by Alan Lee
Know what’s difficult? Eating with cuffed wrists, elbows pinned back, fastened upright to a chair. I bet I looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex with a fork. My fourth bite fell off the utensil and smeared a little butter on my shirt.
I sighed. “I’m not an alpha predator, I don’t think.”
Meg the aspirant mafia physician said, “Pardon?”
“Do you think dinosaurs ever drank smoothies? With a long straw? You know, because of the short arms.”
She examined me like an anesthesiologist would if she was concerned about over-medication.
Duane himself came back to the rear seating area about the time I gave up on eating. He sat down opposite me and twitched at his tight clothing until satisfied and comfortable.
“You have questions,” he said in a rasp. “Ask.”
“What’d you think about the finale of The Sopranos? Surely you’ve got an opinion.”
He responded with a stony glare.
I tried again. “When’s the last time you used the phrase ‘Going to the mattresses’?”
“I won’t offer again. I’ll go up front and you’ll know nothing.”
“What’s with the diamonds?” I said.
“Think of them as a credit. Not to be given lightly.”
“Decentralized currency. Used only within the underworld?”
“Decentralized currency,” he said. “Yes.”
“There’s only so many diamonds thusly marked in existence.”
“Correct. The more you have, the more powerful you are. Essentially.”
“Does Marcus Morgan have any?” I asked.
“A few. Though he wasted some on you, no offense.”
“Offense taken. Why are we going to Naples?”
He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. Watched me with the heavy eyes. “You heard of the Camorra?”
“Part of the mafia.”
“No. Not part of the mafia. Well, maybe. The term mafia, it’s too general. It used to mean the Sicilians.”
“What I meant, Duane,” I said, witheringly. “Was that the Camorra is an organized crime syndicate. It operates in Italy. Even the hoi polloi such as myself know that. I used the lowercase mafia to indicate the general underworld, not the uppercase Mafia to refer to the Sicilians.”
“Whatever. The Camorra is a system of interlinked clans in the southern part of Italy. Not as hierarchal as the Sicilian Mafia, so there’s often unrest. You get the idea, they’re corrupt. Anyway. The Camorra lords host an annual event. Called the Gabbia Cremisi.”
“Sounds spooky,” I said.
“Spooky. Yeah, it’s spooky. The Gabbia Cremisi is a tournament. They invite eight of the biggest players to participate.”
“When you say players, do you mean lowercase mafias?”
“Yes. Got’damn it. You called them, ahh, organized crime syndicates. The Triads, and Cosa Nostra, and the Yakuza…who else, the Camorra of course, and the Brothers Circle from Russia…who am I forgetting? Doesn’t matter. And the Kings, we’re invited. Eight total. To the Gabbia Cremisi. Means red death, or something.”
Without looking up from her iPad, Meg said, “Crimson Cage.”
“Right. Crimson Cage. It’s a week-long tournament. Each of the mafias submits a single entrant into the tournament. They fight it out. The winner brings glory to his tribe. So to speak.”
“To summarize,” I said. “Eight of the most wicked criminal organizations on earth gather once a year to see whose champion is the toughest. That it?”
“Sure. Yeah. Though sometimes the mafias bring political prisoners; have fun watching them die, you know. Been going on fifty years or more.”
“And you want me to be your plus one, to watch?”
“The Kings, we get invited every year. And we decline. I’ve gone and watched, but never had an entrant before. Now? Now we got a fighter,” he said.
“Me.”
“You.”
“You want me to fight and kill people and bring you glory,” I said.
“Yeah. That’d be good, don’t you think? Or at least some entertainment.”
“That’s lunacy, Duane Moneybags.”
“You should be dead now. But I purchased you from the bounty hunter. And from Darren Robbins. Now you can go out with some honor.”
“I won’t fight.”
He did a kind of disinterested shrug. “Maybe.”
“What happens to the winners of these events?”
