A sunny morning on the Med is pretty much as good as it gets. Julien had arranged for a local grocer to make a food run up the hill, and the guy had brought a truckload. I hoped we weren’t going to be there long enough to need it, but in the meantime, the three of us sat outside and ate with abandon.
A little after nine, with Julien at the wheel of his car, a four-door BMW, we drove back to the coast road and turned north. Our guide had brought along notebooks, a camera and a pair of binoculars. Tools of the trade for land speculators, he told us. The camera was a top-of-the-line Minolta, and the binoculars military, well-worn and without markings. My guess was that the Legion was missing a pair just like them.
We stopped several times, got out and went through the charade of Julien’s pointing things out while we nodded, made notes and occasionally used the binoculars or snapped a picture. I didn’t think anyone was following us, but with so little traffic on the island, we were going to be noticed, and looking like foreigners being shown around by a local real estate agent was as good a cover as we were going to get.
As the coastline dropped farther below, it became a postcard. As dazzling as Amalfi, but without the crowds. It was a shame that so few outsiders ever get to see it.
A couple of hours later, we turned inland and met the rugged interior of Corsica. Here, the mountainous spine merged with a steep forest broken by bare rock outcroppings and an occasional towering waterfall thundering into an abyss. When the land would flatten, pristine streams would emerge stalked by hawks and tiger heron. But if there were human inhabitants, there was no indication.
We reached a stretch where a fast-moving river had slashed a deep gorge through the granite mountain, leaving passage possible only along a winding, narrow road cut into the rock. At its widest points, possibly two small cars could squeeze by each other, but otherwise, you had to wait for one of the engineered turnouts that appeared every mile or so. It was so treacherous that even the normally steel-nerved Eddie gripped the back of my seat.
“Not many people up here,” said Julien, attempting to break the tension. “And the ones who are stay out of sight.”
The place had a feeling of total isolation, and I couldn’t imagine trying to haul somebody out who didn’t want to go.
“It’s also something of a Corsican tradition to romanticize our outlaws.”
No sooner had Julien finished the sentence than two bright red trucks with aerial ladders mounted on their roofs appeared behind us. I’d seen them before—coming toward us on the coast road when we’d turned inland.
“Probably lost and trying to make up time,” Eddie said.
“Well, they’re stuck with our pace for the moment,” said Julien.
“Jesus Christ!” roared Eddie.
I turned and looked out the rear window. It was filled with a grille I was intimately familiar with. Pinzgauer II, a six-wheel-drive British-made vehicle rarely seen outside a military installation. We’d used them in Delta because their narrow track and superb traction could take us places nothing else on wheels was capable of. In the right hands, they can climb almost anything, and the way these guys were driving, the hands were right. Regardless, it was way too much iron, way too close.
“Can you see who’s inside?”
Eddie craned his neck upward. “Near as I can tell, a couple of lobotomy patients.” He leaned out the window and shouted at them to back off. Their response was to accelerate and tap our bumper.
Eddie pulled his head back inside. “What’s Corsican for ‘motherfucker’?”
“Either of them wearing a headband?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Julien gave the BMW a hit of gas, then had to back off when we came to a bend. That’s when the Pinz hit us again—this time hard enough that we all flew forward.
We were swearing in multiple languages, and Eddie was giving the finger out his window. The next turnout was ahead on the left, and the BMW slowed as Julien braked and put on his blinker. But instead of easing off, the truck banged us again, and our left rear wheel hit the edge and hung out in space for a couple of seconds until our forward momentum pulled it back.
We skidded to a stop against the low stone wall of the turnout and were out of the car almost before dust billowed up. But the trucks were already past and accelerating away, their roof-top ladder assemblies banging as they whipped into the next bend. It was the white lettering on their tail-gates that made the event even more surreal.
DANGER! EXPLOSIF!
Eddie wanted to go after them, but that was like a dog chasing a bus. So you catch them, then what? The BMW had only minor damage, and I told Julien I’d take care of it. So after we silently contemplated the several-hundred-foot free fall we’d narrowly avoided, we climbed back in the car. Like the tailgating record producer in the red Lamborghini, the world is full of assholes with driver’s licenses. Sometimes the right ones died.
Half an hour later, we rounded a final bend and the Fortress of Apollonica rose into the cloudless sky like Kane’s Xanadu. Turreted walls ran along a perimeter steep enough to stop an antelope, enclosing a spired, seven-story edifice that was almost a mirror image of the Abbey at Mont St-Michel. It was something out of a time when audacious engineering on high ground served notice to lesser folk not to fuck with the occupant.
“Power abhors understatement,” I said.
