Kill the Father

by Sandrone Dazieri

  Jack off till you die, he’d mentally wished him as he uploaded the file, but Zardoz had come back for more. And then he’d come back for even more. In the end, Montanari had tapped the guy for thirty thousand euros, half of which he’d basically burned on a green card table in the back room of a butcher’s shop in the space of a month. That was the only reason why, when Zardoz had requested a face-to-face meeting, Montanari had even considered the possibility. Which ran contrary to every rule of survival, as anyone who did business on the Internet knew very well. When he sold, Montanari did so through a server in some other part of the world, and he signed on to it via a high-security connection. It was easy once you knew how. He’d learned the technique from a guy who’d skinned him at Texas Hold ’Em and who sold amphetamines on the Internet. He didn’t even know who his clients were, the man had told him. He took an order, he waited for the money, and when it came in, he shipped the merchandise by courier, using a nonexistent company on the return address. The secure connection could be rented for just pennies, again online. You passed through a server that made you anonymous. Even if the Ministry of Justice did put you under surveillance, it could follow your trail only that far and no farther. Beyond that point you became invisible.

  Meeting clients in person, on the other hand, was like playing roulette. If the wrong number turned up, there could be a cop waiting for you. But the buyer had come up with a request that was typical of people like him: he wanted an exclusive on what he was buying. An exclusive on what Montanari was selling. So he was going to provide Montanari with a sealed video camera along with the money. Montanari had suggested he drop it off for him somewhere, but the buyer had refused. The device was too expensive, too risky if someone else stumbled on it. They’d have to meet. Montanari had considered rejecting the offer; then the thought of the money that Zardoz had promised him this time—another forty thousand euros, all at once—had won out over his caution. And if he turned out to be a cop . . . he had nothing on him and he kept all his stuff online, on an anonymous virtual disk. Even if they’d arrested him, they wouldn’t have found any evidence against him.

  Zardoz had made an appointment to meet at one in the morning. Montanari still had ten minutes to wait and was starting to feel sleepy. In the middle of an extended yawn, he noticed someone in the rearview mirror walking toward his car. From that distance he couldn’t make out the face, he could just see someone who looked tall, wearing an expensive-looking raincoat buttoned up to the neck. When he knocked on the window with a gloved hand, Montanari understood that it was him. He lowered the window. “Yes?” he said, keeping it noncommittal. Even the description that he’d given of himself had been intentionally generic. The location was the only thing they had specified.

  “I think you’re waiting for me,” said the man in the raincoat.

  “Maybe,” Montanari replied.

  “Zardoz. Let me in, and we can talk about money.”

  Montanari hesitated. Zardoz’s voice was cold and courteous. He’d expected a slobbering sex fiend.

  He clicked the door lock, and once Zardoz got in, he saw that he was an old man. A rich old pervert, he thought.

  The old man looked him in the eye. By the light of the streetlamp, his eyes glittered electric blue. “It was very kind of you to agree to meet me on such short notice,” he said.

  “I didn’t do it out of kindness. I did it for the money.”

  “And I imagine you haven’t brought anything compromising with you.”

  “Do you take me for an idiot?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Where’s the video camera? Is it so small that it fits in your pocket?”

  “That was just an excuse so I could meet you, I’m afraid,” said the old man. Then he did something with his hand so quickly that Montanari could hardly see it. He felt a sudden flush of cold to his throat. The cold turned into ice in an instant, and then scalding pain.

  Montanari opened his mouth to try to say something, but he found it was full of blood and that he couldn’t breathe anymore. The old man had something glittering in his hand. He put it into the pocket of his raincoat, which was now dripping with blood. His blood.

  The old man leaned over him and unzipped his pants, extracting his member. Montanari tried to push him away, but his hands no longer responded to his will.

  The old man looked at him. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to sexually molest you. It’s just for whoever finds you, you understand?”

  But Montanari no longer understood anything, except that his thoughts seemed to slide away along with the blood from the slice in his throat. The last thought was of the card game he’d miss tomorrow. He imagined the lucky hand he’d be dealt, a royal flush in spades. The black of the cards filled his eyes and his mind.

  The old man pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket, and from it he extracted a dirty Kleenex and a hair that he left on the seat. Then he opened a packet containing a condom and placed it, as far as he was able to, on Montanari’s member. He immediately removed it and placed it in a bag. After that he hurried away at a brisk pace.

  From outside, with his head slumped against the window, it looked as if Montanari were sleeping.

  9

  The search was over, and now Colomba was starting to feel the lack of sleep. She went up to the apartment and rejoined Anzelmo.

  “Has anything else turned up?” she asked.

  Anzelmo said no. “Neither has Montanari. We’ve put out a warrant for his arrest, but for now, no sign of him.”

  Colomba looked carefully around the ransacked apartment. “From what I can see here, he doesn’t have enough money to flee the country.”

  “Unless he stashed it all away.”

  “I’m more inclined to believe Dante’s theory, that he gambled it all away.”

  Anzelmo scratched his cheek uneasily. “Excuse me for asking this, Caselli. But exactly who is he?”

