by Noel Hynd
Got to get up. Got to get moving.
A few more weeks and she’d be out of this nightmare.
She rose. Above her bed, a halfwit movie poster in Swedish, not even framed, just tacked to the wall to cover some cracks and peeling paint.
Cheech and Chong-de korsikanska broderna.
She eyed the poster in anger. Stuff like that had destroyed her life. Set her on the wrong path. Well, not much longer. Not much longer.
She stepped over her dress and shoes from the night before. She lurched uncomfortably into the bathroom, stared at herself in the mirror and winced. She looked awful and felt worse. But her life was a mess. She took her clothes off and turned on the shower.
She walked to the next room. She was in the habit of stashing her purse somewhere so that her husband wouldn’t filch money. Her head was hurting badly. Where had she hidden the purse this time? It took a moment to remember.
Then she found it. It had been under a pile of shoes in the front closet.
She found the Vicodin. She went to the refrigerator and found the Red Bull.
So far, so good.
On the kitchen counter, she found some bread. It was yesterday’s, half a loaf of good stuff from the corner panetteria. But it was unwrapped and half stale. Her pig of a husband must have come in late with the post-gig munchies. You’d think he could at least rewrap the food. But no.
She had given up complaining. On the walls of the apartment were several pictures of her a few years earlier when her career as a model had been taking off. Print ads in glossy magazines. Her on the runways of Rome. For two years, everything had been crackling with excitement. Then it all crashed, about the time she met Rocco and started spending too much time out late. She started to look too tired and dissipated for morning shoots. The business went away to younger, thinner, fresher girls. It never came back. Now, as she stood in her apartment surrounded by the glossy ghosts of the recent past, all she wanted was to get out, which was what the income on the side was all about.
There was a soft knock on the apartment door. The sound startled her. Everything startled her these days. She kept still. Then the soft knocking came again, followed by a familiar voice in accented Italian.
“ Constanza, ci sei? ” Constanza, are you there?
She recognized the voice. She moved to the door. The last thing she wanted was for one of her butch male friends to wake her husband. There would be explaining that she didn’t wish to do, plus arguments and sour recriminations. Fortunately, Rocco slept through early mornings as if he were hibernating.
She leaned to the door.
She peeked through the eyehole. Two male figures shifting nervously, an empty hallway behind them. One with a twitchy left eye, one in wraparound shades. They must have slipped by the old woman, Masiella, who kept guard downstairs. Masiella was deaf as a doorknob and not much smarter.
“ Eccomi,” she answered. “I’m here.”
Twitchy Eye switched to English. “Open us the door. We have you the money,” he said. Twitchy was a good-looking guy, but he spoke no language perfectly.
“Let me get my robe,” she said, her voice very low.
She quickstepped into the bathroom where the warm water continued to run in the shower. She found a robe and pulled it on, tying the sash around her waist.
She returned to the door, turned the bolts, undid a chain, and unlocked it.
Two men stepped in. She embraced the first one, Twitchy Eye. The second man shut the door. “Anyone else here?” the first man asked. “
My husband,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He’s sleeping.”
The nervous eye was on overdrive now, blinking, twitching, worse than she had ever seen it. He gave the second man a nod. “Okay,” he said.
“So? Where’s my money?” Constanza asked.
“Don’t be so anxious,” he said. And she saw him give a slight nod to the second man. Then he turned back to her. “It’s in my pocket,” he said, indicating to a spot within his jacket. “Give me a kiss first.”
She glanced as he beckoned to his jacket, open to show a black and white camo T-shirt that showed off the muscles of his chest. She also saw he was wearing a gun, not unusual. And he had an envelope, as promised, in his inside pocket.
She grinned slightly. She saw what she wanted. She saw, in fact, a great deal of what she wanted in comparison to the geeky husband who slumbered noisily in the next room. Well, today she would have to content herself with the denaro, the cinquecento dollari that she had been promised. Five hundred bucks of blood money.
She leaned to him and reached in, bringing her body close to his. The man leaned forward to savor the closeness and the scent of her body. She winked at him as she reached into his coat. Why not? They had been lovers once recently, though no one else knew that. Flirtatiously, he planted a gentle kiss on the lips, something she did not resist.
Then he did something rougher than usual and something that was highly unexpected.
He held her tightly at the left wrist, then used his other hand to hold her other wrist. He held her arms downward against her body, making the upper half of her body highly vulnerable. All this, while continuing to press his face to hers. Her robe loosened slightly, something she was okay with at first but then began to resist.
Then the first man withdrew his lips and the second man removed something from his pocket, something that Constanza soon realized was a silk cord. With incredible dexterity, and hardly allowing her a moment to struggle, the second man looped the cord over her head and around her throat. The cord went tight quickly, faster than she could utter a word. It was so tight that it cut into the flesh and almost disappeared.
She tried to kick but they overpowered her. Twitchy Eye let go of her wrists and stepped back impassively to watch her die.
She saw him mouth some words. “I’m sorry, Connie. I’m sorry.”He shrugged. The young woman’s fingers dug into her own flesh to fight for her life.
