Kill the King

by Sandrone Dazieri

  “When Cesare didn’t write … Benedetto, you were three, right? … then your communications were interrupted. It’s like the telephone game: if someone’s missing, the message comes to a halt.”

  They all nodded.

  “But it didn’t happen with OG,” said Dante.

  Colomba, who had been forced to go back inside to handle the adults like a hostess, noticed that something outside had changed, and she took advantage of that opportunity to go and tell Dante it was time to stop, because the parents were starting to get nervous.

  Dante nodded. “Send everyone home, except OG. Tell them to find him a room here, with the doctor, and if he makes any trouble, tell One to write him a check out of the expense account.”

  “You like having plenty of money, but that’s not going to last if you keep it up like this,” Colomba warned him.

  “It’s not a problem,” he said grimly. “Today, for the first time, I had definitive proof that the Father had another prison. And OG—Cesare—was confined in it.”

  5

  The doctor objected, of course, threatening to bring the juvenile court into the matter. Dante raised the offer to twenty thousand euros, which the doctor arranged to have deposited in the clinic’s bank account, thus winning points in everybody’s estimation. He and Cesare were given a double room on the same floor as the suite to make security simpler.

  This was Colomba’s opportunity to chat with Three, and that’s how she found out he was a former colleague.

  “I worked for the Ministry of Justice’s postal and communication police with Lieutenant Anzelmo,” he told her. “Now he’s an inspector at Segrate. I know that he helped you to catch the Father.”

  Colomba nodded.

  “None of my business, but do you think that there’s someone else around as bad as that bastard?”

  “Maybe someone worse.”

  By the time all the guests finally left the room, Dante was exhausted. He was mixing himself a cocktail in a gigantic glass when Colomba received a phone call from the last person on earth she would have expected: Demetra.

  “What do you want?” she said, too tired to be polite with anyone.

  “I don’t want anything. But Tommy wants to say goodbye to you before leaving. He didn’t actually say so, but he made it very clear to me.”

  “You threatened me if I ever got near him again …”

  “If you don’t want to come, that’s not my loss. I’m sick and tired of all you cops.”

  Demetra ended the call and Colomba immediately alerted the head of operations to ready a transportation group for her. It took just five minutes before an armor-plated Mercedes staffed by a female body builder and a bearded contractor wearing a bow tie came to pick her up in the hotel’s rear courtyard, while an escort vehicle followed a short distance behind, communicating with the other contractors via discreet earpieces. They seemed like soldiers, and they probably once had been, before discovering that it was possible to earn better and risk less.

  Colomba wasn’t used to sitting in the back, so she asked the guy with a beard to get in back instead.

  “Are you armed?” she asked the female body builder behind the wheel, whom Dante had called Nine.

  “Yes, Deputy Captain,” she replied.

  “How are you going to sort things if my former colleagues stop us?” Colomba knew perfectly well that by Italian law, armed personal protection was delegated solely to law enforcement or the armed forces. Security guards were allowed to protect banks and buildings, or else the transport of valuables, but not people, unless it was with a special authorization that she felt certain no one had requested.

  “We’re armed guards transporting valuables,” Nine explained. “We’ve been assigned to transport a valuable asset belonging to Signor Torre.”

  Colomba rubbed her forehead. “Which would be what?”

  Without taking her eyes off the road, the body builder pointed to the glove compartment. Colomba opened it and found a Barbie dressed in lamé, still in its original packaging.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “It’s a Pink Jubilee Barbie from 1989,” said Bow Tie from the back. “A collector’s piece. It’s worth about a thousand euros.”

  “In practical terms, the price of this drive to the airport,” Colomba retorted.

  “It meets the definition of a valuable asset,” Nine said seriously. “But if anybody starts shooting at us, don’t worry, we’ll cover you, too.”

  6

  Demetra had given her an appointment at Terminal 1, in the Alitalia lounge.

  Nine pulled over, then put the doll in a metal briefcase with a stylized little man casting a shadow on a wall. “You’re going to have to keep it with you if you want us to accompany you inside,” she said.

  Colomba was on the verge of refusing that condition when she remembered that she wasn’t armed: the King of Diamonds would be unlikely to attack her in an airport, but he might have convinced a flight attendant to do the stupidest thing in his or her life. She took the briefcase, letting Bow Tie lead the way through the maze of corridors in the airport. It was Friday evening and there was a long line at the metal detectors, probably because of the number of weekly commuters leaving the Italian capital. Overhead, the television screens were showing news reports on the funeral services held the day before.

  The lounge was next to the Area B check-in, and they went in with Bow Tie’s card. He clearly wasn’t new to this sort of thing.

  The lounge was something midway between the waiting room of an exclusive physician and an English pub, and it was very crowded. Demetra and Tommy were sitting in the farthest row of leather chairs, next to a vintage map of airline routes. Demetra was reading a magazine and didn’t even bother to look up. The only one to react at the sight of Colomba was Tommy: he leaped to his feet, ripping the wire of the headphones he was wearing, and ran straight at her, squeaking like a bat and pushing his way through the passengers standing in the aisle.

