Scamarcio just wanted to get away. He needed to feel the wind on his skin; he needed a whisky, not a coffee. He turned to leave. ‘Thanks for setting me straight. I appreciate it.’
Greco looked troubled. ‘I’m sorry you had to hear it from me. And I’m sorry I can’t help you further.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Scamarcio. ‘Way I’m feeling, I’d prefer to sort this on my own now anyway.’
Greco seemed to have returned to the puzzle in his head. ‘Look, lad, don’t forget how it works. Don’t do anything stupid.’
‘Nothing stupid.’ Scamarcio considered the words.
Greco stood with his gold-ringed coffee cup poised in mid-air. He had the look of someone who had finally found the solution to his conundrum, but who didn’t like the answer that had presented itself.
‘God be with you,’ he whispered.
24
SCAMARCIO SLAMMED HIS HAND AGAINST the steering wheel. The traffic was backed up for miles. He was desperate to reach the airport and get on a flight back to Rome. He was desperate to get his hands on Piocosta, to watch him plead for mercy; to smell his blood, to hear him take his final breaths, to watch as the light left his eyes.
Scamarcio knew he should be trying to get a grip, but he couldn’t. That man had singlehandedly ruined his life: he’d stolen his father at a time when Scamarcio had most needed him; he’d pushed his mother into a spiral of depression and alcoholism from which she’d never recovered. Piocosta had to die — before there was any time for Scamarcio to reflect.
After an hour stuck in traffic, Scamarcio finally reached the airport and dropped off the hirecar, his hands still shaking. He made his way quickly towards the departures hall, desperately looking about for a bar. He had to have a drink before he got on the plane. He soon spotted a dingy place next to the toilets, pulled out his wallet, and took a seat at the bar next to an elderly woman in a blonde wig who might have been a faded 1960s siren. Her thick, dark eyeliner was smudged, and she was drinking morosely from a large glass of white wine.
He ordered a double whisky from the barman. The guy was back with his drink in seconds, but before Scamarcio even had a chance to bring the tumbler to his lips, he felt a painful grip on his bicep. He turned, too angry to be alarmed. Mirco was standing there, dressed in a dark suit and tie, and looking quite different from the muscle-bound meathead of a few hours before.
‘Not so fast,’ he said, but the tone was surprisingly unaggressive.
‘What do you want, Mirco? Missing me already?’
‘Mr Greco needs a word.’
‘Why?’
Mirco said nothing; he just stood there, his huge feet spaced wide apart as if he owned the place. Perhaps he did, Scamarcio reasoned. ‘You can tell him that the offer is off the table,’ he said, turning back to his whisky.
Mirco grabbed the glass with his other hand so Scamarcio couldn’t take it.
‘That stuff won’t do you any favours. Mr Greco understands why you want to settle this alone, but he’s thought it over, and he thinks you’re making a mistake. If you try to take out Piero Piocosta without backup, you’ll die. Not only will you lose your life, but you’ll lose your reputation. Mr Greco says that’s no way for an honourable man to go.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’
‘Mr Greco doesn’t take no for an answer.’
‘There’s always a first time.’
The grip on his shoulder tightened. ‘No. You’re coming with me.’
‘Or what?’
‘I’ll have to kill you.’
‘Are you crazy? What does it concern you whether I go after Piocosta? If anything, Greco should be grateful.’
A strange expression crossed Mirco’s face.
Scamarcio sighed. ‘Oh, I get it. Mr Greco’s worried he’s been indiscreet. He doesn’t want Piocosta finding out he was the one to tell me.’
Mirco said nothing, and Scamarcio knew he’d guessed correctly.
‘Then the little Greek has no balls. But tell him he can stop peeing his pants. That information could have come from any number of people.’
Mirco shook his head firmly. ‘No, Scamarcio, you’re coming with me. Do I have to kick the shit out of you?’
