“Who killed Slezak?”
The inspector frowned. “Marino ordered me to tell you what I’ve told you. I don’t know anything else, and I don’t care to.”
“It’s eating away at you. You can tell just by looking at you.”
“That woman doesn’t know the meaning of respect. Humiliates me in front of my colleagues,” he confessed. “Just be patient. All things pass. Even the Dottoressa will turn out to be nothing but a bad memory.”
Keep dreaming, I wanted to tell him, but I restrained myself. Campagna was increasingly distraught, and I couldn’t wait for him to leave.
I took a clean phone out of the drawer. “I know it’s illegal, but yours is being tapped by Angela Marino’s goons, and we need to be able to talk in peace.”
I held it out. After hesitating a moment, he took it.
“They’re not stupid,” he said. “They’ll figure out we’re going behind their backs.”
“They have to start assuming that we’re not stupid either.”
He stared at me. “You sure about this, Buratti?”
“They outman us is all.”
“I should hope so. They represent the state.”
“A perverse bit of it.”
For once he fell silent. He put the phone in the pocket of his parka and headed for the door.
I found my friends back in the kitchen. Max making a sumptuous breakfast, Rossini reading the paper.
“You tell that pig never to set foot in this house again?” asked the Fat Man combatively.
“Yes. But you can never be too sure with Campagna. Besides, he’s a pig. They come and go as they please.”
Beniamino folded up the paper. “Any news?”
I filled them in while heating up some milk and nabbing a couple slices of buttered toast with jam, which the Fat Man had prepared with the assiduousness of a monk.
“Marino has left no stone unturned,” grumbled Max. “It’s clear she knows a lot more about this whole affair than she let on.”
“She doesn’t want to risk having someone turn up one day accusing her of using us, of giving us classified information. She’s held back everything but what we would have discovered for ourselves with a bit of time on our hands.”
Max turned on the tablet and opened Google. Austrian media had followed the story for several days.
“Tobias Slezak and two of his bodyguards were murdered in Vienna in an apartment in the Brigittenau neighborhood,” reported the Fat Man. “Four kilos of cocaine were discovered next to the bodies. Several witnesses who heard shots fired said they saw a lone man run from the building. The police have released an identikit.”
Max turned the screen around so we could see the photo. “Recognize anyone familiar?” he asked triumphantly.
“Christ, it’s Pellegrini,” cried Old Rossini.
There was no doubt about it. It was him all right. Now we could at least piece together part of the story.
Giorgio Pellegrini had fled Padua pursued by a warrant for his arrest and Rossini’s pledge to turn him into another bracelet to vaunt on his wrist. Somehow he had entered into contact with Slezak’s organization, probably with the intention of inserting himself into the drug-trafficking ring: life on the run comes at a price and there’s never enough money. But, just as he was finalizing the deal, tempers must have flared, and he fired first, killing three men and once again vanishing into thin air. Pellegrini is vile, but you have to give him credit: His knack for disappearing is extraordinary. He has a nose for danger and always has a ready backup plan.
Paz Anaya Vega, Slezak’s wife and one of the organization’s heavies, also went underground, right after the funeral. But she wasn’t on the run. She was on the hunt. She wanted to find Giorgio Pellegrini and exact revenge. And she began settling accounts by killing the wife and mistress.
“It doesn’t make sense,” balked Max. “Why didn’t Pellegrini take the coke? It was worth a fortune on the market.”
Old Rossini chimed in: “We’ve got to find out whether he was already on the pigs’ dole in Vienna.”
“Can’t be ruled out,” I said. “To inherit the Eden of immunity, Pellegrini’s capable of anything.”
Max opened the fridge and came up with a jar of yogurt. “So we’re talking about an execution. For some motive that we’re overlooking right now, it was imperative that those three guys die.”
“Another good reason for the Spaniard to flee the scene. She was scared she’d meet the same end.”
