Man on Fire (29 page)

It was midnight, and he had finished the bars and was about to start the clubs. He wore a loose-fitting jacket which exaggerated further his great bulk. Beneath the jacket, under his left arm, he carried a Beretta pistol in a shoulder holster. Under his right arm hung a long, soft, chamois-leather bag, closed with a drawstring. It was half full.

He pulled his Lancia into a No Parking zone in front of the Papagayo nightclub and eased his bulk out onto the pavement.

He was proud of the Lancia-it was painted metallic silver and fitted with a Braun stereo and a musical horn. On the ledge, behind the back seat, sat a toy dachshund; its head bobbed up and down with the car's motion. A present from a favorite girl friend.

In spite of these expensive and sentimental attachments, Rabbia did not bother to lock the car or even take the key from the ignition. Every petty thief in Milan knew to whom it belonged, and the consequences of touching it.

He ambled into the club with mild anticipation for, according to his routine, he always took his first drink of the night here.

The owner saw him enter and snapped his fingers at the bartender. By the time Rabbia had reached the bar, a large Scotch was waiting. He drank appreciatively and surveyed the room.

Several couples danced to the soft music of a single pianist. The men were middle-aged, business types, the girls young hostesses. It was an expensive and successful club. He watched a girl walk from the powder room to a table-tall and blond, with large breasts bulging out of a low-cut dress. He hadn't seen her before, so she must be new. He made a slow, mental note to have her sent over one afternoon.

He finished his drink and the club owner approached and gave him a sheaf of notes. Rabbia counted them carefully and then reached under his jacket, loosened the drawstring, and dropped them into the bag. He nodded at the smiling club owner and pointed with his chin.

"The new girl, the blond. Send her over to my place, Monday afternoon at three."

"Of course, Signore Rabbia."

Back on the street, he inhaled the fresh air and moved to the Lancia. If there had been more light, and if he had been an observant man, he might have noticed that the dachshund's head was bobbing gently.

He got in, with a grunt of exertion, and was about to reach for the ignition when he felt the cold metal against the back of his neck and heard the cold voice: "Don't move at all."

His first reaction was astonishment. "Do you know who I am?"

"You are Giorgio Rabbia and if you speak again, it will be the last time,"

A hand reached forward under his left arm and pulled his jacket open. He felt his gun being lifted out, and he kept very still; for now he was frightened. The man behind knew his identity and so was not after the chamois bag. Robbery was not the motive. Perhaps trouble had started with the Abrata group.

The voice interrupted his nervous speculation.

"You will start the engine and follow my directions. You will drive slowly and not attract attention. Don't be clever, or you will die instantly."

Rabbia drove carefully, instinct telling him that the man in the back was not making idle threats.

He was directed out of the city to the south and as they cleared the outskirts his mind began to quicken. If a territory war had started, he would have been dead already, either outside the club or in the deserted warehouse district they had just passed. The voice puzzled him. It carried a slight Neapolitan accent, and something else he couldn't define. He decided that the man was not Italian and that made him think of something else. His boss Fossella had been in dispute, some months earlier, with a "Union Corse" group in Marseilles, over a drug shipment. Maybe their resentment had been stronger than anticipated; but why the Neapolitan accent?

Just before Vigentino he was instructed to turn down a side road and then again onto a dirt track. He would look for a chance when they got out of the car the gun had to be taken away from his neck; and for all his bulk, Rabbia could move with deceptive speed.

A low bungalow appeared in the headlights. The kind of place rich Milanese build for weekends. The voice told him to drive around to the back. Gravel crunched under the tires.

"Stop here. Put on the handbrake and turn off the ignition."

Rabbia leaned forward and the cold metal moved with him. He sat back slowly. Suddenly the pressure on his neck was gone. He tensed, and then his vision exploded.

He regained senses slowly-became aware of a throbbing pain at the back of his head. He tried to put a hand there, but it wouldn't move. His chin was slumped onto his chest, and as his vision cleared he saw his left wrist taped to the wooden arm of a chair. He painfully moved his head to the right. His right wrist was similarly taped. Memory returned with a jolt, and his mind sharpened. Lifting his head slowly, he .first saw a wooden table. Spaced out on it were several objects: a hammer and two long steel spikes; beside them, a large heavy knife; and next to that, a metal rod about a foot long. From one end of the rod an electrical cord snaked over the edge of the table and out of sight. He raised his eyes higher and saw the man sitting across the table. The wide face-the scars, the narrowed eyes-somewhere-he had seen him somewhere before.

On the table beside the man lay an open notebook and a pen and a wide roll of adhesive tape.

"Can you hear me?"

Rabbia nodded painfully. "You will suffer for this, whoever you are."

The man ignored the words. He pointed to the items on the table.

"Look carefully at what is in front of you, and listen. I am going to ask you questions, many questions. If you don't answer fully and truthfully, I will untape your left hand, lay it on the table, and hammer a spike through it."

Rabbia's eyes shifted to the gleaming steel spikes. The cold, flat voice continued.

"Then I'll take that knife and cut your fingers off-one by one."

Rabbia's eyes moved to the knife.

"You won't bleed to death." The finger pointed to the metal rod. "That's an electric soldering-iron. I'll use it to cauterize the stubs."

Sweat broke out on Rabbia's pallid face. The man looked at him impassively.

"After that, unless you're talking, I'll start on the right hand; and then your feet."

Rabbia, like many brutal men, was a coward. Looking into those eyes across the table, he had a cold, certain feeling that the man would do it; but why? Who was he? Where had he seen him?

He tried to generate anger enough anger to restrain his fear.

