by David Hewson
“It’s done, boss,” Bianchi said and picked up the phone.
Then Falcone went back to his desk, closing the door behind him, and looked at D’Amato. “So tell me something about Wallis I don’t know.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious? The position as I understand it is he won’t talk to me at all. And when it comes to having a meaningful conversation, he won’t talk to you either.”
“I don’t think he’s his own man in this,” Costa said. “Not completely. It’s as if he’s looking behind him all the time. Why’s that?”
She cast him a cold glance. She knew the answer. She wanted to make them work for it.
“Well?” Falcone demanded.
She swore quietly under her breath. “Wallis fell out big time with the hood he was supposed to befriend. Emilio Neri.”
“We know that,” Falcone declared impatiently.
“Perhaps,” she snapped. “But do you understand the implications? Both sides, the Americans and the Sicilians, had to come in and keep those two apart. Big people don’t like that. Wallis’s punishment was retirement. The punishment sticks. My guess is that if they think he’s messing around again with things he shouldn’t, even talking too freely to us, he’s in big trouble.”
“And this Neri guy?” Peroni asked. “I remember him from my beat. What was his punishment?”
“A slap on the wrist,” she said. “Neri was on his home turf. He was bound to come out on top. Besides . . . Neri’s a different kind of animal. Wallis is educated. He’s got limits. He was in this for business reasons, not some personal vendetta. Neri would rob his grandmother’s grave if he felt like it and go home to boast.”
None of this helped them understand what had happened to Wallis’s stepdaughter, Costa thought. Or where Suzi Julius might be now.
“What if Neri was involved with the death of the girl?” he wondered. “Maybe that was the way he punished Wallis?”
“Neri’s a thug,” Falcone said. “If he wanted to kill someone, he’d kill Wallis himself.”
He nodded at D’Amato. “You’re wrong if you think Neri doesn’t have a code, by the way. Men like him still have some rules. They need them to maintain their position with their troops. Killing a teenage girl to punish another hood . . . It doesn’t look proper. It would damage his standing. Besides, he’d have to let it be known he’d done it, otherwise why bother? If he’d taken responsibility we’d have heard.”
“There’s still plenty of reasons to talk to him,” she suggested. “No harm done.”
“I get it! I get it!” Peroni said, a little too loudly. “That means, of course, the DIA still have to tag along because we got the mob in the loop. And if it’s just a plain murder inquiry it’s nothing to do with you.”
She shot him a savage glance. “I’m trying to help! Will you people kindly stop treating me like I’m the enemy?”
Peroni looked out the window and whistled.
“And the girl?” Costa wondered. “Suzi Julius? Where does she fit in?”
Falcone looked at the image frozen on the TV screen, of the Campo, with Miranda Julius static, staring at the route the bike had taken from the square. “I wish to hell I knew. Let’s hope she’s just another runaway kid. I don’t see how we can treat this as anything else but a missing teenager inquiry until I see something that says different. If there’s any indication this is something more—and I mean any—I want to know about it instantly. Until then . . .” he made sure Costa looked at him, “ . . . let’s get our priorities straight. We have a murder case on our hands and that’s what we focus on. It’s the only thing we know for sure right now.”
“Suzi Julius is still alive—” Costa couldn’t get the picture of the mother’s face out of his head, all the pain there, and the fearful anticipation.
“I know that,” Falcone said firmly. “We’re doing all we can, Nic.”
“And we’re in too?” D’Amato asked. “You know the rules, Leo. This involves organized crime. Like it or not, the people you’re talking about here have been up to their necks in it for years. Neri, for one, still is.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re in.” Falcone looked at his watch then looked at her. “Provided it’s share and share alike. Understood?”
She smiled. “How could it be otherwise?”
Falcone rose from his chair and the three of them got ready to follow him. “Let’s talk to the harpy in the morgue about that body. This report is skimpy and she knows it.”
Costa punched his phone back on as they left the room. He didn’t like losing the call. He didn’t want to be out of touch with anything for a moment.
