by Derek Haas
“Ahh . . .” She looked down at the sea, a sight that had lost its magic for her long ago. “I’ll bring your coffee.”
I waited for her to return and greeted her with a smile. The place wasn’t full. “How many people live in Positano?”
“Four thousand, more or less.”
“Everyone knows each other?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Any Americans?”
“Yes . . . summer houses. An English couple, too.”
“How much does a house cost here?”
“Depends on how high up you are . . . or how close to the beach.”
I sipped my coffee. She didn’t look in a hurry to go anywhere else, so I pressed on. “Like, say, that one up there.”
“The Cortinos. Wealthy family.”
“The house looks big.”
“It is. Five . . . how do you say . . . rooms for sleeping . . .”
“Bedrooms?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “My guess is . . . two million euros . . .”
I let out a low whistle.
“Yes, expensive. But they are nice family. They helped rebuild the church. Mrs. Cortino . . . her legs . . . how is it . . . don’t work. It is . . . much pity.”
“She uses a wheelchair?”
“Yes.”
“Must be difficult in this town.”
“Yes . . . but he takes care of her. Makes sure she still goes around.”
“That’s very nice.”
“Yes.”
A couple of noisy Austrian tourists came in. She smiled, rolled her eyes, and went to help them find a table. I sipped my coffee, thinking.
His wife, crippled. In this town, it must be extremely difficult; the place wasn’t exactly built wheelchair-friendly. None of this was in the file. Why did Pooley censor it? Did he think it would affect me? Was he concerned that after I had used my time to measure this man, I would find he was a good man, a man with no capacity for evil, with nothing to exploit?
I first saw Cortino and his bodyguard Gorgio a week later. He visited a church near my hotel, a stone edifice painted the same color as the cliff so it blended into the rock. The exterior was bleak, lacking the ornate iconography of most Catholic churches. I knew it was one of the first things he’d do when he returned to Positano; his file noted that he always walked to the church, lit two candles, and kneeled before the altar. For whom he lit the candles, I didn’t know, maybe one for each of his deceased parents.
I sat at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant, eating prawns silently, careful not to attract attention. Cortino looked grave as he moved inside the church. Twenty minutes passed as I ate my seafood, waiting for him to emerge. When he exited, his face was transformed, beatific. This surprised me. Could a man’s attitude really be improved so radically from the simple act of kneeling? What had he found in there? What words had his lips whispered? I discovered I was staring at his peaceful face, fascinated, and when my gaze flicked to the bodyguard, Stefano Gorgio, the man was eyeing me.
What a goddamn mistake. I looked past the bodyguard, through him, like I was just another daft tourist enjoying a taste of local scenery. This must’ve satisfied him, because Gorgio shuffled after his boss, helping him into a parked Mercedes two-seater. I didn’t lift my eyes again; I just picked at my shrimp until I heard the car disappear around the corner, heading down the hill. Fuck. Gorgio was good, a real professional, he would certainly remember seeing me if I popped up near his boss’s home.
I went back to my hotel room and turned off the lights, pissed . . . pissed at myself, pissed at the missing information from the file, pissed that everything I learned about Cortino made me . . . what? Envious? Of him? Of this life?
It hit me like a grease fire. Is that what I would exploit? My own jealousy? Not evil in him but evil in me? It spread out before me like a Polaroid coming into focus. How does an assassin bring down a good man? He summons up his own iniquity; he measures himself against the man and feeds on the distance he falls short. And where would that road lead, when there was no connection to sever? What price would I pay for focusing my hate on myself?
I holed up in the hotel and the few restaurants on my side of the hill until June 6 arrived, the day I was supposed to put a bullet in Gianni Cortino. That morning, I rented a scooter from a tourist trap near the main town center, entering when the place was most crowded. I was just one more American tourist in a sea of Anglo faces.
