“That was you who shot Musta,” Colomba realized.
“I don’t feel like talking about it; I think you understand.”
“Yes, but I don’t understand why you’re here, then, if that’s the way you see things. Above all, you run the risk of getting kicked off the force, the same way I was.”
“I’ve reached the NOA age limit, anyway. They would have taken me out of action.”
“That’s not an answer. Tell me the truth.”
“Too compromising,” Leo said with a sly smile.
She jokingly poked her forefinger right in his face. “Fess up, you little turd.”
“I didn’t want to leave you all alone.”
Colomba shot a glance into the compartment, checking to make sure that Dante was still sleeping, his face pressed against the glass like a mussel on a piling. Then she caressed Leo’s face. He shoved her against the wall of the compartment and kissed her. She pulled him to her, thrilling to the contact of their bodies and understanding in no uncertain terms that he desired her, too.
“There is no sleeping carriage on this train,” she whispered into his ear.
“No, but there’s a door right behind you.”
It was the door to the restroom, and Colomba reached around behind and blindly turned the handle, letting Leo’s weight push her backward into the small room. He shut the door behind him, and she started undoing his belt for him; his pants slid to the floor because of the weight of the holstered pistol. Colomba knelt down and took his member in her mouth, but he pulled away immediately for fear of losing control, turning her around against the sink and eagerly pulling down her jeans. He penetrated her from behind, and Colomba closed her eyes and stopped thinking about what was right and what was wrong, letting her body move in time with Leo’s. It didn’t last long, given the situation and the lust, and since they were using no protection, Leo pulled away in time. A little later, Colomba came, too, guided by his fingers, covering her mouth with one arm to avoid yelling. It had been three years since her last orgasm—at least since the last one with another person in flesh and blood.
Leo straightened himself up and helped her wipe herself off with the restroom’s paper towels. Colomba got dressed and splashed water on her face. “Is it obvious?” she asked, taking a look at herself in the mirror.
“Oh, yes,” he said with a glint in his eye.
They cracked the door open and checked to make sure there was no one in the corridor, then they hastily exited the restroom and went back to sit down. Dante was still in his chemical trance, but he was aware of their return, and the conscious part of his mind had no doubts about what had just happened. Shutting his eyes again so he didn’t have to look at Colomba’s pink, happy face—happier than he’d ever seen it in all the time they’d known each other—he realized that he’d lost her.
22
The Palasport della Misericordia in Venice is unlike any other sports arena on earth. Built in a sixteenth-century building that once housed a religious confraternity, it was a venue for the local team’s basketball games from the postwar years until the 1970s, with the audience squeezed in between courtside and the large arched windows. It had recently been renovated and updated, and COW had rented it for the gala evening because it was not only beautiful but also tactically very easy to guard and defend. In fact, it was a building that stood in relative isolation, with only two entrances, the second of which was at the top of a long external metal staircase.
At eight p.m., around the building and in the little piazza in front of the church of the Misericordia, there was already the kind of milling crowd that turned out only for major occasions, with guests in tuxedos and evening gowns, swarming inside in orderly lines. Outside the front entrance, and on the bridge running over the canal, twenty or so security guards were keeping an eye on the door and other points of access, while two launches, one used by the police and the other by the Carabinieri, were tied up nearby. Once they passed through the first checkpoints, the guests were rapidly inspected with metal detectors and bomb sniffers; they were then courteously waved into the large frescoed hall. A stone colonnade held up the coffered ceiling, and a staircase led up to the second-floor gallery. Only staff was allowed upstairs, and behind the little chain stood three men from the security detail, with the inevitable clip-on earpieces and the strange bulges under their jackets.
The normal attendees had to remain on the steel floor that had replaced the basketball court. Here an all-woman string quartet was performing Brahms and Haydn, and it was possible to take selfies with local officials and show business stars who had come in honor of Paola Vetri: an enormous photograph of her face had been hung right over the table with the vol-au-vent puff pastries.
At nine o’clock, her son walked across the little bridge with a drunken smile stamped on his face and a pair of dark glasses to conceal the hemorrhages in his left eyeball. He wore an Armani tuxedo. Giltine was walking arm in arm with him, dressed in an acid-green Chanel dress and a jacket in the same color. The outfit was semitranslucent, and Giltine had had to make herself up completely, even her feet, shod in a pair of red Louboutins. With her black pageboy cut, she looked almost like a young girl.
She looked defenseless.
At security, she gave the name that Francesco had added to the list as his plus-one, while he struggled to keep from laughing and to go along with the game. Mark Rossari came out to greet them and accompany them to the entrance, tersely reminding Francesco that he’d be going upstairs without his date, giving a twist of contempt to the word. He had a picture of Francesco’s girlfriend in the dossier, and this woman didn’t even remotely resemble her.
Giltine nodded, showing that it was fine with her. She had in mind a different way of gaining access: namely, a man wearing a flight jacket, standing in the crowd of rubberneckers on the other bank of the canal. For a moment their eyes met, and the Policeman recognized the Girl who, in the year when the Wall fell, had left him a farewell note on the table and enough money to acquire a new identity.
