Black Run (22 page)

Italo was squatting on the ground, peering at the side of a crate. “Right here—it says
CHANT NUMBER 4
!”

The two men went over. It was true. On one of the crates, someone had written
CHANT NUMBER 4
with a marker. Sebastiano and Rocco looked at each other. Rocco grabbed an automatic rifle from the closest crate and, with two sharp cracks of the rifle butt, broke open the lock. They opened the crate. Inside were eight stone Buddha heads. Sebastiano grabbed one. He smashed it on the road. Among the fragments were three cellophane packets full of marijuana. The smiles returned to Rocco's and Sebastiano's lips. And to Italo's as well. This was what they had come for.

“Come on!” shouted Sebastiano, picking up the packets they'd just found and three more of the Buddha heads. “Let's get moving!” He trotted over to the van. “Good work, Ernst,
bravo
! It was true!” he kept shouting at the top of his lungs.

Italo and Rocco finished loading the sculptures. Then Sebastiano turned to look at his friend. “I'm going. No question, I'm leaving you in a sea of shit.”

“Don't worry. In any case, you know my account number, right?”

“Three days tops and you'll have your money.”

“Him too!” said Rocco, pointing at Italo.

“We can take care of him right here and now!” Sebastiano stuffed his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a wad of green one-hundred-euro banknotes. “Thirty-five hundred. Here, go ahead and count it.”

“I trust you,” said the officer as he pocketed the money.

Sebastiano slapped him on the back, got behind the wheel of the van, and put it into reverse. “
Ciao
, Italo. You're a good kid. See you soon, Rocco!”

“See you round, my friend. Don't forget about me. Stay in touch.”

“Say hi to the Ukrainian chick if you see her.”

“I'll be sure to.”

The van vanished into the night, engine roaring as Sebastiano accelerated. Italo and the deputy police chief stood there watching until the taillights were swallowed up by the darkness.

“Okay. Now what about the Sri Lankans?”

Rocco pointed to the truck, with its lights still on. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

“I even know how to drive a semi-trailer. Why?”

“It's a ninety-minute drive from here to Turin.” Rocco looked at his watch. “It's one forty
A.M.
right now. Say we load up, you take off, and you're in Turin by three thirty. You drop off the Sri Lankans, and by five thirty you're back here.”

“And then?”

“And then at six
A.M.
I'll call headquarters. And then all hell breaks loose. Does it strike you as a good idea?”

“Give me that thermos full of espresso, otherwise I'll be asleep by the time I reach Verrès.”

Rocco handed Italo the thermos, then walked toward the truck's cab. He sat down behind the wheel. Fastened to the windshield, in plain view, was the GPS. Rocco smiled and shouted to Italo: “The address in Turin is right here. You're in luck, my friend. You won't even have to leave the highway. It's at a service area. Happy?”

“For thirty-five hundred euros, I'll take this truck all the way to Catania!”

Rocco climbed out of the back. “By the way. Give me five hundred euros. I'll repay you tomorrow.”

“What for?”

“We parked eighty-seven Sri Lankans in his house. Don't you think we ought to give him a little something for his troubles?”

Italo nodded and pulled out the wad of cash.

“All right, I'm going to get those poor wretches. You stay here. Stand guard—pistol in hand. Those two piece-of-shit truck drivers could show up again. This load is too important. Keep your eyes open, take it from me.”

The sky was starting to lighten. Sitting on a wooden crate with a semiautomatic AK-47 in his lap and what seemed like the thousandth cigarette in his mouth, Rocco Schiavone was waiting. He was thinking about Ginevra and Emilio, who had accepted everything that had happened without a word. They'd even objected when he offered them the five hundred euros, but in the end Rocco had won out. They promised not to say anything about the Sri Lankans, and in fact they supported the deputy police chief's decision not to report their presence to the authorities. Forgetting the minor detail that in this case, the authorities were none other than Rocco Schiavone himself.

The cars that went by slowed down to stare at that strange pile of wooden crates abandoned on the roadside and the man dressed in a flower-pattern down jacket sitting with an assault rifle in his lap, like an old Apache lying in ambush. It was five in the morning on a freezing-cold Sunday, and the temperature was like that of the freezer aisle at a supermarket. If it hadn't been for the coffees, the grappas, the prosciutto, and the chocolate that Ginevra had brought him continuously until four in the morning, along with the flower-pattern down jacket, Rocco would have wound up like an amateur mountain climber recklessly challenging Everest. His nose was red, and he could no longer feel his ears. Otherwise, aside from the pain in his knees, he was doing fine. He'd followed Emilio's advice and had kept his legs inside the straw-filled plastic-explosives case.

