I couldn’t pick them out, but I sensed their presence. Serj Balakian’s men were spying on me. It was the fourth time that the Armenian had arranged a meet, through contacts who took their sweet ass time, and then was a no-show.
I paid the bill and headed off in the direction of Kapuzinerplatz, prompting disappointed looks on the faces of two old gals. The whole time they’d been making eyes at me while I had to sit tight in that shitty posh patisserie. They weren’t bad. They oozed money and class. Were circumstances different I’d have taken advantage of the situation, showed them I was available, a gentleman, and at the same time open-minded, would have suggested we split a little something three ways with a surprise ending that only I’d have appreciated. They’d have been so shaken up that they would have stopped seeing one another and tried to forget what had happened with that charming and apparently harmless man. So “normal.” Not even the best shrink would have given them answers, while I would have retained only happy memories of the permanent scars that I’d left on their lives.
I bid the women goodbye with a regretful smile. It had been a minute since I’d had myself some fun, but the situation wouldn’t allow it. All eyes were on me. The eyes of Italian cops and international crooks. I’d get another shot. It was just a matter of being patient. According to a bank LED display, it was ten degrees out. The cold didn’t bother me, but it had spoiled my stay in Munich, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’d been in the city for over a month and a half and was growing bored.
Balakian would eventually decide to meet me, but, for my tastes, it would be too late. I entered a department store and lost my two shadows, a man and a woman who had been trailing me since Tumblingerstraße and had done nothing to avoid being noticed.
I had to show Balakian that I wasn’t Sucker Number One. Besides, I didn’t feel like advertising my home address.
Angelina Marino was the one who procured my apartment, a cranny in Neuperlach. She’d put me up in a two-bedroom, furnished with scrap merch, on the first floor of a building two blocks from Kafkastraße.
I deserved better, but Marino was cheap. She believed even special operations needed to curb expenses.
A bitch with few equals, that cop, but she was the only one who understood that I could come in handy for complicated missions with multiple layers, the fruit of long and grueling meetings. So, when I put myself on the immunity market, she proposed something that, on the face of it, might have seemed like a suicide mission. In reality, it was the wet dream of ministry heavies, but before I came along they couldn’t find volunteers among the crooks for hire, and as far as I knew they’d sacrificed a pair of agents for nothing in an attempt to infiltrate Balakian’s organization. Which wasn’t even the main objective, only a means to touch someone whose identity they still didn’t know.
Marino was still buttoned up. She didn’t trust me. Even though, just to make myself appetizing to the guy, I’d had to kill three drug-traffickers in Vienna. For over four months I’d had to pretend I was a coke buyer looking for a wholesaler with no ties to Italy. Angela had made me memorize a little story about a fallout with the mafia. A half-baked tale only delinquent Austrians would buy, industry outsiders unaccustomed to a certain class of con. Like being shot while receiving a briefcase full of money for four kilos of cocaine. They were former mercenaries who thought all you had to do to stay alive was follow procedure. They couldn’t conceive of someone not giving a shit about rules of engagement. They checked out the references given to them by a regular customer they didn’t know was being blackmailed by Interpol. They wanted to meet me. On the street, in a café, at a restaurant. And then at a brothel. How typical. Finally they wanted to see the money. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be done, but because I wanted to prove I was a reliable customer, I humored them. Wads of cash from the maze of ministry slush funds.
One week of silence and then out of nowhere they summon me to an apartment, the kind rented out to tourists or for special events. But because I had taken the precaution of not using a cellphone and could only be found at a certain joint I stopped by every night at the same hour, Tobias Slezak was compelled to give me the address in person the evening before the meet. It was a minor breach of protocol, but protocol should never be breached. The boss was sure he wasn’t running any risks; after all, they’d checked me out thoroughly. He failed to realize that he had fallen victim to overconfidence, which in the world of crime must be avoided like the plague. So, while he and his men slept like angels and dreamed of the rustle of banknotes that I was supposed to hand over the following morning, I slipped into the apartment—shut with a ridiculous lock—and hid a gun in each of the two bathrooms.
