Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores

by Massimo Carlotto

  The state cut a deal with the mafia, arrested a boss, and squeezed those who did the dirty work, those who made the Cosa Nostra archive disappear. Some careers were torched after cases were brought with the sole aim of kicking up dust. Other people soared to the Mount Olympus of Power. The real kind. The kind that has always governed.

  But unlike Paz, Marino didn’t really get me. Beautiful Angela, born and raised in the highest echelons of the Interior, tended to underestimate her enemies. Not only was she biased, more to the point, she couldn’t hold back her disdain for moral degeneracy. Given her rank in the ministry, that attitude could have harmed her career in the long run. With me she’d made the same mistake. She was sure she was the sharper of the two, sure she could use me, trick me, and go back on her word.

  But I’d make sure she didn’t. I’m not the type to rot behind bars or go into hiding. In order to live large I had to go back to Italy and be among the well-heeled—presentable people, not necessarily saints. By now arrest warrants were the daily bread of people who ran business and politics. I had to go back to being considered a full-fledged citizen, with the right to vote and the obligation to pay taxes and bills. Only then could I devote myself to taking advantage of the corrupt and the weak.

  Though I had yet to figure out how, I would force Angela Marino to behave accordingly. She still hadn’t unveiled what I had to do after gaining Balakian’s trust. No surprise, I was cooking up a plan to save myself right then.

  To make sure I was finally alone, I walked into a famous, sprawling beer hall, tunneled past lively groups of Italian tourists—who came to Munich for the sole purpose of swilling beer—and escaped out the staff door that led to a back alley. I surprised two waiters smoking peacefully. I felt like smacking them around. No one who worked at a restaurant of mine would have taken the liberty. Breaks are for going to the bathroom. Then it’s straight back to work. You only rest to eat. I felt like complaining to the director, bringing to his attention the fact that these two assholes would stink of smoke while serving food and drinks. But I let it go. My German is awful, and I didn’t want to argue in English.

  My phone rang. I didn’t need to check who it was. It couldn’t be anyone but Angela Marino.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Balakian was a no-show.”

  “He may not trust you yet, but if he continues to schedule meetings, it means he’s interested.”

  “In money. Are you positive I’ll have enough when the time comes?”

  She scoffed. “We’ve gone over this already. Of course, if you could get your hands on the money you hid when you ran, it would lessen the burden on taxpayers.”

  “If I had any saved up, I’d live a more dignified life,” I lied, “seeing as what you give me is outrageous.”

  She ignored me. “Buratti and his colleagues managed to identify Paz Anaya Vega and are now looking for her.”

  “I told you it was the Spaniard who killed my wife and her friend.”

  “You mean your girlfriend. Anyways, Pellegrini, I don’t know shit until the mobile squad in Padua finds out the official truth.”

  Always ready to cover her own ass. “Is that all?”

  “Do you have something better to do, Giorgio?” she asked in a fussy little squeak.

  “I do,” I said, and hung up.

  She called back, but I didn’t answer. Anger aroused certain fantasies in me, but I kept them at bay. Angela Marino may have been beautiful but she was the type of woman I couldn’t get in sync with. There was no way to break her. Plus she was big stuff at PD. She was untouchable.

  I slipped into a taxi as it was dropping someone off, rode out to Giesing and caught the subway to get home faster.

  As I opened the door my nose picked up hints of almond and ginger. Perfume. My instinct told me to go introduce myself to whoever had taken a bath in the stuff. Despite everything, I didn’t sense danger.

  I entered the room and found the woman who’d been following me seated at the kitchen table. Her long jacket was folded perfectly and slung over the back of a chair. With her left index finger she pointed to the couch.

  She was thin, her face outrageously chiseled, her skin pulled back against the bone. But she wasn’t ill, much less anorexic. Her tightfitting shirt amplified her toned arms and threw her little muscles in relief. She was one of those women who kills herself on the rowing machine to get back at Mother Nature. Were she not so ugly I’d have given her a workout myself.

  “Where’s your friend?” I asked in English, removing my jacket. “Hiding in the tub?”

  She smiled, amused. “No, he’s outside. In case there’s trouble.”

  I collapsed onto the uncomfortable pillows of the couch. “You smell nice.”

  She shook her head. “What, this? Barely passable. I wear it when I work.”

  A real joker, this broad. “Am I supposed to congratulate you for tailing me all the way to this house?”

  “We’ve known the address for a month,” she explained, the smartass. “We’ve searched it more than a few times. You never even realized, did you?”

  “No,” I confessed.

  “You’re not very good at covering your tracks either,” she went on, unfazed, as if to scold me. “You always take the same route. And you’re cocky. Almost smug. Indiscreet, given the dangerous situation you’re in . . . Mr. Sforza.”

  Attilio Sforza. The identity that those geniuses at special ops had cooked up for me along with an appropriate cover story and a respectable criminal CV. But I hated the name. It sounded fake. And now I was wondering if this woman was harboring doubts about it too.

  I pretended to be embarrassed. “I thought I was better than that.”

