THE DOGS of ROME

by Conor Fitzgerald

  “I said we would get him anyhow. And I told him he would probably not live long.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “First I put out an alert to get Massoni picked up. I mentioned who the suspect was, just to make sure the cars got there on time. Then I called the Holy Ghost and asked him to take charge of any arrests that might result from the tip-off.”

  “Did he ask who the tip-off was from?”

  “No, he didn’t. He never does. Even you don’t always ask.”

  “It’s so often better not to know,” said Blume. “Then what did you do?”

  “I contacted the technicians in the Padua interception center immediately, gave them my number, gave them the time and date of his call, told them it was highest priority.”

  “And they accepted all that, from an inspector?”

  “I told them it was to do with the killing of Ferrucci. They got back to me in two hours. They had not managed to triangulate Alleva’s location because he never moved, and the phone number disappeared from the network immediately after, along with the IMEI code for the phone. So he must have removed the battery, probably smashed the device. He’s being careful.”

  “Not so careful that he didn’t make a call. They got no information at all?”

  “No, they did. I was going to tell you. The call was made north of Rome, near Civitavecchia. It connected to a base transceiver station at the end of the Autostrada Azzurra, just above Civitavecchia. The radius is huge. Too big to work. And it was two days ago. He probably made the call, then destroyed the phone there.”

  “I see that,” said Blume. “And you acted as quickly as you could? You reported contact between you and Alleva to the technical team?”

  “Yes. Same as after the shooting. I don’t care what happens to me as long as Alleva and Massoni get caught.”

  “But you do care what happens to you if they don’t get caught,” said Blume.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Sure you do. I believe you when you say you’ll come clean if it means catching Alleva and Massoni, but you’d prefer not to, if possible.”

  “Only if possible,” said Paoloni.

  “Right. But there’s a corollary. If they don’t get caught, then you don’t want to get caught, either.”

  Paoloni was frowning in concentration, as if Blume’s reasoning were new to him. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I need to believe that you put getting them into custody ahead of your career. If news of the tip-off comes out, I don’t see how you can continue working with other police.”

  “The phone calls I made. I came here and told you. I’m doing what I can,” said Paoloni.

  Blume nodded. “OK. So, you got this phone call the day after the shooting. What time?”

  “Morning, ten seventeen to ten twenty. Less than three minutes. That’s what the technical report says.”

  “There’s a report?”

  “Yeah. They prepared a report. When they called me back to give me the information, they wanted to know who they could send the report to. They need authorization from a ranking officer or magistrate. I was hoping you could see to that.”

  Blume thought about it. The report was proof that Paoloni had done what he could to find Alleva.

  “OK. Maybe I can intercept the report before it lands on the wrong desk. At least we know he was still in the country. Even if he was in a port city.”

  “It was only Civitavecchia,” said Paoloni.

  “You don’t think Civitavecchia makes a good escape route?” said Blume.

  “If you’re escaping to Sicily or Sardinia and don’t feel like you need to hurry, it’s perfect,” said Paoloni. “I think it’s just sheer chance he called from there.”

  “Maybe it was deliberate misdirection. Still, there are ships to South America from there. Some ferries go to France, Corsica, Barcelona, or you could board a cruise ship going anywhere.”

  “Not anywhere fast,” said Paoloni.

  “Which is why the police don’t watch seaports as closely as airports,” said Blume. “I don’t know. Maybe he sailed away an hour later. Say he got to Corsica or Nice, he could have flown from an airport there, especially if he’s changing passports.”

  “They.”

  “What?”

  “You keep saying ‘he,’ but there’s two of them. Alleva and Massoni. And Massoni’s the one who pulled the trigger.”

  “You’re right,” said Blume. “But I bet Alleva’s escape plan is made for one. Staying together makes them more conspicuous, anyhow. They’ll have split up. And if we find Alleva, then we’ll find Massoni. Alleva’s already shown he’ll give up Massoni easily.”

