Fifteen minutes later Frank Rady came back in the room and said McCabe had missed his Italian class Thursday evening. He hadn't checked out and hadn't picked up his mail since Wednesday. No one working the front desk could remember seeing him for a few days.
It wasn't conclusive, but it didn't look good, either. "Captain, what do you suggest we do?" "There is nothing we can do. We wait and see."
Chapter Twelve
McCabe thought they were going to kill him. He had seen all their faces, could identify them. Why take a chance? But if that was their intention, they'd have done it at the farmhouse, out in the country where no one was around.
He was in the back of the blue van, blindfolded, hands cuffed behind his back, sitting on the metal floor against the side wall, trying to keep his balance. There were two of them in front, talking about what they were going to do with their share of the money. McCabe recognized the big man's voice, the big man saying he was going to buy a car, a Toyota.
The one he was talking to said, "How are you going to fit in it?"
The big man said, " Vaffanculo."
McCabe was trying to figure out how long they'd been on the road — thirty, forty minutes — when the van slowed down and stopped. He heard the rear doors open and he was lifted out and dropped on concrete. The van doors closed. The handcuffs were unlocked and removed. He heard a pistol shot, body tightening, bracing for impact, and realized it was the van backfiring as it drove off. He untied the blindfold. He was lying on the sidewalk in front of Victor Emmanuel.
It was dark and quiet, the streets deserted. McCabe didn't have any money for a bus or a taxi, or even a phone call, so he walked through the city and up Monte Mario, one of the seven hills, to Loyola, had to be six miles.
He went in the lobby expecting to see Franco behind the front desk, but no one was there. He went upstairs to the second floor and down to 217, the room he shared with Chip. It was 4:05 a.m., Monday morning. He sat on his bed, too tired to take his clothes off, and laid back, head on the pillow, body aching and let out a breath. The side of his face was swollen where the big man had hit him, paying him back, but he felt lucky, fortunate to be there. He still couldn't figure out why they let him go. But he wasn't complaining.
Chip was in his bed ten feet across the room from him. Chip sat up, leaned over and turned on his desk light.
McCabe said, "Turn that goddamn thing off."
Chip got up and crossed the room, standing over him in his underwear.
"What'd they do to you, Spartacus?"
McCabe said, "What's it look like?"
"You got your ass kicked," Chip said.
"That sounds about right," McCabe said.
"They thought you were me, didn't they?"
Chip moved back and sat on his bed, legs over the side, feet on the floor.
McCabe said, "How much was the ransom?"
"Half a million euros."
"Who paid it?"
"The senator."
McCabe closed his eyes. That was the last thing he heard him say.
The next morning there was a note on the floor, pushed under the door, telling McCabe to contact Mr Frank Rady immediately He took a shower and went to Rady's office. The door was open. Rady was sitting at his desk and looked up when he walked in.
"What I don't understand, McCabe, is why you didn't come and see me when you got back."
He couldn't win with this guy. He'd been kidnapped and beat up and Frank Rady acted like it was his fault. "It was the middle of the night. I was tired. There was nothing you could've done till morning."
"That's up to me," Rady said. "Not you. How'd you get past the front desk without Franco seeing you?"
"He wasn't there. What difference does it make?"
"You let me worry about that," Rady said, staring at him. "Looks like you pissed off the wrong people." He seemed pleased all of a sudden, flashed a grin. "Somebody tagged you good, huh?"
McCabe didn't say anything.
"Change your clothes, put on a nice shirt. We're going to go downtown, talk to Captain Ferrara with the carabinieri. I think you know him."
McCabe looked around the room. It was the same one he and Chip had been taken to the night they were arrested. He remembered the light-green walls, and the clock that made time creep by, and the line gouged in the tabletop that looked like it was made by a key or a belt buckle. McCabe could relate. Being in this room put you on edge.
"Tell me what happen," Captain Ferrara said, taking the pipe out of his mouth.
