Chapter 21

 

"What the hell for?" I threw up my hands. Blame the spaghetti Bolognese, I don't usually act that Italian.

"To make sure that I come out of this free and clear." She was digging deeper and deeper into the bag, bringing out handfuls of bills. "Look at all these lovely hundreds," she said and laughed again. Pietro took his eyes off the road to glance back, rolling his ski mask up with one hand, laughing, cockeyed happy at the sight of all that loot.

I looked from one to the other of them in disbelief. They were as excited as kids in a toy store, chattering and laughing. They had all the lovely money and they weren't going to let that nasty old Scavuzzo take it away from them. So be a good boy, John, blow his head off for us.

My first impulse was to tell her to go to hell. But that would have meant staying chained to my post with Carla's shotgun trained on me. Once I got out I could change the rules. It seemed that was the way everyone was playing this game. "Okay, set me loose first," I said, but Carla wasn't paying any attention to me, she was digging deeper and deeper into the case, dredging up more and more thousands of wonderful tax-free dollars, laughing and rocking to and fro like a backward boy on his first pony ride.

"I'm going to need this thing parked, I can't work in a moving vehicle," I shouted. I had to shout. She was laughing and Pietro was calling out over his shoulder. It was all premature anyway. The first police car would be on our tail by now.

Carla looked at me as if suddenly remembering my presence. "Don't worry, we'll find you a quiet place to work."

"Yeah," I said. I half stood, checking out the windshield first, then back, through the porthole in the rear door. The usual Florentine crush of traffic was clamping us in, there was no room for a dash. We would be stopped by the police within minutes. I sat back and relaxed. There was no need for me to do anything more than survive until the first roadblock. Then I only had to hit Pietro and take his gun, disarm Carla and I was free—to make the rescue bid on Herbie and then start the long explanation to Capelli. That last thought sobered me down. There was no room to be smug, not yet.

But I had reckoned without Carla. Suddenly she was all business. She half stood, checking the traffic behind us, then snapped a command to Pietro. He stopped talking and made an abrupt left turn. I still wasn't impressed. I knew we couldn't outrun a flotilla of police cars. And we wouldn't have done it, without Carla.

She unflipped the catch on the porthole and lifted it slightly. Then she held a handful of hundred dollar bills out of it and let them go. I watched them flutter back in a spiral that lasted ten seconds before the first car jammed its brakes on, causing the car behind to smash into it. Carla laughed and dropped more bills and I saw the traffic behind us slam to a standstill as drivers and Vespa riders abandoned their vehicles everywhere and tumbled over one another to grab the money. Greed was going to get us away where stealth would have failed.

Carla stood there, calling out to Pietro who turned left and right three or four more times while she shed more money at every corner. I watched her, fascinated. She looked like an angler playing a trout, giving just enough line to tire the fish. Behind us first one then several police sirens started sawing the air but the way was blocked, even the sidewalks had cars on them. The streets were a mass of shoving people, too engrossed with collecting cash even to look up at where it had come from. Carla had won, she had bought her way out of an impossible situation.

As we turned away from the center of town she stopped dropping money and closed the porthole. "We're going to park and you can work then," she said. "I've put everything you need in your tool kit. Plastic, detonators, timers."

"It will take me about twenty-five minutes. Can you account for the time?"

"Leave it to me." She was still grinning. With the ski mask rolled up on her forehead and her baggy coveralls she looked like some beautiful impish child with nothing naughtier on her mind than a raid on the cookie jar.

"I'm not working on explosives while I'm chained to this post," I said.

She tugged the ski-mask free of her hair and tossed it aside, shaking out her sweaty hair. "Don't worry, I'll unlock you."

"Give me the key." I held out one hand but she ignored me. She was unzipping her coveralls, down to the waist. I could see she was wearing only a brassiere and panties underneath. Her skin was glistening with sweat. I didn't like the fact that she took no notice of my presence. It could have been simply because we had slept together or else because she knew I was what the Irish refer to as a dead man walking, with her own gun waiting to put an end to the walking part. The only consolation was that she had set the shotgun down on the floor, pinning it under one negligent foot. I was safe for the moment anyway.

Carla took a dress from one of the compartments and slipped it on, then called something to Pietro and he answered, over his shoulder, still laughing, intoxicated by the intangible scent of money that seemed to fill the truck. He turned a couple of times, down smaller and smaller streets. Carla stood at the back of the van, still holding a handful of hundred dollar bills, fingering them the way a dress designer might have felt velvet, staring past me and Pietro, through the windshield. Then she gave him another command and he stopped in front of a parked car.

