Kill the Angel

by Sandrone Dazieri

  “Does he add up to you as a terrorist?” Guarneri asked as if he’d read Dante’s mind. “A dope dealer and a drunk?”

  “He wouldn’t be the first one to be lightning-struck by religion,” Dante replied. Except Musta was anything but that, and nothing in the material that Dante had turned up suggested somebody with a few screws loose. Still, he was positive he wasn’t mistaken. The way that Musta held his neck and the position of his shoulders were identical to what he’d seen in one of the two terrorists in the video, the smaller one who spoke Arabic the worst.

  Their stop at the shipping office where Musta had worked as a loader and the conversation at the immigrant bar where he’d been arrested for dealing hash yielded no results. Thanks to his boyish face, Alberti was able to pass himself off as a friend and managed to learn, without arousing suspicions, that no one had seen Musta in the past few days. That left the young man’s residence, an apartment in a two-hundred-unit housing project that was as densely packed as a beehive. Moreover, at least half of the apartments were occupied illegally. Musta lived there with his brother, Mario Nassim, and his mother, who worked for a company that made construction machinery. The father had gone back to Morocco when Musta was a child, and hadn’t been heard from since.

  The four of them parked not far from the apartment house, which looked like a hill made of cement that had been skinned by the sun. Outside the front entrance, which was cluttered with bicycles, children of all different nationalities were making a tremendous commotion while waiting for dinner. Along that same street were six other apartment buildings that looked exactly the same, lining a field covered with scrub and weeds. There was no sign of a neon shop or café sign within three quarters of a mile: it reminded Dante of Escape from New York or perhaps a dumbed-down local version of it.

  Esposito locked arms with Dante and dragged him a short distance away from the others. “You and I need to be very clear on this point. Faouzi might be armed, and there is no reason for us to work on trust here. Are we in agreement so far?”

  Dante nodded.

  “The people who live around here are mostly blacks and Gypsies, people who mind their own fucking business because it’s in their best interest,” Esposito went on. “Still, someone might call 911 if they see us break in, is that understood?”

  “What you want to know is whether it’s worth running the risk.”

  “If Faouzi is the right guy, no one’s going to give us a hard time, but if he isn’t, we definitely could be looking at some problems.”

  Dante hesitated. This was his chance to put a halt to the madness and spare everyone a world of trouble. But he was too proud to pull back after having accepted the job. “I’m reasonably certain,” he said. “But if I were infallible, I’d be a very rich man already.”

  Esposito grimaced with some amusement. “Word is you get pretty good pay for your consulting.”

  “Never enough,” Dante replied. He didn’t mention that he hadn’t taken any work in months.

  Esposito lit a cigarette and offered him one, keeping an eye on the front entrance the whole time, and Dante caught a glimpse of what Esposito must have been like as a young man before being overwhelmed by the error of his ways. “What are we going to do if Faouzi isn’t there?” Dante asked.

  “We’ll be fucked unless we find something useful in his apartment.”

  “Like a cyanide tank?”

  “That would be ideal.”

  Esposito went back to his partners. In the meantime, Alberti had managed to find the right apartment by talking to the children. “Thirteenth floor, first door after the elevator.”

  Esposito pulled his pistol out of the holster, retracted the slide, and jammed it into the outside pocket of his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  Guarneri and Alberti each chambered a bullet, Alberti with shaking hands. “No bulletproof vests?” he asked.

  “You want them to know we’re coming before we reach the door?” asked Esposito.

  “So what if he’s waiting for us with a Kalashnikov?” asked Guarneri.

  “That’s the point; if we show up with bulletproof vests, he’ll just aim at the head.”

  “I’m putting mine on,” said Alberti, heading back to the car, and at that point the two others decided to put theirs on, too.

  Guarneri and Esposito went in, but Dante held Alberti back by the arm. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked. “You’ve already been through a lot.”

  Alberti made a face. “And that’s why I’m going in. I want to see how it turns out,” he said, vanishing through the door.

  I don’t, thought Dante.

  He had a pretty clear idea that he wouldn’t like it one bit.

  4

  The Three Amigos rode up to the twelfth floor on the elevator and then climbed the last flight of stairs as silently as possible. There were no children playing up here, only the sound of television sets and stereos vibrating in the stairwells and the odor of cooking food.

  On the landing, Esposito drew his gun and held it with both hands, leveled at the door, while Alberti braced Guarneri, who kicked with both feet, hitting the door right next to the lock and breaking it open. The door swung open with the sound of shattering wood. Guarneri ran in, swinging his pistol in an arc, followed by the other two, who shouted for anyone inside to freeze and put their hands up. A young man in his early twenties staggered out of the bedroom in boxer shorts and an undershirt; this one weighed twice as much as the suspect and was wreathed in a cloud of hash smoke. “Huh?” was all he managed to get out before Esposito punched him in the face, knocking him to the floor.

  ° ° °

  Ten minutes had passed since they’d broken down the door. Dante was waiting outside the front entrance with his stomach in a knot. At last he heard the elevator door opening, and Alberti emerged into the courtyard. He had taken off his bulletproof vest. “He’s not home,” he said.

