THE DOGS of ROME

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Lying next to the refrigerator was a long white pole with a twisted bit of cable coming out of one end and a hoop at the other. He pulled on the cable and watched the hoop at the other end tighten.

  Pernazzo drank a beer, which tasted a bit oily. He tossed the bottles at an abandoned caravan, aiming at the windows and missing. He thought he saw something moving beneath. A rat, probably. A large one, from the shadow it cast.

  He grabbed a handful of meat, and went directly to the mongrel’s cage and threw it at the bars. About a third went in; the rest wrapped itself on the bars and fell outside. The dog took what had arrived, and ate it calmly. Other dogs growled and some barked, but there was a lot more whining this time. He risked putting his hand near the cage and picking up the dropped bits, which he inserted between the bars. The dog soon ate those. Pernazzo tossed him more and more meat, which the animal ate with equanimity.

  Then he fetched the long pole with the wire noose and held it in front of him, unsure what to do. A small pulley system allowed the front bars of the cage to slide up, like a portcullis. Pernazzo reckoned the mongrel was small enough, and risked opening the trapdoor a third of the way. The animal meekly poked its head out, and Pernazzo slipped the steel cord over its neck, then pulled the lever on the pole. He dragged the animal sideways across the gravel, keeping a good distance with the pole, and then opened the trapdoor of a cage containing the Tosa Inu. His courage and skill now increased, he performed the same operation with the Doberman, feeding it, holding it down with the control pole and maneuvering it into the same cage, so that all three dogs were enclosed in a space so tight that it reminded him of a cartoon. The underdog whimpered and tried to squeeze its way out between the bars. The other two tried to stand up, but they did not have sufficient space. They crouched, legs bent outward, and bared their teeth at each other. He waited five minutes, hoping to see the two larger dogs go for each other or turn on the underdog, but the animals seemed determined only to growl. Pernazzo resolved to come back after three days to see what the result was.

  A zinc sluice-trough ran lengthways through all the cages. It entered through a narrow aperture on one side of the cage and out the other side to the next, and so on down to the end. The trough sloped slightly so that the water flowed down as far as the last cage. It was done so that the dog nearest the tap got first go at the water. The water flowed just fast enough for some water to reach all the way down to the last animal. Pernazzo turned the tap off.

  He made several trips back and forth to the refrigerator, gathering the gobbets and hunks of meat, which he placed outside the dogs’ cages, just out of their reach.

  44

  PERNAZZO WAS DRIVING past the turn-off to Santa Severa when his phone started playing the Black-Eyed Peas.

  “Where are you?” demanded Massoni.

  “On the way. Past Santa Severa. Fifteen minutes tops.”

  “I’ve turned back three taxis. The same guy came twice, can you believe it? Says Alleva raised a real stink on the phone.”

  Pernazzo turned on RAI Radio 2. Francesco de Gregori and Fiorella Mannoia were singing “L’Uccisione di Babbo Natale.” He listened all the way through, but didn’t get it. Two DJs came on and cracked a series of jokes at each other and howled with laughter. He phoned Massoni. “Right. I’m near Civitavecchia, now what?”

  “Wait till the divided highway runs out—have you got any water with you?”

  “No. The road runs out. I can picture that. I know where you’re talking about.”

  Massoni said, “I’ve just been thinking about Ferrarelle, waterfalls, icy streams, melt water, Sprite.”

  “Directions, Massoni.”

  “Clock exactly five-point-three kilometers, turn off to the right. Go thirty meters. You see a green gate to an abandoned house on your left, you’re on the right road. If not, go back to the main road, take the next turn to the right . . . Dust . . . Another fucking taxi!”

  Pernazzo hung up. He was less than ten minutes away. He found the road as Massoni had instructed, and didn’t need to look for the gate, because as he turned into it, a taxi pulled out. He drove four kilometers over a red dust track.

  Suddenly a large powdered figure emerged as if from nowhere and stood in the road in front of him. Pernazzo stopped and Massoni rapped on the driver’s window with hairy knuckles.