I headed down the single town road and then up the hill, black helmet obscuring my face. I wanted to take a peek at Cortino’s house from the street, so I slowly motored by, using my peripheral vision to take measure of the place. Fortunately, there was no room for anything remotely resembling a yard. The house’s roof was level with the street, stone steps led down from the street to the front door. There was no gate, no security cameras. Positano was too quiet and peaceful and small and remote to worry about crime, an illusion I would shatter by sunrise tomorrow. From Pooley’s file I knew a side door was accessible from below; my partner believed the side door was most likely Stefano Gorgio’s private room. I motored on, just one of a thousand scooters passing by that day.
AT two in the morning, I checked out of the hotel, carrying only a small backpack. I explained that I had a car waiting for me at the bottom of the hill and the night clerk had me sign the requisite papers before settling back down to read the French newspaper Le Monde. Since I dressed all in black the last few days, he didn’t notice anything unusual about the way I wore it now. I set out on foot, my pace quick. While Positano has a lot of things, it doesn’t have an active nightlife. The street was deserted, the only sound an occasional dog barking.
It took me an hour to descend the hill and then climb the road leading to Cortino’s house. One car rolled up behind me, but I pressed into the nearby foliage and it passed without slowing. When I reached the bend that included Cortino’s house, I ducked to his side of the street and disappeared over the hedge separating his house from the road. Instead of using the stone steps to head to the front door, I slid along the vines to approach the side door from above, a maneuver that kept me from having to cross the bay windows lining the ocean side of the house.
The side door was cracked open. Not wide, but cracked enough for me to see the gap. Why? Was this the way Gorgio aerated his room, letting in the ocean breezes? I didn’t think it likely, not for a bodyguard. Warning bells rang in my ears.
I moved to the door, listening carefully for a full minute, but I didn’t hear a sound inside, no snoring, no breathing, nothing. I armed myself and discarded the backpack in the brush, held my breath, and pushed the door open a crack. The hinges didn’t make a sound, thank God for that. No response. I ducked my head in and out of the room in a split second, just enough time for me to scan the room or draw fire. My eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness outside, so the dark room held no secrets.
The room was empty; a single queen-sized bed sat in its center, undisturbed. I crept in quietly, barely breathing, my senses alert like a trapped animal, listening for anything. The hairs on my arms stood up as though maybe they could pick up on vibrations in the air and shoot me a warning. Why was that door open? Why on this night? For the first time, I realized how nonchalantly I had approached this job. I had found nothing to hate about my target, nothing to exploit, and so had granted him a free pass, had woefully underestimated the difficulty of killing this man, had failed before I began. I vowed not to make that mistake again.
Cortino’s bedroom was on the same side of the house. I made my way out of the room, gun leading the way. I didn’t hate him before, but I hated him now. Hated him for giving me nothing to hate. A few more feet down the hallway, and I was standing outside the master bedroom. There was something in the air now, something pungent, but I couldn’t place the smell.
I tested the door and found it unlatched. I pushed into the room, slowly, carefully, soundlessly.
The odor of blood hit me flush in the face. There were two dead bodies in
the bed, Cortino and his crippled wife propped up against the headrest, staring back at me with hollow eyes. Against the far wall slumped a third dead body, Stefano Gorgio; most of his face simply wasn’t there.
I had come to kill a man who was already dead.
It took me a second to process this when I heard a noise behind me. I spun to see a woman standing in the hallway, smiling, a gun drawn.
Fuck. She had a date she wanted the job done. June sixth. In the dead of night. She even paid for the specificity. And now she had the perfect fall guy delivered to her doorstep, a stranger holding a gun, another corpse she could leave behind. The police would have a field day.
“Pooley told me you were good,” she said. “And right on time.”
With that, she shot me in the chest.
CHAPTER 12
TWENTY minutes have passed and I realize I am alone in the cemetery in Carson City, Nevada. Whether Hap Blowenfeld or Miguel Cortega are wounded or whether they think they’d have trouble taking me, they failed to finish the job. They will regret this decision.