A classic. The same plan is narrated down to the last detail in The Godfather: After the attempt on his father’s life, Michael Corleone meets rival boss Virgil Sollozzo and the corrupt police captain, McCluskey, in a restaurant in the Bronx. He lets them search him, feigning just the right amount of indignation, and then, after opening talks to broker a peace no one wants, he goes to take a leak. Once he’s back at the table, he takes out a .38 caliber that had been taped behind the toilet, and lights them up with a couple shots to the head.
I did exactly what Corleone did. Introduced myself, let them frisk me, handed over the bag of money. They counted it while I sampled the cocaine, and then we had a drink. That’s when I asked where the bathroom was. One of the two goons accompanied me to the nearest one. I took a Turkish-made 7.65 mm from under the sink and shot them both point-blank. First Slezak, then his goons. One apiece to the chest to put them out of commission, and the killshot to the head. The six shots made such a racket they attracted the attention of the usual busybodies. Lucky for me, the Viennese cops didn’t care much about solving the case. When crooks kill crooks, public opinion and the media don’t cry out for justice. Maybe Dottoressa Marino called in a favor, but I can’t be sure.
My one regret was that Paz wasn’t there. I’d have happily offed her. I’d been looking forward to that moment, paired it with fantasies befitting the disdain she’d shown me ever since we’d first met.
From the start she’d felt something about me didn’t add up. She’d been brought up in Madrid’s underworld and orphaned by Georgians—she was far more cunning than her man. She’d known every form of betrayal. She tried to persuade Slezak not to sell me the coke. Barring that, she demanded more background checks. But she had to capitulate: my candor outweighed her suspicions. I would have liked to have complimented her on her acumen. I was really bitter about missing the chance. The whore was dangerous, vindictive. She took her revenge on my girls to show me she was angry and determined but hadn’t lost her head. She was lucid. She’d been able to keep her pain and rage under control. She wouldn’t make a rash move; she would look for me as long as it took to find me and then do me harm. Real harm.
It’s understandable, ultimately. For a woman at the head of an organization of drug-traffickers, however small, it’s got to be tough losing the men in her life. First her father, then her partner.
I could have gotten rid of Paz when she’d shown up in Padua to plan the murders of Martina and Gemma. The moment I saw the photos that good-old Giampaolo Zorzi had taken, I was tempted to make a play on her, but it would have jeopardized the whole operation. To get close to Balakian I needed someone who wanted to eliminate me at all costs.
How the Spaniard discovered my name is Giorgio Pellegrini remained a mystery, but in the end that didn’t matter much. I’d told Marino that photos of yours truly were circulating on the Internet, photos from my past, from my successful turn as a restaurateur, but she wasn’t worried. She was sure that the identity that ministry experts had made for me was more than safe.
When they get the notion to act illegally, cops presume they’re as wily as the most weathered crook. And the Dottoressa was no exception. She still hadn’t realized that it isn’t enough to know your target and ape his methods and habits. Not only is a crook’s mindset completely different, so is the combination of instincts and impulses that drive him to crime.
To be honest, I’d have left Paz free to act anyway. It worked in my favor. For several reasons.
Martina and Gemma were creatures that I’d molded to suit my needs. I’d invested time, money, and energy in their training, and I wasn’t about to let them become someone else’s property. Plus, even without my guidance, cruel and empty unhappiness awaited them all the same. Death was no doubt the appropriate solution. Besides, I’d had to bid goodbye to La Nena and Padua for good, and when you burn bridges you’d better not leave behind any encumbrances. And that’s exactly what a wife and mistress are. On top of that, the double homicide offered me the possibility of settling the score with Buratti and Rossini. They were the ones, with the aid of that berserk pig Campagna, who forced me to flee Padua.
Angela Marino was enthusiastic about my offer to involve her in an unofficial investigation to track down the Spaniard who, in the meantime, had gone on the lam.