McCabe liked the sweet smell of the tobacco. The captain sat next to Frank Rady, across the long table from him. "I was walking through Villa Borghese and four guys jumped me."
Captain Ferrara said, "You were alone?"
"Yes," McCabe said.
Ferrara said, "What were you doing in Villa Borghese?"
"Looking at the Bernini sculpture in the gallery." McCabe paused. "And four guys came through the trees and took me down."
"When this was happening," Captain Ferrara said, "what were you thinking? Why did they come after you?"
McCabe said, "I had no idea at the time. But later, I figured they’d seen the article in the newspaper and thought I was Chip."
Captain Ferrara said, "What did they say to you?"
"Nothing. They kept me chained in the cellar of a farmhouse somewhere outside Rome."
"And you told them you are not Chip Tallenger," Ferrara said. "I did."
"Why not prove it, show them your ID," Rady said.
McCabe said, "I left my wallet at school."
"Nice going," Rady said. "That wasn't very smart, was it?"
"It wouldn't have mattered," McCabe said. "They were going to demand the ransom no matter who they had."
"You can identify the kidnappers?" Ferrara said.
"They wore bandanas over their faces," McCabe said, "like western bandits, and I was blindfolded part of the time, but I saw two of them. They thought I was sleeping and came down to the cellar to check on me."
Frank Rady, with his big white freckled arms on the table, said, "Were they Eye-talian?"
McCabe frowned. "Yeah, they were Italian." What did he think they were?
"Don't get smart, McCabe," he said. "We're trying to help you here."
Captain Ferrara opened the laptop that was on the table in front of him. It was a Dell.
"You look at this," he said. "I believe you will see the ones who kidnap you."
He turned the laptop screen toward McCabe and slid it over to him.
Rady said, "Who's he looking at?"
"The criminals, the known offenders," Ferrara said. "Many are in a gang. They work for the Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, or the Sicilian Mafia."
McCabe studied the first screen, three rows of headshots.
"If you recognize one of them, " the captain said, "click on the image to make it larger, fill the screen."
McCabe went through half a dozen screens, scanning rows of faces and saw the big guy, no mistake about it, same heavy beard, thick neck and double chin. He clicked on his face, Luigi Bagnasco, it said under the photo. McCabe remembered them calling him Noto. He clicked through ten more faces and saw the stocky guy with red hair, Sisto Bardi, remembering him from the newspaper article, one of the men who had escaped. He kept going and hit the jackpot, saw Mazara. He put the cursor on him and clicked, his face looking younger, thinner, filling the screen. Roberto Mazara.
It was interesting to think about the name fitting him. Yeah, he could see it: Bob Mazara, trying it out. Captain Ferrara studying his face as he studied the computer screen.
"You recognize one of them?" the captain said.
McCabe shook his head. "I don't think so."
"You are sure?" the captain said.
"Yeah," McCabe said.
He scanned through the rest of the faces, stopping on the last one. "That's it," McCabe said. "I don't see any of them, but this guy reminds me of De Niro in Goodfellas." He turned the screen toward Captain Ferrara and sl
id the laptop over to him.
" Quel bravi ragazzi," Ferrara said.
McCabe said, "That's the translation for Goodfellas, huh? You like him?"
"Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, la sfida, I see them all."
McCabe said, "What's la sfida?."
"Hot, I think it is called."
"You mean Heat," McCabe said.
"Yes, Heat. I love the cinema."
"If he doesn't see them here," Rady said to the captain, "who do you think they are?"
"It is difficult to say. They could be a new gang we do not know," Captain Ferrara said. "Unfortunately, Signor Rady, there is nothing more we can do until they spend the money. We record the serial numbers of the euro notes."
McCabe watched a pigeon circle around the Fountain of the Four Rivers, land on the obelisk and fly off. A waiter approached the table with a tray of drinks. He said, " Due birre, uno cappuccino," and put stemmed glasses of Moretti in front of McCabe and Chip and the cappuccino in front of Senator Tallenger. He said, " Va bene," and walked away. They were at a cafe in Piazza Navona.