  The woman just stared at me. Then she decided to disclose the reason for her visit. “After every meeting we’ve arranged, you receive a phone call. The same happened today. We want to know who you’re talking to.”

  Hats off to Balakian’s organization! They were real professionals, left nothing to chance. But I’m the king of liars and managed to parry her blow with a plausible story—a classic.

  “A woman I’m very fond of.”

  She cocked her eyebrow, an expression that looked unnatural and slightly ridiculous on her. But the broad wasn’t stupid; she took all the time she needed to absorb my answer. She held out her hand. “Cell phone,” she ordered.

  I stood up and handed it to her with a cooperative, solicitous air. I was trying to fuck her in the ass with a bucket of Vaseline, but I could picture how this would end.

  She checked it and made no comment when she saw that all my incoming calls came from the same number. She just barked an order. “Put your friend on speaker and pretend you’re alone.”

  “She only speaks Italian.”

  “Non c’è problema,” she said in a thick Teutonic accent. Her demand had all the trappings of non-negotiability.

  If Angela Marino betrayed her identity I’d have to eliminate this broad in front of me, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that she hadn’t come alone, that her little friend was waiting outside, ready to barge in.

  I nodded gravely. More Vaseline to show her that I understood their need to take precautions. I called the cop, casting an eye around the place for an object with which to bludgeon Balakian’s drudge.

  “Now what is it?” answered Marino, arrogant, brusque as ever.

  Not the best foot to start off on. “Scusa, amore,” I began. “I know I shouldn’t have called but I wanted to tell you that I love you, that I love you so much, and I’m afraid that destiny will divide us forever.”

  Silence. Marino wasn’t so clever after all. I turned to the woman and smiled, ready to grab a chair and break it over her head. I was calculating the distance when I heard my “sweetheart” speak up.

  “Oh, Attilio,” she managed between sobs. “We can’t afford to be afrai
d right now. I love you too. And all I want is to spend the rest of our new lives together.”

  Oscar-worthy performance. I peeped the woman. She was calm.

  “Sorry for before but I was feeling a little down and needed reassurance.”

  “I’m glad you called, Attilio. But you have to be careful. My husband is very suspicious.”

  I mumbled a goodbye and hung up. I lowered my gaze to affect deep feelings.

  “What’s her name?”

  “I’ll happily tell you everything once we start getting serious.”

  She looked me over, searching for cracks that could tip her off to any possible lies. Then she got up, put on her jacket, took from her purse a pair of gloves lined with deer fur, and slowly put them on.

  “In the event that we show up, Mr. Sforza.”

  “In the event? What’s that mean?”

  “That there will be no more meets arranged. If we choose to proceed we know where to find you. Always.”

  She’d been perfectly clear. I wouldn’t be able to evade their surveillance, which had already gone on for a good bit. These guys were the best; you didn’t bullshit Balakian. That explained why the big brains at special ops had lost two agents.

  I pulled back the curtain and watched the woman walk off. Only then did I notice she had a strange gait, though I was sure it was a little show put on in my honor. She knew my eyes were glued to her bony ass and she was having fun fucking with me. Across the street, in plain view on the sidewalk, her partner was looking at me with a smirk on his lips. Maybe he liked me.

  I had to contact Marino. We were in trouble and needed to plug any holes before they found out that the woman I’d sworn my love to was a cop.

  I couldn’t discount their having bugged the house. But going out meant I’d be seen on the phone, and this time I couldn’t get by with just a couple of sweet nothings. I opened the door and climbed the stairs to the roof. I was greeted by a freezing wind, took shelter behind a small structure, and pulled out my cellphone.

  “What happened?” she asked anxiously.

  “Close call,” I replied. I was careful not leave anything out about the woman’s visit. “They’ll be checking the number and expecting a name and story,” I said.

  Marino sighed. “I’m on it. But it’ll take time.”

  “You’ve underestimated them once again,” I shouted. I was fed up. “The problem is you’re no match for them, and I don’t want to get killed. At this point I see no harm in parting ways.”

  “Pellegrini?”

  “What?”

  “You work for me, you’re my puppet, and I’m the one pulling the strings,” she said calmly. “Just try worming your way out of this and I’ll devote every minute of my life to hunting you down and making you pay.”

  “I’m no use to you dead or locked up.”

  “You’re useful to me alive and free, and we’ll protect you. Now keep it together and wait for my next instructions.”

  I returned to the apartment and made coffee. The situation I found myself in was a mess. I was at the mercy of Balakian and Marino, with nothing to do and no way to act. This had never happened to me before. I’d always been master of my own affairs.

  I needed to think, to find an alternative. I’d always found a way to turn the tables to my advantage, but this time I’d been caught off guard. I bundled up and went out. Night had fallen, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow step out of a parked car and gently close the door.

  I started walking slowly toward the subway stop.

  FOUR

  Vienna was buried under a scrim of dark rainclouds. We’d traveled all night trying to sleep in the bunks on the EuroNight, which made its final stop at Central Station.

  While we stood in an orderly line to get a taxi, I lit my first cigarette and called Campagna.

  “We’ll be gone awhile.”