  “It’s a long story, and I don’t feel like telling it to you.”

  “Mighty nice of you,” said Anzelmo. “Remind me to keep doing you favors.”

  Colomba squeezed his arm. “Sorry. When this is over, I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Anzelmo smiled. “I’ll count on that.”

  “But don’t start getting any funny ideas.”

  Just then one of Anzelmo’s men came rushing in.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Montanari. He’s just been found at the Tiburtina station. Dead as a doornail.”

  Colomba punched a fist into the wall. “Fuck, no.”

  “What’s going on, Caselli?” Anzelmo asked nervously.

  Colomba stuck a finger in his face. “Dante and I were never here, you got that?”

  “You don’t need to tell me that. I’m already in deep enough shit.”

  She ran downstairs and forced Dante back into the car before explaining what had happened.

  “What do we do now?” asked Dante, his stomach in a knot.

  Colomba jammed on the accelerator, and the car took off. “We go there.”

  “Can’t we avoid the sight of the corpse?”

  “If you want, I can drop you off.”

  “No, no. Okay, let’s go.”

  The stretch of roadway running along next to the pylon of the bypass road had already been shut down; two highway patrol officers were rerouting traffic. Colomba slapped her police ID under their noses, barely slowing down, and parked her car just short of the cordoned-off area: she leapt out without bothering to wait for Dante. He went after her with legs as wobbly as Jell-O. In spite of the lateness of the hour, a small crowd of rubberneckers pressed around the pylon, peering past the police barriers. In the midst of the crowd, a couple of news agency photographers were shooting bursts of pictures, waiting to get the authorization to move in closer. Uniformed cops were talking into their radios and cell phones; a couple of ambulance attendants waiting to cart off the corpse were quietly joking around.

  Dante knew that this had been Colo
mba’s world until what she referred to as the Disaster and wondered whether she missed it. To him it seemed like a strange dream, with the floodlights flattening the colors and making everything seem unreal. The cone of light was focused on Montanari’s car, which glittered and emitted a faint mist of steam. Still a good ten yards away, Dante glimpsed a dark shape behind the driver’s side window and realized that it was the dead man’s head. His first dead body that wasn’t just a picture. He further slowed his pace.

  Standing next to Montanari’s car were two officers from the Forensic Squad, with Chief Inspector Infanti from the Third Section. Infanti had been Colomba’s deputy for three years, and he was also a friend, but like all her other colleagues he hadn’t seen her since she’d been released from the hospital. He’d had to settle for Rovere’s periodic updates, since Colomba wouldn’t answer the phone when anyone other than her old boss called her. That’s why when he saw her running toward him, Infanti had assumed it was just a trick of the eyes caused by exhaustion. He only really recognized her when she shoved him bodily aside to peer into the car, stopping just an inch short of the sacred investigative clean zone.

  “What can you tell me?” she asked him.

  Infanti recovered from his surprise. “Colomba . . . wait, are you back on duty?”

  Colomba struggled to take her eyes off the car and turn them to him. “No.”

  Infanti shook his head, confused. Colomba looked skinnier to him but in good shape. She seemed like the Colomba he’d always known, not the lost, ashen-faced shadow of herself he’d seen lying in the hospital bed. He’d have thrown his arms around her, but she was tense as a violin string, so he kept a respectful distance. “You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry. Now tell me what you can.”

  “We just received authorization to take him away. Someone killed him by slicing his carotid artery through with a razor-sharp blade of some kind.”

  “A scalpel?” asked Colomba, increasingly tense.

  “Maybe. His dick was out with traces of something that seems to be spermicide. In the car there was a woman’s hair, a condom packet, and a Kleenex smeared with lipstick.” He pointed to the street. “He pulled off here with a prostitute, she started giving him a blow job, then they fought over money and she cut his throat. Or maybe she was already planning to kill him, who can say.”

  “What a funny coincidence, tonight of all nights,” said Dante, finally arriving on the scene.

  Infanti looked at him, puzzled. “Is he with you?” he asked Colomba.

  “Yes. Did you say there was a condom packet?” asked Colomba.

  “Yes.”

  “What about the condom?”

  “That we didn’t find. The prostitute might have taken it with her. For the DNA.”

  “So you’re saying the hooker left a dirty Kleenex but took the condom with her?” Dante broke in again. “That’s an odd one, don’t you think?”

  “Can I ask just who the fuck you would be?” Infanti burst out.

  Dante pointed to Colomba. “A friend of hers.”

  An unmarked car with a flashing light pulled up, and Rovere got out.

  “The boss is here,” said Infanti.

  Colomba chose that moment to have an attack. She’d managed to stave it off the whole distance, struggling with every ounce of willpower she possessed, but at the sight of Rovere she lost the battle.

  The world distorted itself around her while a pair of mighty granite arms crushed her chest. She shoved her colleague away and ran, breathless, until she reached the dark little side street. The shadows rose from the asphalt and attacked her; her ears exploded into screams. Colomba hit the wall with her face and fell to the pavement. Her breath came back, along with a surge of sobbing.

  “Oh, God,” she said between sobs. “Oh, God.”

