Useful information, but by no means a solution. He needed to find a way to sneak into the hospital, keep the policemen at bay, get to the ground floor with Longhin, get out and leave: nearly impossible. Not to mention all the hassle the hospital workers and the patients might create.
Dress up as a doctor, sneak into Longhin’s room in a white coat and leave with the patient after a while? Only in a movie.
Still, the guys expected him to take charge. He was the highest ranking and nobody would even think of disobeying his orders. The negative side of being called Mule and being Pagnan’s right hand man was that he had to take responsibility for complex operations like this one. Even though he always made up a thousand reasons to be suspicious, Pagnan, that fucking lardass, trusted his mule after all.
He had earned that nickname in the field, so to speak. He never gave up; maybe he was slower or less smart than his adversaries, but he was always able to stand up again and wait for the moment his enemy made a mistake. He waited for his opponent to lower his guard and then kicked out, and made sure the job was done. Properly.
And not only that: he'd also proved he was completely loyal to the gang. He'd been inside for twelve years for armed robbery and as an accessory to first degree murder. His loyalty continued throughout his forced sojourn at the Due Palazzi prison in Padua. There he was always on his best behaviour, going so far as to join the team of inmates that produced the best Easter cakes in town. Pagnan was grateful: he had showered him in money and picked him as his right hand man.
But now the issue with Longhin needed to be resolved. He'd been trying to think of a solution less dangerous than the first one that popped into his head, but no luck so far. So he decided to focus the operation on the three key actions of a brave but desperate gangster.
Enter the hospital with guns drawn, take hostages and threaten bloodshed.
That’s what Saverio Donolato, aka Mule, was thinking as he drove closer to the entrance of the hospital, in Via Giustiniani 2.
He cleared his throat, nervously fiddled with his gel-tamed hair, then checked in the rearview mirror to see how the blue double-breasted coat he’d bought some days earlier fit him. He loosened his regimental-style tie a little and adjusted the collar of his long woollen coat.
Then he gave some minimal instructions to the guys.
“Right, Tripe, here we are. You stay here, arse planted on the driver’s seat. As soon as you see us coming back, gun the engine and take off at light speed. That’s not hard, is it?”
“Consider it done,” replied Tripe nodding with his fierce smile. His handlebar moustache highlighted his smug expression, his grey eyes shining like stones in a riverbed.
“Schiavo, Polenta, the pair of you with me.”
“OK Mule,” replied Schiavo checking behind his back to make sure his nickel .357 Magnum was nicely tucked in his trousers and hidden by the jacket of the perfect grey suit he had picked for the occasion.
“No problem,” said Polenta.
“Good, so... let’s go.”
They got out of the cobalt blue Audi A3 and started walking up the silver ramp to the main hospital reception, like three scarecrows dressed up for some big event.
As soon as they got to the hall, the smell of disinfectant and mashed potatoes assaulted their nostrils. They carried on, staying cool, and climbed to the first floor, taking the stairs rather than the lift.
Three hardened killers, tense and ready to dance, their dream of an easy hit about to shatter like glass. Which they were just about to step all over. They covered their faces with balaclavas and opened the door leading to Geriatric Medicine.
They were in.
“Rock ’n’ roll!” shouted Polenta, and drew a shining Colt .45 from his shoulder holster, placing it right between the eyes of the head nurse, a big woman with hair as orange as an egg yolk, frozen behind her desk.
“If you so much as flinch, I’ll make jam of your fucking brain,” he added.
“No bullshit, you pair!” Schiavo kept his .357 trained on the two policemen guarding Longhin’s room, ready to shoot.
“Quick, bitch!” roared Mule towards a small, pretty nurse. “Find me a fucking wheelchair or you're done thinking for good. Now!” As he spoke, he extracted his Glock .17 from his shoulder holster and screwed on a silencer.
The girl hesitated. For too long.
Mule pulled the trigger.
Shot.
Hit.
