“Rock ’n’ roll,” I observed. He nodded with satisfaction.
C’est lundi
Dans mon lit
Il est onze heures
Mal au coeur
Mal dormi
Envie de pipi . . .
“You’re in a good mood,” I commented.
“Today my whole life may change.”
“Sure, money and a passport, too . . . Where do you think you might go?”
“Back to Africa. Where? . . . That’s just a detail.”
I went back downstairs. Nicoletta was loading the dishwasher. “Your black guest thinks he’s going back to Africa.”
“Poor fool. He doesn’t know how good you are at destroying other people’s dreams.”
“So now you like him?”
“A little,” she answered, with a tinge of irony.
“Smoke another cigarette and behave yourself. Today’s not the day to be a shit for brains.”
With split-second punctuality Mikhail showed up, and Nicoletta retreated upstairs. “Here comes the Cossack cavalry,” he joked as he set two suitcases on the table in the living room. One suitcase contained clothing, gloves, and ski masks. The other held cell phones, handcuffs, duct tape, and guns. Brand new guns, still in the original packaging. I opened one of the boxes and picked up a large powerful-looking semiautomatic handgun.
“Where do these come from?” I asked, trying to decipher the writing on the slide.
“Poland,” the Russian replied. “It’s a 9 mm pistol. Fifteen rounds in the clip.”
I handed it to the Chadian. “You think you can handle this? You’re going to be on the front line.”
He held it properly and did all the things that I would expect from someone who’d been in combat. “Nice gun,” he commented, aiming at a wall. “It demands respect.”
I got changed in the ground floor bathroom. Cheap Chinese garments. Jacket and trousers, shoes and tie all in basic black. White dress shirt. I looked in the mirror.
I looked like one of Tarantino’s reservoir dogs. Another touch of confusion for our Calabrian friends.
“Les cagoules . . . the ski masks, there’s only two of them,” Hissène pointed out when I came back.
“The plan calls for someone to remember a black guy,” I explained.
He grimaced with chagrin. “Everyone will see my face.”
“That’s what I want. Remember, to us you all look alike and no one will ever be capable of identifying you. The important thing is not to leave fingerprints,” I added, tossing him a pair of gloves.
The highway was jammed with traffic and construction delays. Mikhail was doing a skillful job of driving the Japanese SUV that he’d stolen in a discotheque parking lot. The owner, little more than a boy, was so wacked out on drugs that he just handed his car keys to Mikhail with a grin. The Chadian proved to be quite a conversationalist and struck up a lengthy and demanding discussion with Mikhail of Russia’s role on the African continent. After a while I couldn’t take any more. I had hoped to sit in back and relax but that proved impossible.
“Can’t you guys just talk about normal armed-robber topics? You know, like women, sports, and money?”
They both broke out laughing and Mikhail tuned the radio to a station that broadcast only Italian music. “Is that better?”
The singer was certain that the sun was there for everyone. I was pretty sure that Tortorelli and the Palamaras got up this morning with the same set of beliefs. I put my iPod earbuds in. Grace Slick’s voice exploded into my head, urging me on, singing: “You have a power all your own . . . ”
The gray metallic Lexus sedan emerged from the car rental offices at 7 P.M. on the dot. It pulled onto the highway we’d just taken to get here, and the whole way it never went slower than 70 mph. The Russian rode the accelerator with a heavy foot and we got to the service plaza near Brescia well ahead of him. I handed the African one of the cell phones with a Bluetooth headset. That was how we’d communicate.
A guy in a white Fiat Punto was already there. He was waiting in his car in the parking lot near the phone booths. Smoke and one end of a cell phone conversation wafted out of the car’s open windows. It was the time of the evening for panini and fast food while drivers of semi trailers hurried to find the best parking spots to bed down for the night. A highway patrol squad car pulled up in front of the bar. Tired faces, an espresso and a quick piss, and then back in the car to devour the miles on their shift. The Calabrians had picked an ideal place and time. No one was paying attention to anyone else.
The Lexus swung into the parking area and slowly prowled across it, finally stopping in front of the closed roll-down door of the repair bay. The guy in the Fiat Punto got out, locked his car with his remote control, and strolled off at a leisurely pace. Mikhail had told us that the next thing he’d do would be to get into the Lexus, have a short chat with his partner, and then get out carrying a dark blue gym bag.
Hissène was too fast for him. He came from around the corner and pulled open the passenger-side door. “Start the engine,” I heard him say in my headset.
The driver stayed cool. “You can put down the piece. My wallet’s in the glove compartment.”
In the meanwhile, the guy from the white Fiat Punto had seen the African get in; at first he stopped and looked around, but then he sped up his pace.
“Hurry up,” I snarled into the cell phone, turning around to look at the Russian. With the age-old pretext of tying his shoe, he was busy jamming a knife blade into one of the Fiat Punto’s tires.
“I know exactly who you are and what this car is carrying,” the Chadian said. “If you don’t get moving I’ll shoot you.”
The driver did as he was told without another word, and the Lexus moved slowly toward the exit, followed by Mikhail who had returned to the SUV. We drove past the driver of the Punto as he was running back to his car.
