Viper jk-2

by Michael Morley

  'Paolo!' he called again, this time in a pitch somewhere between normal and shouting. His cousin was out for the count. That was good. Franco didn't want him to wake. He just wanted to be really sure that he was asleep.

  He knelt down by his own bed. Not so he could pray, but so he could go to heaven. Tucked into the springs of the mattress he found what he was looking for. He unwrapped an old cotton flannel. Inside was a small sachet of heroin, the bottom of an old Coke can and a syringe that he'd found in a waste bin at the hospital where he went for his check-ups. He looked at the slightly bent and dirty needle and smiled. He knew the risks that went with second-hand spikes, but hell, compared to all the other shit in his life, why should he care?

  He used the spike to suck fifty units of water from a bottle he had. He squirted it in the can and fired up his lighter to dissolve the heroin. He paused and checked that Paolo was still sleeping. Better than that. He was now snoring. He stabbed the spike into one of the blue veins in his left forearm. As he squeezed in the heroin he realized that he'd also pumped in about a quarter of an inch – ten units – of air. Others might have been worried. Franco didn't give a fuck. He thumbed in the rest of the H. Rolled back on to the bed. Waited for it to kick in.

  It did.

  First a little dizziness. Then nausea. Finally a warm mellowness. A gentle calm. A soft summer breeze flowing through his body.

  His beautiful young body. The way it should be.

  The way Rosa would have liked it.

  THREE

  39

  Santa Lucia, Napoli The early morning sun burned gold on the balconies of the rich and famous along the Santa Lucia seafront. In a fit of pique, Bernardo Sorrentino slammed his morning newspaper on to the glass breakfast table. The exclusive he'd given Il Giornale di Napoli hadn't even made the front page. The days when murder had been a forty-eight-point bold-font lead in Naples were long gone. Worse than that, the photograph they'd used on page sixteen was terrible. He was bending in undergrowth and looked like he had a double chin and a fat stomach. What was the point of a hundred sit-ups a day, if the media made a fool of you like this?

  He paced uncomfortably by the apartment window and stared east across the bay. Dark rain clouds gathered in the distance like a flotilla of grey ships readying themselves for battle with the weak winter sun. There would be only one winner. He returned to his paper and read the story again. Six paragraphs, that was all he'd got. And he suspected that if Francesca Di Lauro hadn't been pregnant then he might not have got any at all. Merda! He poured himself orange juice while his ego feasted on the few words that praised him – The scientific expert had reconstructed skull fragments to make up Francesca's lower jaw and enable identification from dental records. Sorrentino's painstaking labours are making him a law enforcement legend.

  Legend. He liked that bit. Okay, so these days murder was no longer big news, but Il Grande Leone was a legend and still warranted newsprint. He was starting to feel much better when his gold-plated cellphone rang – a ringtone of music that he'd personally composed. He looked at the caller display and grimaced. 'Buon giorno, Capitano. I have been trying to call you.'

  On the other end, Sylvia Tomms erupted. Her language would have shamed a Neapolitan docker.

  Sorrentino protested the best he could. 'Sylvia, it wasn't me! It was a leak. Truly, a dreadful leak.'

  Sylvia's swearing continued to scorch the phone and Sorrentino had to wait for the abuse to die down before adding, 'My assistant Ruben was responsible for it. I have fired him. He's cleared out his desk and gone back to his precious Catalan friends in Barcelona. Treacherous snake! I am so angry and so embarrassed. I tried to call you as soon as I found out but I was told you were unavailable. And as you know, you refused to give me your private cellphone number when I asked for it.'

  Sylvia Tomms felt furious and sickened. His comment about her private number reminded her of the awful day when Sorrentino had hit on her. He'd told her how exciting she would find it to spend an evening – and maybe a night – with him. The memory stoked her anger and she imagined what a good punchbag he'd make if only she were near him and had a spare half-hour to let off steam.

  'I really am very sorry about this leak, and I do hope it doesn't personally cause you too much trouble.' Sorrentino made little effort to sound sincere.

