THE DOGS of ROME

by Conor Fitzgerald

  23

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 31

  BLUME LISTENED TO the clump of nurses’ shoes across the hard hospital floor. The noise level increased as the door to his room opened, then decreased with a puff of air that smelled of antiseptic and mold as it was closed again.

  A sigh escaped from someone nearby. Slyly, Blume opened an eye to see who it was, but all he saw was the ceiling. He tried to move his head sideways, but it would not budge. He opened both eyes wide in horror at the realization that he was paralyzed from the neck down. The door opened, closed as someone left, and he found himself alone in the room.

  A strangled cry welled up from his chest, and he clenched his fists in rage. He kept them clenched for around ten seconds, then thought about that for a while. Slowly he unclenched them. Clenched them again. It hurt a bit, especially the left arm. Fine. He waved his hand, bent his knee, wiggled his toes and flexed his elbows. Then he fell asleep.

  When he next awoke, it was evening. Someone had turned on the television in the corner of the room, which he could hear but not see. A contestant who wanted to be a millionaire was taking her own sweet time about deciding whether Beethoven had written three, seven, nine, or no symphonies at all.

  He remembered every par tic ular of the operation he had fouled up: right from the moment he left his house in the small hours of the morning to the time he climbed into the Fiat Punto with Paoloni to when he had seen his junior colleague’s martyred body. The Land Cruiser had stopped dead, they had driven straight into the back of it. The target had made his getaway, probably on that motorbike he remembered hearing. Someone had shot Ferrucci.

  Blume turned his mind to his injuries. Memory served him better than present sensation in this case. He realized his neck was in a whiplash collar. He remembered hot metal folding around his heels before he pulled himself out of the car, and the way he had found it hard to walk. While standing looking at the dead Ferrucci, he had become aware of a fierce constriction in his rib cage. His nose, now bandaged, had hit the windscreen, and he had heard his jaw crack. He ran his tongue over his teeth, and felt a fissure ending in a sharp point in his back molars.

  The commercials segued into a news update.

  Pain was filtering back into his legs, ankles, head, chest, arms. He was definitely coming off some sort of medication, and he wanted back on it.

  He dozed off and slept in fits and starts all afternoon, evening and night.

  No one fed him.

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

  On Wednesday morning, he found himself wide awake. Certainly awake enough to worry if he had been knocked permanently stupid by the crash. Pain had dulled his powers of recollection, and the detailed reconstruction of events that he had been able to manage so easily the day before now seemed an impossible task. He was aching for a visitor and thirsting for knowledge of what had happened.

  At ten in the morning, five hours after he had woken up, a doctor arrived.

  “Ah, you’re awake.”

  A nurse would have said, “We’re awake.” The doctor, more detached and fundamentally not caring one way or the other if he ever opened his eyes again, said “you.” Blume couldn’t say which annoyed him more.

  “And hungry, and thirsty,” said Blume. “I think I may die of thirst. Can I get fruit juice?” For hours he had been thinking of how fresh apple juice would feel in his throat.

  “Yes, yes,” said the doctor, as if to himself. He placed his hands, pudgy, white, on Blume’s ears and stared into his eyes for a few moments. Then he took a penlight out of his breast pocket and shone the light directly into Blume’s pupils. Blume couldn’t turn his head away or grab the doctor by the lapels and head-butt him in his face, so he lay there looking at the doctor’s nostril hair. Besides, he had an urgent question to ask.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Boh.” The doctor shrugged his shoulders, then consulted what Blume surmised was a chart on the wall behind him. “Admitted Sunday lunchtime, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That makes three days.”

  “Three days?” Blume was outraged. He remembered bits of the journey in the ambulance, being rolled onto a stretcher, sharp pains inside his body that seemed to move outward, decreasing in intensity until they floated off his skin like cologne, and then sleep. This was surely only a few hours ago.

  “Is this Intensive Care?”

  “No. How could it be Intensive Care if you’ve had a visitor in here with you?” He patted his hands together.

  “What visitor? What’s his name? Or her name?”

  “Why on earth would I know that?” said the doctor. “A colleague, I believe. Another policeman, who looks pretty beat-up. He got admitted shortly after you. He’s asked to be informed when you’re properly awake. I’ll get a nurse to call him now. He left his name and number with the nurses. By the way, did you enjoy the morphine?”

  “I was on morphine?”

  “Oxycodone. Tiny dose. But no longer,” said the doctor with a touch of relish. “I’m putting you on Celebrex, and then nothing, because, as I say, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Can I have some juice, please? Apple if it’s available.”

  “I’ll see about that when I’ve finished this examination. Now, can you move your feet in opposite directions?”

  He could and did. The doctor frowned, as if Blume were pulling some silly stunt.

  “You really are perfectly all right,” he said. “When you came in, your pressure had dropped very low, and we suspected a ruptured spleen, but that was not the case.”

  His tone implied it should have been.

  “Also, you had a head trauma, but the pressure in your skull remained manageable. Let me see, we also suspected broken ribs, but again, it was just bruising, so lucky again. Your left arm, now that is badly sprained . . . But,” he concluded sadly, “not broken.”

