It was a whisper, nothing more. A joke between friends. The boys in the old white car didn’t hear the invitation. If they were interested, they would make a move when they were ready. If you went looking to make a sale, your sentence doubled. All three Africans had been in jail at least once. They didn’t solicit for business on the streets of Italy any more. They showed themselves, then waited. People knew what they were selling. No one said a word, but they all lit cigarettes, moved to the edge of the pavement and stood there blowing out smoke signals. They were less than twenty yards from the boys in the car, who were sending out signals of their own, though they didn’t know it.
If those Italian boys wanted snow, blow or Mary-Jane, they’d come looking for it.
‘We’ve got ourselves a situation.’
The Watcher was speaking into a microphone that was activated by the asterisk symbol on his mobile phone. To all appearances, he was just an ordinary guy in a dark blue Lancia saloon car making a regular phonecall. The words of his supervisor sounded in the earpiece.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Riccardo and Davide are sitting in the car outside the station. Three African dopeheads are giving them the come-on.’
‘Take some pictures. If anyone spots you, drive away slowly. We’ve got taps on the vehicle now but we could fill the sound gaps with visuals. Buying drugs would look good on the report sheet …’
‘They’re getting out of the car.’
‘And?’
‘They’re heading over towards the dealers.’
‘Can you get a shot of them?’ the supervisor asked.
The Watcher chuckled. ‘I’ve just taken a couple. The money’s in one, the baggies being handed over in the other.’
‘Send them through by message mail. We’ll put someone on the dealers’ tails.’
‘Someone?’
‘There are two agents on the train, keeping an eye on our boy. They’ll take care of the Africans. Don’t bother following his mates into the station. Just stick behind their car and see where they take you, OK?’
‘Zip.’
That was the closure code. The Watcher steadied the mobile phone on top of the steering wheel, as if he was reading a message. He zoomed in, then shot off three snaps of the drug dealers standing beneath the canopy. It wasn’t easy to make out their features, but their clothes were distinctive enough: denim jackets, T-shirts, washed-out denims and worn-out trainers, each one carrying a big canvas hold-all. He would have bet that they were known faces.
Within a minute, he had sent the images off.
A tannoy announced the arrival of the train. A bell began to ring, a low, persistent, irritating tinkle that would go on clinking until the engine tripped a stop as it coasted up to the station platform.
The Africans slung their bags on their shoulders, then followed the boys into the station building. So far as the Watcher could see, there wasn’t another person around. No one else was going to Rome so late in the day. There were no railway staff to be seen, no porters or station master. Like most railway stations in small Italian towns, everything was automatic now. You fed cash or a credit card into the right machine and the machine gave you tickets, guide maps, hot snacks, cold drinks, cigarettes, newspapers. There wasn’t a vending machine for drugs yet, but it was only a matter of time.
At 14.15 the train pulled in.
By 14.18 the train pulled away again, taking the Africans south, but not home.
Depending on where they got off, they’d be arrested or followed. They might lead to bigger fish, of course, but they were small fry, probably not worth taking into custody. Six months free board in an overcrowded state prison and they’d be back on the streets again in another provincial town.
At 14.21 three boys walked out of the station.
The Watcher took a snap, then made a note on his timechart.
The two that he had been following, Riccardo Bucci and Davide Castrianni, plus the boy that they had gone to the station to meet. Lorenzo Micheli was the one that the Legend was interested in. The boy had a hold-all slung across his shoulder and was wearing a green military jacket, green camouflage pants and a pair of heavy Dr Martens boots. An anarchist according to the files, an activist and a protestor.
The Watcher opened his mobile phone again, pressed the gate symbol on the handset and held it to his ear. He could hear what the supervisor in the communications centre was hearing now. Doors opening, voices, doors slamming shut …
The rusty white Fiat Uno was bugged.
The voices often overlapped, but the Watcher recognized two of them. He knew who was saying what. Later, he would fill in the names on the transcript.
‘How was the march, Lorè? I bet you didn’t connect …’
There was an explosion of laughs and animal noises, and the car swerved violently as it left the station square fast.
