Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
It was a bad night. Valerio had needed several hours, ice on the back of his head, painkillers, and leftover wine to help him sleep. Once in bed, he discovered cookie crumbs and wrappers that Gemma had left behind, but he was too tired to change the sheets.
In the early morning, he was awakened from a shallow sleep by the clanging of church bells.
He made coffee, showered, took three paracetamol, and was out the door and on his motorbike before he had time to think about anything.
The weather was cooperating. Warm and clear. Good.
He made a brief stop at HQ to pick up some gear before heading out of Naples, taking the E45 south along the coast, Vesuvius in his periphery.
At an Autogrill outside Pompeii, he stopped to fill the tank and to piss. He was standing at a table, eating a crema cornetto and drinking espresso, when he saw a text from Nikki: Can’t sail today. Sorry. In London. Family emergency.
He called.
“You okay?” he asked when she picked up. “What happened?”
Her voice was that cold, matter-of-fact monotone she used when she was frightened. “My uncle fell down a flight of stairs. Broken femur, and a head injury.”
“Fuck!” said Valerio. “I’m sorry to hear that. You there now?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything I can do?”
There was a long pause before she spoke. “Friday night—Tito Calandra’s thugs fucking burned down my studio.”
It took a beat for her words to register.
“What?”
“Friday night. They used an accelerant. Valerio, there was more than just my studio; it was the whole fucking building. People lived there.”
“You sure it was Calandra?”
Another pause. “No. But Calandra’s man—De Rosa—told me to stop teaching.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What do you think I told him?”
Valerio sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll look into it tomorrow. You safe now?”
“Yeah. I’m in London. How are you?”
Valerio looked through the windows, at the traffic hurtling along the highway. He was drained—a ragged and detached sensation. There was an emptiness inside, as if his thoughts wouldn’t distill and take on weight. He touched the back of his head where a hard and painful knot had formed.
“Not great,” he said honestly. “I’ll be fine.”
“Wanna tell me about it?”
He considered. On the boat or over drinks he would be glad to talk through the whole mess with Nikki. She had a measured way of seeing things, and gave practical recommendations. But it was too much to pass along over the phone.
“Not here,” he said. “I’m on the road. Just stopping for fuel.”
“You’re not sailing?”
“Not today. We’ll talk when you get back.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Nikki said, by way of a sign-off.
“Don’t you do anything stupid,” said Valerio.
—
His phone rang as he was walking out to his motorbike. Luca. He sent it to voicemail, then, after a moment’s thought, called Giorgia.
“What are you and the kids doing today?” he asked.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, “but Bartolo invited us to his home in Posillipo this weekend.”
Bartolo was the most recent boyfriend—a wide-mouthed and accommodating man whom Davide called personality-free and Gemma referred to as the dickless wonder.
“Good,” he said. “Will you stay at his place tonight?”
“That’s none of your business either!”
“Well, will you?”
She seemed to hesitate. Then, “Yes.”
“Good,” he said again. “Keep an eye on the kids.”
He couldn’t be sure Errichiello wouldn’t threaten the kids again. That was the biggest worry. But Giorgia’s love life was difficult enough for him to track; it should keep Errichiello’s men guessing.
—
The open road was a relief. In the bright sunlight, the growl of the bike beneath him, Valerio’s mind loosened, and he was better able to remember, and to reason.
His thoughts churned, returning to Luca Errichiello, and that mundane malevolence: a calm, detached affect that never once signaled intent.
Sitting by the pool, chewing salami, the unremarkable man in the hat had seemed tranquil.
Bored, even. He’d played on Valerio’s sympathy—discussing the plight of the jailed teenager and his sick mother—and, all the while, he planned to slaughter the boy.
Errichiello lived by the mathematics of the schoolyard bully.
The nuances and depths of other men—their passions, loves, complexities—would always be reduced to two levers: pleasure and pain.
Luca was probing, testing tolerances, trying to compress Valerio into these dimensions.
If Valerio capitulated, Luca would use it against him the rest of his life.
Stupidly, Valerio had already demonstrated that he could be controlled by threats to Gemma and Davide.
The real question was: How would Luca use this information?
He guessed that depended on Luca’s plans for him.
If he saw him as disposable—good for only one job—Luca would lean heavily on this weakness.
But Valerio guessed that Luca wanted to play the long game with him: a well-positioned asset within the police for decades.
