Deceptions

by Michael Weaver

  “What are your orders?”

  “To bring in whoever’s talking on this phone.”

  In the following moment of stillness, she decided they were police after all. If they were mob, she’d be lying quietly dead at the bottom of the booth, and they’d be gone. Which could mean little in the long run but might allow her a bit of slack for now.

  “If you’ll let me make just one phone call to the American consul in Sorrento,” she said, “I’ll go with you without further fuss.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Walters. No phone calls.”

  “Is that part of your orders?”

  The detective nodded.

  “What’s your name?” Peggy asked.

  “Trovato. Sergeant Trovato.”

  “Well, Sergeant Trovato, it looks as if you’re going to have to take me in kicking and screaming.”

  The sergeant appeared genuinely puzzled.

  “I don’t understand this whole thing, Mrs. Walters. All we’re asking you to do is take a five-minute ride to the Amalfi police station. If there’s some mistake, you’ll be out of there in no time. Why are you making this so hard for us all?”

  “Would you like the truth, Sergeant?”

  Trovato showed a set of white, near-perfect teeth… a handsome, no doubt decent police officer, thought Peggy, who hadn’t the faintest idea what he was in the process of doing to her.

  “In my line of work,” he said, “the truth is such a novelty that I’ve forgotten what it sounds like.”

  “Then I’ll try to refresh your memory,” Peggy told him. “You won’t believe it, but the reason I’m making this so hard for us all is that once I’m in your police station, I know that no one will ever see me alive again.”

  He stared at her. “You can’t be serious, Mrs. Walters.”

  “See? I said you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  And the crazy part was, she thought, that he probably was sorry. A polite, unusually attractive man just trying to do his day’s tour of duty and go home to his family without causing unnecessary pain or harm.

  So that even as he gently reached out to touch her, it seemed no more than a warm, human gesture, one member of the species reaching out to another at a moment of deep stress and emotion.

  Yet an instant later she was feeling humble as a saint, as the fading evening light dimmed even more and she was entering a sweet new realm of peace and darkness.

  She never sensed she was falling, because Sergeant Trovato was holding her before she was able to feel her legs starting to go.

  Peggy knew she was in a prison cell the moment she opened her eyes.

  She lay with her head facing a window, and the bars were dark against a translucent orange sky.

  There was no pain, just a faint soreness at the pressure point on her neck where the gentle sergeant must have briefly cut off the flow of blood to her brain.

  If she felt anything at all, it was rather like the exhausted state of grace that sometimes came after a long, intense session of making love, with the heavy action behind you, and nothing to do for a while but drift.

  The thing was, they hadn’t killed her.

  It was a mark of her current view of things that this fact alone was enough to make her euphoric.

  56

  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL went over some papers and had lunch in his office as he waited for Carlo Donatti’s call. But he was only going through the motions of working and eating. His thoughts were solely on the woman he had once known as Irene.

  To have had the courage to offer herself like that.

  There was a purity to the gesture that defied and broke through his cynicism. Except that it was a lot more than a gesture. It was her life. It made him reassess everything he had felt and thought about her.

  You should have trusted me, Henry. Didn ’t you know anything at all about me?

  Obviously not.

  But even if he had known, that kind of trust still would not have been in his nature. Too bad. It would have saved a lot of trouble and an appalling number of lives.

  Donatti’s call came through on his secure line at 2:47 P.M.

  “All went well,” said the don. “Can we meet tonight? There are some things to talk about.”

  “The usual time and place?”

  “If that’s convenient.”

  “Fine,” said the attorney general, and hung up.

  Henry Durning felt no elation. Not even relief. In a curious way he felt diminished, as if one more vital piece of him had broken off and floated away.

  This time it was Durning who arrived at the room first and took care of the dual amenities of the music and the drinks.

  My ritual assignation.

  It did have many of the characteristics of a lovers’ tryst. With none of the accompanying joys. Still, the excitement was there, the covert tactics, the constant threat of discovery or betrayal. And although they didn’t trust each other for a second, their individual power alone created a certain mutual regard.

  Or so it seemed to Henry Durning.

  It was hard to know about Donatti. These so-called men of respect were of a different breed entirely. You might sometimes think you knew them, but you never did. With their long history of tradition, their almost medieval oath of silence… omerta… there was no real possibility of ever understanding or getting close to them. At best, all you could hope for was an acceptable working relationship. And even this depended on a carefully weighed balanced of power.

  Like keeping a gun carefully aimed at each other’s head.

  And when possible, Durning thought coldly, getting hold of a little something extra as backup insurance.

  The don arrived moments later and they embraced and sat down facing each other. Neither of them spoke for several beats. They seemed to be making an accommodation to the event that had brought them together tonight.

  Donatti crossed his legs carefully and sipped the scotch Durning had prepared for him.

  “Well, it’s done,” he said. “You did your part well, and so did everyone else. The woman is no longer a problem for you.”