She undid the rear door and he got out and came around to the back. She spoke to him and gave him a car key. He was back in thirty seconds with a heavy suitcase, the twin of the one she had slashed open. He slid it in, gasping at the weight. She spoke to him and he nodded and stepped up into the back of the van, moving past me. He was level with me, watching me warily as he stepped by when Carla took her little pistol out of the pocket of her abandoned coveralls, and shot him twice through the back, then once through the head.

He fell forward, blood pouring out of his mouth, trying to focus his eyes, trying to speak, finally, trying to cross himself, and died.

I looked at her face. It was just as beautiful but blank, like a mask covering the ugliness inside. She blinked once then reached in her pocket and brought out a key which she tossed to me. "Get yourself loose."

I did, unsnapping the shackle on my leg and refastening it around the pole, where it would be harder for her to stick it back on me afterwards, if she decided to, if she wasn't going to treat me the same as Pietro.

"Get in the driver's seat," she said impatiently, not even looking at the dead man. He was just garbage, cluttering up her doll's house. I didn't argue, she had her gun trained on me. Besides, I'd have a better chance of escaping once I was next to the door.

I slid into the seat and adjusted it backwards to fit my legs. Pietro had been short, I realized. Funny, holding a gun he had always seemed a little larger than lifesize. Now he seemed smaller.

"Where to?" I asked, watching her in the rear mirror.

"Turn right at the end of this street, then keep on until you come to the next light." She had moved up closer to me, the gun still the most prominent feature. Now she sank down on the seat I had been chained to, the gun very close to the back of my head. I wasn't sure how close, she was lost from my mirror.

I drove carefully, signaling properly and turning right then keeping on for almost a mile down a road that was obviously taking us out of town, westward, towards the sun that was sinking, splashing shadows long enough to darken the side streets we passed.

We reached the light and she said, "Left here, about three hundred yards on the right side. You'll see a gas station, it's closed. Pull in."

She was right. The station had been closed for some time. The windows of the little garage on the lot were whitewashed over. She nudged the back of my neck with the gun barrel. It was still warm from killing Pietro.

"You're probably planning to make a break for it now," she said. "I don't have the people I need to stop you but you've got to know that if I'm not back within the hour they're going to shoot the boy. You should also know that he's been moved again. It's no good storming back to the palazzo and making like the SAS. He's gone."

"Why should I believe you?"

She gave a little sigh. "Why would you doubt me? You saw what happened to him." The gun muzzle moved, downwards, I guessed, pointing at its last target.

"Okay. What do I have to do?"

"Get out and open the garage door. Here's the key." I felt the end of it sticking into my neck close to the gun muzzle. I reached back and took it, carefully. No sense giving her any kind of reason to shoot. She didn't need much. I got out of the van and opened the door. Traffic was passing on the street behind me, cars and people coming and going carelessly. I guessed they hadn't heard about the hundred buck blizzard that had been blowing around the city core. All the drivers had on their minds was business or the evening's assignations. The Good Lord willing, maybe I'd be one of them again by later tonight.

Inside the garage there was a car parked. A nondescript red Fiat with Milan plates. Whoever had organized this caper had really organized, this car was invisible.

I got back into the van. Carla had moved back from the seat she had been occupying. There was no chance to grab her. "Drive it in and close the door," she said.

I did and the dimness of the light seemed to cut us off from the noise and presence of the world, like being underwater.

Carla got out of the back of the van, holding the shotgun in one hand, the pistol in the other. "I don't want to use a gun. I like you and I want you to live, but I must have this suitcase booby trapped. Will you do it?"

"Unquestioningly," I lied. "Where's my box of tricks?"

"Under the seat you were on." She backed off a pace while I got into the van again and crouched over Pietro's body to unlatch the cover of the seat I'd occupied first. Inside it was a box and inside that were padded partitions that contained fuses, electrical wire, a timing device, batteries, detonators, everything except the explosive.

"So far so good. Now where's the plastic?"

"This end of the seat, in a cooler chest."

Good thinking again. Plastic is stable even in tropical heat but it tends to smell stronger when it gets warm. It's harder to camouflage the bomb.

The chest was packed with ice and the explosive was wrapped in plastic bags, two charges about half a pound each. Enough to wipe out Scavuzzo's whole family tree. "What's the scenario? Are you planning to leave the room when he opens this case?"

"I want a blast big enough to kill him and shred the paper in the case but not bring a goddamn house down. Can you do that?"

"Your wish is my command." I opened one pack of the plastic and started to knead it. It was enough to kill a whole roomful of people, although I didn't think she would recognize that.

"I'm going to use a friction detonator. When he opens the lid of the case it will break a circuit and trigger the blast."

"Good. Get on with it." Her voice was harsh and tight. Reaction, I guessed, to the death of Pietro. She hadn't felt it while she was still high on the smell of money. Now she was realizing what she had done. Probably she would start to shake in a few minutes, and then probably weep. It would make it easier for me to get the upper hand. I couldn't risk hitting her. If I knocked her out I wouldn't find out where Herbie had been moved to.

