Spider feels her teeth snap shut and sink deep into his left hand.
Her mouth locks closed on his flesh like the savage bite of a wild street dog. He tries to stay calm but this woman's jaw-power is extraordinary. Her bony canines are cutting their way into him, grinding through skin, slicing into the bones around his thumb. He frees his right hand from around her neck and punches her.
Lu barely feels the blow. Her mother brought her up on a daily diet of beatings a hundred times more brutal than the one this ebanat's trying to dish out. She ignores the dull throb on her left cheekbone and chews down hard on the flesh in her mouth. She can feel his skin bursting around her teeth, his stinking vonuchaya blood seeping into her mouth.
'Fuuuuck!' Spider screams.
He punches her again, but he can't get any uplift to deliver a proper blow. The little bitch's teeth have bitten into nerves and tendons and the pain's so intense it sparks a bolt of agonizing electricity up his elbow. Spider falls on top of her and uses the momentum and his body weight to try to suffocate her, to try to jam his hand deep into her evil little mouth. Little bitch will either let go or choke to death, he thinks, as he pushes through the pain and bears down on her.
Lu doesn't lose her grip. Even as his weight collapses on her, she grinds her back teeth.
She can't see now and is struggling to breathe. His body heat and weight are overwhelming, there's no air to suck in.
Everything begins to go black and fuzzy for Lu, as once more he rams the palm of his right hand across her face and again leans all his weight upon it.
She starts to retch as he forces his left thumb deeper into her mouth, deeper into her bite.
She knows what he's doing; knows that he can't pull his hand free without severe damage, so he's trying to choke her. Well, you give it your best shot, mister, it's gonna take a lot to choke Lu Zagalsky; therehavebeen biggerthingsinthis mouthandheavier people on top of this body than a creep like you.
Lu drills deep into her childhood memory; the nightmares of abuse flood into her brain, the anger boils up and over. She bites so hard she feels one of her teeth crack and splinter away. The latest wave of pain is so severe that Spider falls off her and crashes to the floor.
Lu spits out his blood and her broken tooth. It feels good, it feels wonderful! She feels like Rocky when he beat Apollo Creed. Bloody, battered but victorious. Only she knows that this victory is going to be horribly costly. Her mind flashes back again to her bedroom in Moscow and the last time she bit a man like this.
You don't have to take this shit.
Whatever happens, you don't take this kind of shit.
Fight for your life, Lu, fight for every second you can draw breath. Whatever happens he can't take your spirit away from you.
Spider cradles his left hand in the palm of his right one. Jesus Christ, how did she do that? The flesh is open and he can see inside his own hand. He can see bones and veins, blood and tissue oozing from the crescent-shaped wound caused by her vicious teeth.
He wipes sweat off his head with his right forearm and looks across the basement for something with which to make a tourniquet. His eyes settle on a sink in the far corner and some cotton rags that will be okay if he washes them first.
He turns on the single mixer tap and lets cold water pour over his damaged hand into the deep ceramic trough. The water is red with his blood but it is cool and helps ease the pain that is roaring through him. He soaks one of the rags, the type he usually uses for gags and facial bindings, and squeezes it out as best he can. Spider wraps the sodden cotton around the bite wound, makes a loop and then grips one end of the rag in his teeth so he can pull tight. Further up his forearm he ties a second tourniquet across the veins he suspects may feed blood into the wound.
Lu watches helplessly from the bondage table. She's thinking of when she was a small child watching snowflakes for the first time from the window of her parents' tenement building, thinking of when she was free and innocent, running in the meadows of Gorky Park.
She's thinking of what life with Ramzan might have been like.
She's thinking of anything other than what might happen to her next.
Spider dries his left hand on his trousers and looks straight at her.
'Bad Sugar,' he says, shaking his head from side to side. 'Bad, bad Sugar.'
Lu's eyes are fixed on his hand. Not the hand she's bitten, but his good right hand. In it, gripped tight, is what looks like a large bone saw.
