It didn't seem to deter him. He still tried.
Palmori started to rant.
"We must be avenged for this insult! Seven good men in prison because of one pig's petty greed and need for revenge!"
"Eight men," Carlotta said. "Kashmir was almost our sole supplier of arms."
"True, but he too is a pig! Ali Kashmir has served what purpose he had. For all we care now, be can rot in Castel Montferrato with Pietro Amani. But our seven comrades and their revenge?… Ah, that is another story"
As Palmori spoke, his fat belly rising and falling over his belt, Carlotta let her eyes trail around the table. These, she thought, were the remnants of the Liberta leaders. If the necessity hadn't arisen to free Pietro Amani, she would have been able to rig their self-destruction months before.
The only one in the room with any brains, besides herself. was Sophia. And Sophia was obsessed by, of all things, the Liberta cause and sex.
God help the next man Sophia decides to fall in love with after she tires of Wombo, Carlotta mused. The huge beast would probably kill both of them when it happened!
"Do you agree, Cariotta?"
"What…? I'm sorry, my mind was roving…"
"Now that we know the identity of this Oakhurst. and where he is, don't you think we should take action?"
"Definitely," Carlotta replied, sipping the bad wine.
Most definitely, she thought. If one of us takes out Oakhurst, then Interpol. the SID, the Mossad, or any number of other agencies won't have to bother.
Palmori was outlining a plan. He had nearly finished, when Cariotta realized that she was to be the instrument of ending Émile Dobruck-alias-Oakhurst's useless life.
"But, Nicolo, you have already ordered me to set in motion a plan to liberate our comrades from Castel Montferrato. How can I do that and go to Brussels at the same rime?"
"That is true…"
Sophia immediately stood, a slanted, leering smile on her lips. "I will go to Brussels," she said, taking a deep breath to expand her large breasts even larger in the too-tight sweater. "It will be easier for me, a young woman, to lure this pig anyway."
Nicolo nodded in agreement.
Carlotta thought, You silly bitch, go!
"I will go along with Sophia as a backup," Pocky said, lifting his right hand and smiling.
The claw in his leather rig had been replaced by an eight-inch spike.
Castel Montferrato was an awesome fortress perched high above the plains of Alessandria Provence, thirty miles southeast of Turin.
It had been passed down from family to family since the Middle Ages. Now, because of its impenetrable thousand-foot walls, its watch turrets, and its gigantic interior as big as a small city, it was a prison.
No longer did marauding hordes try to breach its four-foot-thick walls from the outside. Now Castel Montferrato kept men inside its walls.
Like all Italian prisons, Montferrato was run on the gratuity system. That is to say that if a palm is well greased, the palm will pat the back of the one who does the greasing.
Ali Kashmir was such a one. Because of his notoriety — and his ability to obtain lire from outside the walls — he was exempted from labor and just about had the run of the prison.
Unlike the penal theory of American prisons, where there is ideally some attempt at rehabilitation, Italian prisons are solely for incarceration. But like American prisons, the inmates are thrown into the pool and told to swim as best they can with the other sharks.
Carter learned this only too well the first week. The basic precept of each man was survival. And survival was accomplished only through respect.
The entire center of the compound was a courtyard. Part of the area was for craft shops, where the more skilled prisoners could set up small shops to make and sell their wares to the other, more wealthy prisoners. The rest of the area was used for exercise and recreation, and brawls that decided the pecking order.
It was in the afternoon of his third day that Carter was first tested. He was standing alone, idly watching some of the older inmates playing boccie.
They were goons, two of them. They moved in on each side of him.
"You are the dandy, the rich one, Kashmir, who doesn't have to sweat in the laundry!"
"I am Kashmir," Carter replied in a quiet voice.
"You are not Italian!"
"I am Lebanese."
"Ah, then you sponge off our Italian state! It is only right that you should pay for your food and lodging in this wonderful hotel our government has provided for you!"
"Yes, that's true, Kashmir. We — my friend and I — will collect for the state, each week."
The boccie game had slowed to listlessness, the players now more interested in the drama on the sidelines. A circle of inmates had formed around Carter and the two men challenging him.
Carter looked to the one at his left, then swiveled his gaze to the other man on his right.
"Both of you can go to hell."
One swung a roundhouse right, while the other grabbed Carter's arms and pinned them to his back. He caught the one swinging in the kneecap before the blow landed. The man was still cursing and screaming in pain when Carter kicked again. This time Carter's booted toe caught him full in the face.
His nose spouted blood, and a few teeth dribbled from his mouth as he went down.
The other one, holding Carter, roared and tried to break his shoulders by crossing his arms behind him.
Carter leaned forward, his legs off the ground. He curled his feet behind the other man's ankles and lurched backward.
They both went down with Carter on top, his tailbone crunching into the other man's crotch. His scream of pain made the previous one sound like a whimper, and Carter's arms were free.
He rolled away and to his feet as the first one came up off the ground in a lunge, his face a bloody mask.
The man had about forty pounds on Carter, so the hit was effective.
They both went down, but on the way Carter managed to grab the man's thumbs. By the time they hit, he had curled them both back. Both thumbs snapped like twigs.
This addled the man long enough for Carter to roll him over. Then he sat on his chest and methodically battered his face until it was a pulpy mass.
When there was no movement beneath him, Carter stood and walked back to the second man, who was still rolling on the ground, his hands cupping his ruptured testicles.
Carter was vaguely aware that the other inmates had crowded around them in a tight circle to shield the battle from the prison guards.
Not that the guards would interfere anyway; it made for a better show.
Carter drop-kicked the man in the chest. He rolled over and got two more vicious kicks in the kidneys.
Carter was just sighting in on the back of his neck, when be felt a hand tentatively touch his shoulder.
"Signore…"
Carter turned his head. A weathered old face covered with beard stubble was beside him. "Si?"
"I think, signore, that if you kick him one more time he will die."
Carter looked at the body at his feet. "Yes, that would be awkward," he murmured.
He stepped away and walked through the silent crowd. They parted like a wave before him and slowly dispersed.
No one paid any attention to the two mangled men on the ground.
That evening, after the six o'clock meal had been served in the huge dining hall, Carter was heading back toward his cell. He was almost there when a ferret-faced little man with droopy eyes and sloping shoulders fell into step behind him.
"Signore Kashmir?"