  “You sure you’ve no water? Some Sprite maybe? A beer would be good,” said Massoni when Pernazzo rolled down the window.

  “No. Let’s move. You’ll get water when we get back to the house. How far?”

  “What?”

  “Are you listening, Massoni?”

  “Sure. It’s the heat. Can you say whatever it was again?”

  “OK, but listen. We drive back towards the house, slowly so that he doesn’t hear the vehicles approach. How close can we get before they become visible from the house?”

  Massoni slapped himself to get rid of insects. His mouth was open and his tongue protruded slightly.

  Pernazzo said, “Picture yourself in the house. You are inside looking out. How far before we become visible?”

  “About thirty meters. If he’s inside looking out, but if he’s outside the front door he’ll see us from a distance.”

  Pernazzo said, “He probably won’t be outside in this heat. Unless he’s getting nervous, which he probably is. Anyhow, let’s just get on with it.”

  He outlined his plan again.

  Massoni got into the SUV, turned it with some difficulty, then drove slowly back toward the house. A minute later, he pulled onto the verge and Pernazzo did likewise.

  Massoni got out and, ducking slightly, made his way into the fields to his left and circled around the back of the house. A small olive grove afforded him protection at the back, but it still took him a full ten minutes to arrive at the front of the house. He went down on his hands and knees to get past the front window, and then stood up right next to the front door. Then he waved to Pernazzo, who gave three short blasts of his car horn, then got out to watch.

  In the distance, Pernazzo saw Massoni stiffen as the door to the house opened. He saw Massoni step out in front of the figure that had emerged and deliver a massive blow with the flat of his hand sending him sprawling on all fours to the hard-baked earth. Then Massoni delivered a series of accurate head kicks to the prostrate figure. He climbed into the van and drove toward them.

  Massoni hauled his boss into the house, pulled a chair out from under the small table in front of the kitchenette, pushed him down into it, then jerked him up by the hair, told him to sit straight, put his hands on the table where he could see them. Alleva did as he was told, placing his palms down flat on the yellow polyester oilcloth like a drunk preparing to leave for the bathroom.

  Even the few seconds during which the door was open had been enough to allow in a group of flies that went straight to the middle of the small room and began circling. A bluebottle shot through the room and banged off a cupboard, and a massive carpenter bee hovered on the other side of the window glass, as if planning a break-in.

  Massoni sat down on the chair opposite. Pernazzo appeared in the doorway.

  “I bet you’re Angelo Pernazzo,” said Alleva, a slight slur in his voice. They were the first words he had uttered since he had been brought down outside the front door.

  “Very unimpressive now that I’m here,” said Pernazzo. “Maybe you should have kicked him a bit more,” he said to Massoni.

  Alleva’s face was swollen on the left side. Pink blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, red blood from above his eye, and he was coated in dust that looked like paprika.

  Pernazzo walked to the head of the short table and looked down at the two men seated opposite each other. “Am I the only one who finds the crackling of the grass insects hard to bear?” he said.

  “It’s the heat,” replied Massoni. “I’m just going to get myself a glass of water.” He made to stand up. He lifted up his enormous hand to reveal a small stainless-steel revolver with
a barrel stretching hardly any further than its trigger guard. “He had this on him. He’s not armed now.”

  Pernazzo held up a hand, “You sit where you are, Massoni. I’ll get you your water.”

  He came around the table, passing behind Massoni, and stepped behind the counter that separated the living space from a kitchenette. He opened the refrigerator, looked in.

  “Levissima,” he said. “Melted glacier water. Tastes of nothing, but quenches the thirst just great.” He took out a clear plastic bottle with a blue label. “Where do you keep your glasses? Oh, here they are. Nice little place, this. Well-equipped. Very small. What was it, an animal house or something once?” He took out two glass tumblers, which clinked together as he clasped them between thumb and finger. He carried the bottle and the glasses over to the table, coming behind Alleva this time, and placed them on the table. Then, reaching behind into his pants, he pulled out the Glock, tilted it slightly at Alleva’s temple. Alleva flinched, started to say something, but Pernazzo tapped him on the ear with the piece, and he fell silent.

