Chapter 36 Fon #2
He watched as Rafaella made the coffee, barefoot on the tiled floor, her apron tied tightly around her small waist. She was still so slim, her body practically unchanged from when they’d been teenagers in Tricase, and he was grateful she wasn’t like Gina, her abundant flesh always jiggling and her clothes struggling to contain her.
Rafaella had prepared a meal for him to eat on the road and packed his bag carefully. Always so dutiful and attentive; he couldn’t fault her.
‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything,’ he said as he was leaving, planting a kiss on her cheek and eliciting disapproving stares from the silently watching children.
Even scrubbed, well rested and fed, they had a feral look to them, like the foxes that peeked out from under bushes along the roads at night, amber eyes catching in the headlights as he sped past.
‘Ask for Father Caputo when you go back to the church today.’
She looked thoughtful. ‘I think it was Father Caputo who was there yesterday.’
‘Good. He’ll help you.’
‘You know him, then?’
He smiled as he left her. ‘I’m a good Catholic, am I not?’
His Fiat 100 Berlina was parked in the usual spot; he kept it on a street in the new quarter where the modern apartments had gone up and where he had installed Gabriella, his mistress.
For a moment he considered dropping off his bag and telling her to expect him tonight, but experience cautioned otherwise; the element of surprise applied to mistresses as well as adversaries.
Fon got in and drove out of town. Dante drove a glossy Lancia Flaminia, but he preferred something that was fast enough for the open road but incognito too.
He turned off the highway after two junctions and headed inland, then pulled off again after a couple of miles.
The land here was agricultural, huge fields sprouting grains, a few almond groves too.
He hung a right onto an unmarked dirt track.
He could see plumes of dust billowing up behind him in the rear-view mirror; donkeys nodded in a field, unconcerned, as he sped past.
The land rose here in a gentle slope and ahead he could see a farmhouse.
It was long since abandoned, the roof partially caved in.
Someone had told him the old farmer had hanged himself from one of the beams; someone else said he’d simply left for work in the north.
Certainly no one was here now. Francesco had scoped the place for two weeks before they’d moved in; he had stepped into the breach and become the brothers’ top man on ‘security measures’ ever since Pablo’s unexpected death from a short illness a couple of years earlier.
He drove over the hump of the hill, finally coming to a stop outside the farmhouse.
A small round stone trullo sat opposite the yard.
It had no windows, and the walls were half a metre thick.
He reached for the panzarotti Rafaella had prepared and the bottle of water and got out, walking over the stony path.
He looked around him; somewhere, behind a wall or in a tree, Francesco was watching. But if Fon couldn’t see him, no one else would.
He opened the door and let the fetid air fall out of the confined space before he stepped inside.
The figure on the chair looked up; his hands were tied before him, the chain tethered to a bull ring in the wall.
He stood, as if anticipating an attack, but a grain sack was over his head and he moved jerkily, trying to discern the direction of movement, noise. Threat.
‘Who’s there?’ Fede’s voice was bowed with stress.
‘Relax. I’ve just brought you some food,’ Fon said, though his animal instincts were on high alert at being so close to his quarry.
If Fede was a true enemy, it would be easier to go through with the charade, but this man had only ever shown him kindness, friendship, respect …
Memories of Fede flashed through his mind: sitting on his scooter and inviting him back to the villa for a drink; swimming up to the boat when the others, on the rocks, had ignored him.
Sprawled on the dance floor with a disappointed look as Fon rejected his help—
‘What do you want?’ Fede asked angrily. ‘Money?’ He spat the word out as if it was dirty. Pathetic.
‘A ransom demand has been made, stipulating our requirements. As long as you cooperate, there’s no reason for this to end badly.’
Fede tutted as if this was all a poor joke. Something beneath him. ‘… You’ll never get away with it.’
‘It’s in your best interests that we do,’ Fon said coldly. ‘Sit down.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going to hand you your food.’
‘Why?’
Fon frowned at the question. ‘Well, unless you want to starve …’
There was a pause before Fede sat begrudgingly, and Fon carefully set the parcel of food on his lap.
He watched as Fede’s hands clasped it, examining it warily as if it might be a bomb or a blade instead.
Reassured, his fingers fumbled with the paper, but as he went to pull off the hood, Fon stopped him.
‘Wait until you hear the door click. Then you can take it off.’