‘Watch the friggin’ road, you asshole!’
‘Asshole? Me? Let’s hope you got your finger out, Lorè …’
‘We shouldn’t have let him go on his own …’
‘Been hitting the bong, have you? That’s all you lot are good for!’
‘Talking of which, we got some stuff at the station – three Africans …’
‘You call that brains? Jesus! Buying stuff on the street! The pigs’ll—’
‘What pigs? At two o’clock? They’ll all be snoring after lunch!’
‘Hey, Lorè? Did you meet them, then, or didn’t you? I mean to say, if we’re gonna organize something …’
The voices were lost as a CD came on, loud and booming.
‘Turn that fucking rubbish down,’ Lorenzo shouted. ‘Turn it off!’
The music stopped as abruptly as it had started.
‘They’re a bunch of wankers. We need to make our voices heard.’
Two of the boys began to sing out loud, if you could call it singing.
‘Come off it. Shite! We don’t need anyone to tell us what to do. I’ve been giving it a bit of thought,’ Lorenzo said. ‘After the earthquake, nothing here is ever gonna be the same again. And once the cash starts rolling in—’
‘Let’s hope there’s some for me. I’ve got a leaking roof and walls full of cracks.’
‘Listen up, I’m talking about a protest movement. Rebellion. They’re gonna start building roads an’ stuff, pouring concrete all over the place. We’ve got to fight, resist, do something that’ll make a noise, you get me? We need to make a splash. Then the Block’ll come rushing to help us. But we are the ones who have to start it. Like … Like the Sioux when the white men came. We’ll …’
The car was full of whooping Indians now, like in the films.
Lorenzo Micheli joined in for a bit, then yelled at them: ‘Shut the fuck up, will ya? We’re gonna have to meet and work out a plan of action.’
‘Tonight we hit the woods, Lorè, build a bonfire …’
‘It’s all sorted – roast sausages, beer, the dope we picked up from those Africans.’
‘How does that sound for the start of a revolution?’
Lorenzo Micheli let out a sort of war cry, and the other two joined in.
FOURTEEN
Later that day
Corrado Formisano struck a match.
Down in the valley he saw the tiny black dot approach the first bend. It would take the car ten minutes to reach the farmhouse.
He lit the cigar then drew the harsh smoke deep down inside his lungs. He had picked up the habit in prison. Whenever he felt the four walls closing in, whenever he felt like slitting somebody’s throat, he turned away and lit a cigar. Few of his cellmates knew how lucky they had been. Only one of them had ever made the mistake of moaning about the smell, and he never did it again. Not after having swallowed a lighted Garibaldi cigar. Word got around fast inside the maximum-security block.
Now, Corrado was smoking to calm his rage.
He caught sight of the car again as it went round a bend. The narrow road twisted and turned like a snake slither
ing to the top of the mountain, but the farmhouse was as good as a watchtower. If you saw someone coming up you had plenty of time to decide whether to hang around or take to the woods. He’d had been living there for over a year and hadn’t had a visitor until Raniero Baretta had shown up one day a couple of months before.
Raniero had phoned him half an hour ago.
‘I’m on my way, Corrà,’ he said. ‘Don’t go walkies.’
He didn’t say a word about Zì Luigi.
Raniero was one of Don Michele’s boys. Corrado remembered him from way back. Raniero had a face like a weasel, a guarded smile and some hollow charm. He still recalled the look of awe on the kid’s face the first time they’d met. Corrado had been Zì Luigi’s shooter then. Had been? Still was. Now, Raniero was climbing the tree, it seemed, and Corrado didn’t like him any better on that account.
Who the fuck did he think he was ordering about?
The Mercedes pulled into the farmhouse yard a few minutes later. The chickens scattered in a flurry before the wheels, flapping their wings, clucking aloud, resenting the intrusion. As the big car skidded to a halt and the motor cut out, the birds went back to their never-ending grind, pecking at the hard ground, fighting over a grain of corn.
Raniero called from the window. ‘How you keeping, Dead-Eye?’
