Gang of Lovers (19 page)

“At least ten feet,” I replied, thinking back on what had happened.

“It's the kind of handgun used by mafia killers and the intelligence agencies for close-range executions. You place the barrel behind the victim's ear, or against his temple or his heart, and you pull the trigger,” he explained. “It certainly isn't well suited for this kind of ambush.”

“I don't think he was a professional,” I shot back. “For that matter, only his first two shots were good, after that, thankfully, he missed, even though we weren't moving.”

“But that contradicts the idea of a gang of badass professionals,” the detective noted. “Though the killer operated in the only area near your house that isn't covered by security cameras, and that's an element that suggests intelligence and efficiency. He fired and then turned and ran, heading down a side street where in all likelihood an accomplice was waiting for him at the wheel of a car. If you ask me, they're trying to pull our leg, or better yet, bamboozle us, as an old head of the Mobile Squad used to say.”

“What's your plan?”

“You're the last person I'd dream of telling,” he said brusquely.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For coming here with me.”

Campagna shrugged and walked off.

I turned to look at Max. His chest was heaving laboriously with each breath. He was alive. Now I had to face off with Pellegrini and his accomplices and settle this matter; if I tried it alone it would be suicide.

“Please, Beniamino, come back,” I sighed, under my breath.

T
ogno walked over to the counter with a worried look on his face. “Brigadier Stanzani phoned me,” he whispered. “Someone shot that guy Max, the fucking fat man, can you believe it?”

“I heard the news on the radio this morning,” I replied.

“Stanzani says that I should expect someone to come check out my alibi. There's a cop in the armed robbery squad who's going around asking a lot of questions.”

“But we don't have anything to worry about.”

“At that hour I was working for you,” Federico pointed out, unnecessarily. “I was in Silvio Todaro's bar, collecting the money he still owed you for that wine.”

I stared at him. “I know that. I was the one who sent you there ‘at that hour.'”

My henchman stiffened. The wheels in his little brain had just started to turn.

“You ordered that hit,” he realized, looking around him. “Who did you hire to do it?”

“Someone who wasn't as good as you,” I replied. “But you were too hot to touch and I had to settle for second best.”

Togno ran a hand over his face. “They must have understood the lesson, you'll see, they won't bust our chops anymore.”

He was the one who hadn't understood a thing. The point of the ambush was to make sure that those two would be closely watched by the cops. I had guessed that the Centra brothers wouldn't be able to kill them, and I didn't even care. The anonymous tip I'd called in to the DIGOS had surely been more useful, because when those guys catch a whiff of potential terrorism, they lose their heads and won't ever give up the chase. What I couldn't figure out, though, was how a detective from the armed robbery squad fit in, but I was pretty sure I'd find out soon enough.

“I'm going to need you for a few days,” I said in a conspiratorial tone, just to pique the former detective's interest. “I've got a little job scheduled that will earn you at least fifty thousand euros.”

His eyes lit up. He liked money and he knew all too well that without me he would have to scramble to make ends meet for the rest of his life.

“We're going to blackmail a pair of lovers who can't afford to be found out,” I informed him. “You'll be in charge of contacts with the woman, that is, if you're willing, because asking for money in exchange for not revealing a secret demands cunning and delicacy.”

“I'm sharp, I learn quickly, you know that.”

Federico overestimated himself, just as all losers who can't figure out why they've suffered a string of failures do.

I led him to the private dining room where no one would bother much less overhear us.

“They're both in their sixties, long-time customers. This is ‘their' restaurant,” I started in on the story. “She always makes the reservations. ‘Signora Moscati speaking,' she says on the phone, but her real name is Natalina Palazzolo. The man is a well known building contractor, Rosario Panichi . . .”

“Panichi Construction, Inc.,” Togno interrupted, surprised. “He has money coming out of his ears, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who's going to let you extort him over some woman.”

I shook my head. “They've been together for thirty years,” I explained. “She's his only real love. For ages now, once a week, they spend the day together. He was already married when he met her and his wife had already had their first child. His father-in-law had him by the balls, he couldn't afford a divorce, so they had to settle for an illicit relationship that forced his lover to sacrifice herself completely.”

“Poor bitch,” the henchman hissed.

“You're wrong,” I corrected him. “It's a magnificent love story in which a man and a woman have created parallel lives for themselves because they haven't been able to deny their own feelings. She hasn't been able to enjoy a single major holiday in the presence of the man she loves. Those privileges belonged to ‘the other woman.' She had to look on helplessly while three children were born to him, knowing full well that he was continuing to perform his conjugal duties. Our Natalina was forced to cede her life to loneliness in order to keep protecting that secret. And that's why, when you take her away for a few days of vacation, he's going to do whatever it takes to get her back.”

A grimace of disappointment appeared on Togno's face. “But that's kidnapping. I thought it was just going to be blackmail.”

I replied with a reassuring smile. “You'll contact the woman and start getting her used to the idea that she'll be able to continue her affair unmolested if she pays us a reasonable fee. Then you'll invite her to meet you to work out the details and you'll take her to a place where she'll remain for several days.”

“You're making it seem easier than it is,” he retorted. “It's hardly a guarantee that she'll let herself be manipulated like that.”

“Yes it is. Honest people who are jealously guarding a secret lose all their confidence once they're found out. They become malleable, they put themselves in the hands of their persecutors in a desperate attempt to persuade them to take pity because, after all, they're not doing anything wrong. And that's why you're going to be courteous and understanding with her. You're going to become her new best friend and you'll do everything you can to convince her that after her lover has paid, they'll both be able to go back to their old lives.”

The henchman nodded, convinced. “So when do we start?”

“Right now,” I replied dryly. “Call your wife and tell her that you have to go out of town for a couple of days.”

