Gang of Lovers (22 page)

Sergio Longoni. A courier for a network of illegal bookies. He used to spend time at La Nena until I made it clear to him he needed to clear out. “I don't like the way you're acting, Federico,” I told him. “You're reckless, you take pointless risks, and you're putting us all in danger.”

“Oh, don't exaggerate, Giorgio. You can't really consider this to be a real kidnapping. These two will never report us to the police. They'll keep quiet.”

I had no interest in wasting time teaching the basics to a brainless vegetable like Federico Togno.

“Maria José might have gone to stay with some girlfriend, or a relative. She just took a little time off,” I hypothesized, just to see what he'd say.

He shook his head grimly. “She knows that if she's not always available, I'll beat her black and blue,” he hissed. “Otherwise you tell me what the fuck the point of keeping her like a lady is if she's not always available?”

“Maybe she's pissed off at you and she's holding a grudge.”

“No. She probably got run over by a car or something, or she's going to wish she had because the minute I lay my hands on her I'll beat her like a drum. She made me miss out on a sure thing.”

A sudden intuition. A premonition. I held out my hand. “House keys,” I ordered.

“The keys to
my
house?”

I was barely able to restrain my anger. “I already have the keys to mine in my pocket, Federico!”

“What do you need them for?”

“I'm going to take a look around,” I replied. “I'm doing you a favor. Instead of going to get some sleep after a hard day's work, I'm going to make sure that nothing's happened to your wife.”

He pulled out a key ring and dropped it into the palm of my hand. “Thank you, Giorgio.”

 

The apartment was immersed in darkness. I switched on the light in the front hall and announced myself so that I wouldn't be attacked by a hysterical, frightened woman. I noticed immediately that something was wrong. Drawers pulled open, things scattered across the floor. When I got to the bedroom I was sure of it: Maria José had hastily put all her things into a suitcase and fled.

I went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator for something refreshing. Dry mouth, a collateral effect of being ripped off. I had to settle for a bottle of white wine.

As I was uncorking it I wondered just what I'd ever seen in a 500-euro-a-trick hooker like Maria José Pagliaro, what had convinced me she was so special that I chose not to sell her off with the others. I would have gotten good money for her, too. Instead I'd decided it was a good idea to keep her and marry her off to Federico Togno, my disappointing flunky. I'd fooled myself into thinking that I'd created the perfect couple, forever dedicated to satisfying my every wish.

A dramatic mistake. Possibly a fatal one. The only time I'd forgotten the principle that says the superfluous should always be eliminated, and fate was already presenting me with the bill.

Rossini and Buratti were certainly behind that whore's disappearance. They'd shown up and she'd cut a deal with them. She didn't know anything about the most important operations, but she knew about the old prostitution ring and everything concerning Togno.

Put that together with the other information they must have assembled and now they had a pretty complete picture of the situation. They knew that I was behind the professor's disappearance and Rossini had felt obliged to come throw down the gauntlet.

There was no way to settle this matter without paying at least a part of the bill, but I was going to shove that gauntlet up his ass. They too were making a fatal error by underestimating me.

I washed the glass and wiped my fingerprints before leaving. And I took great care not to warn that pathetic cuckold Federico. I had more important things to do.

I went back into town, parked the car, and walked to an old apartment building I had the keys to. I opened the front door and walked downstairs to the basement garages. The one I owned was number 7. It was registered as belonging to an elderly aunt of Gemma's who of course had no idea she owned it. It contained some old furniture. A credenza held a bag with money, jewelry, weapons, and IDs, everything I'd need to go on the run for a good long time. And get a chance to start over. I checked everything twice. I could no longer afford the luxury of a mistake.

I got home around seven in the morning. Martina and Gemma were still fully dressed, awaiting my orders for the night. They were confused, worried, and afraid to ask for explanations. I pointed at Gemma. “Call your friend Buratti and tell him that I'll expect him and Rossini at La Nena after it closes. Got it?”

The two women nodded like a couple of marionettes. “Pack your bags for a week's vacation, I want you out of here by noon.”

“But this morning I have my pilates class, and a massage too,” my wife replied.

“Shut up!” her girlfriend ordered her, then asked me: “Where should we go?”

I shrugged. “Wherever you want. I don't care,” I replied. “I want this house empty by no later than noon.”

Gemma shot to her feet. She'd understood the gravity of the situation. For the first time I hadn't given them a specific order and the alarm bells going off in her head must have been deafening.

She took my hand. “Giorgio, please,” she stammered.

I jerked my hand away and locked myself in my bedroom. I was sleepy and right then all I wanted was some shut-eye. I needed to be fit and rested if I wanted to put Plan B into motion. Salvage whatever can be saved, screw the enemy.

T
his is Gemma.”

“I recognized your number,” I replied, realizing that it was 7:30 in the morning.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Are you doing this on his orders?” I asked. By now there was no point in pretending any longer.

“I have a message from Giorgio,” she replied. “I could tell you over the phone but I don't understand what's happening and doubtless you know more than I do.”

“Fine. But I name the place.”

“You don't trust me,” Gemma stated bitterly.

“No, I don't.”

For a few seconds she said nothing. “Well, where then?”

In situations like this one I always chose bars in shopping centers. I knew one in Vicenza, just outside the toll barrier on the autostrada, which also happened to afford the protection of a fair number of armed security guards.

“At eleven o'clock,” I said.

I went into the bathroom to freshen up after a night in the hospital with Max and, while I was there, took a look in the mirror to see how my mustache was coming along. The problem is that once the hair starts coming in, you have to choose a style, and I just wasn't ready. I needed a woman to give me proper advice.