“It was built during the French papacy. As a refuge for the Holy Father,” said Julien.
“In case the natives got restless.”
“The natives they could handle. It was the guys with armies that kept them awake. But as far as anyone can tell, no pope ever spent a night here.”
Eddie had his own axe to grind. “That shit’s why I left the church. Fuckin’ high-and-mighty assholes spending other people’s money.”
“I’ll put that down as Reason Number 133.”
We laughed, but you couldn’t help but wonder how many peasants had died hauling all that stone up there. But as Benny Joe—and maybe a pope or two—might have said, that’s why we have peasants.
“When did Bruzzi buy it?” I asked.
“About twenty years ago. But what everyone thought was going to be an economic blessing didn’t happen. Some of the nicknames he’s acquired don’t translate, but my favorite is a Corsican play on words that means ‘Sicilian Who Sits in Eagle Shit.’”
It was hard not to like that.
The village of Apollonica fit neatly into a shallow gash in the sheep-dotted mountainside directly under Gaetano’s citadel. Julien turned left and crossed the gorge on an ancient limestone bridge probably built by the Romans. Apollonica sounded more Greek than anything else, and since this part of the world had been cross-pollinated for millennia, there was a good chance it was. Maybe the legion commander had been from Athens.
Halfway across, I looked down, and there, ten stories below us on a narrow access road along the water’s edge, were the red Pinzgauers. They had their aerial ladders extended, and two men were up thirty feet or so, working on something along the rockface. Their partners stood watching.
“Stop the fuckin’ car!” yelled Eddie. “I want to piss on those cocksuckers.”
“It’d just blow back in your face,” I said.
“They almost killed us.”
“How many times has another boater thrown you the finger because you couldn’t go by him slow?”
Eddie didn’t answer.
“Let it go,” I said.
Julien looked down. “I should have realized earlier. They’re the fireworks crew for The Festival of the Return.”
“Whose return?” asked Eddie.
“Napoleon’s.”
The town occupied only a small footprint of land, but its multistoried structures rose imposingly out of the hills. Everything, even the miniature streets, were straight up and straight down. Centuries of constructing dwellings one on top of the other and cantilevering others over them had created a skyline that from a distance looked like Tolkien but up close was a tall Hanoi.
“Not much wealth on the island,” said Julien, “and the farther you get from the coast, the poorer it is.”
“Kind of a shithole,” observed Eddie, and he was right. The lower parts of the buildings were stone, but each successive generation of additions was framed in wood with walls that looked as thin as paper. The only paint in evidence was a pinkish-brown wash. Up close, Apollonica wasn’t a travel poster.
The cobblestone square tilted with the mountain, but in contrast to the otherwise monochromatic backdrop, the facades of the buildings facing it were festooned with dozens of black-and-white Corsican flags and red, white and blue banners proclaiming “Vivé Le Empereur.” In the center of the square, amid this unexpected splash of color, was a small grass island containing a thick Ionic pedestal carved out of stone. Fresh violets were strewn around its base, and a large, intricate wreath of violets and olive leaves lay on top.
“Every village has its own Napoleon tribute,” Julien explained. “They say it’s to attract tourists, but the real reason is that he’s still the only uniting force on the island.”
“I still don’t get it,” Eddie said.
“They’re honoring the return of his corpse from St. Helena. In 1840. The craftsman who carved his coffin, Octave LeDucq, came from Apollonica, and as far as the locals are concerned, the general’s internment in Paris is only temporary.”
What was it Jackie had said? “My, but we are a stubborn people.” He was right, but without the Jewish exclusivity.
Julien continued. “At sundown Saturday, a funeral barge will come upriver carrying a replica of Napoleon’s bier. It’ll be brought here and placed on the pedestal.”
“Then the party will begin,” I said.
“Just until everybody gets drunk. Then the grudges will come out.”
Julien parked next to an ornate, bone-dry fountain, and we got out. I stood and looked around the square at the flags, each depicting a black Moor’s head adorned with a white tortil. I saw Eddie doing the same.
“Fuckers,” he said.
“Eddie, get a grip,” I said.
He shrugged. “Okay, but I’m adding fireworks guys to my list.”
What few pedestrians there were looked us over quickly then moved on. I saw only one other powered vehicle, a Vespa, sitting on the sidewalk outside a bocce court. Two men were engaged in a cutthroat game while several others sat on benches smoking and offering advice.
Julien told us to wait, and he crossed the square and entered a building. A few minutes later, he came out with a uniformed policeman. “What’s going on?” asked Eddie quietly.