Finally he saw in the distance the truck's headlights approaching. Italo was back half an hour early. The deputy police chief stood up, flicked the cigarette far away from the crates, folded up the down jacket, and walked over to the road. The truck slowed to a halt, screeching like a locomotive, then the brakes ground down and it finally rolled to a stop next to the deputy police chief. Italo's face, tired but smiling, appeared at the window. “All taken care of, boss. I'm going to park this thing!”

Rocco smiled. “Go ahead, Italo, go ahead!” Then he grabbed his cell phone, thrilled at the idea of yanking the chief of police, the judge, journalists, and everyone else out of bed.

The whole thing had a national impact. The police chief was beside himself with pleasure and kept holding press conferences one after another, even though it was a Sunday. The magistrate hailed the intelligence and enterprise of a deputy police chief and an obscure officer with a brilliant future ahead of him, and unbridled speculation began on whom that arsenal might have been intended for. Italo and Rocco had agreed on a story, and they stuck to it. A tip from an informant on the border who was friends with the deputy police chief, the escape of the two truck drivers, and the chance discovery of the explosives.

“Certainly, that container, so big and completely empty . . . it's just strange,” the police chief said, and the judge echoed that sentiment. And Rocco had spread his arms wide and smiled. “Evidently, someone unloaded some of the cargo before the border, or who knows what else.”

Not a word about the Sri Lankans, and those men and women faded back into indistinct shadows in the everyday lives of Italian citizens.

“Did you know that inside the driver's cab we even found a baggie of marijuana?” Chief of Police Corsi went on.

Rocco had smiled and shrugged helplessly once again. “What can you do about them? Those people are godless heathens.”

“Yeah. Driving a behemoth like that while they were high as Jimi Hendrix. It's pure insanity.”

“You know who Jimi Hendrix is?”

The police chief fell silent for a moment. “
Caro
Dottor Schiavone, when you were still in fifth grade, yours truly was dancing to the notes of ‘Hey Joe,' ‘Little Wing,' and ‘Killing Floor' outside the architecture building.”

“I can't believe it! You were a sixties radical?”

“I was nineteen years old and I was in love.”

“Did you battle the police in the streets with the rest of them?”

“No. I turned and ran. Now I think that the two of us have more important things to do, don't you agree?”

The rest of that Sunday Rocco just spent sleeping. And he missed Roma–Udinese. But it wasn't such a big loss. The Rome team took a heavy beating.

Rocco didn't like hospitals, and he especially didn't like morgues. But Alberto Fumagalli worked in one, and Rocco knew that if you want things done right and fast, the best thing is to have them done by someone who's very busy. When the door to the morgue swung open and Alberto emerged with his usual apron spotted with rust-brown stains—or maybe it wasn't rust after all—Rocco got to his feet and walked toward him.

“I just got a phone call from the lab. The tests on the blood from the piece of tissue you brought in are ready.”

“This afternoon is Leone's funeral.”

“Yes, I know. I sent all the autopsy results to Magistrate Baldi. I worked all weekend. On the internal organs and so on and so forth.”

“Did you figure out anything fundamental?”

“Yes. Leone Miccichè was in excellent health.”

“Nothing else?”

“I'd bet my left testicle—in fact I'd bet them both—that Leone died between seven and nine that night.”

Rocco stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Do you know what that means?”

“Yes. Practically speaking, Amedeo Gunelli killed him unintentionally. When he ran that Sherman tank of a snowcat over him, odds are that Leone was still alive. Half-frozen, buried under eight inches of snow, but still alive. Bad luck, eh?”

“You think so?”

They continued walking and left the hallway from the morgue to catch the elevator. “You look tired,” said Alberto. “I heard you pulled off quite a coup last night.”

“Yes. We impounded some firearms.”

“That was a nice piece of luck, eh?”

“It's just a matter of having the right information.”

Alberto looked at him with a blank gaze, the look he usually put on when he wanted to make sure no one could make a fool of him. “Who was in that container?”

Rocco scratched his head. “Eighty-seven Sri Lankan immigrants.”

“Where did you take them?”

“To Turin. They had a contact there who had jobs for them.”

Alberto Fumagalli nodded a couple of times. The elevator doors opened, and they walked out. “You're quite an asshole, Rocco.”

“I know.”

“Would you have done the same thing if they were Romanians?”