I stood outside the van now, leaning down over the suitcase Pietro had moved in before he was shot. "Is this one already booby trapped?"

"No. I packed it myself," she said. "Go ahead and open it."

I did, snapping the catch and opening it carefully, listening for the telltale click of a mechanism. I would probably be too late but if I rolled under the van I might survive with nothing worse than ruptured eardrums.

There was no sound. I raised the lid of the case very carefully, crouching to look through the crack as I did. I couldn't see any wires dangling, anything suspicious. "Come on," Carla said impatiently. "I told you already. It's not booby trapped."

"There are old bomb experts and there are bold bomb experts," I told her. "But there are no old bold bomb experts."

She made an impatient hissing noise through her teeth. "Come on for Christ's sweet sake."

I opened the lid all the way and looked down on the contents, a thick pile of newspapers. The one on the top was dated the previous day and had no news of the kidnapping on the front page. It probably meant she had packed it before the kidnapping happened. Talk about organized.

I rolled the plastic thin, like a kid's plasticine snake, and pressed it against the lower lip of the suitcase cover. Logically the person opening it would have that side towards him. The density of the packed newspapers would force the blast towards him, pulverizing his whole body. Then I picked out a detonator and an electrical relay mechanism, a simple burglar alarm switch, the kind you can pick up in an electronics store for five bucks. I hoped it was well made. There was no room for error now.

Part of the kit I had asked Carla to pack for me was an ammeter. I used it now, testing all the electrical components. They were working well. I coupled the detonator and relay in place and taped them inside the body of the case, tearing out enough newspaper from the contents to accommodate the mechanism. Then I did the same with the batteries, in the lid of the case. Connecting the two was a wire with a current running through it to hold the relay back. When the case was opened the circuit would be broken, the relay would relax, driving the plunger into the detonator, which would in turn set off the booby trap. The kind of job any rough and ready soldier would do, not fancy but deadly.

The only thing I didn't do was couple the battery properly to the relay. Everything looked good but the mechanism wasn't armed. I figured to get a crack at Scavuzzo anyway. I didn't need him blown up.

"Right. That's it," I said and straightened up, wiping the sweat off my forehead. Working with explosives is harder on a man than digging coal.

"Good. Put all the suitcases in the trunk of the car. This one on top," Carla said. She was still waving the pistol around but she had set the shotgun aside, confident that I would come along like a good boy to the rendezvous with Scavuzzo. I just hoped Herbie was going to be there.

The bags exactly filled the trunk and they were heavy but they didn't squash the car down on its axle the way I'd expected. I glanced at Carla who had relaxed completely now. I could have snatched the gun off her with no trouble, if I'd been sure she would lead me to Herbie after I did it. "What have you done to the car? Heavy duty springs?" I asked her. Just a dumb male, making conversation.

Her answer surprised me. "Of course. I've been organizing this for a long time."

She waved the gun at me. "Open the door and then back out, but don't try taking off without me."

I did it, every move by the book. But she didn't know that my ethics were suddenly fighting a tough fight with natural greed. Five million U.S. dollars spelled freedom for the rest of my life. I could take it off her and skip town. Disappearing would be no trouble. Five million bucks buys a lot of invisibility. A beard, a new passport and I could live like a lord. But on the other hand, Herb Ridley might not make it through and I would wake up nights with his trusting face in front of me. I sighed and opened the car door for her as she closed the garage.

She had the gun low beside her, on a line with my right kidney. Unless Italian hospitals were better run than any other business I'd encountered in Italy, one shot would kill me, slowly, over a painful couple of weeks. So I drove carefully, at the limit, listening to her instructions.

She headed me out of town, south now so that the shadows of the houses beside the road splashed over us as we traveled. "Where are we headed?"

"To a rendezvous," she said, clamping her mouth shut as if extra words might spill out on their own if she didn't bite them back.

"And then what? Scavuzzo opens the case and departs this vale of tears. You shoot Herbie and me and drive off into the sunset."

"Partly right," she said and now she allowed herself a ghost of her earlier glee. "The first part is right. Scavuzzo gets his head blown off, I take off in this car and you and the kid head back to Florence and live happily ever after."

"I saw you kill Pietro," I reminded her. "Once you've got what you want, Scavuzzo cleanly dead, what's to stop you shooting Herb and me?"

She had her right hand across her lap, training the gun on me, but now she laughed and set her left hand down on my groin. "You're worth more than that," she said.

I looked at her and grinned. "You think and act like a man," I said. "Only you're a very special woman." Clever, Locke. What was it Somerset Maugham said? Give the plain woman a hat, the clever woman a book.

