Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
“It isn’t enough,” said Valerio. “Even if Ines cooperates, the investigation could take weeks…months. Also, she may be right about people protecting Errichiello and Silvestri.”
Valerio and Ravenna huddled beneath the inadequate protection of the awning of a closed wine café in Piazzetta Divino Amore. They’d been caught here when it started to rain.
Ravenna didn’t respond. Valerio followed her gaze across the small piazza, to a trattoria preparing for evening customers, arranging chairs and tables beneath a plastic cover.
They were silent a long moment.
“I didn’t know what she was,” Ravenna said at last.
“I’m sorry,” Valerio said.
Emerging from the horror of that disgusting apartment, he felt the residue of childhood nightmares: old fairy tales and witches who ate children. He wanted to take a shower, wash away the hideous woman’s filth.
He took Ravenna’s hand. It was cold and trembling.
He pulled her close—an instinct, a need to offer comfort, and receive it.
She seemed to feel the same, and the voluptuous warmth of her body pressed into him, her dark curls against his face.
He breathed the lilac fragrance of her shampoo.
Then her caresses found the fresh bruises.
He inhaled sharply, but didn’t pull back.
Instead, he kissed her cheek, and she kissed his.
With calm deliberation, she turned to him, and looked into his eyes for a long moment before kissing him on the mouth.
It was like nothing Valerio had ever experienced—at once erotic and deeply comforting.
He remembered being lost as a child—wandering for hours in the cold city before catching sight of a familiar street.
There was something of that in Ravenna’s kiss: a feeling that he might, finally, find his way home.
“Grazie,” she said, and tucked back into him again.
They stood like this for a long time. Then the rain let up, and they walked together.
—
She left him near the Obelisco di San Domenico.
He wanted to invite her home with him, lay her gently on his bed, undress her, feel her against him, pleasure her—but Luca’s men had been waiting at his house earlier today, and he didn’t want her in danger.
He said this. She kissed him and said, “There will be time later. This has been a heavy day. I feel it in my heart. I hope to see you soon, Capo.”
He kissed her again, a feeling of longing and loss as she left the piazza—as if he were losing something precious before he’d had a chance to warm it in his hand.
—
He continued thoughtlessly along Via Benedetto Croce, until he came to the open air of a piazza.
Preoccupied as he was, it took a moment before he realized that, without meaning to, he’d arrived at the stone wall of Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo.
He’d avoided this church, wondered if he’d ever feel comfortable walking through this piazza again.
Exactly a week had passed since he’d seen the young woman, bloody, stretched out on the cold marble.
He hadn’t intended to go inside but, as he drew near the entrance, he followed a sudden impulse and stepped into the church.
—
It was strange to have the cathedral open again—priests in purple and black in the dark wooden confessionals; the pious kneeling in prayer; tourists strolling, heads tilted up towards the spectacular views.
Everything was as it should be: gentle, contemplative motion, echoing sounds of footsteps and quiet conversations.
The edifice was like a giant train station, passengers moving in and out of life—families and friends to greet them or bid goodbye.
He didn’t cross himself, or kneel at the pews. Instead, he strode forward, glowering at Mary with her cherubim. He thought about his mother’s prayers, the way she wheedled and bargained with God as if he owned the corner shop and could be persuaded to make her a better deal.
He stared at the gaunt form of Jesus on the cross, at the agonized, inhuman expression.
“I don’t expect you to save me,” he told God. “I’ve gotten myself into this mess, and I need to get myself out. But I could use some help, if you don’t mind.”
Valerio thought about Errichiello, and considered his options.
He understood better what Luca was doing, but didn’t have enough to sway a magistrate.
He needed something he could use—a solid piece of evidence that couldn’t be ignored.
And he needed it soon—to keep Luca away, or somehow get protection for his family.
Even with evidence, though, he wasn’t sure how, precisely, to extract himself.
The System was a lifetime membership—the only way out, at the wrong end of a gun.
Suddenly ashamed of his superstition, yet wary of discarding it entirely, Valerio turned and, shoving his hands into his pockets, strode away.
At the church entrance, he paused. He did know one man who had done the impossible—who had gotten away.
—
Federico Errichiello wasn’t in his salumeria, so Valerio went to his home—a one-bedroom apartment in Secondigliano.
