“No matter what we do, she’s not worth shit on the market anymore,” I said. “We’d be stuck with her, along with a lovely pink scar and a burning desire for vengeance.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“What do you think’s going to happen when she wakes up lying on that sofa instead of in a hospital bed? She won’t be the naïve little fool you’ve been steering around up till now. She’ll turn into an angry woman with nothing to lose, willing to do anything to keep from being an unsightly monster for the rest of her life.”
Nicoletta broke down. She turned on the waterworks and started sobbing. “So what the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
“We just eliminate the problem,” I responded seraphically.
She leapt to her feet. “Are you fucking insane?” she screamed.
I put on my overcoat and neatly tucked my scarf into place while my partner howled like a banshee. With that hoarse voice of hers she really was hard to take. I waved goodbye and headed for the door.
She grabbed me by the half-belt on the back of my coat to keep me from leaving. “Where do you think you’re going, asshole?”
I gave her a smack. I followed it up with another. “I’m going home to get some sleep because I’m beat and I’ve worked hard all day,” I told her. “And you’re taking your whore to the emergency room and then you’re going to have some explaining to do to the cops because she’s going to tell them about the hotel and the Russian with the knife, and how you loaded her into your car and left the hotel without calling an ambulance or the police. Plus, to save his ass, the night clerk is going to tell them all about how you bribed him to let you run hookers out of his hotel. And then they’ll work their way back to the other three. Should I go on?”
She shook her head and slumped into an armchair and started to whimper again. “Unless you have a better idea . . . ” I added. “But if you can’t think of anything . . . well then, I don’t see how else we can settle the matter.”
“I could let you take care of it.”
“Gladly.”
I unwrapped the expensive silk scarf from around her neck and ran it around Isabel’s throat. I braced one knee against her spine and started tugging. She was dead in less than a minute.
Nicoletta was frozen with shock. She jammed both her hands, balled into fists, against her mouth and stood staring at the girl’s dead body. “You just killed her.”
“And I did it with your silk scarf,” I pointed out, using the scarf to secure the towel around the dead girl’s face.
“Now what are you doing?”
“You wouldn’t want to get blood all over your car.”
I made her give me the keys to her SUV, I slung Isabel over my shoulder, and I dumped her into the ample luggage space in back.
Before going out the door I called the Russian. “I’m on my way, with my friend.”
Mikhail was waiting for me in a dark country lane. I pulled up twenty minutes later, after a roundabout drive through empty parts of town.
“I’ve already got the hole dug,” he told me.
I noticed his hand gripping a handgun pointing at the ground.
“You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“You know how these things go, my friend. This is exactly when they decide to kill you and you wind up at the bottom of the grave you just dug, keeping a corpse company. Then the next thing you know a hotel night clerk has identified both dead bodies and the police close the books on a turbulent love affair gone wrong.”
“I wish I’d thought of that myself,” I kidded him, as I swung open the back hatch of the SUV.
Nicoletta had regained a modicum of self-control. With a cigarette dangling from her lips she was packing up the personal effects of the unfortunate Isabel in her upstairs bedroom. I saw a roll of bills on the night table. I tucked the cash into my overcoat pocket.
“She won’t be needing it.”
“Where did you . . . ”
“Do you really want to know?”
She shook her head and cigarette ashes tumbled onto the clothing piled on the bed. “What should I tell the other girls?”
“The same fairytale that they’re all wishing would come true,” I answered. “The Russian fell in love with her, bought her from you, and took her off to Moscow to live a life of luxury surrounded by sable stoles, caviar, vodka, and diamonds.”
“That’s such a moronic story they’d probably fall for it.”
I watched her pack for a while. “I think you should listen to me very carefully right now, Nicoletta. I wouldn’t want for there to be anything less than a perfect understanding between the two of us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A series of small but meaningful details,” I replied. “Buried along with Isabel, who is very well protected by a plastic bag, is your silk scarf and one of your own personal towels, along with the towel from the hotel.”
“Why are you threatening me? You know I’ll never talk.”
“See what I mean? You’re still not listening carefully, the way I asked you to,” I scolded her. “I’m telling you that everything surrounding this murder points straight at you and only you.”
I held out my hands, encased in latex gloves.
“I didn’t leave my fingerprints on anything, but you did. There’s blood in your nice living room and in your SUV, and there’s no way you’ll be able to eliminate every last trace of it.”
“But you killed her.”
“Maybe so, but the evidence all points to you,” I explained in a faintly whiny, pedantic tone of voice. “I want to remind you that the night clerk saw you take a bleeding Isabel away from the hotel. And that’s something any criminal court in the country would view as a decisive piece of testimony,” I added as I held up a clear pastic bag holding the bottle of rum that I’d made sure to pick up before walking upstairs.
“And here are your fingerprints on this bottle, along with the dead girl’s.”