I struggle to my knees and the pain in my side is almost unbearable. Using the dead boy’s headstone for support, I work myself to my feet and peer around. Empty. The sky is lightening in the east; clouds like pink fingers hang low on the horizon. I need to get out of here.
I hobble toward the gate where I left my car, hoping, willing it to still be there. The sun rises above the horizon and a tombstone to my left catches my attention. It is speckled with red droplets; they catch the sun like gemstones set into a ring. I crane my neck around the marker, not wanting to lose any time but I have to look, goddammit, I have to see what made blood splatter like paint across the marble tombstone. First I see a hand, immobile, on the ground, and then a torso, and finally an unfamiliar face, still breathing.
I move closer, cautiously, until I see clearly he has dropped his pistol and is clutching a wound in his abdomen, a gut shot, the worst way to go. Somehow, he has made it through the night and is still alive.
“Miguel Cortega?”
His eyes shift to meet mine, but he makes no effort to talk. His breathing is raspy, like air whistling through a pinched pipe. Now I see he’s been hit twice, a slug in the stomach and one through his lung.
“You were working this job with Hap. Together.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Where’s he going next? Where’s he supposed to make the kill?”
Cortega just stares at me, blankly, his pupils dilating. A little pink stream curls from the side of his mouth and spills out into two tendrils down his cheek.
He’s got another hour to live, maybe more. I could put a bullet in him to put him out of his misery, but I don’t feel merciful. Fuck him and fuck Hap.
I hobble away, the pain like a hot iron pressed to my side, and am fortunate to find my car, untouched, in the parking lot.
Thankfully, roadside gas stations have evolved into full-fledged grocery stores, and I find enough bandages and anti-bacterial cream to clean my wound until I can get to a proper pharmacy. The clerk gives me the requisite once-over, but the blue ink of his jailhouse tattoos tells me he isn’t going to ask any questions or raise any eyebrows. I drive on until I find a Motel Six. I check the wound, dress it as properly as I can, turn off the light, collapse on the bed, and sleep for eighteen hours.
THE road between Lake Tahoe and Seattle is dry and barren. The eastern side of Washington is a desert, and the miles roll by plain and indistinguishable. I can only make it about two hundred miles before my side throbs so badly it threatens my consciousness, but I don’t mind falling behind schedule. The convention is still over a week away, and Abe Mann is planning to dawdle in Seattle and Portland to rest up for the big event. He isn’t scheduled to show up until the penultimate evening when he “sneaks” on stage to give a kiss to his wife after her keynote speech. This is supposed to be a surprise but is as pre-planned, practiced, and scripted as a Broad-way show. He isn’t supposed to return to the stage until the final night, when he makes the most important speech of his political career. What is unscripted, what will be a real surprise, is he won’t be returning to the stage at all.
I check into an Economy Inn in Walla Walla, Washington. It is on a strip with four other hotels just like it, way stations for the tired and dispossessed. On the television, Mann stands with the Port of Seattle spread out behind him, thousands of containers stacked like a multicolored maze serving as his backdrop. He’s talking about the need for tighter port security and stronger counter-terrorism measures and tougher restrictions on containers and more dollars invested to secure our borders. His preacher hand gesture punctuates every phrase, and his face looks properly stern, his eyes fierce and determined. He has found a topic he believes in, and it shows in his eyes. For a moment, I wonder what those eyes will look like when I kill him at close range. I wonder if I’ll get him alone, so I can tell him his killer is also his son. I wonder if he’ll even care.
A pharmacy sits on top of a hill on the opposite side of town. Without Pooley, without a middleman, I have no way to see a doctor or procure a prescription. As it is, I have to heal myself with over-the-counter medication, but I have done this long enough to know what to look for, how to up the dosages, how to dress my wound to stave off infection. I fill a basket with tubes of camphophenique, rolls of gauze, bottles of extra-strength Tylenol gel-caps, boxes of Q-tips and spools of medical tape. I am fighting a fever now, and if the clerk looks at me strangely, I don’t take notice. I pay in cash and leave quickly.
