Viper jk-2

by Michael Morley

Working through the cap, it took him almost an hour to assemble just one largish section of the hotel paper and a single page of the magazine. But what he saw was enough to convince him that Luciano Creed could indeed be everything he feared.

  By the time he left the hotel, salt and grit had chewed like rats through the city's blanket of white snow. The sun was high and dazzlingly bright as traffic crawled back to normal – or as normal as New York City ever gets.

  Jack holed up for a while in a nearby deli. Black coffee and a skinny blueberry muffin quelled his hunger and fed his thoughts.

  'You want a refill?' The question came from a surly sumo wrestler masquerading as a waitress.

  'Thanks.' Jack proffered his mug.

  She walked away and he speed-dialled the cellphone of Massimo Albonetti, Direttore of Italy's Violent Crime Analysis Unit.

  'Pronto, parla Albonetti,' said a deep, Roman voice. He sounded distracted, maybe even annoyed at being interrupted.

  'Ciao, Direttore. Come stai?'

  There was a brief pause, then an eruption of laughter. 'Jack, my friend, you speak little Italian and the few words you have learned, you murder with your horrible American tongue. How are you?'

  'Vaffanculo, buddy. I'm fine.'

  More Italian laughter. 'Aah, the bad words you can pronounce properly. Fuck you too! You are like a small boy, using such language. Still, it is good to hear you.'

  'Thanks, but you might not think so in a minute. I'm in New York, been speaking at a crime seminar, and came across someone from your neck of the woods. Guy called Creed, Luciano Creed.'

  Albonetti was on his way into a community meeting. He'd been forced by his boss to address a holy order of brothers about the changing face of criminality in modern Italy. 'This name, it rings no bells.'

  'Didn't expect it to. He's from Naples. Says he's a psychologist attached to the carabinieri. Been digging into some Missing Persons files and reckons he's detected a series of murders.'

  'Murders in Naples?' Massimo faked surprise as he scribbled Creed's name on the front of a stack of files he was carrying. 'Now, that's a real shock.'

  'Yeah. I know they have more killings than Iraq. The local force apparently has them down as MPs but Creed's done some low-level profiling on them and it all comes up looking like a serial murder file.'

  'You think so?' Massimo sounded more serious now. He nodded politely at one of the brothers entering the conference room for the planned meeting.

  'It's more a perhaps at this stage. But I've seen enough to make me think there's a good chance we're not just looking at runaways. Can I give you some names?'

  'Sure, shoot.'

  Jack peered at the notepaper that Creed had forced on him. 'Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi, Gloria Pirandello and Francesca Di Lauro.'

  Massimo read them back to make sure there were no mistakes.

  'Do you think you could have a little dig around and check out Creed as well?'

  Massimo spelled out his name. 'C-R-E-E-D, and first name, Luciano?'

  'You got it.'

  'Okay. I am this second starting a meeting – with a bunch of priests, believe it or not – but I'll start digging around within the next hour or so.'

  'Thanks. I've got a bad feeling about this guy. He's a bit of a weirdo and he claims to have been personally involved with the last girl to have gone missing.'

  Massimo entered the room with his hand over the phone and apologized to his distinguished audience. 'Mi dispiace. Un momento per favore.' The twelve brothers seemed to understand – the officer was a busy man – they would wait patiently.

  Massimo spoke to Jack again. 'You'd have him as a suspect? He claims he's working with the police, but you think he might be the offender?'

  'That's too big a stretch. But he makes me uncomfortable. I found some pornography and also personal sketches he'd made. He'd ripped them up and left the pieces in the bin in his hotel room. The photographs were hard-core sadism, much edgier than your usual hand-party stuff. They showed a naked woman, cuffed to a metal pole, being whipped and branded with hot irons.'

  'Mannaggia! ' The Italian's emotions made him forget the company he was in. 'God Almighty, why do people find such things a turn-on? Whatever happened to a stolen kiss, a hand on the knee and the sweet hope that it might lead to a little more?'

  'Not for this guy, Mass. The sketches he'd made were of mutilated genitalia – multiple, obsessive drawings, too far out even for the Guggenheim.'