I called that fuckhead Buratti and he immediately took the bait. He knew Martina and Gemma, and I was sure that the pathetic frailty of Gemma had struck a nerve. He felt invested in the mission to free those two poor girls from my influence and thought he’d succeeded by forcing me to run. News of their death was a hard blow. It wasn’t an accident that the lawyers he worked for called him the Crusader. I was sure he’d throw himself into the investigation to bring justice to those two poor innocent victims. Rossini the Relic and that fat fuck Max the Memory would have had his back.
Even if they were mixed up in “very” special operations, the police had to play dumb about what went down in Vienna, and having three crooks to sacrifice to the courts made things pretty cushy, especially if they fit the profile that would get the media’s attention. Beniamino Rossini was born to play the role.
The three fuckheads had tried to save their asses by taking the most obvious shortcut: offing yours truly. But they were so crusty and unimaginative that predicting their next move was a piece of cake. After their third attempt I was sick of playing around and led them by the hand to the house where pretty Lotte Schlegel put me up. I liked that big girl—so Swiss, so subservient. She couldn’t foresee that I was capable of taking her to dark places where she discovered she was happy to give up the dignity that poured out of her mouth. I felt kind of sorry for putting her down and stuffing her in that closet. But those three should have known that their attempts to kill me would trigger the death of more people. Plus I was irked when they started passing my photo around the slums of Bern. Getting other people involved is a punishable offense, an act of disloyalty. When I caught that guy snooping around Lotte’s house, I knew the time had come to switch cities.
I followed that little nothing of a man and shot the breeze while he paused to drop five francs on the Swiss Lotto. Discovered his name was Hermann and that he’d worked for thirty years in Schwarzau Prison. In his pocket he had a couple of photographs that had appeared in a cooking magazine, and he recognized me. Had seen me in the neighborhood before, in the company of Lotte, and remembered me. He swore he’d met too many crooks in his lifetime not to recognize one on the street. Twaddle. I’ve got a gift for sizing up the greedy, the corrupt, so I paid him to sell me out to Buratti. I got him to give me one of the photos and taped it to the closet where the remains of my hostess hung. It seemed like a cute touch, one that would facilitate their finding her.
Marino lapped up my bullshit about Schlegel’s homicide. I pinned the blame on Paz Anaya Vega, and when I complained about those three idiots’ fruitless attempts to take my life, she didn’t blink. She wanted to see the case through. Everything else, in her eyes, was mere detail. But I was sure that, despite her reassurances, she wanted to pull one over on me. It was foreseeable. In Italy certain things haven’t changed since the dawn of time.
The state cut a deal with the mafia, arrested a boss, and squeezed those who did the dirty work, those who made the Cosa Nostra archive disappear. Some careers were torched after cases were brought with the sole aim of kicking up dust. Other people soared to the Mount Olympus of Power. The real kind. The kind that has always governed.
But unlike Paz, Marino didn’t really get me. Beautiful Angela, born and raised in the highest echelons of the Interior, tended to underestimate her enemies. Not only was she biased, more to the point, she couldn’t hold back her disdain for moral degeneracy. Given her rank in the ministry, that attitude could have harmed her career in the long run. With me she’d made the same mistake. She was sure she was the sharper of the two, sure she could use me, trick me, and go back on her word.
But I’d make sure she didn’t. I’m not the type to rot behind bars or go into hiding. In order to live large I had to go back to Italy and be among the well-heeled—presentable people, not necessarily saints. By now arrest warrants were the daily bread of people who ran business and politics. I had to go back to being considered a full-fledged citizen, with the right to vote and the obligation to pay taxes and bills. Only then could I devote myself to taking advantage of the corrupt and the weak.
Though I had yet to figure out how, I would force Angela Marino to behave accordingly. She still hadn’t unveiled what I had to do after gaining Balakian’s trust. No surprise, I was cooking up a plan to save myself right then.
