On the Run

by Colin McLaren

  21st June

  A faint metal-to-metal noise broke Tommy’s silent slumber. He lay snuggled in only his briefs, among a dozen tablecloths, head resting on his shoulder bag. The cold touch of the Browning automatic reminded him rapidly of yesterday. He listened for just a minute before he adjusted the serviette that bandaged his swollen knee. The smell of liniment recalled his midnight raid on the staff first aid kit. His knee had felt considerably better as a result. He also recalled his less-than-successful attempt, sometime after midnight, at using the Florian office telephone. He had dialled the tearoom of the ACA office, hoping to catch Sandra. The call had rung out unanswered. He needed to tell her of the attempts on his life.

  Tommy’s mind raced. Could Inspector Mack have been involved in the play? Was he now aware of the death of the little tough guy? Would he be using Interpol to track him down? So many questions. Tommy was sinking deeper and deeper into a very dark hole, walled with the unexplainable, hideous crimes that were being attributed to him. He could see no way clear of the mess, and had become aware for the first time that paranoia was gripping him. He saw an image of himself, locked away in an Italian gaol cell for half a lifetime, pleading his case to indifferent Italian prosecutors. It was imperative to talk it through with Sandra. His paranoia set him wondering if she or indeed anyone would believe him.

  Dressing quickly in his jeans, shirt and sneakers, he kicked aside the dozen or so after-dinner mint wrappers on the floor. The metal-to-metal noise screeched again as his ears strained for the source of the sound. Very slowly he opened the storeroom door and listened again. All was quiet outside. Tommy tiptoed along the corridor to the staff change room and peeked in. A lone girl, no more than twenty years of age, he thought, was standing facing a tall narrow metal locker. She had removed her T-shirt and stood momentarily in nothing more than a pair of black briefs before she donned her chef uniform. Tommy glanced at his watch: just before 8 a.m. He descended the two flights of stairs, crept through the empty kitchen, picking up a small water bottle from the fridge, and left through the delivery door to a back laneway.

  With a knee that now troubled him less, he zigzagged through a dozen weathered lime-wash alleys past two full dump-masters and the occasional rat, until he happened on the Grand Canal. He found himself standing at the water taxi wharf adjacent to a deserted Harry’s Bar where he jumped a 20-euro cab to the tiny island of San Michele. Here he joined a short queue of early morning travellers with their heavy suitcases and backpacks as they waited impatiently for the ferry ticket office to open. The sign on the window advertised ships to the southern regions of Italy, Greece, Istanbul, and Alexandria in Egypt.

  The window was flung open at 8.30 a.m. Tommy watched a typically loud American family wrestle with the purchase of their two adult and three minor tickets on the Istanbul ferry. The ticket seller had demanded their passports and the father was ratting around in his backpack, while juggling a gelato belonging to one of his screaming children. Tommy stepped aside, vacating his position in the queue. Instead he took a long espresso with milk and a pastry and watched the queue slowly whittle down. Each traveller, it seemed, was asked for a passport. He knew that he was unable to put his own document down on any desk in Italy.

  Massimo’s response to the death of the angry little man would almost certainly involve the Calabrian Mafia tapping into their corrupt customs and border police. Not to mention what dots the Carabinieri of Mestre would have joined believing that an armed foreigner had killed a national. Any thoughts of risking it were thwarted when Tommy heard a horn from an approaching craft, then turned to notice a police launch carrying six armed officers approaching San Michele wharf from the tiny island of Murano. An obvious police alert blanketing the entire town scared him back into his water taxi. His talkative driver raced ahead.

  As Tommy’s taxi approached the bank of the Grand Canal at Piazza San Marco, he racked his brain for ideas. As he sat low on the bow of the cab, he watched the tribe of street vendors pushing their carts of wares and setting up for the day. He did his best to ignore the incessant chatter, in near-perfect English, of his driver, who persistently tried to accommodate him with a hotel room, or perhaps a tour to the Murano glass factory or a seat in a good restaurant. His eyes scanned the dock for police uniforms. Tommy feared seeing Massimo in the growing crowd. The romance of Venice was lost on him; he stood motionless, alongside the lion column, looking up at the grandeur of the San Marco Basilica, realising that he was completely trapped on a network of islands that, apart from a single six-kilometre-long bridge and train station, held no other route back to the mainland.