“But her desire for vengeance drove her to Padua, to hang around the victims, to kill them in that flagrant way. And that,” I objected, “was a gamble.”
“Yeah,” said Rossini, cutting me off, “but a tiny one. From an operational standpoint it was perfect.”
“According to Dottoressa Marino it’s our job to track down Paz Anaya Vega and her men.”
“She wants to make sure this doesn’t get too close to Pellegrini,” said Beniamino, running a finger over his bracelets. “At the same time she wants to collect evidence of a connection between us and the drug dealers to present in court.”
“And the star witness will be none other than Pellegrini,” I added. “She’ll enjoy the show from the rafters.”
Max sighed with disdain. “The grand puppeteer.”
We smoked in silence, lost in thought. My friends’ faces were grim.
“Do we know anybody in Vienna?” I asked, sick of spooling through nightmares of my future as a jailbird.
The Old Gangster nodded. “Pierino Martinenghi.”
“You sure?” asked Max, surprised. “Didn’t he move to Denmark?”
“That didn’t last long. Now he works at a hotel and dines on Sachertorte.”
“He works?”
“He’s gotten wise. Doesn’t want to attract the attention of the local authorities. But he still has a thing for safes.”
I glanced at my watch and asked the Fat Man to check when the next train departed for the Austrian capital.
THREE
I couldn’t pick them out, but I sensed their presence. Serj Balakian’s men were spying on me. It was the fourth time that the Armenian had arranged a meet, through contacts who took their sweet ass time, and then was a no-show.
I paid the bill and headed off in the direction of Kapuzinerplatz, prompting disappointed looks on the faces of two old gals. The whole time they’d been making eyes at me while I had to sit tight in that shitty posh patisserie. They weren’t bad. They oozed money and class. Were circumstances different I’d have taken advantage of the situation, showed them I was available, a gentleman, and at the same time open-minded, would have suggested we split a little something three ways with a surprise ending that only I’d have appreciated. They’d have been so shaken up that they would have stopped seeing one another and tried to forget what had happened with that charming and apparently harmless man. So “normal.” Not even the best shrink would have given them answers, while I would have retained only happy memories of the permanent scars that I’d left on their lives.
I bid the women goodbye with a regretful smile. It had been a minute since I’d had myself some fun, but the situation wouldn’t allow it. All eyes were on me. The eyes of Italian cops and international crooks. I’d get another shot. It was just a matter of being patient. According to a bank LED display, it was ten degrees out. The cold didn’t bother me, but it had spoiled my stay in Munich, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’d been in the city for over a month and a half and was growing bored.
Balakian would eventually decide to meet me, but, for my tastes, it would be too late. I entered a department store and lost my two shadows, a man and a woman who had been trailing me since Tumblingerstraße and had done nothing to avoid being noticed.
I had to show Balakian that I wasn’t Sucker Number One. Besides, I didn’t feel like advert
ising my home address.
Angelina Marino was the one who procured my apartment, a cranny in Neuperlach. She’d put me up in a two-bedroom, furnished with scrap merch, on the first floor of a building two blocks from Kafkastraße.
I deserved better, but Marino was cheap. She believed even special operations needed to curb expenses.
A bitch with few equals, that cop, but she was the only one who understood that I could come in handy for complicated missions with multiple layers, the fruit of long and grueling meetings. So, when I put myself on the immunity market, she proposed something that, on the face of it, might have seemed like a suicide mission. In reality, it was the wet dream of ministry heavies, but before I came along they couldn’t find volunteers among the crooks for hire, and as far as I knew they’d sacrificed a pair of agents for nothing in an attempt to infiltrate Balakian’s organization. Which wasn’t even the main objective, only a means to touch someone whose identity they still didn’t know.