  “It’s all good,” Colomba said to her escort. “He’s a friend,” she just had time to add before Tommy lifted her bodily into the air, making her drop the briefcase. She returned the hug, to the extent that she was able, but then made it clear to him that he needed to put her down, because he was holding her so tight that she couldn’t really breathe. Tommy’s hair was shorter, and he still had bruises on his face from the rain of stones that had hailed down on him at the mines, in spite of the fact that Colomba had jumped in front of him to protect him.

  “You’re going to a nice place,” she said to him. “The sea is beautiful in Greece. Do you know how to swim?”

  Tommy shook his head, holding his arm around her neck. It must have weighed a couple hundred pounds.

  “Maybe someday I’ll come see you, what do you say? That way I can tell you what I find out about your parents. Because I’m not going to forget about you, okay?” Colomba said, in a voice that was cracking. “I’ll go get the address right now from your aunt. Meanwhile, you stay here with my friend, okay? That’s this guy right here, with the dumb tie.”

  Tommy looked at the bow tie as if he’d never seen one before and tried to grab it. The bodyguard lunged backward, and soon the two of them were chasing each other around the room, darting and dodging.

  Demetra remained obstinately focused on her magazine until Colomba was practically on top of her.

  “Ciao, ex-cop lady,” she said reluctantly.

  “How did you arrange things with the court?”

  “Everything’s taken care of, my lawyers fixed everything. Tell your friend that, considering what the police did, I don’t feel obliged to give him a cent.”

  “Dante doesn’t want anything from you,” Colomba retorted.

  Demetra smiled. “Everybody wants something,” she said, and went back to her magazine. It was called Hello!, but it was in Greek.

  Colomba pushed it down rudely. “If you mistreat him, I swear I’ll come and get you.”

  “And why would I
do such a thing?” She smiled. “He’s my nephew after all, isn’t he?”

  “And are you letting him fly in first class with you, or are you having him put in with the luggage?”

  “They don’t want noisy children in business class. He’ll be fine in economy.”

  “Even though he’s paying for the ticket,” Colomba said, furious now.

  “No, it’s my brother who’s paying. So long, ex-cop lady.”

  Colomba clenched her fists as she tried to keep from steaming over and went back to Tommy, who was victoriously brandishing the bow tie. Its former owner, on the other hand, was massaging his neck. “Ready to go, Deputy Captain?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she replied.

  She took the bow tie out of Tommy’s hands, extended it as far as was possible, and put it around his neck, just under the curly hair at the back of his neck, soft as the plumage of a baby chick. “That way you’ll remember me.”

  Tommy hugged her again. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

  7

  While Colomba climbed back into the car with a hole in her heart the size of Greece, Lupo was sitting on the bed of the two-star hotel that the Ministry of the Interior had reserved for him in the EUR district, just a short walk from the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the Fascist-era building that everyone in Rome simply called the Colosseo Quadrato—the Square Colosseum.

  The room, with its green wall-to-wall carpets and patches of humidity on the walls, overlooked the hotel kitchens and reeked permanently of cooking grease. But Lupo’s stomach had been bothering him even before unpacking his bags in that hotel room: it seemed to go along with the dull echo still in his ears of the voices at the procession the day before.

  He was just placing the ornamental saber of his dress uniform into its travel case when the clerk called up from the reception desk, announcing a visitor. Lupo went downstairs in shirtsleeves, convinced it must be some colleague passing through.

  Actually, though, it was Di Marco. He was sipping an espresso at the counter of the little bar at the front entrance, his raincoat draped over his shoulders. His arms were no longer in casts, but he was wearing an elastic wrapping on each wrist. Lupo turned to look out onto the street. Just outside the front plate-glass window was a dark blue official car, with two men inside and the roof dome flashing.

  “Colonel …” he said, snapping almost to attention.

  “Sergeant Major,” Di Marco replied. “We met briefly at the ceremony yesterday, but we haven’t had a chance to talk. Can I get you something?”

  “An espresso, but you’re my guest here, I’m staying till tomorrow.”

  “Please, have a seat,” said Di Marco, gesturing for him to sit at one of the tables in the dining room, with its uninviting, somewhat sticky Formica top. “I wanted to get to know you better, because I know about your role in the Bonaccorso investigation.”

  “Inevitable, seeing that he started his killing spree in my jurisdiction.”

  “Inevitable, seeing that Colomba Caselli lived in your jurisdiction,” Di Marco shot back.

  Lupo read the cartoon on the packet of sugar: it was the one about the patient who’s afraid he’s boring, while the psychologist, unknown to him, is fast asleep in his chair. “True enough, sir.”

  “Luckily, she didn’t get you involved in the massacre at the mine,” Di Marco continued with a fake smile.

  “I don’t consider that lucky,” said Lupo. “I ought to have been there, and I wish I’d been there.”

  “And have you ever wondered why Caselli made sure you weren’t?”

  “Because she wanted the special forces.”

  “Or maybe she just didn’t want you.”

  Lupo shrugged. “We’re not exactly best friends.”

  “What do you think she’s doing right now?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care, Colonel.”