  “Except he didn’t,” said Paoloni. “Massoni never came down the road in his SUV. We were watching other roads from the south and east as well. Nothing.”

  “Again, you’re right. But if he can pretend to betray Massoni like that . . . I don’t know. I think he could. Maybe he tried, but Massoni didn’t fall into the trap. At any rate, I think they are now separated.”

  Blume peeled back the strip of bandage holding the needle in his arm and started sliding the needle out with his thumb. “Jesus. You’d think they could put a needle in without causing so much fucking bruising.”

  “Maybe you did that to yourself,” said Paoloni.

  “What?”

  “In the accident.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Like your nose.”

  “What about my nose?”

  “It looks funny.”

  “Beppe, go downstairs, buy me a razor and shaving cream.”

  When Paoloni had left, Blume completed the removal of the intravenous feed, and stared at his arm with a look of disgust. He shoved the needle into the side of his mattress, took the keys, wallet, and phone Paoloni had brought him.

  Paoloni returned, and Blume handed him the keys. “Go to my house, now. In the bedroom, there’s a white cupboard with a sliding door. You’ll see a suit wrapped in green plastic, or maybe blue. Anyway, take that. Get me a pair of socks from the chest of drawers and on your way out, next to the door, there’s one of those plastic shoe holder things. Open it, take out a pair of black shoes. Bring the lot back here. Shit, a shirt. I need a shirt—and a tie, too. Either you iron me one or you buy me a new one. White, collar size forty-two, and a nice dark blue tie. No designs. There’s a big menswear place down at Piazza Re di Roma, near the house. It should take you, what, forty minutes to get there and back. Less if you use a siren. Turn it off when you’re buying me the shirt and tie.”

  “Are you leaving here?”

  “I’m going to the funeral. We both are,” said Blume.

  25

  WHILE PAOLONI WAS gone, Blume shaved, using the sink in his room. The whiplash collar made it difficult, and he couldn’t get rid of some stubble on his chin. He checked his nose, and it seemed fine to him, maybe a little fatter and more off-center than before. Then he sat there in his paper-thin green hospital pajamas waiting for Paoloni. He checked his cell phone and found the battery had died.

  When Paoloni eventually arrived, it was with a shirt with a thirty-eight collar. It would have been too small at the best of times, and did not come close to closing around the whiplash collar. Nor had he reckoned on his left arm not working at all. In the end, he had to forego the tie, which was a fat ugly thing anyhow, and get Paoloni to help him. As for Paoloni, he was now wearing a jacket and an open yellow shirt. His jeans were the same as before.

  Blume had to get Paoloni to tie his shoelaces, and it was just then that the nurse with flabby cheeks walked in. He expected a hands-on-hips scene of womanly outrage, but she just glanced down at Paoloni and then at Blume.

  “What are you doing?”

  “My shoelaces, or he is.”

  “So you’re leaving us. There’ll be paperwork.”

  “Have it sent to me.”

  “No. You have to sign yourself out. We don’t want you dying, then suing us.”

 
Paoloni straightened up. “If he died, then he couldn’t . . .”

  “Yeah, OK, Beppe. Thanks.” To the nurse he said, “Can you get me the forms to sign?”

  “Of course. The question is whether you’re even capable of pushing a pen.”

  “It’s my left arm that hurts. My right’s OK.”

  “You need to get that left arm in a sling if you’re planning on discharging yourself—which, it goes without saying, I am opposed to your doing.”

  “It’s a funeral. I have to be there.”

  The nurse shook her head. “And then I suppose you’ll come straight back here?”

  “To be honest,” said Blume, “I hadn’t really been planning . . .”

  “I was kidding. What I’ll do is send you down to emergency. They can put your arm in a sling. Then you’ll book yourself into outpatients for some follow-up visits. Won’t you?”

  “Um . . .”

  “You will. Because the discharge form will be waiting for you at the desk with a note from me. No return appointments, no discharge papers.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate this,” said Blume. “It might get you into a bit of trouble, mightn’t it, me disappearing like this?”

