Corsican Honor
Page 33
Ludwig looked to his left, where a bust of Adolf Hitler stood before a backdrop of hibiscus. Montoya worshiped the man, spoke endlessly about how he would have dealt with various situations. It was the way the man had mesmerized a nation, controlled all who surrounded him with an iron will. Montoya liked to think he too possessed the same malevolent charisma, Ludwig believed. And, he also believed, it was the reason he had hired a German to lead his narcotics blitzkrieg of Europe. Ludwig shook his head. The man had even had a Nazi death’s head tattooed to the back of his left hand.
He looked back into the reflecting pool and studied the scar on his cheek. He had grown used to it, fond even. It had the look of an old dueling scar, now so highly favored among certain aristocratic young Germans. He turned his head to one side, then the other, searching out the gray hairs that had begun to appear over the past five years. He had colored them, but they had returned and multiplied, and it had proven a regular monthly battle. He had won that fight, but not the one with the faint lines that had begun to appear at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He had been unable to do anything about it—or the scar—to place himself under a surgeon’s blade, to lay unconscious before a stranger with a knife. He dismissed the thought, and his gaze returned to the scar, and the memory of how he had received it. But now repayments were being made. The Pisanis, who had helped Alex Moran hunt him, were being slowly decimated, tortured into nonexistence. He had thought of going after Moran himself, but had decided against it. Better to let the man live out his life in the misery that had been created for him, he had concluded.
The sound of leather heels clicking across a stone walkway brought him back, and he turned to see Montoya approaching, a self-satisfied smile spread across his face. The man was dressed, as always, in a light-colored Armani suit—an off-white today—a bright pink shirt, open at the collar to reveal a heavy gold chain, and highly polished, custom-made loafers. He looked like a pimp, Ludwig thought. And he had the mentality of one as well.
Ludwig had nothing but contempt for the man, but not his money. When the Russian bastards had sent him to South and Central America ten years before, he had viewed it as a journey to virgin territory—and himself as a German Guevara. But he had found little more than well-financed rabble, with grasping leaders, many of whom could not read or write their own language. And they had crumbled like what they were, the Nicaraguans most sadly of all, while the great Cubans had sat cowering in a corner, salting away money for the day their own revolution would fall.
He had wanted to go back to Europe then, but there was nothing to which he could return. Eastern Europe had been vaporized by its own hand, with the help of the now self-devouring Russians, and the Stazi, once the protector of revolutionaries throughout Europe, had quickly sold out the very men and women they had trained and financed for decades. So he had found himself a Guevara without a revolution, a guerrilla without protection, with no place to hide. Oh, there were the Arabs—the Palestinians and the Islamic madmen who did the bidding of Iran—but their vision of the world was worse than the capitalists, and even Montoya had been better than that.
And Montoya’s money.
Ludwig made no excuses for the money. The revolution had failed, and there would be no socialist fighters sitting at the heads of new governments. Those that were there now—even in such bastions as China and Romania—were hanging on by the barest of threads. No, money would rule. And, after all, the results for those who had it would be the same. Privilege and power were the ultimate goals—along with whatever good was possible for the masses—and each could be achieved through either money or politics. He had simply chosen politics, and it had proven the wrong path at this point in history.
“So, how was your flight?” Montoya asked as he came to a halt at the reflecting pool. Twenty steps behind him was his ever present bodyguard, Hector, a short, slender ferret of a man who carried an Uzi at all times, even here behind the twelve-foot walls of Montoya’s garden.
“It is a long flight. Always tiring,” Ludwig said in Spanish.
Montoya allowed his thick lower lip to protrude and wagged his head from side to side in a gesture that both sympathized with and ridiculed the complaint.
“Telephones and the mails are not for us,” he said. “Besides, I like to see your handsome German face, and hear how you are destroying my enemies.”
Montoya was a small man, little more than a fifty-year-old bantamweight, with an oversized nose and capped teeth that had somehow managed to remain crooked despite the painstaking dental work. He had jet black hair and brown eyes that always seemed to dart from one place to another. He reminded Ludwig of a fox who always believed the dogs were close at hand.
Montoya, Ludwig knew, thought of himself as a sophisticate in the European tradition—a laughable idea for a shrewd, brutal, sociopathic peasant, all dressed up like a bad Hollywood version of a gangster. But it was what he wanted to think, how he believed others viewed him, and Ludwig knew it was a scenario that played well for him. Two “Europeans” directing their Colombian peasant army on the continent.
“Your enemies are being destroyed at a steady pace,” Ludwig said.
“But too slow,” Montoya said. “It should go faster, no?”
Ludwig stood so he would have the benefit of towering over the five-foot, five-inch drug czar, something he knew Montoya hated.
“No,” he said. “Too much violence would bring unwanted attention. Marseilles has just been scandalized by a very public murder that involved two city councilmen, who were also doctors and who were involved in a battle over control of health clinics.” He shrugged. “A certain amount of killing is expected, and tolerated, but open warfare would shine a light on us. And it could bring the Americans in, if only to protect their assets in the milieu.”
