“Be there,” he yelled and cut the call.
MICKEY NERI STOOD with Adele in the shadows, watching his father walk into the big, brightly lit chamber. The old man was grinning at the pictures on the walls, happy as could be, as if they brought back good memories, which was, Mickey knew, ridiculous. Something else must have been making the old man feel this way.
The shadows in this stupid place had such substance. They were places you could hide and feel you didn’t really exist as you watched what went on in the light. Mickey Neri knew he would be happy to stay in shadows like this, all the way to one of the several exits she’d talked about and out into the bright new day. Then Adele gave him a short, damp kiss on the cheek, whispered “Ciao” and propelled him out into the yellow light.
Neri opened his arms in a welcoming, paternal gesture. “Son, son—”
Mickey didn’t move. Neri took two steps towards him. “Mickey… Why the long face? Are we going to argue about this forever?”
He stood his ground, fearing the presence of the old man.
“I gave you a test, Mickey. What do you do? Not just kill that talkative bastard Martelli but come up with a present for me too? So you’ve been screwing Adele. What the fuck? If it’s gonna happen best it’s kept in the family. I don’t care. Screwing around’s such a little thing for a man of my age.”
He looked around the chamber. “Jesus, we had some times in here. Where is Adele exactly?”
“Dunno,” Mickey mumbled. “She said she’d leave us two alone. Catch up with you later.”
The old man gave him a cold smile. “Yeah. I guess that will happen sometime. Except I won’t be in Italy much longer so maybe she knows I won’t be fixing social appointments for a while. It’s always the same with that woman. Adele’s in it for herself. Forget that and things just might get dangerous.”
Mickey wanted to kick and scream and yell at the fat, grinning figure in front of him. Neri was behaving as if what happened the previous night was just one of those things. “Fuck her! You nearly got me killed! Like you wanted it or something.”
Neri took one more step towards him, opened his arms wider, embraced his son, overwhelmed him with his strong, commanding presence. Mickey couldn’t remember when they’d last touched like this but he knew that had been a bad time too.
“Don’t make so much noise,” the old man whispered. “You could wake the dead screaming like that.”
“You—”
The big arms enfolded him, buried him in Neri’s bulk. “I’ve been a lousy father. I know. You’ve every reason to feel mad at me.”
“Yeah—”
“Quiet,” Neri said. “I’m talking. I brought you up bad, Mickey. I left you with that bitch of a mother for too long. When you weren’t with her I didn’t spend the time with you I should.”
“Yeah, right—”
“Shhhhh.” Neri put a fat forefinger to his son’s lips. “Listen.”
Mickey pouted and the kid could have been ten years old again. Emilio Neri wanted to laugh out loud.
“There are so many things I never taught you. When it’s time for a little honesty for one. People like us need to know that. Sometimes it’s the most important thing of all.”
He looked at the photos on the walls, holding on tight to Mickey, turning his head to see. “She was a good-looking girl, his stepdaughter. Anything you want to tell your old man about her now, huh? And this other one too. All these games on the side. Jesus—”
Mickey’s head shook from side to side. “No. I got nothing to tell you.”
“You think that’s what Vergil Wallis is coming all this way to hear? He’s not falling for this ransom shit, Mickey. He don’t give a damn who you’ve been messing with now or what you wind up doing with them. He’s coming to find out why we lied to him all those years ago. He’s looking for answers. When I think about it I got to be honest with myself. Maybe he deserves some.”
His rank, old man’s mouth came close to Mickey Neri’s face. “You gonna tell him, son?”
“I didn’t do nothing!”
“Mickey, Mickey.” Neri was smiling all the while, loving this. “You were banging her in Sicily. I may have been a lousy father but I knew that. You banged her so well she was carrying some little bastard for you by the time we came back here. You told me so yourself once I beat it out of you. Remember?”
Mickey didn’t look his father in the eye. He thought this was all dead and would stay that way.
Neri kept staring at her photo. “That kid. Lovely as an angel but she was so damn stupid. Stupid as you in a different way. I mean, I know why you wouldn’t bother with a rubber. I wonder if you use them now with those African whores of yours. But her… I guess she just didn’t know any better. Tell me now. In Sicily. It was the first time for her, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Mickey mumbled.
“So it makes sense. When she told you there was something on the way that made you real worried, I guess. I mean, Vergil… he’s not a man to cross now.”
“I told you years ago. I didn’t k… k… k…”
It was just like when he was a kid. Even down to the stammer. “You didn’t k… k… k… ?”
“K… kill her.”
The old man withdrew his arms and looked sternly at his son. “Maybe not. But you know something? After all these years I’m not even sure it matters.”
Emilio Neri put his hand gently to the back of his son’s head and stroked his soft hair, wishing it wasn’t that stupid blonde colour. There were tears in Mickey’s eyes.
“Don’t cry, son,” Neri said, then brought his head down hard on the table, slamming it onto the old wood, ignoring his screams.
He pulled out the tape and wound it first round his mouth then his eyes. He bound Mickey’s wrists, kicked his feet from under him so he landed roughly in the nearest chair and tied him tightly to the back, circling the rope around his chest.
“Plenty of time for crying later.”
Emilio Neri looked at his handiwork.
“Hear that, Adele?” he roared into the darkness. “Just so much time for that later. You listening?”
TWO TIMES MERGE NOW, and in each he’s leading the way, looking, staying close to the walls, in the shadows, Miranda behind, whispering, whispering. Nothing stands between her words and the images in his head. There is a light in one of the side chambers. They steal to the door, peer inside. Something flashes at the back of his imagination. The pictures he saw in Leo Falcone’s office rise again in his muddled head, real this time, rolling past his eyes. A fat, white naked shape rolls around on the bed lunging at something only dimly seen beneath him. The air reeks of dope. A spent needle sits by the table. On the floor lies the girl’s sackcloth shift and the garlands of flowers, discarded like an old skin, shed for her becoming. The man grunts like a pig. The girl beneath him squeals: pain, he thinks, revulsion. Is this the first time? In a dank underground chamber reeking of stagnant water and mould? In the sweating arms of a middle-aged man who comes bearing flowers and oblivion in a syringe?
Can you see who she is? Miranda asks.
No, he says, not looking.
You have to know, Nic.
He walks on, knowing she’s behind, talking, talking, and here is another chamber, deeper into the pulsing vein of rock, the light a little brighter inside. More cries of pain, a young girl’s voice, sobbing.
Look, she says.
Costa leans against the dusty wall. His breath comes in snatches. His body feels like a lumpen machine beyond his control. He’s stiffening, ashamed of the fact. She sees this, touches him there.
We’re only beasts sometimes.
No, he answers. Only if we allow it.