  “Thank you Carlo. 1 appreciate it.”

  Donatti looked at him. “You don’t exactly seem wild with joy.”

  “I’m not. I needed her death. I can’t take pleasure from it.” Durning stared into his drink without touching it. It might have been blood. “How was it done?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “No. But it’s better than having to keep wondering and imagining.”

  “It was very workmanlike,” said Carl Donatti. “Nothing special. How much did you hear from your end?”

  “We’d been speaking for almost eight minutes. Then the receiver was suddenly slammed down and that was it. Who was it that picked her up?”

  “Three detectives from the Amalfi police department.”

  “And?”

  “They put her in solitary. A few hours later two of our Sicilian people picked her up, drove her to some woods, and did it. She won’t be found.”

  A surging burst of Mozart filled the silence.

  “Did she know what was going to happen?”

  The don shrugged. “Who can say? Anyway, who cares what she knew?”

  “I care.”

  They sat with their usual loud music for a few moments, not talking. His eyes blank, Carlo Donatti slowly shook his head. “You’re a strange one, Henry. For such a concerned and sensitive man, you seem to be getting an awful lot of people killed.”

  Durning was silent.

  “Just to bring you up to date on the body count,” said Donatti. “Our friends Battaglia and Garetsky have just added eleven more, among them, the Sicilian capo I’ve been working with.”

  The attorney general felt the numbers settling inside him. A slow-acting poison.

  “This boss,” he said. “He was the one holding Battaglia’s son?”

  Donatti nodded.

  “Then where’s the boy? Did his father get hi
m back safely?”

  “Nobody seems to know.”

  “What about the two men you said were guarding him?”

  “Dead. And according to the new capo, Vittorio himself took a couple of hits in all the fireworks. They’ve got people checking hospitals.”

  “Wonderful,” said Durning.

  Closing his eyes, he saw dark waters washing over vague faceless bodies in a midnight pond.

  Mary Yung had an aversion to the cool, arid feel of air-conditioning on her bare flesh, so Durning kept the unit turned off when they made love.

  “I adore our being wet together,” she had told him, “all that lovely slipping and sliding,” and he appreciated what she meant.

  That sweet mingling of one more set of juices.

  Even in darkness, it brought him visions of her seductively shapely body shining with perspiration, climbing all over him as she invented new and ever more exciting ways to bring him off.

  What were her limits?

  She had to have them, of course. She was still only a woman, with the standard number of available parts… two hands and three body openings. But sweet Lord, what she could think of to do with them. And the way she did it.

  So what are her limits?

  They lay on their backs in the close heat of the night. Heavy air pressed against their faces. A car went by, its tires whispering on the asphalt. Miles away, a police siren wailed of another murder.

  “You’re like a seventeen-year-old,” she said.

  “How? In my unseemly adolescent compulsions?”

  “You have this incredible sense of wonder. There’s not a centimeter of a woman’s body that you don’t know, understand, and love. It’s a wonderland for you.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “It depends on how you use it.”

  “In that case I’m in deep trouble.”

  She rolled onto her side and kissed him. “As if you didn’t know that.”

  “What I know is that when I die it’s very likely to be a woman who’s going to do me in.” Durning reached for his cigarettes, lit one, and studied the glow in the dark. “And I must admit that right now you’re probably the leading candidate for that honor.”

  Mary Yung tried to see his face, but it was too dark to make out its expression.

  “Are you serious?” she said.

  “About my own death?” He smiled. “How could I not be?”

  “Then why are you keeping me living in your house and romping in your bed?”

  “Because that’s where I want you.”

  “Even knowing you might well die of it?”

  Like a cat, he idly licked her breast. His pacifier.

  Then he lay back once more. “Yes.”

  “That’s insane, Henry.”

  “Insanity is nothing but a judgment call. And in my judg ment it makes great sense for me to have and enjoy what I want most at this particular stage of my life.”

  Mary Yung lay still, wordless.

  “Don’t misunderstand,” said Henry Durning. “I’m far from suicidal. I want very much to live. I love living. It’s just that I’m trying to be realistic about my short-term prospects.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That I seem to walk in the shadow of death these days. I just breathe and it’s right beside me. Just tonight I learned your friends Gianni and Vittorio have added eleven more to the growing list.”

  Durning felt Mary stiffen beside him. But she remained silent.

  “Not that I blame them. They’re simply trying to get back Vittorio’s son. Just as you and the boy’s mother have been trying to do. And I’ve been told she died sometime this afternoon.”

  It took Mary a moment to respond. When she did, she spoke out of a cold dryness in her throat that had not been there before.

  “Peggy?”

  “Yes, though it was as Irene that I once knew her.”

  “So you finally got what you’ve been after all this time,” Mary Yung said slowly.

  Durning said nothing.

  “And her boy?”

  Durning considered his answer to this one very carefully. Though in a practical sense, there really was nothing to consider. If he didn’t lie, he would lose her. And he had no intention of allowing that.

