OTHER TITLES BY ROGER GRANELLI
Palermo Stories
Under the Wide Palermo Sky
Still Waters/Tough Love
Keep Your Friends Close
A Reason to Fear
Text copyright © 2018 by Roger Granelli
All rights reserved.
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eISBN: 9781503904477
Cover design by Patrick Savile
CONTENTS
START READING
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marianna was running as hard as she could for her life, streetlights and bar lights flashing in her eyes as she sped past them. Then they faded as she turned into the shadowy gloom of a quiet alleyway. Guido was closing in on her. She could hear the sharp clack of his boots on the cobblestones as he began to catch her up. Marianna didn’t even know where she was going; this was just a desperate blind attempt to get away, for it all to be over. She fell heavily, her tiny body skimming over the hard ground like a flat stone thrown across the surface of a river.
Guido’s hand seized her.‘Got you, you crazy little bitch.’ He raised a hand to slap Marianna’s face. He was a big man, but no longer fit, and his face shone with sweat as his chest heaved and his breath came in short bursts. His hand turned into a fist as he thought to do more than just slap. ‘I don’t think you’re of use to me anymore,’ he said, in that strange sibilant voice.
Marianna tensed for his attack, terrified but also wanting it all to end. The blows did not come, for Guido staggered and almost fell on top of her as he crashed to the ground. Then another hand was reaching out to Marianna, but this time it was to pull her up. And it was not the hairy bunched fist of a psychopath, but the slender, ringed hand of a woman.
Marianna looked up. She couldn’t see the figure standing over her very clearly. She could see Guido lying alongside her, the back end of a bullet in the middle of his forehead. The metal seemed like a silver jewel as it caught the faint gleam of the distant streetlights, with drops of blood gathering around it in a delicate pool. Guido was wide-eyed and still, and surprise would be forever etched on his once-handsome face.
As Marianna shakily got to her feet, she saw a tall, well-dressed woman calmly removing a silencer from a small pistol and then putting each part of the weapon into her handbag.
‘Come on,’ the woman said. ‘We must get away from here.’
Marianna wasn’t sure what was happening. Was this one of her drug-fuelled nightmares? Those times when she’d wake up sweat-soaked and terrified only to realise she was back in the real world, which for her was no better than her dream?
The tall woman smiled at her. ‘That scumbag won’t bother you ever again – or any other woman. Come with me now.’
Marianna’s saviour pulled her along until they reached a waiting car, which had another woman at the wheel. Marianna was ushered into the back seat as the car sped off with a squeal of tyres.
‘I’m Adelina,’ the mystery woman said quietly, again reaching out her elegant, well-manicured hand, which Marianna timidly took. The car raced along a brightly lit main street, light enough for Marianna to see that her saviour was a beauty – and, by the look of the rings on her hand and the way she spoke, a well-bred, rich beauty. This woman was like someone who had sprung to life from a glossy magazine, the ones Marianna read in an attempt to keep her hopes alive.
No, this must still be a dream, Marianna thought.
Adelina sensed Marianna’s amazement and leaned closer to hug her. ‘You are safe now, darling,’ Adelina said. ‘Oh, the girl driving is Chiara, by the way.’
Chiara said a brief hi without turning around. Adelina smelled so good Marianna wanted to bury herself against her body, like she used to with her mother when she was a little girl, in those brief years of happiness she’d known before she began to understand what poverty was, and what it did to people.
Marianna had not been able to run very fast. She was only twenty-three but her body was all used up. It had been used and abused for the last four years by the many men she had served for her pimp. There had sometimes been as many as ten a day, every day, as time blended into an anguished blur. Every kind of drug had passed through her system in this time. The heroin made it all bearable at first; then came the cocaine, which she’d snorted so much of that the membrane of her nose was ruined for all time.
Marianna had needed more and more stuff to get through her day, but the thin white lines of heaven she’d thought were an escape proved to be just another trap. It had got to the point that she could no longer work. This had caused Guido to beat her, hitting her so hard with his fists that imprints from his rings were left all over her body, like hellish tattoos. This was the ‘better life’ that the man in Tirana had promised her. But the poverty she had endured in that Albanian slum seemed like heaven now.
Chiara pulled away from town, and the traffic became lighter and the houses larger. Marianna saw villas with gardens the size of small parks flash by, so she knew this must be where the rich people lived.
Maria Carpanini had agonised over the living-room decor for two weeks, almost driving her husband Carlo crazy in the process. With a cup of coffee in hand she appraised it yet again, trying to visualise where the new furniture would go, and what would best set off the magnificent view. It was a nice problem to have – a normal problem – and she realised she was truly relaxed for the first time since her son’s kidnap.
From the wide French doors Maria could see the curving expanse of the Aspra coastline. Fishing boats that had been pulled up on to the beach gleamed in the noon sun, most of them painted in bands of the traditional local colours of blue, white and orange. From this distance, they looked like large wooden birds looking out to sea.
‘Carlo, come here,’ Maria called. ‘I’ve decided on a colour scheme.’ Maria wondered why she hadn’t she thought of it before. She’d duplicate the designs on the boats – as what could be better than that for their new place? It would be a sign that they were here to stay, and that they belonged.
