Leo Falcone was fighting at the mountain of rubble which occupied the spot that, moments before, had been Emilio Neri’s front door, clawing at the bricks, snatching them out of his way one by one.
There was a broken body in front of him, poised at an impossible angle, a slender arm, bloodied, blackened by the blast, quite still in the smoking debris.
A small, calm voice spoke at the back of Nic Costa’s head and it said: think.
As the ambulances arrived, as a screaming fire engine bathed in blue light wove through the cars thrown into the road by the bomb, Nic Costa scanned his notes, found the number, then walked into the relative quiet of an antiques shop doorway to place the call.
“Miss Morrison,” he said when he heard the clipped female voice answer. “You don’t know me but I’m a friend of Teresa Lupo’s, a detective. I really need to talk—”
THERE WAS LIVE FOOTBALL on the TV: Roma versus Lazio. The big local derby. Roma were beating the crap out of their neighbours. Again. Toni Martelli could hear people yelling with delight in the neighbouring apartments. He was a Lazio man himself. For him Roma were still the team of the lower classes, the rabble, the people who ran things these days. Not that Martelli had been to a game in years. Now that he was out of the force he’d lost all the favours. With Barbara gone, he couldn’t even sponge a few off her.
Falcone had been on the phone earlier saying he could probably release the body for cremation within a week. Sooner if Martelli had something to say. Martelli had told him where he could shove his offer. The girl was dead. What else was there to talk about?
Then came another call with news he half expected to hear. And so he locked himself in the over-large apartment, snuggling up to some cigarettes and a bottle of grappa he’d had sent round from the bar on the corner, waiting, watching the game on the TV, war disguised as sport, brute humanity pretending it was something else, something noble and elegant, like a savage trying to dance ballet.
The key started to turn in the door just after ten, rattling around clumsily as someone fumbled trying to get in.
“Cowboys,” Martelli sniffed. “They don’t even have the decency to send a real man.”
He turned off the TV and the light by his side, making the room appear the way he had planned. He now sat in his wheelchair in the dark. It was not easy to see. He’d angled the two big standard lamps in the living room so they shone towards the door at the end of the corridor. The man would have to walk straight into the light, maybe shade his eyes a little. Toni Martelli had thought this through. He half-guessed what the outcome would be but he didn’t plan on making it easy.
A figure blundered down the corridor, too scared to hit the lights. Martelli had the remote control the social work people had given him. You had to work your advantages when you were a cripple. He waited for the figure in the shadows to get close to the door then he hit the corridor light. Three big bulbs running the length of the long passageway came on in tandem. Mickey Neri stood there, dressed in black, hands empty, waving stupidly in front of him.
“I got a gun, asshole,” Martelli grunted from the pool of darkness in the corner of the living room. “I got a big shotgun. You want to see me use it?”
Mickey turned round, ready to run. Martelli pumped the twelve-bore noisily, ramming one of the four remaining cartridges he owned into the chamber.
“Sit down, sonny,” he bawled. “Let me take a good look at you.”
Mickey Neri moved cautiously into the room and fell into the chair Martelli had nodded towards.
“Mickey,” Martelli sighed. “Your old man sent you? That right?”
“Yeah.” There was a pathetic snarl beneath the fear. “We met before?”
“A long time ago. When we were all up to things we hoped were dead and buried. I’m offended you don’t remember. I seem to think—” Martelli started coughing, couldn’t help it, and the fit went on and on until he fought back the phlegm. When it was over, he said, simply, “I seem to recall that, when I gave my daughter up for you and your pop, not quite knowing what was on the cards, you were one of those who got to taste the goods.”
“Like you said,” Mickey grumbled, face screwed up, looking as if it were a struggle to remember. “It was a long time ago. Lots of people got confused memories about what happened then.”
“Not me.”
Mickey nodded. He was staring frankly at Martelli, who knew exactly what he was wondering. How sick was this frail old man really? “Also,” he added, “I don’t recall you pulling out of what you got, Mr. Martelli. I seem to think you had your fun too. All you old guys… You just wanted to get into something fresh and young. You were as greedy as the rest of them.”
Martelli waved the barrel then coughed again, not quite so bad this time. “You kids are all the same. No respect.”
Then he jerked the barrel and fired. The shotgun exploded a metre or so to the right of the terrified Mickey Neri, blowing a huge tear in the dining room table. And Toni Martelli started counting. This was an apartment block. Someone would hear. Someone would call the cops.
“You fucking madman!” Mickey whined. “You—”
“Shut up. We got a deal, your old man and me. Not that he told you, naturally. If you walk out of here alive, then everything’s square with you. If you’re a piece of meat on the floor by the time the cops come, then I’m just sweet. I killed some creep who was trying to rob my apartment. I got Emilio Neri in my debt. And I took his scummy little kid out too. What d’ya think, Mickey? Is your old man pissed off with you or what? Where’s your money going?”
“You believe that?” Mickey yelled, bright eyes bulging, terrified. “Are you telling the truth? ”Cos if you are we’re both dead, mister.“
“I’m dead already, moron.” Martelli coughed. And coughed some more. Then it was as if something had come alive inside him, as if the cancer had got scared by all this noise and violence too. A big, black pain rose up from inside his guts, freezing what little sensation remained in his spine, making his mind go blank with the agony.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeee—” Toni Martelli screeched, rocking from side to side in the chair, trying to keep hold of the shotgun in his arms, which had a life of its own now, wanted to call time on this craziness and go for a walk somewhere else.
There was morphine somewhere. Barbara kept it safe for him. He’d not needed it since she died. Something seemed to kill the needling agony the sickness inflicted on him from time to time. Now it was back, with a vengeance, clouding his vision, dimming his thoughts.
Martelli couldn’t stand it any longer. He let go of the rifle, let it fall on his lap, and, with his free hand, started spinning the wheelchair, as hard and as fast as he could, fumbling for where he left the ammunition. Two cartridges made their way into the chamber, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember willing them there. Two explosions rocked the room. The first blew out the big window looking onto the courtyard. Through the shattered glass came the sound of the football match, a wild, insane roar, blaring out of the neighbouring sitting rooms, where another noise, the lowing, frightened murmur of people, was growing too.
The second went in the opposite direction, somewhere towards the figure of Mickey Neri, who’d now thrown himself off the chair, trying to find cover.
Martelli’s head cleared a little and the pain diminished. The chair stopped going round and round. The stupid screeching noise died in his throat. And at that moment Toni Martelli knew this was the end, one way or another. Neri’s offer was meaningless. A bigger, blacker fate was rising up to grip him now, and all the hoodlums in the world couldn’t keep it from his throat.