City of War

by Neil Russell

  Unsure, Tino looked at the big man, but the guy said nothing. Finally Tino dismounted and walked to the gate. As he touched the tortil, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him against the bars—hard. His arm came completely through, and his face slammed into the steel. I was pleased when I saw the blood coming out of his nose.

  Over his head, I saw the two men from town start to get off their bikes, but the leader shook his head, and they stayed put. He was apparently curious about what was going to happen. I felt Tino move and saw him reaching his free hand into the hip pocket of his jeans. I didn’t need a diagram to know what was in there, so I snatched his forearm with my other hand and pulled it through the gate too. I now had him pinned with his back against the bars. I twisted his wrists in opposite directions and pulled hard enough so he let out a gasp of pain. Then I leaned forward and said into his ear, “Interested in your brother’s last words?”

  His breathing was labored, but he didn’t answer.

  “Please don’t cut off my arms.”

  He went completely rigid.

  “I told him to take it up with Kiki when he saw him.”

  With that I put my foot against Tino’s narrow back and propelled him forward so hard that he stumbled into his bike, and both it and he went down. The fall kicked the Rocket into gear, and it spun a couple of times before the engine cut off. Tino got up, spit spraying out of his mouth. “I should have cut your fuckin’ head off that night on the freeway.”

  “You’re welcome to try now.”

  He reached out to the big man with the lupara on his back. “Remi, give me the gun.”

  But the man called Remi ignored him and kept his gaze on me. “You are the man called Black,” he said in French. It wasn’t a question. “I would like to apologize for Tino’s foolishness. We have no quarrel with you. You should never have been shot. However, it appears you have evened the score.”

  Tino had spoken English to him, so I did the same. “Since I’m the one with the bullet holes, I’ll decide when we’re even. You have a name besides Remi?”

  He regarded me for a moment, and when he spoke, his English was accented but clear. “Terranova. My mother was French, my father Sicilian.” He paused, then went on. “What is it you want?”

  “Your little pal there…and the guy you both work for—Il Iena Bianco.”

  His tone was light, almost amused. “Then you have come to look at our security. What do you think?”

  “Visually impressive, but sloppy. Like the hand hanging on the fence.”

  Remi looked hard at Tino. It must have been his turn to pick up after the hyenas. Turning back to me he said, “Ah, yes, Andre. If he were here, he’d tell you he had it coming. Unfortunately, since he’s not able to speak for himself, you’ll have to take my word for it.”

  Tino had moved to Remi’s side, and he made a grab at the lupara. The larger man caught his hand in a massive fist and squeezed. Tino went to his knees in pain, but Remi didn’t release him. Only when Tino began to whimper and tears ran down his cheeks did Remi push him roughly away. He lay in the dirt, holding his hand, moaning softly.

  “Tino’s not having much of a day,” I said, “but I’d prefer it if you shot him.”

  Remi looked down at Tino, then back at me. “M. Bruzzi is an indulgent man with those who have been useful. Sometimes too indulgent.” He shifted his attention to Julien. “You are the real estate man from Bonifacio, no? M. Borreau? Why are you with these men?”

  Julien crossed his arms and looked squarely at Remi, not answering.

  One of the other two motorcyclists leaned close to Remi and said something. The big man nodded and turned back to Julien. “Ah, yes, L’Hotel Eden. My deepest sympathies, Monsieur. But your anger is misguided. We all hope for the day the terrorist scum is wiped from the island.”

  Julien’s eyes never left Remi’s. “Terrorist scum I’ll leave to the authorities. My problem is with the Eagle Shit Sitters.”

  Remi looked hard at Julien. “My friend, I would suggest you go back to your business…and stop giving interviews.”

  Sometimes, when you’re looking at the obvious, you don’t make the connection. Then something causes the synapses to fire in the correct sequence, and you wonder how you missed the locomotive bearing down on you. The trigger was something Kim had said that first morning. I looked at Remi. “Who’s shaving you these days?”

  Remi’s head jerked almost imperceptibly. He recovered quickly, but his eyes had lost some of their certainty. He stared at me while he collected his thoughts.

