Turned to Stone (27 page)

“Eh, che sta succedendo qui?”

“There’s man with a gun in there!” Paloma screamed in Spanish as she tried to pull her boots on. “Hide, and call the police!”

“Are you serious?” the bewildered hotel owner asked.

Before they could reach the front door, they heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and Clark appeared with a gun in each hand. At the sight of him, the hotel owner dropped the package and threw himself to the floor.

“Run!” Jaime cried, throwing open the front door.

Roberto and Paloma did not need him to say it twice. They ran out onto the street with Jaime close on their heels.

It was nighttime, and the few pedestrians who were walking through the little park in front of the hotel were bewildered to see two men and a woman running at full speed toward the hospital.

“We’ll be safe there!” Jaime shouted to the others before looking back to see Clark sprinting out of the building.

They ran to the other side of the square, leaving the park behind them. Then Jaime spied a bus at the stop beside them, about to close its doors.

“The bus!” he shouted, suddenly changing his mind.

Roberto heard him, took Paloma by the arm, and banged on the door, which had just closed. The driver gave them a bad-tempered look, but seeing Paloma’s fraught expression he took pity on them and reopened it. Roberto helped Paloma onto the bus and blocked the door with his large frame, keeping it from closing until Jaime could catch up and board. As the bus pulled out, they watched out of the window as Clark followed in their steps and was left panting at the stop. Jaime let out a euphoric burst of laughter.

“It looks like our friend missed the bus,” he exclaimed. “The perfect getaway!”

“Right out of a movie,” Roberto agreed, trying to get his breath back.

The driver glowered at them. Jaime noticed and inserted coins in the ticket machine while Roberto and Paloma made their way to the back of the vehicle.

The few other passengers looked at them in bewilderment, particularly at Paloma in her white bathrobe and brown boots. While Jaime finished paying for the tickets, Roberto and Paloma sat down to avoid attracting more attention, but all eyes remained fixed on them even after Jaime joined them.

“Is it true about Oscar?” Paloma trembled with fear and cold. “The rat told me he’d killed him before he came in through my bathroom window.”

“I’m afraid it’s true.”

“The bastard,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Oscar was a creep and an asshole, but he didn’t deserve to die.”

In his aisle seat, Roberto gave her a serious look.

“Yeah, it’s a shame, but I suggest we focus on ourselves. What do we do now?”

Jaime looked at the electronic sign that announced the stops.

“This bus is heading toward the Castelvecchio Museum. There are tons of restaurants and cafés in that area. We’ll get off and go in one of them.”

“That’s your idea?” Paloma sounded upset. “Dinner?”

“My idea,” Jaime said, “is to hide somewhere safe while the police sort things out and arrest the murderer.” He looked at Roberto. “Hey, you: Chuck Norris. Did you really have time to call for help before you came to our rescue?”

“Are you kidding? That was a bluff. I could hear someone in there with you and I figured you needed me. There was no time for a call.” Roberto pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “But there is now.” He looked around at the other passengers. “Hey, does anyone know what the emergency number is?
Emergenchi?
”

Paloma translated the question and a woman sitting behind them answered:
“Uno, uno, due.”

“Grazie mille.”
Roberto dialed the number and passed the phone to Paloma.

When she’d finished speaking to the police, Jaime gave her a questioning look.

“They told me that the owner of the hotel already called them. I explained where we are and they said to stay on the bus and get off at the Castelvecchio stop, where a car will be waiting for us.”

“Is this Castelvecchio place very far?” Roberto asked, looking out of the rear window. His tone was urgent.

“Five or ten minutes, why?”

“Because the guy behind us might get to us first.”

Jaime and Paloma turned at the same time and they froze in horror.

A few meters behind the bus, Clark was following on a red Ducati.

39

“You have to give it to him: he has good taste in bikes,” Jaime remarked, his voice tense. “Who’d he steal that bike from?”

“What does that matter?” said Paloma. “He’s coming after us!”

“Don’t worry; he can’t get on the bus while it’s moving. And when we reach our destination, he’ll have to deal with the police.”

“Sure, but
that’s
not our destination.”

Paloma pointed ahead at the next stop. The driver had already begun to slow down the bus.

“Oh, shit . . .” Jaime leapt up from his seat and ran to the front of the bus. “No! Don’t stop!
Non si fermi!
” But the driver gave him a look of disdain and halted the bus.

Roberto and Paloma watched through the window as Clark jumped off the motorcycle and ran to the bus door. “Don’t let that man on!” Jaime cried. “He’s a murderer!
Assassino!
”

Though his shouting unnerved the passengers, no one did anything but look back at him in surprise. As the driver opened the doors, Clark shoved the other people at the stop aside, climbed onto the bus, and advanced down the aisle like a shark swimming toward a school of fish. Jaime retreated to the back.

“Eh! Il biglietto!”
shouted the driver, even as the gunman ignored him and continued toward his victims.
“Eh!”

Clark stopped in front of his prey. “Nice try,” he said in a threatening tone. “Now get off the bus, unless you want a bloodbath right here.”