“Where are we going?” the driver asked.
“Back to Milan, to the car rental place,” the African replied.
“What do you know about the car rental company?”
“Shut up and pull off at the next exit.”
I heard a cell phone ring. It had to be the guy in the Punto who wanted to know what the fuck was going on. The Chadian switched off the driver’s phone, as he’d been instructed.
“Look in the rearview mirror,” the Chadian told him. “You see the SUV that’s following us? They’re friends of mine.”
“More fucking niggers like you, is that what you mean?”
It was time to intervene. “Let me talk to him.”
The African took the headset off his ear and inserted it into the Calabrian’s ear. “I’d suggest you keep calm,” I said in a relaxed voice. “Giuseppe Palamara wants to know who’s stealing his money.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” he shouted in exasperation.
“Maybe it’s Nilo and maybe you’re his accomplice.”
He calmed down and drove wordlessly for a while. As I expected, he couldn’t put the pieces together. Finally, he said the only thing he knew for sure: “You’re just trying to fuck with my head.”
“That’s right,” I admitted without hesitation. “But you’d better shut up and behave if you want to stay alive.”
Hissène took back the headset. “Did you search him?” I asked.
“He’s unarmed.”
“Be careful. He’s smart and he’s dangerous.”
Mikhail, who’d said nothing until then, shot me a few quizzical glances. “You’re wondering why I decided to start naming names with that fucked-up Mafioso.”
“Exactly. There are times when the less said the better.”
“Sure, you’re right, but tomorrow morning you’re going to vanish with your bag of money, while I’m going to have to deal with the feral cunning and mistrust that
have made these miserable Calabrians rich, powerful, and feared everywhere. If they figure this out I’m a dead man. I’m just trying to sow some confusion.”
He snickered. “Dezinformatsia. And do you think you fooled the driver?”
“He’s confused, he doesn’t know what to think. And that’s already a good thing, this early in the game.”
The rest of the drive was an unbroken monologue from the Calabrian as he attempted to establish a contact. I listened to him carefully, doing my best to parse the nuances and details.
He continually called me “big man.” He was obviously distraught but he clearly had a pair of balls. No matter how things turned out, he’d have to pay. The price could be death or it might be a one-way ticket back to his little Calabrian village. He obviously knew that perfectly well, because it was clear that he’d grown up on bread and ’Ndrangheta and was a longtime soldier. He proved it when he started opining about the pistol that Hissène was holding on him.
“Hey, big man, explain something to me: I’ve got a nigger with a handgun that I wouldn’t expect to see around here. You’re Italian, no doubt about that, but it strikes me that you’re the only one . . . ”
I broke my silence. “Tell him that if what he’s saying turned out to be true then we’d have to eliminate him.” Hissène repeated my words.
A bitter laugh came out of the Calabrian’s mouth. I knew that laugh. It was the laugh of a killer who’d done the killing himself too many times not to know that he’d reached the end of the line. I wondered why he didn’t just crash the car and kill himself along with the man who was threatening him. That would foil all our well-laid plans. Maybe he wanted to go out in style, or else a thin thread of hope kept him from being swept away by anger. No. That wasn’t it. He was just a Mafioso without an ounce of imagination. Mafia procedures absolutely forbid any independent thinking, unless it’s been vetted in advance by the local boss.
About fifty yards from the offices of the car rental company was a small supermarket with an empty parking lot behind it. The African told him to drive around back and showed him where to park the car.
“Turn off the engine and give me the keys,” he ordered.
The man did as he was told and a bullet blew his kidney apart.
“Just like in the movies,” the Russian commented when he saw the powder flash light up the interior of the Lexus for a fraction of a second.
We got out of the SUV and started ridding the Lexus of every single object we could find, while the Chadian took care of the dead man’s personal effects. Perched on the rear seat of the Lexus were four identical bags. I opened one at random. Cash. For a second I was tempted to pull out my gun and eliminate both my accomplices. I’d done that once before and I knew nothing could be easier. Unfortunately, I still needed them. I looked up and my eyes met Mikhail’s. He was watching me. I smiled at him. Might as well be straight with him. “I’ll admit it, it did occur to me,” I whispered.
“I know. But it’s not worth trying to figure which of us has the faster draw. That usually winds up with both of us gut-shot on the pavement.”
“Cossack wisdom?”
“Hollywood.”
In three minutes flat we’d cleaned out the Lexus, leaving nothing but a corpse with empty pockets. Another morsel of confusion for the Palamaras. I checked my watch. We were running behind schedule.
“Don’t break the speed limit but do your best to make up some time,” I told Mikhail.
I checked the dead man’s wallet. His name was Zosimo Terreti and he’d shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of forty-nine.
I called Nicoletta, who according to our plan was supposed to spend the evening with Gemma at La Nena to keep an eye on Tortorelli. “How’s it going?”
“He got a phone call and now he seems anxious. He keeps calling someone but gets no answer.”
“Warn me if he leaves the restaurant.”
I turned the Calabrian’s cell phone back on. In a short time a cascade of messages came in from three unavailable callers. The contacts directory was empty and so was the queue of sent messages. Zosimo was a disciplined soldier.