As the cord went tight, her face darkened with compressed blood. Then the blood began to run from the wounds at her throat. Her wrists went free, her eyes bulged, and after a brief struggle, all the strength drained from her body. First there was pain. Horribly searing pain. Her legs folded, her body sagged, and an earthly darkness descended upon her. The pain went away.
The killers released her. Her body hit the floor.
The first man gave a nod to the second. It was Twitchy Eye’s turn now.
He drew his pistol. He disappeared into the bedroom where there were still sounds of sleep from Rocco. There were two large reports from a high-caliber pistol. Then a third to make sure the job was done.
Twitchy Eye reappeared.
No more snoring sounds. Just some gurgling.
“ Finito? ” asked the first man.
“ Finito,” Twitchy Eye answered.
“ E certo? ”
“His brains are against the wall if you want to go look.”
Twitchy Eye went into the bathroom. Using a washcloth to preclude leaving any finger prints, he turned off the water. No point in presiding over a flood that would bring the carabinieri here days before they otherwise might be summoned.
Their business there concluded, the two men left the apartment. They were in separate cars leaving Italy before the sun rose to the midpoint of the sky.
SEVENTEEN
A lex LaDuca and Michael Cerny sat at a round table in the office at the State Department office he had reserved for such meetings.
They had been together for two hours. It was already past 11:00 a.m. His background briefing on Yuri Federov and The Caspian Group neared conclusion. The forefront of Alex’s mind was teeming with new information and ideas as Cerny moved his discussion of Federov in a final direction.
“He has one soft spot,” Cerny said. “One Achilles heel.”
“I can hardly wait to hear what that is.”
“He has a passion for highly educated Western women.”
“I was
up till 2:00 a.m. reading the FBI file,” Alex answered. “He’s a pig, a murderer, and a gangster.”
“That would be accurate.”
“I don’t know why any educated Western woman would want anything to do with him. And if you don’t mind a little vengeful Old Testament spunkiness,” she continued, “his soul should burn in hell someday.”
“Look,” Cerny said, “I like your take-no-prisoners spirit, but let’s be constructive. Your assignment will be to discuss issues pertaining to The Caspian Group and US Taxation. As mentioned, Federov owes the US millions in unpaid taxes. Just getting him to file the proper forms would be a victory.”
She felt a wave of indignation building. “And what’s my real assignment?”
“Stay with him every moment you can. Barely let him out of your sight for the duration of your trip, particularly while the president is there. Find out everything you possibly can.”
He fell silent. She felt there was more on the way. She waited.
“It wouldn’t bother us if you got to know him as well as a woman could,” he said.
Then he smirked. There was a nasty pause.
“Are you asking me to seduce him?”
“If you choose to do that,” he said, “even if it were only an occasional relationship. At your rank you’re eligible for performance pay. Bonuses.”
Alex steamed. She glared at Cerny. He raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t I just walk out of here right now?” she asked.
“I was expecting that question by the end of this briefing,” he said, “but it’s my job to put this proposition before you. It’s not coming from me; it’s coming from your government. Sometimes dirty work has to be done for the greater good.”
“You people are disgusting. Why don’t you hire a hooker?”
“Not to put too keen an edge on it, Alex, but if we could find one who was a security specialist, spoke five languages, could master a crash course in Ukrainian in a month, and could take care of herself and possibly come back in one piece, which, since you like honesty, the last part wouldn’t be essential, we probably would. But we can’t. So there. We’re asking you.”
There was a moment that passed between them in tense silence.
“Have someone else do your dirty work. And have me fired if you wish,” she said.
“Not at all. And once again, you’ve just demonstrated why you’re perfect for this assignment. Alex, really! We need you to do it. You don’t have to get physical with him, but we do want you to be with him. Constantly.”
She seethed. “Why?” she pressed.
“I can’t answer that. I don’t even know, myself. We want you to watch him every moment,” he said. “Every inch of the way. We want to know exactly where he is. Just shadow him. Promise him anything. Find out whatever you can about him, his business, his associates. Anything from how he used to beat up his bimbos in Brooklyn to whether he’s selling Pepsi-Cola and Playboy to the North Koreans. You’re our one person who will keep him interested. Your country is counting on you.”
She found herself fingering the gold cross again. Her thoughts went far away as she disappeared into herself. A long silence passed between them.
He waited.
“I’ll take the assignment. I’ll make the trip,” she said, “but I’ll do things on my own terms. And if your sleazebag Bolshevik narco-gangster puts his hands on me I’ll break both his filthy wrists.”
“See? That’s what we like about you. Righteous indignation. You’re perfect for this.”
“Those are my conditions.”
“All right,” he said. “It’s a deal.”
EIGHTEEN
L ater in the day, Alex went to Human Resources where she sat for a series of photographs, changing her blouse for each new photo. She rearranged her hair slightly with each picture so that no two shots were too much alike or appeared to have been taken at the same time. New IDs were being made and new photos were in order. It was yet another indication that this was no ordinary trip.