  Pernazzo said, “Pour me a glass, too, Massoni. It will taste all the better for the wait.”

  Massoni had wrenched the plastic cap off the bottle, and had almost been about to tilt the bottle straight into his mouth. Displaying unexpected breeding, he stopped himself in time and put water into the glass farthest from him first, and then into his own.

  Massoni took the tumbler in his clumsy hand, brought it to his parched lips, and Pernazzo shot him in the face.

  Massoni’s head snapped back. The glass slipped onto his chest, rolled over his stomach, fell onto the floor without breaking. Pernazzo swept his hand across the table and scooped up the small pistol in his left hand.

  “Jesus!” shouted Alleva, bringing his hand up to his ear.

  “How do you think that happened?” said Pernazzo. “The glass not breaking?”

  Massoni’s left arm twitched.

  Pernazzo said, “Looks as if he’s still alive, what do you say?” He walked around the table and looked at the back of the skull. “Yuck. Looks pretty bad from here.”

  “Jesus,” repeated Alleva, cupping both hands over his right ear. “You’ve burst my ear drum.”

  “Must have been a nerves thing. Like frog legs twitching when you put a current into them.”

  He walked round the table, stood slightly behind Alleva’s left. “You can hear fine with this one, right?”

  Alleva nodded.

  Pernazzo said, “So how am I doing for a noob?” He tapped Alleva’s good ear with the warm barrel.

  Alleva hunched his shoulders, leaned forward. Pernazzo pressed harder, and using the pistol as a pivot, described a semicircle until he was next to Massoni’s slumped body. He unzipped Massoni’s top, then pulled back for a few seconds to double-check. Massoni seemed too warm to be dead, and there wasn’t that much blood either. Carefully he slipped his hand in and pulled out a two-tone pistol with a silver slide and black frame.

  “Nice. What sort is this?”

  “I can’t see,” said Alleva.

  Pernazzo released some of the pressure and Alleva unbowed his head.

  “A Sig Sauer I think.”

  “And this little one you had?”

  “A Davis P-32.”

  “I’m still learning,” said Pernazzo, pocketing Alleva’s pistol. It fit nice and neat. He pushed Massoni’s Sig Sauer down the back of his trousers. It was very uncomfortable. “Where were you planning to escape to?”

  “Argentina.”

  “This evening?”

  “What?”

  Pernazzo raised his voice. “This evening?”

  “Starting from this evening.”

  “Any more taxis on their way?”

  Alleva hesitated a second, which was all Pernazzo needed. “I see. Phone up the taxi people, tell them you don’t need them anymore.”

  “I have to stand up, get the phone out of my pocket.”

  “Just so long as you sit down again, and don’t turn around.”

  Alleva stood up, took the phone out.

  “Give me the phone.” Alleva backhanded it to him. “Last number you called?”

  Alleva gave a weary nod. Pernazzo pressed the green button twice, listened to see who answered, then stuck the phone at Alleva’s good ear. The man on the other end did not seem happy.

  Alleva finished with, “You can send out who you like, but no one will be here.” Pernazzo hung up for him.

  “I’m not sure I like that. They could still send someone,” said Pernazzo.

  “What was that? I can’t hear.”

  Pernazzo pulled the phone away, brought his mouth closer to Alleva’s left ear, “Better?” he whispered, and huffed some moisture into Alleva’s earhole.

  “I can hear you, if that’s what you mean,” replied Alleva.

  “I said they might still send someone.”

  “You want to talk to them?” asked Alleva.

  “No. I want you to talk to me, Renato. That’s your Christian name, Renato, isn’t it? Let me see . . . I suppose we can begin with where you keep your money, and how you’re going to transfer it to me. Massoni thought he needed my computer expertise for this. I even brought my portable, just in case. But why Massoni there didn’t just beat it out of you is beyond me.”