“You bastard,” she hissed, as she lunged for the bag. I rammed my fist into her solar plexus. It wasn’t a hard punch, but it stopped her cold.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I trust you, Nicoletta. We’ve been friends for a long time, we’re business partners, and I wouldn’t give up your blowjobs for anything in the world—they’re definitely the best in town. But people change and so I’d like to be positive that you would never try to rip me off.”
I blew her a kiss and slipped out of the house, walking through the dark to the car I’d parked in a nearby street.
I watched Martina applying her creams and thought back to Isabel. It had been eleven years since the last time I killed somebody. Back then, I’d sworn to myself that I’d never do it again, because I believed that I’d never need to eliminate stumbling blocks along my straight and narrow path to a normal life. Turns out, I was wrong, but that wasn’t my fault.
When Martina reached her orgasm I reflected on the fact that it hadn’t been unpleasant at all.
The Nicoletta Rizzardi who walked into La Nena the following day was a very different woman from the one I first met. Her brash, tough attitude, the assumption that she could keep any man in line, had been replaced by the certain knowledge that she was in a situation with no way out and her future dangled by the very thin thread of my benevolence. For the first time, she had no silk scarf around her neck.
I told the waitress to set a table for two in the back room. The second seating for lunch was drawing to a close, and once I was done ringing up the checks I joined her. I was gleefully cruel.
“I expect love from you, Nicoletta. Lots of love.” I started the conversation in a syrupy voice.
Her eyes widened. “Love?”
“Have I or have I not become the single most important man in your life?”
“I’m afraid yo
u have.”
“Then you’re going to have to love me, or at least you’re going to have to do such a good job of pretending to love me that I can’t tell the difference.”
“Stop it, Giorgio, please.”
I changed my tone of voice. “Do you think I’m joking?”
She stared at me. “Not for a second.”
A waitress walked in with our bowls of pasta. I was hungry and I greedily dug in to the tagliatelle con ragù di sorana dei colli Berici. But my partner didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.
“How’d it go with the girls?” I asked, wiping the sauce off the bottom of the bowl with a hunk of bread.
“Fine. They bought the fairytale.”
“We’re going to have to find a replacement for Isabel.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t take it anymore. Let’s sell the girls and shut down the business.”
I ignored her. “Next week is Carnival, and Venice is going to be packed with horny tourists. Don’t tell me that you don’t have anything planned.”
“Sure, there might be a few things . . . but they’re all foursomes, I can’t imagine that I’d find a girl in time . . . ”
“Well, do your best, or you’ll be standing in for her.”
For a second she was on the verge of getting up and walking out. “I’m forty-one years old, Giorgio,” she said calmly. “Don’t you think I’m a little old for the whore’s life?”
“You’re an attractive woman,” I shot back with conviction. “And anyway, it’s your fucking problem.”
She looked down into her bowl and said nothing more until dessert. I even caught a distinct whiff of her despair.
“There’s something else that I have to talk to you about, something that concerns you.”
“What is it?”
“If I tell you though, you have to promise not to make me do things I don’t want to do,” she said in an attempt to negotiate. “It’s valuable information. Priceless.”
“Make you do things? What an unfortunate way of putting it. Anyway, the answer is no.”
She gave in and told me anyway. “Brianese is planning to rip you off. Actually, the right term for it would be annihilate you.”
I shrugged. “Bullshit, I don’t believe that.”
“His secretary Ylenia told me.”
“I didn’t know the two of you were on such close terms.”
“She called me up . . . ”
“And . . . ” I pushed.
“And suggested I work with her to push you out of the business with the girls. She told me that you were through anyway, that you’d become an unpredictable danger.”
“But she didn’t tell you why?”
“No.”
“Still, you accepted.”
“You would have done the same thing. She assured me that after the elections you’d have other things to worry about, and that the girls would the last of your worries.”
“What did they promise you in exchange?”
“Inside information on certain investments and a position as the commissioner for cultural affairs in a small town in the province.”
“And you act squeamish about working as a hooker in Venice at Carnival?”
“I’m sorry, Giorgio. I know, I should have told you about it before now . . . ”
“You’re going to keep seeing Ylenia and sending the girls out on jobs for Brianese and his friends. But I want to know everything. No more secrets.”
“All right, whatever you say, Giorgio.”
I stood up. “Come back at closing time, dressed to kill,” I ordered her.
Many hours later, when Gemma opened the door and saw me standing there with Nicoletta, she had a moment of surprise and hesitation. Then she said: “Oh, King of Hearts, you’re going to turn me into a bad, bad girl.”