Jaime’s lips were trembling with rage.

“You wouldn’t start shooting here.”

“Try me.”

Jaime looked at his companions. Paloma looked spent and Roberto, though still defiant, might as well have had the word
defeat
tattooed on his forehead. Slowly, they began to stand. Then Roberto suddenly started screaming. “A gun! A gun!”

The passengers gave him looks of incomprehension, but his message became clear when they saw a fat guy with a goatee lift his right arm and brandish a weapon—the one he had just extracted from Clark’s belt. Everyone froze, not knowing how to react, until Roberto pressed the trigger. At the sound of the loud bang, a bullet passed through the roof of the bus. This was enough to make all of the passengers leap out of their seats and scream as they rushed for the bus’s rear door. A torrent of people flooded down the aisle, knocking Clark to the ground. Jaime, Roberto, and Paloma were among those who trampled him as they made a sprint for the door.

“The Ducati!” Jaime yelled, seeing the motorcycle lying on its side by the bus stop.

Roberto, who was already on the street, understood what Jaime meant and took Paloma by the hand, though she didn’t need any guiding. The bike’s engine was still running. Between the two of them, they pulled it upright and Roberto sat his large frame on the front part of the seat. “Get on!” he shouted to Paloma, who jumped on behind him. Roberto sped over to the bus door, where Jaime was waiting.

When they’d pulled up to a stop, Jaime straddled as best he could the tiny section of bike that wasn’t already occupied and clutched Paloma by the shoulders. “Go, Roberto!” he yelled, seeing Clark stumble from the bus. “Step on it!”

Roberto did as he was told and the motorcycle, carrying three passengers, shot down the street.

“Forget what I said earlier!” Jaime cried, sounding euphoric. “
This
is the perfect getaway!”

As they bounced along the cobblestones, Jaime’s fingers dug into Paloma’s shoulders.

“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to have three people on a bike!” said Roberto.

“I don’t know about illegal,” Jaime replied, trying hard to stay in his seat. “But it sure is uncomfortable!”

Roberto rode with skill, occasionally swerving to dodge a pedestrian attempting to cross the lamp-lit street. Once he thought there was enough distance between them and Clark, he looked over his shoulder toward Paloma. “Which way to Castelvecchio?”

“Just a bit farther. Follow the bus stops and—Look out!”

Roberto turned back and had to steer sharply to the right to avoid an oncoming taxi. He swerved two more times before managing to get back into his own lane.

For some reason, the bike felt lighter to him now, and he took the opportunity to accelerate hard.

“Roberto, stop!” Paloma cried out desperately.

“Stop? Why?”

“We’ve lost Jaime!”

Roberto hit the brakes and skidded toward the sidewalk in a small arc. He looked back and saw Jaime sitting on the road a short distance behind them. “You can’t be serious!” he exclaimed. “Can’t you even keep your butt on a seat? Good thing you’re a skinny runt; if you were my size . . .”

Paloma jumped off the bike and ran to help Jaime up. He had hit his lower thigh hard, and he grimaced as he stood.

“Are you all right?”

“Honestly, I was more comfortable on the bus.” He answered through clenched teeth as he hobbled along, holding Paloma’s arm.

Roberto tried to scoot up closer to the handlebars to leave more space in the back, but before Paloma and Jaime could get on, a gunshot rang out and a bullet struck the pavement a few centimeters from the bike’s rear wheel.

Turning around, Roberto saw Clark approaching on an electric bicycle, his pistol aimed in their direction.

“Motherfucker! Is this guy gonna steal every kind of vehicle in Verona?”

Paloma leapt onto the motorcycle, but before Jaime could do the same, Roberto had already started to ride off.

“What are you doing? Turn around! We don’t have Jaime!”

Roberto made a U-turn, but Jaime was already running toward the sidewalk to escape the bullets.

“Jaime!” Paloma called after him. “Come on, get on!”

“There’s no time,” Roberto said as Clark pedaled toward them and fired again. He switched direction and rode away from the threat, ignoring Paloma’s cries of protest.

“No! We have to go back for him!”

“That bastard will blow our heads off if we do.”

As if to support his hypothesis, a bullet whistled past them and shattered the bike’s rearview mirror. Cursing his bad luck, Roberto accelerated and steered away from the danger, in the direction of their designated meeting place with the police.

From his hidden location behind a trash container, Jaime watched the red bike speed down the street, relieved to know that Paloma and Roberto were safe. But then he turned his attention to his own problems.

Clark’s electric bicycle was drawing close and approaching at full speed. Jaime crouched down beside the container, but Clark jumped the curb and rammed him. The bike’s front wheel struck Jaime on the ankle, making him howl with pain as Clark circled back around to run him down again. Trapped between the container and the wall of a building, Jaime had no choice but to flip himself backward and sideways into the road, where a car driving close to the curb almost ran him over.

The driver laid on his horn and spat a stream of insults out of the window. As Jaime shrugged and climbed to his feet, he saw something long and thin protruding from the garbage container. Just then, Clark rounded the container with the bicycle and took aim, but Jaime snatched the object out of the garbage and swung it at the killer’s head.