  When a man hears something that only a woman with whom he’s been intimate knows, he immediately believes that every breath of their relationship is in play. There aren’t any statistics about the number of homicides that follow, but my money’s on plenty. And right now, as far as Remi was concerned, if he liked to paint a lipstick smiley on his pecker, I knew about it.

  “Kim always was a talker, especially after a good fucking. Did she also tell you her father taught her how? And that she used to do us both? The shaving too.”

  It wasn’t a big leap, and suddenly, the air seemed unclean. But the other pieces now fell into place. Kim’s ride to the airport in the van hadn’t been about identification. Bruzzi wasn’t waiting for her. Remi was. A very careful man making sure his boss’s orders were carried out. And perhaps gaining some kind of perverse satisfaction.

  “Truman was with you the night Kim was kidnapped, wasn’t he?”

  He smiled. “He was flying the plane. It wasn’t easy for him, but he knew she had to go. He’d lost control of her…we all had.”

  I’d been wrong about Truman too. He hadn’t had a master plan to steal the “Babushka” painting. Like the stupidity of getting caught in Rome with a hotel room full of heroin he’d had no way to sell, he’d simply walked away from Egypt Air 990 on an impulse then realized he was stuck. What had saved his life was that Bruzzi decided a good pilot can come in handy when you don’t want your movements tracked. Especially one who knows that if he fucks up again, the next stop is hyena chow.

  Kim was probably initially regarded by Bruzzi as kismet. Here he was in the art business, and another avenue into the system had just dropped into his lap. One that didn’t include Hood and Serbin. She not only worked at the Getty, she was already stealing. And since he had the only piece of the process that couldn’t be duplicated—Tiziano—he was poised to go into business for himself.

  But somewhere along the way, Kim decided she’d had enough…of everything. And she began to document what they were doing. Maybe for law enforcement, maybe just to cleanse herself. And where once Bruzzi had seen more scores, he now pictured cops from around the world dropping by Apollonica for something other than the wine. She had to have known what his reaction would be, but she did it anyway. What a brave girl…incredibly brave.

  The question that would never be answered was what had been the tipping point? I thought about the unaccounted for Kubicek watercolor and the missing beauty queen, Brandi Sue Parsons. Were those Truman’s work? And had that been the seed that would sprout Kim’s attempt at redemption? Or was it something else that none of us knew? Whatever it was now lay in a cemetery in Los Angeles, and that’s where it would remain.

  Tino was on his feet now, and he started to say something, but Remi ordered him to shut up and get back on his bike. He walked over to the gate and picked up Nico’s headband, shook off the dust and put it in his pocket. The conversation was almost over, but before we air-kissed and made plans to do lunch, I decided to put a small burr of my own under a Sicilian saddle.

  I said to Remi, “Did Boy Wonder there happen to mention he had a good time with Kim before they got to the airport? She didn’t think it was so much fun, but what the hell, she was going to die anyway.”

  There’s another phenomenon of pillow talk. Black Bart never likes one of his gang messing with his girl—even one he’s finished with. Remi’s mask of control disappeared, and he looked at Tino with such naked anger that I thou
ght I smelled Tino’s pants fill. Maybe they did.

  Remi revved his Triumph, then roared away. The others hurried to catch up, but not before Tino and I looked at each other. There wasn’t much swagger left in those eyes.

  Eddie, Julien and I watched until they reappeared near the top of the hill.

  As we drove back to Bonifacio, I talked, and Eddie listened. By now, Julien understood much of what had led us to his island, and I could see him processing. It was almost dark when I finished.

  “Then I’m not sure what we accomplished except to let them know we’re here,” Eddie said.

  “They already knew,” I said. “A cop who’s too timid to shoot a wild animal mauling a baby wasn’t going to open Tiziano Bruzzi’s studio to three strangers because we had nice smiles. And he certainly wasn’t going to give us directions to a place only a few people are supposed to see.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “They knew who we were as soon as we hit town—maybe before—and they searched our car while we were on the mountain saving lives. That’s why the security detail arrived essentially unarmed. All they wanted to do was lay eyes on us. Take our temperature.”

