Cry Wolf

by Michael Gregorio

  Landini’s face was set hard when he reached the car. ‘Conditions here may not be what you’re used to,’ he said. ‘But when in Rome … You know the expression? There’s nothing more that you can do to persuade me. You’ll just have to wait.’

  Luigi’s face changed colour, his mouth changed shape, his eyes were two dark slits. Raniero wondered what would happen next. You could never tell with Zì Luì. It might be one of those tricks he used. If what Raniero had seen was anything to go by, Zì Luì would smile a big smile and win Landini over.

  As Zì Luigi’s hand went into his pocket, Raniero relaxed.

  Here come the cigars, he thought.

  The next second, Zì Luìgi was pushing an automatic in the banker’s face.

  ‘Nothing can persuade you?’ he swore, and pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud click, and that was it.

  The banker stared at Zì Lugi, amazed that he was still alive, perhaps. Zì Luigi stood there like a block of ice, the gun still pointed at Landini’s face. Then he started fiddling with the pistol, trying to release the clip, getting nowhere.

  He’s lost it, Raniero thought as he stepped behind the car.

  No guns, Zì Luigi had told them, and the fucker had come up loaded himself?

  Raniero pressed the catch and the boot yawned open. Don Michele would go bananas. He leaned inside the boot and came up with the jack. He hefted it for an instant, then smashed it into the back of Cosimo Landini’s skull with a single blow.

  The banker let out a sound like a punctured football. He sagged down on his knees and coughed up bile, a river of blood flowing down the back of his rain coat. Raniero watched and waited, expecting him to fall. When he didn’t, he slammed his foot into Landini’s shoulders and pushed him on to his face. Blood spots rained on the ground as he fell.

  ‘Watch my fucking shoes,’ Zì Luigi growled, stepping back.

  He didn’t seem to comprehend what he’d done, Raniero thought. Stick a gun in a man’s face, you have to kill him. He’d never trust you again; stitch you up the first chance he got. Zì Luigi had fucked up, just like his mate, Corrado Formisano.

  ‘I had to do it. You see how the fucker treated me?’ Zì Luigi muttered, pushing the pistol deep into the pocket of his coat.

  Raniero nodded, wiped the jack on Landini’s coat then threw it into the boot of the car, where it landed with a clang. ‘What now, Zì Luì?’ he said without drawing a breath.

  ‘Let him bleed,’ Zì Luigi murmured, pulling out his smokes, offering one to Raniero, then to Ettore. ‘We don’t want to leave a trail of red drips as we drive through the town, do we?’

  Zì Luì still didn’t seem to get it. They’d killed the banker who was handling the deal, steering it through the planning committees. Who would Don Michele blame when he heard the news?

  They stood there smoking, no one saying anything, then Zì Luigi crushed his fag beneath his shoe. ‘He’s bled enough,’ he said. He stood there watching as Raniero and Ettore tipped the body into the boot of the Mercedes.

  ‘Get rid of this heap of shit, Raniè. Take him up to Corrado. He’ll know what to do with him.’

  ‘Corrado?’ Raniero stopped dead. ‘You reckon that’s a good idea, Zì?’

  Zì Luigi bristled. ‘You got a better one? He may as well make himself useful. He owes me after that mess he made with Bonanni.’

  Exactly the same mess you’ve just made with Landini, Raniero thought.

  ‘Whatever you think’s best, Zì.’

  ‘You can drop me off in town.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming, Zì? Corrado’s bound to ask,’ Raniero said.

  Zì Luigi waved his hand dismissively. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to him. Let him think I’m still pissed off. That’ll sort him out. If it wasn’t for me, he knows he’d be wearing a concrete waistcoat. Just tell him what to do, and make sure he does it.’

  They drove back slowly down the hill, coasting through the hairpin bends, the dark woods pressing in on either side, broken now and then by an olive grove or a field where cows and sheep were grazing.

  ‘This place is a paradise,’ Zì Luigi said as they pulled up at the main road intersection, Raniero in the driver’s seat, looking left and right for a gap in the traffic. ‘Been growing olives here for a million years, they have. They make the finest oil in Italy. It’s almost a pity to cover it with concrete.’