When Julien and the cop crossed back to us, he explained. “I’m required to check in with the local authorities when I show property outside Bonifacio. Usually, it’s just a formality, but when Lieutenant Santini heard you were from California, he wanted to meet you. He has a sister in San Francisco. Oh, by the way, he says this year’s festival is going to be spectacular, and he wants to invite us to attend as his guests.”
Unlike everyone else we’d seen, this guy couldn’t stop grinning and bowing. He also spoke a local combination of French and Italian I’d never heard before. I understood most of it, but I let Julien translate. “His sister’s name is Yvette Santini, and he wants to know if you’ve met her.”
“Jesus,” said Eddie, “doesn’t he know there’s like a million people in San Fran?”
“Look around,” I said. “What do you think?” I turned to Julien. “Tell him we’ll have to take a rain check on the festival, and that we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Yvette. But if he’d like to give us a message for her, we’ll do our best to see she gets it.”
Julien translated, and I thought the guy was going to kiss us.
Julien shook his head. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into. He’s going to have somebody put together a basket of her favorite breads and cheeses.”
“That’ll be great.” I smiled and shook the lieutenant’s hand, which sent him into another frenzy of bowing. I looked at Julien. “Now ask him where we can find our artist.”
Julien looked like I’d slapped him. “I think it’s wiser to be discreet. Wander around. Let me show you some apartments. That’s supposed to be what we’re here for.”
“We don’t have time to go house to house, and if we leave empty-handed, we won’t get back. The man at the top of the hill will make sure of that. Now ask him.”
Julien was perspiring. He started talking, then stopped, cleared his throat and began again. I listened to him rattle off a paragraph, and it didn’t have anything to do with Tiziano Bruzzi. Rather than argue, I took out the copy of the photograph and opened it.
Julien wasn’t happy, but instead of the usual reaction, Lieutenant Santini burst out laughing. Then he shot out a stream of sentences, punctuated by more laughter, and pointed in the general direction of the church. When he’d finished, even though I’d gotten it, I waited for Julien’s translation.
“There was an incident. Tiziano took off all his clothes, including his diaper, and climbed the bell tower. He’d done crazy things before, so no one got particularly upset until…how do you say it…he pissed on the mayor.”
We laughed, and that was the lieutenant’s cue to go into another gale.
I looked at Eddie. “High places and urination. Must be the mountain air.”
He ignored me and said to Julien, “What happened then?”
“They called his brother, and while he was trying to talk him down, he pissed on him too.”
Now that was funny.
“Some men who work for Gaetano finally took him away. No one has seen him since.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“A month.”
Tiziano was the meal ticket, so he wouldn’t be in outside care. Hood might be dead, but the art hustle still worked. All you needed were connections, and Bruzzi had plenty. Not to mention leverage over important people. No, Tiziano was nearby, probably at the top of the hill.
“Ask the lieutenant if we can see his studio.”
Santini was more than happy to accommodate.
“I can’t believe he laughs so openly about Bruzzi,” Julien said as we followed Santini across the square.
“I can. You live next door to evil, you’re happy when it has a bad day.”
I’m in pretty good shape, but I was gasping by the time we climbed the mile and a half up the steep dirt footpath. Tiziano’s studio was literally the last house in town, a tiny cottage perched on a rough slab only a quarter mile below the citadel. It was old but well-kept, with wide windows and a rusty bicycle chained to the wooden fence out front.
Lieutenant Santini worked the padlock on the door and pushed it open. I was prepared for a mess, but the place was neat and smelled of nothing more than paint and linseed oil.
“The lieutenant says that Gaetano paid a woman to look after his brother and keep the place clean. She takes care of other troubled people too—the ones without families—and now she doesn’t know what she’s going to do, because this was the only income she had.”
I reached in my pocket and came out with cash. I peeled off ten C-notes and handed them to the cop. He took them like they were on fire.
“Tell him to give it to the woman.”
Julien shook his head. “It’s too much.”
“She had a good year. Tell him.”
It took a little while, but Julien finally got through to him. I guessed there wasn’t much charity going on in Apollonica. The lieutenant started thanking me, but I held up my hand and gave him another hundred. “This is for you,” I said. “For your trouble.”
Julien didn’t have to translate that.
I walked to the back windows and pushed them open. The footpath continued up toward the winery, with the incline steepening even further so that the pope’s former hideout seemed to be suspended over the town. “Where are the grapes?” I asked in French.
Santini answered in kind. “When you came over the bridge, there was a turnoff. It leads along the water and around the mountain. Beyond, the land is different.” He made a gesture that indicated flatter.
There were a few unfinished paintings scattered about, but none I recognized. Tiziano was good, though. Very good. His colors were rich, and his images exploded off the canvas. Supposedly, there is some creativity in all of us, but in most cases, including mine, it’s locked up pretty tight.
