Sohlberg and the White Death (17 page)

A heavy oak table and three matching chairs dominated the low-ceiling room which had once been a medieval merchant’s counting room. A strange light came in through an oddly shaped window of thick green glass ensconced in the timber-framed wall of wattle-and-daub.

“I wonder what’s bothering him,” said Sohlberg after he repeated to Laprade the informant’s exact words about “
Stuff’s happening. Serious stuff. . . .
”

“I’m sure that Ishmael won’t disappoint us. He’s delivered big time so far.”

“Right,” said Sohlberg. He spoke slowly so as to minimize his hideous French. “But I still think it’s rather odd how he’s managed to get that kind of information without being found out and knocked off.”

“I agree. But we might never find out. He’s sort of like the wandering sailor in Moby Dick . . . one day here . . . one day there.”

“I loved that book. You also read it?”

“No,” said Laprade. “I saw the movie. I thought that’s what gave you the idea for the name of Ishmael.”

Sohlberg almost laughed at the idea that he had picked a code name from a movie. But he did not laugh. He wasn’t sure if Laprade would take it as an insult from a cultural snob. After all everyone tread lightly when it came to Laprade. The Norwegian cleared his throat and said:

“Actually . . . I got the name
Ishmael
from Genesis and the name
Locust
from the Book of Joel. I think it’s time that our traffickers receive some Old Testament justice.”

~ ~ ~

Both detectives took off their suit coats and then discussed recent information that the snitch had given them. They explored follow-up questions that they needed to bring up. After an hour the men fell silent as each rehearsed what he would say. Their reverie broke when a malodorous officer in a sweat-ringed shirt brought Laprade a hand-held radio receiver to hear progress reports on the informant’s walk through Old Lyon. The reports began to come in.

“Subject with blue duffel bag just left station . . . walking north on Rue Saint-Jean. . . .”

Sohlberg and Laprade tensed up because a last minute sidewalk assassination was not in the realm of the impossible.

“Subject at intersection with Rue de la Bombarde. . . .”

And finally:

“Subject entering building. No one following.”

“Alright boys and girls,” said Laprade into the radio. “Make sure you lock the street door as soon he gets past the courtyard. Let me know if anyone else tries to get in the building. Block the traboule between the first and second building. Make sure that both the iron gate and the wood door are locked
and
guarded on both sides. Search him for weapons as soon as he gets past the iron gate.”

Ten minutes passed. Sohlberg’s mouth dropped open in shock when the man entered the counting room. The two detectives whipped out their guns.

“Who the hell are you?” yelled Laprade.

“Put your hands up,” said Sohlberg.

The man complied.

“Now . . . put the bag on the table real slow with your right hand . . . keep your left hand up in the air.”

The man smiled and did as he was told. “Come now Inspector Sohlberg . . . and Commissaire Laprade. Let’s not get overly dramatic.”

Sohlberg moved the bag on the table away from the informant. Meanwhile Laprade handcuffed the trespasser who looked like any harmless tourist in a casual khaki, blue polo shirt, and green windbreaker. Laprade searched the man again for weapons and pushed him into a chair. The good-looking man was unremarkable except for his not carrying a wallet or cell phone or money or any ID papers.

Sohlberg stood behind the man and he leaned over to the man’s left ear and calmly said, “Where’s Gerardi?”

“Rico Gerardi has been retired.”

Sohlberg quickly thought over the most-likely scenarios that would account for the absence of Rico Gerardi. None looked pleasant for the drug mule turned informant. Sohlberg went with the simplest and most open-ended question he could ask:

“Is Federico Gerardi dead or alive?”

“Does it matter?”

Laprade slapped the intruder hard across the face to establish instant rapport and the pecking order. “Answer the question or next time it won’t be my hand that meets your face.”

“Listen you two idiots. Let’s not waste time. Rico Gerardi is dead.”

Sohlberg took a deep breath. “Who killed him?”

“Does it matter? . . . Augusto La Torre ordered it . . . two Camorra soldiers from Naples took care of your Rico Gerardi.”

Sohlberg gave careful consideration to the man’s words and said:

“How do we know that Rico Gerardi is dead?”

“Because I said so.” A little laugh erupted out of the man’s throat. The disrespectful chortle established his true relationship with the detectives and the exact pecking order: he who has the most information is the top dog. The man observed doubts in the detectives’ faces. “You want proof?”

“Of course,” said Sohlberg.

“Open the bag.”

The zipper’s ugly ripping noise served as the prelude to a repulsive and breathtaking sight.

Laprade cursed. “What the—”

The shrunken head of Rico Gerardi peeked out of the duffel bag. A rough cord was sewn three times across the lips.

The peaceful appearance of the dead man’s head troubled Sohlberg. The grotesque trophy could easily fit in his open palm. Sohlberg recognized all of Gerardi’s features although the shrinking had distorted the dead man’s facial characteristics into cartoonish exaggerations. The skin and the hair perfectly matched those that Sohlberg had last seen on Federico Gerardi. And yet Sohlberg was in denial. He could not bring himself into believing that the head was genuine. He slammed his hand on the table and said:

“What’s this disgusting trick? . . . Who do you think you’re fooling with this fake?”

Commissaire Laprade knew better. “No . . . this is real. I’ve seen shrunken heads before.”

Sohlberg stared in horror at the shrunken head He remembered that
The Sun
or some other sleazy British tabloid had published pictures that a maid had taken of a dozen shrunken heads that appeared to be of European or Caucasian ethnicity. At least two of the heads belonged to former business associates of a Russian tycoon. The trophies were strung like garlic bulbs on a straw plait and they adorned the shoe closet of the Russian oligarch who lived the good life at 15 Central Park West in New York City.