It came alive halfway down the corridor, ringing straightaway. Teresa Lupo’s voice was so loud it almost hurt his ear.
There was a single, snatched message then the line went dead.
Stupid things come naturally in some circumstances.
You think about throwing an ancient PC monitor through the jammed window of a dead academic’s portable office, knowing all along the frame was too small for you to squeeze through even if you succeeded.
You sit in a fake Roman villa on the Janiculum Hill and try to remember what it was like in the days when you had to scheme to stay alive.
And, in the case of Emilio Neri, whose phone had burned long and hot that afternoon, you storm around your rich man’s palace in the Via Giulia, amazed at the way the past can resurrect itself out of nowhere, cursing your errant son and your profligate wife, wondering where the hell they were when you needed to yell at them.
Fear and fury share the same ill-defined borders. Watching the door handle twist just an arm’s length away from her, Teresa Lupo felt both mad and scared as she tried to force some sense and reason into her head. Then blunt instinct took over. She stood to one side, by the hinges, gripping the puny hammer with both hands, waiting.
It took no more than a moment. The lock turned, the door began to open, slowly. She held her breath, wondering what he was expecting: a figure cowering in the corner. That had to be it.
“I don’t cower,” she whispered to herself, and waited until he’d pushed it to forty-five degrees, enough, she guessed, to get his body positioned in the potential vise between the door edge and the frame.
She had a pathologist’s muscles. She was carrying some excess weight too. She snatched some air into her lungs, stepped back briefly, then lunged with her shoulder into the centre of the plywood slab. It closed on the rider’s body. She bounced harder. Someone screamed: high-pitched, pained. Teresa Lupo darted round the edge of the door and saw him: a black figure in leather, face invisible behind the dark visor of the helmet. He was crouching, clutching his chest. Maybe she’d broken a couple of ribs. She hoped so. A long black pistol lay on the grubby office floor where he’d dropped it. She stabbed at the thing with her foot, was dismayed to see it slide only a metre or so away from him. Then she threw aside the hammer, grabbed the creep by the back of the helmet and yanked hard.
The biker fell into the room. He wasn’t a big guy. If she’d gone to self-defence lessons as she’d always intended, Teresa Lupo reckoned she could have taken him on there and then. Beaten him up a touch. Tied him to a chair. Waved a magic wand over the gun just in case. Been Linda Hamilton out of Terminator 2, all muscles and vengeance. Or something. Her head was running away with itself. Dangerous. She kicked him hard out of the way, struggled through the door, was glad to see the dim light of a clear early evening sky drifting through the bigger windows here.
The old cheap wood slammed shut behind her. She turned the key in the lock then snatched the bunch and threw them across the room, gasping, short of breath, trying to think about what to do next.
You look.
Professor Randolph Kirk lay on the floor in a bloody bundle, face uppermost, dead eyes staring at the ceiling. There was a ragged black hole in his forehead leaking gore. Automatically, she began to think of the autopsy. All the incisions, all the organs she’d have to examine, just so that she could come
up with the obvious conclusion: this man died because someone pumped a piece of metal into his brain. I see no sign of improvement in his condition. The likelihood is that this is a permanent affliction.
With shaking fingers, Teresa Lupo dragged the phone out of her jacket pocket again, stabbing Nic Costa’s number on the keys, struggling to get it right, praying, praying.
His voice crackled in the earpiece, surprised, and sounding very young.
“Nic, Nic!” she yelled. “I’m in deep shit. Help me.”
There was silence on the line. She wondered whether that was really his breathing she could hear or just some digital static blowing in with the chemicals from the Mediterranean a kilometre away to the west.
“Just outside Ostia Antica,” she screeched. “The place I told you about. Please—”
Then there was a sound behind her, a sound so loud it just had to go down the phone and convince Nic Costa this was indeed serious. A sound that reminded Teresa Lupo she really was stupid in these matters.
He still had the gun.