In the early afternoon, back in her office at FinCen, Alex completed the reassignment of her current caseload to other investigators at FinCen. After lunch she returned to a newly assigned room in the State Department.
Her language instructor, Olga, arrived at a few minutes past four. Olga led Alex through some preliminary ground rules for the study of Ukrainian. The teacher seemed pleased that Alex had a solid grasp of Russian. That gave her entry into Ukrainian. Alex felt like a graduate student getting tutored for a final.
The trouble was, her heart wasn’t completely in it.
She found herself thinking about her assignment that night when she worked out at the gym. There was no basketball that evening, but she did spot a few of the players: Jack, who was an accountant for the IRS; Laura, her old buddy who worked at the White House; and Ben, who was running laps on his prosthesis.
From the locker room afterward she phoned Robert on her cell phone. He wasn’t home yet either.
“Want to grab a pizza?” she asked.
“I’d like to grab you, instead,” he answered. “Or maybe the pizza and then you.”
“I’ve got cold beer in the fridge,” she said. It was the first time all day Alex felt relaxed. Robert had that effect on her.
“It’s a deal,” he said.
There was a Chicago-style pizza place called Jean amp; Luca’s not far from Dupont Circle where he lived. He said he’d swing by there, get a thick pie, and drive it over to her place.
He did.
She had an ulterior motive this evening, however, and elaborated when they broke open the pie and the beer.
“How would you feel about running a couple of names across your files?” she asked.
“What files?”
“The Secret Service ones that will tell you where someone in the government works.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Michael Cerny, who recruited me for this Ukrainian assignment,”she said. “And this three-hundred-pound woman named Olga Liashko. I want to know if they have any CIA links.”
“Come on,” he said.
“No. Really. Something about them doesn’t smell quite right.”
He considered it.
“Michael Cerny’s been with the State Department for several years. I’ve known him for six years. I’ve never heard of any CIA affiliation.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not connected to the CIA,” she said. “You know that as well as I do. Look, there’s an awful lot of this that doesn’t make sense.”
She was angry. Indignant. She kept going. “Listen, Robert, what are they asking me to really accomplish? They’re practically asking me to share a shower and a bedroom with this repulsive East Bloc hoodlum. I don’t know what they think I can find out that all their intelligence hasn’t already given them.”
“I don’t know the answers,” he said. “I agree with you, but I don’t have any answers.”
“I don’t like Cerny and I don’t like this Ukrainian steamroller he works with,” Alex said. “So why don’t you just be the man I know and love and run a check?”
He finished one square slice of pie and started another. He nodded thoughtfully.
“I can’t do it myself,” he said. “I don’t have the authorization. But I can call in a favor. I won’t have an answer right away, but I’ll see what I can do. How’s that?”
She leaned across the table and kissed him.
“That would be perfect,” she said.
NINETEEN
T he Lt. de polizia Gian Antonio Rizzo stood with his arms folded across his chest in the small cluttered apartment on the via Donorfio. A tall lean man with dark hair and sharp features, Lt. Rizzo of the Roman city police felt a deep disgust, an outrage, that fed upon the deeply cynical outlook on life that he had developed over the decades.
Lt. Rizzo had had more than enough of the type of scene that lay before him. At age fifty-five, he was contemplating retirement toward the middle of the summer. His f
inal day at this underpaid unappreciated job could not come soon enough. Of course, he still had an enterprise or two on the side, but who knew about that?
Downstairs at the doorway to the street, a crowd gathered. Here, upstairs, police had strung crime scene tape in the hallway. Police techies vacuumed everything for fibers. Forensic photographers took digital shots of everything while busily trampling the rest of the crime scene.
Rizzo’s brown eyes slid uneasily over the death chamber. The cara-binieri who busily assisted him, as well as his own detectives from Rome’s homicide squad, had no question about the emotions sizzling within him.
“ Pervertitidi! Degenerati! ” Rizzo said. “Scum! You know what makes me mad? Having to spend time investigating what these people do to each other. Maybe we should let them kill one another, hey? Then these foreign parasites- questi scrocconi stranieri -would stop coming to Roma. Wouldn’t that be better for everyone?”
In the lieutenant’s opinion, there was a struggle under way for the soul of Rome. On one side were the forces of restraint, lawfulness, etiquette, and cultural preservation. On the other, the unswerving desire to use the ancient city for permissiveness, debauchery, and the commission of international crime.
Lt. Rizzo saw it every night on off-duty strolls through the Campo dei Fiori and the Piazza Navona. Why, just two evenings earlier witnesses in overlooking apartments had reported seeing two people shot and killed around the corner from where Julius Caesar used to address the forum, their bodies whisked away afterwards.
The case had landed on his desk and it was most unwelcome.
Well, the city had changed a bit since Caesar’s day, and not necessarily for the better. So Rizzo, who felt himself a guardian of public decency, looked around this room and felt his blood pressure rising.
More murder. More crime. More drugs.
“ Incredibile! ” Rizzo growled as those under his command went about their business. “This is a country that can’t form a government to last longer than the soccer season and can’t do anything about all these foreign degenerates either!”