Scream.
Spurt of blood on the floor.
The nurse, her arm seriously hurt.
Mule knew he'd gone too far but he couldn’t show it. What the fuck was he doing? Had detention made him go crazy? He needed to appear to be in control. Because Polenta couldn’t wait to tear the whole wing to pieces. That’s how he was. And Mule was sending the wrong message.
“What the fuck are you doing?” shouted one of the policemen as he instinctively went for his gun.
“Hey, mate. Touch your iron and this becomes a slaughterhouse.”
As he spat the words through clenched teeth, Mule stood in front of the nurse he'd shot and drilled a hole through her head with a stare.
She got it straight away and pointed at one of the rooms. Mule went there after having looked Polenta in the eye to make sure he understood that it had only been a warning shot. He didn’t want the kids painting the walls their favourite colour while he was away.
Thankfully, Polenta nodded.
A few seconds later Mule returned, pushing a wheelchair that looked well past its prime.
“Right,” he said. “Nobody leave the room or I’ll fucking kill the lot of you! I’ll turn you into mincemeat seasoned with lead! Understand, you old farts?” Then he spat towards a couple of white heads that had dared peek into the corridor, “Do you understand? If I find out you've rung a bell, a rattle or any other shit, if a guard or some fucking consultant comes I’ll tear you all to pieces. Yeah? Am I clear enough?”
After that volley of threats, a surreal silence fell. It was hard to believe how much he'd just talked, and he was far from being a public speaker. But he felt that by barking insults he had entranced his audience, and more importantly, he had regained the pizzazz of his best years. His assistants stared at him as if in love. The policemen were frozen. Two Egyptian sphinxes. He was pleased.
Before the effect of his tirade died out, he rushed into Longhin’s room. He found him in bed, covered in bandages and plasters, swollen eyes open wide. In his sarcophagus, Tutankhamen probably wore less bandages than this bastard, Mule thought to himself.
“Hi, you son of a bitch. We're going for a spin.”
Longhin didn’t reply. He had already visualised the whole movie of what awaited him, including a gigantic, bright red “The End”.
“Bet you can’t walk, can you?”
With the calmness and stoicism of a dying man, Longhin moved his ass from the bed to the wheelchair without making a sound.
“Well done, asshole. You better not bust my balls, right?”
Tutankhamen nodded.
“Damn it, Otto, cat got your tongue? But it’s OK. It’s OK, better like this.”
Outside the room it looked like they were playing a game of statues: everything was frozen, exactly like it was a minute ago.
Polenta was holding the fat head nurse and the bleeding girl at gunpoint, Schiavo the two policemen.
No noise. Everybody showing an impressive maturity.
“Hey, they behaved,” said Schiavo.
“Hi Longhin. You know what's coming, eh?” and with an evil grin, left hand held like a knife, Polenta mimed slitting someone's throat.
“Let’s head!” Mule said interrupting him. “I’ll go to the lift and put this asshole in it. Soon as I’m in, the two of you follow me with a nurse each. If we don’t fuck up we’ll be out in no time. Ah!” he added, louder. “To those who are here and those who aren’t. If you think of calling someone or playing the hero,” and he looked at the two policemen, “the two women will
be the first to go to Heaven. Understood?”
The silence of deep space.
“Now unfasten your holsters. What, you think I'm stupid?”
The cops looked at each other, then did what they were told.
“That's it. Nice and slow. Now put your hands up.”
They did and Schiavo removed their weapons.
“Very good. Thank you all for your cooperation. And goodbye, it’s been a pleasure.”
Mule started walking towards the lift, pushing the wheelchair in which a trembling Longhin was sitting. Schiavo and Polenta caught up with him just in time, one arm around the nurses' necks, guns to their heads.
In ten seconds they got to the ground floor.
The door slid open.
In front of them, two white-gowned doctors with plastic cups of coffee were walking up the corridor in a self-important sort of way.
