ATONEMENT (11 page)

                         
CHAPTER THREE

Nico’s mouth
remained
clamped in a tight line as
he walked swiftly down the busy London
street
. He
’d recently
enjoyed a few moments at
the tea house where he and Ariana first met.
He
s
at in the same spot
and remembered the warm feeling he got when she
walk
ed
through
the
door
and strut
str
a
ight
in
to his
life
.
H
e didn’t think he had
any strong
emotions;
he’d yet to experience any
thing beyond
tepid
affection during his many
brief relationships,
until he met
her
. The
pretty
woman softened him,
she sure did.

He
envisioned
Ariana
with the
Harrod’s
bag
,
pictured
those
incredible
legs and arrogant smile
then he
smirked
. Her
acerbic
wit
rival
ed his
sarcastic
humor
and
after one conversation he started thinking about marriage.
She
’s
the
only
woman who
could distract his thoughts and make him blush like a sappy boy.
They were alike in so many ways, it seemed unreal. She was multi-lingual, loved eclectic music, open-minded,
straight-forward, rational, ravenous in bed
and had a penchant for bad-boys.
Nico’s mind
shut down, the
list of attributes was
long. He hurt her, forgot everything,
literally became
a man with amnesia
t
he
minute he
touched Selange.

He glanced at his watch, decided he had a few minutes to spare and
called h
is boys
. T
heir excited chatter
prompted
a longing
for home
. The
y told him
their mom
was
still
at work, doing the law thing again, except this time she
set up her own practice down near Federal Plaza.
It’
s
been two months since their split and she was back on her grind after a two year hiatus in so-called
paradise.
He couldn’t fault her
though;
work was his therapy,
also
.

After making sure things were
well
with
his sons,
he
hurried out the
cozy
tea shop cupping
a
hot beverage and s
canned the storefronts
. H
e came upon the one which read; SAPIENZA BAKERY
, peered in the window, checked the time again then went in
. The door chimed as soon as he opened it
, none of the patrons paid him any attention, they were busy
placing orders in the
ir
heavily British accents
. He joined the short line and waited.
His eyes roamed about, taking in the autographed pictures
on the wall
of the bakery’s owner with some
famous customers.
Nice, mementos
,
Nico supposed
, but for him
most cherished memories were private
and not tacked to any walls except those inside his heart
.
As the line moved he kept one eye on the door. It was nearing noon
and the man he waited for was never tardy. Like clockwork, the man came strolling in, his bald
head covered by a
faded blue
cap
with a logo of his favorite soccer team
. He got on line behind Nico.

Finally, Nico was at the counter being serviced. He ordered two dozen pastries and a specialty cheesecake item that required the clerk to retrieve
it
from
the
cooler
in the storeroom.
In
the clerk’s
absence Nico
made his move. He
turned suddenly
, intentionally bumping the man and
the warm b
rew
spilled
down the front of
his
outer
coat
.

Nico apologized profusely, snatching napkins from the counter to dab at
his
chest
.
“Sorry ‘bout that!”

“No…it’s fine,
really.”

Nico’s hand came
quickly
to the man’s
open
mouth
and he
shov
ed
several caps
ules into it.
His
palm covered
the man’s
airway
,
forcing him to swallow. Nico’
s eyes went to the door, on occasion a constable or two stopped in for lunch
and
he
only
needed
thirty
seconds
more to get this done
. That’s how long it took for the lethal poison to retard the
muscles;
making speech impossible
, then
organ failure, or more plainly, death. In
twenty more
seconds
, no…eighteen…the man would die.

There came
a jerking response from the man’s body as the
toxic
cocktail shut down
his
circulatory system. Nico’s body
remained
angled
posterior
ly toward the camera in an effort to
avoid facial
recognition.
In the
video were two men, one turning to the other, a man falling, the other hovering above him as if asking, “Are you okay?”
Nothing sinister in
the
words
or deeds
, a
Good
Samaritan through and through.

He sported the beard to disguise his features, especially here in London where public streets and transportation were heavily monitored by security cameras. Once he stepped o
utside again,
one of those cameras were certain to capture his likeness, a hunched, poorly dressed man with a wild beard, sallow white skin and
sunglasses.

Nico
shouted to the clerk, “
Telephone
an
ambulance,
there’s
a chap here
with
chest pain
!”

The
young woman
raced from the
rear of the store clutching
Nico’s
order
. She
dropped them on the counter and scurried to the phone. Nico stayed over the man
.
A
concerned citizen coming to the aid of
someone
in distress and not a calculated killer sent by Alberti.

Nico never asked questions about these contracts,
but
Alberti volunteered
background
information.
Mainly, because it involved Nico’s father
and the
Giacanti’s
.

The man
lying motionless
was a journalist, researching Sergio Giacanti and his rumored formation of the International Board of Directors
a
s well as the
deaths of its alleged members in
a tragic inferno.
He questioned the suspicious fire and suggested it was a mob rub-out.
This was not the worst of
it,
he obtained copies of the death certificates of the men involved in the assassination.
Men such as
Carlo
Dichenzo
and
‘
The Butcher
’
,
Nico’s father
.
His
investigation
also
uncovered information
which might interest the
Italian authorities
and
potentially spark a war among the families of
La Costra Nostra
.
They’d seek retribution for the unsanctioned
hit
.
Wha
t Alberti failed to tell Nico was
the journalist stumbled upon Alberti’s
true
identity. He’d found the falsified adoption papers for a child fitting the exact
description and
age of one of the Giacanti children
. A young boy
believed killed in the massacre
and
traced the connection to
a
young newlywed couple
,
Nico’s parents. He suspected t
he boy
they adopted was the youngest son of the infamous mob lord, Sergio Giacanti
. Yes, he
’d ventured
dangerously close to the fire
and
Alberti could not allow this
and other
information to get out
, therefore
he sent Nico.