The broom handle struck Clark full on the temple, knocking him clean off his bicycle. He hit the ground face-first.

Jaime threw away the handle and, trying to ignore the pain in his leg, ran off down the sidewalk in the direction the motorcycle had taken. He was exhausted and injured, but adrenaline made him run faster than he had ever thought possible. No pain or fatigue would keep him from doing what he needed to do: lead Clark to the police who were waiting at Castelvecchio.

Without slowing down, he turned his head to see whether the hit man was still in pursuit. Seeing that he was right on his heels, Jaime pushed his legs to go faster.

What Jaime was seeing didn’t seem possible. He was about to keel over, and yet Clark looked like he could run all night without even breaking a sweat. Jaime was beginning to think the man wasn’t human.
A bit farther,
he told himself.
Just a bit farther and you’ll be able to lie down and sleep in a hospital or a police interview room.

The mantra spurred him on, but his lungs hurt and it was hard to catch his breath. His heart was beating like a Keith Moon drum solo, and he was breathing through his mouth now, but he kept on running, determined to stop only if he dropped dead—something that could very well happen if the psychopath behind him fired again.

The psychopath fired again.

The bullet whistled past Jaime and embedded itself in the glass of a shop window. He ran from one sidewalk to the other, dodging honking cars and seeking out the shelter provided by shadows, parked cars, and trash containers.

His body was just about to give up when one of the towers of the Castelvecchio appeared in the distance. Unfortunately, he saw no signs of police lights and no trace of a red Ducati. He was still too far away. He ran a few meters more, but his legs failed him, and he was close to collapsing. This was enough to allow Clark to catch up and block off his route to the castle.

“Stop right there!” the gunman yelled. “This is as far as you go.”

“How about . . . we sort this out . . . like civilized . . . people?” Jaime gasped for breath.

“Sure, that’s what we’ll do,” Clark gestured toward a narrow side street off to the right, beyond a classical-style building constructed of gray stone. “Down there.”

“In that palazzo?”

“No, you idiot. The street.”

“I didn’t think you cared about witnesses.”

“Witnesses, no. The police that your friends went to find, yes. Now move!”

Clark gave Jaime a shove, and he had no choice but to obey. The narrow one-way street led to a little elevated park that ran alongside the river. Clark made him climb the marble steps and walk toward the low stone wall, beyond which flowed the dark waters of the Adige.

Suddenly Jaime understood. “One bullet and into the river, huh?”

“And good luck finding your body. A stroke of genius, don’t you think?” Clark nodded toward the wall. “Up there.”

Jaime had run out of options. He was exhausted, sore, and saw no possibility for escape. He climbed the parapet and balanced there. He could sense, more than see, the river some distance below his feet. He considered jumping before Clark had a chance to fire. If he survived both the fall and the freezing water, perhaps he could then swim back to the riverbank. Then he lifted his gaze, and what he saw filled him with hope. He broke into a smile that developed into an actual laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Clark.

“Nothing. Have you noticed where we are?”

“Oh, sure, another trick. Very funny. Listen, asshole: earlier it was three against one, and you caught me off guard, but now it’s over. Say good-bye.”

“If you say so.” Jaime raised his arms in the air and waved them around as if he was doing stretching exercises. Then he started jumping up and down on the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Can’t you tell? I’m waving at the camera.”

Clark was fed up with being taken for a fool and aimed his gun to fire. Suddenly the area was lit up by a powerful beam, bathing victim and executioner in a blanket of yellow light that streamed from the back of the palazzo they’d passed on the way to the park.

“What the fuck?”

Two figures appeared silhouetted against the bright light, shouting in Italian. Clark shaded his eyes with his hand, trying to make out what was happening. As it turned out, they were standing in the lot behind the Banca d’Italia, and the security cameras had alerted the night guards to their presence. Looking shaken, Clark couldn’t decide what to do. He aimed the gun at the two approaching police officers and then at Jaime, who’d climbed down from the wall and taken cover behind a concrete pillar.

“What are you going to do now, Clark?” Jaime asked. “Kill us all? Face down an entire city’s police force? Whatever the Carreras pay you, it’s not worth your life.”

A carabinieri car emerged from a side street, and two more armed officers climbed out. Behind them, the roar of the red Ducati announced the arrival of Roberto and Paloma.

Clark let out a curse, stuffed the pistol into his belt, and climbed onto the low wall.

“Non si muova!”
shouted one of the police officers.

But Clark had already made his decision, and after a quick Iberian slap, he cast a defiant look at the crowd and threw himself from the wall. A moment later, a splash was heard and the policemen ran over and pointed their flashlights down at the water.

Paloma and Roberto ran to embrace Jaime. One of the police offers approached them with an ill-tempered expression.

“Qualcuno mi può spiegare cosa è successo qui?”
he said.

Even a person who didn’t speak Italian could tell what the man was asking. Jaime looked at his two friends.

“You explain it,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to sit on this bench and rest.”