“First of all, I don't bring race into this. There's no such thing as race. And after all, Romanians are members of the European Community, so they hardly have to be smuggled across the border. They can enter freely.”

“Touché!”

“Fuck off.”

“I love you, Rocco.”

“Enough with the faggoty talk, Alberto.”

“No, I really mean it.”

“If you knew me better, you wouldn't say such a thing.”

“Now you're the one who's starting to talk like a cocksucker.”

“How much farther is it to the lab?”

“Not far. Why?”

“Because carrying on a conversation with you is exhausting, and it puts me into a state of emotional apprehension.”

“Rocco, you don't have the capacity for emotional apprehension.” Then Alberto opened the lab door.

The technician handed the deputy police chief a sheet of paper. “The blood on the tissue that you gave us belongs to Group O negative 4.4.”

“Why, that's the same blood group that we found on the bandanna that was stuffed in Leone's mouth!” Alberto exclaimed.

“Fuck,” Rocco Schiavone murmured between clenched teeth.

“Is it bad news?” asked the medical examiner.

“It is for Omar Borghetti. The blood on the tissue is his. I took it off him with a slightly unorthodox method. See you around, Alberto.
Grazie!
”

“Then we've nailed him! I love you,” he shrieked after him, then the medical examiner broke into solemn laughter while the lab door closed behind Rocco.

Beethoven's “Ode to Joy” alerted Rocco to the fact that his phone was ringing. He picked up without glancing at the display. “Schiavone here, who is it?”

“Italo speaking, Dottore. Forgive the intrusion.”

Italo was addressing him formally, which meant that he was sitting next to someone else at police headquarters.

“What is it, Italo?”

“You need to come in to the office. Inspector Rispoli showed me something that I think you'll be very interested in.”

“Can you give me some idea?”

“No. Because it's a sealed envelope. And I have a feeling that you ought to read it.”

The letterhead stationery read,
LAB
2000—
LABORATORY FOR CLINICAL
ANALYSES.
The envelope was addressed to Leone Miccichè.

“The postmaster brought it straight here just a couple of hours ago. I took the liberty,” said Inspector Rispoli.

“You did the right thing.”

Rocco opened the envelope. They were charts with medical tests. Spermiogram, scrotal ultrasound, TSH test, semen culture. Rocco tried to read it and understand some of it. “Azoospermia. What's that?”

“What does it say, Dottore?”

“No idea. It looks like these are medical tests that Leone had done . . . let's see when”—he turned over the sheet, and the date stood out—“not even fifteen days ago.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Well, just guessing, but I'd say fertility tests.”

Rocco handed the sheets of paper to Italo. “Here, call Fumagalli. Get him to tell you what this stuff is. And have him call me on the cell phone—I'm going to see the judge.”

He got up from the chair and slapped Inspector Rispoli on the back. “Good work, Caterina. If you ask me, this is something very important!”

Caterina blushed.

“Do you want an arrest warrant?” Magistrate Baldi asked Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone.

“Not yet. You see, there's still something that doesn't add up. The blood on the red bandanna found stuffed down the corpse's throat belongs to Omar Borghetti with a ninety-five percent probability, which ought to pin the murder on him, but still . . .”

The judge leaned toward the deputy police chief. “But still what?”

“You see, as I explained to you yesterday, Leone Miccichè smoked a cigarette up there in the middle of the shortcut. He took off his gloves, probably to light the cigarette. We never found the cigarette butt. Still, traces of tobacco were found on the scene of the crime.”

“What does that matter?”

“Omar Borghetti doesn't smoke.”

“So, who cares? That just means that the tobacco came from Leone's cigarette, no?”

“No. Leone smoked Marlboro Lights. Always did. The tobacco is a different kind.”

The judge sprawled back in his chair, emitting a loud sigh. “So that means that whoever was with him does smoke, and doesn't smoke Marlboros?”

“Right. And I've come to the conclusion that the killer offered Leone a cigarette. And that he smoked it. First because, otherwise, we'd have found traces of Marlboros along with the traces of this other type of tobacco. Second because his wife told us that he'd smoked the last of his cigarettes. Okay, I'm a smoker, so I know that when I have three left in the pack, I say that I'm out of cigarettes and I go out to buy more, but still the pack found on the corpse was empty. The odds are very good that he didn't have any.”

“But the cigarette butt? Why wasn't that found? The filter, something . . . ?”

“Because the son of a bitch who murdered him collected them all. They're evidence, no?”

The judge started toying with his pen. He chewed on it a little while looking Rocco in the eye. “But you have an idea, don't you?”