The repulsive head left Sohlberg and Laprade with a queasy foreboding. Meanwhile Rico Gerardi’s substitute relaxed and surveyed the scene before him. The tableau of death seemed to please him. The cold-eyed man appeared to be thinking of other suitable candidates for cranial downsizing and where and how he would display them.

“Gentlemen,” he announced, “my name is Domenico Pelle.”

Sohlberg and Laprade glanced at each other and nodded. They had not recognized the mobster from the 'Ndrangheta organization of southern Italy. Extensive plastic surgery had left him with the fake eternal youth and too-perfect looks that exhibited all the warmth and charm of wax fruit or plastic flowers. Micro-surgical implants had transformed Pelle’s balding dome into a lush carpet as dense as AstroTurf.

“Yes . . . it’s me. Domenico Pelle.”

The man closed his eyes. He lifted his chin and slowly moved his head right and left so as to be better admired by the two detectives who kept staring at the superb work that some surgical whiz had performed. With or without the plastic surgery Domenico Pelle would nevertheless have stood out from a crowd of common criminals. He had reasonably good manners and an MBA degree from Harvard. The third and fourth generation of Italian mobsters were obviously gaining the necessary sophistication to manage their huge business empires and multi-billion dollar fortunes.

Laprade sneered. “Well now . . . since when do Italian mobsters look as pretty as a starlet?”

“Detective! . . . You need to get with it . . . get on with the times. You know. . . . Look good. Feel good.”

Laprade again slapped Domenico Pelle but this time with less enthusiasm.

“Commissaire . . . you’re just jealous.”

“Say that again and you will need an emergency visit to your surgeons and dentists.”

“I can afford it. My eyebrow and nose surgeon did the actress Natalie Portman. I paid him more than what you two
together
make in ten years.” The surgically enhanced mobster ruined his beauty with a nasty smirk. He pointed at Laprade’s cigarettes. “I’ll take one. . . . So . . . gentlemen . . . shall we get down to business?”

Chapter 12/Tolv

LYON, FRANCE: AFTERNOON AND EVENING

OF TUESDAY JULY 19, OR THREE MONTHS

AND 7 DAYS AFTER THE DAY

Sohlberg ordered mineral waters. He and Laprade pulled their chairs closer to the informant. Sohlberg started off:

“Who killed Gerardi?”

“He did.”

“Who?”

“Rico himself. He signed his own death warrant when he turned into a snitch.”

“Who knew he was a snitch?”

“Come on Sohlberg. . . .”

“Stop. How do you know my name?”

“I’ve done my research. Same with Laprade. For example . . . I know that he’s not French. He’s actually from Argentina.”

Laprade’s faced darkened.

Domenico Pelle laughed. “Our faux French commissaire was then known as Juan Pereyda. He was unemployed and he faced a lifetime of poverty in that ruin of a country when he decided to improve his lot with the French Foreign Legion. Juanito picked up his new name and identity after he left the Legion thanks to his friends in the intelligence services.”

Sohlberg’s poker face hid the turmoil in his mind. Laprade was another person—like Azra Korbal—who was close to him and yet this person had a whole other life that they kept secret from him. The Norwegian remembered his long-dead first wife once telling him:

“
The world is where we hide from ourselves.
”

Domenico Pelle exhaled an enormous billowing cloud of tobacco smoke. “I know all about you two detectives. I like to find out
everything
. . . warts and all . . . about the people I do business with.”

Sohlberg frowned. “You’re not doing
business
with us.”

“Call it whatever you want. . . . I know how you . . . Sohlberg . . . got forced out of the police in Norway because you arrested a ring of corrupt judges. . . . I always have the corporate spies at Kroll look into people I do business with.”

Laprade walked over and slapped the insolent Italian. “We don’t do business with you.”

The mobster didn’t even blink. He smiled the cold smile of a man who holds a wining hand of cards. “You have no choice. For example . . . I knew within hours that Gerardi had walked out of a meeting with Sohlberg and detective Hernandez. . . . And no . . . it wasn’t Hernandez who told me and my people. He’s honest.”

“So,” said Sohlberg, “how was Gerardi outed?”

“A very nice deputy in the jail staff turned on the microphone and listened in on your little meeting. Of course we waited until we knew for sure what Gerardi had done. . . . His life was over when he got a suspended sentence. That was the proof we needed.”

Laprade snorted loudly.

Pelle smiled. “Sohlberg will gladly confirm that we’ve got plenty of people in our payroll who work in the Boston Police Department . . . the Suffolk County Sheriff . . . and the F.B.I.”

Laprade shook his head. But Sohlberg knew better.

Sohlberg knew that law enforcement in the Boston area had been thoroughly infiltrated by the local godfather—Francis “Bobo” Messina. The underboss of the Patriarca crime family owned dozens of nude dancing bars that offered sex, drugs, and gambling—none of the legal kind.

Sohlberg also knew that Messina’s partner and local muscle had been the FBI informant Whitey Bulger. The Irish gangster made $ 3 million a month in take-home pay from the nude bars until the FBI stopped protecting Whitey and his violent gang in 1994.

Many a government bureaucrat or their spouse had been videotaped taking cash payoffs at the nude bars along with perks for their noses and groins. It wasn’t just coincidence that the U.S. Attorney in Boston never prosecuted anyone working for the Patriarca Family or any of the major drug cartels. The Messina-Bulger operation was so dirty that Urban Legend had it that you could catch herpes or some other venereal disease just from sitting on the chairs of a Patriarca-owned bar. Bobo Messina’s sewer of corruption included a state governor, a U.S. senator, and a couple of state prosecutors and judges.

Sohlberg studied Pelle’s eyes which had the warmth of ice cubes. “How do I know that
you
didn’t have Gerardi killed?”