Senator Tallenger said, "McCabe, I know you're angry, but do me a favor, will you? Let it go. There's nothing you can do."
"You're lucky to be here," Chip said.
"He's right," the senator said. "I looked into it, found out more than half of the kidnap victims never make it home. They find them shot to death or strangled." He paused. "McCabe, am I getting through to you?"
Yeah, he heard him. But he was thinking of a way to get the money back. To do it he had to find the girl.
Chapter Thirteen
Mazara was thinking about the last time he came here. Don Gennaro was studying a painting on one of the walls in his office, a room that had to be twenty meters one way and thirty the other way. The don turned and looked at him and said, "Do you know what this is?"
It did not seem complicated. It was a painting so that is what Mazara said, and the don looked at him like he was a moron.
"Do you know Bronzino?"
The man made him nervous. Who was this Bronzino? The name was vaguely familiar. "I think he played goalie for Lombardy. Is that right?"
Don Gennaro said, "He was the court painter for Cosimo de Medici."
Mazara said, "Who?" He stared at the painting on the wall, naked people running around. It looked like a fun party. "What are they doing?" It looked like an orgy.
"It is an allegory," Don Gennaro said. "Do you understand?"
Mazara had no idea what he was talking about and decided not to say anything else.
Don Gennaro said to Mauro, "Give him the money and get him out of here."
That time the don had hired him to steal a painting from a villa near Florence. The don saying the owner had stolen it from the Uffizi. The Uffizi? Did he mean the museum?
This time the don was having lunch on the veranda with someone he had never seen before. They were drinking wine and talking. He could see the bodyguards at the edge of the olive grove. They were alert, but keeping their distance, the grove extending behind them as far as he could see. The bodyguards wore berets and had shotguns on straps slung over their shoulders like Sicilian peasants.
Mauro, the don's secondo, had met him at the front door, searched him for weapons, and looked in the paper bag he was carrying that contained money, the don's share of the ransom. Mauro was a weird, quiet Sicilian, wiry, with dark skin, almost as dark as a Tunisian. Mazara had been escorted out to the veranda that was made of stone and built on two levels, wrapping around the back of the villa. There was a swimming pool at one end. There was a wicker couch and chairs and a low table with a glass top in the middle of the veranda and a long table at the far end under a wrought-iron pergola that was covered with vines. He admired the house and the grounds, thinking, this son of a peasant, who did not finish his fifth year of school, had done well for himself. Roberto stood only five feet from the man's table now, Don Gennaro ignoring him, making him stand there like a servant. They were eating roast chicken and fried potatoes, washing it down with a chilled bottle of Terre di Tufi. He recognized the tiny label. Seeing the food was making him hungry. When he finished here Mazara would drive back to Rome, pick up Angela and celebrate.
The don finally looked up at him and said, "Why are you here, interrupting my lunch?"
"I bring your share of the money," Roberto said. "The ransom."
The don said, "Oh, the ransom."
Of course, the ransom, what did he think it was?
The don said, "Do I have to count it?"
Roberto said, "If you prefer."
"No," the don said. "Do I have to count it?"
The man sitting at the table next to the don said, "Unk, want me to count it?" He was American.
The don ignored him, staring at Roberto, and Roberto froze. He did not know what to say, the don was keeping him off balance, making him nervous. What was this about?
The don picked up his glass and sipped the white. He leveled his gaze on Mazara and said, "Is it all there?"
"Yes, of course." He could feel beads of sweat sliding down his face. He raised his arm and wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve.
The don said, "Are you sure?"
Mazara's mouth was dry. He wished he had a glass of cold white wine. "Yes, I am sure." The man was acting strange.
The don handed the bag of money to Mauro and Mauro went back into the villa. He told him to wait, to go sit until he finished his lunch and Mauro had counted the money.