“Me? Sure. But I'm missing just one detail, and then the whole thing starts to take on a whole new light. You see? Omar Borghetti would have a motive. Jealousy—he finds out that now Luisa Pec is pregnant and he takes it out on the new boyfriend. But why wait three years? Why wait for them to get married? Do you see that it doesn't add up?”

“Yeah, it doesn't.”

“So there has to be a different motive.”

“Money?”

“Not only. Luisa and Leone owed Omar a hundred thousand euros. Business was so-so. Leone was desperately trying to sell his properties down in Sicily to try to make ends meet. And he'd almost persuaded his brother to do it. A brother who, just between you and me, wasn't exactly crazy about Leone.”

Baldi stood up brusquely. “And if it wasn't about money?”

“Ode to Joy” rang in the pocket of Rocco's coat. “Do you mind? I'm expecting a very important phone call.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Schiavone here, who is it?”

“Ciao
, Rocco. It's me again, your favorite medical examiner!”

“Did you read the test results?”

“Well, you hardly need a college degree to understand them.”

“Well, what do they say?”

“One very simple thing: Leone Miccichè was infertile. He couldn't have children. In fact, his semen test showed findings of azoospermia.”

“Azoospermia? What's that?”

“Not a single spermatozoon in one milliliter of semen. Just consider that the minimum expected count would be twenty million.

“And there's more: this wasn't his first fertility test. Let's just say that these tests are the mother of all sperm tests, and I'm putting it that way so even a poor rube like you can understand it.”

“Explain.”

Alberto Fumagalli sighed in exasperation. “All right, before getting such a complete and accurate analysis, Leone must have been to a doctor who sent him in for it, and who must have already had his own well-founded suspicions. In other words, he'd almost certainly been to see a doctor. Then he went to the clinic and got these tests done.”

“How can I find out the name of the doctor who ordered the tests?”

“Easy. Call the lab. They ought to have a record of the physician's referral. Which would include last name and even address.”

“Thanks, Alberto—I owe you dinner!”

“Don't be silly. I didn't do anything special. Bye,” and he hung up.

“Did I just hear what I think I did?” asked Baldi.

“I'd say so.”

“Then who got Luisa Pec pregnant?”

“The son of a bitch who murdered Leone. Poor Leone must have figured out what was going on, he went to have his sperm tested, and the other guy found out about the testing. Does that make sense?”

“I'd say so. But what about the blood on the handkerchief? It belonged to Omar Borghetti, no?”

“I have an idea about that too. You take care of yourself. I hope to be back inside twenty-four hours with our little friend in handcuffs.”

Rocco stood up. He slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. The judge called him back. “You're good. But that's something I already knew. Still, there's just one thing I'd like you to explain to me.”

“What's that?”

“You see, the half-empty truck, with all the weapons.”

Rocco put on his best innocent face. “Yes?”

“There's something there that doesn't quite work.”

“Tell me about it, Dottore.”

“The GPS. It kept a record of all the addresses. One of them was just outside Turin, on the highway, in a parking area.”

Rocco gulped without realizing it.

“The other one, though, was . . . was . . .” And he started looking for a sheet of paper in the pile on his desk. “Here it is. Alekse Å antića, though who knows if that's the right way to pronounce the name. It's a street in the small town ofBečići, in Montenegro.”

“Mmm.”

“Bečići is close to a nice city called Budva.”

“Mmm.”

“Stop ruminating. Interpol was alerted early this morning. There's a good chance that the weapons were being sent there. Budva is a port city, did you know that?”

“I do now.”

“But it's just that—and work with me here—if the weapons were almost certainly being sent down there, then why did we find the address of a parking area just outside Turin?”

Rocco started to feel a cold sweat dripping down his spine.

“So you know what I decided to do?”

“Please tell me.”

“I asked the highway authority for their video feed of the A5, the Aosta–Turin highway. To see if that truck went that way. And as long as I was at it, I asked for the pictures from the service areas, too. And you won't believe what they told me.”

He's got you!
Rocco said to himself.
Caught in a trap, like a mouse in a cellar.

“There were no pictures,” the judge went on.

“What?”

“Just think, there was a breakdown of the A5's entire computer system. They fixed it, but there are no pictures left from last night. That's a shame, isn't it?” He looked at Rocco with a sinister smile, a smile that the deputy police chief had seen before only on the mouths of Mafia big shots and a few very ambitious politicians. The smile of someone who knows. But prefers not to say.