Marino was still buttoned up. She didn’t trust me. Even though, just to make myself appetizing to the guy, I’d had to kill three drug-traffickers in Vienna. For over four months I’d had to pretend I was a coke buyer looking for a wholesaler with no ties to Italy. Angela had made me memorize a little story about a fallout with the mafia. A half-baked tale only delinquent Austrians would buy, industry outsiders unaccustomed to a certain class of con. Like being shot while receiving a briefcase full of money for four kilos of cocaine. They were former mercenaries who thought all you had to do to stay alive was follow procedure. They couldn’t conceive of someone not giving a shit about rules of engagement. They checked out the references given to them by a regular customer they didn’t know was being blackmailed by Interpol. They wanted to meet me. On the street, in a café, at a restaurant. And then at a brothel. How typical. Finally they wanted to see the money. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be done, but because I wanted to prove I was a reliable customer, I humored them. Wads of cash from the maze of ministry slush funds.
One week of silence and then out of nowhere they summon me to an apartment, the kind rented out to tourists or for special events. But because I had taken the precaution of not using a cellphone and could only be found at a certain joint I stopped by every night at the same hour, Tobias Slezak was compelled to give me the address in person the evening before the meet. It was a minor breach of protocol, but protocol should never be breached. The boss was sure he wasn’t running any risks; after all, they’d checked me out thoroughly. He failed to realize that he had fallen victim to overconfidence, which in the world of crime must be avoided like the plague. So, while he and his men slept like angels and dreamed of the rustle of banknotes that I was supposed to hand over the following morning, I slipped into the apartment—shut with a ridiculous lock—and hid a gun in each of the two bathrooms.
A classic. The same plan is narrated down to the last detail in The Godfather: After the attempt on his father’s life, Michael Corleone meets rival boss Virgil Sollozzo and the corrupt police captain, McCluskey, in a restaurant in the Bronx. He lets them search him, feigning just the right amount of indignation, and then, after opening talks to broker a peace no one wants, he goes to take a leak. Once he’s back at the table, he takes out a .38 caliber that had been taped behind the toilet, and lights them up with a couple shots to the head.
I did exactly what Corleone did. Introduced myself, let them frisk me, handed over the bag of money. They counted it while I sampled the cocaine, and then we had a drink. That’s when I asked where the bathroom was. One of the two goons accompanied me to the nearest one. I took a Turkish-made 7.65 mm from under the sink and shot them both point-blank. First Slezak, then his goons. One apiece to the chest to put them out of commission, and the killshot to the head. The six shots made such a racket they attracted the attention of the usual busybodies. Lucky for me, the Viennese cops didn’t care much about solving the case. When crooks kill crooks, public opinion and the media don’t cry out for justice. Maybe Dottoressa Marino called in a favor, but I can’t be sure.
My one regret was that Paz wasn’t there. I’d have happily offed her. I’d been looking forward to that moment, paired it with fantasies befitting the disdain she’d shown me ever since we’d first met.
From the start she’d felt something about me didn’t add up. She’d been brought up in Madrid’s underworld and orphaned by Georgians—she was far more cunning than her man. She’d known every form of betrayal. She tried to persuade Slezak not to sell me the coke. Barring that, she demanded more background checks. But she had to capitulate: my candor outweighed her suspicions. I would have liked to have complimented her on her acumen. I was really bitter about missing the chance. The whore was dangerous, vindictive. She took her revenge on my girls to show me she was angry and determined but hadn’t lost her head. She was lucid. She’d been able to keep her pain and rage under control. She wouldn’t make a rash move; she would look for me as long as it took to find me and then do me harm. Real harm.
It’s understandable, ultimately. For a woman at the head of an organization of drug-traffickers, however small, it’s got to be tough losing the men in her life. First her father, then her partner.
I could have gotten rid of Paz when she’d shown up in Padua to plan the murders of Martina and Gemma. The moment I saw the photos that good-old Giampaolo Zorzi had taken, I was tempted to make a play on her, but it would have jeopardized the whole operation. To get close to Balakian I needed someone who wanted to eliminate me at all costs.