  “I had it all arranged,” he said. “They were supposed to let the boy go the moment they had his mother. But before that could happen, Battaglia and Garetsky blew away eleven of their people. Now it’s a personal vendetta, a matter of honor. Now they refuse to let the boy go until they get Battaglia and Garetsky.”

  “They’re using him as bait?”

  “They have no other reason to hold him.”

  “Who are they?”

  “My American don’s Sicilian connections.”

  Mary Yung thought about it.

  “So what happens now?” she asked.

  “I’ll just have to keep pressuring them.”

  “You can do that?”

  He pressed his lips to her breast for luck.

  “I’m the United States attorney general. I’m head of the entire Justice Department. I can goddamn do anything.”

  “Yes. But now that you’ve gotten rid of the boy’s mother, why would you bother?”

  “To keep you from leaving me,” said Henry Durning. “And maybe even to keep you from putting one in my head with your little gun.”

  Which was probably as close to the truth as he was able to get these days, he thought.

  57

  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL wept again during the funeral services for Brian and Marcia Wayne.

  I’m becoming insufferable.

  Sitting there with the president of the United States, the first lady, cabinet members, and other dignitaries, Henry Durning listened to the late FBI director and his wife being eulogized and felt a burning sensation in his chest. It was as though something deep inside him had spoiled, turned bad, and created its own poison.

  With all his mind and heart he tried to squeeze out something for his murdered friend and his wife. But what? How?

  He could get nothing for them.

  All he was aware of was himself. His own burning sensation, his own weeping eyes that stung.

  Even prayer was of no use. What was there to pray for? Justice? Mercy?

  He breathed slowly, deeply, trying to relieve the pressure he felt. He was torn and torn again.

  All right. So he killed, then he wept.

  But his tears were wasted.

  They meant nothing.

  They helped no one.

  Least of all, him.

  58

  PAULIE FELT RENEWED.

  Leaving the town of Lercara Friddi, he wore his newly purchased windbreaker against the morning chill and carried a backpack filled with food and other needs for his journey back to Positano.

  For the first time in his short life, he was consciously aware of the magic of money.

  He wondered what he’d have done if he hadn’t thought to take it from the two dead men’s pockets. Dumb thing to wonder. He’d have just been hungry and cold. Also, when he got to the ferry in Palermo, he’d have had to sneak on board and become a stowaway because he couldn’t have bought a ticket.

  But you had to be careful about how you showed the money. It could be dangerous. Like when he had taken it out to pay for his windbreaker, the storekeeper had looked at him kind of funny and asked what bank he’d robbed. The man had only been joking, of course. Yet he could have been suspicious about such a young boy having all that money in his pocket, and maybe called the police.

  So Paulie had played it safe after that and used the smallest bills for his other purchases. Then he’d left Lercara Friddi as fast as he could, in case the man who sold him his wind- breaker had thought about it some more and decided to call the police after all.

  In fact he had left so quickly that he had not even stopped to eat, and his stomach was growling. He couldn’t remember ever having been this hungry and wondered how long it would take a person to starve.
Then he began thinking about all the great bread and cheese and salami and stuff in his backpack.

  About a half-mile out of town, Paulie left the road, found a patch of grass beside a stream, and sat down to eat.

  His first mouthful of bread and salami tasted better than anything he had ever eaten. It was so good that he wished his mother could be there to see how he was enjoying it. She was always complaining about how he never seemed to enjoy what he ate. Which was why he had always been so thin. Everyone knew that if you didn’t really enjoy your food, it didn’t do your body any good.

  But just the thought of his mother took some of the joy out of eating. He had tried calling her again before leaving the town, and again there was no answer. Now he really was getting worried. Where could she be all this time?

  59

  SOMETHING WOKE GIANNI Garetsky in the night.

  Wearing a pale-green sterile mask, he came out of sleep slowly. He was still sitting up in his special chair in the Mon-reale Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit for eighteen hours and he had been waiting for Vittorio Battaglia’s bullet-punctured body to decide whether it was going to live or die.

  Gianni had left his self-assigned vigil beside his friend’s bed only to eat or go to the bathroom. He not only didn’t want to miss what might well be Vittorio’s few final words but was still uncomfortable with the idea of leaving him helpless and unprotected against those who had put him here in the first place.

  Glancing at him now, Gianni saw Vittorio as little more than a conduit. Fluids flowed into him through one set of tubes, and out of him through another set, while on the wall behind his head, the lights of monitors beeped and danced.

  Gianni figured it was one of the beeps that had wakened him.

  “Hey… ”

  He turned and found Vittorio looking at him with remarkably clear eyes.

  “So which are you?” said Battaglia. “God, or the fucking devil in a sterile mask?”

  Gianni rose, took Vittorio Battaglia’s hand, and stood looking at him. He felt himself moved. He guessed he hadn’t really expected him to come out of it.