A blue-and-white coloured police car cruised into the piazza, stopping a few metres away from the café table. The lone driver took his time stepping from the vehicle. Pino pulled his soiled white shirt from inside his trousers to cover the Browning pistol. Massimo observed Pino’s attempt to hide the pistol and nodded, then checked that the AK 74 was still covered by his suitcase. It was. He placed his left boot firmly on top of the case and looked out in the direction of the sea. Pino broke the silence, whispering to Massimo, ‘Kill him.’ Massimo ignored the comment, and remained staring steadfastly towards the sea.
The policeman, a cop for ten years, was a handsome young local man, Mario Messina. He lived with Lina, his wife, and their baby daughter in Gerace, a neighbouring hilltop town. Almost every night for the past six years, he had burnt the midnight oil studying for his law degree. Mario had one more term until completion, when he could apply for promotion to Commissario: detective in charge of a region. Law enforcement and honour ran in his family and, like his father and grandfather, Mario despised the Mafiosi that festered in his region. Equally he despised the likes of Massimo and the gangs ruining the southern seaside villages in Calabria, frightening tourists away from the big cities and hilltop towns. His hatred extended to many of the local policemen who took to payola or outright bribery to turn a blind eye.
Mario had known Massimo since their schooldays, 14-year-olds on the same football team. While they were never close friends, they had been aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses even then. Almost overnight Massimo and Mario ceased communication on almost every level. Mario’s father, who had been on patrol in the capital city of Reggio, Calabria, was shot dead. No one was ever brought to justice for the murder but the entire region knew that the elders in the Plati gang were behind the death. Massimo’s uncles had been forcing their way into the rear of a shoe factory on the outskirts of the industrial zone when the lone patrol officer had stumbled across them, only to be cut down in a spray of bullets as the bandits fled the scene. Not long after, Massimo stopped going to school altogether; he was taken under the wing of his uncles for a very different education. Mario, on the other hand, put his head down, spending almost all his free time in his schoolbooks. He secretly took to wearing his father’s old police shirts while he sat alone in his upstairs room, studying earnestly.
An accident on the main highway, midway through his patrol, involving a Spanish tourist in a rental car and a local moped rider, meant that Mario was now more than an hour late for his visit to Plati. Accident or not, he would always ensure that he drove the fifteen minutes from the main highway into Plati and out again. As he also did in San Luca, another wretched N’Drangheta-controlled town on the hillside. Mario reckoned he had more than family honour on his side; he had the weight of the Anti-Mafia unit in Naples. They would come in truck-loads, with machine guns and tanks, to avenge any pre-meditated death of a Magistrate, Commissario or even a lowly Carabinieri officer doing his job. This had been the case with his father, some twenty years earlier when the N’Drangheta had been sent scurrying into their caves for many weeks as the tanks rolled into town. Massimo and his crumby little gang were aware of the boundaries, so they tolerated the Carabinieri asking their questions and patrolling the piazza. They knew that the real action was hidden well away, and that the chance of a lowly local officer making any impact on their criminal enterprises was next to zero.
Mario closed the driver’s door of his patrol car and walked into the Tabac shop immediately next door to the café. He came out to stand to one side of his car and pull a smoke free, tapping it firmly on the side of the pack, making an exaggerated action to smell the cigarette before he lit it. Mario too looked out at the ocean in the same direction as Massimo. He drew back again on his cigarette and slowly exhaled.
‘Benvenuto, Massimo,’ he said, without breaking his stare.
‘Grazie,’ was all that Massimo would return and he too kept his gaze.
Ten more puffs and the butt was stubbed out by the toe of Mario’s cheap yet sturdy boot. He walked to the car door and got back into the patrol vehicle, driving away from the café and out of the piazza. He’d be back tomorrow, when the sun was high again. In the meantime, he would gain a degree of pleasure by sending an intelligence report to his contact, Commissario D’Alfonso, at the Anti-Mafia unit in Naples. D’Alfonso was a good man who had already promised Mario a recommendation for the role as regional Commissario. Mario would advise him of the latest movement of their main suspect in this region for major drug trafficking and unsolved murders: Massimo.