Scamarcio studied him for several seconds, and knew he was serious. They were robbing him of the fight. There was no longer an outlet for the tide of anger coursing through him. He felt an almost uncontrollable desire to dislocate Mirco’s jaw, break his arm, but then he stopped, took a breath, and let the reality sink in. Mirco would flatten him in a second, and anyway, what was the point? Scamarcio was suddenly overwhelmed by an all-consuming, exhausting grief; it was as if his father had died that very afternoon. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be led away.
Dante Greco was in an armchair reading a book when Scamarcio was marched back in. When he drew closer, Scamarcio saw that it was Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.
What the fuck? In other circumstances, Scamarcio might have found it amusing, but now it was just disconcerting. Mirco seemed to notice him observing the title, and quickly looked away, embarrassed perhaps.
Greco sighed and set down the book. ‘What a load of shit,’ he said after a few moments. Scamarcio wasn’t sure whether he was referring to the book or the matter with Piocosta.
‘Take a seat, Leone — you look tired.’
Scamarcio did as instructed. He was so spent now, he was willing to allow other people to make decisions for him.
‘You’re a hothead, just like your father.’
‘If you’d just discovered the identity of the man who’d ruined your life, wouldn’t you want to kill him?’
Greco scratched beneath an eye. ‘Of course. You need to be careful, though, when you say he ruined your life.’
‘You’re defending him now?’
‘Certainly not.’ He eased back in the armchair. ‘I just wonder what would have happened to you had Piocosta not killed your father …’
‘Look, Greco, I don’t have time for this bullshit.’
Greco slammed a palm on the desk, but it was a gentle slap, not that forceful. ‘What would you have become, Leone, if your father was still alive? Would you have still gone to Rome and joined the police, or would you have stayed down here with us vermin, and taken the helm of the family business?’
Scamarcio stopped for a moment. Greco was framing the question in a new way. Scamarcio had never considered it in these terms before. It was true; it was the murder that had changed Scamarcio, that had pushed him north, that had made him take a new path. Without that tragedy, would he have still listened to his mother, and left? Would she have even pushed him to go? He swallowed. Who was he? Who was he, really?
Even the indistinct outline of the answer was too much to contemplate.
Greco tapped his upper lip with a finger and watched him.
Scamarcio realised he had a headache. It had come on suddenly — a piercing, burning dagger behind his right eye. He rubbed a palm across his forehead. ‘Greco, what do you want?’
Dante Greco smiled. He got up from the desk and came around to the other side, perching on the corner so he was just a foot or so away now. Scamarcio noticed that his skin was far less lined than he would have imagined. He found this youthfulness unnatural and disconcerting.
‘I’m willing to cooperate with you on the matter of Piero Piocosta. It’s clearly in our mutual interest, and I believe we’ll work better together than apart.’
Scamarcio wanted to say something about Greco being a coward, about him needing to think before he spoke, but he remained silent. He took in this man with his perfect posture and immaculate suit, his smooth hands and neatly combed hair. There was too much of the Dark Lord about him, too much of the serpent.
‘I want you to find a way to get Piocosta to Catanzaro. I want him down here on home turf. And
I don’t want him surrounded by muscle. Do you think you can make that happen?’
There was something hypnotic about the tone and timbre of Greco’s voice. The headache was properly fierce now, and Scamarcio felt faint, but he heard himself say: ‘Perhaps.’
‘You don’t sound convinced.’
Scamarcio took a breath. ‘I’ll try.’
25
DESPITE THE THREE SCOTCHES he’d knocked back at the hotel bar, Scamarcio’s fingers were unsteady as he dialled Piocosta’s number.
‘Hmm,’ grunted the old man when he picked up.
‘Can you meet me?’ asked Scamarcio.
‘You got a problem with tomorrow night?’
‘I need to talk — a few things have come up. I don’t want to discuss them over the phone.’
‘The usual place? I can be there in an hour.’ The tone was more reasonable now.