  “That’s a lot of work for nothing. Any suspicious-looking tanks?”

  “Not so far, but the brother’s in there, and he says he doesn’t know anything. If you could come up and give us a hand, we’d be very grateful. If possible, in a hurry.”

  Dante looked at the dimly lit entrance, which looked to him like a gaping maw ready to devour him. Christ, I was hoping to avoid that, he thought. “You’re going to have to turn on all the lights.”

  “In the apartment?”

  “In the apartment building. We’re going up on foot.”

  “All thirteen stories?”

  “If you think I can do it shut up in a little metal box hanging off some cables, you couldn’t be any more wrong.” Dante pulled out a couple of Xanax tablets and crushed them with two coins, then snorted them before the other man’s scandalized eyes. “It works faster this way.”

  “If you say so,” said Alberti, unconvinced.

  The medicine hit Dante like a sledgehammer when they were still on the second floor. He felt his body become engulfed in a leaden diving suit and his thoughts suddenly slow to a crawl. Moving his legs became very difficult, and Alberti was forced to drag and shove him up twenty flights of stairs as Dante muttered with his eyes closed.

  When they got to the top with aching legs, it looked as if a tornado had touched down in Faouzi’s apartment, a one-bedroom with about five hundred square feet of floor space, its walls covered with junk-shop paintings and photographs. Clothing, books, and bric-a-brac were scattered everywhere.

  “You two certainly took your time,” said Esposito as they came through the door. He was busy slicing open the upholstery of a couch with a kitchen knife. He and Guarneri had also removed their bulletproof vests, which lay abandoned on a pile of dismantled furniture. Mario Nassim, Musta’s brother, was stretched out on his belly in the hallway, arms handcuffed behind his back and his nose bleeding. He was covered with bad imitations of gang tattoos that promised to be a major source of headaches if he ever wound up in prison.

  Dante looked around, praying silently that thi
s was just a hallucination caused by the Xanax. He went into the bedroom that the brothers shared, now turned into a dump of ripped-open mattresses, torn-up comic books, exercise equipment that had been dismantled and stacked up on the floor, along with DVDs, plastic action figures, and leftover food. There was also a PlayStation 3 that would never work again. “Is this how you guys always search a place?” he asked with a cardboard tongue.

  Guarneri was tearing the last drawer out of a dresser. “When we’re in a hurry,” he explained. “Any problems?”

  Dante had plenty of problems, especially with himself. “Find anything?”

  “Just lots of dust and microbes.”

  Esposito walked into the room, grim-faced. “Same here. Which means that our young friend here is going to have to help us out.” He leaned over the handcuffed young man, who lay on the floor like a three-hundred-fifty-pound salami. His boxer shorts had been tugged down over his ass, displaying two enormous, hairy butt cheeks. “Are you a Muslim, Mario?”

  “Do I look like a Hare Krishna to you?” he retorted.

  Esposito gave him a hard smack on the back of his neck. “Don’t get smart with me, just answer the question. Are you a Muslim?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you say about your friends killing all those people on that train?”

  “That they aren’t friends of mine.”

  “What about your brother? Is he a Muslim, too?”

  “He prays every now and then.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I already told you, I don’t know. He left for work and hasn’t come home.”

  “He didn’t go to work, smarty-pants.”

  “He didn’t say anything to me about that.”

  Esposito got up and gestured to Guarneri. “Help me take him in the bathroom.”

  The boy’s eyes widened in terror. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “We’re going to give you a little rinse. Maybe you’ll turn white.”

  Esposito lifted him up, and Guarneri grabbed him from the other side. The young man tried to wriggle free, but Esposito slammed his elbow into the pit of his stomach, leaving him gasping for breath; he would have fallen if Guarneri hadn’t held him up. “If you struggle, it’s just going to be worse,” he told him.

  There was a part of Dante that gladly would have let Esposito keep it up. If a terrorist’s brother refused to cooperate, the very least he could expect was some rough treatment. But it was only a small part of Dante. “Put him down,” he said.

  “You just don’t worry your little head, this is our line of work,” said Esposito.

  “I told you to put him down. And I’m not joking.”

  Esposito let go of the boy and leaned in. “This piece of shit is going to find out we were in his house. Either we get him now or we can kiss him goodbye.”

  Dante stuck his hands in his pockets to conceal the tremor. “You’re right about that. But these aren’t the methods.”

  “If you don’t like them, you can go back where you came from.”

  Dante realized he would need to change his tactics and spoke directly to the prisoner. “Signor Faouzi. I have a lawyer who is as cunning as he is ferocious. I’ll help you file a complaint for police brutality. And I’ll testify in your favor.” He stared at the policemen. Guarneri and Alberti were embarrassed, Esposito livid. “Three against two, you have us outnumbered, but if you ask me, we’d win in court anyway,” he said.

  “Are you out of your mind?” asked Guarneri.

  “Sure, but not right now. And I have no intention of approving the use of waterboarding or other forms of torture. If you don’t understand why, then there’s no point in me trying to explain it to you.”

  “Maybe he’s right,” Alberti said timidly.