‘So I have to eat in the dark too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Fon gave a small laugh. ‘Why? I would have thought that was obvious.’
There was another pause. ‘Forgive me. It’s my first time being kidnapped.’ Sarcasm trimmed the words. ‘I assume it’s because you don’t want me to see your face?’
‘Exactly. There’s no walking away from this otherwise,’ Fon said in a warning tone as he turned away. ‘Wait until the door clicks. Then take the hood off.’
‘Fine,’ Fede murmured. ‘Thanks for the advice, Fon.’
Fon stopped in his tracks, so stunned he felt like he’d been shot. He turned back and stared at his captive: hooded, bound. Defiant.
‘What? You thought I wouldn’t recognize your voice?’
Fon had been counting on it. It hadn’t crossed his mind that he would have been anything but completely unmemorable to this person with whom he had shared, at a distance, almost twenty summers.
But Fede was a clever man, not just a charming one. Suddenly the reason for the inane questions made sense; he’d been getting him to talk – trying to see if he could recognize an accent, gain trust, elicit a clue. Instead, he’d hit the jackpot.
Fon watched Fede reach up and slowly pull the hood off his head.
They looked at one another. Over the years they had both filled out, become men, but Fon would still have recognized him anywhere, and his heart beat in triple time as he came face to face again with the man who had lingered in his memory beyond all others.
He felt a rush of emotion – of power – at the thought that he knew Fede’s secret; he knew what he was, and Fede had no idea.
Fede was blinking rapidly, dazzled by the light after so long in the dark, his left eye purple and swollen. He had unwisely fought back the previous day as Fon and Francesco had bundled him into the car.
Fon watched as Fede looked around the tiny hut, trying to get his bearings.
There was nothing here to help him; this place had been chosen for its lack of identifying landmarks.
It was miles from the nearest road or occupied house.
The last thing Fede had seen as they jumped him had been his office street in Rome; he could have no idea where he was now.
The car journey back here yesterday had taken almost seven hours.
Slowly he returned his gaze to Fon as the desperate reality of his situation stared back at him, unblinking. No one would find him here.
His anger grew.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at, holding me here?
’ Fede demanded, his voice a low growl. He began to pull and rattle the chain, a little at first, then wildly, scraping the chair’s legs on the dirt floor.
His characteristic poise vanished as he became like a rabid dog suddenly, frenzied and dangerous, as if enraged that he had been kidnapped by him – Fon Giannelli, Dante’s kid brother!
– of all people. Was he indignant that he hadn’t been taken by someone more fearsome?
A professional? Was the ultimate indignity in this situation not his capture, but his captor?
Fon watched dispassionately, refusing to show his shaken nerve. The eldest Franchetti had a surprisingly strong fighting spirit beneath those polished manners.
‘Get this chain off me immediately!’
Fon bristled at the imperious tone. Fede had always been the most equable of the Franchettis, less arrogant or conceited than Romola or Cosimo – but it appeared he quickly reverted to type when the chips were down.
A shame. ‘That won’t be possible until our demands are met.
But there’s no need for you to go hungry, and there’s a bucket in the corner for ablutions too.
You might want to use it while the door is open and you have some light? ’
‘… A bucket …?’ Fede stared back at him in disbelief.
‘Yes. I’m afraid it’s hard to come by en-suite facilities in most kidnap-and-ransom places.’
The sarcasm triggered another stunned pause. ‘… You won’t get away with this!’ Fede cried. ‘When my father hears what you’ve done …’
The echoes sounded again and Fon looked away, steadying himself.
‘It’s because of your father that this is happening,’ he said calmly. ‘But yes, we hope that once he understands the new arrangement, he’ll work quickly to assure your release.’
Fede was dumbstruck as he stared at Fon.
His expression reminded Fon of the look on Filippo’s face as he sat at Dante’s dining table and tried to pull rank, completely miscalculating the real source of power in the room – or even the real reason for the dinner.
He had thought it was about building permits, or showing how far they’d come … Greed and ego.
Fon walked out of the trullo, leaving the door wide open.
‘Where … where are you going?’ Fede cried in a panic, startled by his sudden disappearance.
Fon came back and stood in the doorway again.
‘I’m giving you some privacy to use the facilities,’ he said magnanimously, lighting a cigarette with a careless shrug. ‘Fede, we’re not savages.’