The Few (9 page)

He slouched down into one of her huge leather armchairs, leant back, and considered the ceiling for a moment. She moved away from the window and came to sit opposite him.

‘You look tired. Hard week?'

He moved his eyes from the ceiling and took her in. She was fifteen years his senior, but ever since their first meeting he'd spent many hours imagining them in a whole host of scenarios — none of them professional.

‘Challenging case.'

Neither of them spoke for several moments, then eventually she said, ‘Is there anything you want to share with me today?'

He hated the way she said it; he didn't like the way the onus was always on him. It didn't seem rigorous; in fact, seemed deeply lazy.

But he'd play along, like he always did. He might start with, ‘Well, it seems that the prime minister is an old mate of my boss, so now we're secretly and illegally investigating the murder of an Argentine rentboy who'd been blowing off the foreign secretary, and, to be honest, the whole thing is getting heavy.' But instead he said, ‘Nothing much — the usual, really.'

‘Talk me through it. It doesn't matter if I've heard some of it before.'

He wanted to roll his eyes, but instead he sank back in the chair, opened his legs, and fixed eye contact. He allowed the impure thoughts to flip around in his mind, knowing that she knew what he was thinking and that it pleased her.

‘Piocosta came and found me at the bar where I have breakfast. It looks like it's moved on from simple courtship to an all-out declaration of love.'

She snorted softly. ‘What's on the table?'

‘Two million.'

‘One-off payment?'

‘Yearly.'

She whistled quietly. ‘Not bad.' Then: ‘Why can't he let it go, do you think?'

He sighed, pulling a half-frown: ‘I'm too useful, I guess, plus he's got some strange guilt-thing going on, some warped sense of duty to my father — he feels like he needs to offer me the kind of lifestyle the old man would have provided.' He looked away from her, taking his gaze to the window. ‘Those old fuckers are strange — they live in their own tiny worlds.'

‘You're romanticising it. You're a useful asset, that's all.'

She was tilting her head to one side now. He wanted to fuck her there and then — didn't care who might walk in.

‘What did you tell him?'

He shook his head, tired. ‘I told him I was very flattered, that it was good of him to think of me and all that, but I've set my course and I intend to keep to it.'

‘Did he buy it?'

He sighed, rested his head against the back of the chair, and studied the ceiling once more. Hell, he wasn't even sure if
he
bought it. Was he using them, or was it the other way around? Should he and could he just cut them off, once and for all? And where would it leave him if he did?

‘He just smiled at me like I was some hopeless kid. He said I'd change my mind soon enough, and that he'd be there when I did.'

‘Could he be right?'

He returned his gaze to her. He wanted to punch her, kiss her, push her down onto her plush white rug. ‘How the hell do I know? I can't see into the future.' Then, calming slightly, ‘No, he's not right. Of course he's not right.'

She inclined her head the other way, looking at him oddly.

‘What? What's the matter?' He threw up his hands. ‘I thought the point of all this is that I'm honest.'

‘Honest with yourself, Leo.'

He did roll his eyes this time. ‘What's going into today's report then? Am I finally moving over to the dark side, proving all the naysayers right?' He pushed the air out of his cheeks. ‘I can't win, can I?'

‘Yes, you can.'

He ignored her. ‘I'm doing good, really good. Everything's on track.' He stopped, and examined his shoes. They were a mess — scuffed and dirty, and a lace was hanging loose. He felt like an actor in a play, delivering lines that weren't his own. Lately, he'd been wondering whether he was living a life that wasn't his, wasn't what destiny had carved out for him: something in his DNA was out of kilter, made him feel like an imposter.

He looked up again, and saw that she was smiling at him now. ‘I think you need to change breakfast bars,' she said.

He had planned to leave it ten minutes longer, get some of the useful talk out the way, but he could feel the heat rushing through him, up from his loins, along his gut, into his chest wall. He couldn't get a hold of it now — it was too late. He rose carefully from his chair, and she followed him with her gaze, eyes questioning. He came to a stop behind her chair, paused a moment, and then bent low to kiss her neck, the line of her hair, her shoulder blades, and then he slowly pushed his hand beneath her blouse. She moaned, eased her head back against his stomach, reached behind her, and dug her nails into his forearms. Their session would end as it always did — just somewhat earlier than normal.

12

He picks up the framed photo of Elisabetta, studies it, and inclines his head to one side.

‘Your wife is very pretty.'

‘Who said she's my wife?'

He frowns at him, disappointed, like he's hurt his feelings. ‘Pino, my Pino. Why so defensive?'

He looks away, unable to keep eye contact anymore.

‘Been married long?' A beat, then: ‘I hear you have two daughters now.'

He can no longer bear to remain seated. He gets out from behind the desk, and stands behind the chair, using it as some kind of shield.

‘What do you want?'

He grimaces at the coarseness of the question, and shakes his head a little. Then, after a while, he says, ‘Just what you can give us, Pino — no more than that.'

THE FLAT WAS COLD
and silent when Scamarcio walked in. He didn't like being there in the middle of the day: the light was too raw, showed up all the dust, made the place feel emptier. Once inside, he no longer knew where he wanted to be, where was right. He went into the bedroom and threw a few things into a bag, deciding that he might as well push north, grab a hotel, go visit Garramone's shamed officer, and be back in Rome by the evening. He knew now that he wanted rid of this case — wanted out as soon as possible. He told himself he'd get it done and dusted in a week, all sealed up for the chief and his famous friend, and then he'd take a rest and move onto something calmer. This whole thing was testing him, making him antsy and on edge. He didn't know where the lines were anymore, and he wanted out before they blurred any further.