Now Togno was uneasy. “I don't get it, Giorgio. Can't I even go home first?”

“No. Starting right now you're going to stay at the Centra brothers' place. You don't know them, they're both a bit odd, but I'm sure that you'll hit it off.”

He heaved a nervous sigh. “Why?”

“I want you to remain invisible until we manage to secure the money safely,” I replied. “If you're wanted for questioning in the shooting of the fat man, I don't want to run the risk of a deposition ruining the plan,” I lied, doing my best to be persuasive.

“So let's just postpone the job.”

“If you're not interested I'll get someone else to do it, I certainly don't want to work with someone who takes issue with every little thing I say.”

Togno placed his right hand on his heart. “I'd follow you anywhere, you know that.”

I jotted down a cell phone number on a sheet of paper. “Call the kid brothers and go straight to their house,” I ordered. Then I pulled a secure cell phone out from under the counter, along with a manila folder. “Here is all the information you'll need about the couple. Until further orders, keep your cell phone turned off and only use the one I just gave you.”

Togno walked off with his shoulders slumped. He wasn't clever enough to understand that I was maneuvering him like a puppet on a string, playing a game in which he could easily be sacrificed. He was right to want to put off the ransom request, but I wanted the cops to be convinced that he'd vanished from circulation so that he didn't have to answer awkward questions about the attempted murder of Max the Memory and that other asshole, Buratti.

That wasn't the only reason. The kidnapping of Natalina was the fulcrum of Plan B, and if I found it necessary to put that plan in motion, she would have to be in my hands already.

For the first time I found myself experiencing extreme tension. That was all right. I could smell danger and as always in these cases I was preparing to face it head on without the slightest flicker of fear. I didn't know what fear was, and it meant nothing to me. I was the one others were afraid of.

I left the restaurant and went home to see how Gemma was doing. After she'd boasted that she had let Buratti try to pick her up and that she now had his cell phone number, I'd subjected her to a “session” that was a little more severe than usual, and she still hadn't managed to get out of bed. I wasn't a bit worried about her condition, only about the negative effect on Martina's daily routine. All it took was a trifle and my wife, flustered by negative thoughts, would lose the rhythm of her commitments. Her sin was falling victim to continual imperfections. I couldn't afford that.

Gemma was dozing when I walked into her bedroom. The shutters were half closed and there was an unpleasant smell in the air. I threw open the windows and the sun streamed aggressively into the room.

“Leave me alone, King of Hearts,” she muttered, covering her eyes with her hands. “You've been bad.”

I ripped off the light duvet and sheet and tossed them into the air, then I ripped off her nightgown. “Now I'm going to give you a thorough examination,” I announced, pressing a finger on one of her bruises.

Her face twisted with pain. “Please don't.”

“Well then I guess you're fine and all you need is a good scrubbing,” I said, pulling her by the hair and dragging her to the tub. I grabbed a tube of body wash and squirted it all over her. Then I started rinsing her off with the shower spray turned on full.

“It's freezing,” she objected.

“You want it scalding?”

Gemma immediately understood what would happen to her if she insisted and fell silent. She submitted without a peep even when I gave her a good hard scrubbing with a brush. She held her breath when I ran the long wooden handle between her legs.

I threw a towel in her face. “Go get Martina at the gym.”

“I'm not sure I can do that,” she confessed through her tears.

I huffed in annoyance and opened the medicine chest to get what I needed to give her an injection of painkiller. I took my time preparing it, then I made her turn around and I stabbed the needle into the cheek of her ass.

“Today you're going to have a great big helping of tripe for lunch,” I announced before leaving.

Gemma hated tripe. I'd have gladly eaten at their table to keep from missing the show.

When I got back to La Nena a waitress pointed out a guy in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting at a table and boldly staring at the customers.

“A cop,” I guessed, but before confronting him, I ordered a smoothie. The guy had asked for an espresso, and he had just barely tasted it.

“Does it not meet with your satisfaction?” I asked in a professional voice. “We can make something else for you, if you wish.”

He emptied the demitasse at a single gulp. “It's very good,” he said. “I was just distracted because there's something puzzling me—maybe I can ask you if you're the owner of this place.”

I stuck out my hand. “Giorgio Pellegrini. La Nena belongs to me.”

“Inspector Giulio Campagna, Padua police headquarters, robbery division.”

“A pleasure,” I said curtly. “What did you want to ask me?”

The cop took his time. “My colleagues tell me that Federico Togno spends all his time in this restaurant and yet nobody seems to have heard of him. Doesn't that strike you as odd?”

I smiled and sat down. “That's because La Nena is an exceptionally discreet restaurant and the staff is following my specific instructions.”

“So my colleagues are right?”

“Yes.”

“And has he been by today?”

“This morning.”

“And since then?”

I pretended to take a look around. “Right now, I don't see him.”

The cop peered at the time on his cell phone. I can't stand people who've given up watches in favor of checking the time on their screens. But then what else could you expect from a jerk who sported such a ridiculous shirt in a high-class dining establishment like La Nena? I'd have gladly wiped him off the face of the earth just to punish him for his terrible taste.

“Maybe he'll be back for lunch,” the cop ventured.

“Maybe. But why don't you call him? Did you try his house? Or his cell phone?”

“His wife says he went out early this morning, and his cell phone is turned off,” he replied with a snicker. “Do you know him well?”

“As well as any restaurateur can know a loyal customer.”

“Yes or no?” Campagna pressed.

“Only superficially, as I was trying to explain.”

“Because there's another thing I don't understand,” the cop continued. “Which is, how does he make his living? He doesn't have a job, the tax office has no records on him, and yet he has a house and a car . . . His wife doesn't work, she's a housewife. He has plenty of bills to pay on a regular basis and yet he seems to live very comfortably. Have you ever given any thought to the question?”