“You won’t win. These guys, they’re assassins. You’d have to kill…what, three of them? There’s eight total. A single elimination thing. I’m hoping you get one victory. Bring the Kings some credibility.”
“Some of the fighters are champions and assassins, and some are prisoners?” I said.
“Most volunteer. It’s a great honor.”
I indicated the cuffs and chair restraint. “I don’t feel so honored.”
“Because you’re a walking dead man. I release your chains, you cooperate?”
“Hell no. I’ll pitch a fit.”
“See.”
“Duane. Is this a joke? This feels pranky.”
“A joke,” he said. “I shoulda let the bounty hunter ace you. You’d rather be dead? I didn’t have to intercept the contract. But I wanted a fighter. Paid twenty-five grand for you.”
“You think a humble private detective is your best bet for a Kings champion.”
“Big guy. Big muscles. I hear the stories. Everyone around you dies. Why not you?”
“For starters, it’s football season. I’d like to watch the Cowboys. Secondly, I miss my wife. Third…wait, I have a son. He should be first. I’ll start over.”
“Your wife,” he said.
“She’s a humdinger, too. Turn the jet around. I’ll try to forget this happened.”
“You’re already dead, August. Your only hope? Fight your way out the other side.”
“I win and I’m free.”
“We’ll see. The contract makes it tricky. I hope you win. They don’t take us as seriously as they should. Part of the reason? We’re newer. We don’t have the great name. The other guys, they got names with clout. Camorra. Cosa Nostra. Yakuza. Us? Not many Americans know it. Call us the mob or some stupid shit. Kings don’t strike fear into the international heart."
“Duane. I’m getting out of these chains. You understand? With or without your help. You need to decide, is this worth dying over?”
He gathered his feet and stood with a soft grunt. Adjusted his belt. “Because you’ll kill me.”
“Because I’ll kill you. If I have to.”
He nodded. Patted me on my right cheek with the cup of his left hand. Turned and went forward.
Meg the physician finally looked up from her iPad. She watched Duane leave and then inspected me.
“It’s surprising to me that you’re threatening him while wearing restraints.”
“Not a threat. A promise.”
“You’re kinda scary, huh.”
“Not yet.”
4
The Gulfstream refueled in Portugal. Duane and his merry men and his wife deplaned to stretch their legs and consume cool fresh air. I was uninvited.
We had lifted from Washington at 6pm and flown for eight hours. Landed 9am local time in Lisbon. Forty minutes later, we were airborne and aimed at Naples.
I dozed, which was tricky upright. I didn’t do it well.
About the time I decided it wasn’t worth the effort, I opened my eyes to find Duane’s wife sitting across from me.
Duane was maybe fifty and he looked it.
His wife was maybe forty-five but she’d fooled Father Time. On a scale of Old Maid to Veronica Summers, she was an eight and a half. Which was hard to do. Especially since I never judged women on their appearance.
One had to peer closely enough to see that her face, a charming heart shape, was firm and youthful because of a lift. Something about the tight skin around the eyes. There were faint wrinkle indications in spots surgery couldn’t fi
x. She had the hands of forty-five, but the rest of her looked a peak thirty. Her brown hair was piled in an updo and her green eyes were enhanced with colored contacts. She wore black slacks and a strapless emerald satin top.
“I’ve heard the stories about you,” she said. “The mighty Mackenzie August.” Her accent wasn’t American. The R sound was more of an HRH roll and she sustained the E. Probably French.
“The stories of my might are greatly under reported.”
“I heard you pulled poor Dexter’s throat out of his chest.”
“I had to,” I said. Her eyebrow arched. “He kept setting his drink on the poker felt. Leaves moisture rings, you know?”
“Can you be witty at a time like this?”
“When better?”
“You do not lack for confidence, Inspector August.”
“Never had cause, Mrs. Moneybags.”
“The fabled Mackenzie August, in chains. I have been to the Gabbia Cremisi. Twice, once with Duane. My husband, he can make extra money by selling your services to the women,” she said. The level of eye contact she maintained was unrivaled. I didn’t know where to look while listening to her sensual way of framing words.