  Finally she hung up on him and he allowed himself a smile. He was happy there had been no need to tell her what else he'd discovered. What vital information he'd held back from the press, and from her. Something far more significant than Francesca being pregnant. Something that would teach her not to treat him as though he weren't good enough for her. Something that might even make the front page.

  40

  Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Martina Novello snorted contemptuously at the bed her daughter had clearly not slept in. 'Idiot.' Surely she could have waited. No, of course not. Rosa was never one for waiting. No waiting to have sex. No waiting to spend the night with a man who wasn't fit to clean her shoes. That girl – she'd been born early and been impatient ever since.

  The sheets on Rosa's small bunk were pulled tight and tidy, just as Martina had made them, but she still couldn't help freshening them up, turning back the top sheet and re-creasing it. She smiled as she moved Benni, a tiny teddy bear, given to Rosa at birth and now losing his fur in several places.

  Cristiano, her lump of a husband, lumbered into the caravan's awful chemical toilet, clutching yesterday's newspaper. Damned paper. These days he spent more time looking at newsprint than he did at her. When had that all changed? More memories tumbled in – Cristiano back in his twenties, with the body of a boxer, a twinkle in his eye and a permanent hard-on. So long ago, and yet still so vivid.

  Martina wriggled her feet into blue slippers and padded outside to the neighbouring caravan. She'd give them hell for letting her daughter sleep over with that no-good Filippo. She rapped her knuckles on the cold thin metal of the Valdrano camper and a thought hit her. Rosa had never stayed out before, not all night, so why now? Martina could hear voices, mumblings inside, the scraping of furniture and the patter of feet on the thin floor of the cheap van.

  'Buon giorno.' Filippo's mother had bags under her eyes and no make-up. Her cream dressing gown was pulled tight to reveal a pale neck and fatty legs.

  'Claretta, is Rosa here? Is she with Filippo?'

  The boy's mother sensed worry rather than anger in her friend's voice. 'No, I don't think so.' She walked towards the back of the van, slid open a wooden door. The empty bed told its own story. 'He's not there, Martina.' Fear creased her face as she stated the obvious. 'He's not at yours – not with Rosa?'

  Martina shook her head. 'Your car's gone. Did you know that?'

  Claretta stuck her head out into the wind and saw the empty space. 'Oh, God. Come in and shut the door. I'll wake Nico.'

  And she did. But her husband had no idea either. Not about the kids. Not about the car. Nor did Cristiano when Martina called him over.

  Claretta made coffee while they discussed the possibilities: an accident, an elopement, or something less dramatic and romantic – as Nico speculated. Maybe they'd parked somewhere and fallen asleep, run out of petrol, found a party and stayed but hadn't rung because it had been late. None of them spoke of anything worse. But they all thought it.

  Two hours later Cristiano rang the police.

  41

  Grand Hotel Parker's, Napoli Jack was still asleep at the hotel's computer terminal when his cellphone rang. It flashed Howie's number. He mumbled hello and checked his watch. Nine a.m. in Naples, three in New York. 'You up early or going home late?'

  'Just got in,' growled Howie.

  The big guy sounded dreadful, no doubt plastered again. 'What happened? You get lost trying to find your way around the whisky bottle?'

  Howie let out a low grunt. 'No. I was doing fine for sobriety. Then some robbing little punk in an alleyway knifed me in the ass. I've spent all night in the ER, having nurses stare at my butt
and stitch up the wound.'

  'In the ass? Man, I'm sorry. You okay?'

  'Fine and dandy. I tell you, buddy, some little fucko nearly speared me right up the ring-hole. The nurse said if he'd put the knife train any deeper into the big dark tunnel then I would have bled to death.'

  Jack screwed up his face in sympathy.

  'If you're laughing, I'll never talk to you again.' Then Howie couldn't help but laugh himself. 'Okay, so I admit it's funny. But listen, I think it'll be a friggin' year before I can sit down again, and Christ knows how much it's gonna hurt when I take a shit.'

  'Too much detail. But, hey. I really am sorry.'

  'Sure. Anyways, despite my personal tragedy – which you see fit to smirk at – I still done good with regards to your man Creed.'

  Jack raised an eyebrow. 'Above and beyond the call of.'