“Idiot,” she hissed at herself, and dashed out the door, the blasts of the pistol, emptying its load into the lock, ringing behind her.
Three police Alfas sped past Piramide, sirens blaring, blue lights flashing. Falcone sat in the front vehicle, with Peroni driving down the middle of the road, pushing everything to one side. Costa held onto the dashboard, trying to make sense of things.
“Stupid bitch,” Falcone murmured. They’d talked to Monkboy who’d come clean about Teresa’s destination once they scared him witless. “Who does she think she is?”
“We should’ve talked to the man ourselves,” Costa volunteered.
Falcone leaned forward from the back seat and prodded his shoulder. “It was on my list for tomorrow, smart-ass. We take things one step at a time.” The inspector leaned back in his seat and stared at the lines of grey suburban houses flashing past the window. A red, poisoned sun was setting through the smog in the distance. The city looked grim and dead. “And we don’t go anywhere on our own. In case you two hadn’t noticed, we’re dealing with big boys here. I don’t want any risks. I hate funerals.”
Rachele D’Amato was in the car behind. Falcone had organized it that way.
“At the risk of repeating myself,” Peroni ventured, “do we really need the woman from the DIA along?”
“Who knows?” Falcone replied. “Until we get there.”
“This is some university professor she went to see, right?” Peroni wondered. “What’s a man like that got to do with the Mafia?”
Falcone said nothing. Peroni braked hard to avoid a street-cleaning truck, then wound down the window and began yelling obscenities into the smoggy evening air.
She came back at five thirty, laden down with shopping bags bearing the names of all the best designer labels. She looked perfect. Adele always did. Her red hair was newly trimmed and a little less red somehow, with a blonde tint shining from beneath. Not a strand was out of place. She wore a trouser suit in crumpled white silk and a grey mink jacket. Neri couldn’t work out whether they were new or not. She bought so many clothes he guessed she must throw half out each week just to make room for more.
He watched her go to the open kitchen and make herself a spremuta, topping up the juice with black Stolichnaya. “Where the hell have you been? I tried getting you on the phone.”
“Battery went flat.”
“Then charge the fucking thing next time you go out. If there is a next time. Maybe I’m introducing a curfew around here.”
She walked over and kissed him on the cheek, taking care to let her loose hand idly stroke the front of his trousers. “Bad day, sweetheart?”
“The worst. And where are my family when I need them?”
She blinked at him. She had long, very fine black eyelashes. He wondered how much they cost, how much of them was real.
“You need me?” Her hand went down again. He pushed it away.
“Don’t have time for that shit.”
“What else do I do for you?” she asked plainly. “What else is there?”
“You’re supposed to be a wife. You’re supposed to be here. Giving me some support. Instead I just got a couple of my own men and them stupid servants who piss around doing nothing downstairs.”
“Support? What kind of support do you want?”
He wished she’d just let this go. Normally she did. Lately, though, she’d been different. It began soon after Mickey had come to live with them. The kid was bad news, like a piece of grit getting inside an oyster, always rubbing away, making things worse, and no pearl at the end. Neri couldn’t help wondering what scams he was running on the side too, and keeping it quiet whenever he got asked. The stupid clothes and the dyed blonde hair were beginning to bug him. And the way he and Adele just kept going at each other. A thought floated across his mind. Sometimes, Neri knew, you saw what you wanted to see, what you were supposed to see. You never saw the truth.
“Never mind. Was Mickey out with you? He should’ve been back here hours ago.”
“Out with me?” She looked at him as if he were crazy. “Don’t you think I see enough of him lounging around in here? He’s your son. Not mine. You work out where he is, who he’s fucking now.”
Neri couldn’t believe his ears. She just didn’t talk like this. He raised the back of his hand. “Watch your mouth.”
Adele waved a long skinny finger in his face. “Don’t hit me, Emilio. Don’t even think of going down that road.”
He balled his fingers into a fist, made as if to swipe her with it, then stopped. There was too much going on to let distractions like this worm their way into his head. He could deal with Adele later. And Mickey if need be.
