Michael Dibdin - End games

‘You are.’

Mantega’s relief at having finally made the other man say something was undermined by what he had in fact said.

‘How do you know?’

Giorgio put his glass in his pocket and lit a small cigar.

‘Don’t worry, it’s all part of the price of doing business,’ he replied.

‘That’s all very well for you to say! You’re not under suspicion. How could you be when there’s absolutely nothing to link you to the American? Anyway, as I told you last night, Newman’s son has arrived, so let’s get down to this business of yours. That call was from a public phone box, incidentally, with a tramp passed out in a doorway on one side of me and a violent outburst of road rage on the other. I don’t want to live like this, Giorgio, so let’s stop pissing around and get down to negotiating.’

Giorgio plucked the cigar from between his lips and exhaled a dense cloud of smoke. Then he smiled. When Giorgio smiled, you knew that the news was really, really bad.

‘Negotiating what?’

Too late, Mantega sensed that he was on a steep, slippery slope with nothing left to do but slither down as best he could.

‘For Christ’s sake, Giorgio! The money angle. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to see my share of the profits sooner rather than later.’

‘For doing what?’

He can’t be planning to stiff me, thought Mantega, but in his heart he knew that Giorgio could and that there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

‘We had an agreement, Giorgio!’

‘Have you a copy with you?’

‘You gave me your word! We embraced and kissed!’

‘And what did you do for me?’

Mantega flung his arms wide.

‘What did I do?’ he repeated dramatically. ‘The whole thing was my idea! You would never even have known about this rich American if it hadn’t been for me.’

‘You told me he was Calabrian. A Calopezzati.’

‘Who cares who he is? He’s rich and he’s here, totally out of his depth and all alone. I marked him down for you and arranged for him to visit me that evening so that you could take him. Without me, none of this would have been possible! You can’t deny that.’

Giorgio bent down to stub out his cigar, then placed the butt carefully in his pocket.

‘Let’s have another drink,’ he said.

‘I don’t want your damned drink, I want my money!’

But Giorgio had once again vanished into the dark recesses of the barn. A few moments later he returned, bottle in hand.

‘Give me your glass,’ he said.

‘I don’t want a drink!’

Giorgio stood quite still. He allowed the silence to reform and listened to it attentively for a while.

‘Neither do I.’

In one motion, he swivelled round and hurled the bottle of grappa against the wall. Sensing that he was in great danger, Mantega did not move or speak. Giorgio reached into his jacket pocket and handed out a bundle of fifty-euro notes.

‘What’s this?’ Mantega asked.

‘Your fee.’

‘My agreed fee was ten per cent of the ransom, Giorgio. We haven’t even started negotiating yet. How can you possibly know how much the family will end up paying?’

‘There won’t be any negotiations. You get a kill fee of a thousand. Take it.’

‘What do you mean, no negotiations? What’s happened? What’s going on?’

‘At the back of the barn you’ll find an old Vespa. Full tank, key in the ignition. Turn right when you reach the road, then left at the next junction. After that follow the signs for Cosenza. Dump the scooter in the outskirts and take a bus into town.’

There was a long silence.

‘And Newman?’ asked Mantega.

‘He died.’

The two men stared at each other.

‘What?’ Mantega shouted. ‘You let your hostage die and now you expect to buy me off with a lousy thousand euros? You must be crazy!’

Giorgio unhooked the torch from its support.

‘Let me show you how crazy I am.’

He shone the stark beam up and to one side, coming to rest on one of the transverse timbers supporting the roof. Attached to the side of the joist was a silver box terminating in a glittering glass eye.

‘Digital camcorder,’ said Giorgio. ‘I switched it on by remote control when I fetched the grappa and off again when I went back for the bottle. One of my cumpagni fixed it up for me, as well as the wire to hang up the torch that would draw you into its field of view.’

He shone the light straight into Mantega’s face, blinding him.

‘You have not only admitted your part in the kidnapping but claimed that the whole thing was your idea. Without you it wouldn’t have been possible, you said. I kept my back to the camera all along, but I made sure that you were facing it. If I get arrested because you’ve blabbed, under duress or not, that video will end up in the hands of this new chief of police you’re so scared of.’

He turned off the torch, leaving them both in the dark.

‘Drive carefully, Nicoletta.’

‘ I calabresi non sanno fare squadra. Tutto li! They can’t play as a team and so they’re condemned to remain ineffective whingers, always complaining that the state handouts they live on aren’t generous enough.’

As if to illustrate his thesis, Giovanni Sforza attracted the waiter’s attention with a loud ‘ Eh! ’ and then stabbed his finger at the bread basket and the wine carafe. Moments later, both had been replenished.

‘You see?’ demanded Sforza. ‘Bullying and beating is the only language they understand.’

‘You sound like one of those racists who want to declare an independent Padania,’ said Zen.

‘I’m not a racist, I’m a realist,’ Sforza returned mildly. ‘A racist believes that a designated ethnic group can never function and compete effectively because of its innate deficiencies. I don’t believe that. All I’m saying is that the Calabrians do not in fact function or compete effectively, despite having been given every opportunity to do so. Look at the Irish, by way of comparison. Their historical and economic circumstances were very similar for centuries, yet now their country is per capita one of the richest and most successful in Europe.’

Zen didn’t want to talk about Ireland. In fact he didn’t really want to talk at all, but Giovanni had invited him to lunch and it would have been churlish to refuse. Sforza was an overweight, melancholic individual from Bergamo who freely admitted that the only reason he had accepted his present posting as deputy questore in Cosenza was because it meant promotion. He and Zen saw eye to eye on almost everything that mattered, and tactfully agreed to differ on all the things that didn’t.

‘Anyway, I’ve ranted enough,’ said Sforza, reminding Zen of why he liked him. ‘How’s the Newman case going?’

‘No word yet from the kidnappers, but I’ve discovered one possibly significant fact. The victim’s original name was not in fact Newman.’

Sforza made a visible effort to appear interested.

‘Really? So what was it? Mickey Mouse? Arnold Schwarzenegger?’

‘Pietro Ottavio Calopezzati. He was born here in the province of Cosenza.’

Sforza shrugged.

‘In the two decades before the Great War, the south lost more men to emigration than the entire country lost fighting in that war.’

‘The significance is threefold,’ Zen replied. ‘First of all, he lied about his identity, even to his son. Lying is always significant, since by nature we’re truth tellers. Secondly, the documents relating to his American citizenship are held in a classified file marked “For Official Use Only”. And finally, the Calopezzati family used to be the greatest landowners in these parts. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.’

Sforza shook his head.