  He made a snap decision and headed for a nearby payphone, slipping a pre-paid phonecard into the slot and calling the ACA tearoom number again. The connection was clean and swift and he listened impatiently to the ringing. ‘Come on Sandra, pick up, pick up.’ After fifteen unanswered rings, the line automatically disconnected. He glanced at his watch. In Melbourne it was after 7 p.m.; the office was certainly closed. He dare not call Sandra at her home; Mack or the Homicide Squad would almost certainly have her phone tapped. Or was he being too paranoid? He needed to eat. His mind was fuzzy, his belly was empty and his judgement was starting to fail him. Defeated, he retrieved his phonecard.

  With half an idea, he walked straight for the breakfast café of the opulent hotel he had snuck through the previous night. On the way, he purchased a cheap but suave-looking Panama hat from a street vendor and plonked it on his head. He took a seat and ordered the best breakfast available, at 25 euros. As he waited for it to arrive, he tucked his shoulder bag out of sight beneath the linen-covered table, and stepped over to the concierge’s desk. He made a deliberate fuss and bother to a busy concierge about needing a newspaper with his breakfast. He mentioned in passing that he had forgotten to order his hotel shuttle to the Aeroporto Marco Polo the previous night when he had checked in. The occupied concierge nodded once or twice without interest before he handed Tommy a newspaper. Tommy tipped 10 euros to the suddenly delighted and accommodating concierge. An offer of a seat on the next hotel shuttle, leaving in less than fifteen minutes, was promptly forthcoming. Tommy explained that he had checked out earlier and would be waiting for a nod from the breakfast room.

  The church bell rang twice from St Christopher Cathedral in the centre of Mestre, indicating 9.30 a.m. Tommy was seated comfortably in the back of the courtesy bus to the airport. He was safely off the island of Venice, having cleared the road block at the end of the lido, away from the scurry of Carabinieri, well fed, and hopeful of a domestic airline ticket to the western side of Italy, near the French border.

  The feeling of euphoria at his escape was short-lived as Tommy’s coach approached the airport terminal and he saw the pairs of officials stationed at every entrance, inspecting the passports of all foreigners arriving. He stood lost as the well-attired hotel driver carefully unloaded the guests’ assorted pieces of luggage. He was handed his shoulder bag and remembered the weapon it now housed. To the left he observed the directional arrows to the bus depot. From there he deciphered with the assistance of the universal pictorial symbols that there was a connection to a trainline twelve kilometres away. Tommy picked up his Bees-Knees and headed rapidly that way. A hire car was not an option; passport identification would be required. He moved briskly with the cover of a small crowd towards the bus terminal but his journey soon came to an abrupt halt, his crowd becoming a queue fronting a team of Carabinieri demanding passports at the entrance to the bus station. Tommy stepped casually from the line and dropped to one knee as if to do up his shoelace, looking furtively behind him. There were two other Carabinieri approaching on foot, not twenty metres away. His view of the two guards was hindered somewhat by the trolley of a van driver, who was unloading three large tubs of flavoured syrup to the adjacent gelataria. He spied the keys inside the van’s ignition and quickly stepped inside the shop to purchase a cone.

  Three hours later, Tommy was on the A1 autostrada, approaching
the ring road to Florence. Determined to stay on the main thoroughfare towards Rome, he jolted along, ignoring the last exit ramp to the capital of Tuscany. His newly acquired gelato van was bound for Rome. He seemed destined to travel in a direction that he didn’t want to go: towards southern Italy.