  Blume had a hairline fracture in a kneecap and lacerations in the groin. The doctor seemed to enjoy the effect of this revelation, but eventually, and with some regret, revealed that they, too, were minor. Brightening up a little, he remembered that Blume had managed to misalign his nose and, if he planned on breathing normally again, would require septorhinoplasty.

  Blume asked again about getting some juice, and the doctor left, saying he would see what he could do. But he must have been thwarted in his efforts, because the juice never arrived.

  After waiting for forty minutes, Blume turned himself around in the bed to see if he could find a button or something to call someone. Halfway through his movement, his ribs seemed to break again and his body locked itself into an agonizing position from which he dared not move. He started groaning and cursing. As his position became more painful and he felt his legs cramp up as well, his curses grew in volume and obscenity. A nurse with flagging cheeks and tired eyes appeared at his bedside and shoved him back down. Blume was about to protest when he realized that most of the pain had subsided.

  “What was all that about?” she demanded. In humble tones, Blume begged for some apple juice, and the nurse left, also to see what could be done.

  Blume dozed off and dreamed of crystal pitchers of lemonade sitting on a picnic table in Discovery Park, and his father pointing to Bainbridge Island. His mother was drinking a Tab, a beautiful drink for beautiful people, and for some reason was poking him painfully on the arm, over and over again. To get her to stop, he opened his eyes, and there was Paoloni, his unhealthy pale face brightened by a swollen combination of blues, yellows, and reds.

  Paoloni handed Blume a small room-temperature carton of apricot pulp with a crooked straw in it.

  “The nurse said you wanted this.”

  Blume’s arms were heavy, his left hand damaged and his fingers numb.

  He felt very squeamish about moving his arm with the drip attached to it.

  It was all he could do to hold the small carton of juice up to his mouth and not dribble too much.

  “Here.” Paoloni waved Blume’s wallet, keys, and cell phon
e. “I’m putting them in the top drawer here. They tell me your clothes were destroyed.” He looked at Blume and said, “Your face didn’t come out of it too badly. Your nose looks a bit . . . Ferrucci’s dead.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Blume. A clear picture formed in his mind of Ferrucci’s exploded head, his pathetic gesture of defense.

  “His funeral is later today.”

  “What time?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “I need you to bring me some clothes, Beppe. I’m not missing the funeral.”

  Paoloni received this pledge with such indifference, Blume wasn’t sure he had heard.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  Paoloni was gazing with an absent-minded air across the room. “Sure. I’ll get someone to . . . if that’s what you want. I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not going? Of course you’re going. What sort of cop refuses to go to a colleague’s funeral?”

  “The sort of cop that killed him,” said Paoloni.

  Blume disentangled what he could of the events of the past few days, pulling apart the separate strands of thought that probably belonged to his opium sleep. His arrival in hospital, his being wheeled around, pushed, injected, and made to sleep—all that was hazy but everything before was clear. He was certain that Paoloni had been in the car beside him. Paoloni’s declaration therefore made no sense.

  “You didn’t kill him.”

  “I might as well have, the way things turned out,” said Paoloni.

  “We all messed up. Me, especially, with my driving.”

  Paoloni shook his head. “I warned Alleva we were coming.”

  The realization seemed to hit him in the base of the stomach before it had registered in his head. “You told him that? Jesus, Beppe. You tipped them off. You tipped off Alleva, which is why he was ready. He called in Massoni to make his getaway, and Massoni shot Ferrucci.”

  Paoloni knotted his arms, crossed his feet, and twisted his body as if he was trying to screw himself into place.

  “I didn’t tell him, exactly. Like I didn’t tell him the operation was going down that morning. All I said was we would be picking him up the next day.”

  “It’s not so hard to guess that we’d have made our move in the morning.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” Paoloni said. “I figured Alleva might get rid of some merchandise, something like that, to make sure he wasn’t caught with anything incriminating. He wasn’t supposed to panic and run. He wasn’t supposed to shoot. He didn’t shoot. Massoni did.”

  “You informed a criminal about a police operation,” said Blume. “That’s what it comes down to. And a colleague got shot.”

  Perhaps it was the result of the bruising, but the fear on Paoloni’s face was more yellow than white. His lips were chapped and swollen and dry, and he kept pausing in his speech as if to detach his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

  “Alleva was supposed to come quietly. I gave him a heads-up. It was a gesture. He would owe me a favor, which I would cash in as soon as he got released.”

  “He owes us now,” said Blume. “And if he makes trial, then he’ll owe us his life.”

  “I’m going to get some water,” said Paoloni.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Blume. “Because I think as soon as you move out of my sight, I’m going to call in your name and order your arrest. Complicity in the murder of a follow officer. That’s what you’ll be booked for.”

  Paoloni leaned over him, and for a moment Blume felt under attack, but then Paoloni’s shoulders slumped forward.

  “It’s all gone to shit.”

  “Sit down, Beppe.”

  Paoloni sank into the chair, tucked his legs under it and began to sway slightly back and forth.