Carlo ‘CC’ Carpanini, recently promoted to chief inspector, came into the room with his cell phone glued to his ear. The phone call was unfortunate timing – Maria knew that look on his face, and her good mood quickly melted away. She knew every crease and furrow he made when the news from work was bad. Her desire to tell Carlo her plans for the room died in her mouth and she said something else.
‘What’s wrong, Carlo?’
‘Some lowlife has been found with a bullet in his head.’
‘You’re not going in today? You’re still on leave!’
‘They’re short-staffed. Seems like half the department is down with this flu epidemic.’
‘Yes, a lot of kids have it too.’
‘Have you seen my coat?’
‘It’s been so quiet for us these last few months – idyllic, in fact,’ Maria muttered.
‘And it still will be. We’ve got the house of our dreams here, and Pico has recovered. We all have, and everything is good, Maria.’
‘Yes, good until the next time.’
‘Look, we’ve been over all this before, bambina – many times. It’s my job, and this is Palermo, after all.’
Carlo went into his confident mode, holding Maria close and saying all the stuff she lik
ed to hear. It was a patronising routine and he knew it had worn thin in recent times. Six months ago they had faced the trauma of Piccolo’s kidnap. It was a time when Palermo had got up close and very personal.
In their early days, Carlo had taken Maria to see a crappy old movie called I Died a Thousand Times. The film was instantly forgettable, but the title stayed had in his head – and it described what had happened to them when their son was taken. Every minute of the five days that Pico was gone had been a torture. But it had ended well. Carlo had even managed to solve the case of Palermo’s first serial killer in a generation, at the same time. This had got him a promotion and the sea-view villa they were now living in, but Carlo had always known that this peaceful hiatus from his working life would be a brief one. He gently released Maria.
‘I’ve got to go now,’ Carlo said, ‘but tell me about the colour scheme when I get back. I know I’ll like it.’
‘Oh, shut up and go do your stupid job.’
Maria stomped off to the kitchen, from where she could see the children playing in the backyard. Piccolo and Anna were still entranced with the wide-open green spaces of their garden, as they had only known a second-floor apartment before. It was good to see Piccolo smiling again, and to hear his infectious laugh as he chased Anna around the bushes. Children had a great capacity to recover quickly, but Maria was still not sure about herself.
Carlo left the house with Maria’s words of admonishment ringing in his ears. In the aftermath of Piccolo’s kidnap they had talked long and hard about Carlo resigning from the police, but he knew that bird had flown years ago. There was nothing else he could do now and, more importantly, nothing else he wanted to do. So he had his way, but he still felt bad about it.
The police morgue downtown was not Carlo Carpanini’s favourite place, especially on a day like this. It had started to rain – a hard, driving storm was sweeping down from the Nebrodi mountains, and it looked like the city was in for a spell of wet weather.
Carlo drove to the morgue with his head buzzing, and each blast of a car horn seemed to penetrate his skull. Why did all Italians drive like they were racing at Monza, he wondered – and the women were almost as bad as the men now. Maybe we are all a little crazy here, just like the Mafiosi and all their merry little bands. Right on cue, a woman in a yellow Mazda sports car cut in front of Carlo, forcing him to brake hard, his tyres squealing on the wet surface of the road. He thought he recognised her, but she was obscured by a headscarf and she quickly sped off towards the main highway after they had exchanged middle fingers.
Alvarese the pathologist was waiting for Carlo, his ancient coffee pot bubbling away on the small stove – as it always was. It had become a legend amid the Palermo police fraternity.
‘Coffee?’ Alvarese said, flashing his eccentric array of yellow and gold teeth.
‘Yes, and make it strong,’ Carlo said.
‘Do I ever not?’
No one really knew how old Alvarese was, but Carlo thought he must be well over retirement age by now. Not that anyone was asking him to go – his lifetime’s expertise was far too valuable.
‘So, what’s with Guido Scarlatti?’ Carlo said.
Alvarese went to one of the metal drawers on the wall and theatrically slid out Guido’s body, delighting in the small cloud of frozen air that accompanied it.
‘I wish they were all this easy,’ the pathologist said. ‘One shot to the head and nothing more. A small-calibre weapon was used, maybe a Beretta. You know, like the one James Bond had in his early films . . . See, I do know something about modern culture.’
‘If you say so, Alvo. And that was more than fifty years ago, by the way.’
‘Scarlatti didn’t see it coming, because there’s no sign that he tried to fight anyone off. His insides are a small chemist’s shop of Class A drugs, mind, but we knew that, didn’t we.’
‘A professional hit?’
‘Absolutely. The assassin was probably away before old Guido hit the ground.’
Alvarese slid the corpse back into its compartment and busied himself with the coffee.
‘How’s the family now? Boy all right?’ Alvarese asked.
‘Everyone’s fine. The new house has helped.’
‘You’ve picked well there. It’s almost civilised at Aspra. I saw Maria and the children the other day, down in the Vucciria.’