CHAPTER THREE
Renegade
When the elections came the Padanos swept to a victory that was beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. They were now the absolute masters of nearly every square inch of the Veneto. It was a bitter defeat for Brianese and his party and he was forced to take the blame, like a general who had been beaten on the field of battle. With gnashing of teeth and rending of garments he bravely offered his chest to the firing squad, but it was nothing more than a tableau organized with the local bigwigs and power brokers. They absolved him publicly of all guilt and entrusted him with the task of negotiating with the victors for all the government positions and appointments in the public health department that he could wangle. For that matter, the Counselor was one of the most openly avowed and deeply implicated supporters of the Fearless Leader. There was no way he could climb onto another passing bandwagon. But Brianese had been well aware of that fact for some time now. Every move he made was a stitch in a larger tapestry he was weaving, a strategy designed to allow him to outlive the Fearless Leader and even the party itself, even though he was one of the staunchest defenders of the logic of dynastic succession. The Fearless Leader’s daughter was looking like a good prospect.
There was immediate negative fallout on La Nena’s business. La Nena was considered the one public venue where the municipal defeat had germinated, and many of our regular customers emigrated elsewhere. The hour of the day when this tendency was clearest was aperitif time, when customers came in to converse and gossip, but the restaurant actually held up well. I immediately decided to take steps. Nicoletta arranged to recruit a certain number of male and female underwear models whose only job was to be seen in the place, behaving like schoolchildren. The evening aperitif hour started livening up again. The long awaited death blow that the Counselor was expected to inflict upon me failed to arrive. I relaxed, in the conviction that he was too busy trying to limit damages. He hadn’t been around in a while, nor had any of his colleagues. But really, I was misjudging and underestimating him again.
At the end of a dull spring day, Brianese walked into La Nena with his usual brisk determined step, his usual bright smile stamped firmly on his face. He was jovial and pleasant with everyone and ran through a well-rehearsed routine of wisecracks and personal stories about the Padanos and their mutual adversaries on the center-left.
My stomach did a flip-flop and I only went over to pay my tributes once he’d finished performing his little skit.
“Welcome back, Counselor.”
He pretended he’d only just noticed me. “Caro Giorgio, how have you been?” he asked in a loud voice, shaking my hand in delight. “Forgive me if I haven’t been around for a while, but here in the Veneto, instead of progressing we’re going backwards and no one has time to see their old friends anymore.”
Then he locked arms with me and lowered his voice. “Is the back room still ‘usable’?”
I smiled with satisfaction. “I never opened it to the public and I’ve made sure it’s nice and clean.”
“Perfect. I’m expecting three major enterpreneurs in the food and hospitality industry that I’d like you to meet. I hope you can join us.”
“It’ll be a pleasure, Counselor.”
It became obvious that it would be no pleasure at all the minute I saw them walk into the place. I had no doubt whatsoever that these were Brianese’s guests. In all these years, I’d developed a considerable body of experience in terms of the corrupt and the corruptible, profiteers, politicos, businessmen, developers, industrialists, and people who fit into none of those categories. It was clear why the Counselor had chosen not to wait for them at the counter, preferring to go into the back room and loiter there. He didn’t want anyone to remember having seen him together with them. I sized them up as they headed straight for the counter. The first one in line had to be the boss, or at least that’s what I presumed from the Armani suit. He was about fifty-five years old, roughly five foot six inches in height, with a slight build, salt-and-pepper hair brushed straight back, a
square face, a thin nose, and dark eyes set slightly too close together.
The second one was tall and skinny as a reed. His suit was tailor-made but the fabric wasn’t exceptionally good. A face out of the Eighties, his hair was a little long over his collar, and he was probably ten years younger than the first guy. He looked like a fugitive from a Spandau Ballet concert.
The guy bringing up the rear was all eyes, looking around and savoring every detail as if it all belonged to him. He was the youngest, the most arrogant, and probably the stupidest of the three. He bore a vague physical resemblance to the first guy, and he wore expensive casual attire that showed off the time he spent in the gym.
I’d seen people like them before, in the exercise yard at San Vittore prison. They always moved in a pack and they considered themselves the masters of the world.
They headed straight for me. “Counselor Brianese,” said the boss.
They knew exactly who I was and they’d treated me as if I was a servant. A bad harbinger. I slowly extended my index finger and pointed to the door of the back room. “He’s expecting you,” I said in the same tone of voice.
I waved over a waitress. Her name was Agata and she was a reliable and likeable employee. Even more important, she was La Nena’s corporate memory. She had an unusually accurate photographic memory and was a living archive of every customer that had ever been through the place.
“Have you ever seen them before?”
“The tall one,” she answered confidently. “He’s been here three or four times recently. By himself.”
I pulled a bottle of prosecco out of the fridge and went to find out what a fucked-up trio of Mafiosi accompanied by Brianese was doing in my restaurant.
The Counselor was entertaining them by singing the praises of another parliamentarian whose name I hadn’t managed to catch. I poured the wine and waited in silence.
“This is Giorgio Pellegrini, the proprietor.” He moved on to introductions once he decided that it was time to talk business.
At the End of a Dull Day Page 8