  “Wouldn’t it have been a lot easier just to shoot us?”

  “Bruzzi is so careful he never leaves the Med. Yet he flew halfway around the world to collect his cut of a deal—something Remi could have done for him. The Hyena went because he wanted to show the flag. Look everybody in the eye and remind them who their partner was—a guy who kills if you fuck with him. Kills ugly.”

  “So my question stands. Why not us?”

  “Because right after security, Bruzzi’s priority is money, and his reaction to our showing up means that they’re not mopping up at the end of an operation. Hood’s death wasn’t fatal to the enterprise. It just entered a new phase, confirming what I’ve suspected since I met her; Bruzzi owns Bibiana Cesarotti. She’s from his part of the world and traveled in heavy circles. And because larceny on this kind of scale is never somebody’s first infidelity, she has a past. He just had to get her together with Hood, which wouldn’t have been difficult for a guy with an eternal hard-on. But Hood and Serbin’s plans go way beyond Russian artists nobody ever heard of.”

  “Any idea what?”

  “No, but it’s not important. It’s only important not to underestimate him. Jackie Benveniste tried to explain it, but it didn’t register. The world’s shrunk for everybody, including the bad guys. Bruzzi and Serbin aren’t just a couple of moves ahead, they’re playing a different game.”

  “But you’ve got Kim’s computer, and the pictures.”

  “And a dead woman to corroborate it. Or maybe a general who fucked his way through Washington then put a gun in his mouth. I couldn’t get that through one of my own editors. No, as far as M. Bruzzi is concerned, we’re just loose ends he can live with. That, and the last time one of his hired hands tried to kill me, paparazzi on five continents had an orgasm. And the last thing he’s looking for are flashbulbs.

  “But we did accomplish something today. Guys as smart as Bruzzi—and with as many enemies—don’t run empires with the kind of lowlifes we’ve met up to now. There had to be somebody like Remi Terranova, and now we know he’s every bit as competent—and as deadly—as one would expect.”

  I turned to Julien, who was driving with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. “It’s none of my business, but what’s your connection to the Hotel Eden?”

  He flicked ashes out the window. “The night of the explosion, an agent in our office, Nicole Rolatte, had some contracts for Lazzaro Santagatta to sign. He was buying an apartment in Bonifacio…for his mistress. Nicole got busy, so she sent her daughter to the hotel with the paperwork…Christelle was fifteen.”

  He paused and lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he was smoking. “A week later, Nicole hanged herself, and the media couldn’t get enough of the story. I gave an interview to French television that our friends on the mountain evidently didn’t like.”

  I took one of Julien’s cigarettes, a British Carlton, lit it and rolled down my window. The cool air rushed in. It felt good. We had just turned onto the coast road, and the lights of the boats dotted the harbor below. I thought of Julien’s description of the hotel’s explosion. Poof. Not much of a word for what it could do to people’s lives.

  The following morning, I sent Eddie back to Bastia for the plane. Julien knew a guy named Hugo who ran a skydiving club, and the members had cut an outlaw landing strip out of the scrub northeast of Bonifacio. Hugo said we could park the Cirrus there as long as we let his brother-in-law refuel it. After he explained the brother-in-law worked for Air France, it didn’t take long to understand why or to calculate the profit margin.

  Then Julien and I took one of the Aquascans and headed to Marseilles to do some shopping. It also gave us time to work out a plan.

  40

  Absinthe and Funeral Barges

  I don’t like 9mm’s. I use them when I have to because they’re the crabgrass of handguns, and you can find ammo in any cabbie’s ashtray. But like in Washington, going up against professionals is like walking your pet in a bad part of town. You want a pit bull, not a chipmunk. The name of the game is stopping power, and my pit bull of choice is a .45. Nines are also contraindicated for hyenas.