Valerio had spent time here a few years ago, when Federico had a sobriety lapse and, worried his addiction would drive him to return to his brother for drugs, begged for Valerio’s help.
—
Federico didn’t open the door when he knocked, but Valerio could hear the muffled sounds of a television program. He knocked again. The sounds from the program stopped—but there was no other noise.
Valerio knocked again, this time harder, and shouted, “I know you’re in there, Federico. It’s no good pretending.”
The door opened, and Valerio saw the barrel of a shotgun.
“Fuck,” he said. “Put that thing away. It’s just me. I need to ask some questions.”
“You’re not welcome here,” Federico growled.
Valerio considered. He’d helped the old addict in the past, but Federico had long since paid back that debt.
“That’s fair,” he agreed. “I knew you didn’t want anything to do with your brother. I knew how hard you worked for your sobriety. But I pulled you back into the worst addiction of all. And I never thanked you for helping me.”
The barrel dropped a centimeter.
“I don’t need to come in—and I don’t need any favors,” Valerio continued. “But I want to know: How the fuck did you get out? How did you get Luca to leave you alone?”
Federico lowered the gun, then turned and stepped inside, leaving the door open for Valerio to follow.
—
Everything in Federico’s sparsely furnished apartment was threadbare, as if he’d salvaged the pieces from dumpsters, mended and polished them into use again.
Even the television was reclaimed—a gouge on the side of the monitor.
Yet, it was all tidy, scrubbed, with the faint piney odor of disinfectant.
Federico set the gun on the table, and gestured for Valerio to sit.
“I warned you,” he said. “Told you not to get involved with Luca.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t have feelings like a regular person. He’s psychopathic…cruel because he can…because he likes it. We’re insects to him—he wants to pull the legs off.”
“Yeah,” Valerio said, rubbing a hand across his head.
“What does he want from you?” Federico asked.
Valerio told him about Gaetano Mancusi—and about the visits from the Ghost and his friends, the order to retrieve evidence in Bonetti’s office.
Federico scoffed. “He doesn’t know how to use you yet—or what you’re good for. He just wants to know he owns you. You’re his new plaything.”
Valerio had wondered whether the random demands and jabs were part of a systematic strategy. They had the feel of a cat toying with its food.
“How do I stop being his plaything? How do I get away?”
“You don’t,” said Federico. “You can’t outsmart him, and you’ll never overpower him. He has people everywhere—and I mean everywhere.”
Valerio thought of the rich and powerful men at Silvestri’s parties. If even a few were part of Luca’s system, they could easily cripple any legal action.
“How did you do it?” Valerio asked. “Why did he let you go? Why aren’t you dead?”
Federico sat calmly for a moment, oversize hands in his lap, his glasses and skull reflecting the glare of the overhead lamp.
“I was there from the beginning,” he said. “He knows my weaknesses. Used them for years—controlled me. But I know his weaknesses, too. What he is. How he works.”
“What weaknesses does such a man have?”
Federico gave Valerio a pitying look. “I can’t afford to lose my own protection—and it won’t cover both of us.”
“Well, give me some idea of where to search!”
“Luca has agreements with other clans,” Federico said slowly.
“But my brother is ambitious. Unsatisfied. Wants to rule. Always maneuvering and cutting, strategizing, undermining. He’s useful, so the other capos don’t attack directly, but they don’t like it.
Don’t trust him. It would be better for them if someone else took his place. ”
Valerio considered this. Had Federico taken something from Luca—something he could threaten to use against him?
“You offered something to a competitor!” Valerio realized with surprise.
The thin man raised a bushy eyebrow.
“A direct offer would mean war,” he said.
“Then I’d be fucked. No. It’s only the threat of sending Luca’s information to his enemies.
I check into an electronic program every week, and enter my password.
If I don’t check in—if I’m drugged or dead—then the documents are sent.
You see, it isn’t brotherly love that stops Luca killing me. ”
Valerio laughed. He’d never taken Federico for a clever man. He’d always seemed to possess the sort of grasping desperation common to addicts, and Valerio assumed that the drugs had also done their share on Federico’s brain. Yet here was cunning and strategy that outstripped his own.
He clapped him on the arm. “I’ve underestimated you! Can you tell me about the information you have?”
Federico shook his head. “The more I say, the greater the risk.”