Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  She had a moment then when the prospect of dying didn’t seem all that bad. This alone softened and cut into her fear.

  “This is what you do? You get rid of people?”

  Vittorio was silent. Her hand was still in his and he slowly raised it to his lips, then to his cheek and kept it there. The gentleness of the gesture reached her.

  “Who sent you to do this?” she asked.

  “A man I do work for. But he’s not the one behind it. He doesn’t even know you. He’s just taking care of it for someone.”

  “And you have no idea who that is?”

  He shook his head. “I was hoping you might know.”

  Of course she knew. But that in itself sent a new kind of chill coursing through her. Henry, she thought, and gazed deep into the madness of Hal and Lucy’s all too recent deaths, and the prospect of her own somewhere just ahead. How could he? Stupid question. The same way he could have calmly blown away Lucy. To protect himself. Except that in her own case, he had made the mistake of contracting it out.

  But all that was academic. The only thing that really mattered at the moment was this gentle, curiously appealing, if somewhat crazy killer sitting beside her.

  “I’m an attorney,” she said evenly. “I spend my days working with other attorneys. We deal with contracts and points of law. When we have differences, we negotiate or go to court. We don’t hire hit men to blow each other away.”

  “Then I guess somebody just got tired of negotiating and going to court.”

  She considered him. “So if you were sent to kill me, why are you sitting here holding my hand?”

  “Because I don’t kill women.”

  “How gallant. How about children?”

  Vittorio was silent.

  “You mean it’s just a matter of principle that I’m not dead?”

  “No. It’s gotten to be a lot more than that with you. That’s why I’ve got this little problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “How I’m going to keep us both alive.” He grinned and kissed her hand. “But of course you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you?”

  She shook her head, wondering at this strange and beautiful young man who could speak so easily and lightly of death.

  “Here’s how it works,” he told her. “The minute it’s known I haven’t done my job, someone else gets assigned to kill us both. So we’ve got to figure something out.”

  Eyes wide, she was beginning to see a totally alien world opening around her. “You’re doing all this just like that?”

  “No. Not just like that. I’ve been thinking about it a long time. I can do more and better than what I’ve been doing. Then they gave me you, and you were all the reason I needed.”

  “You don’t even know me, Vittorio.”

  “I know you’ve got a lower lip that absolutely busts my heart. That’s enough to start with.”

  It was then that he kissed her for the first time.

  All very lovely, very romantic, she thought in retrospect. But there was too much fear in her during the days that followed, and too many life-sustaining plans to be worked out, for either of them to concentrate all that much on the yearnings and trappings of new love.

  Because Vittorio kept pressing her for a suitable enemy, she finally had to create her big lie about the insider trading group she claimed to have discovered.

  What she knew she couldn’t hand Vittorio was the truth about Henry Durning. Which had nothing to do with any lingering feeling she might have had left for Henry. That had died with the bitter knowledge that he had coldly written her off. Keeping silent about Henry was strictly for her own survival needs.

  With a lawyer’s knowledge of such things, she wasn’t about to identify herself as a material witness to a brutal double murder she not only never reported to the police, but actually helped cover up in a clear criminal act of obstructing justice.

  Quite apart from that, she had no intention of offering Vittorio any hint of her true relationship with Henry Durning. Too much shame and ugliness lay buried there. In fact, the only reason she ever brought Henry to Vittorio’s attention at all was that he inadvertently became part of their plan for her phony death.

  Struggling to work out a disappearing act that would hold up under investigation, Vittorio was ecstatic when she happened to mention knowing how to fly and having a pilot’s license.

  “Jesus, that’s it!” he said. “You don’t happen to have a plane too, do you?”

  “No. But one of the firm’s partners does, and he sometimes lets me use it.”

  “Great. What’s his name?”

  Even then, she literally had to force herself to say the two words aloud, “Henry Durning.”

  Vittorio hugged her with excitement. “The guy’s our solution. I love him.”

  Irene didn’t.

  Nine years later, the sheer irony of it had begun to take on a circular feel. Things did have a way of coming around.

  Like fear.

  Yet why shouldn’t she have been able to feel safe after all these years and a distance of forty-five hundred miles?

  Another foolish question.

  Because Henry Durning was still alive. Additionally, he was now the United States attorney general, with all the visible and invisible power and limitless reach that came with the territory.

  But she, Irene Hopper, was officially dead.

  Yes. Yet with a separate sadness and sense of extinction even in that. She had no siblings and both her parents were gone, so who had ever cared enough to mourn her passing? And how much of what she shared with Vittorio was built on, and could survive, the less than happy lies of her past?

  As for Vittorio, he’d had to live with his own lie to the anonymous mob capo who still believed his loyal soldier had carried out his sworn contract as assigned. Which meant there was danger from there as well.

  40

  VITTORIO LISTENED IN silence to the weeping woman he loved as Peggy Walters. He had once experimented with LSD, and it had made everything quiver with a lavender light. He experienced much the same sensation now. Like ghosts, emotions passed invisibly through his body, along with the parade of cold facts leading to his son’s kidnapping. They left him wet and limp.