"Go to hell!" he snarled. A string of obscenities followed, but died away as the man rose. He picked up the roll of tape, unwrapped a length, tore it off, and moved round the table.

Rabbia started to say something, but the tape came down quickly across his mouth, sealing off the words. He saw the blur of movement toward his stomach and doubled up from the blow. A second later his head rocked as he was struck behind the mastoid.

He remained barely conscious, his body paralyzed the nerves stunned. He was vaguely aware that his left arm had been freed and pulled forward. Moments later his body arched in agony and he passed out.

When he came round the second time, he didn't notice the throbbing in his head. His left arm seemed to be on fire. His eyes opened and he found himself looking at his hand flat down on the table. The head of the spike jutted up from its center. Blood was seeping slowly onto the table between splayed fingers.

His brain tried to disbelieve his eyes, but a slight movement sent fresh waves of agony through his body. A low moan escaped from the taped mouth. His eyes showed the terror. It was not just the abrupt act of violence, but the unemotional way it had been carried out, as though the man had set about knocking up a bookshelf.

He looked again into those eyes. Not a flicker the whole face expressionless. Then, as the man stood up and moved again around the table, Raffia stiffened and cringed into the chair and shook his head and moaned in his throat. The man grabbed a handful of hair and held his head still while he tore off the tape. He then walked back and sat down and watched calmly as Rabbia retched and shuddered in fear and pain.

It took many minutes for the huge, sweating man to bring himself under control. His eyes shifted constantly to his pinned left hand, and the knife and soldering iron beside it.

Slowly the spasms died away and he raised his eyes and in a broken, barely audible voice asked: "What do you want?"

The man pulled the notebook toward him and uncapped the pen.

"Let's start with the Balletto kidnapping."

And Rabbia remembered the face.

The questions went on for over an hour. Only once, when they began about Fossella, did Rabbia hesitate; but as his questioner laid down the pen and started to rise, the answers flowed again.

They began with the kidnap itself. Rabbia had driven the car and quickly pointed out that it was Sandri who had shot the bodyguard. The other men, the dead ones, were Dorigo and Cremasco. He didn't know anything about the ransom money.

They were simply ordered to pick the girl up at a specific time and place, and hold her at a house in Niguada.

The whole job had been a mess from the start. Fossella had explained that there would be a bodyguard who wouldn't present much of a problem. He told Dorigo to fire a couple of shots to scare him off. They had been careless.

"Who raped the girl?"

"Sandri," came the immediate answer. "He was very angry-Dorigo had been a good friend-and he likes very young girls, and this one had fought and scratched his face."

Rabbia nervously licked his dry lips.

"And you?" came the flat question. "Did you also rape her?"

There was a long silence and then, almost imperceptibly, Rabbia nodded, his voice quivering as he answered:

"Yes...well, after Sandri. I thought it didn't make any difference." He looked up across the table. The man was perfectly still; his mind seemed to be in another place. The questions started again.

"Anyone else?"

Rabbia shook his head. "We were alone with her. It was very boring-we thought it would be finished in a few days, but there was trouble with the ransom, and we were stuck in that house over two weeks."

"So you raped her many times?"

Rabbia's chin had sunk into his chest. His forehead glistened with sweat. His voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

"Yes...there was not much to do, and... she was very beautiful "

His voice trailed off, and he raised his eyes and across the table saw death looking back.

"Fossella? What did he think of it?"

"He was angry. The girl's death was a mistake. He was very angry-we were supposed to get ten million lire each, but Fossella gave us nothing."

The voice asked softly. "So for punishment he stopped your pay-that's all?"

Rabbia nodded, sweat dripping from his chin.

"We were lucky-Sandri is Fossella's nephew-his sister's son."

The man picked up the pen.

"Yes," he said softly. "You were lucky. Let's talk about Sandri."

He milked Rabbia of every detail: friends, movements, habits-everything. Then they turned to Fossella and went through the same sequence.

At one point Rabbia complained about the pain in his hand.

"It won't be long," the man said. 'Tell me about Conti and Cantarella."

But Rabbia knew little of such eminences. Cantarella, he explained, hardly ever left the Villa Colacci. Rabbia had never even seen him.

"But Fossella goes there a lot," he said. "And to see Conti in Rome-at least once a month."

There were no more questions. The notebook was closed, the pen capped.

Rabbia's panic mounted. He started talking again, babbling about Sandri and Fossella, but the man across the table was no longer interested. He slowly stood up and reached under his jacket. Rabbia saw the gun and his flow of words stopped. He no longer felt any pain. He watched, mesmerized, as the silencer was screwed onto the muzzle and the man walked round the table. He kept his eyes on the gun, saw it raised-coming ever closer; felt the metal rest against his face just below his right eye. He heard the voice for the last time:

"You are going to hell, Rabbia-you will not be lonely."

Granelli's was busy, the atmosphere typical of a Friday lunch-relaxed customers noisily anticipating the weekend.

In the alcove table at the back, Mario Satta ate alone. He agreed with the old adage that the perfect number, when eating out, was two-himself and a damn good headwaiter.

Satta was a man set apart by good looks. Even now, as he ate the cappon magro, several elegant women at other tables cast covert glances in his direction. In a country which is a bastion of male fashion, he was dressed with unusual elegance-a beautifully cut, dark-gray suit set off by a sky-blue shirt and a wide tie of maroon silk. Light gleamed on small, flat cuff links and a matching Patek Philippe watch.

He had a lean, tanned face and a slightly aquiline nose. Even men in the restaurant felt their eyes drawn and their curiosities stimulated.

He looked like a successful actor, a macho fashion designer, or the front flier of a very fast jet set. In fact he was a policeman, although his mother, an aristocratic lady, would have winced at such a description.