"I'm not either," McCabe said. "Tell me where and when."
"We'll let you know," Joey said. "Listen, what happens to Chipper is up to you. Do something like you did before, it's over."
The phone went dead. McCabe could feel a surge of adrenalin like he was back on the ice, nothing quite like it, ready to take somebody's head off.
Joey was standing in a basement room under a vacant restaurant in Trastevere, Chipper tied to a chair, hands behind his back, head slumped forward looked like he was sleeping. They were near the river and the air was wet, musty. There were marks on the walls showing where the Tiber had flooded the room on a number of occasions, oily lines where the paint had broken down and separated from the pigment. Naked bulbs hung from the ceiling. Empty wine racks lined one wall, and furniture was piled up in the corner, tables stacked on tables, chairs on chairs. The floor was brick, broken in places, exposing the damp earth below.
Mazara was sitting on one of the old restaurant chairs, smoking a cigarette. Grabbing Chipper had been his idea, and Joey had to admit it wasn't bad. He remembered Mazara saying, you want McCabe? I tell you how to get him.
Joey had said, "Don't tell me, do it."
They'd driven back to Rome, dropped Joey off at the Excelsior, and gone to Chip's school, Loyola University, ended up sleeping in the car, waiting till they saw a black BMW pull out, 9:07 a.m., Chip behind the wheel, and followed him. When Chip stopped at a traffic light, Mazara and Psuz walked up to his car, broad daylight, bandanas over their faces, opened the door, yanked him out and threw him in the trunk of the Opel. Joey had finally found something these clowns were good at. Mazara had called to tell him and Joey had gotten in a cab and come right over.
The odd thing, at first, Chipper didn't seem concerned or afraid, had sat in the chair mouthing off.
"Listen," Chipper said. "You know who I am?"
"No, who are you?" Joey said.
"Charles Tallenger III."
He said it cocky like the rich Grosse Pointe assholes he knew. "No shit," Joey said. "Charles Tallenger III. Wow. I'm impressed."
"My father is United States Senator Charles Tallenger."
Joey'd heard of him. Sure. Remembered seeing him on TV one time, running for something, got beat by the good- looking babe with the glasses from Alaska.
"Let me go and all is forgiven," Chipper said.
"All's forgiven. You believe this guy?" Joey said to his Roman buddies. "See, we don't give a fuck who your dad is or who you are. We just want to know where McCabe's at."
"I don't know," Chipper said, losing the attitude. "Honestly."
"Well since you're being honest I believe you. But these guys still think you're bullshitting us," he said, indicating Mazara, Sisto and Noto.
"I don't know where he is," Chipper said, cocky attitude creeping back in his voice. "What don't you understand?"
"Okay," Joey said to Mazara. "He's yours."
The Romans picked him up and carried him to one of the round restaurant tables, stretched him out and held his right arm down, hand flat against the wood, fear in his eyes.
"Hey, what're you doing?" Chip said. Voice cracking, a couple octaves higher than normal.
"What's it look like?" Joey said. "You had your chance."
Sisto walked over and picked up a crude-looking hammer out of a toolbox and came back to the table, Chipper's eyes following him the whole way. He was afraid now, squirming and trying to free himself as Sisto raised the hammer.
"McCabe's in Soriano, in the mountains. I'm supposed to pick him up."
"How 'bout that," Joey said. "Forgot where his buddy was at, regained his memory just in the nick of time."
Sisto brought the hammer down and busted his hand.
Chipper yelled and they let him go and Joey watched him roll around on the table in pain, holding his broken knuckles. Jesus that must've hurt.
12:45 p.m., Ray was at the reception desk in the Excelsior Hotel, asking what room his dear friend Joseph Palermo was in. The clerk checked the computer in front of him and said there was no guest by that name in the hotel. He had the guy try Sharon Pope too and got the same response. Ray unfolded a Xerox photo of Joey and showed it to him. The clerk's eyes lit up. He smiled and said, "Signor Bitonte." He had seen Joey leave the hotel but he had not returned.
Ray left Joey a note, then sat in the lobby for a while, reading the Herald Tribune, an article about Somali pirates seizing a luxury yacht in the Gulf of Aden off the north-eastern coast of Africa, and were holding the crew for ransom. It seemed hard to believe these ragtag pirates getting away with it.
He checked the football scores. Michigan State beat Wiconsin and were 6 and 1. He finished the paper and watched a good-looking woman walk past him in tight jeans, moving toward the front desk. He sat there for a few more minutes, stood up, went outside and got in his car that was parked on the street in front of the hotel.
1:48 p.m., Joey walked up the steps and went through the revolving door into the Excelsior, moving across the lobby to the front desk, his Bruno Maglis clicking on the tile floor. He stopped and got his key and the hotel guy handed him an envelope. It was cream-colored Excelsior stationery.
"For you, Signor Bitonte."
Joey thought it was from his Unk, probably asking when he was coming back to the villa. Joey put it in his pocket, got on the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor. He took the envelope out and ripped it open. There was a folded piece of paper. He pulled it out and looked at it. Two words in capital letters:
WHERE'S SHARON?
Joey freaked. Jesus! Had to be the husband, the Secret Service agent. But how the hell'd he find him? Joey felt the elevator slowing down, heard the bell ring, and the doors open. Expected to see a guy aiming a gun at him. It was the wrong floor, the fifth. Nobody there. He got off and ran to the stairs. The agent could've been waiting for all he knew, watched him get in the elevator. Maybe even knew what room he was in.
Joey took the stairs, went down to the basement and ran along a hallway, passing workers in their hotel uniforms. He slowed down and walked through a stock room, past banks of shelves to a loading dock with stairs that took him down to street level. He was on the east side of the hotel. Raised his arm, signaled a taxi that was heading toward him. It stopped and he got in.
Chapter Thirty-seven
McCabe checked the time on Angelas cell phone. It was 3:28 p.m. He moved along Via Sistina, up the hill past the Hassler Hotel where Senator Tallenger had stayed, Rome's best, past the taxi queue, half a dozen Fiats parked, the drivers standing around talking, past the Beverage/Gelati truck parked in the square.
The street was one-way, and he was conscious of traffic, cars, trucks and motorbikes coming up behind him, passing by, and the sounds of the city coming alive again after siesta. The strap of the soccer bag was on his left shoulder, angling to the right across his chest, resting against his side.
He and Angela had taken a taxi from Soriano a couple hours earlier and gone to her apartment. He'd gotten Joey's call at 3:15, giving him forty-five minutes to get to the location. McCabe stood at the base of the obelisk, turned and looked up at the twin bell towers of Trinita dei Monti, the French Gothic church with a Renaissance facade, the famous church at the top of the Spanish Steps. He thought he saw something move in the tower on the left, and now a pigeon flew out and glided over the obelisk and disappeared down Via Sistina.
He scanned the top of the steps. There were a couple of black merchants with knock-off purses and umbrellas displayed on a wicker mat, and a painter setting up an easel. He glanced over and saw Angela at a table, drinking coffee at the terrace restaurant. He kept going, walked past Trinita dei Monti, the city of Rome spread out in perfect blue-sky panorama to his left. On his right was a twenty-foot-high salmon-colored wall that bordered Villa Borghese.