  Dante was right. There was a pitiless kidnapper operating in the shadows. There really was. Everything else could be dismissed as mere coincidence, an impression induced by Dante’s fixation. But Montanari’s death, that couldn’t. That couldn’t be called a coincidence, not even by the most imbecilic cop ever born. And she was no idiot, even though right then and there she would have preferred to be. They’d come close to the real kidnapper behind the incredible smoke screen he’d succeeded in creating, and he’d reacted by slicing off the only possible living link to him. He was a monster, and they had goaded him into action, to sow blood and death. She still couldn’t manage to catch her breath. She bit her lip, and the taste of blood filled her mouth. She spat and started breathing again. Zardoz, she thought. Zardoz.

  A shadow loomed up against the light of the streetlamp, and Colomba almost started suffocating again before she realized that it was Rovere, who was leaning worriedly over her. “Colomba? Are you okay?”

  He held out a hand to help her to her feet, but she ignored it and sat up, back to the wall. “Fuck, this is all your fault,” she sobbed.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Colomba tilted her head back to look at him, her face streaked with tears and dust. “You left me to handle the investigation! Not officially, secretly, all the better to screw Santini! And this is the result!”

  Rovere leaned over her again. “Are you sure that this murder is connected to the Maugeri kidnapping?”

  Colomba dried her eyes. “Yes, goddamn it. But I don’t have any way of proving it! If we’d found Montanari alive, we could have used his testimony, brought him to the magistrate’s attention. But we don’t have a fucking thing!”

  “The video camera . . .”

  “The video camera filmed several hundred children! And just one of them was kidnapped. If I went in to tell them this story, De Angelis would treat me worse then he treated Dante. And I couldn’t take that!” She shouted the last sentence.

  “If you’ve gotten close, you can get closer still,” Rovere said in a paternal tone. “You’re actually doing this, Colomba! Don’t you see?”

  “But what if that guy gets scared and kills the kid? Did that occur to you?”

  “That’s just a risk we’re going to have to take . . .”

  Colomba slapped away the hand he was holding out to her. “Go fuck yourself, sir.”

  “Colomba . . .”

  “Didn’t you hear what she said to you?” asked Dante. He’d appeared at the end of the street, the light from behind him casting a very long shadow. He was clenching his fists to bolster his courage and keep himself from turning to run.

  Rovere snapped to a standing position and walked toward him. “Signor Torre, we’ve never met. I’m Rovere.”

  Dante took a step back. “I know who you are.”

  “Colomba doesn’t feel well. If you could just give us a few minutes . . .”

  Rovere’s voice was understanding and reasonable, and once again Dante felt the impulse to leave. But he couldn’t do it. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you go away.”

  “Signor Torre . . . maybe you’ve misinterpreted what’s happening here . . .”

  “No, I don’t think I have.” He brushed past him and went over to Colomba, who took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. “How are you? All better now?”

  Colomba didn’t even try to pretend. “Almost.”

  He handed her a Kleenex. “Your lip is bleeding.”

  She dabbed at the blood. “It’s nothing.”

  “Breathe slowly, and if you need something, I’m carrying my own personal pharmacy.”

  “I don’t take that crap you use.”

  Dante turned to address Rovere. “Why did you choose Colomba? Why did you send her to me?”

  “Because I trust her.”

  Dante shook his head. “Fucking liar,” he murmured.

  “You don’t know me, Torre.”

  “But I know people like you.”

  “Let’s go,” said Colomba, heading haltingly toward the car.

  Rovere tried to follow her, but Dante shook his head. “You’re not included.”

  “We nee
d to talk about what’s happened,” Rovere objected.

  “Not now,” said Dante. “We’ll call you.” When he got to the car, Colomba was already behind the wheel. “Are you up to driving?” he asked her.

  “Do you want to drive instead?”

  “I was thinking of a taxi.”

  “Forget about that.”

  “Okay, but go slow. I’m not feeling all that good either.”

  “I don’t want to go back right away. I need some fresh air,” she said as she pulled away.

  “If you open the window in your hotel room, you’ll get all the fresh air you want.”

  “What about Trastevere? It’s better. It’s my favorite part of Rome.”

  “Trust me, you need to get some rest.”

  “No.”

  Dante looked out the car window until Colomba parked outside the Ministry of Public Education. That late at night, there were hardly any tourists, aside from a group of drunken Englishmen who were laughing loudly.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” said Dante. “Just leave the window down for me.”

  “Come on, get out. Let’s take a walk. Or do you have phobias about walking, too?”

  “How sweet,” he commented. But he obeyed.

  They walked down the boulevard, whose bars and souvenir stands were already closed. Only two Pakistanis selling roses were still at work; the Pakistanis followed them for a short distance. There was also a fake Irish pub still open. The end of summer had even taken with it the street vendor selling grattachecca, the sweet slushy drink made with shaved ice from a single huge block, found only in the capital.

  Colomba liked being in that familiar corner of the city, far from the stench of blood. She went there with friends and colleagues whenever she could. When there was something important to celebrate, she always went to a restaurant that was popular with theatrical actors, on Via della Gensola, across from Tiber Island.