29
San Quirico D'Orcia, Tuscany From a green-shuttered bedroom window of La Casa Strada, Jack looked down on a garden filled with apple, plum and pear trees. The row with Nancy had drained him and made him reflect, but deep down he knew he'd crossed the point of no return. Whatever his wife said, or did, he was going to help Massimo. And if necessary, he was going to help Howie too. Being truthful to himself, he now accepted that he'd never really managed to get BRK out of his system. In fact, because he was so totally removed from the case, it had preyed on his mind more than ever. Now, at least, by getting involved, by trying to do something, the mental anguish would be worthwhile, instead of just pointless.
Jack stared again out of the window. The only guests walking around the garden were an elderly couple; probably about the same age his mother and father would have been if they'd still been alive. They wandered along the stone pathway, holding hands and pausing every now and again to point out various fruits and plants to each other. Jack tried to recall their name: Giggs, or Griggs, something like that. Anyway, Nancy had said that they were here to celebrate his seventieth birthday and her sixtieth, which fell within five days of each other. How beautiful to have reached that age and still be so in love. Jack looked closer at the man, his sunburned face smiling from beneath an ivory-coloured Panama hat. The old guy seemed perfectly happy with his life, content to be slowly pacing it out, hand in hand with his soulmate. The couple stopped beneath the shade of a cherry tree and admired Zack's pet rabbit as it bounded around their legs, before darting off to the far side of the orchard. The old man brushed leaves off a nearby steamer chair and helped his wife into it, before settling in another one alongside her. No sooner was he comfortable than he stretched out his gnarled old arm so they could hold hands again. Jack would have loved to have brought his parents here, to have had them stay for a month or two each summer and watch their grandchild growing up. He would have given almost anything to be looking down from that very window on his own mother and father. They'd seldom travelled out of New York State, let alone America, but Italy was on their 'To Do' list and deep down he was certain they'd have loved the place. It was sad and ironic that it was the money they'd left him that had enabled him and Nancy to buy La Casa Strada, mortgage-free. For a moment he pictured all three generations of Kings walking together, down to the centre of town, to the Piazza della Liberta', where they could sit on long stone steps, while Zack and the grandfather that he had never got to know could choose ice cream from the nearby gelateria. Afterwards, they'd walk through the Renaissance gardens of Horti Leonini and Nancy and his mother would wait while Zack played hide and seek in the miniature maze. Somehow the argument with Nancy and the prospect of distance opening up again between them made him ache once more for his own mother and father.
Jack stepped back from the window, and from all his musings on what might have been. It was time to put Tuscany, and any thoughts of his parents, his wife or his child firmly to the back of his mind.
There was work to do.
He dialled the number of Massimo Albonetti.
30
Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York Spider holds the bone saw in his hand and looks along the blade towards Lu Zagalsky as she thrashes about on the bondage table, desperately trying to break free of her chains. In his hand he holds sixteen inches of brutal steel that had once belonged to his father and for years had been used to butcher sides of beef and pork that the family bought wholesale. In later years, Spider had found more dramatic uses for it. And r
ight now, he's thinking how fitting it would be to repay Lu's violence towards him, by cutting her up, limb by limb – while she's still alive.
But that's not the plan, Spider. Stick to the plan. You have great things in mind for her; don't ruin the bigger picture all because of one small setback.
Spider looks down at his bandaged hand, blood still weeping from where she'd sunk her teeth into the soft flesh. The bones around the thumb still throbbing painfully.
Lu Zagalsky can't hide the fear in her eyes. She tries to mouth words at him, to plead for her life, but nothing comes.
Her vocal cords have been bleached into silence.
'Whorebitch!' he shrieks and smashes the butt of the hardwood saw handle on to the bridge of her nose. 'You think you can hurt me, and get away with it?' he snarls. 'You fucking, arrogant little whorebitch!'
He hits her again with the butt of the saw and the pain from the second blow is so excruciating that she's sure he's broken her nose. Tears sting her eyes but her focus never leaves the blade.
'Look at you!' says Spider disgustedly. 'Look at how filthy and unworthy you are.' He stands back and laughs at her.