‘Yes, she said she’d been to the market.’
‘You’re a lucky man, Carlo, to have a family like that. Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have had one myself.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘You know me too well, young Carpanini.’
‘I turned forty the other week, Doc, but it’s still nice to be called young. Email me the Scarlatti report, please.’
Carlo drank the almost-scalding cup of espresso, which gave him a welcome jolt as it began to combat his fuzzy head.
‘See you, Alvarese.’
‘Sure. Oh, Carlo, we haven’t played chess for a long time.’
‘I’m getting round to it.’
As he left the morgue Carlo felt a little guilty, because he knew he wasn’t getting around to it at all. Life was far too busy and full now, and it was single friends like Alvarese who always paid the price.
Leo Bracchi pawed at his tie. Apart from for funerals, he hadn’t worn one since he’d become a plain-clothes cop, but today Sylvia had insisted, as this was their first visit to the new Carpanini house. Sylvia had quickly taken over Leo’s social life in the year they’d been together, not that he’d ever had much of one before. It had been a little disconcerting at first, but Leo had come to like it, though he’d never tell Sylvia that. ‘Leo don’t do mush’ was his unspoken motto. He was still amazed, though, that a fat man bearing down on forty could have managed to get a girlfriend as easy on the eye as Sylvia. Leo had no time for religion, much to the despair of his mother, but maybe miracles did happen after all.
Leo was sitting with Carlo, drinking beer on the veranda of the new house, while Maria proudly showed Sylvia around.
‘You got it good here, boss,’ Leo said between slurps.
Carlo nodded. ‘I hope so.’
‘So, have Maria and the kids settled down now?’
‘Just about. It’s hard to be sure with Piccolo. He had five days of hell with the kidnap, and boys his age don’t say much at the best of times.’
There was a moment of awkward silence as each man thought of that harrowing time, and all the others they’d shared as police officers. Carlo refreshed their glasses from the large jug of beer in the centre of an even bigger ice bucket. It was mid-afternoon on the first Sunday in April, but not yet hot enough for the beach below them to be busy. There were more fishermen on it than pleasure-seekers, some mending nets or repainting their small wooden boats, but most just sitting around shooting the breeze, small cloud formations of tobacco smoke rising above them like signals.
‘Hey, I almost forgot to tell you, boss,’ Leo said. ‘We’ve drawn a blank so far on that scumbag Scarlatti – you know, that guy who got whacked the other night. Guido had more enemies that a stray dog has fleas, but we’ve trawled through most of them now, and they all have cast-iron alibis. Still, lowlifes killing each other off gets my vote every time, and with Guido . . . Well, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bastard.’
‘Hmm, I hope our wonderful array of pimps and pushers are not about to fall out again.’
‘I can remember the great brothel wars from when I was a young cop,’ Leo said, almost fondly. ‘A long time before you came to Palermo, boss.’
‘No more work talk now, Leo, the girls are coming back. And on days like this you can call me Carlo.’
‘Okay, boss.’
After a good meal and too much alcohol, Leo let Sylvia drive him home. He rubbed his stomach with satisfaction, though his waistline was no longer spreading. He had dropped twenty pounds so far this year, but Sylvia said he had another forty to go and he knew he’d have to get the
re, though the thought of the effort that would take was depressing.
‘No booze for a week now,’ Sylvia muttered. She weaved her way through the downtown Palermo traffic, answering each horn blast with one of her own as she engaged with the thronged mass of kamikaze drivers determined to live up to Palermo’s reputation. Leo sighed, settled into his seat, and licked his lips for one last memory of the beer.
His cell phone rang, and he knew the voice on the other end instantly, despite a gap of almost twenty years.
‘Leo, baby, how are you? Long time no see, huh – and long time no talk?’
‘Mandretta,’ Leo said.
‘Surprised?’
‘Yeah, you could say that.’
Sylvia glanced across at Leo, sensing the change in his mood.
‘Leo, I want us to have a little chat,’ Mandretta said.
‘Yeah? About what?’
‘About that favour I done you all those years ago. Ain’t forgot, have you?’
Leo didn’t answer.
‘Nah, course you ain’t. Hey, how’s your mother, anyhow? I remember she was a real nice lady.’
Again, Leo did not answer.
‘I’ll be in touch soon, Leo. It’ll be something for you to look forward to.’
Leo stabbed his phone with a finger, to end the call before anything else could be said.
‘Everything okay?’ Sylvia asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘It’s just work hacking me off.’
‘On a Sunday, your day off?’
‘Palermo never sleeps, baby. You know that.’
Another few millimetres and Leo Bracchi would have been no more – the bullet missed his head by the wingspan of a Sicilian mosquito. It whined like a mosquito too, and when it struck the wall near his head it sprayed small shards of stone at him. One stiletto-like sliver caught him just above the right eyebrow as Leo jumped back inside the door to his apartment. He slammed it shut and stood breathing hard with his broad back against the wall, as a thin line of blood trickled down his cheek from the wound. Leo dabbed at it with a hand, which succeeded only in making it worse. So much for the last few days being quiet, he thought.
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