To make sure I was finally alone, I walked into a famous, sprawling beer hall, tunneled past lively groups of Italian tourists—who came to Munich for the sole purpose of swilling beer—and escaped out the staff door that led to a back alley. I surprised two waiters smoking peacefully. I felt like smacking them around. No one who worked at a restaurant of mine would have taken the liberty. Breaks are for going to the bathroom. Then it’s straight back to work. You only rest to eat. I felt like complaining to the director, bringing to his attention the fact that these two assholes would stink of smoke while serving food and drinks. But I let it go. My German is awful, and I didn’t want to argue in English.
My phone rang. I didn’t need to check who it was. It couldn’t be anyone but Angela Marino.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“Balakian was a no-show.”
“He may not trust you yet, but if he continues to schedule meetings, it means he’s interested.”
“In money. Are you positive I’ll have enough when the time comes?”
She scoffed. “We’ve gone over this already. Of course, if you could get your hands on the money you hid when you ran, it would lessen the burden on taxpayers.”
“If I had any saved up, I’d live a more dignified life,” I lied, “seeing as what you give me is outrageous.”
She ignored me. “Buratti and his colleagues managed to identify Paz Anaya Vega and are now looking for her.”
“I told you it was the Spaniard who killed my wife and her friend.”
“You mean your girlfriend. Anyways, Pellegrini, I don’t know shit until the mobile squad in Padua finds out the official truth.”
Always ready to cover her own ass. “Is that all?”
“Do you have something better to do, Giorgio?” she asked in a fussy little squeak.
“I do,” I said, and hung up.
She called back, but I didn’t answer. Anger aroused certain fantasies in me, but I kept them at bay. Angela Marino may have been beautiful but she was the type of woman I couldn’t get in sync with. There was no way to break her. Plus she was big stuff at PD. She was untouchable.
I slipped into a taxi as it was dropping someone off, rode out to Giesing and caught the subway to get home faster.
As I opened the door my nose picked up hints of almond and ginger. Perfume. My instinct told me to go introduce myself to whoever had taken a bath in the stuff. Despite everything, I didn’t sense danger.
I entered the room and found the woman who’d been following me seated at the kitchen table. Her long jacket was folded perfectly and slung over the back of a chair. With her left index finger she pointed to the couch.
She was thin, her face outrageously chiseled, her skin pulled back against the bone. But she wasn’t ill, much less anorexic. Her tightfitting shirt amplified her toned arms and threw her little muscles in relief. She was one of those women who kills herself on the rowing machine to get back at Mother Nature. Were she not so ugly I’d have given her a workout myself.
“Where’s your friend?” I asked in English, removing my jacket. “Hiding in the tub?”
She smiled, amused. “No, he’s outside. In case there’s trouble.”
I collapsed onto the uncomfortable pillows of the couch. “You smell nice.”
She shook her head. “What, this? Barely passable. I wear it when I work.”
A real joker, this broad. “Am I supposed to congratulate you for tailing me all the way to this house?”
“We’ve known the address for a month,” she explained, the smartass. “We’ve searched it more than a few times. You never even realized, did you?”
“No,” I confessed.
“You’re not very good at covering your tracks either,” she went on, unfazed, as if to scold me. “You always take the same route. And you’re cocky. Almost smug. Indiscreet, given the dangerous situation you’re in . . . Mr. Sforza.”
Attilio Sforza. The identity that those geniuses at special ops had cooked up for me along with an appropriate cover story and a respectable criminal CV. But I hated the name. It sounded fake. And now I was wondering if this woman was harboring doubts about it too.
I pretended to be embarrassed. “I thought I was better than that.”
The woman just stared at me. Then she decided to disclose the reason for her visit. “After every meeting we’ve arranged, you receive a phone call. The same happened today. We want to know who you’re talking to.”
Hats off to Balakian’s organization! They were real professionals, left nothing to chance. But I’m the king of liars and managed to parry her blow with a plausible story—a classic.
“A woman I’m very fond of.”
She cocked her eyebrow, an expression that looked unnatural and slightly ridiculous on her. But the broad wasn’t stupid; she took all the time she needed to absorb my answer. She held out her hand. “Cell phone,” she ordered.
I stood up and handed it to her with a cooperative, solicitous air. I was trying to fuck her in the ass with a bucket of Vaseline, but I could picture how this would end.