  “Trouble with who? The doctors here? Hah!”

  Blume thought if she had not been a middle-aged woman and a nurse, she might have spat on the floor at this point.

  It took Blume, with Paoloni following him around like a silent dog, more than an hour to get his arm put in a sling, make an appointment to return in two days, and sign the discharge papers. Finally, he walked out of the hospital, expecting a sense of liberation and air, but the heat was so great that he forgot about everything else and just concentrated on not swaying or stumbling. Paoloni lit a cigarette and started across the car park, Blume followed.

  As Paoloni drove them out of the car park, he lit another cigarette.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Blume, who was battling down wave after wave of nausea. “Put that out.” Somewhere far below the nausea and the shooting pains assailing his body, Blume knew he was hungry. “Close the window and turn on the air-conditioning.”

  Paoloni flicked his new cigarette out the window, and spun the dial of the AC up to full. He closed his window, blew smoke from his mouth and said, “We’ve still got too much time before it starts,” then slowed down so much Blume thought he was going to pull in.

  “No one actually saw Massoni kill Ferrucci,” said Paoloni. “But we know it was him, since Alleva didn’t have time. Ferrucci was getting out of the car, he had opened the door. He got shot three times in the head, close range, one on the side, two in front. The one on the side like that. He hadn’t a chance, poor kid. He probably never knew.”

  “The shot in the side of the head,” said Blume. “That wouldn’t be consistent with Alleva pulling a gun and firing as he ran in Ferrucci’s direction.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. That was the point I was supposed to be making. So we know it was someone who was there, and that someone was Massoni. We’ll get him for it.”

  Blume was pleased to see they were about to enter the Giovanni XIII tunnel and get out of the sun for a bit. “Where are we going, by the way?”

  “Borgata Fidene,” said Paoloni.

  “Right,” said Blume. “So that’s where Ferrucci lived.”

  The area of the city to which they were headed was a densely packed cluster of apartments built on a section of flood plain, hemmed in by a railway line, the ring road, and a bend in the river. The area had never been properly paved, let alone cleaned, and there were no sidewalks, just rows and rows of cars parked against apartment block walls. Traffic sped up and down narrow strips of asphalt in the middle, where some children played.

  If two cars ever met in the center strip, one had to reverse all the way back to the beginning of the street. For this reason, the inhabitants tended to respect the one-way traffic signals, but they were less respectful of other laws. For a small area, it accounted for a lot of police work.

  On Via Prati Fiscali, they hit a pothole so large Blume banged the side of his head against the window and wrenched his damaged arm.

  Paoloni slowed down again. “Sorry.”

  “We two should not be in a car together. That’s what it is,” said Blume.

  For the first time since he had walked into the hospital that morning, Paoloni smiled a little.

  “You know, Beppe, my driving spooked Alleva. I lost my cool, and Alleva panicked. If he hadn’t panicked, maybe Massoni wouldn’t have seen any need to shoot Ferrucci.”

  “Massoni wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t tipped Alleva off.”

  “All this is going to come out when internal affairs starts its investigation.”

  “I won’t be telling them anything about your driving,” said Paoloni.

  “I appreciate that, but maybe you should.”

  “Shit, I should have turned off there,” said Paoloni. “They put the sign for the Salaria at the exit, not before it . . .”

  “Take the next exit, double back,” said Blume. “If Alleva knew we were cops because you tipped him off, his actions don’t make sense.”

  “That he fled like that and allowed his thug to kill Ferrucci?” said Paoloni. “I know. Massoni’s thick, but I didn’t think he’d deliberately shoot a cop. I’m sure Alleva didn’t mean him to. That’s why I believed Alleva when he phoned me, saying he was sending Massoni to us like a sacrificial bull.”

  “What do you think happened?” asked Blume.

  “I think Alleva or Massoni thought we were someone else.”