A tiny church shares the parking lot with the pharmacy. I didn’t notice it on the way in, but as I toss the bags into the car, light reflects off the stained glass and catches my eye. My mind seizes on that look on Cortino’s face as he came out of the church built into the hill in Positano. The look of peace he had somehow found inside that building and carried out with him. Improbably, I find my feet moving toward the church door.
The sanctuary is empty. No more than twenty pews divide into two columns and point toward a small riser holding a pulpit. A simple mahogany cross decorates the back wall. The afternoon light filters through the stained glass outside and bathes the room in soft ethereal light. I think about Pooley and suddenly my legs feel tired. I sit down and steady my breathing until a feeling of nausea passes. How long I rest, I can’t be sure.
“Afternoon.”
A young man stands in the aisle, awash in the light from the windows. He is dressed conservatively, with a blue shirt tucked into gray slacks.
“Afternoon,” I manage.
“Are you okay?”
“Just resting.”
“You came to the right place.”
I am hoping if I stay very still he will go away. Instead, he sits in the pew in front of me and swivels his head to face my direction.
“Are you new to the church?”
“Just passing through.”
“A traveler?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry to slip in here . . .”
He waves his hand. “A church with locked doors is like screen doors on a submarine. Purposeless. My name is Dr. Garrett.” He extends his hand and I shake it. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I haven’t headed for daylight. Fuck, am I tired.
“You look young for a preacher.”
“That’s kind of you to say. But I’ve been doing this for a long time. Twenty-somethin’ years now.”
I smile weakly.
“Tell you what. I’ll let you speak to the Lord all you want. If you need me, my office is just on the other side of that door.”
He stands up, and I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I hear myself say, “Preacher?”
“Yes?”
He pauses standing over me.
“Aren’t you worried about danger coming through the door?” I hear myself saying. But the voice isn’t mine, not exactly. At least it doesn’t sound like me.
The preacher looks at me thoughtfully. “No. This place is about comfort, about sanctu
ary . . .”
But he stops suddenly as I stand up and grab him by the throat. His eyes change quickly, from confidence to surprise to terror. Well, that’s not right. It’s not I watching those eyes, not I pulling the pistol out of the small of my back, not I whose right hand explodes in a blur and smashes the pistol into the side of his face, smashes him again, pistol-whipping him furiously, bam, bam, bam, over and over and over . . .
“Why?” the preacher manages as he goes down between the pews.
And I don’t know how to answer the question, I don’t know why, I don’t know who this person is beating a defenseless face on a defenseless preacher in a defenseless sanctuary until that face is a mask of blood and gore.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the person who is not I mutters, and then spits on the moaning lump on the floor.
In five minutes, I am on the road again, heading west through the desert, the infinite white line of the highway sliding underneath my tires. It is not I who holds the wheel steadily, the pain in my side forgotten. It is not I with a grin on my face.
CLOUDS hang like a ceiling over downtown Seattle, low and gray and threatening. To the south, Mt. Rainier fills the horizon like a wart on the landscape. Something about it seems foreign here, wrong, like it broke away from a mountain chain and moved off to sulk on its own. This morning it is blindfolded, its peak lost above the clouds.
It is time to focus. I have yet to set up even the basics for my kill and subsequent escape. Since Positano, since I managed to crawl to the road with two bullets in me, since I somehow stole a Vespa and somehow fought off losing consciousness and somehow negotiated sixty miles to Naples in the dead of night without being stopped by the police and somehow holed up until Pooley could get to me, get a doctor to me, since that evening when I walked into a room to make a kill but instead walked into a trap where I was going to be the fall guy, since then I have put much greater thought into my assassinations. Vespucci placed importance on the psychology of the killing business, but in retrospect he paid short shrift to executing the executions. His job was to pull together a wealth of information, giving his assassins the best avenues to kill a target. But he left the actual task to his hired killers, left the method and the deed and the strategy to his men.