As Mario’s squad car disappeared along the Via Roma, as if beckoned by the siren call of the startlingly blue coastline again, Pino hurriedly moved across the piazza. He carried the AK 74, while Giuseppe and Illario followed behind with the powder-blue suitcase. All three quickly disappeared behind the carved wooden door of the finest palazzo in town.
The town’s most respected and feared elder, Don Carbone, shuffled from the back of the coffee shop. The 78-year-old was the Godfather of the Plati clan, cousin to the old Australian Godfather— they shared the same surname—and uncle to Massimo, heir apparent. The Don, wearing lightweight navy gabardine slacks held up by black braces over a white collarless shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to the elbows, stood alongside his nephew. Massimo fussed over him, accepting the Don’s welcome back to the town after his six-week absence. Massimo could see the age in the old man’s face; he was near his end.
‘Uncle, please, my seat,’ he insisted as the Godfather eased his old frame onto the chair and rested his simple wooden walking cane next to it.
‘He has gone?’ he asked.
‘Yes, the pimple has gone for another day.’
‘Remember this, Massimo. An annoying little pimple one day, a niggling fester the next and soon an unbearable rash.’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ replied Massimo humbly.
‘Forget him, that one. He lives in a dream of his father. Worry only about the shipment to Australia,’ instructed the Godfather, pushing Massimo’s empty coffee cup aside to accept a strong fresh espresso from the quiet waiter. Massimo sat diligently listening to Don Carbone as he continued.
‘Tell me, Massimo, what went wrong with the Australian in Amsterdam?’
The nephew inhaled sharply and attempted to provide answers.
A few peaceful minutes in Sandra’s otherwise busy day were presented to her, with Spud and Leigh out of the office, forced to do a minimal amount of investigative work on a new job that they had on the books. A good deal of their time these days was spent in their collective worry over Cole, but there was still routine police work to do. And to ensure that Inspector Mack remained unaware of their suspicions, they made sure that they knocked on a crook’s door, interviewed a suspect or followed up a lead. It was important to look busy. The boys had drawn the short straw today and Sandra was left alone. She began to compose a message to her dear friend Ingrid. She had to let Cole know that everybody was watching his MasterCard.
Ingrid,
I’m so glad we’re talking again. It was good to hear your voice the other day, but I am concerned that you sound like you have been run ragged. Honeymoons are for relaxing, sweetie. Your parents are so concerned for your health. Get that man of yours to take better care of you. All eyes will be watching how you master this. Oh, and thanks for your card.
Lots of love, Sandy
As the message pinged through cyberspace to the other side of the world, Tommy walked along the corso at Bellagio. Every now and again he looked down at the local old men in search of freshwater mussels on the rocks. He liked the synergy between old men and fishing. He enjoyed the slowness of the peaceful and traditional pursuit, set against the gentle lapping sounds of the lake’s tiny waves. By now he was sporting the start of a fairly reasonable beard. During the mornings, Tommy was enjoying the company of Rossanna, the young receptionist from his Hotel Suisse.
Rossanna was a cute girl, he thought. Just twenty-three, an
d looking forward to marrying her man, the son of the town mayor. More small town stuff, he thought. Tommy learnt much about Rossanna during those strolls as his beard became thicker and more dishevelled, including the fact that she was an ex-hairdresser. He thought her desire to assist in this area might just be handy one day.
She worked each afternoon at the Hotel Suisse throughout the summer, the busy times. Her near-perfect English welcomed guests hospitably. She was lucky with her constant afternoon work, in so far as her handsome intended was a sometime waiter at the downstairs restaurant and they could steal a few moments together between courses and check-ins. Rossanna and Tommy had taken to these late morning walks each day before her shift commenced. Rossanna jumped at the opportunity of broadening her English with Australian colloquialisms, and Tommy delighted in teaching her. This morning he and Rossanna were joined by her beau, Paolo, as they practised their Ocker slang.
