At the End of a Dull Day (16 page)

“King of Hearts! At last you're here,” my hostess greeted me.

“I'm deeply horny tonight,” I warned her. “I had an opportunity to have some fun with a pretty young thing but I was forced to refrain out of prudence.”

“Not a consideration when it comes to me, I assure you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you think I might be a worthy substitute for the pretty young thing?”

“I think it's fair to give you a chance to try.”

 

On Sunday afternoon, immediately after lunch, I went back to the residential hotel to eliminate all evidence of my stay in the structural engineer's apartment. I came equipped with everything needed for an in-depth cleaning job. As soon as I drove into the underground garage I noticed Ylenia's Mini Cooper convertible. Out of caution, I made sure that the Counselor's car wasn't parked somewhere out of sight, but I was pretty sure that on Sunday afternoon he was spending time with his wife, family, and friends. This was the day of the week dedicated to family, and Brianese would never have made an exception.

Curiosity led me to push the doorbell of their love nest. She opened the door with a radiant smile, certain it was her beloved Sante. She turned white as a sheet and her first impulse was to slam the door in my face, but the tip of my shoe was too fast for her. I shoved her inside. She was wearing an ivory-colored slip. A little old-fashioned, the way the Counselor liked it.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “On a Sunday you ought to be with mommy and daddy or with your girlfriends. Attending Mass, bringing trays of pastries, tagliatelle and roast chicken . . . ”

“I preferred to stay here.”

“Problems with your lover?” I asked, looking around the place. The apartment was decorated with good taste, in an expensive rustic style. This was no sex dive: it really was a love nest.

“He didn't believe me,” she replied in a tone of lament. “He's convinced I had hot sex with a young lover.”

“Hot sex.” I snickered as I imagined the scene. “The Coun­selor's jealous.”

She gave me a look filled with hatred. I handed her the plastic bag filled with cleansers and sponges of all kinds. “Come on down with me and help clean up your pee stains from yesterday. While we work I can fill you in on how men operate.”

In her slip and pink elbow-length rubber gloves, Ylenia looked like a porn star in a movie about sexy housewives. While she was down on her knees cleaning the floor a lock of hair fell over her eyes and she tossed her head with a fairly sexy movement. As promised, I was generous with information. I told her plenty of secrets about us men and gave her a heap of advice, most of it useless, about how to win back her Counselor. It was fun and relaxing. She listened attentively, nodding now and then, and other times peering over at me in bafflement. When I accompanied her back upstairs, I felt sure that I'd created a feeling of companionship with the pretty young secretary.

“I was lucky I met Sante,” she said as she walked into the apartment. “By now I could have been married to someone like you. Someone ignorant and violent.”

Lightning flashes of mute fury exploded in my eyes, blinding me for a second or two. I concentrated on the shape of a table lamp to keep from doing something foolish. “Just wait a few years. You won't be his lover anymore. You'll be his caregiver,” I hissed, certain that that one would put her down for the count.

“Ah, the ripening maturity of my gerontophilia.”

“What the fuck did you just say?”

“Nothing important, but don't start acting all buddy-buddy. You kidnapped me and threatened to kill me in order to extort information out of me and I was afraid to resist.”

“Don't get a swelled head. You're nothing but a sewer, just like your boss.”

I was furious at myself. I'd acted like a naïve jerk, but Ylenia had taken things too far and had broken a golden rule: if someone has you by the balls, you have to obey. Always. She'd pay dearly for that mistake.

H
ave you already spoken to Giuseppe Palamara?”
Not yet,” Tortorelli replied in a courteous tone. “I'd planned to do it Wednesday or Thursday.”

I put on a grimace of disappointment. “Do you mind if I just skip work entirely this afternoon and tonight? I don't know how to explain it to you, but I can't seem to work the way I used to anymore. In fact, if you have any ideas about the menu, you should talk to the cook about it. My mind's a blank for some reason.”

“Take your time, Pellegrini,” he reassured me in a voice that sounded like a television pitchman. “La Nena is in good hands.”