  'Yeah, and don't you forget it. So here you go…' Howie growled again as he repositioned himself. 'Let's start at the hotel. No guests, no minibar consumption beyond some water, Pringles and two bottles of beer. Room-service dinner – only for one – and breakfast in his room too. Some photocopying and newspapers. You following me?'

  'Right alongside. Boring as hell.'

  'Sure is, but it gets a might more interesting in a few lines' time. Remember the hotel receptionist you flirted with?'

  'Kind of.'

  'Polish woman, Brenda Libowicz, at the Lester. Anyways, she remembers you. I took her for that coffee you didn't have time for and it paid off a little. Brenda let me go through everything and it seems your friend Creed pretty much had the porn channel on full-time.'

  'Old news. I thought I'd told you that?'

  'Not that I recall. But there's more. Movie porn wasn't his only turn-on. He also spent a lot of time on the Internet.'

  'You get browser data?'

  'Did Clinton get a blow job?' Howie pulled over a computer printout that was lying on the table next to his notebook. 'Creed did several searches on BDSM and watched some real hard-core adult sites. Get this; he specifically searched for dark-haired women who were between seventeen and thirty. He spent an hour on Court TV's crime library reading stories about killers who buried bodies. He went through all our old friends including John Wayne Gacy and Gary Ridgeway, spent a whole lot of time on the Cleveland Torso murders and then ended up reading everything that was ever written about the Sunday Morning Slasher.'

  Jack stopped him. His mind was hopelessly trying to make connections. It felt like wiring a plug in the dark. 'That's ringing all kinds of bells. The Slasher is the Coral Watts case, isn't it?'

  'The one and only,' said Howie. 'Coral Eugene Sonofabitch Watts. Killed several young women. Drowned them, strangled them, cut their throats or knifed them dozens of times. And the bastard claimed to have murdered dozens more that the cops never found.'

  Jack finally made his mental connection. 'Watts buried his victims and that's why they weren't found for years and he was able to carry on killing. On top of that, he used to ceremonially burn trophies he took from the bodies.'

  'Yep, so you have some clear comparisons there – the missing women, the burials, even some burning.'

  'Thanks, buddy, I'd just about joined those dots on my own.'

  'Well done. There's another thing,' he said, his voice growing flat and worried. 'Turns out that Creed has had and still does have access to FBI files.'

  'Say again.' Jack hoped he'd misheard.

  'One of the Internet cookies I traced was Creed's log-in to the FBI's Virtual Academy. Seems that he's been enlisted as a student of the VA.'

  The Virtual Academy was a global distance-learning site, jammed with information and famed for helping to hone profiling techniques. Access was restricted to the law enforcement world.

  The breach rendered Jack silent.

  'You hear me?' asked Howie.

  'I hear you. Only now the dots make a picture that I really don't like. The thought of a possible offender being deep inside our corridors of knowledge fills me with dread. We need to find out everything this sonofabitch has read or written, and whoever he's spoken to. And we need to do it fast.'

  42

  Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii For a split second Franco Castellani couldn't work out the cause of the sharp slapping sensation inside his head. Still slow and wasted from the heroin, he gradually realized that the pain was coming from his grandfather's hand rather than from the after-effects of the drug.

  'What in God's name do you think you are doing? You crazy crazy, child!'

  Franco covered his face. Not that the slaps carried much weight. Rosa. His fingers still smelled of Rosa.

  'Sit up! Sit up and tell me that this is not what I think it is. Not what I know it is.'

  Antonio backed off to give him room. Franco forced his eyes open wide enough to see the syringe and the empty plastic packet being dangled above him. The air was hot and stale. Flies buzzed around a dirty plate near his cousin's bed. Franco finally commanded his legs to move and raised himself into a sitting position. The door jerked open and blinding white light flooded in. Paolo stopped in his tracks, fresh bread and milk in a carrier bag swinging in his hand.

  'Get out!' shouted Antonio.

  Paolo turned on his heels.

  Franco noticed his cousin had been dressed in work clothes. He guessed he'd overslept and his grandfather had come looking for him. 'It's heroin,' he admitted, shielding the light from his face. 'If you were me, you'd be taking it too. Lots of it.'