Montoya waved a disparaging hand. “The Americans,” he spat. “They are fools who don’t know what they want. Their people spend forty billion a year on our product, while their government wages its ridiculous war on us. And at the same time, its chemical companies ship us everything we need for manufacture. If the Americans were serious they would go to Dow and tell them to keep their chemicals at home.”
“There is a difference between their government and the people who run their country,” Ludwig said.
Montoya’s face turned to a scowl. “The difference is that we are losing money,” he snapped. “I want the Pisanis dead, and I want them dead now.” He was raging, and he glanced quickly behind him to make sure Hector was there. He had a fear of Ludwig, and Ludwig understood it. He was not used to dealing with intelligent killers, and the reality made him nervous.
Montoya flashed a smile, his mood changing in another erratic swing. “Europe is gold,” he said, his eyes glittering now. “Almost as much gold as America. Maybe more someday, as one goes up and the other goes down. And when you see gold you must mine it quickly. With a machine gun.”
Montoya paused to laugh at his joke, then beckoned Ludwig to some chairs off to the left of his bust of Hitler. When they were seated he gestured toward the bust. “He understood,” he said. “Overwhelm your enemy with your power. It is the only way.”
Ludwig nodded. And then shoot yourself in your bunker, he thought. But by then I’ll be gone, he told himself. And what would happen to Montoya would be a fait accompli. Europeans would never deal with South American filth. They would be offended by them, and even their money would not wash away the stench. Europeans preferred their own thieves and killers. They did not offend their sensibilities, and their money was just as good, perhaps better.
“We will do it however you want,” Ludwig said. “I can only offer advice.”
Montoya raised a hand. “And it is good. But you are too cautious.” He offered his uneven capped teeth—a gesture of friendship and tolerance. “In a few weeks I will join you in France. I want to meet with this man Francisci, and I want to enjoy the death of my enemies.”
“I will find a place for you,” Ludwig said.
Of course, Ludwig thought. And we will put up a sign announcing your presence.
“There is a villa outside Aix-en-Provence that Francisci owns,” Ludwig said. “I am sure he’ll make it available.”
“Suitable?” Montoya asked, waving his hand about his garden again.
Ludwig smiled. “Not as grand as your own home, but then, the Europeans are not as rich. But it is old and dignified and very European. I think it will suit you.”
Montoya nodded. He liked the answer.
Raphael Rivera joined them for dinner. He was an impeccably dressed man, no more than forty, who spoke flawless Spanish, although with what Ludwig detected as a distinctly American accent.
Montoya treated him like visiting royalty, although Hector still remained close at hand, and Ludwig was not sure if it was because of his own presence or Rivera’s as well.
Rivera had been introduced as a businessman from Bogotá, but Ludwig thought he had the smell of CIA about him, and he wondered if his old enemies had decided to switch sides and drop their longtime assets, the Pisanis, into the slaughterhouse. It would explain Montoya’s sudden machine-gun bravado, he decided.
“Our friend here is buying some points in our European enterprise,” Montoya explained. “And he agrees with me that we should move quickly against these Corsicans.”
Rivera gestured with his manicured hands in what could only be described as halfhearted agreement. Ludwig noticed that Montoya was rubbing the death’s head tattoo on the back of his left hand, something he did only when agitated.
“What do you think of the timing?” Rivera asked. He was tall for a Hispanic, nearly six feet, and he had the slender, well-conditioned, straight-backed bearing of someone who had spent time in the military. But there was a slippery sense to him as well. He had the narrow, pointed face of a thief, and dark, close-set eyes that spoke of someone who would pick your pocket or slit your throat, if either proved convenient.
“The timing, in France, is not good,” Ludwig said, noting the angry glare from Montoya. He ignored it, but not completely. There was money at stake here. “If we can take out the Pisanis themselves, I think their faction will fold, and our friend Francisci will simply swallow what is left into his own group. If it’s a protracted bloodbath, I think it will hurt us.” He paused, gauging the man he was now certain was an American. “My worry is what the Americans will do. If they will send support to their old friends.”
“What if I told you they were already doing so?” Rivera asked.
“Then I would say we should move quickly, before they’re in place.” He stared at Rivera. “Who, and how many are they sending?” Ludwig asked.
Rivera smiled. He was like a cat watching a bird with a broken wing, Ludwig thought.
“Someone you know,” Rivera said. “A man named Alex Moran. And he should arrive quite soon.”
Ludwig’s eyes hardened, then his mouth broke into a slow smile. “Then they know I am there,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” Rivera said. “They know.”
“Then I think we should move very quickly indeed,” Ludwig said. “And I think we should add my old friend Alex to our list.”
“Or make it appear he’s behind any bloodbath that is forced on us,” Rivera said. “Before we kill him,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“Yes,” Ludwig said, nodding. “Although it’s always regrettable to postpone pleasure.”
CHAPTER
36
Marseilles
The drive from the airport brought back a flood of memories, some pleasant, others that served only to fuel his anger and self-contempt. Alex was surprised how being back in Marseilles had intensified his feelings. As the taxi passed the Vieux Port and turned toward the Corniche Kennedy, he glanced toward the battered roofs of the old quarter, and the vision of Stephanie’s body flew at him, taking him back to the Street of Pistols and the blood-soaked squalor of the tenement basement.