“Is that so.”
“Your sexual services, you understand. Some women, they are excited by caged monsters. A man in chains, who otherwise might kill her, but instead she gets to enjoy. What could be better?”
“Almost anything,” I said. “I'll enumerate them. Let’s start at the top. First, beer at a baseball game. Second… Wait, I have a son. I’ll start over.”
“Have you read the Bible, Inspector August?”
“I have.”
She said, “One of the curses at Eden, Eve will desire control over her husband. Did you know that? But the Bible says man will rule over her because she’s smaller. Less of a curse and more of a prediction, no? A man like you is big and strong, and women want to control that power. It gives the woman pleasure—manipulating the man against his will. Did you know this?”
I did my best not to gulp. Dirk Pitt never gulps.
“You’re neither politically correct nor woke, Mrs. Moneybags,” I said.
“Being politically correct has its purposes. But so does the truth. Here is some honesty, Inspector August—my husband will kill us both if he finds me with you.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” I said. “Get it? I’m in restraints.”
She stood, smiled down at me, and walked forward to return to her seat. I was like an animal at the zoo, visited occasionally by the aristocracy closer to the cocktail bar.
Meg the physician was reclining in her chair, eyes closed, cocooned in a blanket. She murmured, “I didn’t know you had a son when I agreed to medicate you.”
“His name’s Kix."
“I’d be careful if I were you,” she said. Almost a whisper. “With Emile Chambers. Duane’s wife. I’ve only been with them a few months but I can spot trouble.”
“Thanks.” My cuffs made a clinking sound. “I’d hate to get into trouble.”
“This blanket is a Givenchy throw. So soft. These people live like kings and queens. Can you believe it?”
“I’m trying.”
5
The Gulfstream landed north of Naples at a private strip in Giugliano in Campania. Judging by what I saw out the window, the small airport pushed up against a commercial section of the city.
The jet taxied to a waiting motorcade of black luxury sedans and stopped. The hatch swung open, sucking in thick warm air. Tattoo Neck went out first, followed by Duane.
Ernst the bounty hunter pushed a button on his phone and the black band on my wrist beeped. I felt a prickly pressure on my wrist and heaviness settled over me.
“Oh,” I said slowly. “Damn it. I’d prefer you not.”
He’d sedated me, the rascal.
Meg said, “I adjusted the dose. A mild sedative only, not the paralytic.”
“The medicine, it prevents the funny business,” he said. Zee funny business. He released the chair restraint and hauled me up. My thighs and back protested, but did Ernst care? No, no he did not. He patted his holster. “Try to escape and I kill you. Or the bracelet, it zaps you. More medicine. Understand, funny man?”
“No. Say it again,” I said. “But lose the accent this time. My head’s swimming.”
He hauled me forward and down the jet’s short staircase. Sun and humidity hit me. The same sun had hung above America but the interaction felt different. I enjoyed it from the distance created medicinally.
An entourage greeted Duane and Emile at the doors to the terminal. Men who looked like Italian diplomats and women with trays of iced drinks. Emile turned to watch me while Duane postured and shook hands.
Some of the men pointed at me, questioning Duane. They seemed pacified by his response. All esteemed parties raised glasses to one another and drank.
Duane and Emile and Tattoo Neck ducked into a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Ernst and Meg and I settled for a black Audi A5, Meg up front. The driver wore sunglasses and did not remark on my shackles.
Nor did he welcome me to Italy.
The manners of these Neapolitans.
The lead black sedan rolled out, followed by Duane’s Rolls, and then us, a caravan of three.
“Guys,” I said. “Who’s tired and loopy? Just me?”
Meg yawned. “I’m jet-lagged. It’s the morning in Washington, I think, but I’ve barely slept.”
“You should try it on heavy sedatives.”
The driver’s head tilted up to his rearview.
“Keep talking,” said Ernst, “and I will give you more. Knock you out.”