  They dropped him in the centre of town then drove away.

  ‘Where does this Corrado hang out?’ Ettore asked.

  ‘Next stop’s on the far side of the valley,’ Raniero said. ‘Fasten your seat belt, Ettò. We don’t want some traffic cop pulling us over, do we? Not with the cargo we’ve got in the boot.’

  TWELVE

  The same morning

  The mayor smiled at his face in the bathroom mirror.

  That final blast of ice-cold water after a hot shower was better than a whipping. It cleared your head of all the stuff you’d gobbled down the night before, helped you forget that you hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours.

  What a night it had been! The official celebration dinner after his recent re-election. The councillors and members of the election committee – no wives, of course – all waiting for him to order his meal when he stood up and headed for the loo. He could imagine the looks that had flashed round the table when Sandra Panetti had come traipsing after him a minute later. Women couldn’t keep their hands off him. She had followed him into the men’s room and smiled coyly as he stood there pissing in the bowl.

  ‘Thanks, Maurizio,’ she’d said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘There’ll be a letter in the post tomorrow,’ he’d said, giving himself as shake, ‘making the appointment official.’

  ‘Did anyone protest?’

  ‘Who, for instance?’

  Sandra’d shrugged. ‘The Opposition, for instance.’

  Truini had put his hand to his ear as if he was hard of hearing. ‘With sixty-three per cent of the vote, who’d throw something like that in my face?’

  He had just started to fasten his zip when Sandra stopped him.

  Truini clenched his teeth and flashed another glance in the bathroom mirror.

  ‘Opposition?’ he asked his reflection.

  Sandra hadn’t put up any opposition, that was for sure.

  Fingernails scraped on the bathroom door.

  ‘Maurì, it’s the phone,’ Cesira whined. ‘The blue one.’

  His wife never knocked. She scraped like a rat, timid but furtive, knowing she was going to get on his nerves. Just like the people who worked for him at the town hall. They all scratched on the door of his office, leaving him to decide whether it was a knock or an earthquake rattling the fittings.

  ‘Who’s calling?’ he barked, but didn’t open the door. He only had a bath towel wrapped around his waist. Cesira would have seen the scratch on his left tit. Those prune-coloured nails of Sandra’s were lethal.

  ‘They didn’t say,’ Cesira whimpered.

  Mayor Truini braced his hands against the washbasin and let out a sigh. She had to go. He really should get rid of her. He would have done it, too, if he could have kept the house. ‘You can’t kick a woman like Cesira out on to the street,’ the party manager had warned him. ‘You’d lose more votes than if you shot her in the main square. You have to seem to be the victim, Maurì. If she had a lover, for instance …’

  The idea of Cesira having it off with someone made him want to laugh. She was the sort of woman every Trappist monk should have in his cell when he felt temptation coming on. She didn’t drink, didn’t smoke. She didn’t even go to the bingo. She prayed first thing in the morning, last thing at night, went to Mass on Sundays and feast days. Could you kick a saint out on the street?

  A saint?

  Cesira stole from supermarkets. Packs of cheese, tubes of pâté, jars of mayonnaise. But he couldn’t get shut of her for stuff like that. What would the voters say if he
shopped his own wife for thieving? Sure there’s only one thief in the family? They’d laugh at her for five minutes, then they’d crucify him.

  He dropped the towel and wrapped himself in a black bathrobe, pulling it across his chest to cover his war wounds. Bloody Sandra!

  His wife’s nails rasped against the door again. ‘Maurì?’

  Truini pulled tight on the belt of his robe, then opened the door.

  His wife peered up at him like a rabbit that knew it was on the lunch menu. She looked like a bit like a skinned rabbit, too. Long nose, no chin, large ears that lay flat against her skull.

  ‘Where is it?’ he growled.

  Cesira raised her hand and showed him the mobile phone.

  He grabbed it, closed the door in his wife’s face, then sat down on the toilet seat.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said in a voice that was smooth but had an edge to it, as if he had been disturbed while doing something important. If they were calling on that number, it might be some big knob from the regional government, the local MP, or one of the national party coordinators.

