Thinking of rutting when you shoulda been cutting, forgetting who you truly are.
“Bitch,” he murmured, and found the scalpel flying in his hand again.
Also, he thought, she stood in the way. He could be here for days if he wanted. She could start to stink and he hated that stink. It carried so many black memories with it.
Haul her onto the terrace, boy! It’s like an icehouse out there. You won’t smell a thing.
Smart, Alabama boy. They had helicopters hovering overhead all the time, cameras on rooftops, mikes in the walls, people spying everywhere these days, listening to the words you whispered in your sleep. They had to do that because they knew he was among them, knew he was close to finishing the job.
Then KISS my ass, remember?
Keep It Simple, Stupid. The black guy said that all the time. Sometimes he had a point.
This was a place with a kitchen you could film a cookery show in: big knives, little knives, meat saws, cleavers. Monica Sawyer had brought two large, expensive-looking suitcases with her. They still sat in the living room with Delta’s business class stickers on the side. It would be a crime to let them go to waste.
THE VIA DEL BABUINO ran from the Spanish Steps to the Piazza del Popolo, a narrow, cobbled medieval lane in permanent shadow from the high buildings on either side. The shutters were still on the designer stores and the newspaper vendor next to the Greek church had only just opened his bundles that bright sunny morning as the three-car team rolled past.
The Fiats squirmed on the slippery cobblestones, scattering a flock of black-coated nuns like fleeing crows, hurrying across the snow towards the outline of the familiar twin staircase winding down from Trinità dei Monti. Leo Falcone sat in the back of the first car with Joel Leapman by his side, and wished the sound of the sirens could drown out his growing misgivings. What Teresa Lupo had revealed the previous night continued to bug him, all the more because he’d decided to keep the information to himself and to defy Filippo Viale, at least for the moment. It was hard enough dealing with his own grey men without a bunch of FBI agents thrown into the mix. Falcone had tried to discuss this with Moretti earlier that morning, only to find the grim-faced commissario already sharing his office with Leapman and Viale. The spooks had the smug look of people in charge. It was a pointless meeting, relieved only by Costa’s phone call with a possible address for them to search. Not that they were under any illusions. The idea that the man would stick around at the apartment seemed ludicrous in the circumstances.
Leapman wriggled in his black winter coat as the car approached the address Costa had given them. He shook his scalped head, shot Falcone a disapproving glance, and laughed.
“Something wrong?” Falcone wondered.
“You guys kill me. It’s all so damn casual. What if he didn’t wise up? What if he’s still in there? You gonna knock on the door and ask him to come out for a talk?”
“Maybe.” Falcone knew this area well. The houses were identicaclass="underline" terraced properties that fetched a fortune in spite of the constant roar of traffic from Spagna to Popolo. They were apartments now, all with a single shared door at the front. There was just one way out. At this time of day it was easy, too, to gain entrance to any place like this in the city.
The car pulled over. Falcone got out, walked to the intercom, pressed a couple of buttons simultaneously and waited for the electronic lock to buzz. When it did, he held open the green wooden door and let his team of six walk into the narrow communal passage.
Leapman couldn’t believe his eyes.
“It’s what we do to let the trash man in,” Falcone explained, nodding at the pile of black plastic bags behind the front door.
“Jesus,” Leapman groaned. He pulled out a black revolver, checked it, then, under Falcone’s fierce gaze, slid the weapon back in its leather shoulder holster.
“No guns,” Falcone ordered. “Not unless I say so.”
One of the detectives was grilling a woman who’d come out of the first ground-floor apartment.
“Third floor, Number Nine,” he said. “Foreigner, rented apartment. Been here two weeks or so. She hasn’t seen him since the night before last. She’s got a key.”
Falcone sent the entry team ahead. Leapman stayed with him downstairs. The American seemed bored. Falcone took a look at his own pistol, just in case, then quickly put it away.
“You ever used that?” Leapman asked.
“Lots of times,” Falcone answered. “Just never had to fire it, that’s all.”
Leapman was laughing again. “This is the European thing, isn’t it?” he asked.
“You’ve lost me.”
“The idea that there’s some kind of middle way we could take if only we were civilized enough to see it. The idea you can just walk down the centre of the road and then everything will be just fine, all the crap will never come and touch you.”
“Perhaps it’s best not to judge situations too quickly. I don’t believe that’s a European thing or any other kind of thing either. It’s just how some of us work.”
Leapman grimaced. “Until you wise up. That’s what separates us. See, we don’t wait for the nasty surprises to prove what we know already. This guy’s a lunatic, right? You treat him like one or you get hurt.”
“Possibly.” Falcone wondered how many men Leapman had in Rome, where they were, what they were doing. “I thought you might have asked Agent Deacon along,” he said. “Or someone.”
“Why? Is she supposed to give an art lesson here, too?”
“She got us this far. With my men, of course.”
Peroni had called in at one a.m. with a brief report after the incident in the Campo. It had been shared with Leapman, at Moretti’s insistence. Falcone had then called Viale, partly because he liked the idea of getting him out of bed. The SISDE man had listened, grunted, then put down the phone.
“She did,” Leapman murmured sourly. “She saw the guy too and look what happened. He walks. She blacks out. It’s a crying shame. That kid just can’t cut it.”
Falcon didn’t argue. Emily Deacon looked all wrong in the job Leapman had given her, though Leo had no intention of saying so. “In that case, why did you bring her here?”
Leapman resented the question. Falcone would have felt the same way in his position. These were operational decisions. You left them to the officer in charge, until they went wrong.
“It seemed a good idea at the time,” the American said after a while. “She speaks Italian like one of you. She knows this place. And like I said yesterday, she’s got one hell of an incentive to see this guy go down. Is that good enough? Can we get on with taking a look around now?”
Falcone went up the stone steps and walked into the room, where his team were making a slow and professional job of checking out what was there. It was a typical short-term rented place: a large studio with an old sofa, a tiny table with grubby chairs, a small, cheap colour TV. There was an uncomfortable-looking single bed in the corner, unmade, with the sheets strewn on the floor. Falcone walked into the cramped bathroom. At first glance there was nothing there he could work with for DNA: no toothbrush, no used tissues. The main room looked just as bare.
“The guy came back and cleared everything,” Leapman said. “Smart. He was probably in and out of here before you people finished dealing with the medics.”
But medics were important, Falcone thought. You had to work out your priorities.
“How’d this kid know he was from here?” Leapman wondered. “Was she working a trick for him or something?”
“No.” They’d got some background on the girl already. One of the charities had worked with her for a few months with little success. It was a psychological problem, one that wouldn’t go away. A form of kleptomania, constant, even when she knew she’d be caught. “She follows people she thinks are interesting. Then she steals something from them. He just came out of this place and she saw him in the street, followed him to the Pantheon. She remembered a green door and the Gucci shop.”