Julia smiled. ‘Of course, sir.’
She leaned forwards and opened her mouth to speak close to the mike in a way which made Kruger’s heart palpitate, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Gilbert actually walk past. He was accompanied by a guy Kruger placed as one of Bussola’s minders.
‘ Forget it, babe.’ Kruger placed his hand between her mouth and the mike and smiled. ‘Some other time, maybe.’ Then he was gone, tailing Gilbert at a discreet distance.
The pair walked into the main shopping mall on the first floor and made a beeline for the Disney Store. With a bored-looking bodyguard lounging idly by the door, Gilbert spent about twenty minutes browsing before reappearing, bearing a large carrier bag stuffed with a giant Mickey Mouse.
He did a little more shopping and, suitably laden down, left the shopping area. He went to concourse E, turned up some steps and disappeared through a door marked Private — Executive Lounge.
The minder followed and so did Kruger. He had already made up his mind to follow Gilbert wherever he went, positive he would be led to Bussola.
Kruger burst through the door and found himself in a privately rented room with a small bar, waitress and a few tables and chairs.
Bussola sat at the bar, drinking whisky.
There were four bodyguards in all. As soon as Kruger came through the door, they reacted. He was faced with the muzzles of three pistols, all held in very steady hands. Bussola smiled broadly at the intruder.
Kruger knew then what it must have been like to step into the lion’s den, particularly when an ebullient Bussola shouted, ‘Hey, Steve! Wondered when you’d show up. Come in and have a drink. You look like you need one. Siddown, let’s have chats.’ He glanced at the bodyguards. ‘Search him,’ he barked.
It was not so much a VIP lounge as a cosy VIP living room. Kruger had not known such things existed. Most of the flying he had done had been on the cheap; waiting with hundreds of other poor unfortunates, then being crammed with a shoe-horn onto a pencil-thin plane to sit in seats with hardly any recline, leg space or comfort.
This, he decided, was the way to travel in the future. Kruger’s eyes surveyed the bodyguards again.
Two stood near the door. The other two were slightly to one side of him, positioned to judge his every move and react should he do anything stupid.
But he’d already done about the most stupid thing he was ever going to do by turning up at the airport with some half-baked notion in his brain.
Now he knew he’d be lucky to leave here in one piece. He looked narrowly at Bussola.
Mark Tapperman jerked into wakefulness. The telephone was still in his hand. The bedside light was still on. His wife still asleep. He blew out his cheeks and wondered if it had been a dream, the phone call from Kruger. With a further rude start, he realised no. He sat up quickly, re-set the phone and dialled Kruger’s home number, hoping his friend would not be so stupid as to… No, Tapperman reassured himself as he waited for Kruger to answer, he couldn’t be that stupid. Could he?
‘ You gotta lotta balls,’ the Italian was saying, ‘coming out here. Either that or you’re a complete jerk.’
‘ The latter, I think,’ Kruger said dryly.
‘ Well, whatever, Steve, you’re here now and we can talk like two grown men.’
‘ Do grown men cut each other to pieces?’
Bussola stuck a large cigar between his fat lips and lit it with a silver lighter. It had the diameter of a trashcan lid and took a lot of flame to get going. Once lit, he squinted at it, blew on the end and replied, ‘Sometimes, Steve… when it’s really necessary.’
‘ Bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?’
‘ For me? Naw… pussy cat stuff. So, c’mon Steve, I’m hellish curious. What did Felicity want to see you for? Is that the reason you turned up unannounced the other night and caught me and my friend in flagrante delicto?’
The questions threw Kruger slightly off-balance. They meant that the two goons who had kidnapped him weren’t so loyal to Felicity as she believed them to be. They had blabbed to Bussola, something that didn’t surprise Kruger. However, she was still technically a client even if she hadn’t paid a dime yet, and Kruger always retained confidentiality except when ordered to talk by a court of law.
Additionally, she had once been his wife and though he hated her with a volcanic intensity, he did not really want any harm to befall her.
‘ Not sure what you mean, Mario. Felicity?’
‘ Steve, don’t piss me off. The two guys who hauled your ass off the street informed me. And what’s more, I have a video-tape of you entering and leaving the house. I am very security conscious, for obvious reasons.’ He looked expectantly at the increasingly uncomfortable Kruger.
‘ More drinks, sir?’ the waitress interrupted.
Bussola glared at her for a fraction of a second, before his face softened and he said, ‘Not just now, honey.’ He patted her ass and rubbed the back of her leg. She didn’t seem concerned. ‘Make yourself scarce… this is business.’
‘ Okay, sir.’
She turned and disappeared out the back of the bar. Kruger and Bussola watched her retreat and their eyes slowly returned to each other.
‘ Nice, huh?’ Bussola asked.
‘ Yeah, sure.’
The Italian leaned forwards confidentially to Kruger who could smell, nay taste, the guy’s cigar breath. ‘Too fuckin’ old for me, Steve. I like ‘em young and I like ‘em tight and I like to hear the bitches scream… but you know that, don’t you?’ He smiled.
Kruger’s face hardened over. Through gritted teeth he said, ‘You disgust me.’
Bussola rocked back and laughed. ‘D’ya think I give a shit, you stupid asshole? Now, where were we?’ He brushed some cigar-ash off his pants. ‘Oh, yes — you and Felicity.’
‘ She missed me and we had to catch up with things. That’s what exes often do… much to the chagrin of their current spouses.’
‘ Baloney! Did you ball her?’
‘ Uh-uh. No way.’
‘ What did she really want, Steve?’ His eyes glittered. ‘That’s the last time I’ll ask that question, bud. If I don’t get a satisfactory answer, you can consider yourself a very dead human being.’
This situation was the other exception to Kruger’s client confidentiality rule. When his life was threatened, he had no qualms about talking over any aspect of the client’s business. His sense of responsibility to the client went out the window as self-preservation kicked in. ‘She thought you were cheating on her. She hired me to find out. I did it because of our past.’ The words tumbled out of Kruger’s mouth with no further prompting.
Bussola guffawed and almost choked on his cigar smoke. ‘Almost the right answer.’ Without warning, the mobster’s left hand shot out in a blur and gripped Kruger’s wrist with fat fingers. At the same time, he plunged the smouldering end of the cigar hard down into the back of Kruger’s trapped hand.
Kruger emitted an unworldly scream of agony. He attempted to yank his hand away, but Bussola held on. Kruger’s next response was to draw back his free hand, curl it into a fist and propel it towards Bussola’s fat face.
The fist got nowhere.
Two of the bodyguards grabbed him and held on tight as the gangster continued to grind the cigar into the flesh whilst leaning forwards with a look of pure unadulterated glee.
Kruger gritted his teeth as the torture continued. Blobs of sweat burst from his hairline, raced down his forehead into his eyebrows. The smell of his flesh burning wafted into his nostrils.