It was better for Luca if Valerio became a willing tool, and this required a lighter touch.
Luca’s primary leverage was blackmail. Valerio’s actions to free Gaetano made him look guilty and could very well cost him his job and pension, not to mention prison time—if the evidence were twisted to make it seem Valerio had been complicit in the murder.
But Valerio guessed that Luca wouldn’t pull this trigger yet, since that would destroy Valerio’s value before he could use it.
By refusing Luca’s calls yesterday, Valerio had signaled that he wouldn’t respond to the threat of exposure. Predictably, Luca had moved next to physical violence. Valerio wanted to make it clear that he wouldn’t respond to this either. He needed to get free before Luca escalated again.
—
Silvestri’s Sorrento home, perched on a rocky cliffside far from the center of town, was an elaborate stucco mansion.
Valerio rode past the gate, following the winding road until he reached a turnoff where he could stash his bike and unpack his gear.
From there, he hiked—sticking to the roads at first, then climbing stone steps into the hills, and hopping a fence into an olive grove. At last, he found the angle he wanted.
Silvestri’s villa was the grandest in the neighborhood and commanded the best view of the bay: a profound blue, deepening at the horizon, where the hazy outline of Capri loomed like the head of a massive sea monster.
Behind the villa, nestled among silver-leafed olive trees and flowering bushes, on a marble deck overlooking the water, two women in fur-trimmed coats and boots sipped coffee.
During today’s visit to the police station, Valerio had borrowed a Nikon D6 with a telephoto lens—a camera he and Maurizio had recently used on a job. He took pictures of the property, zooming in well enough to capture the faces of the women before they returned inside.
Then he waited.
Two hours passed.
He ate a panino he’d brought from the Autogrill—more out of boredom than actual hunger. Not much happened except he was cold and started to feel a sunburn on his bare head. He also had several interactions with a large black beetle that seemed interested in his bags.
He was about to pack up, when movement caught his attention. A man in black combat gear stepped onto the deck. Valerio took several pictures. Five minutes later, the man stood suddenly at attention. Someone had joined him—Luca’s white-haired thug, Ivan.
A clench of unease rolled through Valerio, his mind returning to last night: Ivan’s face, close in the dark, and the rancid breath. His heart raced as he snapped photos. Here was the first solid proof that Errichiello and Silvestri were connected!
When the men disappeared inside, Valerio moved. He sprinted across the mountainside, ducking beneath olive branches, until he reached a new vantage overlooking the front of Silvestri’s property. Then he dropped to his belly and waited.
Thirty minutes later, a green three-wheeled Ape truck pulled up, and the gate slid open to let it in.
A barrel-chested man in work boots climbed out.
Ivan frisked him while the other guard searched the vehicle.
Then the man started unloading demijohns of wine and carrying them into the house before driving away.
Valerio snapped shots of him and the sign painted on the Ape: Cantina la Sirena. He also took photos of the large dark SUV parked in the driveway, zooming in on the license plates.
Fifteen minutes later, Ivan and the other man reemerged, got into the SUV, and drove away.
Valerio returned to where he’d stowed his things. His body was stiff, back aching from his time on the ground. He checked his phone: three missed calls from Errichiello. Loading his bags on his motorbike, he steered down the winding mountain road.
—
By the time Valerio arrived back in Naples, he was nearly an hour late for his appointment with Beppe. He’d texted about the delay but still felt guilty as he parked and jogged up the stairs to the front door of the concrete apartment.
—
Valerio remembered Beppe Riccio as a fat man. Well, not fat exactly, but chubby. With rosy cheeks and a broad smile. This was topped off by a shock of frizzy hair. He’d had the sort of easy personality that seemed to match: optimistic and cheerful.
The man who met Valerio at the door was barely recognizable: lean and sinewy, with sunken cheeks and a completely bald head.
“What happened to you?” asked Valerio before he could stop himself. “Are you sick?”
Beppe let out that familiar jolly laugh. “Went on a diet, man! No carbohydrates. No pasta…pizza…beer. Started running. You should try it.”
“No pizza? Are you insane?” Valerio chuckled. “I hear the pope excommunicates people for that.”
Beppe ushered him inside, where his wife, Carlotta, was busy with one of their grandchildren, helping the boy into his jacket and boots. She rose to kiss Valerio’s cheeks.
“It’s been too long,” she said. “How are Giorgia and the kids?”