“I’m sorry, Nic,” she said. “I didn’t want you here. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he whispered, and found his hands roaming her shoulders, holding her tight to him, his lips close to her shining head, his eyes locked on the figures dancing over the walls.
BEYOND THE GLASS of Leo Falcone’s office the Questura buzzed furiously. For once the rival forces of the DIA and the carabinieri were making an effort to work in tandem, sharing information, scouring the streets for any sign of Emilio Neri. The old hood had gone to ground, and it was clear he had done it well. For all Falcone knew he could be out of the country already. The networks of informers used by all three organizations had come up with a few nuggets of information. They told him what he already suspected: the blast outside the house in the Via Giulia was Neri’s own work, a parting gift deliberately timed for the arrival of the police. There would be no return. From this point on Neri would hide out abroad, doubtless somewhere he believed the Italian extradition laws would never reach him.
Vergil Wallis sat opposite wearing his long leather overcoat, a brown travel bag on his lap, black face impassive as a rock, and said, “I’m glad you made time for me in the middle of all this.”
“You seemed to think it was important,” Falcone replied.
“It is.” Wallis opened the bag and took out a digital camera, turned on the screen, and passed it over the table.
“What the hell’s that?” Falcone asked.
“Got thrown over my wall at three this morning,” Wallis said. “With this.” He held up a mobile phone. “Started the dogs barking. I’m surprised those people you’ve got outside never saw who did it.”
Falcone screwed up his eyes at the picture on the little screen. “They’re not ours. That was the DIA’s job.”
He picked up the camera. Peroni came and stood behind him then swore softly under his breath. The picture was of Nic Costa unconscious, lying on a bed in an anonymous room.
“This is my fault,” Peroni groaned.
Falcone pressed a button. The next picture was of Miranda Julius, her hair dyed the same bright blonde they all now associated with her daughter, scowling at the lens, tied to a chair. Then a third. The lighting was slightly different this time. More harsh. It looked as if the picture had been taken in different circumstances. The face was that of a young girl, with the same blonde hair, looking vacantly into the camera. She too was tied to a chair, but somewhere else.
“That’s the missing girl?” Wallis asked.
“Suzi Julius,” Peroni confirmed. “We got the pictures her mother gave us. It’s her.”
The big black figure folded his coat around him as if it were a second skin. “There’s a message too. Play the last thing you find.”
They did. It was a little video of Mickey Neri staring straight into the lens, looking scared as hell, glancing around him as if someone else was giving the orders. Mickey gulped once then said, in a mock-tough voice, “Vergil, you bring what I want at ten. Use the phone. I’ll call you and tell you where to collect at seven. At nine I call and tell you where to deliver. You’ll know the way. Don’t come with anyone else. Don’t fuck with me. Do anything other than this and they’re dead.”
“For all we know they’re dead already,” Peroni murmured.
“Maybe,” Wallis agreed testily. “I can’t tell you one way or the other. This is none of my business. What am I supposed to be here? Some kind of messenger boy? What’s going on, huh? Can you tell me that?”
Falcone scanned through the pictures again. “Did you get the call at seven?”
“On the dot. Sent me round to some private banker out in Paroli. He was waiting. He’d had a call too. Got this packed. As soon as I saw it I knew I was passing it on to you guys.”
Wallis opened the bag. It was full of brand-new banknotes, big denominations, still with the ties around them. “Half a million euros there.”
“Whose?” Peroni demanded.
“Man said it came from some woman called Miranda Julius. She’d ordered it collected overnight. Little guy was petrified. Can’t say I blame him. So why am I expected to act the bagman for this woman’s ransom money?”
Peroni glanced at Leo Falcone, checking he wasn’t going too far. “The word is Emilio Neri and his boy have fallen out big time. Over what exactly we don’t know. This Julius girl, maybe. That’s not Emilio’s style. It seems pretty clear Mickey’s the one who snatched her in the first place. Now he’s got our guy too. And the mother. He could use the money. Maybe he wants to give up the life and open a café or something.”
Wallis glared at both of them. “I’m sorry to hear that. Really. But I’m still asking the same question. What the hell has it got to do with me?”
“You do remember Mickey?” Falcone asked.
Wallis’s dark eyes glittered at them. “OK. Yeah. I remember him. He was a jerk. Just like his father. That still doesn’t explain why he should be putting out a call for me to run errands. I’m not dumb. This little punk wants my hide or something.”
“Your hide?” Peroni asked. “Mr. Wallis. Please. You’re big time. This is Mickey Neri we’re talking about here. You don’t honestly believe he’s got the nerve to take on the likes of you, do you?”
Peroni watched the American’s face. Pride was such a powerful emotion.
“I don’t deal with punks like this,” Wallis said in the end.
“So why are you here?” Falcone wondered.
“Just being a good citizen, that’s all. You get one of your guys to take this stuff, go run this errand.”
“Won’t work,” Peroni said. “You heard the man. It’s you or nothing.”
“You want my help?” There was a touch of disdain in his expression. “These women have nothing to do with me. This cop’s your problem. You hear what I’m saying? This is not my business.”
Falcone held up his hands. “I agree. Besides, we have a policy. We don’t give in to ransom demands. Even ones as unusual as this.”
Wallis pulled his coat around him, ready to go. “Then there’s nothing else to discuss. You keep the camera. You keep the money.” But he didn’t move. Falcone glanced at Peroni and wondered: were they thinking the same thing? Vergil Wallis wanted to do this run. He liked the idea of giving the cops information, probably because Mickey Neri had virtually signed a confession with that stupid piece of video. But something inside Wallis was nagging him to go through with this idea.
Peroni pushed a piece of paper across the table. “Mickey Neri—”
“Fuck Mickey Neri,” Wallis interjected.
He put a hand lightly on Vergil Wallis’s shoulder and Gianni Peroni was amazed to discover something about himself. He found a certain degree of pleasure in pushing this man around a little. He could, if he tried, start to enjoy it.
“Vergil, Vergil,” he said mildly. “Calm down now. This is your decision, no one else’s.”
Wallis picked up the paper and stared at it, his eye drawn to the fancy stamp of the state lab letterhead sprawled across the top.
“We just want you to be informed. That’s all.”
THEY SAT on the bed, Miranda Julius next to him, shivering in his arms, wearing little more than a short tee-shirt, huddled under the old, dull coverlet, staring into his face.
“Where is he?” Costa asked.
“I don’t know. My door’s locked, like yours. I haven’t heard anyone there most of the night.”
She held his wrist, turned it and looked at the watch. It was now just after eight. “He said he’d be back for me around nine thirty.”
“To do what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anymore.”
Costa thought about the voice he’d heard the night before. “It was the man you saw in the picture? Mickey Neri?”