  ‘Did I wake you up, Truini?’

  The mayor frowned. He didn’t recall giving that number to Luigi Corbucci. In fact, he’d made a point of not giving him the number. And the question wasn’t a question at all. It was more like a reprimand with no hint of an apology for disturbing him at home.

  ‘I was having a shower.’

  ‘Good for you, Truini. It’s next to godliness, right? Just called to say that word’s come through from the planning office. We won’t have any trouble there. We’re right on course with the building permits. It’s time to start things rolling. Time for you to push the boat in the right direction. We’re talking about the big one, understand?’

  Was Corbucci pulling his leg?

  ‘All the permits? That’s impossible! What was it, a couple of months ago? You said you’d talk it over with the other partners …’

  Truini recalled the conversation with Luigi Corbucci, but not in any detail. It had gone in one ear and straight out of the other. Nothing ever happened quickly in Italy, and Umbria was slower than most. Things dragged on for years and years. You had to have the right men in your pocket to get anything done in the countryside. The longer it took, the better, so far as he was concerned.

  ‘Exactly. Three months back, Truini.’

  Corbucci had to be taking the piss. You couldn’t get approval for a project as big as that in a few months. Truini stood up from the toilet seat and closed the bathroom window. It wouldn’t be the first time he had caught Cesira listening outside windows. He didn’t give a bugger if she heard him chatting with Sandra, or one of the others, but not with Luigi Corbucci. There was too much at stake. The silly cow was capable of repeating every word she’d heard down at the hairdresser’s, just to let them know how important her husband was.

  ‘I’ll have to call a council meeting …’

  ‘The next one’s scheduled for Friday.’

  Did Corbucci realize what he was saying? They weren’t in some one-street town in fucking Calabria. You needed to move like a deep-sea diver five miles down, wearing lead boots and a big brass helmet.

  ‘I’ve issued the order of the day,’ he said defiantly. ‘The councillors know what they’re supposed to be discussing. To be frank, I thought it would take a lot longer to approve this project. You’ll have to break it to the investors. The people that we need to convince are the hardest nuts to crack.’

  ‘What’s got into you?’ Corbucci’s voice was as sharp as acid. ‘They’ve already been convinced. They’ve approved the plan. All you’ve got to do is push it through the council, carry the vote with your majority, then leave it to the office johnnies for the rubber stamps and signatures. A piece of cake.’

  Maurizio Truini pulled at the belt and his dressing-gown fell open. He was feeling hot and flustered. Corbucci was getting on his wick. First, he’d called up on the phone reserved for important official calls. Then, he’d practically told him what to do. Truini stood in front of the mirror and stared at the scratch on his chest.

  ‘Why don’t we wait a bit, then talk it over with the other partners?’

  Corbucci’s voice sliced through his own. ‘We’ve talked it over, I told you. The next one off the ground’s the housing estate. We’ll set the others up according to the calendar. The shopping mall comes first, though.’

  Truini was sweating now with anger and frustration. The shopping mall was a hand grenade, and Luigi Corbucci had just pulled out the pin. You couldn’t plonk a concrete box of five thousand cubic metres anywhere you felt like. Everything inside the city walls was sacred. OK, you’d come out of the supermarket loaded down with carrier bags, and the view would take your breath away. But seen from the town, it would look as if the Martians had landed.

  ‘It won’t be easy …’

  ‘Truini, you don’t me need to tell you where all your votes came from. You wouldn’t want me telling anyone else, I bet. We’re counting on a mayor who isn’t afraid to make the big decisions. Wasn’t that the slogan for your election campaign? I’ll be in touch.’

  Fuck you! Truini’s mind shrieked.

  ‘I look forward to it,’ he managed to say as the line went dead.

  Cesira was waiting for him in the bedroom, looking as frightened as the condemned rabbit she reminded him of. He saw the question in her eyes, but he ignored it. What did he have to tell her? Who Luigi Corbucci was? What they’d been talking about?

  ‘White jacket, pink jeans,’ he ordered.