She checked it and made no comment when she saw that all my incoming calls came from the same number. She just barked an order. “Put your friend on speaker and pretend you’re alone.”
“She only speaks Italian.”
“Non c’è problema,” she said in a thick Teutonic accent. Her demand had all the trappings of non-negotiability.
If Angela Marino betrayed her identity I’d have to eliminate this broad in front of me, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that she hadn’t come alone, that her little friend was waiting outside, ready to barge in.
I nodded gravely. More Vaseline to show her that I understood their need to take precautions. I called the cop, casting an eye around the place for an object with which to bludgeon Balakian’s drudge.
“Now what is it?” answered Marino, arrogant, brusque as ever.
Not the best foot to start off on. “Scusa, amore,” I began. “I know I shouldn’t have called but I wanted to tell you that I love you, that I love you so much, and I’m afraid that destiny will divide us forever.”
Silence. Marino wasn’t so clever after all. I turned to the woman and smiled, ready to grab a chair and break it over her head. I was calculating the distance when I heard my “sweetheart” speak up.
“Oh, Attilio,” she managed between sobs. “We can’t afford to be afraid right now. I love you too. And all I want is to spend the rest of our new lives together.”
Oscar-worthy performance. I peeped the woman. She was calm.
“Sorry for before but I was feeling a little down and needed reassurance.”
“I’m glad you called, Attilio. But you have to be careful. My husband is very suspicious.”
I mumbled a goodbye and hung up. I lowered my gaze to affect deep feelings.
“What’s her name?”
“I’ll happily tell you everything once we start getting serious.”
She looked me over, searching for cracks that could tip her off to any possible lies. Then she got up, put on her jacket, took from her purse a pair of gloves lined with deer fur, and slowly put them on.
“In the event that we show up, Mr. Sforza.”
“In the event? What’s that mean?”
“That there will be no more meets arranged. If we choose to proceed we know where to find you. Always.”
She’d been perfectly clear. I wouldn’t be able to evade their surveillance, which had already gone on for a good bit. These guys were the best; you didn’t bullshit Balakian. That explained why the big brains at special ops had lost two agents.
I pulled back the curtain and watched the woman walk off. Only then did I notice she had a strange gait, though I was sure it was a little show put on in my honor. She knew my eyes were glued to her bony ass and she was having fun fucking with me. Across the street, in plain view on the sidewalk, her partner was looking at me with a smirk on his lips. Maybe he liked me.
I had to contact Marino. We were in trouble and needed to plug any holes before they found out that the woman I’d sworn my love to was a cop.
I couldn’t discount their having bugged the house. But going out meant I’d be seen on the phone, and this time I couldn’t get by with just a couple of sweet nothings. I opened the door and climbed the stairs to the roof. I was greeted by a freezing wind, took shelter behind a small structure, and pulled out my cellphone.
“What happened?” she asked anxiously.
“Close call,” I replied. I was careful not leave anything out about the woman’s visit. “They’ll be checking the number and expecting a name and story,” I said.
Marino sighed. “I’m on it. But it’ll take time.”
“You’ve underestimated them once again,” I shouted. I was fed up. “The problem is you’re no match for them, and I don’t want to get killed. At this point I see no harm in parting ways.”
“Pellegrini?”
“What?”
“You work for me, you’re my puppet, and I’m the one pulling the strings,” she said calmly. “Just try worming your way out of this and I’ll devote every minute of my life to hunting you down and making you pay.”
“I’m no use to you dead or locked up.”
“You’re useful to me alive and free, and we’ll protect you. Now keep it together and wait for my next instructions.”
I returned to the apartment and made coffee. The situation I found myself in was a mess. I was at the mercy of Balakian and Marino, with nothing to do and no way to act. This had never happened to me before. I’d always been master of my own affairs.
I needed to think, to find an alternative. I’d always found a way to turn the tables to my advantage, but this time I’d been caught off guard. I bundled up and went out. Night had fallen, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow step out of a parked car and gently close the door.
I started walking slowly toward the subway stop.