  “Massoni was incapable of turning on a computer. He thought you needed to be good at math to operate one.”

  “So he’d have gotten me to do the transfers, then killed both of us.”

  “Probably not you,” said Alleva. “He would have needed your help again. He’d have killed me, no problem.”

  A fly had settled on Massoni’s blood-speckled forehead and was crawling downward.

  “Tell me, this underdog thing . . . Were you in on it, or was it Massoni’s idea?”

  “Underdog? What’s that?”

  “You know what it is,” said Pernazzo.

  “What was the idea? That some unlikely dog would win in combat?”

  “Yeah, that’s the general idea,” said Pernazzo.

  “I didn’t even know he was setting you up,” said Alleva. “I didn’t think he had the imagination, though this underdog sounds like a variation on an old con trick. Feed people false inside information; let their greed do the rest.”

  “He thought I would bet all my mother’s inheritance.”

  “How much was that? A bet over ten thousand euros had to be approved by Innocenzi, who gets twenty percent. Massoni would have had to tell me about it then.”

  “It was eight thousand. That’s what I told him. I was just stringing him along, really.”

  Alleva took his hand away from his ear and fingered it gently, feeling for damage. Pernazzo felt a tickling on his own hand and glanced down.

  A hard-shelled brown and white insect was sitting in the soft spot between thumb and index finger.

  “How stupid did that dead man there think I was?” He pointed to a portable computer on the countertop separating the kitchenette from the table where Alleva now sat. “I’m taking it that Compaq notebook on the counter works.”

  “It works,” said Alleva.

  “You can’t have broadband out here, though. Too far from the digital exchange.”

  “No, just a TIM GSM dongle. It’s slow.”

  “No broadband, no neighbors, nothing at all out there except hidden Etruscan tombs,” said Pernazzo. He moved over to the counter and opened the computer.

  “Password?”

  “Sirius69.”

  Pernazzo typed it in. “Aww . . . Now look at that. Nothing in the browser history, all your cache cleared. You are a careful man. This means I’m going to have to trust you to open all your online accounts. Now, how can I be sure you’re going to do that?”

  Alleva said, “They only let me transfer to another account that is in my name and that I have already activated. If I transfer into my account, it’ll take a few days before I can transfer from there into yours.”

  “You think I would
make you do all that work? All I need are the numbers, codes, any electronic keys they gave you. I’ll do all that hard work of transferring the money.”

  He placed the notebook in front of Alleva. Then he gave him a pen and a piece of paper. “Start writing down your passwords, and show me that they work.”

  After half an hour, Alleva had opened three accounts. They were all he had going, he said.

  “Your balances amount to less than three hundred thousand? That’s not so good for a life of crime.”

  “There were overheads. And this is an emergency escape. I didn’t have much planning time.”

  Pernazzo put his Glock to the back of Alleva’s head and pressed hard, really hard, as if the gun was a knife that would eventually penetrate. He nodded in the direction of a closed door. Judging from what he had seen outside, this had to be the only other room in the place.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Bedroom.”

  “And?”

  “Floor safe.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Alleva’s knees wobbled slightly as he walked and Pernazzo eased the pressure slightly. Alleva pushed a camp bed aside, knelt down, opened a floor safe. He pulled out a wad of green hundred-euro notes, which set Pernazzo’s heart racing. Three passports and—“Hold it! Put that stapler thing down, slowly.”

  Alleva did so. Pernazzo picked up and held aloft a shining metal object with a lever. “Weighs a ton.”

  “It’s an embosser. For the passports,” said Alleva. He dug his hand into the safe again, Pernazzo stood directly behind, as if he was pissing down his back. Alleva took out five shiny metal circles contained in clear plastic discs. Pernazzo stooped, picked them up, and rattled them.

  “And these?”

  “Those are the dies. For the embosser. For the passports, after the photo, you emboss, country seal, official, relief . . .” Alleva, unable to get enough saliva into his syllables, stopped talking altogether.