James Benn - A Mortal Terror

“Beans?” He looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Don’t you watch gangster movies in Italy? That was a rookie move, tipping Inzerillo off, getting him even more nervous than he was. But now I wonder, were you in on it with your capitano? Were you feeding information to Inzerillo and keeping watch on us at the same time?”

“This is ridiculous! You and your American words, they make as much sense as your accusation.” He was right, I was making it up as I went along. I didn’t think Luca was in cahoots with Trevisi, but I had the feeling he was holding back, and pressure was the best way to find out what.

“Why did a Carabiniere in Acerra call you a Fascist? He said you were a friend of the Nazis.”

“I have no idea,” Luca said, waving his hand in the air as he looked down at the empty green surface of the croupier’s table.

“Was it because of what you did at Rab? At the concentration camp?”

His hand fell from the air, as if a puppet master’s string had been cut. “I am not a Fascist,” he said, sighing in a way that let us know he’d said it many times before. “I am also not a friend of the Tedeschi. What do you think this has to do with a bordello in Acerra?”

“I think it has something to do with your capitano. He has you under his thumb, and you feel you have to protect him. I’d say Inzerillo was paying him off, and you knew it. You tried to warn Inzerillo that Landry’s killer would be coming for him; that’s why you blurted out that Landry was dead.”

“If it is as you say, then you are wasting your time with me,” Luca said. He lit a cigarette, keeping his eyes on the pack, the matches, the ashtray, everything but me.

“No, I don’t think so. You don’t strike me as a man who likes working for a crooked cop,” I said, leaning forward until he had to look me in the eye. “I think you’re ashamed of something, and you know that protecting Trevisi is only going to lead to more shame and disgrace. Am I right, Luca?”

Some guys aren’t made for lying. Some are. Luca was in between. He put a good face on things, and I’m sure he could lie to a crook or a killer if it meant getting a confession. But something was eating at him, and I knew he wanted to tell all.

“Yes, you are right,” he said finally. He took a drag on his cigarette, leaned back and blew smoke at the ceiling. “Capitano Trevisi had business dealings with Inzerillo.”

“What kind of dealings?” Kaz asked. Luca only shook his head. It was the same the world over. No cop wants to give up another cop, no matter how dirty. The blue wall of silence.

“That’s why he was so glad to offer your services, so you could keep an eye on things?” I said, not asking him a direct question about corruption.

“Yes. He was worried about Inzerillo. He thought there was trouble brewing, even before you came to Caserta.”

“Why?”

The truth came easier now. The dam had been broken, and it spilled out. “There was trouble, first with Lieutenant Landry. He threatened to bring in the military police if Inzerillo didn’t let one of the girls go.”

“I thought Inzerillo didn’t run the girls himself.”

“He didn’t. It was what Ileana told him.”

“Ileana? The prostitute Landry fell for?”

“Yes. She told him she needed money to buy her freedom from Inzerillo, that he would not let her go free. Trevisi said it was all a lie, to extort money from the lieutenant who loved her.”

“So you lied to us when you said it would be impossible to find her,” I said.

“She is gone, that much is true. She fled when she became frightened.”

“Frightened by what?”

“One of the soldiers. He threatened to kill her.”

“That couldn’t have been Landry,” I said.

“No, he saw himself as her defender, and she as his Dulcinea.” I must have looked puzzled, since he explained. “From Don Quixote.”

“A simple peasant girl who becomes Don Quixote’s idealized woman,” Kaz added.

“Oh yeah,” I said. I knew that was an old book, but not much more. “So who threatened her?”

“I only know it was a sergente. The same one who gave Inzerillo the beating.”

“Was it Sergeant Stumpf?” He came down with venereal disease after partaking of the pleasures at Bar Raffaele. That might be a motive for attacking Inzerillo and the girl.

“I do not know. I would tell you if I did.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before? Why keep this a secret? You knew we were investigating a murder.”

“The murder is another matter entirely. I can only say that this sergente asked for Ileana, even knowing Landry was smitten with her. Perhaps there was some problem between them, but I can only guess at that.”

“Why did the sergeant threaten her?”

“Because she laughed at him,” Luca said, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. “At his failure in lovemaking. He struck her violently and promised to kill her if she breathed a word. Inzerillo heard her screams and tried to intervene, and was beaten for it. I believe the sergeant came back again to hurt him some more.”

“And then a third visit, to kill him.”

“If it was the same man. All I know is what I heard from Inzerillo himself. A sergeant, and the second time he came with another man, but he would not say who.”

“Inzerillo told you it was a sergeant?”

“Yes, but he would say no more. He and Capitano Trevisi both wanted it kept quiet so there would be no trouble with the military police.”

“Do you know where the girl is now?”

“No, truly I do not. Trevisi had her taken away to a farm where she could heal. Not that he is kind, but so she can return to work as soon as possible. In another location, of course.” Luca ground out his cigarette and stared at the ashes. Finally he looked at us. “I am sorry for lying to you.”

“What does Trevisi have on you?” I asked. “Was it something that happened on Rab? What did you do there?”

“I did nothing,” Luca said.

Luca had clammed up tight after that. He’d looked past us, out to sea where the sun was setting and casting a red glow across the horizon. I wondered if he was thinking of the view from the island of Rab, and if he preferred looking out over water to what he’d seen on solid ground.

I’d gotten Kaz on a PT boat shuttling brass between Naples and Anzio, leaving it up to him and his Webley revolver to talk to Trevisi and find Ileana. We needed to know who had beaten her and Inzerillo. That had to be our killer, fixing up loose ends. Maybe Landry was the real target after all, but if so, I couldn’t figure out all the red heart stuff. It seemed overly complicated. I was stumped, and our only hope seemed to be that the killer would slip up and leave a clue or two next time. Not the best investigative technique, I’ll admit.

Ileana was the key to finding out everything. If she hadn’t run off, if she’d talk, and if she wasn’t under lock and key in some Naples whorehouse, we had a chance of catching this murderer before he struck again.

But I had another reason for sending Kaz back to Naples. I didn’t want him talking me out of heading back to the front in the morning. Someone had to watch over Danny. I might find a clue, but probably not. What I was more likely to find was a lot of lead in the air and bodies on the ground. But I might be able to make sure one of them wasn’t Danny’s.

Which is why the next morning I was on the road before dawn, driving without lights to Le Ferriere. Grenades in my pockets, extra clips in my ammo belt, Thompson on the seat. The road was packed with vehicles-trucks and ambulances, jeeps crammed with GIs, towed artillery, all strung out on the narrow straight road. If the Luftwaffe paid us a visit after the sun came up, it’d be a shooting gallery. Some of the traffic peeled off onto side roads, but most flowed to the front. Artillery thundered up ahead; outgoing stuff, thank God.