‘No. I’ve left the capital. Better that way.’
‘Shit,’ said Piocosta, immediately picking up Scamarcio’s hint that he was being monitored.
‘I’m in Catanzaro.’
‘What the fuck are you doing down there?’
‘I’m here as part of the investigation I’m on. I thought it would be a good place for us to talk.’
The line fell silent. Scamarcio could almost hear Piocosta’s brain whirring. He was either wondering what inquiry Scamarcio was working on, or he already knew and was curious about how much progress was being made.
Eventually, Piocosta said: ‘I can’t just up and leave. I’ve got meetings.’
‘What about tomorrow? They won’t keep me down here long — they’ve always got one eye on the budget.’
Piocosta sighed and said: ‘I’ll take the train in the morning. I’ll text you the time. You can meet me at the station.’
Scamarcio wanted to tell him to come alone, but he knew there was no way to say this without arousing suspicion.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘See you then.’
Dante Greco poured him another glass of Amarone. It was from his private cellar, and was one of the finest Scamarcio had sampled. Greco seemed happy to stick to his Italian roots when it came to wine, but as far as the food was concerned he displayed distinctly Anglophile leanings. They’d had smoked salmon for a first course, roast beef and roast potatoes for an entrée, followed by apple pie for desert. A maid was now in the process of carving off a couple of slices of Stilton and laying them alongside two plates of grapes.
Scamarcio hadn’t wanted to meet Greco for dinner, but Mirco had made it plain that no wasn’t an option. When Scamarcio had left his hotel he’d had little appetite, but he’d surprised himself by how much he’d ending up enjoying the food, given the circumstances. At times he’d felt as if he was acting out a feverish hallucination; answering Greco’s questions, nodding his head when appropriate, smiling at his jokes, all in the pursuit of some increasingly indistinct, but deeply troubling, purpose.
‘This is the best Stilton money can buy,’ said Greco. ‘It’s from a small village in Nottinghamshire. Nothing beats it. Have you ever been to the UK?’
‘Just as a teenager,’ said Scamarcio. ‘I didn’t really like it.’
‘You probably saw the wrong places.’
‘Probably.’
Although Mirco had collected Scamarcio from his hotel, he had asked him to wear a blindfold for the last ten minutes of their journey to Greco’s villa. When he’d been helped from the car, still blind, Scamarcio had immediately noticed the silence and the evening musk of a familiar spring blossom — cherry perhaps. He’d wondered if they’d left Catanzaro, but then reminded himself that Greco could probably afford a sizeable chunk of city land on which to construct a mansion. Scamarcio hadn’t seen the outside of the house, but from the exposed stone walls and wood panelling inside, he imagined that Greco’s tastes would probably extend to a mock-Tudor facade.
Greco leant forward across the dining table, brushing some crumbs into the palm of his hand and then depositing them carefully into a thick cotton napkin.
‘Once you’ve met him at the station, take Piocosta around the corner to Trattoria Georgia. I’ll have my men there — Mirco will show you where it is on the map.’
‘Won’t Piocosta know that’s one of your places?’
‘It’s not. I’m just renting it for the afternoon.’
‘And if he suggests somewhere else? Piocosta sees Catanzaro as home turf; he’ll want to take the lead.’
‘Tell him you were there yesterday, and that the Black Pig ’Nduja is really good. Piocosta loves Black Pig ’Nduja.’
‘How do you know that?’
Greco’s face remained a mask of stone. It was as if Scamarcio hadn’t asked the question.
‘When did you two last work together?’ he pushed.
Greco sat back and undid the top button of his waistcoat. ‘Never, really. We were always on parallel trajectories, but heading for the same destination. It pained me to see him arrive first.’
‘So your problem with him is that he took your spot?’
‘It’s not just that. I don’t like how he operates. Piocosta will sell his own grandmother to get ahead. There’s no loyalty there, no appreciation or esteem for years of collaboration. He’s the definition of a psychopath.’