I parked my car close to Nicoletta's house. I took the rucksack with the handgun, the silencer, and other equipment that would be useful during the operation and I headed over, at a leisurely pace. I was early.

My ex partner wore her hair in a bun. That was new. The cigarette dangling from her lips was normal, though. “Where's the African?”

“Upstairs. He's getting dolled up.”

I climbed the stairs and found him in front of the bathroom mirror, his face covered with lather. He was singing and he kept on singing even after I came in.

“Rock 'n' roll,” I observed. He nodded with satisfaction.

 

C'est lundi

Dans mon lit

Il est onze heures

Mal au coeur

Mal dormi

Envie de pipi . . .

 

“You're in a good mood,” I commented.

“Today my whole life may change.”

“Sure, money and a passport, too . . . Where do you think you might go?”

“Back to Africa. Where? . . . That's just a detail.”

I went back downstairs. Nicoletta was loading the dishwasher. “Your black guest thinks he's going back to Africa.”

“Poor fool. He doesn't know how good you are at destroying other people's dreams.”

“So now you like him?”

“A little,” she answered, with a tinge of irony.

“Smoke another cigarette and behave yourself. Today's not the day to be a shit for brains.”

With split-second punctuality Mikhail showed up, and Nicoletta retreated upstairs. “Here comes the Cossack cavalry,” he joked as he set two suitcases on the table in the living room. One suitcase contained clothing, gloves, and ski masks. The other held cell phones, handcuffs, duct tape, and guns. Brand new guns, still in the original packaging. I opened one of the boxes and picked up a large powerful-looking semiautomatic handgun.

“Where do these come from?” I asked, trying to decipher the writing on the slide.

“Poland,” the Russian replied. “It's a 9 mm pistol. Fifteen rounds in the clip.”

I handed it to the Chadian. “You think you can handle this? You're going to be on the front line.”

He held it properly and did all the things that I would expect from someone who'd been in combat. “Nice gun,” he commented, aiming at a wall. “It demands respect.”

I got changed in the ground floor bathroom. Cheap Chinese garments. Jacket and trousers, shoes and tie all in basic black. White dress shirt. I looked in the mirror.

I looked like one of Tarantino's reservoir dogs. Another touch of
confusion
for our Calabrian friends.

“
Les cagoules
. . . the ski masks, there's only two of them,” Hissène pointed out when I came back.

“The plan calls for someone to remember a black guy,” I explained.

He grimaced with chagrin. “Everyone will see my face.”

“That's what I want. Remember, to us you all look alike and no one will ever be capable of identifying you. The important thing is not to leave fingerprints,” I added, tossing him a pair of gloves.

The highway was jammed with traffic and construction delays. Mikhail was doing a skillful job of driving the Japanese SUV that he'd stolen in a discotheque parking lot. The owner, little more than a boy, was so wacked out on drugs that he just handed his car keys to Mikhail with a grin. The Chadian proved to be quite a conversationalist and struck up a lengthy and demanding discussion with Mikhail of Russia's role on the African continent. After a while I couldn't take any more. I had hoped to sit in back and relax but that proved impossible.

“Can't you guys just talk about normal armed-robber topics? You know, like women, sports, and money?”

They both broke out laughing and Mikhail tuned the radio to a station that broadcast only Italian music. “Is that better?”

The singer was certain that the sun was there for everyone. I was pretty sure that Tortorelli and the Palamaras got up this morning with the same set of beliefs. I put my iPod earbuds in. Grace Slick's voice exploded into my head, urging me on, singing: “
You have a power all your own . . .
”

 

The gray metallic Lexus sedan emerged from the car rental offices at 7
P.M.
on the dot. It pulled onto the highway we'd just taken to get here, and the whole way it never went slower than 70 mph. The Russian rode the accelerator with a heavy foot and we got to the service plaza near Brescia well ahead of him. I handed the African one of the cell phones with a Bluetooth headset. That was how we'd communicate.