  'Porca Madonna!' exploded Massimo.

  The twelve holy brothers looked sharply at him and crossed themselves.

  Massimo cupped the phone and whispered to Jack, 'I'll get back to you. I think I'm going to have to say an act of contrition before I start this meeting.'

  14

  Centro citta, Napoli Nine-year-old Mario Gaggioli mumbled the instructions as he ran. This was an errand that he knew he mustn't get wrong. His long black hair trailed from a specially customized woollen rapper's hat. His wiry body zigzagged fearlessly between the honking mopeds, cars and trams that fought for space down Naples' potholed streets. He was Ronaldinho, sidestepping a sliding tackle. He was Henry, ready to sell a dummy and unleash a fireball from his foot. Above him, wet washing flapped from lines strewn from one balcony to another. Down at his level, old people swore as he bumped and barged his way past them. His foot flashed at a stone and thundered it into the path of traffic. Henry scores!

  True to his word, Mario didn't stop running until he reached his given destination. His body zinged with excitement. It was like Ronaldinho taking a penalty in the last minute of extra time. Now was the moment. The time to step up – to be brave – to deliver!

  Pounding towards the front steps he remembered the drill. He flipped the woollen hat round so it concealed his face but still allowed him to see through a slit he'd cut in it.

  Ronaldinho places the ball and takes three steps back.

  Inside the building, he spotted his target.

  The Brazilian begins his run.

  Behind the reception desk, a man in uniform looked up from paperwork he was helping a pensioner complete.

  'La bagascia e morta! ' shouted Mario. He threw the small soft parcel he'd been given into the chest of the carabinieri receptionist and bolted for the door.

  Ronaldinho scores! It's all over!

  Mario had no idea why he'd been told to shout the bitch is dead, and he had no clue as to what was in the handkerchief. The carabinieri officer picked it up from the floor and opened it.

  He wasn't sure what sickened him more, the sight of a severed tongue or the sure-fire fact that another young child's soul had already been lost to the Camorra.

  15

  Capo di Posillipo, La Baia di Napoli The fortified home of the Finelli family, known to the carabinieri as the Viper's Nest, was in a rocky, wooded height at the western end of the Bay of Naples.

  The spacious, sprawling structure was the product of two generations of Camorra activity. Fredo's father Luigi had been a young Neapolitan recruit to Vito Genovese's end-of-war smuggling activities. After helping re-route thousands of tons of army grain to the black market that was run from Nola, in the east of Naples, he went on to serve the Families of Lucky Luciano, set up after the mobster arrived in 1946. Luciano lived in the region until 1962 and by then Luigi Finelli had risen through the ranks and was running his own Camorra clan.

  Despite bitter differences between father and son in later life, Luigi's portrait still hung above the table where three generations of the family ate dinner on a giant oak table. Many years earlier, Fredo had paid a local sculptor to fell the tree, slice it in two, treat the timber and then hand carve the bespoke piece that he hoped would be handed down from generation to generation.

  Fredo's two younger brothers, Dominico and Marco, had come tonight with their wives, their sons and daughters and grandchildren. In all, the great tree had just finished hosting eighteen people, ranging in age from four to sixty-four.

  There wa
s no formality to what happened after dinner. Everyone went their own way. The children – mostly the same age – raced each other round the corridors until they were red-faced. Meanwhile, Gina Valsi and the rest of the adults took coffee and desserts in a giant L-shaped garden room that opened into a pool house where the kids would scream and splash once their dinners had settled.

  Her husband and her father didn't join them. There was business to discuss. Don Fredo apologized and begged their understanding.

  The Capofamiglia put his arm around his son-in-law's shoulders and guided him to his study. The den was large but warm and had a carefully crafted cosiness. The walls and floors were panelled in cherry wood, with floor-to-ceiling shelving filled with antique books on three sides and a custom-built desk and drawer area occupying the other wall. Three green antique leather settees formed a horseshoe around a giant cherry-wood table scattered with legal documents and company accounts. The centrepiece was a silver ashtray. Don Fredo lit a Toscana cigar. 'Please, sit,' he said, waving a hand at the settees. He heard Valsi settle noisily into the leather as he produced a bottle of Vecchio brandy and two crystal glasses.