Corrado stiffened, flicked the cigar away. The nickname sounded like an insult on Raniero’s lips. He walked down the stone staircase, getting ready to tell the fucker to watch his mouth and show respect, but as Raniero got out of the Merc the passenger door swung open and another punk climbed out as well. Shorter than Raniero, he was built like a tank. If Raniero was the brains, his mate was the muscle.
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Ettore,’ Raniero said. ‘He’s a new recruit.’
Corrado nodded and the punk nodded back, his eyes two narrow slits.
A blue tattoo wound up the kid’s throat and curled way behind his ear like a sick-looking creeper. Corrado pointed his finger at it. ‘What’s that you’ve got on your neck – some poxy birthmark?’
Ettore didn’t say a word. He didn’t look away, though.
Raniero spoke instead. ‘That’s a salamander, that is. Ain’t never seen one, Corrà? They’re all the fashion, these days. A lizard that walks through flames? You come through a gunfight, you’ve earned yourself the tattoo. Don’t worry about Ettore. He knows how to handle himself. All my boys have got one. I’d show you mine,’ he grinned, ‘but I wouldn’t want to make you blush, Corrà.’
All my boys?
How many men did Raniero have working under him? The announcement put him even more on his guard. There couldn’t be more than half-a-dozen lieutenants Don Michele trusted that much.
Then another thought flitted through Corrado’s mind.
Was that the lizard the park ranger had spotted at Soverato beach? One of Raniero’s boys? Ettore, maybe?
Raniero tapped his fist against Corrado’s clenched bicep.
‘Nice place Zì Luigi found you, Corrà,’ he said, his face cracking into another cheesy grin.
Ettore smiled when Raniero did, Corrado noticed.
‘You’re out of harm’s way up here,’ Raniero went on.
Corrado shrugged his shoulders. ‘A man gets sick of talking to himself.’
‘You need a bit of company, sure,’ Raniero said. ‘That’s why—’
Corrado cut him short. ‘Why didn’t Zì Luì come up?’
Raniero took a step towards him, showing Ettore his back, blocking him out, as if he had something to say that wasn’t meant for the punk to hear. ‘Luigi’s got things to do in town,’ he said. ‘Don Michele wants to pump the action up, but things ain’t easy. We won’t be on our own up here for long, Corrà. We’ve got to cover every base.’
Corrado took in what Raniero was saying. Luigi? Where was the respect in that? Luigi Corbucci was Zì Luigi, boss of the comandamento, the top dog in Umbria.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Raniero raised his hand and mimed a pistol. ‘No fireworks, Corrà. Not for the moment, anyway. You know the tale about the stick and the carrot. Mules, right? If it won’t take the carrot, give it a wallop? We have to convince the locals to cooperate, not frighten them to death. The Light Infantry, let’s say, which ties our hands. ’U capisc’, no?’ He lit a cigarette, waved away the smoke. ‘You nearly blew the lid off it, you did. Andrea Bonanni, right?’
Corrado’s temper erupted. ‘The fucker was spilling his guts to the law!’
‘And you blew his brains out.’ Raniero shook his head, then made a clicking sound with his tongue.
‘Zì Luigi said to shut him up.’
‘A quiet word. That’s what he meant.’ Raniero took a deep breath, let the air out slow. ‘You’re a shooter, Corrado. The best there is, and everyone knows it. But this is not the time for guns. We have to keep our heads down, only do what Don Michele tells us to do. When the time’s right …’
Raniero let the promise hang.
Corrado felt something like a chill wind on the back of his neck. ‘Where does that leave me? They want to ditch me, right? Is that why Zì Luigi never comes up?’
Raniero joined his hands in prayer, moving them back and forth like an admonishing priest. ‘What the fuck has got into you? We need you more than ever, mate.’ His voice dropped down a tone, turned serious. ‘Just – don’t – shoot – anyone, Corrà. Do what you’re told, and nothing more. Another trick like Bonanni …’
Corrado felt a flood of sweat beneath his armpits, despite the cold.
‘Is that what Zì Luigi sent you up here to tell me?’
‘I’m here to tell you what we want you to do.’