‘The whole system down here is psychopathic.’
Greco shook his head sharply. ‘If you think that, then you don’t understand the South.’
Scamarcio cleared his throat. He thought about saying nothing, but in the end he couldn’t help himself. ‘You all countenance murder after murder, blood feuds escalate, killings double, triple, quadruple in a year … none of you ever say Stop, enough is enough.’
‘How can we? No businessman can allow himself to be walked over, to be squeezed out. That’s the road to famine.’
‘But if you all sat down together, if you let reason prevail for once, maybe you could come up with a plan?’
Greco looked at him as if he were mad. ‘A plan? A plan? What kind of plan would you suggest to resolve centuries of banditry, resentment, poverty, and desperation? And don’t tell me the government is capable of coming up with something, because those pigs will never leave the trough. They have no interest in bringing wealth here.’
‘In some places, people are starting to fight back …’
Greco slammed his hand hard on the table, sending silver cutlery rattling. ‘That’s just bullshit for the papers! What you have here in Calabria is a modus vivendi: there’s no money or investment, so we fill the gap. Some of us grow rich doing so; the rest are just comfortable. The state puts up with us, because they know there are no alternatives and because half of them are in bed with us anyway.’
‘The state doesn’t put up with it. The Anti-Mafia Commission is hardly putting up with …’
‘The AMC is a fig leaf.’
Scamarcio was about to say that he didn’t buy it, that he truly believed that some forces within the state were doing all they could to bring about the demise of men like Greco and Piocosta. Yet he suspected that Greco was half-right; that it was the men at the very top who lacked the will. There weren’t enough pure hearts leading the charge.
He was about to try to wind up their discussion when Greco said: ‘Piocosta is the worst kind of criminal; he has no compass.’
So they’d come back around to that. The man was obsessed. But there was an unsettling look in Greco’s eyes that made Scamarcio reluctant to interrupt.
‘Most men have rules, boundaries. Piocosta has none,’ Greco continued, staring off into the middle distance.
Scamarcio sensed that he wasn’t just talking about the murder of his father now.
‘You need to know what you’re dealing with. Before Piocosta steals your life, that man will take your heart, your soul, your sanity — piece by piece, fibre by fibre. He’s the d
evil in a blue beret.’
Why the hard sell? Scamarcio wondered. He didn’t need to be convinced about the man who’d killed his father.
Greco tapped his wine glass with his index finger, then took a long slug of Amarone. ‘There was an old well near your father’s villa.’
Scamarcio blinked.
‘For a while they hid children there.’
The comment had come from nowhere. Greco fell silent as he watched Scamarcio try to make sense of it, process it.
‘Children?’ Scamarcio whispered eventually.
‘When they were into kidnapping for ransom,’ said Greco, all matter-of-fact.
‘Kidnapping for ransom?’
‘You seem surprised.’
Scamarcio just stared at him. Eventually he asked: ‘Both of them, they were both involved?’
Greco nodded.
Scamarcio swallowed. His tongue felt dry, too bulky. ‘I didn’t know they were ever into that.’
‘No?’
‘I can’t imagine my father …’
Greco held a finger up to stop him. ‘From what I heard, it was Piocosta’s idea.’
‘Why did my dad let him do it?’
‘I think he tried to stop him, but Piocosta just carried on behind his back.’
‘So Dad wasn’t aware?’
‘That would be a generous analysis.’
‘Well, which is it?’
‘I don’t know; no one ever did.’
The doubt was a new dark presence, another evil spirit in the room.
‘You ever heard of The Priest?’ asked Greco, gently pushing the bottle of Amarone across to Scamarcio.
That was it, the small worm of anxiety that had been threading its way along his spine, burrowing down into his skin; a question so troubling and unwelcome that he’d pushed it to the depths of his mind a long time ago.
The Hit Page 18