After the session with his therapist, he slept most of the journey north, and was only awoken when the train screeched painfully as it slowed to enter the outer suburbs of Italy's second city. Milan: a spasming, wheezing monument to the true cost of the post-war economic miracle — row after row of soulless concrete blocks, their ugliness so profound that he wondered how bad it must have been for the millions of immigrants to abandon their beloved south for this. He knew the answer, of course — it was either the industrial cities of the north, or starvation. But when he looked around him, and registered the complete absence of any point of beauty, any connection with the past, he wondered whether he would have preferred to starve, would have preferred to eke out what little he could from the land, rather than have his soul crushed so completely and his spirit sucked away. He had never been able to comprehend how people could make a life here, could settle for this monochrome existence. He had travelled a bit, seen the world, and to his mind there were only two places worse than the suburbs of Milan: one was Bratislava, and the other was Glasgow's East End.

Giacomo Limoni's parents had an apartment in a salmon-pink block on Via Binda as it entered Barona — perhaps Milan's ugliest suburb, although the competition was fierce. It was done up in the usual suffocating style, untouched since the 1950s. Heavy wooden bookshelves crammed the walls, and garish, gilded pictures of the Baby Jesus filled the spaces in between. The stench of cooked cabbage hung in the air; ribollita for lunch. He didn't want to stay and eat, hoped they wouldn't ask.

Limoni was despondent, crushed into a beaten-leather armchair, humbled in tracksuit trousers and a faded ITALIA sweatshirt. The shame and disappointment was tangible — so much hope, so much time and money invested in our boy, and look where it had ended? Scamarcio didn't want to talk here; didn't want the eyes of the squat mother and sickly father upon them. When he suggested they go for a coffee, Limoni shrugged, seemed resigned, and followed like a sheep. The mother said something about lunch, but neither of them responded.

‘So, how's it going? Good to be back with the folks?'

Limoni stirred the bottom of his espresso, added another bag of sugar, and slouched in his chair. ‘All this is so much shit. I shouldn't be here.'

He was 25, but could have passed for 18. He had a good face, the usual Mediterranean look: strong features and a respectable jaw. Scamarcio figured that he probably didn't have too much trouble finding girls.

‘Why don't you tell me what happened?'

He could see Limoni surveying the street beyond the window: the cars backed up at the lights; the Chinese hurrying about their deliveries, tiny children in tow; a couple of Romanians leaning against a wall, undressing passing girls with their eyes. Limoni shook his head, obviously reliving a bad memory.

‘It was Rossi. It was his idea from the start. I was never keen, tried to argue him out of it, but he wouldn't listen, didn't want to know …' He tailed off, turned to face Scamarcio, threw open his palms. ‘… and now look what's happened.'

‘Talk me through it from the beginning.'

Limoni downed his coffee, stretched out his long legs beneath the table, and took a breath. ‘We were on the final stretch of our beat before returning to the station — Via Marche before it turns into Via Boncompagni. Suddenly, this guy comes up to us. He's wearing sunglasses, although by now it's nearly seven. He hands me this envelope and says, “I think you'd better take a look at this.” Then he turns and walks away, just like that, as if it was nothing.'

‘Did you notice anything about him — hair colour, height?'

‘No idea about the hair, cos he was wearing a baseball cap. But he was small, about Rossi's height, in a long, dark coat.'

‘Then what?'

‘We opened the envelope there and then — we wanted to see what was inside.' He shook his head again, as if wrestling with the memory. ‘We couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe what we were seeing.'

‘I know, I've seen the pictures.'

‘I say to Rossi that we should show them to someone, maybe our chief, and get advice on what to do. He starts shouting, tells me I'm an idiot, and don't I realise we've just been presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He says I'd have to be crazy to pass up a chance like this.'

‘And what did you say?'

‘At first I didn't get what he was on about, but then I twigged and I wasn't comfortable. I wasn't comfortable at all. But he was on a mission: he wouldn't let anything stand in his way. To be honest, he was starting to scare me. I had the feeling that if I went to the chief, he'd come after me.'

‘So what happened next?'

‘He comes up with a plan — tells me how we're going to get hold of Ganza and how we'll bleed him dry. In the end, he organised the whole thing, found a way to reach him, arranged a drop-off for the money.' He breathed out slowly, fiddling with the edge of the discarded sugar sachet. ‘Then someone blew the whistle, and the next thing I know, I'm suspended.' He studied his reflection on the tabletop, his shoulders sagging a little.

‘You tell all this to my chief?'

‘Yeah.' He looked up. ‘He called our boss at the precinct and gave him some cock-and-bull story, chose not to tell him what really went down — definitely better for me that way. It was real good of him; I'm forever in his debt for that.' He stopped. ‘I don't know how Garramone found out. Do you?'

‘No idea.'

‘I don't understand what's going on — when I'm going back, if I'm going back.'

Scamarcio said nothing.

‘Did Garramone say anything to you?'

Scamarcio chose not to answer.

The boy sighed. ‘Why did he send you anyway?'

Scamarcio thought he read something like hope in the boys' eyes, and decided to milk it for what he could. ‘He wanted to make sure he'd got it straight. I think he's weighing up the options, trying to decide how best to proceed.'

Limoni leaned forward and tried to meet his eye. ‘Listen, we don't know each other, but if there's anything you can do to help, I'd really appreciate it. This job is everything to me, everything to my folks. I can't put them through this — not after everything they've done for me.'

Scamarcio gently patted his arm across the table. ‘I understand,' he said. On a theoretical level, he did, but that was as far as it went, because his own father had never been someone he had wanted to impress. Lucio Scamarcio had been guided by a different compass, had traversed a darke
r, simpler world — a world of backhanders, intimidation, and torture, a world from which his son was still trying to break free.