  22nd June

  The brilliant early morning southern sun broke through the window of Tommy’s hotel room, a no-star dive opposite the Napoli Central Railway Station. The faded chenille bedspread that was strewn haphazardly across the thin mattress of the single bed would not normally have looked inviting but Tommy had drifted into the deepest of sleeps after arriving late the afternoon before. He had dumped the gelato van on the outskirts of Rome and caught the metro into the city. Three attempts to book a room in a series of cheap hotels had resulted in the repeated demand for his passport. Tommy was now certain that he would never get a bed in Italy’s capital without proper credentials; he was far more confident, however, of lucking in to a room without questions in Naples, the most corrupt city in the world. With some degree of trepidation, he finally shuffled back into the train termini and headed south towards the lions’ den.

  The receptionist at the dodgy Naples hotel soon forgot about asking for his passport when a crisp 20-euro note was placed on the counter. In exchange, Tommy was presented with the dirty key to an untidy single room on the second level overlooking the main entrance, the taxi rank adjacent to the station and a multitude of African street vendors. It was the week of the Italian Formula One Grand Prix and the street vendors were busy selling a myriad of junk. By the end of his first beer, as he sat in only his shorts and Panama hat on his miniscule balcony, Tommy had latched onto a lucrative street scam. He had long heard that the Mafia no longer picked the pockets of passing tourists, or fleeced the travellers at the train station. They had far bigger fish to fry. This allowed room for ruthless gangs of Albanians and Romanians—hard men, mostly illegal immigrants with nothing but spit and time on their hands—to lighten the wallets of the unsuspecting public. He watched as one such well-dressed and clean-shaven Albanian approached a couple who were walking from the station to the street. They were travel-weary and laden down with designer luggage, the perfect bait for a sting.

  Feigning an accidental bump, the gentlemanly and highly obliging con man offered his assistance, summoning a private car as he professed the untrustworthiness of the taxis and repeating his profuse apologies for knocking over the poor lady. The now charmed and relieved travellers were elated by the assistance, and in no time a private car had appeared. The boot was opened carefully to receive their luggage and handbags by a smartly dressed driver. The Good Samaritan gangster then requested 30 euros to cover the expenses of the car, as he exclaimed generously, ‘Half the price for my new friends, sir’. The gullible couple quickly parted with their money and the leader of the sting just as quickly jumped his own cab, whereupon he, the driver and the luggage disappeared into the massive Piazza Garibaldi, leaving the bewildered travellers standing shocked on the footpath with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Their wallets had been lifted as well.

  Every ten minutes a different con man would appear out the front of the station to repeat the performance with a different car arriving as ordered for a new set of travellers. And so it went on, hour after hour. Tommy watched, powerless, as the scams continued; he ached for a badge and his crew and the chance to exact some revenge. Streams of heartbroken holiday-makers circled the streets frantically searching out the uninterested Carabinieri. Before too long, Tommy spied the ringleader—a middle-aged guy with his arms covered in gaol-house tattoos. He sat quite still behind the grubby window of a coffee shop. The front table was his office nook for the day and a row of empty espresso cups sat lined up like soldiers in front of him. Apparently business was booming. From there, Tommy surmised, he oversaw the movements of his entire gang, watching their victories between the gaps in the flashing iridescent signs affixed to the window advertising panini and gelato. A pattern very rapidly developed, as each driver would return to him shortly after a sting and present him with a wad of cash.

  By 10 p.m. Tommy had stepped from the balcony and back into the bleakness of his room. Under the glow of the lone light bulb, he counted his own stash of sadly depleted lovely. Just under 900 euros remained, although the Visa card was as yet unused. Although Sandra had hinted through her ‘bottom line’ that the Visa card was safe, Tommy realised that the message was now many days old, and he couldn’t take any chances—at least not in Mafia country. He changed into jeans, shirt and shoes, and with his Browning tucked into the small of his back, he went in search of the fire exit to the rear of the hotel.