  Di Marco pulled a handheld computer out of the inside pocket of his raincoat, turned it on, and held it out to him. “Go ahead and scroll through the photographs.”

  Baffled, Lupo did as he was told. The pictures had been taken at the entrance to the Hotel Impero, and they showed men in suits and ties entering and leaving the building. A couple of them were wearing earpieces. “I’m guessing they aren’t members of the hotel’s security team.”

  Di Marco nodded. “They’re private security. The agency is called Shadow, and the ones in the pictures are all ex-cops. They were hired by Signor Torre, but … if you look at the next few pictures, you’ll see that they’re working with Caselli, too.”

  Lupo placed both hands flat on the table; he had a broken fingernail, and it was only with a certain effort that he was able to keep from chewing on it. “How do I fit in with all this?”

  “I’m starting to wonder whether Caselli told the whole truth about what happened at Sant’Anna Solfara.”

  Lupo sat in silence. Di Marco stood up, setting a business card down on the table. “In case you find out anything else. I think that Corporal Martina Concio, as well as my men who gave their lives at the mines, deserve to have any shadows cleared away from this horrible story. We need to make sure that anyone responsible is severely punished. Good day, Sergeant Major …”

  Lupo stood up in his turn, nodding goodbye to the colonel, who left the café without a backward glance and climbed into the car that stood waiting for him.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

  But the photographs had wormed their way into his head.

  8

  Dante was sprawled on the sofa on the terrace smoking a cigarette when Colomba returned to the hotel.

  “Everything okay with Tommy?” he asked without looking up from the tablet.

  Colomba shoved him over and then got comfortable, her legs draped over his. He didn’t push her away. “He told me that he loved me. He has a nice voice when he isn’t shouting, midway between a child’s voice and a grown-up’s. Musical. I was about to cry.”

  “A bunch of people are declaring their love for you these days,” Dante said, getting comfortable and continuing to read. “And it freaks me out a little bit to have you so close to me.”

  “Get used to it. I can’t hold you at arm’s length as long as we’re working together. And anyway, Demetra was having just a little too much fun with it all. God, I hate that woman! Her brother left twenty-five million euros to his son, and she’s going to spend every last cent of it on facelifts.”

  “You should have told her that her brother’s money probably came from the Father’s money laundering. Probably it was him, or his father, who handled the account that we saw.”

  “And counterterrorism knows that. When he left that flash drive, D’Amore wanted to make that clear to me.”

  “To help you or to get you to drop the case?”

  Colomba shrugged. She couldn’t say. “How did you leave things with Cesare?”

  “I’m checking everything we have about him. We don’t know anything about how he was kidnapped. His parents said that he just walked away by himself one night, opening the door and running out into the street. But his medical file is interesting. Here, read it,” he said, handing her the iPad.

  “Blah, blah, blah … Pathetic state of health, undernourished, et cetera, et cetera … Keloid scars on the soles of his feet from cuts sustained by having walked on sharp or abrasive surfaces.”

  “He’s the only one with that type of scarring out of all ten,” said Dante.

  “One of the Father’s experiments?”

  “Either that, or else in the other prison he had to walk on a floor that wasn’t as smooth as the bottom of the shipping containers. And if he wasn’t given proper medical care, as I’d have to imagine, there’s a chance that small foreign objects were encapsulated in the scars. Like the dot of ink on your hand.”

  Colomba had accidentally stabbed herself with an ink pen years ago, and it had become a permanent tattoo between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. “Absolutely not
,” she said. “I’m not going to let you start carving away at that poor boy’s feet.”

  “Do you seriously think I would do such a thing? But—”

  “No buts out of you,” said Colomba as she got to her feet. “Cesare has already been through enough. Maybe there’s some evidence in your bad hand, for that matter. Why don’t you have them open it up?”

  Dante took off his glove and used his right hand to spread the twisted pinkie and ring fingers apart. In the webbing between the two fingers, there was one scar that was lighter than the others, circular and roughly the size of a coin. “Exploratory surgery,” he explained. “I had them run a fiber-optic cable inside to check and see if there were any extraneous bodies that couldn’t be detected by X-rays. It was painful, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to catch the Father. And now I’d do anything for even a scrap of new information about the King of Diamonds.”

  9

  When they explained Dante’s idea, the physician who was Cesare’s legal guardian seemed much less reluctant than Colomba.

  “Keloids are painful and annoying, especially on the soles of the feet,” he said to her. “And they get inflamed whenever Cesare plays soccer. I’ve asked his parents to pay for laser treatments in a clinic, but they said it wouldn’t be necessary and that he’d just grow out of them.”

  “Can you authorize it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” the doctor replied. “As long as I’m allowed to decide what kind of treatment he’ll receive, and how and where.”

  “It would be done here. If you’re in agreement, Dante has just rented the whole spa, which is closed at this time of night. We could have the surgery done on one of the massage beds. It will all be sterilized and, of course, you’ll be able to watch and you can put a halt to the operation at any point if you’re not satisfied with the hygienic situation.”

  The doctor stopped to think for a few seconds. “When can we do it?”