He walked over and sat on the stone wall that separated the upper and lower levels of the veranda, sun beating down on him. He did not expect to be treated this way. He thought the don would accept the money and thank him. He watched a woman in a bikini rise from the lounge chair where she was laying in the sun, move to the pool, and dip her t- in the water. She had long dark hair and a beautiful body. If you had the don's money you would have a girl like her around to look at, maybe several.
Mazara watched her step down into the shallow end of the pool and disappear. It was hot for October and the water looked cool and refreshing, better now with the woman in it. He wondered what the don would say if he stood up and jumped in. That was what he wanted to do. Take off his clothes and swim under water, looking at the girl.
Mazara sat on the wall, and fifteen minutes later Mauro came out of the villa with the paper bag. Why did it take so long to count?60,000? He handed it to the don, whispering something to him and the don saying something back.
Now Mauro called to him. He got up and walked back to the table. They were finished with their meal, Mazara looking at chicken bones on their plates.
Don Gennaro said, "What is this?"
Mazara was confused. "Your share."
"I don't think so," he said. His face was serious as always.
Mazara was nervous. "I do not understand."
The don stared at him.
"It is from the money we collected." He could feel his stomach churning, all of them watching him.
"Why do you insult me?" the don said. His eyes stabbing him like daggers.
"What do you mean?" Mazara said.
"It is not enough," the don said.
"It is what we agreed — thirty per cent." Mazara resented that he had to pay this Sicilian anything at all and refused to give him the full amount.
The don said, "Of what?"
"The money." Roberto could feel sweat running down his face.
"Either you don't know how to calculate percentages," the don said, "or you are trying to cheat me. Tell me, which one is it?"
Was he bluffing? Did he know how much the ransom was, how much they collected? How could he possibly know?
The don said, "How much is in the bag?"
Trying to confuse him again. He knew how much was in the bag. Mazara said, "Sixty thousand."
"How much was the ransom?" he said, raising his voice. If you saw him on the street, you would think he was a quiet, easy-going old man, but he was nothing like that.
Now Ma
zara was in trouble. Trying to get his brain to figure out what?60,000 was thirty per cent of. He had failed algebra and dropped out the Lyceum at the beginning of his second year. He did not try to figure it out earlier because he believed the man would accept the money,?60,000 and thank him, Jesus, shake his hand. He had no idea how to figure it out. He said, "What do you think it should be?"
The don said, "I think it should be thirty per cent." He pointed to the bag. "I am going to keep this, I want you to come back with the rest of the money you owe me."
Mazara was thinking, no wonder this old man controlled eighty per cent of the crime in Rome. He was smart and he was tough.
"I give you two days to bring the money," the don said. "And if you do not come back, we will be looking for you. "
The American turned to the don and said, "Want me to go with him, Unk?"
"I want you to stay out of it," the don said. "This does not concern you." His voice measured, even.
The American said, "Show you how you how we do it in the Motor City."
Don Gennaro ignored him.
The American looked at him and said, "Hey, what's your name:
"Roberto Mazara.'
"Roberto Mazara, huh? Listen, you're not back here day after tomorrow, I'm coming after you myself."
Mazara grinned. It slipped out. He knew it was the wrong thing to do and regretted it. But couldn't help himself. It just happened.
The American got up. He was a big man. Forty pounds heavier than him, at least.
He said, "You think this is funny?"
He seemed like he was acting, overdoing the part like an amateur. Mazara said, "I don't know what you mean."
"You're giving me that little smartass grin," the American said. "Aren't you? Fucking with me."
"I think you are mistaken," Mazara said. He fixed his attention on Don Gennaro now. "I will bring you the money." What else was he going to say?
Chapter Fourteen
Uncle Carlo had hugged Joey when he got there, the man sitting in the main room of the villa he used as an office, wood beams in the ceiling, real ones, holding up the roof, nothing like the fake, distressed beams in his house, built in 2005 by Pulte. His uncle had statues and sculptures, too, and paintings on walls that were stucco, the real thing.
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