All He Saw Was the Girl (13 page)

    "We
have no record of it," Rady said.

    There
was no record because Chip forgot to do it. His word against Franco's. Who were
they going to believe?

    "We
tried your cell phone," his dad said.

    "I
misplaced it," Chip said.

    "You
misplaced it, or lost it? What's that, the third one this year?"

    There
was his dad on his case, giving him a hard time as usual. He decided not to
tell him he dove off a cliff into the Mediterranean and the phone was in his
pocket and he didn't realize it. That would've sounded even dumber.

    Now
Captain Ferrara, who hadn't spoken, said, "If they did not kidnap young
Signor Tallenger, who do they have?" He stared at Chip when he said it.

    "I
don't know," Chip said.

    "Maybe
they didn't kidnap anyone," his dad said. "They tell us they've got
Chip and we don't know where he is, can't reach him so we believe it."

    'I
was just thinking," Chip said. "It could be McCabe."

    His
dad looked at him now, waiting for an explanation.

    "He
was supposed to go with us," Chip said, "and never showed."

    "Find
out if McCabe's here," his dad said to Rady. "That shouldn't be too
difficult, should it?"

    Rady
got up and walked out the room. "What do you think?" his dad said to
Captain Ferrara. "They have someone. They are not bluffing. But if the
school did not know your son's travel plan, how would the kidnappers?"

    Fifteen
minutes later Frank Rady came back in the room and said McCabe had missed his
Italian class Thursday evening. He hadn't checked out and hadn't picked up his
mail since Wednesday. No one working the front desk could remember seeing him
for a few days.

    It
wasn't conclusive, but it didn't look good, either. "Captain, what do you suggest
we do?" "There is nothing we can do. We wait and see."

    McCabe
thought they were going to kill him. He had seen all their faces, could
identify them. Why take a chance? But if that was their intention, they'd have
done it at the farmhouse, out in the country where no one was around.

    He
was in the back of the blue van, blindfolded, hands cuffed behind his back,
sitting on the metal floor against the side wall, trying to keep his balance.
There were two of them in front, talking about what they were going to do with
their share of the money. McCabe recognized the big man's voice, the big man
saying he was going to buy a car, a Toyota.

    The
one he was talking to said, "How are you going to fit in it?"

    The big
man said, "
Vaffanculo."

    McCabe
was trying to figure out how long they'd been on the road — thirty, forty
minutes - when the van slowed down and stopped. He heard the rear doors open
and he was lifted out and dropped on concrete. The van doors closed. The
handcuffs were unlocked and removed. He heard a pistol shot, body tightening,
bracing for impact, and realized it was the van backfiring as it drove off. He
untied the blindfold. He was lying on the sidewalk in front of Victor Emmanuel.

    It
was dark and quiet, the streets deserted. McCabe didn't have any money for a
bus or a taxi, or even a phone call, so he walked through the city and up Monte
Mario, one of the seven hills, to Loyola, had to be six miles.

    He
went in the lobby expecting to see Franco behind the front desk, but no one was
there. He went upstairs to the second floor and down to 217, the room he shared
with Chip. It was 4:05 a.m., Monday morning. He sat on his bed, too tired to
take his clothes off, and laid back, head on the pillow, body aching and let
out a breath. The side of his face was swollen where the big man had hit him,
paying him back, but he felt lucky, fortunate to be there. He still couldn't
figure out why they let him go. But he wasn't complaining.

    Chip
was in his bed ten feet across the room from him. Chip sat up, leaned over and
turned on his desk light.

    McCabe
said, "Turn that goddamn thing off."

    Chip
got up and crossed the room, standing over him in his underwear.

    "What'd
they do to you, Spartacus?"

    McCabe
said, "What's it look like?"

    "You
got your ass kicked," Chip said.

    "That
sounds about right," McCabe said.

    "They
thought you were me, didn't they?"

    Chip
moved back and sat on his bed, legs over the side, feet on the floor.

    McCabe
said, "How much was the ransom?"

    "Half
a million euros."

    "Who
paid it?"

    "The
senator."

    McCabe
closed his eyes. That was the last thing he heard him say.

    The next
morning there was a note on the floor, pushed under the door, telling McCabe to
contact Mr Frank Rady immediately He took a shower and went to Rady's office.
The door was open. Rady was sitting at his desk and looked up when he walked
in.

    "What
I don't understand, McCabe, is why you didn't come and see me when you got
back."

    He
couldn't win with this guy. He'd been kidnapped and beat up and Frank Rady
acted like it was his fault. "It was the middle of the night. I was tired.
There was nothing you could've done till morning."

    "That's
up to me," Rady said. "Not you. How'd you get past the front desk
without Franco seeing you?"

    "He
wasn't there. What difference does it make?"