  Cesira went to the wardrobe and laid the clothes he wanted on the bed, but that look would not go away.

  ‘There’s a funny smell in the garage,’ she said as she passed him clean underwear and socks. ‘It smells like drains, or something.’

  ‘The neighbours,’ he said dismissively, ‘spreading manure on the tomatoes.’

  Cesira shook her head. ‘It doesn’t smell like manure to me.’

  Truini sprinkled on some D&G, finished dressing, then checked his appearance in the full-length mirror. That linen jacket was a work of art. A perfect fit, so long as he didn’t button it over his gut. He knotted his tie – pink to match the jeans – then stretched his neck to the right. There was no sign of Sandra’s nails. He pushed a large pink handkerchief loosely into his breast pocket, then left the house.

  A couple of neighbours working in their gardens called ‘good morning’ as he walked down the ramp to the garage. He saw the way their eyes widened. The peasants seemed to think a mayor should dress in black like a cut-price undertaker. Dark blue or pearl grey was his choice for formal occasions; the rest of the time he could get away with just about anything.

  He walked down the ramp and pulled up sharp in front of the garage door.

  Cesira was right for once. That stink was not the usual smell of manure. He pushed the garage door, which rolled up automatically. The black 520D saloon was like a panther waiting to be let off the leash. He took a step inside the garage, punched the key and the locks tocked.

  The smell seemed to be coming from the car itself.

  Jesus Christ! If she’d had left a bag full of meat to rot in the boot he’d wring her bloody neck. You wouldn’t get rid of a smell like that in a hurry. He pressed the button, and the boot clicked open with a noise like a mating grasshopper. He pressed on the boot lid and the baggage compartment yawned open on a spring-loaded mechanism. He stepped back coughing, as if a giant fist had come out of the boot and punched him in the guts.

  He jerked to the right and coughed up his breakfast.

  THIRTEEN

  The same day

  The vast square outside the railway station was deserted.

  Ragged election posters drooped and peeled from advertising placards like forgotten laundry, the once radiant smile of Mayor Truini washed-out and faded now. On top of the hill a mile or so away, the town was hazy, out of focus, the lines of the cathedral spire and the medieval castle shifting in the heat of the midday su
n.

  The only sounds were the thrumming diesel engines of empty buses waiting outside the station building and the hum of conversation from three dark-skinned boys who were huddling together under a canopy outside the station bar, each one with a large canvas holdall. They were waiting for the train which would carry them south. It was a Friday, and they had come up for the weekly street market, hoping to make a bit more money than usual as they wandered around the small towns in the province, or stood outside the shops and supermarkets offering Kleenex tissues, false Bic lighters, charm bracelets and anything else that might tempt someone to stop and buy. A lot of shoppers handed over a euro, then moved on without bothering to look at the stuff they were selling. It was begging, and they knew it. The good thing was that they rarely needed to replace the stock. Other people, young kids for the most part, sometimes stopped a little longer.

  ‘Hey! Hey!’ said one of the boys. ‘We got us a fish, maybe.’

  His eyes were fixed on a white car rolling on to the station forecourt, coming down from the town, though white was not the word to describe the colour of the vehicle. The bodywork was an abstract painting in distress. Rust had eaten away the bottom corners of the doors and pocked the bodywork, while rings the colour of dry shit encrusted the wheel arches.

  ‘How much you unload today?’ Malouf asked his friends.

  ‘Two wraps,’ Ahmoud grumbled.

  ‘One,’ the third boy said. ‘Maybe these be good for four or five?’

  ‘Six be better. Two for each of us.’

  The car pulled up in the parking lot, but the doors stayed shut.

  Two boys in their early twenties sat in the front seats, elbows resting on the open windows. The one in the driver’s seat lit a cigarette and puffed smoke out into the air. The blue cloud rose in a vertical column, then got lost in the warm air. The passenger glanced towards the station, then turned and said something to the driver.

  ‘They lookin’ good,’ Malouf said, propping his empty Coke bottle on the ground. He laughed and cupped his hands to his lips. ‘Hey, man, we a-over here!’