In the note, written with the brutality of someone who had never learned how to lie, she had explained only that the trip she’d decided to undertake required the lightest of baggage, and he wasn’t part of that baggage. The Policeman hadn’t been caught off guard, though he had actually hoped for a different kind of farewell, one that might reveal what the Girl had really felt for him during those months spent together inventing a life on the outside. It had been like living with a stray cat that had shown up out of nowhere to be fed and have its wound tended to, then one day vanished just as it had come, setting off down new trails of hunting and sex partners. It was several days before the Policeman realized that the Girl had left a small charcoal sketch of a grown-up man and a little girl walking together, leaning into the wind. The little girl was looking up at the man with a smile on her face, holding his hand.
Giltine, from the far side of the canal, gave no sign of having recognized him, but as she turned to go through the metal detector, she raised her left hand, and the Policeman understood the message.
Five minutes.
23
As they arrived at Venice’s Santa Lucia station—with Dante coming down off his psychopharmaceuticals and frantically asking when he could leave the train—Leo received a call from his office. He had asked them to keep him posted about any violent crimes that might take place in Venice over the course of the day. The office informed him that two corpses had been found in a tourist rental, an apartment in the Sestiere Cannaregio.
Dante, who had studied the Venice map before leaving and who preferred to walk ahead so he didn’t have to look any of his companions in the face, led them down calli and over bridges; the antipsychotic circulating in his veins was enough to keep him from going into a hysterical fit whenever a crowd of tourists had the nerve to get in his way or cross his path. Calle Sant’Antonio was jammed with rubberneckers and uniforms, as well as the interesting variant of a pedestrian ambulance. Along the canal, law
enforcement boats were tied up with their emergency lights flashing. The only one with a badge in his pocket was Leo, who went over to talk with his local colleagues.
Meanwhile, in the sotoportego with the votive shrine at the beginning of the calle, Dante was letting off steam by chain-smoking. “If he’s not back in a minute, we’ll leave him here,” he grunted.
“If he’s not back in a minute, I’ll call him,” Colomba said.
“Why waste the time?”
“I’m sorry you don’t find him likable.”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever found likable in my life, except for Alberti, who I honestly can’t believe is a cop,” said Dante brusquely. “If it’s going to happen with anyone else, it’s not going to be your buddy with the itchy trigger finger. Come on, let’s go.”
Colomba guessed that her romantic interlude on the train hadn’t passed unobserved. And that Dante hadn’t taken it well. She wondered whether it was because he was afraid of losing a friend, but from the look of feigned superiority that Dante was putting on, she realized it was something more complicated. Still, now wasn’t the time to delve into it. “Leo can be useful to us, okay?” she said, putting an end to the discussion.
Dante had rather impolite thoughts about how and to whom Leo might prove useful, but he didn’t have time to feel ashamed before the NOA officer was back. “Two dead. At least three assailants. One of the corpses was tattooed with poker hands; maybe this has something to do with gambling debts. Anyway, it wasn’t Giltine.”
“It wasn’t Giltine directly,” said Dante.
“Do we know who they were?” asked Colomba.
“One was a waiter from here, and the other was a Greek tourist. But that’s all I know.”
“Let’s hope they were the target. That way we’re done with it,” said Dante.
“No, Dante. Let’s hope they weren’t,” said Colomba. “Because what I’m hoping is that she’s around here somewhere. I don’t intend to let her get away this time, that bandaged slut.”
° ° °
Giltine had never worn so few bandages since she’d first started to see the sores appear on her body, and the suffering was so intense that she struggled to keep the smile fixed on her heavily made-up face. At last, though, Rossari came to get Francesco at the dessert table and led him up the stairs. Perhaps because security was afraid he’d armed himself with the little plastic fork he’d used to stuff his face, they patted him down and ran the bomb sniffer over him again. They confiscated his cell phone and his lighter, then he was ushered into a room whose walls were made of satin-finished glass, furnished as a luxurious office. Behind the desk sat an old man with white hair and yellowish eyes, drinking a cup of tea. John Van Toder, the founder. “So did Paola make sure you studied English?” he asked him in that language.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then you’ll understand me if I tell you to sit your ass down on that fucking chair, I suppose?” Francesco nodded, then after another second or two of hard thinking, he realized that he had to obey the command and sat down facing the desk. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said vacuously. “And what a lovely party.”
° ° °
The Policeman put the bag with the money into a recess in the wall and looked around at the three other surviving team members: a pair of Italians who resembled Laurel and Hardy and a Frenchman with a fine-honed face. The task that Giltine had assigned them called for them to don tuxedos, and the three had done their best, though they were pretty poorly matched. The fat Italian had rented what looked like a Halloween costume; the skinny one had on an haute couture concoction that looked far too chic; and the Frenchman was wearing a motorcycle jacket, because in his opinion, there was nothing more elegant in the world. A person might reasonably question his intelligence, as if he hadn’t already provided sufficient proof by murdering and eating his roommate.