  Once on the main street, he purchased a McLaren Formula One cap from one of the many vendors without the slightest effort to bargain the price down, and placed it firmly on his head. Mingling with the night crowd that was spilling out to enjoy the perfect summer’s evening, he strolled casually past the café window. The gang capo was still seated alone, his now bulging briefcase by his heels and a coffee cup at his lips. Tommy took a covert position, not dissimilar to a drunk, in the doorway next to the café, and watched the traffic, an unopened bottle of Peroni beer in his hand.

  A garbage truck crawled along the right side of the street, and before long it was immediately in front of the café attending to a nest of bins. With the lip of his cap now pulled down, Tommy surreptitiously walked behind the truck and onto the blind side of the café. As the garbage men busied themselves raising bins to the back of the truck, Tommy raised his own arm and hurled the full beer bottle at the window of the café. The entire window broke free and fell in thousands of pieces to the pavement. Tommy walked casually through the mayhem straight to the door of the café, his timing perfect to see the capo scuttle urgently towards the rear door.

  Through the confused and panicked patrons, Tommy followed his target to the corridor leading to the gents’ toilet. The tough looked back momentarily, just fast enough to glimpse the Grand Prix cap and to see the butt of Tommy’s Browning come crashing down on the back of his head. Before the Albanian leader of bad men had even hit the piss-stained tiled floor, Tommy had relieved him of his satchel and had continued out towards the laneway. This left an unconscious gangster lying outstretched on his back with a McLaren cap lying on his chest. An even trade, Tommy thought, as he disappeared into the dark network of Naples.

  Two hours later, having allowed the dust to settle on his recent adventure, Tommy returned to the fire escape. His booty was stashed safe and sound inside a newly purchased Vietnamese ‘Louis Vuitton’ carry bag. He made his way slowly up the two flights of stairs to his room, bolted down tightly and settled in for the night. It had been a long, hard day.

  Tommy stepped from his bed, stretched his body and ambled over to close the heat-twisted shutters on the brilliant sunshine and the noise of the street below. He attempted to kick-start the 20-year-old television with its disobedient remote control without much success, and so opted for a quiet start to the morning instead. Tommy left the hotel, the Bees-Knees over his shoulder and the new addition to the luggage family tucked under his arm. He had four jobs on his mental list for the morning. He set off through the Mercato district to tick off number one.

  The old-world market district was alive with produce stalls, offering daily fresh fruit, vegetables and an odd assortment of meat, all to the constant hollers of the vendors, attempting to out-do each other. It was also awash with busy little barber shops; a candy-striped pole beckoned and Tommy soon sat proudly on a cream-enamelled barber’s chair. The barber worked his shaving brush into an intense foaming lather and then stopped to expertly sharpen his cut-throat razor, smiling as he did at the Bombe Alaska he had created on his client’s face. One long sharp stroke after another and Tommy’s face returned to a boyish youthfulness. A luxury of five minutes under a steaming hot face towel left just enough time for Tommy to say a silent goodbye to Rossanna’s creation as his blond tips fell to the barber’s
parquetry floor. He was new yet again, he thought. He walked from the barber shop, gifting his Panama to the oldest in the row of waiting men. An impressive array of gold fillings flashed from the whiskered Italian in return.

  Tommy’s next task took him to the Via De Gasperi in the docklands, where he took a plastic moulded chair at an internet café to draft a message to Sandra. Before he did, he read a message waiting for him.

  Dear Ingrid,

  I have been pondering what to do, so you can feel better, well again. I have talked to some of our old friends and they are working hard to think of ways to help. I’m sure a fountain of ideas will soon flow.

  Stay well, darling. Love, Sandy.

  Tommy sat dumbfounded for a moment, trying to decipher the bottom line. Over and over he read the message, coming up with the same result. It could only mean that Sandra had gone to the Toeys and the head of the unit, Superintendent Fountain, was working on his case. While he naturally worried about the Toe Cutters hunting him, as any detective would, this time around he felt the message was a great positive. After all, he trusted Sandra’s judgement. If only the Toeys could prove Massimo was in the Bay of Islands at the time of the horrific stabbings. He wondered how that could be achieved as he typed a response to Sandra.