“These are not FDA approved, I bet,” I said, lifting the black band. “You quacks.”
The medicine he’d given me was a good idea. Because I was very close to using my handcuffs to choke the driver. First an elbow to Ernst’s face, then the driver got the cuffs. It might work.
And yet…no way. I was barely sentient. Too enervated for heroic violence.
We drove south into the city of Naples on Via Miano. The city was flat and wide and multicolored, like a carpet. No skyscrapers in view. I felt disappointed because the steering wheel was on the left of the car, and traffic flowed on the right of the street. Same as America. I expressed my disillusionment and got no response.
Traffic teemed as we neared Naples’s more touristy areas.
Meg commented, “Look at the architecture. It’s as if Naples knew what Americans think Italy should look like, and they built the city that way. It all feels…ancient. Somehow smaller but more permanent than Washington.”
Ernst grunted. “The streets are too narrow.”
“So many churches and palaces. I see both Renaissance and Baroque styles here. And the piazzas, look! I hope we have time to sample restaurants. Do you think?”
“I travel the world, to Naples many times. What you need to know about Naples is this—the Camorra runs it. The underworld does not even hide here. Police do nothing.”
“It cannot be all bad, Ernst,” she said.
I smiled sleepily.
He replied, “You know how the Camorra is called? The System. Crime is the way of life.”
The driver nodded his head, a reflexive motion.
We paused at a congested intersection, and saw the first indication of violence.
Protestors were on a street corner, shouting and waving signs. I couldn’t decipher the wording. Beyond them, a block away, a store was on fire and the mob danced.
We rolled on.
Meg asked, “Is the Camorra the source of the unrest?”
“Ja. Naples, for the past three years, tears itself apart during the tournament. Rioting and chaos.”
“Why?”
The driver glanced in his rearview at the German. Ernst steadily watched the bouncing mirror, answering the gaze. He rolled down his window.
“Breathe the air, Fräulein Doctor. What is it? What do you smell?”
She buzzed her window too. I tried but my fingers mutinied.
She said, “Smells like…sewage?”
“It is the garbage. The Camorra, it makes money off the trash. But Camorra is poorly run at this time. Too many warring clans. Chaos and division. So in many places, the trash is not collected. It piles.”
Meg glanced at the driver. “Is that true?”
He glanced at her but didn’t respond. Stoicism in shades.
“And there is toxic waste in the dumps,” said Ernst. “Unlike Germany. Germany is clean, precise. Naples? It is king of the hill.”
We approached a raised part of the fragrant city. The land here wasn’t level and part of Naples had been built on a low mountain range. I got glimpses of it as we wove through the thick tapestry of streets.
Our sedans stopped at something like a train station. Another entourage of swarthy gentlemen received us, like the Secret Service would. Tattoo Neck stayed near Duane, looking in all directions. Duane hung up his phone and helped Emile out of the car.
In the distance, sounds of chaos banged through alleys.
Duane pointed up the commercial mountain.
“Look at this. We’re taking a funicular. I love it.”
A man in a suit held the door for us into the station.
I groggily told him, “But really. Ya’ll should clean up the trash. It kinda stinks here.”
Ernst jerked me through by the arm.
The lobby was large with travertine floors and tinted glass walls. A minstrel played violin in the corner and the music echoed above our heads.
A handsome and well-tanned man stepped from the security detail and greeted Duane warmly. His sports jacket was white and so were his hair and teeth. He wore three gold rings and an earring. They half-embraced and then the ebullient man kissed Emile on both cheeks.
He said, “I am so pleased you came, Signore Chambers.”
Duane said, “Nah, pleasure’s mine, Mr. Ferrari. Finally the Kings get to contribute this year, huh?”
“Indeed! What fun we’ll have. And Signora Emile, my god, you are more ravishing than ever. How I wish your husband will be killed soon.”
General laughter among the wealthy idiots.
“You are too kind, Monsieur Ferrari,” she said.