  Her tale finished, Peggy started to cry again.

  “Dear God, look what I’ve done to us,” she wept. “How you must hate me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears, and Vittorio stared dumbly at her. “How could I hate you? Without you, there’s nothing. Don’t you know that yet?”

  “No, I’m disgusting. I’ve got layers of dirt I can’t peel off. I never wanted you to know about Henry and all that filth. But now you know.”

  Now I know.

  Vittorio felt something bleeding inside him. He lifted his wife from the chair, held her, and tried to keep his hands from shaking.

  “It’s my penance,” she whispered. “Maybe if I’d told you sooner, you could have—”

  “Stop that. There’s no way I could have done anything in advance.” He stroked her hair, still soft and silky even with all the years of bleaching. “But I sure as hell can do something now.”

  Mary Yung lay awake in the same bed where Gianni Garetsky lay sleeping. The bed smelled of dampness, and was too soft, and creaked when she stirred. It felt as old as the house, and the house felt older than the mountains around it.

  Yet there was a deep, almost compulsive quiet to the place that she liked. As if that in itself could help still the disquiet inside her.

  Enough, she thought.

  She had to get out of here as fast as possible. What would be the point of her hanging around at this stage? So she could beat her breast and pour ashes over her head about the boy? She’d already done her bit. She’d already saved their lives and endangered her own by warning Vittorio and his wife about the four torpedoes in the Mercedes. Too bad she couldn’t do anything about their son, but you can’t have it all ways.

  She had her mil
lion waiting. The only sensible thing to do now was to pick it up and run while the running was good.

  Good-bye, Gianni.

  She looked at him as he slept and was curiously moved.

  It had been lovely, hadn’t it?

  Yes.

  But hang around one minute too long, she told herself, and you’ll end up as full of bullet holes as he, Vittorio, and Peggy. When the United States attorney general and his assorted allies wanted you dead, you were dead. It was just a question of details.

  There was nothing more she could do to help them anyway. And if they somehow found out about her and Durning, they’d kill her themselves. And who could blame them?

  I’ll leave tomorrow.

  Yet, something said, nothing good comes that easy.

  41

  VITTORIO WAITED UNTIL their morning coffee was poured and on the table.

  “Last night,” he said, “I was told who’s behind this whole aborto.”

  With his wife sitting beside him, he spoke directly to Mary Yung and Gianni Garetsky.

  Gianni just looked at him.

  Mary’s face hardened and turned cold.

  Peggy sat staring into her coffee.

  Outside the kitchen windows, daylight and a misty sun showed off the wild beauty of the mountain landscape. It was wasted. None of them saw it.

  “It’s the head of our Justice Department,” said Vittorio. “Henry Durning. The United States attorney general.”

  The room was so still it seemed airless.

  Gianni was the first to speak.

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “I wish it were.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mary Yung. “There’s no phone and you were here all night. Who could have told you?”

  “My wife.”

  Mary and Gianni stared across the table at Peggy. She gave them back nothing.

  “I’m afraid it’s personal,” said Battaglia. “But I wanted the two of you to know while you can still get out of here.”

  The words hung in the air. It was cool in the old, thick-walled stone house, and the moisture condensed on the windows and dripped onto the floor. A splinter of sun came in and was caught in a spiderweb.

  “This changes everything,” said Battaglia. “Now it gets to be a lot more than just a crazy mob hit. Now it can be anything from armies of cops, to federal agents, to Interpol, to mafiosi, to Christ only knows what else.”

  Battaglia slowly lifted and drank his coffee. Then he looked at his wife, and Gianni was offered a glimpse of precisely how bad this was for them. Whatever Peggy had told Vittorio, it obviously had been forced from her by the taking of their son.

  “What are you going to do?” Gianni asked Vittorio.

  “Get back my boy.”

  “Do you know who’s got him?”

  “No. But I’ll find out.”

  “You’re that sure?”

  Vittorio nodded.

  Gianni stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it. His hands were steady and deliberate. “And you expect me to just walk out of here and leave you with this?”

  “Damn right. Unless you’ve gotten stupid with age.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Listen,” said Vittorio. “If those strunzi didn’t have our boy, Peg and I would be out of here ourselves this minute. Like I said… this is personal. It’s got nothing to do with you and Mary anymore.”

  He managed a faint smile. “So just go home and paint. Which is what you do best anyway. I may be jealous as hell, but I’m still proud of all you’ve done. Fact is, buddy, we need good, live painters a lot more than bad, dead shooters.

  “End of discussion.”

  Mary Yung and Gianni Garetsky arrived at the Naples airport in plenty of time to return the rental car and book space on the noon flight to Rome, and then to New York.

  They were having a final drink in the lounge when their flight was called for boarding.

  Gianni looked at Mary across the tiny table. “I’m not going,” he said.