    "You
let me worry about that," Rady said, staring at him. "Looks like you
pissed off the wrong people." He seemed pleased all of a sudden, flashed a
grin. "Somebody tagged you good, huh?"

    McCabe
didn't say anything.

    "Change
your clothes, put on a nice shirt. We're going to go downtown, talk to Captain
Ferrara with the carabinieri. I think you know him."

    McCabe
looked around the room. It was the same one he and Chip had been taken to the
night they were arrested. He remembered the light-green walls, and the clock
that made time creep by, and the line gouged in the tabletop that looked like
it was made by a key or a belt buckle. McCabe could relate. Being in this room
put you on edge.

    "Tell
me what happen," Captain Ferrara said, taking the pipe out of his mouth.

    McCabe
liked the sweet smell of the tobacco. The captain sat next to Frank Rady,
across the long table from him. "I was walking through Villa Borghese and
four guys jumped me."

    Captain
Ferrara said, "You were alone?"

    "Yes,"
McCabe said.

    Ferrara
said, "What were you doing in Villa Borghese?"

    "Looking
at the Bernini sculpture in the gallery." McCabe paused. "And four
guys came through the trees and took me down."

    "When
this was happening," Captain Ferrara said, "what were you thinking?
Why did they come after you?"

    McCabe
said, "I had no idea at the time. But later, I figured they’d seen the
article in the newspaper and thought I was Chip."

    Captain
Ferrara said, "What did they say to you?"

    "Nothing.
They kept me chained in the cellar of a farmhouse somewhere outside Rome."

    "And
you told them you are not Chip Tallenger," Ferrara said. "I
did."

    "Why
not prove it, show them your ID," Rady said.

    McCabe
said, "I left my wallet at school."

    "Nice
going," Rady said. "That wasn't very smart, was it?"

    "It
wouldn't have mattered," McCabe said. "They were going to demand the
ransom no matter who they had."

    "You
can identify the kidnappers?" Ferrara said.

    "They
wore bandanas over their faces," McCabe said, "like western bandits,
and I was blindfolded part of the time, but I saw two of them. They thought I
was sleeping and came down to the cellar to check on me."

    Frank
Rady, with his big white freckled arms on the table, said, "Were they
Eye-talian?"

    McCabe
frowned. "Yeah, they were Italian." What did he think they were?

    "Don't
get smart, McCabe," he said. "We're trying to help you here."

    Captain
Ferrara opened the laptop that was on the table in front of him. It was a Dell.

    "You
look at this," he said. "I believe you will see the ones who kidnap
you."

    He
turned the laptop screen toward McCabe and slid it over to him.

    Rady
said, "Who's he looking at?"

    "The
criminals, the known offenders," Ferrara said. "Many are in a gang.
They work for the Camorra, 'Ndrangheta, or the Sicilian Mafia."

    McCabe
studied the first screen, three rows of headshots.

    "If
you recognize one of them, " the captain said, "click on the image to
make it larger, fill the screen."

    McCabe
went through half a dozen screens, scanning rows of faces and saw the big guy,
no mistake about it, same heavy beard, thick neck and double chin. He clicked
on his face, Luigi Bagnasco, it said under the photo. McCabe remembered them
calling him Noto. He clicked through ten more faces and saw the stocky guy with
red hair, Sisto Bardi, remembering him from the newspaper article, one of the
men who had escaped. He kept going and hit the jackpot, saw Mazara. He put the
cursor on him and clicked, his face looking younger, thinner, filling the
screen. Roberto Mazara.

    It
was interesting to think about the name fitting him. Yeah, he could see it: Bob
Mazara, trying it out. Captain Ferrara studying his face as he studied the
computer screen.

    "You
recognize one of them?" the captain said.

    McCabe
shook his head. "I don't think so."

    "You
are sure?" the captain said.

    "Yeah,"
McCabe said.

    He
scanned through the rest of the faces, stopping on the last one. "That's
it," McCabe said. "I don't see any of them, but this guy reminds me
of De Niro in
Goodfellas."
He turned the screen toward Captain
Ferrara and slid the laptop over to him.

    "
Quel bravi ragazzi
," Ferrara said.

    McCabe
said, "That's the translation for
Goodfellas
, huh? You like
him?"

    "Raging
Bull, Taxi Driver, la sfida,
I see them all."

    McCabe
said, "What's
la sfida?."

    
"Hot,
I think it is called."

    "You
mean
Heat,"
McCabe said.

    "Yes,
Heat.
I love the cinema."

    "If
he doesn't see them here," Rady said to the captain, "who do you think
they are?"

    "It
is difficult to say. They could be a new gang we do not know," Captain
Ferrara said. "Unfortunately, Signor Rady, there is nothing more we can do
until they spend the money. We record the serial numbers of the euro
notes."