A guy in a white Fiat Punto was already there. He was waiting in his car in the parking lot near the phone booths. Smoke and one end of a cell phone conversation wafted out of the car's open windows. It was the time of the evening for panini and fast food while drivers of semi trailers hurried to find the best parking spots to bed down for the night. A highway patrol squad car pulled up in front of the bar. Tired faces, an espresso and a quick piss, and then back in the car to devour the miles on their shift. The Calabrians had picked an ideal place and time. No one was paying attention to anyone else.

The Lexus swung into the parking area and slowly prowled across it, finally stopping in front of the closed roll-down door of the repair bay. The guy in the Fiat Punto got out, locked his car with his remote control, and strolled off at a leisurely pace. Mikhail had told us that the next thing he'd do would be to get into the Lexus, have a short chat with his partner, and then get out carrying a dark blue gym bag.

Hissène was too fast for him. He came from around the corner and pulled open the passenger-side door. “Start the engine,” I heard him say in my headset.

The driver stayed cool. “You can put down the piece. My wallet's in the glove compartment.”

In the meanwhile, the guy from the white Fiat Punto had seen the African get in; at first he stopped and looked around, but then he sped up his pace.

“Hurry up,” I snarled into the cell phone, turning around to look at the Russian. With the age-old pretext of tying his shoe, he was busy jamming a knife blade into one of the Fiat Punto's tires.

“I know exactly who you are and what this car is carrying,” the Chadian said. “If you don't get moving I'll shoot you.”

The driver did as he was told without another word, and the Lexus moved slowly toward the exit, followed by Mikhail who had returned to the SUV. We drove past the driver of the Punto as he was running back to his car.

“Where are we going?” the driver asked.

“Back to Milan, to the car rental place,” the African replied.

“What do you know about the car rental company?”

“Shut up and pull off at the next exit.”

I heard a cell phone ring. It had to be the guy in the Punto who wanted to know what the fuck was going on. The Chadian switched off the driver's phone, as he'd been instructed.

“Look in the rearview mirror,” the Chadian told him. “You see the SUV that's following us? They're friends of mine.”

“More fucking niggers like you, is that what you mean?”

It was time to intervene. “Let me talk to him.”

The African took the headset off his ear and inserted it into the Calabrian's ear. “I'd suggest you keep calm,” I said in a relaxed voice. “Giuseppe Palamara wants to know who's stealing his money.”

“What the fuck is going on here?” he shouted in exasperation.

“Maybe it's Nilo and maybe you're his accomplice.”

He calmed down and drove wordlessly for a while. As I expected, he couldn't put the pieces together. Finally, he said the only thing he knew for sure: “You're just trying to fuck with my head.”

“That's right,” I admitted without hesitation. “But you'd better shut up and behave if you want to stay alive.”

Hissène took back the headset. “Did you search him?” I asked.

“He's unarmed.”

“Be careful. He's smart and he's dangerous.”

Mikhail, who'd said nothing until then, shot me a few quizzical glances. “You're wondering why I decided to start naming names with that fucked-up Mafioso.”

“Exactly. There are times when the less said the better.”

“Sure, you're right, but tomorrow morning you're going to vanish with your bag of money, while I'm going to have to deal with the feral cunning and mistrust that have made these miserable Calabrians rich, powerful, and feared everywhere. If they figure this out I'm a dead man. I'm just trying to sow some
confusion
.”

He snickered. “
Dezinformatsia
. And do you think you fooled the driver?”

“He's confused, he doesn't know what to think. And that's already a good thing, this early in the game.”

The rest of the drive was an unbroken monologue from the Calabrian as he attempted to establish a contact. I listened to him carefully, doing my best to parse the nuances and details.

He continually called me “big man.” He was obviously distraught but he clearly had a pair of balls. No matter how things turned out, he'd have to pay. The price could be death or it might be a one-way ticket back to his little Calabrian village. He obviously knew that perfectly well, because it was clear that he'd grown up on bread and 'Ndrangheta and was a longtime soldier. He proved it when he started opining about the pistol that Hissène was holding on him.