  The lounge was quiet, cool, and dim in the pause between arrivals and departures. Mary Yung glanced slowly around, as though Gianni hadn’t spoken.

  “Did you hear me?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” she said. “You didn’t ask me a question. You made a statement. Or is there something you’re waiting for me to say, other than good-bye?”

  Gianni considered her face and wondered whether this would really be his last glimpse of it.

  “You sonofabitch,” she said flatly. “You never had any intention of going, did you? You just played me all the way, right down to boarding time. What were you so afraid of? That I might not go without you? That I might make a big scene and throw myself around your neck so we could all die here together?”

  Mary Yung offered what she thought was her best smile, but it came out a grimace. “Well, you don’t have to worry. I don’t share your death wish. Or your guilt. Or your need to do penance. I’d much rather get on that plane and live, than stay here and die.”

  “I don’t want to die, Mary. But neither can I just fly off and leave these people with what I’ve dumped on them.”

  Mary seemed to be watching herself from an unfamiliar place.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said quietly. “You never dumped a thing on them. I was the one who did the dumping.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No one followed us here, Gianni. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for that. It was all me. Before we even got to Positano, I called Durning from right here at the airport and told him Vittorio’s new name and where he was living.”

  Gianni didn’t believe her at first. Then he saw her eyes and knew better. Besides, who would make up something like that? Who would want to? He felt himself struck, then struck again.

  “What did they ever do to you?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then for God’s sake! Why?”

  “An even million in cash.”

  “Money?”

  The disgust in his voice rendered her silent.

  “You used me for that?” he said.

  It took her a long moment. “It wasn’t that way. It never had anything to do with you… with us.”

  “Jesus, how could it not?”

  “I don’t know. It just didn’t.” Her voice had dropped off to a bare whisper. “It all turned out so much worse than I expected. I mean with their little boy and all.”

  “What the hell did you think the bastard was paying you a million bucks for?”

  “I never thought that far ahead. I obviously didn’t want to. Until I saw those four pistols drive into town.” She shrugged. “Then it hit me. Then I did what I could.”

  “It was too late to help the boy.”

  “I know.”

  Gianni sat there, gripping his drink with both hands, staring at her. How frightened she looked.

  “I was the perfect patsy,” he said dully. “I never suspected a thing. You didn’t have to tell me now. Why did you?”

  “Because I didn’t want you staying here to die, thinking it was your fault.”

  “It’s still my fault. I’m the one who got you here. Give me a better reason.”

  “Because I love you.”

  “Terrific,” he said, and groaned softly. “I’d like to see what you do with those you don’t love. No. I take that back. I don’t think I could stomach it.”

  Gianni put down his drink before he shattered the glass. He felt himself that close to it.

  “All right,” she said, and the words were so soft as to be barely audible. “If you’re staying, I’ll stay with you.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  “I want to, Gianni.”

  “Why? You think there’s a chance for another million in selling out Peg and Vittorio’s safe house?”

  That one reached her, twisted all the way in, and st
ayed.

  Gianni dropped her plane ticket on the table and rose. “The only place I want you is on this flight.”

  He left her sitting there and went to get his bag off-loaded.

  Then he watched her walk across the tarmac and board the plane. She was the last one on.

  He was still watching as the big Boeing roared down the runway, lifted off, and disappeared into the haze.

  The thought occurred only then. How had she known it was Durning?

  He rented another car and drove past Positano and up into the mountains above Ravello. He found the overgrown trail leading to the safe house and was back there by midafter-noon.

  No one was in sight and the place was still.

  Then Vittorio Battaglia came out from behind some brush and trees and walked slowly toward him. He had a necklace of grenades around his neck and was carrying a submachine gun.

  “I didn’t recognize the car,” he said. “What did you do? Steal it?”

  “I haven’t hot-wired a car since the last time with you. And that was twenty-one years ago.”

  “Hey, it’s like swimming and fucking. You don’t forget.”

  “How did you know a car was coming? You got something rigged?”

  “About a quarter mile down the trail. Photoelectric. Battery powered.”

  They stood looking at each other.

  “Where’s Mary?” asked Vittorio.

  “Probably just leaving Rome for New York.”

  “And you?”

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  “Still have to be a fucking hero, don’t you?”

  Gently, Gianni Garetsky gave him the finger.

  They walked up to the house together.

  42

  PAULIE FIGURED HE’D been there with the two men now for part of yesterday, all of last night, and most of today.

  He remembered it being sometime late in the afternoon when the one called Dom came around with that bullshit story about a party, then whacked him out good. Now it was late afternoon again.

  In between, he’d slept and had all those crazy dreams. Then he woke up with that bad smell inside him every time he breathed or swallowed, until it finally made him sick and he vomited. He still felt kind of sick, but Tony said that was just from the chloroform they’d given him so he’d stay quiet, and promised he’d feel better soon. Tony wasn’t as full of bullshit as Dom, so Paulie believed him. But he still liked Dom better. Even though it was Dom who whacked him in the head when his back was turned.