The Russian and the African had done their jobs perfectly. As the mileage separating us from both the Veneto and the city diminished, a critical moment for our little gang was drawing closer: time to split up the take. I reached down and touched the silencer where it was taped to my leg. The gun had a bullet in the chamber.
My cell phone rang. It was Nicoletta. “We’re leaving. We’re the last customers.”
I figured out the timeline. The waitstaff still had to clean up. What with one thing and another, Tortorelli would have to stay at La Nena for at least another hour. According to my original plan, I was supposed to wind up face-to-face with the bookkeeper but solo, after we’d split the take and said our farewells at Nicoletta’s house. There wasn’t time for that now.
“There’s been a change in plans,” I announced. “We’re going to have to swing by and pick up the bookkeeper after the little puppet show at the hotel. He’ll help us count the money.”
Mikhail and Hissène didn’t blink an eye. I realized that by now the tension in the SUV was so dense you could slice it.
Mikhail parked a hundred feet or so from the front door of the Negresco Palace, where the bookkeeper had been staying. I handed Hissène a dark blue bag. He hopped out and vanished into the lobby. He was supposed to go up to the night clerk and ask for Tortorelli. When the clerk told him that Tortorelli hadn’t come in yet the Chadian was to act annoyed and beat it fast. Just one more brainteaser for the Palamaras to try to figure out.
As soon as the Chadian got back in the car I used Zosimo Terreti’s cell phone to text Tortorelli: “Appointment confirmed.”
“You think he’ll fall for it?” the Russian asked.
“I can’t say,” I answered. It depended on how deeply steeped in the ’Ndrangheta’s culture the dickhead really was. The guy we killed in Milan would have seen it for what it was from a mile away, but the bookkeeper was a different matter. He was a technician, as he’d described himself. He was exactly the kind of trained personnel that the ’Ndrangheta needed in order to modernize, but which the various crime families hadn’t yet had time to develop from within the ranks. Probably the initial contact had been through the loansharking operation that had stripped him of his company and had turned him into an employee of the Calabrians.
When we pulled into Piazza Vittoria di Lepanto he was already there, waiting for his fellow Mafioso Zosimo. His eyes were scanning traffic for a metallic gray Lexus, and he only noticed the SUV when it pulled up beside him. I swung open the rear passenger door.
“Hop in,” I said, showing him the dark blue gym bag. “We’ll drive you to the hotel.”
“How do you fit in?”
“I’ll explain while we drive.”
His eyes flickered forward to the front seats. He took in Mikhail and Hissène. He shook his head with determination. “I’m not getting in.”
“Then I’ll kill you,” I threatened him, extending the pistol.
“Do you have any idea of who the Palamaras are?” he mumbled in fear.
“That’s exactly why you should get in the car.”
His legs were trembling and I had to help him in. His Eighties-era face was deformed by a grimace of terror.
“What happened to Signor Terreti?”
“He had a bad case of saturnism,” I replied. “He couldn’t come.”
Mikhail broke in, asking what I’d just said. I explained: “It’s another word for lead poisoning.”
The Russian and the Chadian both burst out laughing. The bookkeeper took my hand. Delicately. As if I was his parish priest. “You don’t know what they’re like. I had to divorce my wife and leave my children to save their lives.”
“So you decided to come bust the balls of yours truly, who
never did a thing to you?”
“I was just obeying orders.”
“Bullshit! They’d already decided to kill me, hadn’t they?”
“It was going to be a car crash,” he admitted. “Right after you sold us La Nena.”
“And you kept treating me like shit even though you knew they were going to kill me?”
“You’re just so obnoxious that it came naturally to me,” he answered frankly.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I put a hand on his shoulder. “All right, Tortorelli. Now just behave and keep quiet. We have a ways to go.”
The SUV left the city, followed a stretch of state route, then started climbing gentle slopes along twisting narrow roads. Mikhail knew exactly where to go and after forty minutes or so turned off onto a dirt lane. The powerful headlights lit up orderly rows of grapevines.
“Where are we?” asked the bookkeeper.
“Everything you see belongs to Brianese,” I answered. “Downhill from here he’s building a fabulous villa.”
The Russian turned off the engine but not the headlights. “We’re here,” he announced.
I shoved Tortorelli out of the SUV and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Just think what a lucky guy you are. You love wine, and you’re going to spend eternity in a beautiful vineyard.”
He fell to his knees. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a prestige cuvée champagne bottle. “You remember this?” I asked. “You drank one to my health.”
“Cut it short,” the Russian warned me.
I listened carefully and caught the distant barking of a dog. It wouldn’t take long before the others joined in a nice canine chorus.
“You’re right. But you have no idea how this asshole tortured me.”
The bookkeeper started whining and I hit him over the head. He collapsed to the ground after the fourth blow from the bottle.
“Is he dead?” asked Mikhail.
“I have no idea. Let’s bury him and if necessary I’ll just finish him off with the shovel.”
We dragged the body a few dozen yards along the slope. “This is the place,” said the Cossack.
At the End of a Dull Day Page 13