“You better not say a word, you two!” barked Mule from under his balaclava.
The doctors goggled at the parade of hostages and guns leaving the lift.
One of them dropped his cup.
“Maaah...” he groaned.
“What are you doing?” said the other. And, with a slightly too cheeky tone, he added: “I’ll call the police!”
“You really don’t fucking get it!” barked Mule. He lunged forward and hit the doc's chin with a right hook, immediately followed by a jab. The doctor flew backwards, landed spitting blood and a front tooth that left a dark gap in his mouth.
Mule rubbed his knuckles, snorted and cleared his throat to stop the burning feeling that had started bothering him.
But it didn’t go away.
And his troubles were far from over.
The hospital was turning out to be a real treasure house of obstacles. To put it nicely. And his patience was running really low.
From the opposite end of the corridor, a nurse in a mint green uniform, who had watched the whole scene unfurl, screamed as if someone had just extracted her kidneys.
Mule took charge of the situation. His way. He was sick and tired of all the fucking tension.
“This is it!” he hollered. “I've been shouting for the last ten minutes asking you all to stop pissing me off!”
He was really worn out. He started waving his Glock 17.
“The two of you go ahead, and make sure they can see the women,” he ordered Schiavo and Polenta. His voice had lowered suddenly.
They walked on, hiding behind the head nurse and the wounded girl. Mule followed them with his priceless charge.
The doctors from the elevator were still staring at them, slightly bewildered.
As soon as the six of them turned the corner into the main hall the shouting started multiplying. A scene worthy of Dante’s Inferno: a couple of old geezers started running away with their IVs dangling from their stands; a bunch of paramedics burst out from behind the reception desk and vanished in under a second; a Moroccan with a bloody arm started shouting like a man possessed.
Mule turned his gaze towards his men.
“Let’s keep our cool,” he said. “We're professionals and we'll get out of here unharmed.”
But it was a hairy situation. The police would arrive very soon. The plan – if indeed there had ever been one – had gone completely tits up.
And the worst was yet to come.
A security guard appeared from one of the doors on the hall and charged at Schiavo, head down, while the head nurse bit his arm and forced him to let go.
It all happened in a split second.
A thin blade shone in the security guard's hand.
Mule shouted, but to no avail.
The scalpel dragged lethally across Schiavo’s neck, which started spurting blood like a fountain.
Polenta screamed. The sudden assault on his friend’s life had managed to destroy his self-control.
He pushed the young nurse away and started shooting with his Colt .45.
He shot all around him, towards the fleeing head nurse and Schiavo’s killer who in the meantime had stood up and was holding a P38 Special, ready to fire.
Two hollow point bullets found their way to the back of the head nurse, who crashed to the floor. Three hit the head of the security guard, who turned into a small red volcano belching out blood and brains.
Polenta grabbed the nurse with the bleeding arm by the hair. She had remained there, kneeling, crying in silence. He pulled her up.
“Move, bitch! Or do you want to die as well?”
They started running.
Mule was pushing the wheelchair with the mummified Longhin in it. Polenta followed, dragging the nurse behind him like a lifeless corpse.
They opened the screen doors to the cold, pungent evening air.
They kept running.
Long seconds later, they heard screams booming in their ears. But they were safe, one step from the car.
Just time to lift Longhin up and throw him into the back seat. Then Mule and Polenta got in.
“Where's Schiavo?” asked the waiting Tripe.
“Dead!” replied Mule.
And with that, the cobalt blue Audi A3 accelerated away as if an invisible monster had bitten its ass.
4.
“I think she's at home. Alone,” said Zhang Wen.
“You think? You mean you're not sure?” replied Xan Jingyu.
“Just about... but I saw her in action, she's really fast. So try not to underestimate her.”
“We won’t,” said Wu Jingjing tidying up his sleek, silky hair.
“There's a low wall around the house. We climb over it, run through the garden and then split up. I go in through the living room, you go through the kitchen.”