  Esposito shut him up with a shove. “You don’t get a vote, penguin. You’ve already busted my balls enough for today,” he roared. Then he stepped closer to Dante. “The deputy chief seems to think quite a lot of you, Torre. But it’s not going to turn out the way you want here.”

  “Come on, Esposito, let’s not overdo it,” murmured Guarneri.

  Dante gestured for him to pipe down. He didn’t need anyone to defend him. “Are you willing to kill me here and now, Inspector Esposito?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Dante took the glove off his bad hand, and Esposito grimaced in disgust. “I was tortured for thirteen years of my life. I’ve been exposed to cold and heat, left without food or water, intentionally crippled. If you want to stop me, you’re going to have to do worse to me than that. Are you feeling up to it?”

  “Do you understand that they’re going to put the blame on us if we can’t find that piece of shit?” Esposito asked, clearly embarrassed.

  “Yes, I do. That’s why I need ten minutes with his brother.” Dante wondered whether he’d be able to hold out that long. He could feel himself suffocating between those walls, however much he kept his eyes focused on the sky he could glimpse through the open window.

  “Are you going to try some of your little tricks out on him?” asked Guarneri.

  “I don’t do little tricks. But yes.”

  “Then get moving,” said Esposito, and turned on his heel. The others followed him, last of all Alberti, with a wink of complicity. Dante leaned over the young man and helped him to his feet, then over to the metal bedsprings, now stripped of the mattress. He sat down next to Mario and offered him a cigarette.

  “Good cop, bad cop?” asked Mario.

  “I’m not a cop at all, but that’s the general idea.” Dante lit cigarettes for both of them.

  “My mother’s going to go crazy when she sees what you’ve done to her home.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Dante sincerely. “But your brother is in real trouble.”

  “What has he done?”

  “What do you think?”

  Mario’s voice went up by a good octave. “The train?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “My brother’s not a terrorist. He doesn’t even know how to fistfight, much less kill people.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “This morning, early. We were watching the news about the attack on television. Mamma was sleeping.”

  “And how did he seem to you?”

  “I don’t know. Worried. Scared. Then he started drinking.” The boy leaned toward Dante. “He didn’t know a thing! I swear to you.”

  Dante studied the boy and realized he was telling the truth. A fine mess, he thought. “Wait for me here.”

  “And where else do you think I can go?” Mario replied sadly.

  Dante rejoined the Three Amigos, who were just finishing their demolition of the kitchen. “Do we have a confession?” Esposito asked sarcastically. “The smoking cyanide tank?”

  “I need to talk to Colomba. Do you know what kind of situation she’s in?”

  “Nothing new,” said Alberti.

  “But we need to get a move on,” said Guarneri. “They called us in from Central, and we need to get back there to be questioned about what happened.”

  “Right away?”

  “We stalled for time. But at the very most, in a couple of hours.”

  Harder and harder, thought Dante as he stepped out onto the balcony off the bathroom. The fresh air did him good, but he avoided looking down: he suffered from vertigo. He called with the usual system, and Colomba answered after a few seconds.

  She was on the staircase leading down into the gymnasium, where she had been obliged to accompany the magistrate Spinelli and the Forensic Squad to reconstruct the mechanics of the shootout. “Tell me you have news for me.”

  “I think I found one of the two, CC.”

  It took Colomba’s breath away. She hadn’t really believed that Dante could pull it off—not in such a short amount of time, anyway.

  “Are you certain?”

  “I wouldn’t have called you otherwise.”

  �
�Who is it?”

  “His name is Musta Faouzi, he’s twenty-five years old, and he doesn’t seem like a nut or a fundamentalist. He has a criminal record but nothing much.”

  Colomba went back up to the alcohol-free bar two steps at a time, stunned and excited. “I’ve seen the most upright, unsuspectable individuals do terrible things, Dante.”

  “There are no signs of obsession, he’s on decent terms with his brother and his mother, he drinks and does drugs just like any kid his age. There’s something that doesn’t add up, CC.”

  For the past few seconds, Colomba had stopped listening. “Did you break in?” she asked in a much less excited tone of voice.

  “Yes.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you to let me know in advance?”

  “You assigned this task to me, and I’m doing it the best way I know how,” Dante replied, his feelings hurt.

  Colomba wiped off her sweaty face. “I’ll talk to the magistrate and get a search warrant issued.”

  “Without any evidence? You said yourself that they’d never believe you.”

  Colomba gripped her cell phone so hard that it creaked. “I thought you wanted to get out of this at the first opportunity. What’s come over you? Have you actually grown a sense of civic duty?” She immediately regretted saying that. After all, she had reached out to him. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t think twice. You have every reason to be worried, and I understand that. Still, let me give it another shot and try to figure it out before throwing in the towel.” Since they’d started questioning Musta’s brother, Dante had been feeling a strange growing excitement, the feeling he experienced in the presence of a mystery as it began to unfold in front of his eyes. He could perceive something dark lurking in the shadows, something that simultaneously attracted him and frightened him. “Your men have to report to the magistrate in two hours. Let me have them. You would waste more time trying to convince the assholes you report to.”