  “That sounds like good news to me,” he replied. “The Dottoressa and her boys left yesterday. All of a sudden and without saying a word, no surprise.”

  “Any bright ideas?”

  “There must have been a screwup. Something major. They were acting nervous, the way cops get when a case goes south.”

  “Maybe Pellegrini got himself in trouble.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s nothing you can do?”

  “I could, but I don’t see any reason to.”

  I hung up. Some fucking cop.

  Rossini and I made eye contact.

  “Campagna?” he asked.

  “Angela Marino left the city.”

  “Let’s hope she’s not headed to Vienna,” grumbled the Fat Man.

  It was possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It made sense to think that Pellegrini had moved on. Otherwise Slezak’s widow would have found him a long time ago.

  Our taxi driver was an old pro. When he realized our destination was a luxury hotel, he pulled out all the stops to earn a good tip. In a mix of languages, he rattled off a litany of useful addresses for three men on their own. When he asked us what line of work we were in, Max, drowsy and on edge after skipping breakfast, grumbled, “Extermination.” For his bad joke we were treated to a tutorial on Vienna’s rats.

  The hotel bar where Pierino Martinenghi worked was packed with a cheerful, rowdy party of Koreans. So, on his recommendation, we crossed the street and entered a bakery.

  The Fat Man was tempted to argue with the waiter about why they didn’t serve Sachertorte. He couldn’t believe that he’d happened into the one place in Vienna that didn’t carry it on the menu, but he perked up upon discovering that the mother of the owner was originally from Graz and made fried Krapfen following—to the letter—a seventeenth-century recipe.

  He mumbled with his mouth full: “Delicious, lubricious, mind-blowing.”

  “Great,” I snapped, “you finally made your peace with the world. Till two minutes ago you were impossible.”

  He shrugged. “I know. But you don’t have to bitch about it like we’re an old married couple.”

  Beniamino shook his head in amazement. “Some things I just don’t want to hear. I’m going to see about Pierino,” he muttered on his way out.

  I brooded on the Fat Man’s words. “Worrisome, don’t you think?”

  He smiled. “Nothing that can’t be resolved with a good Krapfen,” he said, thrusting the plate of sweets my way.

  I bit into one, hoping it would have a therapeutic effect. It really was delicious. Max neatly wiped his mouth. I had known him for so long that I could tell he was about to launch into a lengthy disquisition about our relationship.

  I didn’t want to get sucked into idle talk. I summed things up before he could open his mouth: “We’ve lived together for too many years and need stable relationships with women who love us. Period.”

  He waved his chubby hand. “Right, more or less,” he stammered, disappointed.

  A few minutes later Rossini came back with Pierino in tow. They called Pierino the Punisher, because once he had made up his mind, he wouldn’t quit until he’d cracked the safe. By the end of the ’80s, his stubbornness had landed him in jail.

  “That one was playing hard to get. Didn’t want to give up the goods. I never even realized it was morning.” He loved to recall his misadventure. The mark was the payroll of a big engineering company around Lodigiano, before the factories were relocated east. The Conforti in the boss’s office had resisted his overtures, and at eight in the morning Pierino found himself surrounded by employees, who handed him over to the carabinieri.

  Being locked up forced him to reflect on his profession, and he decided to change his methods, wise up, and, above all, study. He’d never give up safes—what in the good old days the Roman mob called ‘widows’—and he understood that security technology is an enemy that only knowledge can defeat.

  S
o the Punisher boned up, and now he was moving from one wealthy European country to another, planning each hit with the scrupulousness he needed to guarantee he could pull it off and not get arrested again.

  He worked reception in hotels, got by admirably in several foreign languages, knew his trade. More importantly, he was a really likeable guy. Everyone liked him. In the field he was known for his honesty. He maintained good relationships with various criminal outfits that might turn out useful for him. About his personal life we didn’t know much. Pierino jealously guarded his private affairs. Never talked about them. A sign of great intelligence and professionalism.

  He limited himself to a handshake; kissing ex-cons on the cheek wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. “Good to see you, boys,” he said softly.

  Underneath his heavy herringbone coat he wore a modest brown suit and a white tie that bore the hotel logo.

  “Pierino’s short on time,” said Rossini. “He’s got to get back to work.”

  “We have several departures this morning and I handle the bills,” he explained. “But you can count on me for anything. I already found you a safe place to stay for at least three weeks. It’ll cost you three hundred a day.”

  He removed a set of keys from his pants pocket and wrote the address on a napkin. His handwriting was crystal clear. He must have been the teacher’s pet at grade school; in our day, they paid attention to those kinds of details.

  “How else can I help?” he asked impatiently.

  “We want to meet Paz Anaya Vega,” I replied.

  Martinenghi looked stunned. “Tobias Slezak’s widow?”

  “Exactly,” said Max.

  The Punisher had principles and, like us, considered drugs out of the question.

  “What the hell do you guys have to do with that drug-trafficking ring?”

  Old Rossini placed a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing,” he said bluntly. “I can’t say anything more about it.”

  Pierino stood up. “Slezak’s men run the cocaine racket at the hotels. I know them, but with a request like that, I need to give them something.”