  'Salvatore tells me you managed to renew your acquaintance with our old friend from Assisi?' He chose the couch across the table and poured generous measures.

  Valsi took a glass. 'Yes, it was good to catch up, but we won't be seeing each other again.'

  They clinked crystal.

  Don Fredo gently swirled the amber liquid, smelled it and took a warming sip. 'We mustn't be gone too long. It is impolite with family in the house. But I want to share a concern with you, and it is best we talk now before it grows into a problem between us.'

  Valsi made a point of sitting upright. He wanted the Don to know he had his full attention.

  'When you were in prison, you formed some friendships with people who, now you are free again, it would not be appropriate for you to continue having relationships with.'

  The young Capo put down his brandy. 'When I went to jail, you told me that survival in Poggioreale would be all about relationships. You were right. Many people were good to me. I feel it would be wrong now to forget them.'

  'I know. But despite how you feel, forget them you must.'

  Valsi tried not to show his annoyance. 'But please, tell me, who exactly are you suggesting I turn my back on?'

  Don Fredo looked directly into his son-in-law's eyes. 'It would not, for example, be good for you to associate, or be linked in any way, with the likes of Alberto Donatello or Romano Ivetta.'

  Valsi stared back. The Don was well informed. These were men he wanted. Soldiers to form the backbone of his crew. 'They are good men. They would join our Family if we asked. And if we do not ask, then they will join someone else's Family and that will be our loss.'

  'They are not good men, Bruno, and they are no loss!' The old man's eyes blazed with anger. 'They are heroin dealers who got caught, so they are not even good at that.'

  'They were not caught. They were betrayed,' insisted Valsi, 'by greedy cops who wanted more than their fair share in kickbacks.'

  Don Fredo sighed wearily. 'All cops are greedy. It has been that way since the first of them pinned on a badge. These friends of yours are stupid if they do not understand these things and make provision. But that is not my main point.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Bruno, heroin and coke are not our things. Narcotics we leave to the Cicerone Family. They, in turn, leave the garment business to us. They do not tender against us when we produce for the big fashion houses and that gives us a rich advantage. Contrary to what the press say, we do cooperate with other Families and we do respect each other.'

  Valsi took a hit of brandy to calm himself. 'Do you really believe that Cicerone does not supply counterfeit clothing to the houses in Milano? You think he does not own designer warehouses and outlets in Germany stacked with clothes made under your nose? With all due respect, his Family is worse than the cops who betrayed Alberto and Romano.'

  Sal had warned him that Valsi was bold. Nevertheless, the young man was even more stubborn than Don Fredo had bargained for. 'The matter is closed.' He picked up his cigar and for a second or so had to work hard at bringing it back to life. Finally he inhaled and slowly blew out a long thin cloud. 'There is another issue. You and my daughter, everything between you is all right?'

  'Of course, why do you ask?' Valsi was angered by the question.

  The old man's eyes weighed his answer. He could see the unrest. 'You seemed tense at dinner. I know it must be difficult for you both after being apart for so long, but I don't like what I am seeing. It does not look like Romeo and Juliet to me. You young lovers should be overjoyed to be together again.'

  Valsi feigned embarrassment. 'You are right, it is not yet easy.'

  'We should go back to the others.' Don Fredo collected the cigar and creaked himself out of the leather. They both walked together but, as Valsi stepped towards the door to open it, the old man put his hand on his shoulder again and this time squeezed tightly. 'We've spoken tonight of important things, but nothing in the world is more important to me than my daughter's happiness. Make her joyous and you will be very richly rewarded. Break her heart and I will have you buried so deep no one will find you for centuries.'

  16

  Sunset View, South Brooklyn, New York City On the way back to Nancy's parents' house, Jack swung by the home of his ex-FBI partner Howie Baumguard. An expensive divorce and an expansive booze problem had moved him from West Village, SoHo, to rented-room squalor. Jack climbed the garbage-strewn steps outside his friend's building, and made his way upstairs to a third floor that had never seen a working light bulb.