  So while Julien took a taxi to the Legion town of Aubagne, I walked to a formerly seedy neighborhood near the Old Port of Marseilles where fond memories were few and far between. The restaurants were nicer than I remembered, and some of the bars were on the verge of becoming trendy. I stopped at a place with newly installed white tile and polished brass and paid the bartender twice what a bottle of absinthe should have cost. Just so I wouldn’t forget I was in France, he took my money and tip without eye contact or a thank-you.

  Rue de la Trinidad was right where I’d left it, a tiny alley that still reeked of garbage and excrement and where the buildings hadn’t changed in two centuries of neglect. Number 4 was the same shade of worn institutional green, and I climbed the stairs to the third floor, stepping over broken glass and things I didn’t care to examine.

  Apartment B was in the rear, the worn mezuzah on the doorjamb where it had always been. I knocked twice sharply, then twice again followed by three more. Nothing happened, and I repeated it, only this time changing the code by adding one knock. I heard someone moving inside, and I stepped to the side away from the hinges. If Mayer Luzzé still lived here, I didn’t expect him to come out shooting, but he was as paranoid in his own way as Benny Joe, and not always as predictable.

  “Qui?” a rough voice asked from behind the door, the Israeli accent discernable even from the single syllable.

  “I have a bottle of Roquette 1797 that I can’t drink by myself,” I said in English.

  I heard a chain disengage, the dead bolt turn, and the door opened a crack. I waited, and when nothing else happened, I pushed on the heavy wood, and it swung all the way in.

  The apartment was as cluttered as I remembered it, but Mayer’s tools were laid out on his workbench in perfect order. He was working on some kind of exotic pistol with an overly long barrel, but I knew better than to ask. Gunmakers are like diamond cutters—compulsive, secretive and with limited social graces. Now in his late seventies and still not needing glasses, he returned to his work without speaking.

  I found a pair of small snifters in the kitchen and poured each of us two fingers of green liquid, then returned to the living room and handed Mayer his. “I expected you to be digging clams in Jaffa by now.”

  “Too many old Jews,” he said, holding up his glass. “And I can’t get this.” He took a long swallow and closed his eyes, letting the sharp heat of the absinthe wash over him. I left him and walked through each of the four rooms, opening closets as I went. We were alone, as expected.

  “Still careful at all the wrong times.”

  I waved a cat off the only other chair in the living room and sat. “Every now and then I get one right.
”

  “That’s too bad. Most people think you’re a pain in the ass. What do you want?”

  “Three .45s…Colts preferably…with suppressors…and some information.”

  “Two thousand each, and if you try to negotiate, three. But no suppressors. Market’s gone. People just use a plastic bottle and throw it away. World’s gone to shit.”

  “Euros or dollars?”

  “Fuck euros. Propped-up tourist money. See how far out of town you get with a suitcase full of that shit if Hitler comes back.”

  “You know something no one else does?”

  “You looked around lately? How long do you think before somebody says, ‘Enough with these fuckin’ Arab, and while we’re at it, let’s finish the job on their fuckin’ cousins.’”

  He gestured with his empty glass, and I got up to get the bottle. He took another draw, then looked at me. “What kind of information?”

  “Remi Terranova.”

  “He works for that cocksucker Gaetano Bruzzi. Why aren’t you asking about him?”

  “What’s to know? He’s rich, so he’s lazy. Terranova will be the problem.”

  Mayer thought it over. “He uses that army of kids to terrorize anybody who crosses him. You don’t kill them first, they’ll cut you and just keep cutting.”

  “Somebody else told me the same thing.”

  “Then listen. You’ve got a soft streak in you. Like you read the Bible and remembered the wrong parts.”

  “And Remi?”

  “Doesn’t lose his composure. You’ll be a good match…if you get to him.”

  We drank in silence for a while, and I saw the cat eyeing me from under the workbench, probably wondering when he was going to get his chair back.

  Mayer finally spoke. “The police’ll want to give you a key to the city.”

  “I’ll make sure you get the credit.”

  “Fuck keys. I only take cash.”

  “American.”

  “Better than gold. Never a question.” He pointed to his glass.