Conor Fitzgerald - The Namesake

Agazio Curmaci merely clicked his tongue twice in rapid warning as Blume’s hand reached across his stomach towards his side holster, then he hit Blume’s forehead hard with the barrel of the pistol and even then continued advancing, forcing Blume’s head back and finally toppling him off the chair. Another person appeared, a hefty ageing man in heavy trousers, a filthy shirt and an incongruous red silk handkerchief knitted around his throat. He, too, was holding a weapon, a massive old shotgun, probably legally owned since its ends were not sawn off and he was clearly some sort of peasant hunter. It was characteristic of the Ndrangheta to use buckshot and to aim for the face. Blume was so intent on looking up the barrels of the shotgun and waiting for the flash, the pain and the eternal darkness afterwards that he hardly noticed as Curmaci squatted down and disarmed him. Curmaci patted his hands up and down his body looking for other weapons. He found and confiscated Blume’s mobile phone.

‘OK, you can stand. We’re leaving here,’ said Curmaci. He was different in the flesh from the photos Blume had seen in Arconti’s office. For a start, he had aged and gained in girth. In the photos, he had been scowling or tight-lipped, but from up close, despite the circumstances, he seemed to have an open face and a ready smile. He came across as likeable, solid, frank, dependable.

Blume got to his feet. The shotgun man, who stank of game and meat, grabbed the back of Blume’s filthy jacket, bunching it up, and marched him past the doorway where Maria Itria stood, one child still in her arms, the older wordless child standing beside her, his arm around her waist either seeking or giving comfort.

‘Was your husband here all the time?’ said Blume as he passed her. It was the only question that came to mind, or the only question he could ask without feeling completely foolish in the eyes of this woman. He was concerned not to cut too bad a figure in front of her, even though he might be dead within minutes.

‘No, I was out on business, Commissioner,’ replied Curmaci, answering on his wife’s behalf. ‘I got a call.’

‘Who called? No one knew I was…’ Blume saw the bright blue eyes of the boy looking unblinkingly at him.

‘Here, Ruggiero,’ said Curmaci, tossing Blume’s mobile phone into the boy’s hand. ‘Get rid of this, and destroy it completely. Not here. It can’t go offline at this address. Can I trust you to do this?’

‘Yes, Dad. You can always trust me.’

‘I know I can, son.’

The look on the boy’s face as Blume filed past was of ecstatic pride.

Ardore, Locride area

The stinking man with the shotgun tied Blume’s wrists behind his back, but did not show much interest or skill in the task, simply wrapping the cord casually like he was trussing a chicken. Blume felt the knot loosen almost immediately.

They bundled him into a car, a small Fiat Ritmo from the 1980s that seemed to be made of tin. The stinking giant drove. Blume sat in the back, Curmaci beside him looking pensively out the window, like he was a train passenger keen not to enter into conversation. Blume could almost sympathize given the state of his clothes and skin, and the sour stench of soot he could smell coming from himself. Curmaci was casually but immaculately dressed in a Zenga polo shirt with stripes so narrow they could only be seen close up, an elegant pair of lemon-yellow slacks, slip-on moccasins, a pair of designer sunglasses tucked between the buttons on his shirt. His hair seemed to have been cut an hour ago, so precise was the razor and scissor line above his ear. Where it swept elegantly down towards the back of his head, Blume could see individual strands of white. He wondered if Curmaci was aware of them, and if they bothered him. Blume had been rather pleased with his first white hairs, but disliked the emergent salt-and-pepper look he now had.

They were headed inland and upwards again, though not on the same road Blume had come from. Either the car had only one gear or the moron driving did not know what the clutch was for, but after half an hour, the constant screaming of the engine being forced to do everything in second was beginning to weigh more heavily upon Blume’s mind than the thought of his own imminent death. And now the driver seemed to forget how to steer. Instead of following the curve of the narrow road, he drove straight at a shiny green bush of buckthorn and myrtle. Blume braced for impact, but they were already through what had been no more than a curtain and, in fact, were still on a road hardly any worse than the one they had left. As they came to a downward slope, the driver finally stopped gunning the overworked engine and allowed the car to freewheel. Blume tried to grip the seat with the back of his tied hands, but was quickly jolted sideways, banging his ear against the window. As the car hit a ditch and bounced out again, he experienced a moment of zero gravity that ended when his forehead hit the back of the driver’s skull. He was almost knocked unconscious, but the driver growled and swatted blindly at the back of his head and neck as if he had been attacked by a mosquito. For the next fifteen minutes, they continued like that, up and down fields, and Blume concentrated on bracing his legs and not biting his tongue. Finally, they stopped at the bottom of a valley next to a clump of oaks.

Curmaci got out first and politely held the door open as Blume, exaggerating the difficulty of movement, extricated himself. Curmaci brushed himself down, looked at the clothes he was wearing, and sighed theatrically.

‘I am not dressed for the part. Zio Pietro here is right never to wear anything but his hunting clothes.’

He started walking ahead, his expensive shoes crunching on the broken acorn shells as he went into what turned out to be a far deeper woodland than had first appeared, leaving Pietro to prod at Blume with the shotgun. Pietro took delight in telling Blume to hurry, then kicking the back of his legs to trip him up. When Blume stumbled, Pietro would jab at him and order him to move faster. By now, the strands of cord binding Blume’s hands were dangling loose, but Pietro did not seem to notice, and Blume decided it was more expedient to keep them clasped behind his back. At one point, Pietro delivered such a hard blow to his kidneys that Blume thought he had finally been shot. It was only as he hit the earth he realized that there had been no corresponding sound and that he was still thinking and feeling.

Blume struggled to his feet, and looked around. Curmaci was just disappearing into the thickets ahead. Pietro raised the two barrels and crooked his finger on the triggers.

‘You’re Pietro Megale?’

He got no reply, but the weapon dipped slightly. No matter what the circumstances, people liked to be recognized and hear about themselves.

‘You’re Tony’s older brother,’ added Blume.

The barrels rose again, this time to eye level. ‘I am Domenico Megale’s first-born son,’ he said.

‘And Tony is the interloper,’ said Blume, but the dirt-caked face in front of him showed no flicker of comprehension. ‘A usurper,’ said Blume. Still nothing. ‘Your brother’s a bastard.’ He braced himself for a blow, which did not come. Instead, Pietro smiled broadly, displaying missing eyeteeth.

‘He’s not my real brother.’

‘Curmaci told you that?’

‘What would I need to tell him that for?’ said Curmaci’s voice from behind him. Blume turned around to see Curmaci standing there, a friendly smile on his face. ‘Pietro clearly remembers the day his father brought the screaming infant Tony into their family home, don’t you, Pietro? And he remembers the anxiety it caused his mother, God rest her soul. Just as he remembers the day that his father left for Germany, leaving him in charge of protecting Tony as his brother, which Pietro did with steadfastness and courage.’