Every now and again as Tommy tried to explain a phrase like ‘fair dinkum’ or ‘bonza, mate’, Rossanna and Paolo would fall about on the corso in fits of laughter, completely unable to comprehend the strange words. Their thirst was insatiable for anything Austral ian. An uncle of Rossanna’s had migrated to Perth some twenty years earlier, and she was curious to visit her never-seen cousins. They all hatched a plan that, once the lovers were married, they could honeymoon in Australia, and stay a week or so with Tommy in East Melbourne. Although he did secretly wonder how the hell he would tell two wide-eyed Italian honeymooners upon their arrival that his name wasn’t Tommy and he had been hiding out from the Mafia as well as several police forces.
The trio had soon gathered a small following of local Italian tourists, all fascinated to overhear the colloquialism lesson. Tommy would offer a saying and sit back enjoying the wait for one of his young friends to repeat it.
‘Try this one,’ he suggested to Paolo. ‘G’day, blue, how they hangin’?’
Paolo was at a loss, as was the audience. He looked at Rossanna but she too shook her head, totally bemused. Tommy translated the meaning and the raucous laughter from his lively crowd increased.
‘Tomasso, Tomasso, give me one to try?’ Rossanna pleaded.
Tommy stopped deep in thought for a moment and then looked up at the expectant group, apologising first to Rossanna as he said, ‘Bugger me dead, digger, it’s a stinker of a day.’ Rossanna blushed profusely as she attempted to translate with the assistance of a near-obscene mime. Her crowd mimicked her gyrations all the way down to the sweaty brow.
Amid the heightened laughter, Tommy snuck away for a walk, still smiling broadly. Initially he dawdled along the wharf to give thought to his next move, where he would next travel. Daily, he would catch the ferry to a neighbouring town on the lake for a lazy fish and salad lunch and a read of the novel he had purchased at the local libreria. He had become a great fan of the famed Italian author Andrea Camilleri and had devoured three books in recent days. On this particular morning, though, he hadn’t felt like a ferry ride, not just because the water was a little choppy, but also because he had visited most of the towns by now. Menaggio, Lenno and Verenna had proved to be his favourites, particularly the last one, which he thought was pure postcard material.
He decided instead to head back to the little doctor’s surgery and have his stitches removed; his wound had healed beautifully. His thoughts, as the nurse carefully snipped away at the surgical thread, returned to home and he felt the need to check Ingrid’s email, which he had set aside since the week before with all the panic in Amsterdam. He was acutely conscious that by now Inspector Mack would have his corrupt tentacles spread far and wide in search of any information on his foe. Tommy could only imagine the catalytic effect of a joint effort by Mack and the Calabrian punk, in an attempt to flush him out.
During his undercover days in Griffith, Tommy had virtually lived with his Italian criminal targets for extended periods, toughing it out. He had often been forced to rely on no more than his own wits until he could make his way back to the lawful fold and file his report. He had fallen back into that self-reliant way now, for, it seemed to Tommy that this whole affair was beginning to resemble some sort of covert nightmare, without any back up or anyone to report to.
He went in search of an internet café. Tucked away in the upstairs mezzanine of the trendy enoteca were a couple of PCs for hire at 6 euros an hour. Tommy pulled up a stool at the bar for a wine or two first. He enjoyed the esoteric stories of the eccentric proprietor. His favourite yarn involved his supplying a dozen bottles of the same Primativo 2006 vintage red to George Clooney each month, as well as a selection of his personal premium wine recommendations. Clooney lived, at times, in an opulent villa across the water from Bellagio, in the little village of Laglio. If the wine shop proprietor was to be believed, George only ever purchased wine from him. Or so he said to Tommy, on his second glass of Negroamaro wine. At the end of the tale, Tommy took the remains of his drink upstairs to enjoy as he tapped away on the computer.
He was glad of the single item in Ingrid’s inbox, from Sandra. It made him feel less alone. He skipped through the body of the message, to the bottom line. He read it over and over,
All eyes will be watching how you master this. Oh, and thanks for your card.