  His grandfather slapped him again. 'Don't give me this self-pity shit. Be proud of who you are, what you are.'

  Franco put his hands back to his face; this time the blows had stung. 'What I am? I'm the living dead, that's what I am.'

  Antonio hit him again. Slapped hard at the boy's stubborn head. Tried to knock some sense into his thick skull. Then he grabbed him. Shook him and held him. And felt his own tears stream down his face. 'Franco, you shame yourself with this stuff. You disrespect yourself and your family. We are not junkies. We are not cowards. Whatever life throws at us we raise our heads above it and show the world we are proud to be ourselves.'

  'But I'm not, Grandpa. I'm not proud.' His voice was shaky and his eyes watery. 'I hate myself and everything that's happening to me.'

  Antonio held his grandson by the arms. His brown, liver-spotted fingers dug into the thin white forearms snaked with needle tracks. 'Don't do this, Franco. Be a man. Come on; find your self-respect.'

  Franco Castellani searched deep inside himself. There was no trace of self-respect. Only a stinking sump-oil residue of painful memories. His jailbird father, his runaway mother and his current fleapit, hand-to-mouth existence. Finding respect was impossible.

  'I'm sorry,' he said and kissed the top of his grandfather's head. 'I know I disappoint you. Mi dispiace.'

  Before Antonio could reassure him, Franco had pulled away from his grandfather and was gone. Leaving the wind to slam shut the rusty old door of the van.

  43

  Napoli Capodichino Salvatore Giacomo's knees cracked as he bent to pick up the morning mail behind his apartment door.

  It was his fiftieth birthday. Not many people knew that. Even fewer cared.

  The mail included several free newspapers, an electricity bill, but no cards. He sat alone in the kitchen of his one-bedroomed rental. Although he was a couple of blocks back from the busy A56 he could still feel the steady rumble of traffic. He breakfasted on instant coffee and old cheese slices. As he ate, he thought about his half-century on earth. What did it amount to? A little cash in a number of false bank accounts. Run-for-the-hills money. Start-all-over-again dough. He'd never use it. Never spent much, anyway. He didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't have friends. He just worked and came home. What money the Don gave him went on rent, cheap food and the savings he'd never need. Don Fredo had said to put something away every month, so he'd done that. He'd always done whatever the Don had said.

  Sal guessed he saw Fredo as a father figure. A replacement for
his old man. He'd been nine years old when his parents had split up. He still remembered the fearful row; his father slapping his mother's face and calling her a cheating slut, then storming off. A father one minute. A memory the next. Then strange men came to stay at the apartment, men who looked at him with spiteful eyes. He hated his mother for letting them in. Into the house. Into his father's bed. It wasn't long before he ran away. Stayed with friends on the other side of Herculaneum or, in summer, camped out in the parkland around Vesuvius, killing wood pigeons and foxes. Then in his teens his mother disappeared and he pretty much made his own way in life. His brains and his fists helped him survive and stay one step ahead of the law.

  The distinctive horn of the Mercedes sounding in the street shook him from his thoughts. Valsi had arrived and was waiting.

  Sal pulled on the jacket of a navy-blue suit, adjusted his tie in the old tarnished mirror by the front door and, before leaving, checked just one more thing. His weaponry. Sal never opened a door without being ready to deal with anything that was on the other side. It was that level of caution that had got him through the first fifty years of his life, and he hoped would get him through many more years. For that reason, Sal didn't carry just one gun, he carried two. Matching Glock 19s, snugly concealed in a double shoulder holster. The pair gave him a minimum of thirty rounds of 9mm ammunition. What's more, if one jammed or got dropped, then that was no shit, he just pulled the other one. If he was caught in a firefight, he could also throw the spare to whoever was with him. The horn sounded again. Capo or no Capo, the fucker could wait. He took a leak, locked up and left the building.

  'Sal, you're slower than a snail,' shouted Dino Pennestri from the driver's seat as he approached the car. 'We should call you Sal the Snail.'

  Giacomo said nothing. He slipped in the back, alongside Bruno Valsi, who greeted him with a curt 'Buon giorno.'