“Are the doors open?”
“Yes. While I was waiting for you I took a walk around. Both French windows are open.”
“She's not waiting for us, is she?” asked Xan, a hint of suspicion in his shrill voice.
“No chance.”
“Are you sure she didn’t notice you following her?” insisted Wu. He knew Zhang and didn’t trust him completely, since he was the spoiled nephew of the biggest fish in the Talking Daggers gang.
Spoiled and completely mental. There was a legend in the clan: that he had a cellar containing only a butcher’s table and a freezer. On the occasions he tortured his victims before he killed them, he liked to keep something as a souvenir: a hand, a foot, the head. He stored his trophies in the freezer, a kind of macabre frozen archive.
Probably all bullshit. But there's some truth behind every rumour. That’s what Wu was thinking when Zhang said, “Hey, guys, what can I tell you? I've been very careful. Now, listen up: I'll enter first through the living room, then the two of you through the kitchen. We'll flank her. She can’t be in two places at the same time.”
The last part of his speech sounded just like a Kongzi saying to the two men. So, free of all doubts, Zhang, Xan and Wu sprang into action.
Zhang climbed the low wall and approached the French window that opened onto the garden. Meanwhile Xan and Wu did the same on the other side of the house, where the kitchen was located.
From inside, they could hear the sound of running water, a shower, almost certainly. The red dreadlocked girl was going through her rinse cycle, so sure she'd not been followed that she ignored even the most basic safety measures.
Zhang thought of that scene in Psycho, when Norman Bates stabs Marion Crane in the shower. Although Zhang had two Walther PPK 7.65s and was ready to make a ghost of the woman by riddling her with bullets, shame they needed her alive to find out where the money was.
He crossed the garden, nimble and sure-footed like a wild cat, smelling the earth and noticing the purple leaves of the radicchio. Past the vegetable garden and the shed, he was already enjoying the success of the raid he considered was being conducted in textbook fashion.
He paused at the small marble patio in front of the living room window. He raised the silenced gun with two hands, pointing it straight ahead, ready to sh
oot at the first sign of trouble.
He knew he had to be careful: he'd seen what that girl could do. And it was enough for him. She couldn’t be underestimated, he kept telling himself. But everything seemed to be under control. He focussed on the French window.
He was so focussed that he hardly realised as he entered that something really sharp and really cold had whipped at his wrists.
“Aah!”
What had struck his hands?
Only then he noticed that the living room floor was covered with a huge plastic sheet.
No!
Zhang stood frozen in terror, a scream choking in his throat. His legs gave way to inertia and to a feeling of dismay that permeated his whole body like a weak but continuous electric current.
Where the hell was his gun?
No! Where the hell were his hands?
A katana!
The Japanese sword shone in the fists of the girl with the red dreadlocks.
She was standing next to him, smiling, staring at him through strange glasses with shiny yellow lenses. She had appeared from nowhere with the speed of a silent Fury.
Zhang couldn’t believe it! His hands were on the floor with the gun.
He would have liked to scream in pain until his vocal cords tore, but he didn’t have the time to make a single sound: the girl pivoted on her left leg, traced a perfect arc in the air and hit his face with surgical precision.
Zhang felt the blow. His body crumpled, fell with a dull thud and rolled on the plastic sheet covering the living room floor.
A dull thud.
Xan and Wu had felt it too, while they moved, fast and careful, in the kitchen.
But after the thud they heard nothing else.
They looked at each other in silence. Then Xan, holding his trusted Beretta calibre .9 tightly, entered the corridor followed by Wu, a couple of yards behind him.
As soon as he reached the living room door, Xan saw something he really didn't want to see: a new, bloodcurdling version of Zhang.
A instant later, Xan saw the girl, covered in a black latex suit and wearing glasses with yellow lenses.
Grasping the situation, aiming and firing took place in one instinctive flow. But he missed.
The Ballad of Mila Page 4