He avoided looking at their old apartment building as the taxi passed it, staring instead out at the sea, only to find himself recalling the view from their windows and the day he had stared out at the deep blue of the Mediterranean as Stephanie acknowledged her affair.
No, the memories here were not good, would never be, and he realized Marseilles was a city to which he would never have returned had it not been for the chance to kill Ernst Ludwig.
He thought about Ludwig now, wondering if he were here. Wondering how many he had killed in the intervening ten years. And whose conscience carried those lives.
The man’s face was still vivid in his mind. The vision of him crouched and firing; young, foolish Blount, his body flying back into a doorway. Dead before he hit the ground. And of Ludwig turning, the weapon seeking out a new target—himself this time—the eyes clear and sharp with the will to kill again, the hint of a smile—although the last might be imagination, he told himself, forged out of time and hatred. But the face was burned in his mind. He would not forget it. And he wanted to see it again—and the smile, if it existed then, now—and he wanted it all just before the man died.
But more than the face, he remembered the voice. The cruel, mocking tone as he described Stephanie’s sexual attributes, praised her talents, told him what she had done to him, with him. Conversations that had replayed again and again, and had left him trembling, still left him that way.
And then he had killed her. Butchered her and left her body as a vile, battered message. And he had robbed him not just of the woman, but of the chance of ever knowing if they could have survived what had happened between them. Kept him from knowing if what Ludwig had said was true. If they had been together for months or, if not, if they could overcome her affair with Morganthau. If she had wanted them to.
The thought of Morganthau brought him back to his last dinner with his father. He had asked him why it had taken so long. Why the promises made years before in Cervione had never been kept.
Morganthau, his father had said. What had happened to him had angered people. Made them believe he was too unstable.
“What about Morganthau?” he asked, bewildered.
“You didn’t know?” His father stared at him. “No, you didn’t, did you?”
“Tell me!” he demanded.
His father shook his head. “The man was beaten. Very badly, very professionally. In a way you could have done, or had done.”
He said the man had fled the service, run away in terror. And that those in power in the agency had used it against him.
It was a lie, of course. An excuse to escape their promise. He knew that, but he had kept silent. Alex only hoped his father had not been part of it.
And he knew who had had Morganthau beaten and terrorized. And in a strange way he was grateful for it. At least one old account—deserving or not—had been settled.
The car pulled to a halt, bringing him back, and he found himself at the gates of the Pisani estate. There were four men at the gate now, and two more off at a distance whom he could see. The brothers were on a war footing and taking no chances. He glanced up toward the house, at the corner balconies that had been reinforced to give and repel heavy-weapons fire. They had never been manned to his knowledge, but now they were. The Pisani brothers were afraid. And he had never witnessed that before.
Alex and his driver were searched and questioned, the trunk and front and rear seats inspected. The taxi driver, a man from Marseilles, took it all well, as something to be expected, and tonight, Alex knew, he would tell of it gleefully in his favorite café. And he would be the envy of his friends.
When the taxi pulled before the front door, Antoine did not come bounding down the front steps. Instead two more men descended, and searched and questioned him again. Then they walked him—still watching—to the old, remembered study, where he found his uncles sitting before the unlit fire, awaiting him. It was as it had been ten years ago
, and it was not.
“Donkey,” Antoine shouted, rising from his chair, embracing him, squeezing the air from him in a huge hug. He kissed him ferociously on both cheeks, only to be followed by Meme, who did it all again but with less strength, less vigor.
Alex stared at them, pleased to see them, to be with them again. And he saw they had become old men and was surprised he had not expected it.
He thought about it and realized Antoine must now be seventy, Meme sixty-nine. And the gray had come heavily to them, and the lines in their faces, and a certain frailty that had never been there before. It will be hard for them to survive this, he told himself. And then he dismissed it. He would never want to confront them, he knew. Not even old and frail as they seemed.
“Come, sit. Tell us everything,” Antoine bellowed, gesturing toward a chair by the fireplace.
“How have you been?” Alex asked, taking his appointed chair.
“I have been well,” Meme said. “Antoine grows worse by the day. The older he gets, the more aggravation he brings to my life. I have even thought of killing him just to put him out of his misery.”
Antoine snorted and waved a hand in disgust. “He could not find enough help to do it, or he would have tried,” he said. He hooked his fingers along either side of his mouth. “He is like an old pig who has lost its tusks.” He winked at Alex. “You remember the pigs, eh? You old pants pisser?”
“I never did. Your mind is failing you,” Alex said. He was smiling, couldn’t help himself.
“I have lost many things,” Antoine said. “My dick mostly. But my mind remembers everything.”
“Don’t tell us what your mind remembers or your dick has forgotten, you old fool,” Meme snapped. “I want to hear about our nephew, and how his life has been the past ten years.” He raised a finger to Alex. “You should have visited us. I am very upset with you.”