  He had to bang four times before Howie eventually slid the bolts and opened the paint-peeling door on a chain thick enough to tow a truck.

  'Hang on, I've got it,' he said, squinting at Jack in the hallway.

  A warm, sour smell of beer and fried food hung in the air. The tiny room was so untidy it looked as if it had just been burgled.

  'Great to see ya, man. Great to see ya.' Howie bear-hugged his former partner until he heard him gasp for air.

  Jack slapped his buddy's back, then stepped away a pace. 'Wish I could say the same about you. My friend, you look like a bag of shit.'

  'Man, ain't you the charmer!' Howie scratched the start of a bald spot appearing in his nest of unwashed hair. 'Sit yourself down, Mr Smoothtongue, I'll fix some coffee.'

  Jack watched him waddle away. Howie had just hauled himself out of the sack and was dressed in blue boxers and an old grey T that only half covered his paunch. He'd never been one to watch his weight but it looked as though recently he hadn't even given it a passing glance.

  'I ain't got milk. Black okay?' Howie's head was inside a fridge that smelled as though something old had crawled in there and died.

  'Just fine. You want some help?'

  'Yeah, sure do. I want that you shoot my ex-wife, so I don't pay alimony. I want that you get me a new job paying half a mill a year. Oh shit, I nearly forgot. I want that Lindsay Lohan blows me twice a day and tidies up a little before she goes.'

  'That all?' said Jack, moving dirty dishes and crumpled cans from around the foot of the couch. 'Should be a breeze.'

  Howie eventually reappeared, his giant knuckles wrapped around the handles of two mugs of black coffee. 'Man, I'd diet for Lindsay. Hell, I'd go to a fat farm and have a blubber-suck for her. You know, where they stick one of those friggin' hose-pipes in your gut and – voom! – in a schlurp they've siphoned off forty pounds. Yep, for Lindsay, I'd lose the weight!'

  Howie handed over the coffee and slumped in a chair. 'Anyway, how have you been keeping? How's your catcher's mitt?'

  Jack flexed the fingers of his left hand. It had been badly cut during his final encounter with the Black River Killer. 'It's getting there. Seems some nerve got damaged.' Jack fell silent for a moment. Memories of BRK flooded back – the nightmares that had haunted him for years, the victim
s he'd been unable to save and the personal danger that BRK had exposed him and his family to. 'Doc says I probably won't ever have a hundred per cent feeling back but, with physio, I think I'm gonna get close.'

  'At least it's not your right hand,' said Howie, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

  'Yeah, thank God for small mercies. So, exactly what happened at the Bureau? I can't believe you quit.'

  Howie shrugged his huge shoulders in a way that made him shrink. He looked like a jilted teenager who didn't want to talk about it. 'I was a mess, man. It was jump or be pushed, and I didn't want the Push Monkey on my friggin' back.'

  Jack tried the coffee. Cheap instant. Too hot to drink. Too bad to swallow.

  'You should have claimed some lost time, taken a spell of compassionate. I'm sure they'd have understood that you needed a little breathing space.'

  'Maybe,' said Howie, sounding defeatist. 'Truth is, I can't even walk straight, let alone think straight. I'm best outta there. I couldn't bear the thought of fucking up in the field.'

  Jack put down the coffee. He could see his friend had been more depressed by the divorce than he'd realized. 'You've got to kick the booze, Howie. You know that, don't you?'

  'Booze helps me snooze,' he joked. 'Without it I just lie awake at nights and drive myself friggin' crazy.' Howie put his hands behind his head and stretched his neck, trying to ease the tension that seemed to be always with him. 'Every minute of the goddamn day I can see Carrie getting balled by this punk at the gym that she went to. Christ alive! I was so fuckin' stupid not to realize she was playing away.'

  Jack tried to get him focused. 'What exactly is bugging you? Is it that you found your wife cheating? That you discovered she wanted to be with some other guy? Or just that you got divorced?'

  'All that and then some.' Howie scratched at his head again and then checked his fingers to see if he'd lost more hair. 'You know, I think what pisses me most is that I still love her. Even now, I'd forgive her and try again, but she don't want none of it.'