilia is alive, but now we know exactly where she is being held.” “As of the time Zabrina saw her in Calabria,” Sterling reminds us. “This thing is like rotten meat. Each day that goes by, it becomes more spoiled. You keep letting time run on, and we can’t guarantee you’ll even recognize your wife when we bring her back. That’s the truth as I’ve seen it.” Sterling’s candid delivery finally gets to Nicosa. He slips on a white terry robe, takes a quick hit off the cigarette, and decides.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he says.
; The deep voice coming from the speakers in the twelve-sided tower belongs to “Atlas,” the handle for the crafty boss at Oryx whom I have never met. I picture him in a fake wood-paneled office in their covert warehouse outside Heathrow Airport, but he could be anywhere in the world. The theatrical Welsh accent is the same as when he called to offer Sterling the mission that took him out of London — although, come to think of it, Atlas could be putting on the persona to disguise his identity. They love pulling that crap. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, Nicosa is buying the services of a private army that will materialize at the right time and in the right place, with extreme prejudice.
“Not only does ’Ndrangheta have an infinite number of boy lookouts, but also, quite frankly, their best defense is the fact that they have your wife entombed inside a living maze of a thousand civilian apartments,” Atlas intones. “Negotiation has failed. Despite all this endless macho posturing, there is a point when the bad guys actually do become fatigued, and then the application of force is a reasonable alternative.” “That’s what I have been saying.” Nicosa, still wearing the robe, says in the direction of the speakerphone. “Go in and get her out.” “We could go full-on tactical,” Atlas agrees. “Would you like to know what that would look like?” “I’d like to know what I’m buying, yes.” “Understood. We would execute before first light, when the suspects are asleep or drugged out, or at best, generally unfocused. Using the advantage of surprise, we quickly defeat their lookouts, move in fast and locate the victim. In and out in less than two minutes.” “Killing everyone who gets in your way?” “There will be casualties. Not ours.” “You sound very certain.” “I am certain, Mr. Nicosa.” “How do you know Cecilia won’t be — Come si dice? — ” “Collateral damage? Has Sterling told you about his experience and training?” “No, sir,” Sterling answers.
He is sitting ramrod straight beside me on the leather couch, both of us looking FBI-ish and military in boots and jeans. Outside it is another summer day in Tuscany.