"That's the first real compliment any man has ever paid me," she said and her anger was only a millimeter beneath the surface. "To the men I grew up with I was just a good-looking piece of tail. Maybe if I'd been born ugly they would have taken me seriously. But none of them did."

"They will now," I promised. "You're a genuine empress of crime. Maybe the first ever." Oh you smooth-talking bastard, Locke.

"To answer your question, that's why I won't shoot you. I think you understand me."

"I wouldn't claim that, but I sure as hell respect you."

"Even better," she said.

I drove in silence for a couple of minutes, respectful as hell. Then I asked her, "Can you tell me what's going on? I mean, it's just about over now. I'd like to know."

I guess she'd never had the same security lectures I'd been given and the law of Omertà that the Mafia talks about isn't quite as watertight. She snorted and said, "Haven't you worked it out?"

"Not so far."

"I came to Italyto set this up. I knew I needed foot soldiers so I got next to Scavuzzo. That pleased him." She said it unselfconsciously, her beauty was a commodity to be used. "So he allowed me to go ahead. He put me on to that scumbag I took you to yesterday."

She was silent for a moment and I wondered whether she'd had to sleep with him as well. Her memories were angry.

"Then what?" I prompted gently.

"Then he got greedy and wanted to take over. He set up the phoney double-cross, shooting his own guys and taking the boy away from where he was supposed to go. Only Mazzerini cheated him, then was picked up by someone else. That's why he wanted to lead us to the Belladonna."

"How did you find that out?"

"The Belladonna is one of my own safe houses. Those guys there hadn't seen Herbie. They were still working for Scavuzzo, like always. Mazzerini was one of their own. He'd lied to us. So I took off to get hold of Scavuzzo again and go back to that house. Only he didn't have enough men left to get Herbie out. That's why we had to wait for you to turn up, so we could get the plan back on the road."

I just shook my head. "You're smarter than any of them."

She gave a quick little laugh. "I know," she said.

We drove for three quarters of an hour, first down the main road, then west again, with the sun flooding the windshield as we climbed a long slow hill.

"Turn left," she told me and I did. We were on a small road, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. We came to a track running up to the right, towards a sharp little hill that was lit from behind by the setting sun, glowing like the Christ child in the Renaissance paintings Herbie and I had come here to see.

"Pull in at that house," she ordered, all business again, jabbing me with the muzzle of her gun.

I pulled up about fifteen yards from the house, next to a freshly dug patch of garden. Before we could even get out of the car, the front door of the house opened and Scavuzzo came out, carrying a gun.

He spoke to Carla who did not get out of the car until I was out, safely away from the wheel, no chance of burning rubber back to town with all her cash on board.

I kept away from him. A pistol isn't very accurate, unless you're a good shot. If not you'll miss a moving target at twenty feet and if he raised the gun I planned to be the fastest moving target in Europe.

Carla unlocked the trunk of the car and indicated the case. Scavuzzo moved to open it but she pulled his hand away, laughing and said something that made him turn and glance at me. Then she said, "Locke. Carry this inside."

"Yassuh, massah," I said. He wouldn't shoot me until I'd finished the donkey work. We had another minute before I had to jump him.

But he didn't give me the opportunity. He hung back, away from me as I lifted the heavy suitcase and walked it into the kitchen of the house. It was a bare, simple place but it warmed my heart. Young Herbie was there, standing with another man, fiftyish and roughly dressed, the farmer, and unarmed. I winked at Herbie and set the case on the table and waited as the others came in, first Carla, then Scavuzzo.

Now he reached to open the case and as he did so Carla dived for the door. He stopped in mid-movement then followed her. I waited long enough to hammer the farmer on the temple with the heel of my balled hand, sending him sprawling, out cold. Herbie was ahead of me, just one pace behind Scavuzzo. As I came out of the door, Scavuzzo was standing aiming at Carla who was scrambling into the car. Then Herbie tackled him, roaring and slamming into his back like a football player on his own five-yard line. Scavuzzo fell forward into the newly dug dirt but rolled as I leaped for him. He fired, pointblank into my chest. I fell on top of him, stunned, shaken, my face cut with tiny shards of something. But he was dead, his face caved in.

I picked myself up and wiped away the blood that smeared my own face and hands, dulled by the roar of the explosion, wondering why I wasn't dead. Then I heard Herbie talking in a high, hysterical voice. "It worked, John. It worked."

My ears were ringing so loud his voice was a muzzy echo in the back of my head. "What worked?"

"The gun. Like you said. It dug into the dirt when I hit him. It blew up."

I reached out and shook his hand. He grabbed mine and pumped it as if we'd just won the Superbowl. "We did it. He's dead," he said. And then he broke down and started weeping like a baby. And beyond us, down the same little track, Carla's red Fiat roared into the dusk, hidden in its plume of choking dust.