Corrado felt the tension ease off inside his chest. They hadn’t stitched him up, then. No shooting, that was the message. Not now, maybe later. There were other jobs that they wanted him to do. Probably more stupid stuff, like stinking up the mayor’s car.
Raniero clapped his hands and smiled. ‘What happened to your southern hospitality? Ain’t you going to offer us a drop of vino, Corrà?’
It sounded like a request, but Corrado knew that it was an order. He felt like killing the pair of them with his bare hands, and he would have done it, too, if it hadn’t been for Zì Luigi and Don Michele. They’d take it personally, and that would be the end of everything.
He went into the house to get a bottle of red and three glasses.
When he came back out, Raniero was sitting on one of the plastic chairs near the barn. Corrado often sat out there at night and smoked a cigar, watching the glimmering lights in the valley below. Ettore was standing behind Raniero’s shoulder, which left one empty seat. Corrado had seen that set-up a hundred times before – prison chairs in prison interrogation rooms.
Raniero watched him come. ‘It’s secluded here,’ he said. ‘Maybe they could spot you from a plane. Have a seat, Corrà.’
Corrado gave them glasses, poured out the wine, then sat down.
Raniero crossed his long legs. ‘Is it as quiet as it looks? That’s what I’m thinking.’
Corrado took a sip of wine. ‘I ain’t got a woman, if that’s what you mean.’
Raniero laughed as if he’d made a joke. ‘Just like prison, eh? Still, we saw loads of working girls on the road coming up from the south. Black, but not that it matters. Do you bring them up here, then?’
‘I come back on my own.’
Raniero nodded and took a drink. ‘What about the neighbours?’
Corrado shrugged. ‘The nearest farm’s a mile away.’
‘Get on well, do you?’
‘They’re peasants. What have we got to talk about?’
‘So what’s the score with the cops?’
‘I go to town each Friday, sign on.’
‘They ever come up here to roust you?’
‘Why should they? I’m on parole, not under house arrest.’ Corrado placed his glass on the ground, then turned to face Raniero. ‘What’s with all the
questions?’
Raniero drained his glass, and Ettore did the same.
Corrado saw a butterfly tattoo on Ettore’s wrist. Blue, smudged. A prison tattoo. Anything that could fly was popular when you were locked up day and night. Corrado had tattoos himself. Only two, though. Old style. No birds or bees, just dates. That lizard on the punk’s neck, though. That was shouting out for recognition, that was.
Raniero clicked his tongue against his lips. ‘This wine’s piss, Corrà,’ he said. ‘What was the stuff that you were famous for?’
‘Sassicaia.’
‘The very best!’ Raniero said.
‘Zì Luigi always sent me a bottle when I had a job to do.’
Corrado hesitated for an instant, but he didn’t ask the question that was plaguing him: Will he ever send me another one?
‘We’ve got a got a job for you to to do,’ said Raniero. ‘An important job.’
‘Like what?’
‘We want you to take care of a guest.’
Corrado stared at him. He should have realized this was coming. They wanted him to shelter someone on the run. The farm was just about as remote as you could get. ‘When’s he coming?’
‘He’s here already.’
Instinctively, Corrado glanced towards the car.
Raniero smiled. ‘He’s in the boot,’ he said.
Corrado felt his head begin to spin, and it wasn’t the wine that was doing it. Raniero had shot someone. Or Zì Luigi had done it himself. Why hadn’t they told him to do it? For a moment, Corrado found it hard to breathe.
‘What happened?’ he managed to say.
‘He didn’t keep his side of the bargain. He has to disappear.’
They had a job for him, all right: gravedigger.
‘We need to take a look around,’ Raniero told him.
Corrado stood up, but Raniero wasn’t having it. ‘Leave it to Ettore,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘Let’s see what he’s made of.’
Corrado’s eyes followed Ettore as he opened the door and stepped inside the barn, acting like he owned the place. Corrado felt impotence welling up inside him. Anger, too. He wasn’t armed, but Raniero was, he’d have bet on it. It was like when the guards walked in unannounced and turned your cell upside down.
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