Maybe I could ask Gemma, even if she didn't seem to be in the right mood. Pellegrini had made her a messenger, and that could only mean he had a clear plan in mind. By now, there were no doubts about the inevitability of a fight, and as far as I was concerned, that came as a relief. The risk of winding up murdered or in prison serving hard time was a constant source of concern, but the whole story and its protagonist, Giorgio Pellegrini, were so atrociously tawdry and cruel that we needed to put an end to it, and urgently. That was what was right, and what was necessary.

In the kitchen I found Beniamino and Christine having breakfast. The old bandit was wearing a pair of his legendary silk pajamas. The woman from Marseille wore only a white T-shirt that barely covered her bottom. Both of them were eagerly sipping from cups of espresso and milk, and dipping long, hard, sweet biscuits in their cups. I hadn't seen those biscuits since I was a boy.

I made do with a cup of coffee while I briefed them on my conversation with Gemma.

“Do you think this is an ambush of some kind?” Rossini asked.

“No,” I replied. “Pellegrini has something in mind, but if I know his type I think it's something more refined.”

“I think so too,” said my friend. “So you'll go alone. I have to get my hands on some equipment. Christine'll keep an eye on Max.”

“Do you really think he's in danger or is this just a standard precaution?” I asked dubiously. “One more gun might be useful, since we don't know how many men Pellegrini might have.”

“Max is our weak point,” he explained. “Handsome Giorgio respects no rules and is perfectly capable of stooping low enough to kill a wounded man, knowing the effect that it would have on us.”

I shuddered. “I don't even want to think about it,” I whispered. Then I turned to Christine: “Say, why isn't Luc around?”

Christine shot Rossini a look. They exchanged a brief glance and then both burst out laughing. “My husband's laid up in bed with a gunshot wound, too,” she confessed, amidst the laughter. “He caught a blast of shotgun pellets in the seat of his pants from a farmer who caught him stealing a chicken from his henhouse.”

“I don't believe it.”

“I married a chicken thief,” she added, laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.

Rossini too was laughing unrestrainedly. Soon I joined in. What a jerk, that Luc, shot in the ass like a rank beginner.

 

I got there a little ahead of time, parked my Felicia, and took a look around the shopping center, idly window-shopping. Some of the shops were closed, others announced they would soon be under new management. An embarrassment of sales and special offers. Even the wealthy city of Vicenza was showing signs of the financial crisis in a temple of urban consumption. I stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes. The tobacconist asked if I cared to try my luck with any of the countless scratch & win lottery cards wallpapering the shop. I thanked him, knowing that there were thousands of counterfeit scratch & win cards in circulation. I was tempted to tell him so, but there were other customers in the shop. The one standing right behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “If you had bought one, which one would you have chosen? Sorry to bother you, but luck has been turning her nose up at me for a while, and I was thinking you might be on her good side.”

I pointed to one and slipped out of the store with a sigh of relief. Being lucky at gambling is something that comes to only a select few. I knew one or two and, naturally, they were women.

Gemma came in, holding Martina's hand. When I sat down at their table I realized that Pellegrini's wife was shaken, confused.

“I can't see when I'm going to make up for the activities I missed this morning,” she said, as soon as she saw me. “There's no way to fit them into the coming days.”

Her girlfriend was stroking her hand. “Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. Here, have something to drink.”

I stared at Gemma. Her hair was a mess, she didn't have a speck of makeup on. “What's going on?” I asked.

“Giorgio sent us on vacation,” she replied. “For a week.”

“A vacation means cancelling the activities,” Martina pointed out. “The problem is the ones from this morning.”

I couldn't believe my ears. “So Giorgio has decided that you needed a little time off, and you jump to obey.”

“Giorgio decides everything,” Gemma replied, exaggeratedly resolute. “And we're fine with it.”

“Are you really sure of that?” I asked.

“I always have been.”

I took a sip of spritz and changed the subject. “On the phone you said you had a message from Pellegrini.”

“He'll see you tonight at La Nena, after closing time.”

“A tempting invitation,” I commented ironically.

“Will you go?”

“I don't know,” I replied. “And either way, I'm certainly not going to tell you.”

She nodded, then she turned to her friend. “Go do some shopping, Martina,” she said, pulling a wad of cash out of the pocket of her rumpled skirt suit.

The other woman didn't have to be told twice and leapt to her feet. “I was just starting to get tired of your complicated conversation,” she muttered. “It's all because of your diet. Too many toxins in your liver tend to undermine your ability to think clearly.”

Gemma waited for Martina to be out of earshot before asking a question that caught me off guard. “Who's going to win?”

“We are,” I replied confidently. “The era of handsome Gior­gio is coming to an end. A matter of days, if not hours.”

She bit her lip. “Until this morning I was positive, absolutely positive that it was the other way round,” she explained. “Then I saw a hint of uncertainty in his eyes. That had never happened before.”

I shrugged. “I have no idea what he's planning but I can guarantee that his fate is sealed.”

“What about us?”

“Are you serious?” I hissed, aghast. “This is your chance to finally free yourselves of your ‘lord and master' and start a new life. You should leap at the chance.”

“You don't understand . . .”

“No. You're the one who doesn't understand,” I interrupted her. “Martina is slipping dangerously into mental illness and you're willingly hurling yourself into an abyss. I don't know anything about you and your past but one thing is certain. Your ‘King of Hearts,' Giorgio Pellegrini, isn't the treatment, he's the disease, the virus that's devouring you.”

Her eyes welled up with tears. “Will he die?”

I decided to tell her the truth. That woman had a right to know in spite of her indestructible loyalty to that sack of garbage. “Probably. I hope so with every ounce of strength in my body. He's hurt too many people.”

“You don't seem strong enough to beat him,” she objected. “Maybe you're overestimating yourself.”

“My friend will take care of him.”

“Who? The fat man in the hospital?”

“No. Someone else.”

“You sure have a lot of friends.”