How the Spaniard discovered my name is Giorgio Pellegrini remained a mystery, but in the end that didn’t matter much. I’d told Marino that photos of yours truly were circulating on the Internet, photos from my past, from my successful turn as a restaurateur, but she wasn’t worried. She was sure that the identity that ministry experts had made for me was more than safe.
When they get the notion to act illegally, cops presume they’re as wily as the most weathered crook. And the Dottoressa was no exception. She still hadn’t realized that it isn’t enough to know your target and ape his methods and habits. Not only is a crook’s mindset completely different, so is the combination of instincts and impulses that drive him to crime.
To be honest, I’d have left Paz free to act anyway. It worked in my favor. For several reasons.
Martina and Gemma were creatures that I’d molded to suit my needs. I’d invested time, money, and energy in their training, and I wasn’t about to let them become someone else’s property. Plus, even without my guidance, cruel and empty unhappiness awaited them all the same. Death was no doubt the appropriate solution. Besides, I’d had to bid goodbye to La Nena and Padua for good, and when you burn bridges you’d better not leave behind any encumbrances. And that’s exactly what a wife and mistress are. On top of that, the double homicide offered me the possibility of settling the score with Buratti and Rossini. They were the ones, with the aid of that berserk pig Campagna, who forced me to flee Padua.
Angela Marino was enthusiastic about my offer to involve her in an unofficial investigation to track down the Spaniard who, in the meantime, had gone on the lam.
I called that fuckhead Buratti and he immediately took the bait. He knew Martina and Gemma, and I was sure that the pathetic frailty of Gemma had struck a nerve. He felt invested in the mission to free those two poor girls from my influence and thought he’d succeeded by forcing me to run. News of their death was a hard blow. It wasn’t an accident that the lawyers he worked for called him the Crusader. I was sure he’d throw himself into the investigation to bring justice to those two poor innocent victims. Rossini the Relic and that fat fuck Max the Memory would have had his back.
Even if they were mixed up in “very” special operations, the police had to play dumb about what went down in Vienna, and having three crooks to sacrifice to the courts made things pretty cushy, especially if they fit the profile that would get the media’s attenti
on. Beniamino Rossini was born to play the role.
The three fuckheads had tried to save their asses by taking the most obvious shortcut: offing yours truly. But they were so crusty and unimaginative that predicting their next move was a piece of cake. After their third attempt I was sick of playing around and led them by the hand to the house where pretty Lotte Schlegel put me up. I liked that big girl—so Swiss, so subservient. She couldn’t foresee that I was capable of taking her to dark places where she discovered she was happy to give up the dignity that poured out of her mouth. I felt kind of sorry for putting her down and stuffing her in that closet. But those three should have known that their attempts to kill me would trigger the death of more people. Plus I was irked when they started passing my photo around the slums of Bern. Getting other people involved is a punishable offense, an act of disloyalty. When I caught that guy snooping around Lotte’s house, I knew the time had come to switch cities.
I followed that little nothing of a man and shot the breeze while he paused to drop five francs on the Swiss Lotto. Discovered his name was Hermann and that he’d worked for thirty years in Schwarzau Prison. In his pocket he had a couple of photographs that had appeared in a cooking magazine, and he recognized me. Had seen me in the neighborhood before, in the company of Lotte, and remembered me. He swore he’d met too many crooks in his lifetime not to recognize one on the street. Twaddle. I’ve got a gift for sizing up the greedy, the corrupt, so I paid him to sell me out to Buratti. I got him to give me one of the photos and taped it to the closet where the remains of my hostess hung. It seemed like a cute touch, one that would facilitate their finding her.
Marino lapped up my bullshit about Schlegel’s homicide. I pinned the blame on Paz Anaya Vega, and when I complained about those three idiots’ fruitless attempts to take my life, she didn’t blink. She wanted to see the case through. Everything else, in her eyes, was mere detail. But I was sure that, despite her reassurances, she wanted to pull one over on me. It was foreseeable. In Italy certain things haven’t changed since the dawn of time.
Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores Page 6