It's a spiteful, bullying, degrading laugh and in that split second Lu Zagalsky realizes that she's soiled herself. Something she would never, not even in her darkest nightmares, have dreamt could happen to her. He's right. This fucking crazy lunatic is right, sometime in the last five minutes, at the height of their struggle, she had failed to control herself.
Spider sneers at her. 'You're disgusting. You're no better than the others.'
Lu tries to look away from him and bury her illogical feelings of shame by reminding herself of what this animal has done to her, and to the other tortured and murdered women who have preceded her.
Spider's lips flatten into a thin smile. 'They've all done that. Sooner or later, all you dirty bitches shit and piss yourselves like that. Why did you think I stripped you naked?'
Lu feels like sobbing. Was even this planned? Is everything now so hopeless. She turns her head away from him and tries again to tell herself that it is stupid to feel so childishly humiliated. Forget your stupid pride and dignity – this man is going to gut you like a fish; that saw in his hand is not there for fun, any second now he's going to cut your throat and go slash-crazy over all your sorry little ass.
Spider is feeling calm now. Everything is under control again. Nothing bad is going to happen. It feels good to have restored the balance of power.
He walks behind her tethered body, kneels down and tightens the loose chain around her right wrist.
Lu's heart starts to pound hard. He's doing something – he's tightening the chains – why? Is he now going to kill me?
Spider seems to read her fear. 'I am going to kill you, Sugar.' He holds the bone saw blade against her throat, the jagged teeth pressing painfully into her flesh. 'But not with this, and not right now.' He drags the saw blade lightly across her throat, enough to scrape the skin but not cut it. 'Oh no, I'm going to kill you with something much more amusing than this.'
31
Rome Benedetta Albonetti was by no means the only love in Massimo's life. As well as his wife, he had another great passion: a very sexy young model.
His blue'97 Maserati Ghibli coupe had been a surprise gift. It had been left to him in the will of a Roman banker whom, almost two decades earlier, Massimo had saved during an armed robbery that ended in a very public and bloody shoot-out. Mass had picked up the classic car just six days after his fiftieth birthday and he intended to keep it until his dying day; which, Benedetta joked, would be sooner rather than later, judging by the way he drove it.
Today, despite leaving the office early, it had taken him almost an hour to get out of the centre of Rome and another twenty minutes before he had a chance to ease the manual gearbox into sixth and open up the twin turbo. While Massimo could clearly see the irony of enduring a two-hour journey in a car that could hit 100 kph in less than six seconds, instead of catching a sluggish metro train that would have got him home in less than thirty minutes, he couldn't care less. He loved every minute he spent in the Maserati, and, for him, the daily drive home to the seaside village of Ostia wasn't an ordeal, it was 'therapy'. It was his way of leaving work behind, both geographically and mentally. Usually, by the time he pulled up outside his modest three-bedroomed house, he was a completely different person from the police Direttore who immersed himself in a world of blood spatters, body swabs and bullet entry wounds.
Fifteen minutes from Ostia, his in-car telephone rang. When he answered, the voice of Jack King immediately made him slow down.
'Where are you?' asked Jack, acutely aware of the engine noise as the Maserati growled its reluctance to be shifted from sixth into fourth.
'On my way home,' shouted Mass, fiddling with the awkward blue-tooth ear attachment that he hated wearing. 'Benedetta and the children are flying to Nice, to be with her sister and some friends of hers. I have promised to take them to the airport, so I left the office early.'
'I hope they're well,' said Jack. 'Nancy was asking after them.'
'Grazie,' said Massimo. 'So, do I understand then that you have told your charming wife everything about our conversation?'
'Most of it,' answered Jack. 'Though of course I spared her some of the details. There's no need for her to know too much, you understand how they all worry.'
'Indeed,' said Massimo. 'And after talking with her, you are still willing to help?'
'Would I be calling if I wasn't? Where and when do you need me?'
'Rome. As soon as you can make it.'
'Okay. Fine.'