“Where is he?” Neri repeated.
“I haven’t seen him since this morning. He went out before midday. Maybe he’s out screwing some dumb hooker in his car. It’s what he likes to do, isn’t it?”
They’d argued about this before. Two months ago the police found Mickey shafting some cheap African whore in Neri’s own vintage Alfa Spyder down a back street off the Via Veneto. The stupid kid didn’t even know the law, which gave the cops the right to impound the car. It had taken all the powers of persuasion Neri possessed, and a substantial bribe, to get the thing back. Another expense. The cost of parenthood. Had Mickey learned? Probably not. The kid just didn’t care.
“Listen,” Neri said, taking Adele by her slender, bony shoulders, shaking her just a little. “Listen carefully.”
She pulled free, but she looked a little worried all the same. Maybe, Neri thought, she sensed the atmosphere was changing somehow, was wondering how it might affect her.
“In case you haven’t noticed, this is not a good time for me,” Neri said. “That means it’s not a good time for you either, if you could just get it into your scrawny fucking head. There are bad things happening I don’t need at my age. Some of it of my own making maybe. Some of it because of other people who ought to know better. I just want you to understand.”
“Bad?” she asked, looking puzzled by his sudden frankness. “How bad, Emilio?”
There was a noise outside: a couple of cars drawing up. They went to the window. It had started to rain now. Thin lines of drizzle came down silvery black through the night, drenching the steady traffic on the Lungotevere.
Neri watched her eyeballing the men who got out of the cars. She was no fool. She knew their type. Normally he didn’t even allow them into the house.
“Why are they here?”
“You ever been in a war?” he asked, hating the word as he said it. Wars weren’t supposed to happen. They cost money. They could get you into big trouble with people who thought those days were past.
“Of course not.”
“Start learning,” he murmured, as much to himself as her. “These are what we call troops.”
“Four wheels good, two wheels bad,” Teresa Lupo chanted to herself as the Seat lurched along the rough, potholed lane le
ading from the dig, topping a hundred and twenty as it tackled the bumps. She’d just made it to the car in time to see him stumble out of the portable office, still with the helmet and black visor in place, looking like some deadly insect hunting its prey.
Bugman was riding a motorbike. She was in a car. There had to be some advantage there. It was dark now too, with a little greasy rain falling from the sky. Four wheels good . . .
Except it didn’t mean much right then. The bike rider seemed to possess his own special brand of gravity. The Leon breasted the hard shoulder of the main road, leapt briefly into the air, and turned, tyres screeching, towards the airport.
When she managed to get control of the car once more, seeing with some relief the lights of the main terminal a couple of kilometres off in the distance, she plucked up sufficient courage to glance in the mirror. He’d made up ground. He must be riding the Honda from hell. It seemed to stick to the greasy road in a way the Seat couldn’t. They’d been a good three hundred metres apart when she approached the end of the track. Now half the gap she’d enjoyed had disappeared. The thing moved like crap off a hot shovel.
“Holy fuck,” she whispered idly and stared at the mobile phone on the seat. She didn’t even dare try to call again. She needed both hands on the wheel. She needed her mind set on survival, nothing else.
The car dropped into fourth, she floored the accelerator and roared past a couple of slow-moving trucks, one of which was just lumbering into the outside lane to overtake. The mirror was briefly a mass of metal as the two leviathans leaned into each other for dominance. Then the bike came through between them, squeezing into a gap no more than a metre or so wide, speeding ahead.
“Jesus.” She stared into the mirror. “What did I do? Where are the cops, for God’s sake?”
The terminal didn’t seem much closer just then. All her ideas of safety in its bright lights were starting to disappear. And anyway, her mind told her, Mr. Insect Head didn’t care about bright lights. She could run in and march straight up to check in at the Alitalia First Class desk and he’d still follow, all the way on his bright and shiny machine, pausing only to pump a couple of bullets into her head before riding out of the doors again, because that’s what men on motorbikes did.