Chip said, "You didn't really kidnap the Mafia don's daughter? Tell me you're making this up."
"It does sound strange," McCabe said, "doesn't it?" He looked out the window, saw a half moon lighting up the sky over Orsini Castle.
"That's an understatement," Chip said. "I don't want to rain on your parade, but maybe she's playing along, that ever occur to you?"
"No, Dr Phil," McCabe said.
"That's your ego talking," Chip said.
"What do you know about it?"
"I've watched a lot of TV, seen a lot of movies. Girls like that are used to getting what they want. They're used to the good life. What do you have to offer?"
"I'll ask her."
"But I think you've got a bigger problem," Chip said. "These guys you've gone up against are bad. You read about them in the paper, remember? They're not just going to give up. They're not going to go away. I hope you know that."
Yeah, he knew it.
"Can the Mafia princess talk to her father on your behalf, put in a good word for you?"
McCabe said, "From what she tells me they don't get along too well."
"I'd give it a try," Chip said. "That, or call Captain Ferrara. The way I see it those are your options."
"Or I could take the money and leave the country," McCabe said.
"How're you going to get it through customs and airport security?"
He had a good point.
Chip said, "Or I guess you can always shoot your way out."
"That's a possibility," McCabe said. "We'll talk about it when you get here."
Chip said he'd pick them up at ten the next morning.
Chapter Thirty-five
Ray had driven back to Mentana, and rented a room in a small hotel with a view of the countryside and Mount San Lorenzo. He needed a place to hang out and wait. He sat on the bed, thinking about Sharon, going over what he knew. According to Teegarden, the FBI had tracked her to Rome, arriving October 12th.
He also knew that if you were a foreigner staying at an Italian hotel your passport had to be recorded with the police, and there was no record of a Sharon Pope checking in any hotel in Rome. And there was nothing at all about Joey. His name had not appeared on any airline or cruise ship manifest, arriving in Italy or any European country in the past ten days. But he could've come here another way: by chartered yacht or jet. Or maybe he was traveling under an alias.
Ray's gut told him Joey was in Italy and he was staying at his uncles estate. No proof, not much to go on, but he was going to exhaust that possibility before he did anything else.
At seven he went to a small cafe with white tablecloths, and had grilled coniglio that tasted like chicken, roast potatoes, green salad, bread and a glass of house red. He was the only customer at that early hour and finished his meal, had his coffee and paid the bill before anyone else came in. It was 8:15 and dark when he went outside. He walked back to the hotel to lie down for a couple hours.
He yawned and closed his eyes, but couldn't sleep and laid there in the dark, mind racing, thinking about Sharon. At midnight he got up, went in the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, and brushed his teeth. He put on a black sweater and black jeans and a dark-blue jacket. He put the two extra magazines in his jacket pockets and slid the SIG Sauer in his jeans behind his back.
He walked down two flights of stairs, went through the lobby, and handed his key to the night clerk. He went outside and got in his car and drove back toward Don Gennaro's villa, 3.7 kilometers from Mentana. He'd clocked it coming and going the first time. When he'd gone 3.5 kilometers he slowed down and looked for a place to pull in the woods and did, backing in so he had a clear view of the road, and a fast way out. He heard a car approaching, and saw the flash of headlights as it zoomed past him.
He looked at the clock on the dash. It was 12:27 a.m. He took off the jacket, folded it on the passenger seat. Gripped the SIG Sauer, got out of the car and waited for his eyes to adjust. It was difficult to see in dense woods under an overcast sky, strangely quiet too, not a sound. He used a compass to guide him through the woods and got to the villa fifteen minutes later, hanging back in the tree line, watching the front of the place that was dark, all the lights off. He was about to come out of the woods and cross the twenty-yard expanse of grass to the villa, but saw something move, a shadow near the entrance, and a man appeared, coming out of the darkness with a dog, looked like a German shepherd, on a leash, lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his direction. He didn't like the idea of a dog.
That changed everything. They'd obviously screwed things down. Security was a lot tighter after his visit that afternoon.
Ray went around the side of the villa where woods met olive grove and moved through the trees close to the veranda. Two more men with shotguns were standing on the upper level, smoking. One was holding a dog on a leash. Ray moved back through the grove to the far side of the villa and noticed two first-floor windows open a couple inches. The bottom of the window was five feet off the ground. He reached up, opened both sides and slipped the gun in his waist behind his back and hoisted himself up and in. He stepped down onto the kitchen floor next to an industrial stove, stood and listened, heard a clock ticking. He pulled the windows closed, moved into the dining room with its tile floor and long wooden table, moved through an archway into a room the size of a hotel lobby, with a fireplace you could walk into and furniture groupings, with framed paintings on the walls, with statuary and antiquity around the perimeter, moved through an archway into an elegant smaller room with a grand piano, and moved through a final archway into the foyer. There was a spiral staircase with an ornate railing that curved up to the second level.
Ray climbed the stairs and walked down a long hallway with bedrooms on both sides. He went all the way to the end and opened the door. There was a four-post antique bed with a canopy over it, and Don Gennaro in the middle of it, snoring away.
The model was in the next room on the right. He could see her left shoulder and part of her back, sleeping naked in a bed similar to the don's. There was no one in the next three rooms.
The beds were made and the closets were empty. There was no one in the sixth bedroom, either, but there was a framed photograph of Joey on the desk, Joey in a tux, grinning, a champagne glass in his hand.
There were clothes hanging in the closet, shirts, pants and a couple sport coats. He found receipts in two of the shirt pockets, and slipped them in his jeans. He didn't see any women's clothes, nothing of Sharon's, no sign of her. Maybe they were traveling. He looked out the window, the clouds had scattered and he could see a half moon now, illuminating the veranda, the guards still standing there with the dog. He wasn't sure what to do. He walked out of the room, looked down the hall and saw someone at the top of the stairs, coming toward him.
Mauro had not slept for twenty hours, and yet he was not tired. He had walked around the villa every hour, checking with the guards. They had not seen or heard anything suspicious, although one of the dogs was barking at a deer that wandered out of the woods, but deer were common enough. He thought about what happened earlier and admitted to himself that it was possible no one had been in the grove.
There was also the business with Roberto Mazara. That too was on his mind. Mazara had stood in front of Don Gennaro and said he would bring him the money he owed within forty-eight hours, and then had disappeared. Only that morning Mauro had visited the man's apartment in Trastevere. He was not there and no one in the other apartments knew anything about him.
He had walked from the don's office into the foyer, listening to the silence and thought he heard something upstairs — a door closing? He was not sure and went up to check.