  “I liked Ferrucci. So maybe it didn’t look like it. But he was a colleague . . . I mean, Alleva wasn’t supposed to react. Alleva wasn’t Clemente’s killer. You know that. We were both agreed on that before all this happened, weren’t we?”

  Paoloni was right, but Blume was not about to offer easy comfort.

  “Stop swaying and look at me when you’re talking to me,” he said.

  Paoloni stopped rocking back and forth, but kept his eyes to the floor as he spoke. “I didn’t see any harm in making myself seem like an inside in-for mant, since the operation was pointless to begin with. Alleva wouldn’t even have gotten charged. We had nothing on him. The tip-off was supposed to be a cheap favor that wouldn’t have cost us anything. It just went bad.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know, you’re my commanding officer. Tell me what I am supposed to do.”

  Blume pulled himself upright, registering the pain it caused him only after he had completed the movement. He turned his head slowly, like a gracious monarch, to scan the room. Paoloni and he were the only people there. The door was closed.

  “Who else knows?”

  “Nobody,” said Paoloni. “Nobody except you.”

  “If I tell you to go and confess to Principe, go and turn yourself in, will you do it?”

  Paoloni looked at Blume in shock. Then he touched his forehead, and nodded. “If that’s what I have to do.”

  “It’s what you have to do, Beppe,” said Blume.

  “Now? Right now, on the day of the funeral?”

  “Yes.”

  “You won’t help?”

  “I am helping.”

  “It doesn’t feel like help.”

  “Just promise me you’ll do all I say. Exactly what I say.”

  “OK, I promise,” said Paoloni. “You want me to go to Principe, tell him?”

  Blume thought about it, as Paoloni resumed his swaying. “Maybe,” he said. “I need more information. I need to know about what happened after the accident. Where is Alleva?”

  “He vanished. So did the shooter, Massoni.”

  “We know for sure it was Massoni shot Ferrucci?” asked Blume.

  “Yes. The getaway was by motorbike. Ducati 999, which was abandoned in the vicinity of Tor di Valle. Hidden in bushes and rubbish.”

  “When was it found?”

  “The next morning. Monday, nine thirty-five.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It is a brownfield site, ready for building. A crew of Albanians sent in to set up prefab huts found it, got into a fight about who saw it first, foreman called for help.”

  Blume tried to picture it. He caught himself checking the story for plausibility. He allowed the building site to fade from his mind, imagined the two fugitives. “They could have made either of the airports. Right?”

  “We checked flight manifests,” said Paoloni. “All names were checked. Nothing. They would have had false passports.”

  “What about the bike?” asked Blume.

  “It had been reported stolen a month before. It had been resprayed, registration plate changed. Previous owner has no record, two kids, job in mobile communications. Migali, I think his name was.”

  “Trace evidence on the bike?”

  “Albanian paw prints all over. Also some GSR on the throttle, matches the residues at the scene, so we know the shooter was driving, but we knew that already.”

  “Shell casings?” asked Blume.

  “Yes. Two nine-millimeter shells.”

  Blume tried to imagine the events. Alleva and Massoni fleeing toward the airport. The police standing in the car park like a bunch of shocked schoolgirls. Himself lying on the ground.

  “No one went in pursuit?”

  “We didn’t get the number plate, and we weren’t sure at first if there was just one motorbike or a car as well. Still aren’t. It seemed like two people were on it. We called in backup immediately. But there was no interception of the bike.”

  “OK. What about tracing cell phone signals? When was that done?”

  “Immediately. A trace was put on Alleva’s phone immediately,” said Paoloni.

  “When you say immediately . . .”
began Blume.

  “I mean it. Within minutes. More or less at the same time as we called in backup.”

  “Because you had his cell number,” said Blume.

  “You can check that,” said Paoloni. “My call giving Alleva’s number was made before the ambulances came. I did it as soon as I thought about it, which was almost immediately. Within a minute.”

  “And the result?”

  “They located Alleva’s phone at home.”

  “When they check the provider’s logs, your number will be there,” said Blume.

  “I know that,” said Paoloni. He started to say something else, but then stopped.

  “What?” said Blume. “You’re thinking it would be easy enough to justify your call to Alleva without having to admit to tipping him off? Sure it would—but now you’re asking me to say nothing. It’s a big ask.”

  “I know . . . But there’s something else.” Paoloni bent his head down and mumbled something.

  “Beppe, is there someone under my bed?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then raise your head so I can hear you. What did you just say?”

  “That Alleva called me.”

  “I thought you called him.”

  “No. I mean afterwards. After the killing. Alleva called me. He called me the day after.”

  24

  BLUME KEPT HIS voice level. “Where was Alleva calling from?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He was being careful. He began by telling me one radio mast was all I’d get. He didn’t move position to make it difficult to trace. Also, he obscured the number.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Three things. One, that he didn’t pull the trigger. Two, that he never imagined anything like this would happen. And three, that he was sending the killer, Massoni, straight to us. He said to expect Massoni to come up the Via Casilina in an SUV in about half an hour. He also said he would call back when we had Massoni in custody. But surprise, surprise. Massoni never came driving up the road.”

  “What did you say to him?”