  Blume said, “I think you’re right. All it took was a few minutes, long enough to panic. Alleva gets the nod from you, what does he do? He gets rid of a few things, then maybe calls in Massoni to make arrangements, gets him to hide some stuff, prepare for custody, get some alibis, what ever. But they didn’t meet to make a getaway. Also, if he was planning a getaway, the first thing he’d do is abandon Massoni.”

  Paoloni turned left onto a quiet street with trees and less rubbish than usual. “This way might even be quicker. Not as much traffic. We’re almost there.”

  He rolled down the window, and within seconds the cool air inside the car was swamped by humid heat. “Mind if I smoke?” he said.

  “Same answer as fifteen minutes ago,” said Blume.

  “Can I leave the window down, then? The air-conditioning gives me a headache. Also it gives me an acidic taste at the back of my throat. A bit like tomato skins. Ever get that?”

  “No.”

  Blume had to raise his voice a little above the sound of the car engine echoing back from the building walls through Paoloni’s window, “So Alleva arranges to meet Massoni, sees he’s been followed, and thinks it is someone else, even though you warned him we were going to pick him up.”

  “I don’t think he was expecting an operation like that, more of a visit from two cops, told to come quietly, like in the past,” said Paoloni.

  “And then my driving freaked him, he ran to Massoni, who had noticed Ferrucci, thought he was someone else . . . They thought it was an assassination attempt.”

  “Maybe,” said Paoloni.

  “Who are they scared of? Who would have them taken out? Innocenzi comes to mind.”

  “I thought about that, too,” said Paoloni. “Suppose Innocenzi thought Alleva had killed Clemente. Clemente was fucking Innocenzi’s daughter, which makes him sort of bastard family. So it’s like Alleva killed Innocenzi’s son-in-law, if you see what I mean. If Innocenzi thought that, then I wouldn’t want to be Alleva. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him. Getting shot would be good compared to getting disappeared, kept alive for days while Innocenzi used you to set an example to other would-be rebels and hopefuls.”

  “Enough to make you panic and start shooting,” said Blume.

  They arrived at a brick wall on which someone had painted “Romanians Out” and a backward swastika.

  “This is it,” said Paoloni.

  “This is a churc
h?” said Blume.

  26

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 4 P.M.

  BEHIND THE PERIMETER wall was a church made of the same brick, surrounded by a parking area full of police vehicles, including a short Iveco bus. At first sight, the numbers seemed impressive, but the people took up far less space than their cars. Around half the police present were in uniform. All of them were wearing sunglasses. Paoloni had his on already.

  “Go make yourself seen,” Blume told Paoloni. “Tell them we’ll get the people who did this, because we will. Relax. Nobody will blame you.”

  “Ferrucci’s family would if they knew.”

  “They don’t know,” said Blume. “But even if they did, it’s what your comrades think, not them.”

  Paoloni nodded and moved off.

  Blume could feel a lot of eyes turning in his direction, then swiveling quickly away before he could catch them. That was fine. He wanted to be seen. It was important for them to see him there, out of the hospital, in attendance, back in charge. Some would appreciate it.

  His new shirt was soaked through with sweat, and the sun was hurting his eyes. At best, he could stand another five minutes out here, waiting for the hearse to arrive. The doors to the church stood open, and the darkness inside seemed inviting. A hand pressed his shoulder, and Blume thought his legs might buckle from the added weight.

  “The Holy Ghost wants you to go over to him so he can bless you in public.” It was Principe.

  “I don’t feel like it,” said Blume.

  “I thought you wouldn’t, which is why I’m warning you now. He was on television two days ago saying Alleva’s actions and his subsequent disappearance are absolute proof of his guilt. You catch that item?”

  “No. I was dead to the world.”

  “So you’re to be congratulated for your brave effort,” said Principe.

  “He wants to associate my name rather than his own with Ferrucci’s death.” Blume found he was walking toward the yawning doors of the church, as if they were drawing him in.

  “I thought you should know. Also, he’s talking about promotion, which is really turning people against you.”