I found the spot where Kim had taken Tiziano’s picture. I also saw where she had taken the photographs of the paintings. I looked at the cop and used my French. “There was a young woman. Kim York. Tall. Long hair. She would have come here to see Tiziano.”
The lieutenant nodded vigorously. “Many times. Always with other men.”
“Any Americans?”
“Yes, one.”
Truman.
The scream was so loud, so shrill and so full of terror that I was halfway out the door before the second one came. Thirty feet down the hill, a full-grown hyena had its jaws clamped around the neck of a crying child and was trying to break into a lope as it dragged the struggling bundle up the path. Behind them, a young woman was giving chase, screaming from some deep, primal place.
When she got alongside the big beast, she began beating on it with her fists. The hyena turned, dropped the toddler and snarled at her. When she tried to grab the child, the animal leaped and hit her with its head, and she stumbled backward and fell. Its immediate problem solved, the hyena picked up the child and started back up.
I reached it before it oriented itself, and I kicked it in the ribs as hard as I could. I saw the surprise in its yellow eyes, but even though I had jolted it, it didn’t let go of the baby. Instinctively, the animal moved far enough away to keep me from making another run. But not far enough that I couldn’t smell the fear excretions from its anal glands.
Eddie, Julien and Lieutenant Santini had now reached us and were fanned out between the animal and the winery beyond. The hyena stood stock-still and, one-by-one, eyed those standing between it and escape. The child had gone limp. I hoped only from shock.
Santini had his gun out, a MAB 9mm, which is just slightly less accurate than throwing rocks. Even a direct hit probably wasn’t going to kill the animal, but it might shock it into dropping its prize. I waited for him to fire, but he didn’t.
“Jesus Christ, shoot!” Eddie yelled.
Santini didn’t need to be able to speak English to know what to do, but nothing happened. Sensing the danger, the hyena began to move laterally away from us.
I looked at the lieutenant, saw the perspiration on his forehead and immediately understood. It was okay to get a laugh at the bully’s expense every once in a while, but killing one of Bruzzi’s prized hyenas was another matter. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time one had come to town, and I wondered how many children the citizens of Apollonica surrendered each year.
I moved quickly toward Santini and took the gun out of his hand. He didn’t put up a fight. I aimed at the hyena’s rear hip where the bullet would shock it but not jeopardize the child and squeezed the trigger. The MAB hardly moved in my hand, and the sound wasn’t any louder than a clap.
The shot went low, kicking up dust as it skidded under the animal. Nice fucking gun. I elevated quickly and fired again. This time I heard a whump, and the hyena let out a bloodcurdling scream and left the ground with all four feet, dropping the kid.
Eddie ran forward, scooped up the child and kept going like he’d just recovered a fumble. The hyena started for him, and I fired again. There are shots you brag about because you made every calculation. And then there is out of your ass.
I was just hoping to distract it. Instead, the bullet went in its right eye, rattled around its brain and exited through its throat. The hyena ran three strides dead, then dropped like a bag of wet sand.
For the first time, I was aware that other people, probably hearing the commotion, had come out of their homes and were gathering around us. Two of them were young men wearing red tortils. The older of the two had a spider with four legs tattooed on his left forearm. Both stared at the dead hyena, then at me.
The younger, shorter man seemed more unsure of himself, so I concentrated on him. Very slowly, he took a knife out of his hip pocket, held it at his side and flicked it open.
I’d been here before, so I raised the lieutenant’s gun and pointed it straight at his face. He didn’t blink, but his hand tightened on the knife. I told Santini that it was up to Dumb and Dumber, but I wasn’t going to be cut.
Santini shouted something, and after taking enough time so we all knew they were the coolest of the cool, the men began walking away.
“Give my regards to Tino,” I said.
The man with the tattoo turned, stopped and stared. Then, with great deliberation, he continued on.
Behind me, Santini muttered something that sounded like “fucking Americans,” but I could have been just hearing things.
Julien and I both had some medical training, but his was a lot more recent. As he examined the boy, the kid suddenly let out a scream almost as loud as the hyena’s and began twisting and turning and reaching for his mother. In Beverly Hills, you’d call your lawyer, then a backup lawyer, then the ambulance. In Apollonica, the last I saw of mother and son, they were walking back down the hill. The woman had opened her shirt, and the kid was having lunch.
When we left Lieutenant Santini, he was trying to organize a burial party and not having much luck. Apparently, the descendants of Napoleon wanted no part of Bruzzi’s dead pet. Yvette’s basket didn’t make an appearance either.