They split up. Laurel and Hardy chose the external staircase, while the Frenchman headed for the main entrance. He was the one who started first, because he was sick of having to wait in line. He pulled the sawblade knife out of his jacket and started slashing at the people ahead of him. He stabbed a ruddy-faced young man in the throat and watched him fall to his knees, then swung the knifepoint into the face of a young woman dressed like Lady Gaga at the last MTV Awards. Everyone started screaming and shoving, and he windmilled blindly with the knife.
° ° °
The old man looked at Francesco in genuine bafflement. He didn’t understand why the young man kept his sunglasses on, and he seemed to him to be high on something. He knew that Rossari had investigated Francesco, and in the dossier, there was no mention of drug use. All the same, he got the impression that Francesco understood not a word of what he was saying. He sighed. “Your mother worked with me from the very beginning, and without her, we wouldn’t have had such an easy time moving our product through your country. I have an immense debt of gratitude to her, as well as a notarized contract that it would cost me too much to get out of now. Therefore, you’ll be given a number of administrative responsibilities. You can continue to use the Milan office and the other properties. You won’t have anything to do with the core business until you’re ready—if you ever are, that is. Exactly like your mother, you’ll be paid in dividends from one of our affiliated companies.”
“Okay.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“I like the Milan office. It’s nice.”
Van Toder looked at him, increasingly perplexed. “If you have anything to ask, now is the time,” he said.
Several centuries ago, Francesco had had plenty of questions about COW, but now he couldn’t even begin to remember them. He felt like he might be having a performance-anxiety panic attack, though he actually felt no panic, just boredom. He wanted to go back to the party, to be close to his Giltine, the most beautiful woman in the world. But to keep from being rude—she’d told him over and over about that—he made an effort to formulate a question. “So, exactly who the fuck are you guys, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, aside from an association loaded with money that owns everything I thought I was going to inherit. An association that sells little children.”
The old man lurched forward in his chair. Then he leaned toward Francesco, hauled off, and gave him a smack in the face that knocked the sunglasses off. He grabbed him by the lapels and yanked him close, staring into his pupils. “Who the hell drugged you?”
° ° °
Meanwhile, the two Italians, ski masks pulled over their heads, had been stopped midway up the steps by two security guards. The fat Italian lunged at the neck of one of the two guards and rolled with him down the stairs, while the skinny Italian let his scortichino—a blade used to debone prosciutto—slide down his sleeve into his hand, and pointed it at the second security guard’s face.
He’d caught the man off guard, and could have cut his throat or stabbed him in the eye, but instead he froze. He’d dreamed of that moment for months, ever since he’d first met Giltine in a chat room and she’d started initiating him into videos of rapes and violence, but now he discovered that he actually had inhibitory brakes inside him that he’d never known existed. The security guard took advantage of the opportunity to yank the knife away and pin him to the steps, twisting an arm behind him. Then there was a gunshot from close by, and the guard fell backward onto the steps. The skinny Italian looked up and saw his partner galloping up the steps, his face covered with blood and his ridiculous tuxedo jacket in tatters. “Now I have a gun!” he shouted excitedly, and started shooting at the crowd of men coming down the steps toward them.
° ° °
The guests were not yet aware of what was going on outside. The music and the chattering voices covered up the noises from outside the room, and the plate-glass window by the entrance was curtained. But the news had spread among the security staff, and the guards headed en masse toward the exits. This was the moment Giltine had been waiting for. She kicked off her shoes and headed barefoot
for the stairs. Although the men on the security detail weren’t expecting to be attacked by an unarmed woman, they were professionals, and they moved to stop her without pulling out their weapons. It was an error, even though guns probably would have done nothing to change the outcome.
° ° °
The glass-walled office was pretty crowded by now, because three men armed with submachine guns and Rossari had joined the founder and his guest. “We need to get you out of here,” said Rossari to the founder.
Van Toder pointed at Francesco. “He knows what’s going on,” he said.
Rossari lifted the young man straight up in the air and crushed him against the wall. “Who’s behind this attack?” he asked.
The euphoria had almost entirely subsided in Francesco, replaced by anxiety and confusion. He’d been confused before, but now he was starting to realize it. “Maybe it’s Giltine,” he said. “She’s angry at you all.”
“Who’s Giltine?” Rossari asked in bafflement.
Before Francesco had time to answer, a metal desktop was shoved hard against the glass wall behind him, shattering it. Francesco fell, striking the back of his neck against the jagged glass, which stabbed into the flesh, sinking into the medulla between the second and third vertebrae. Paola Vetri’s son experienced what thousands of people beheaded on the scaffold had discovered before him, the estranged sensation of being entirely confined inside their own head. An acid-green shadow leaped over his body and plunged into the office, where it moved too fast for Francesco to manage to follow it with his rapidly dulling eyes. He lacked oxygen and he tried to breathe, but his lungs were no longer there, and just a few seconds later, he, too, was no longer there.
Kill the Angel Page 43