'When will that be, Jack?'
He thought for a moment. 'Not tomorrow. I need a day at home to sort things out, make sure Nancy is going to be okay running the hotel without me. How long do you think you'll need me?'
Massimo swore in Italian and sounded his horn at a big old Ford that seemed to extract great delight from undertaking and then cutting in front of the Maserati. 'Scusi, some idiots on the road here,' he explained, then added, 'It's hard to imagine you as an hotelier, Jack. You should think of being away a week. Maybe a couple of days here in Rome, then I'm sure you'll want to go to the scene in Livorno.'
Jack ran the dates through his head. 'Sounds about right, but I don't have much leeway, I have to be back for the eighth, it's our wedding anniversary. I'm dead as Parma ham if I don't make that.'
'Non c'e problema,' said Massimo, fighting an urge to chase the old Ford, fill its bonnet with his exhaust fumes, then pull the guy over and show him his badge.
'You got a translator for me? You know my Italian is non-existent.'
'Orsetta will go with you. Her English is good enough, no?'
Jack hesitated. Really, he would rather she wasn't there, but it would be impossible to explain why. 'Sure, her English is just fine.'
'She is bellissima, no?' said Massimo, mischievously. 'Una bella donna.'
'Leave it out, Mass, you know me better than that. I'm a one-woman man, always have been, hope I always will be.'
'Perfetto,' answered Massimo. 'Me too, but Orsetta, she would drive even the Holy Father to sin.'
'Well, it's not a complication I need in my life,' said Jack. 'The documents she gave me were useful, but I could do with more details.'
'We will prepare a full brief for you when you arrive.'
'Great, but I need the complete autopsy report as well. No disrespect, but your Medical Examiners are not US standard. Maybe we should have whoever did Cristina Barbuggiani's examination on standby for interview? Will you please check he isn't on holiday, and can see me sometime soon?'
'The pathologist you ask for is a she,' answered Mass. 'I will make sure she is available for interview while you are here.' Hesitantly, he added, 'There are – how should we say – some other post-mortem details that were not in the report that I sent you.'
Jack remembered that the papers he'd seen had been a top-level report, sent to the Prime Minister'
s private office. 'Mass, the documents I saw had gone to the Prime Minister himself. Are you saying there's something you are keeping from him, or is it something that you are keeping just from me?'
Massimo Albonetti screwed up his face. 'I'm afraid it's something I have had to keep from both of you. Only a few people know what I refer to, and I am sorry but I cannot go into it on a phone line like this one. I promise though, I will tell you the very minute you get here.'
Massimo said 'Ciao' and hung up before Jack could press the subject. And in that split second, Jack was sure he heard the Maserati growl down a gear and then let out a loud roar of hard acceleration.
32
Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York Spider leaves the basement and returns to his bedroom to fix his damaged hand. Beneath the sink in the bathroom he unlocks a medical cabinet that would be the envy of many a drugstore.
He looks through his stock of local anaesthetics – Procaine, Lidocaine, Novocaine and Prilocaine. He'd obtained them via a fake medical trading firm that he'd set up, enabling him to deal with an array of online liquidation companies that regularly auctioned off surplus drugs and medical equipment. He'd found more than enough salesmen happy to take his order online and ship the supplies without ever asking for any medical licence checks.
He settles on 50ml of Lidocaine, his favourite anaesthetic. He discards the rags he used in the basement to patch himself up, throwing them into the shower tray, not to wash but to take away and burn. The cloths had been in contact with the victim and he'd eventually get rid of them, along with the clothes he was wearing. Spider swabs the bitten area with a sterile wipe and injects the drug into the tissue surrounding the bite. As the nerves and muscles start to relax he checks out the wound. The bitch's teeth have opened up quite a cut, deep enough for it not to heal on its own.
Spider dips into the cabinet again and finds a box of wound closure Steri-strips. It's difficult with one hand, but he takes his time and soon does a decent job of closing the cut with the adhesive strip. He finishes it off with a wraparound elastic bandage and strips of Band-Aid.
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