Here it was at last, absolute confirmation on two fronts of what he had long suspected after fleeing Amsterdam. First, that everyone was aware of him travelling under the name of Tommy Paul and, second, that the Mafia had tapped into his MasterCard. He was convinced that Inspector Mack must have had an alert on that card, somehow. Thankfully, there was nothing said about his Visa card. It must be safe.
Tommy was elated. The trail he had laid through Milano had credible legs. Massimo must have taken the bait or he would be dead by now.
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and rested it on the keypad. He emptied the contents and counted out just over 1400 euros in cash remaining.
He prayed that no one was aware of his Visa. The only person who lawfully knew that he had the Visa was Spud … and maybe now Sandra. He would know soon enough should corrupt elements be onto the card, but knowing might come too late for him.
His mind went over the 1400 euros. And his expenses. The Hotel Suisse bill was paid up for another three days, and most of his downstairs restaurant tabs had already been covered. He might just be alright.
Five hundred metres above the township of Plati were the thickest regions of the Aspromonte, the start of tens of thousands of hectares of pine forest. It was also the start of an infinite network of caves, many of which were no bigger than a domestic kitchen in size. Just volcanic holes in the mountain side really, ideal for animals in hiding or the occasional hunter in need of cover during a sudden downpour. But every now and again, a tiny crevice would lead to a run of honeycomb-like underground openings linked by a fault line in the rocks. Only a century ago the poorest of all Italians, the hilltop Calabrians, had lived in these caves, along with their chickens and the occasional goat or sheep. Such a lifestyle was now relegated to the stuff of folklore rather than the reality of day-to-day life. The caves these days were the property of the gangsters who used them to stash weapons, contraband or drug shipments until they could be routed to their destination, and, more notoriously, to hide kidnap victims.
Massimo sat inside the coolness of one such cave, a crevice that he had fashioned into an office of sorts a few years earlier. It was easily accessible, to those in the know, only a short stroll from the end of Via Guiseppe Carbone, a backstreet of the village that petered out at the lower reaches of the slope of the mountain. The entrance to Massimo’s hidden mountain den was partly concealed by a large boulder that itself was covered by an overgrown saltbush. It contained a couple of old timber desks and a few simple wicker chairs. Massimo opened the top drawer to the desk and pushed aside a Smith & Wesson .38 six-shot revolver, in favour of a solitary pencil. He placed the simple writing implement on the desk alongside a bundle of blank notepaper. A small kerosene l
antern was his only light source.
He blew away a fine layer of silt that had fallen from the roof of the cave since the desk was last in use, and prepared to make some notations. Deeper in his stone room were a dozen or so cases of wine and a multitude of jars of preserves maturing perfectly in the cool conditions. Further towards the back was a network of galvanised metal rods just below the roofline that stretched from wall to wall. Each rod held several salamis of varying sizes tied with string, also taking advantage of the ideal climate to air dry. The most modern piece of equipment in Massimo’s retreat was a touch-pad telephone/ fax, which sat somewhat incongruously on his desk. Its electrical cable could be traced from the back of the phone, under the dirt floor, out of the small entrance and into the forest below. Eventually the cable could be seen to run up the side of the closest telephone pole, about one hundred metres away. Massimo’s cousin, Giuseppe, had cleverly wired the telephone into a junction box and then into the main cable for the district. No one would dare tamper with the illegal phone connection, allowing Massimo free and untraceable tele phone calls around the world.
Half an hour earlier he had ended the last of a string of calls to his criminal contact in Poland, who had spent the better part of the last week trying to trace one Tommy Paul. His final communication on the subject made it very clear to Massimo that Tommy Paul had never landed at any airport in Poland, and certainly there was no one by that name registered in any of the hotels in Kraków. Once he had ended the final call he sat thinking, wondering where the Australian detective had run to. Massimo felt certain he hadn’t yet left Italy; all he needed to do was find out where he laid his head at night. Massimo was determined to kill the detective, to avenge his Australian cousins and improve his status with the Australian Godfather in Griffith. As the number two in the Plati clan, it was paramount that he succeed. He sat chewing his pencil end, waiting for Pino to return from his latest errand.
On the Run Page 14
